Page 6 of The Hero Within
"How many?"
She reluctantly took her finger back from the little boy and met Riley's gaze. "How many plague victims?"
"How many have survived?" Riley corrected.
Eden shook her head, feeling sick to the stomach. Riley was not the sort of woman who wanted false comfort. "I've got twelve victims, and only seven still alive." She settled her bag on her shoulder. No point scaring Riley with the details Henry Chin had given her. Riley needed hope, not a nightmare. "The ones that are still breathing won't be by the end of a week, if the fever runs its course."
Silence fell, broken only by the baby's gurgle. A single silent tear slid down Riley's cheek. "How long?"
"How long since—"
The door to Lily's bedchamber opened, and Luc Wade stared out at her. Eden stopped speaking. As a warg, with his enhanced senses he'd have heard her. There was no hiding the truth. But when she met the raw grief in his eyes, she wanted to.
He closed the door behind him. "Riley, you're not supposed to be in here."
"The baby was fussing," Riley shot back, then shushed little Tommy, despite the fact he hadn't made a sound.
"Better that than—" Luc broke off, unable to say it. Energy boiled off him, as if he wanted to explode into violence, but restrained himself. "I want her and the baby away from here," he said, looking to Eden. "I can't catch this, but she can. And so can he."
Eden hated to agree, but she turned to Riley. "You can't help Lily," she said, taking her best friend's hand. "Do as Luc says. Keep Tommy healthy and isolated. Is there someplace else you can be staying?"
Riley swallowed. "Adam took Mia to visit her sister, so their house is empty."
Thank God. "Stay at Adam's place. It won't be a bother, and you'll be better off. Luc and I will look after Lily. Take all the precautions you can. I don't know how this spreads, though I suspect it's via body fluids, coughing, or sneezing. But it wouldn't hurt to boil your water and not let anyone else in the house. Don't touch anyone's hand, don't let them sneeze on you. Bleach all your blankets and clothes, and air-dry them in the sunlight to try and kill any bed lice or fleas." She continued through the list until Riley was safely on her way.
Then she turned to Luc.
"How's Lily?" It had been easier to control her fear when she was in doctor mode, but now Riley was gone....
"Tired," he replied bluntly. "Thirsty. Complaining of muscle aches."
Still in phase one then. Eden ran the timeline through her head. Maybe fourteen days, if they'd caught it early enough.
But then what?
Ever since Chin told her the truth, she'd had this hollow pit in her abdomen, like a black hole that just kept sucking at her.
"How long since the rash first started?" Eden asked, slipping the face mask over her mouth and nose and tugging on a pair of gloves. She'd been forced to leave the HAZMAT suit behind. Absolution only had three suits, and the others who were working in the isolation tents needed them.
"A couple of hours," Luc replied. He raked a tired hand through his hair. "Lil was complaining of being thirsty yesterday, but we assumed it was a sore throat, nothing else. Then she started coming down with a headache last night. Riley and the baby had been out all day, so I sat up with her."
"Who do you think she caught it off?"
"There was a pair of travelers come through Haven five days ago. They had a daughter around Lily's age, so the pair of them played together." His face looked stricken, and she reached over and squeezed his hand.
"It's not your fault. You couldn't know. Nobody could have known. There are no symptoms during the incubation period. Was she around the baby yesterday?" Eden kept asking questions softly, trying to work out how far this might have spread.
No, she hadn't been around the baby or Riley yesterday. She'd been out riding with Luc, and the baby had been fussing, so Riley had been sleeping in the spare room with Tommy for the last two nights. Thank God. Fingers crossed Tommy hadn't picked it up.
Inside the room, the girl on the bed tossed and turned, stinking of stale sweat. A young man sat by her bed holding her hand, and Eden was about to tell him to get out when she saw the amulet around his throat.
Cole Jackson. Or CJ, as she knew him. The young man who'd been turned into a warg by Luc.
Just like Luc, he couldn't catch the plague, but she was surprised to see him here, near the man who'd torn his life asunder.
"She wants more water," CJ murmured, looking to Luc, and suddenly Eden realized the past didn't matter. Lily was the one thing that tied the pair of them together. Lily and CJ had always been close, even though five years separated them.
Luc fetched it, giving Eden a chance to examine Lily. She stroked a hand through the girl's silky blonde hair. She and Adam had raised the girl like their own for three years, until Luc came riding back into town. If anything happened to her....
