Page 58 of A Wilderness Within

She looked up at him after their mouths broke apart. There were a thousand things she wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t seem to find anything that truly expressed what lay in her heart.

“Thank you for finding me, Lincoln, for believing in me.”

He nuzzled her cheek. “Thank you for finally sleeping with me.” He cracked a wolfish grin and she smacked his chest, laughing.

“I’m serious!” she said.

He sobered. “I’m the thankful one, honey. You’re something special and I was the lucky man to stumble upon you first. And there’s no way I’m letting you go now.” And then he kissed her again and for a long while later neither of them thought of anything else except that single, potent love spell sort of kiss that everyone dreams about having some day. It was the kind of kiss a person built dreams upon.

Finally, Lincoln pulled the covers up around them as she lay close against him, feeling his heart beat against her cheek. She could almost set her own heart to the steady rhythm of his. Caroline drifted to sleep, and for the first time in months she wasn’t plagued with nightmares, not at first.

She was back at home, eating dinner with her parents, laughing as Natalie and Rick teased each other. Ellie tried to communicate in her own baby babble way, and her little blue eyes were full of mischief and wonder. But then Ellie coughed, and her eyes were suddenly wreathed with a strange red color. Then blood trickled down her tiny nose, and she coughed again.

“Ellie!” Caroline bolted upright in bed. For a moment nothing around her was familiar. It took her a moment to back away from the panic she felt.

“Caro…” Lincoln tried to draw her back down in bed, but she didn’t let him. Something had woken her. Something was wrong.

A tiny cough came from Ellie’s crib. Caroline leapt out of bed, throwing her clothes back on before she rushed over to check on the baby.

“No!” The word was a strangled cry as it escaped her. Blood had clotted around Ellie’s nose, and her face was pale—too pale.

“Caroline?” Lincoln got out of bed, pulling on his pants and boots. He knelt down beside her.

“I thought she was immune. I was sure. How else could…” Caroline was numb. Frozen. What could she do? An awful roar seemed to fill her head like the sound of a tornado, a deafening noise that made it impossible to think.

“Hang on, I’m going for help.” Lincoln’s words seemed to come through the vast distance of a tunnel submerged with water.

She reached out and lifted the baby into her arms, cradling Ellie against her chest. At that moment she would have given anything for the child to take her strength, her immunity. Tears fell onto the baby’s blanket, one that Caroline’s mother had stitched by hand with the kind of love only a grandparent could have.

“You are our hope,” she whispered to Ellie. “You’re the last of the Kellys.” The baby blinked slowly, and her blue eyes were glassy. “Don’t you die on me, do you hear?”

Lincoln burst into the room with Erica right behind him. Caroline held out the baby, her body shaking. Erica carried the baby away, and Caroline stayed on the floor by the crib. Lincoln lifted her up into his arms and carried her back to the bed. They didn’t speak. He understood her, understood that she needed the silence, needed to wall herself off from everything or else she wouldn’t survive the grief that was laying siege to her heart.

Nat, I tried. I tried to take care of her. I loved her as if she were my own. I’m so sorry.

She closed her eyes, but she only saw her sister’s face there waiting for her. Not her sister all grown up, but when they were little.

Nat leaned over the bathtub while Caroline bathed, sharing her favorite rubber ducky, which wore a black top hat. Nat turned the flashlight on as they giggled inside a blanket fort. Nat tossed Caroline the keys to her car so she could take her driver’s test in Nat’s vintage red Mustang. Now she saw her sister’s face in her dying baby, and it was like seeing Nat’s grave all over again.

She’d had hope, hope that had been crushed right in front of her. There would be no coming back from this grief if Ellie didn’t survive.

Lincoln watched night fall outside their small guest room in the CDC headquarters. He didn’t want to leave Caroline alone, but he had to see Dr. Kennedy, see if there was any news on Ellie’s condition.

“Caroline, I’ll be right back,” he murmured and kissed her temple. She didn’t move as he left, didn’t acknowledge him. She was in shock. He tucked her under a few extra blankets and left the room. Outside, his three friends stood facing him, their expressions grim.

“We heard. How is she?” Julian asked.

“Bad. She’s in shock.”

Miles and Jason stared down at their combat boots, wordless. They no doubt felt the same as him. Fucking useless. Even on the worst days of his job, when he was pinned down, the enemy surrounding him, the crack of gunfire and the explosion of debris around him, he still felt like he could fight back. Even his fists would be left if he ran out of ammo. But this? The invisible monster lurking in a space so small, dormant until a susceptible host came along? He couldn’t put a bullet in the head of a microscopic strand of Hydra-1. Razor-sharp rage cut through him, and he surrendered to the wrath.

With a roar, he swung his fist into the nearest wall, and pain exploded up his arm to his shoulder.

Julian put a hand on his arm, but Lincoln nearly shrugged him off with a snarl—almost. He wasn’t a wounded animal; it wouldn’t help to lash out at his friend.

“Let’s go see the doc,” Miles suggested.

“Yeah, she may be close to a vaccine, assuming it can help someone who’s already infected,” Jason agreed. Julian gave Lincoln a gentle nudge as they headed down to Dr. Kennedy’s lab floor.

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