Page 5 of The Hollowed
People crowded the lobby, patients and staff forming clusters of panic and confusion. Luci weaved through them, eyes scanning the crowd for someone who could get her out.
Noah. He was out there, somewhere on the other side of those walls, facing whatever had triggered the Code Silver.
She couldn’t leave him to face it alone.
“Alex!” she called out, spotting the tall, dark haired guard she knew she could trust. He wasn’t like the others. He had a heart and, hopefully, answers. “Do you know what’s going on? Noah’s at work, I need to get to him.” Her voice shook with urgency.
She needed him to tell her this would pass, that this was temporary — a false alarm.
“I don’t know, Lucilla,” he said, his voice grim. “But I just confirmed with my supervisor, it’s not a drill.”
Her stomach dropped. “We’re stuck then?” she asked, barely above a whisper.
He nodded once. “Indefinitely.”
Chapter 1
Lucilla
Day 1023 in Quarantine
Luci blinked away the sleep clinging to her eyes and leaned into the microscope again.
When she’d arrived at the lab that morning, a stack of specimen slides had already been waiting for her. There were more than a handful, all neatly lined up and demanding analysis and diagnosis.
Outside the walls of Sanctum Medical, New-Chicago and the rest of the world rotted away under the Hollowed virus, but inside, life moved forward for the lucky few sealed within the hospital’s quarantine.
“The mass is composed of uniform spindle-shaped cells resembling normal fibroblasts,” she said, projecting her voice just enough for the dictation device to catch. This part of the job always wore her down. It was tedious and repetitive, but at least she didn’t have to write out every note by hand like they used to in the past. “No atypical mitotic figures identified. There are no signs of necrosis, vascular invasion, or infiltration of the adjacent tissue. My findings are consistent with a benign mass.”
She exhaled softly and leaned back from the scope. Pathology had never been her dream, though a small part of her took pridein knowing she was keeping the survivors who had been spared from the Hollowed virus and the infected, healthy.
Still, this wasn’t her passion.
Down the hall and to the left, was the research lab she loved. Smaller, quiet, and wholly hers. There, she could lose herself in studying the virus that had stolen their world, chasing a cure no one else seemed desperate enough to find.
Doing that made Luci feel like she had more purpose than just looking at specimen slides all day.
“If they’d stop giving me such a heavy workload, I think I’d have enough time to figure out a cure,” Luci said, turning to Serenity, who’d been her desk mate for as long as she’d been working in the pathology department.
Serenity only lifted her head for a moment before shushing her and returning to her own work.
The sliding lab door hissed open then, drawing a wave of glances from everyone inside, Luci included. She instinctively straightened her posture as their supervisor stepped inside, his gaze sweeping methodically across the room. When his eyes landed on her, she nearly flinched.
“Luci, Luci, Luci,” Markus said, clicking his tongue as he crossed the lab toward her. That sound always made her want to roll her eyes, and today she didn’t bother to hide it.
“You’re behind. Long night again?” he asked, already knowing the answer. They’d had this conversation too many times before, and it never seemed to change.
“You’ve got the lab logs, so you tell me,” Luci replied, flashing him a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m making progress, though,” she added quickly, softening her tone as she lifted her fingers, holding them a smidge apart. “Seriously. I’m this close to figuring it out.”
Markus didn’t reply right away, but she could feel the weightof his gaze lingering on her. Slowly, he raised a hand and tucked a loose curl behind her ear. It was a gesture so familiar and yet it turned her stomach. She froze, swallowing the lump in her throat, just as she had every other time he’d done it before.
“Why don’t you come by my apartment tonight?” he offered in a whisper. “You can show me what you’ve been working on. If it looks promising, I’ll bring it up at the next meeting.”
Luci managed only a small shake of her head. No matter how many times she turned him down, Markus never stopped trying and somehow, that exhausted her more than all the daily logging, labeling, and analysis combined.
A soft tap at the lab door saved her. Markus’s hand dropped as Alex appeared on the other side of the glass, pointing to Luci and gesturing that he needed her. She seized the opportunity, offering a quick excuse as she shrugged out of her lab coat and slipped through the door.
She didn’t stop until they were halfway down the hall and safely out of view.