Page 20

TWENTY

KITTEN

My boyfriend was a badass.

With a baton in one hand and the taser in the other, Cipher deftly disarmed and disabled the remaining Rabids who tried to attack us while making our way to the medical wing. We had to work fast though, because several of the wounded needed medical attention, including Captain Crenshaw. I’d tied off her leg in a tourniquet to stop the bleeding from the gunshot wound to her knee, but I didn’t want to leave her like that for long.

At last we reached the locked door that led to the underground bunker. Cipher radioed Dr. Godara and within seconds the door opened and medical staff flooded out, geared up with face shields and makeshift body armor, wielding both weapons and medical kits. Clearly, they’d made a plan too.

Cipher gave Dr. Godara the rundown of where the Rabids were contained, which sections we’d cleared, where there may still be threats. Then the medical staff headed out to clean house. Dr. Godara examined us quickly along with our crew, and finding us able-bodied and uninjured, asked us to pitch in with cleaning and securing the barracks so that we might transform it into an ancillary medical wing.

The six of us donned additional protective gear and started the grueling task of righting the barracks, the first order of business being collecting the bodies of all the fallen soldiers and laying them out in tidy rows to be identified. I broke down a couple of times and Cipher put me on mop duty instead. I had to change out the water frequently because there was so much blood. Even though we’d rescued the lab, it was hard to feel triumphant when so many people had died or turned Rabid. We worked like that for hours, even through the night, while the other Assholes slept in shifts in the Humvee, the only place Cipher deemed safe for now.

Around dawn, Dr. Godara pulled rank and told Cipher and myself to wash up and get some rest, then handed us both fresh sets of clothing because ours were soiled with blood and gore. We scrubbed ourselves down in the hot showers of the medical wing with surgical soap. I scoured my skin until it was pink and raw. I hadn’t really processed all of the horrors that day, and I was practically falling asleep on my feet as Cipher led me outside to the Humvee. Once we were safe and secured in the armored cab, the day finally caught up with me. Cipher pulled me to him on our shared bedroll and buried his face in my hair. “It’s okay, Kitten. You can let it all out now,” he murmured into my ear, so I did.

The next day when Dr. Godara realized I had some medical training, she brought me into the triage unit they’d set up in the mess hall to help tend to the wounded soldiers—those who, like Audrey, had fought or hid or escaped and been found in the nearby woods. Many of them were dehydrated and weak from lack of food. A few had broken bones to be reset and cast. One soldier had a bad break in his leg that had become infected, and he might need to have his leg amputated. That patient was transferred to the subfloor unit where they were equipped for surgery with all of the drugs needed to make the procedure as painless as possible. Several soldiers had flesh wounds in need of flushing and suturing. I made good use of my new surgical needles and tried to do my best to limit the scarring. I hoped all my sewing practice on fruits and vegetables had paid off.

Despite the tragic circumstance that brought me there, I did enjoy the work. My patients seemed grateful for the care and that they’d survived. Many of them were shocked because they’d never thought a Rabid attack could happen at StarChem, not with all of their safety protocols in place.

The story, as I was able to piece it together, was that a unit must have eaten bad meat in the field and returned to the base without realizing they were infected. They passed inspection because there were no obvious bite marks or wounds, but at some point in the night, they’d started to turn Rabid, and then, as a pack, they went on a killing spree in the barracks, blockading the door and cutting the power. They overran the control center as well, which threw the whole place into chaos. By the time we arrived a few days later, the Rabid population had taken over, and any survivors were either hiding or had fled.

“That’s why you always keep your weapons nearby,” Cipher told me when we discussed it later that day during mealtime.

“Do you think anything would have been different if we’d been here?” I asked.

“Yeah, we’d be dead,” Cipher said with a grim look.

The days were long but fulfilling. Dr. Godara reported that several of the soldiers who’d contracted the virus were responding well to treatment, including Captain Crenshaw who’d needed additional surgery to stabilize her knee. I’d been helping to administer drugs intravenously to the infected patients and monitoring them for adverse reactions, so I was confident that Dr. Godara was telling the truth.

I visited Crenshaw too, worried that with this new injury, she might never walk again, but Cipher assured me it was the right move at the time. Still, it was easy to second-guess my decision now that the threat had passed. As her future subordinate, I really didn’t want to be on her bad side.

The Assholes stayed on for another week, helping out wherever they could–cooking, cleaning, serving food, washing clothes and tending to the injured, helping to mend the perimeter and interior fences. When it seemed Dr. Godara and her team had most everything under control, we gathered in the yard to thank them and say goodbye. The soldiers who were well enough lined up to give them a farewell salute, and Cipher and I went down the line, hugging each of our friends goodbye.

“I can’t wait to call you Dr. Perrin-Rogers,” my brother said when it was his turn to say goodbye. “First in the family. Mom would be so proud.”

“Thanks for your help here, Santi. Take care of the other Assholes. And listen to what Artemis says. She’s the leader now.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, little bro. I know how to take orders.”

Cipher wrapped an arm around me as we watched them all head out. Our family was returning to Assburbia to take care of our home, while we were beginning a new phase of our lives here on base. I wanted to study medicine and become a doctor, but a part of me wished we were in that Humvee with them.

“It’s normal to be homesick for a while,” Cipher said.

“How’d you know I was feeling that way?”

“Because I feel it too.”

“Do you think we made the right decision?” I asked.

“If we hadn’t enlisted, then we wouldn’t have come back here to find the place in shambles. The base likely would have fallen to Rabids, the medical staff as well, their research abandoned. Any advancements Godara and her team had made here would be lost, not to mention your opportunity to study medicine.”

God’s plan, I thought to myself. But it hadn’t worked out so well for all of us. I thought of the rows of bodies laid out in the yard, all those lives lost. To what end and for what purpose? It was hard to maintain faith, in God or humanity, when faced with such loss.

Cipher squeezed my hand, perhaps sensing my melancholy mood. I had to focus on moving forward, the hope represented by all those infected soldiers who were in recovery, coming back to the world of the living, just as Cipher had. I had to believe there were better times ahead.

“You were amazing back there,” I told him. “Badassery at its finest. You really did save humanity.”

He gave me that sexy, cavalier smile that I loved. “I guess badassery is always in style.”