Page 21 of Chaos Destiny
“When was the last time you ate something?” I asked, helping him back into the chair.
“Had a can of tuna earlier,” he said. “Some beans. Lots of protein. Have to keep my muscles, you know?”
I returned to Thandie’s side. “Are you looking to enter an apocalyptic body-building competition or something?”
“Yep. Last Man Standing.”
Something light and teasing that hadn’t been present on the ride over came slipping out of him now. Perhaps he was beginning to understand, tofeelthat he was safe. However long that safety would last, none of us knew. Still, tonight, he and his family wouldn’t be sleeping with one eye open, waiting to be attacked by bodies occupied by souls once upon a time. If not those bodies, they wouldn’t have to worry about being attacked by something much worse—the living.
“Given our circumstances, you look as healthy as you could possibly look,” I told him. “Regardless, you need to eat. After I’m done with Thandie, I’ll call for someone to walk you up to a room and bring you a plate.”
“No.”
“No? You don’t want food?”
“No, I want food, but I’m staying with Ari.”
“Gage, there’s nowhere for you to lie down in here, and you need to lie down, not sleep upright in a chair. Both Ari and Thandie will be monitored overnight.”
“Not without me.”
“So what do you propose, then?” I asked. “Do you want me to spend the night with you and Thandie in your room?”
“Either you do, or you don’t. There are no other options.”
The air in the room changed. I got the sense that he was about to make a plea and that it was something he wasn’t used to doing.
“Doc, at least try to understand where I’m coming from. Since all this shit started, we’ve met a good deal of ‘not bad people.’ Everything I do, it’s for Thandie and Ari to make it, whatever making it might look like.”
The man was right.
I was asking him to trust me, in an increasingly untrustworthy world, and after knowing me for less than three hours. For all I knew, he, Ari, and Thandie had spent months where it was just the three of them, both parents tasked with fending off those who came to do harm. The fact that he was there with me, letting me hold his baby, was likely a testament to the lengths he would go to make sure they were safe. Right now, I was Ari’s only hope, and it was clear that neither of us wanted that to change.
I picked Thandie up, held her against my chest, and faced him, slowly rocking. “What will your wife, girlfriend, or other sayonce she wakes up and finds out I spent the night alone with you in a room?” I asked. “I want her to trust me, and that’s not the best start.”
“Doc, Ari’s fighting for her life right now.” He brushed the soaked curls flattened against Ari’s forehead with a fingertip. “I’m sure she’ll understand that I don’t want to be away from Thandie. Plus, I don’t have the energy to stay on my feet, much less make love to a woman.”
Despite his slender frame, he’d retained shadows of his pre-apocalyptic physique. Our community had a predominantly female population, and some wouldn’t be as noble. For Ari’s sake, I hoped Gage was one of the faithful ones.
“By the way, why do you need to stay with Thandie in the first place?” he asked. “Is she sick? I had no choice but to go out into the rain. Trust me, Doc, if I’d had a choice...”
He cupped the side of Ari’s face, and I saw the apology on his as he stared at her. But he’d only done what he had to. Nothing about how he interacted with these two told me their well-being wasn’t his primary concern.
“It was either the rain or that fire,” I said, hoping my words offered even an iota of reassurance. “I’m sure your baby girl appreciates how her daddy looks out for her.”
He looked at me but didn’t comment.
When I noticed him getting woozy again, I used the infirmary’s two-way radio to contact the kitchen.
Jeremy, one of the camp’s cooks, brought a divided plastic plate filled with a canned corned beef and onion mixture, fire-roasted white potatoes, diced carrots, and a plastic jug of water.
I introduced Gage to the former paramedic who would be spending the night watching Ari. Afterward, I accompanied him to the room that would be his, Thandie’s, and Ari’s.
Only then did he touch the food.
As he shoveled forkfuls into his mouth, I continued to warm Thandie with my body heat. I was seated across from him on a bed made from a mattress, cinderblocks, and overturned buckets. Thandie’s sleeping space would be a plastic baby bathtub, which the guys found in the camper and had been made up to look like a bassinet. Pushed together desks and chairs draped with a curtain created a dining table. Over time, and with more salvaging runs, it could look end-of-the-world chic, with curtains dividing zones, shelves, and an area rug, if we found one.
This room was two levels above mine and Allen’s. With the window slightly cracked, a noticeable draft cast a wide net from end to end. During the day, summer poked its head through the windows, but at night, fall snuggled underneath the lightweight sheets.
