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Aside from the pressurized airflow making sure nothing escaped from my room into the world, there was not a sound. None of the other isolation units were occupied as far as I knew, and this wouldn’t exactly be on any nurse’s route.
Cassie and Dr. Donaldson were probably already clocked out, and everyone from my department was long gone with their offices being decontaminated. I didn’t know if anyone else knew I was here.
How long before someone missed me?
I didn’t even have a houseplant to mourn me.
Except Luke. I sat up straighter. He’d only worked for me for two days, but Luke must have realized I was off the grid already, since I’d gone silent since sending the LLC paperwork.
Good thing I’d at least gotten that handled. There might be some law about not making legally binding decisions under the influence of a possible bioattack. If not, there should have been, because I did not feel sound of mind at all.
Unable to sit still, I stood and started to pace. If no nurses knew I was here or no nurses were assigned to this unit, I would be entirely alone until someone came to check on me in the morning. While I didn’t relish eating cafeteria food, I also didn’t like the idea of waiting twelve hours for my next meal. Or conversation. Or moment I could pretend like this wasn’t how I spent every evening: alone with work I’d brought home, streaming video, Delivrd and gym equipment.
All I had here was basic cable and maybe not even cafeteria food.
What if I died here? That would be utterly humiliating. And not just because I was in this tacky, too-short gown. My parents—they’d say they told me so all along not to dirty my hands with a job in “public service,” as they termed it.
They might deign to talk to one another long enough to agree on that.
I looked at the clock again. Had it stopped? It hadn’t even been five minutes.
I was basically timing how long it took my mind to tear itself apart.
A hollow knock sounded behind me and I whirled around. Cassie, once again in her hazmat suit, waved from the doorway.
That bright yellow plastic could have been the rising sun the way it made my heart lift.
It was a little like seeing the one nurse who’d taken care of me when I had the measles. A better Nurse Hadewijch. Someone who cared.
An intercom crackled to life. “Hey, can I have you step into the living room?” She pointed at my hospital bed.
Oh, she probably had to maintain a buffer zone from the pariah. Er, infected. I obliged, and the glass door slid open, admitting Cassie, carrying a clinical tray.
“I thought you’d gone home.” I tried not to cringe at the relief in my own voice.
“Not yet.” She placed her tray on a stand from the corner and wheeled it over. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine, you?”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Freaking out over every cough and sniffle worse than the last pandemic.”
“Let’s hope it was the last pandemic,” Cassie quipped. She winced and shook her head inside her hood. “Sorry, Dr. Donaldson does that to me all the time—it’s so pedantic.”
I tried my best to suppress the smile tugging at my lips. Cassie held up awatch yourselfwarning finger, though, and I held my tongue.
Quoting him certainly seemed to say that she reciprocated his obvious interest at least a little. But if I wanted to stay on her good side—and obviously I did when she literally was the only person I had—I could not, would not mention Dr. Donaldson’s name.
Besides, selfishly, I didn’t want to bring up any other man when I had Cassie’s attention, no matter how far from romance the situation might be.
“No fever?” she asked. Despite my negative answer, she took my temperature. Her nod seemed to mean that was all in order, and she moved on to check my other vitals and snap my hospital ID bracelet around my wrist, fumbling a bit with her thick gloves.
“Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve done this?” she said softly.
“I couldn’t tell.”
“Yeah, well, your luck had better hold.”
