Page 37 of A Wilderness Within

It was the first she’d ever heard him even hint at the possibility of a better future.

“But it’s up to you. Like you said, the risks are higher right now. Keep it or…” He didn’t finish, and she realized what he meant. She’d always known her feelings on unexpected pregnancies. Despite the world having gone to hell around her, her thoughts hadn’t changed. She thought of a child with a flutter of hope. Would it be immune? Would she be forced to watch it perish from the virus?

“I think…I think I’d want to keep it,” she whispered, then held her breath to see if he would react badly. “If it happens.”

“Then that’s what we do,” Lincoln replied, his arms holding her closer to him, and he pulled the sheets up around them.

“What do you want to do? It’s our choice, one we should make together.” While it was happening inside her body, they had done this together, and whatever came of it, she wanted him to know she valued his feelings.

“I…honestly?”

“Honestly,” she insisted.

He breathed in her ear, his heart beating faster against her back while she lay against his chest.

“I think we should be more careful from now on, until things improve. I don’t want a life on the run with a child. The dangers, aside from Hydra, are numerous. Bandits, murderers, rapists. God knows what’s out there. We don’t know of anywhere that’s truly safe anymore. How can I feel like a good father when all I would do is put my child in danger?”

His honesty hurt, but she needed to hear it because those were his feelings.

“But if I wanted to keep it, you would…want to stay and be a father to it?”

She’d never felt more vulnerable than she did now, laying herself emotionally bare to this man. She was essentially asking for a commitment from him. He could leave her tonight while they slept, and she could be left alone, possibly pregnant. Fear seized her, and she rolled to face him, watching the moonlight hit his face. He looked old, not in years, but in life, like she was gazing upon the statute of an ancient king. Solemn, tragic, mysterious—they all crowned him in the darkness that lay between them.

“If you wanted it, I would find a way to keep you and the baby safe,” he said. “No matter what.”

She sighed and pressed her lips to his throat in a gentle kiss.

“But we don’t have to worry about that now. We won’t know for a few weeks. I’ll raid the first pharmacy we come across for a pregnancy test.” He brushed a lock of her hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “You should get some sleep.”

“Could we sleep skin to skin?” she asked, feeling oddly uncomfortable in her bra while he still wore his jeans. He pulled back the covers, and they both stripped down to nothing. He pulled her back into his arms.

“To think this happened because I thought we should be in separate beds to avoidthis.” He chuckled, but she was too exhausted to focus on what he said.

She drifted into a twilight sleep where she was somewhat aware of her dreams of a dark-haired, brown-eyed child running in the woods, swallowed up by darkness while she and Lincoln cried out as they searched for their child. Would any child in this world ever be safe again? Not having an answer to that haunted her, destroying any chance of happy dreams.

Lincoln listened to Caroline’s breathing and knew when she was asleep. He wouldn’t sleep at all, however, not after what they had done. They had possibly created a life tonight, and he could barely stomach the violent knotting in his gut at the thought. Had he condemned an innocent child to facing the horrors of their newly changed world? But if Caroline wanted the baby, it would become a part of his mission.

He stretched back on the bed, listening to the heavy silence. People didn’t understand silence, nottruesilence. There was no hum of cars on the road, no vibrating of the walls with air conditioners or hissing of water pipes, no sounds from numerous electronic devices, no sizzling of the air with electricity snaking through the power lines. It was all silence. Only the wind made any sound as it raked against branches or pulled bits of trash along the ground. But there was no wind tonight. In the silence, a man could imagine a thousand sounds that weren’t really there but would haunt him until he was convinced he was hearing things.

In the last few months, he’d taken to sleeping with a small handheld radio. The white noise static sound of dead channels helped to soften the roar of the silence and the other sounds he dreamed he heard.

The crackle of voices through the radio was one such imagined sound. He had bolted out of his bed a dozen other nights after Adam had died, expecting,hopingto hear the last president of the United States say something, anything, even though he knew the man was dead. But always he dreamed it just as sleep began to creep in.

“This is a call for help. Any survivors, please respond.”

Lincoln listened to the words his mind must have dreamed up.

“Please respond…” The tinny voice crackled through the radio again. Lincoln was surprised by the realness of his dream and decided to investigate. He tucked Caroline into bed, making sure she was covered. Then he pulled on his briefs and reached for the radio where it sat next to the lifeless TV.

“Please respond. We are calling for all survivors. This is Dr. Erica Kennedy from the CDC. We have power in our headquarters in Atlanta. Please respond.”

“CDC?” He uttered the initials like they were a foreign tongue. He’d been at the White House when the director had urged the president to enact the Omaha Protocol…the bunker…the last hope to keep the chain of command alive.

Lincoln’s heart began to pound as he reached for the radio. He clicked the talk button and brought it to his lips.

“This is Major Lincoln Atwood, First Special Forces Operational Detachment–Delta. Please repeat your full message.” He let go of the button and waited, his heart hammering wildly.

“This is Dr. Erica Kennedy of the CDC. We have power at the headquarters in Atlanta. We are urging survivors to come forward and provide blood samples for testing. Are you confirmed to be immune?”

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