The blood.
The way her hand slipped from mine.
I tried to force the memory to the back of my mind, but it didn’t work.
“I should’ve gotten them out sooner,” I muttered.
“Who?” Ben asked, confused.
“The kids.” I winced when another sharp pain rattled through my brain. “Grace.”
Ben shook his head. “You make the best call you can and live with it. I taught Taryn that when she was ten.”
Another slam against the door.
The car shifted again.
Adrian glanced at the door, then his brow furrowed. “The timeline is wrong.”
Ben frowned. “What timeline?”
“The infection.” Adrian began speaking as if he were lecturing a classroom. “The fact that we are just now getting symptoms is not congruent with the things I’ve experienced.”
I stared at him. “So?”
“So,” he continued calmly, “it needs further study.”
“No shit,” I said sarcastically. “Maybe we can visit the CDC in Houston. I’m sure they’ll have some insight.”
I thought Adrian was supposed to be the smart one. We couldn’t get out of this damn building. Much less to try and figure out what was different about our symptoms. I expected us both to be executed by Ben at any moment.
I stared at him in suspicion, but his attention was centered on the door.
“Not a bad idea. UTMB has a BSL-4 containment facility. If any lab in Texas could study this pathogen, it’s there.”
“Galveston’s… what, four hours from here?”
“Closer to five,” Adrian blinked.
Ben shook his head slowly. “You’re assuming somebody’s still running the place.”
Adrian didn’t argue.
He stared at the floor for a moment, thinking. “The building probably went on shutdown, so most of the staff should be there.”
I laughed, “Yeah. Well. Half the population of Houston and the surrounding towns probably headed there when this first hit. I can’t imagine how many infected are surrounding the place.”
Another scraping noise dragged along the door.
But then?—
The pounding stopped suddenly.
Just stopped and the silence hit like a punch to the gut.
I straightened slowly. “Why is that worse?”
Something moved outside the door.
