LIAM

This “sickness” thing is confusing to me. My Andrea is utterly focused on her brother, not leaving his side. She bathes his forehead and talks quietly to him when he wakes up, but she won't leave even to take a break. She doesn't want him to wake up and think she's gone.

I understand it, but it leaves me at a loss of what to do with myself. Back in my world, I was a warrior. Even when I was slinking through the outskirts of the human settlements, I did what I could to help out with hunting or tending gardens. I watch over Andrea for a time, and then I turn to the human Gabe to see what he does.

He has been a curious one to watch. He left his dog Scooter at the entrance to the building. The moment we encountered the sick, he took a stick—a pen—and wrote a note, then attached it to Scooter’s collar.

“I’m sending him home,” he tells me and Andi. “So Major and the others don’t worry…and so they don’t come looking for us.”

He sends the dog off, a grim look on his face. Then, he heads back into the room and immediately goes to the sick. He moves from bed to bed, touching foreheads and wiping down faces. He holds someone up as they vomit and cleans them when they are done. His expression is calm and grim, and when the woman steps outside to catch her breath, he continues on to the next bed, as if tireless.

He does this for hours.

I watch him, then move forward as he bathes another's forehead. Perhaps Gabe has the answers I seek. "May I ask something?"

"You can if you get more water," he tells me. "We're running low."

I can do that. I'm glad to be given something to do. I don't like sitting around and feeling useless. I need to be helping in some way, if only to support Andrea in her quest to get her brother better from this mysterious “sickness” that makes him so weak. So I take a few of the buckets and follow the scent-trails throughout the large building. There are paths that people walk regularly, and I follow one to a large pool with a decorative stone fish in the center. The water here smells like soap and bathing, so I continue on until I find one of the spouts that the humans use back in Fort Shreveport. I turn it with a creak, and sure enough, fresh water spurts, and then pours out. I fill up the buckets, return to the dwelling where all the humans are piled in, and then fill every other bucket I can.

I look over at Andrea when this is done, but she's lying down beside Benny, talking in a low voice, her arm around her brother's shoulders and hugging him against her. I study her face, tense, waiting to see if she starts pouring sweat like the other humans, or for her to shiver, but she seems fine. I deliberately walk close and breathe in her scent, testing it, but there is no clinging miasma. Good.

The human male is sitting near a new person, and the stink of feces hits me like a wall. I choke, covering my mouth, as he pulls the blankets over the face of the human. Dead, then, and his bowels voided as he passed. Even though I hate the thought of touching such a stink, I approach Gabe. "Can I help you move the bodies?"

He nods, rubbing a hand over his face. "We'll cremate them later, I think, but for now it's easiest to just get them out of the sickroom. I appreciate the help."

I want to tell him that I'm not doing it for him, or for any of the others that lie here. I want the dead and the sick as far away from my Andrea—and Benny—as possible because I do not understand this thing that has felled so many. So I help him wrap the body of the woman in the sheets, and then we each take an end and carry her across the building, to another room where there are many more laid out. Twenty, now, a handful of them from after when we arrived.

We gently set the body down and I look over at Gabe. "Now that we are alone, explain to me this 'sickness.'"

He gives me a skeptical look. "Your people don't get illnesses?"

"Drakoni? No."

"Coughs? Sniffles? Something that makes you feel ill or raises your body temperature? Anything?"

I spread my hands. "I do not understand any of this."

"Then you probably won't catch it, but I think Andi and I are in danger." He rubs a hand over his face and then shakes his head. "So…illness is something that you can catch from another human. It might be from a touching of hands or even breathing air. If this is the flu like we think it is, you get infected from being around others. Once it's in your system, you either wait for your body to fight it off or…"

I look down at the dead, stinking and covered in sheets around us. "Or you end up here."

"Right."

"What can I do?" I want to protect Andrea and her brother, but I don't know how. If I can't see it, how can I fight it?

"You can do what I'm doing. Give people water. Keep them hydrated. Make them comfortable. And wait. Back in the day we used to have all kinds of medicine for this sort of thing, but now I don't even have a fistful of aspirin." He shakes his head, frustration on his face.

I grunt acknowledgement, but I don't like his answer. There must be more we can do. "Can we go looking for aspirin? Or medicine?"

"If there's a pharmacy within a few miles of here, it'll be picked clean already." Gabe gives me an assessing look. "A dragon could fly a lot farther than a human could walk in a day."

"I can't shift forms," I tell him harshly. "Do not even ask such a thing." Because if I could, I would have done so a dozen times over. Benny would not be here. Andrea would not be here.

None of this would have happened.

The afternoon passes slowly. I fetch more water as Gabe moves amongst the sick, and Andrea tends to her brother. Benny isn't doing well. He's thin and sleeps more than he's awake, and I can tell that Andrea's worried.

The woman that greeted us at the entrance of the fort lay down a few hours ago and hasn't gotten back up. Gabe moves to her side, sighs heavily, and then puts a wet cloth on her forehead like he does for all the other sick.

"Liam," Andrea murmurs, her voice low and soft.

I turn toward her, drawn.

She remains at Benny's side, a towel in a bowl of water next to her hand. Benny's asleep—or rather, unconscious. He thrashes in the bed, his face covered in sweat. His smell is more sour than ever, and Andrea's lovely face is drawn with worry.

"What can I do to help?" I murmur, crouching next to her. I devour her with my eyes, wanting nothing more than to touch her face and hold her close, but she's stiff and defensive, as if I'll tell her something she doesn't want to hear.

She studies me for a long moment, then reaches out and takes my hand in hers, surprising me. "I need you to promise me something."

"Anything, Andrea. You know I would do anything for you."

Normally she'd blush at my fervent words, but today, she doesn't. She just looks sad and tired. "If we die, I need you to take the news back to Fort Shreveport. Tell Amy and…tell Gwen." She swallows hard, her eyes glassy with unshed water.

A low growl forms in my chest, and I have to fight the urge not to drag her against my chest and hold her against me protectively. I can't do anything against the unseen dangers that attack Benny and the others. More than anything, I wish I had my battle form so I could grab her in my claws and just fly away from all of this. "Andrea, no."

"You won't? Should I ask Gabe?"

"You're not going to die," I tell her fiercely, and this time I can't stop myself. I grab her shoulder, then her fat, yellow braid, winding it around my hand as if it'll somehow keep her here. "No one's going to die. Not you. Not Benny. I won't let it happen." I feel the wildness surging up inside me, and for a moment, a burst of violence flares in my brain. I want to fucking destroy this entire building and raze it to the ground—

"Liam," she says softly, her hand covering mine. "Atalim. Stay with me."

I take three deep breaths, nostrils flaring, and then I bury my face in her hair, drinking in her scent. "You're not going to die, Andrea."

"I'm just saying…just in case." She touches my jaw lightly. "Maybe it won't hit me. And Benny's doing all right, I think. Better than some of the others."

"Yes," I say, because what else can I say? He's not dead, but I don't think he's doing better than the others. I think he's sinking a little more with each hour.

Andrea smiles up at me, her expression sweet. "You've been so good to me, Liam," she murmurs. "I just wanted to say thank you for being there for me. Always. Every time I've needed a friend, you've been there."

"You are more than just a friend, Andrea. You know this." I reach up and touch her cheek anyhow, because I have to. I must.

She leans into my caress, closing her eyes. "Sometimes I wish we were just back up on that roof together. Everything seemed so simple that night. And now…"

"Now it is still as good," I promise her. "The days change, but the feelings do not. You are still everything to me, Andrea. You always have been."

Her eyes open and she gazes up at me. "Atalim…"

Benny cries out, his body stiffening. She jerks away, immediately reaching out to her brother. He rolls to his side and vomits, the spit on his lips dark and frothy. That's not a good sign. I've carted off enough dead with Gabe to know that those that died all threw up blood before they went.

"It's okay, Benny," Andrea whispers over and over. "I'm right here. It's okay." She holds him while he retches, and when he finally collapses into the bed again, she brushes his hair off his forehead. "You're hot. I'll bathe you and we'll cool that fever down, okay?"

Benny doesn't answer. His eyes slide shut and he falls unconscious again, drifting back into sleep.

My Andrea doesn't notice that, though—or she doesn't care. I recognize the determined look on her face as she wrings out the cloth and then gently moves it over his face and neck. She's going to give everything she has to Benny and I hope it's enough. I touch her braid one last time. "Can I get you anything?"

"More water?" She looks up at me, apologetic.

"Of course." I brush my knuckles over her cheek and then move to the buckets so I can refill her bowl. I know she's tired. The hours grow late, but I know she won't sleep, just like she won't eat. She's too focused on her brother.

It makes me feel helpless. I want to do something, but I know there's nothing to do except wait and help Gabe. He's another that hasn't taken a break since we arrived. I glance around the room and I see he's holding a cup of water to a sick woman's mouth.

Even though he is not drakoni, even though he eyed my female, I have grudging respect for the man. He could have left, stealing these people's food and supplies. It's out for anyone to take and they are far too weak to protect themselves. Instead, he risks himself to help the dying.

Benny cries out in sharp pain, drawing my attention. I move quickly to Andrea's side, where she's staring in shock at her brother.

"What is it?" I ask.

She looks up at me, her face bleached of color. For a moment, I think she's going to tell me that he died, but Benny's still panting, lost in fever. "His arm…I just touched it and he cried out. Something's wrong with it." She bites her lip and then looks up at me. "Can you hold him?"

I nod and move to his other side. It pains my heart to grab her sick brother by his thin arms and hold him while she examines him. He cries out in pain when she gets near his armpit, and when we gently ease his arm up, Andrea gasps.

"Oh god," she moans, her hand fluttering over the ugly thing revealed.

There's a large black lump under Benny's arm. It's dark and the skin around it is taut and reddened, and when she gently touches it, he screams out in pain again, thrashing.

"I don't understand," she says, shaking her head. I gently ease him back into the bed and he immediately tucks his body close, curling around his arm and hiding the spot from sight. "This…this isn't the flu."

"What is it?"

Her face is ashen as her eyes meet mine. "Plague. I think…I think it's the black plague. Oh fuck, the rats." She presses her hands to her forehead. "The fucking rats!"

"I do not understand," I say slowly. "Tell me what the difference is between the plague and the flu."

Andrea closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, tears stream down her face. "The difference is that people generally survive the flu. The Black Plague wiped out half of Europe. I thought it was gone but…we never had to worry about rats in the Before." Her fingers press to her mouth. "I can't believe it."

“What do we do?” I ask.

“If it’s a plague, there’s no hope.” She shakes her head, expression bleak. “There’s nothing to do except wait to die.”