Chapter Nine
Claire didn’t know how to respond. If he hadn’t come for me, he wouldn’t be sick now. How could he not regret that?
So she steered the conversation to lighter topics. Favorite foods—him, étouffée; her, fish and chips with a side of mushy peas. Music—him, everything; her, mainly instrumental. Movies—
“28 Days Later,” she said.
He raised a brow. “Yeah?”
“Love me a good zombie movie. Oh, and also, Outbreak.”
He laughed, which set off a coughing fit. “Color me surprised,” he wheezed when the fit subsided. “Dr. Virus Hunter loves virus movies.”
“Not going to lie. Outbreak started my fascination.” He shivered with fever, so she tucked a sheet around him, smoothing it out over his chest. “Let me guess…your favorite is a comedy.”
“Of sorts. Up.”
Okay, yes, he’d managed to surprise her. Her hands stilled on his chest. “Up? The animated movie?”
“Mais, yeah. It’s got everything. Romance, tragedy, adventure, talking dogs. What’s not to love? Best movie ever, hands down.”
She smiled down at him. “Did it make you cry?”
The conversation seemed to be exhausting him, but he still managed a smile. “If you don’t cry in the first ten minutes of that movie, you’re not human.”
She poked his chest lightly with one gloved finger. “You’re just a big old softie, aren’t you?”
“Don’t go around telling people,” he muttered as his eyes drifted shut. “I have a reputation.”
As the day wore on, his fever continued to spike, and he descended into incoherence. The few times he resurfaced, he thought he was back in Louisiana, in his grandmother’s house with his family. If her heart wasn’t breaking open, she might have been amused by the thickened Cajun accent and how he kept calling her by his youngest sister’s name, insisting she stole his beignet when he wasn’t looking.
She gripped his hand and mopped sweat off his brow. “Shh. I’ll get you another beignet. As soon as you’re better, I expect a trip to New Orleans.”
He blinked up at her and his glazed eyes seemed to clear. “Claire?” he croaked.
Her heart thumped. “Yes, it’s me. I’m right here for you.”
His chest heaved, and bloodstained tears streamed from the corners of his eyes. “I don’t want to die like that old man.”
Her own tears dropped on the inside of her visor. She shook her head to clear them away. “You won’t.”
“If I get…that bad. Put me out of my misery. I don’t wanna go out that way.”
“You’ll get better. You’ll see.”
“Tell my brother and sisters I love them. And tell my friends…mais, tell Tuc I’m a dumbass, but joining HORNET was the best decision I ever made. And I’m sorry I won’t be at Seth and Phoebe’s wedding. Or see Gabe and Audrey’s baby. Find Marcus and make sure he’s safe. He’s hurting right now and is gonna get himself killed too unless he has our teammates at his six. He needs them. And you…” His voice broke on a cough. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met. I wish we could’ve had more. I wanted more.”
“You can tell all of them yourself. And as for us…” She had to stop because her throat constricted, making speech impossible. “I want more too, so you need to fight this. You can fight this, Jean-Luc.”
He stared up at her with raw fear. “Do you believe in the afterlife? In Hell?”
She rocked back, stunned by the question. “I…I don’t think so.” Well, that was a weak answer. He needed something more solid from her than that. She shook her head and steadied her voice. “No, I don’t.”
He was silent for a moment. “I haven’t been a good man. I always joked…” He coughed, wheezed. “Always joked the devil would come collect my soul himself. It was a point of pride. But now I think he really is coming. I see him getting closer every time I close my eyes, and I’m scared, cher.”
Her throat tightened around a painful knot and she had to swallow several times to find her voice. “Don’t be. I’m right here and I won’t let him take you. I’ll do everything in my power to help you.”
“You’re too good for me,” he muttered and moments later, lapsed into unconsciousness. She stayed with him, wiping his hot skin with a damp cloth. Logically, she knew his fever had him seeing devils and demons, but she couldn’t make herself leave for fear that they would indeed come take him away. She wanted to stay by his bedside all night, but Sunday eventually convinced her it was too dangerous. What if she fell asleep and pulled off her mask? What if she fell out of the chair and ripped open her suit? If she infected herself, she’d be no help to him or anyone else.
She took one last look at Jean-Luc’s still form, terrified it’d be the last time she saw him alive. He was deteriorating faster than she’d anticipated and anything could happen during the night. She cried through the entire decontamination process. Couldn’t help herself and couldn’t seem to stop.
Once outside the hot zone, she crumbled. Her legs just dropped out from under her and she sat down hard in the mud. The ever-falling rain mixed with her tears and chilled her to the bone. “He’s going to die. I told him I’d help, but he’s—” A sob choked off her words. “He saved my life and I— I won’t be able to return the favor. I can’t save him.”
“Oh, love.” Sunday knelt down, clasped her in a hug, and held her until the crying jag faded into hiccups. Then she pulled back and clasped Claire’s face in her palms. “You need some palm wine, yeah? We’ll get pished like the good old days and forget everything for a while.”
Claire sniffled and wiped at her eyes. “No, I can’t. I have to—”
“Take a break. Please,” Sunday said. “For my sake if not for your own.”
The mess tent was quiet, everyone else having already retired to their own tents for the night. Sunday helped herself to a jug of palm wine and brought it over to one of the tables, snagging two glasses on the way. She poured them each a healthy dose, then left the bottle open.
Claire sat down and reluctantly picked up the glass her friend nudged toward her.
“Cheers,” Sunday said, clinking their rims before downing the drink like a shot. Claire took a breath, then also knocked it back.
“I’m sorry I lost it out there,” she said as she replaced the glass on the table.
Sunday immediately refilled it. “Don’t be, love. We’re all entitled to a breakdown now and again. Especially in these conditions.” She sighed and rested her chin in her palm. “We’re too far behind. We’re running this race with our legs tied and the virus is winning. The WHO team found another decimated village today, but the Nigerian government wants to go on pretending this isn’t happening.”
“It’s the oil,” Claire said softly, rubbing one finger along the top edge of her glass. It made a hollow ringing sound. “If they cordon this area, declare the outbreak, oil production stops and they lose money.”
“It always comes down to bloody money doesn’t it?” Sunday brooded into her drink, then took another large gulp. “Enough of that. Tell me about this Jean-Luc. How did you meet him?”
Claire took a smaller sip of the sweet, foamy wine then set her glass down. She knew from experience palm wine could be deceptive. Because it didn’t taste alcoholic, it was easy to get drunk and as tempting as the idea was, she wanted a clear head tonight in case Jean-Luc needed her. She stared down into the milk-colored liquid.
“He hit on me.” She smiled a little, remembering his swagger. He’d been so sure of himself, and she figured he saw himself as God’s gift to womankind. “I turned him down flat.”
Sunday gave her a dry look. “Now I know he didn’t follow you all the way to Nigeria for a second chance.”
“No, he didn’t. We met again, later that night at the hotel bar, and talked for a bit. I liked him. He was funny and charming and—”
“Sexy?” A devilish gleam lit Sunday’s eyes. “So did you shag him?”
“I might have.” She lifted her shoulder in a half shrug. “Honestly considered it, but we didn’t have the opportunity.” She hesitated, wondering if she should say more. Probably not, but she was already warm from the wine and it loosened her tongue. “We were at the Trinity Sands Resort in Martinique.”
Sunday jolted, spilling some of her drink. “Oh my God. You were there when terrorists took over the hotel?”
They hadn’t been terrorists. There had been no political or religious motivation behind their actions—only greed. And they had been after her and Tiffany for their research, but she left all that out in her retelling. Telling Sunday would only make her friend a target. Or could possibly even get her killed like Tiffany.
“I wasn’t there for long,” she told Sunday instead. “Because of Jean-Luc. He got me out when the hostage situation first started.” Then he’d gone back in to try to rescue Tiffany. Every preconceived notion she’d had of him had vanished when he’d done that. Sure, he was cocky and arrogant, but he’d had no reason to risk his life for Tiffany other than Claire had asked him to. Under all the snark and bravado, he had a good heart.
One that was currently failing him as she sat here getting drunk.
She realized tears had started pouring again and set her glass down with a thunk. “I can’t let him die. I won’t.” She stood up. She’d promised she’d do everything in her power to help him beat the virus, but there was one thing she wasn’t doing. The one thing she knew with all her heart would save him. “I need to go to Lagos.”
“What?” Sunday also stood. “When?”
“Right now.” She hadn’t been completely idle while running for her life. She’d purposely traveled to places she knew she’d be able to continue her research on Akeso. Tiffany had died because the wrong people found out it worked on human cells in the lab. With the tweaks Claire had made since, it would work on Jean-Luc. It had to.
It had to.
…
It was dawn before the plane Claire chartered made it out to the field hospital. The pilots were too afraid of the virus to stay on the ground long—they’d barely touched down on the muddy runway before they were itching to take off again—but it was long enough for Claire and Sunday to load some broken equipment and samples from Ebiere and the other infected patients. The equipment would be either fixed or replaced. A lab would run tests on the samples and start working on an effective treatment using Ebiere’s antibodies—if she indeed had them.
At last, Claire climbed into the cargo hold.
“Let’s go. Let’s go,” the pilot said.
“In a moment.” She turned in the doorway and met Sunday’s gaze. “You’ll look after him?”
“You know I will.”
“I’ll be back by sunset.”
Dayo walked up holding a duffle bag on his shoulder. He paused long enough to give Sunday a light kiss, then joined Claire in the plane.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“You’re not going alone,” he said and secured the door. He tapped twice on the back of the pilot’s seat and said something in the local language. The pilot didn’t need to be told twice, and soon had the small plane airborne again.
Claire watched out the window as the ground fell away and hoped to God she was doing the right thing.
The flight was only a bit over an hour long, but it seemed like the longest of her life. The pilots were much more relaxed landing at the busy Lagos airport. They even offered to help unload, apparently forgetting they were carrying the very thing that had so frightened them back at the field hospital. A rental van already waited for them. Claire didn’t know where it had come from and could only marvel at Dayo’s efficiency. The man knew how to get things done.
“Where to?” Dayo asked, sliding in behind the wheel.
“We’ll take the samples in first. Then the equipment.” And while he was distracted, she’d slip away on her own errand. As efficient as he was, and as much as Sunday trusted him, Claire wasn’t sure she was ready to tell him all of her secrets.
Besides, her secrets got people killed and she liked him too much to risk that.