“Ready?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“We’ll hit the mess, then the lab.” She opens the door into a hallway with numerous identical little pods. Wyatt leans against the wall just outside.
“Morning.” He gives us a little wave. “Sleep okay?”
“Um, mostly.” I slept but woke several times and worried about Valen. The pulsing hum between us is there. I can feel it without closing my eyes now. Whatever link there is between us, it’s still alive. That meanshe’sstill alive. I hold onto that, as tenuous as it is.
“Cool.” He walks along with us as the base seems to be waking up. There are a lot more people passing by today, some of them gawking at me, some with their heads down and papers in hand, some of them armed. The scent of food wafts through the air, my stomach growling loudly enough for me to blush.
“How many people are here?” My eyes widen as we enter the mess hall. What had been empty yesterday is now filled to the brim with people talking, eating, or standing in line along the cafeteria’s back wall that’s lined with food windows into the kitchen.
“Thousands.” Evie hands me a tray as we get in line. “It’s like a little beehive that opened when DC fell. It’s wild to think this whole place was just sitting here totally empty untilboom, the world ended and it suddenly inherited all these stray humans. The part we’re in is the secure zone with the military. Though this is like level 4 secure or something? We’re not allowed in levels 1-3, so don’t bother trying to go through any of those doors. The guards will stop you, and they aren’t nice. Anyway, there are more levels with civilians, and people they’ve rescued from the surrounding areas. We don’t get to go there, either. Not sure why. Probably something to do with more quarantine protocols but for regular illnesses, not plague.”
“Are there more places like this? Like, around the country maybe?”
“Maybe.” Wyatt slides his tray along the counter, a worker serving him eggs and what I’m guessing is sausage. “I mean, I hope there are. Like we said, they don’t tell us anything.”
It smells wonderful. When’s the last time I’ve had food laid out like this?
“The eggs are some sort of powdered stuff, but they aren’t too bad. We don’t know about the meat?—”
“And we don’t ask,” Evie interjects.
“Hash browns are always solid. Biscuits are hit and miss.”
My mouth waters. I don’t care what it’s made of, I want a biscuit. I want it all. It’s an embarrassment of riches, all of it steaming in pans while the cafeteria workers dole it out.
The sound of people is overwhelming. Talking, laughing—so many of them alive and existing despite the bleakness of everything around us. I find myself wanting to cover my ears, to ease into all this chaos. Despite its beauty, it’s also frightening. Unexpectedly so.
“It’s kind of a trip, yeah?” Wyatt tucks a water bottle under his upper arm and grabs his tray.
“Yeah. It’s loud.” I follow him to a table kind of far to the side of the room.
Plenty of people are watching us, some of them whispering as we pass.
Wyatt sits and hands his water to Evie who opens it for him.
“Eat. You need to put on more weight.” Evie points her fork at my plate.
“Rude.” Wyatt forks some of his eggs.
I open the small biscuit, the middle a bit thick and dense, but I don’t care. With my wooden knife, I slather some strawberry jam all over it. The first bite is heaven. Sweet and buttery, an absolute revelation.
“They haven’t been feeding her.” Evie frowns and surreptitiously scoops some of her sausage onto my plate.
“They have. One of the vampires cooked for me all the time. She was wonderful,” I say around the biscuit in my mouth.“Then David—um, Druin, I mean—he wasn’t much of a cook, but he did try.”
“Vampires cooking for you.” Wyatt shakes his head. “Wild. But that Melody you talked about, she seems like she was solid. Would’ve liked to meet her.”
I eat far more than I should, so much that my stomach is hurting by the time I’m done, and I have to put my fork down to prevent myself from making it worse.
“I could get you seconds,” Evie offers.
“No way.” I pat my full stomach. “I can’t stand another bite.”
“—getting crazy in here.” Someone’s raised voice behind me puts me on alert, and I whirl.
