The Last She

Chapter Four - Ara

I awoke slowly, and in pain. My head throbbed. A scratchy wool blanket covered me. The metallic symphony of rain pounded above. Whispered voices wove together. Each of these sensations came separately, and each threatened to overwhelm me.

I was in a small metal shed. No. We were in a small metal shed. Four cots lined each side of a rectangular room, lit by a single beam of light coming from the cot opposite my own. I blinked and Sam and Issac came into focus, talking quietly and looking down at Kaden, who lay unmoving with blankets tucked up to his chin. My cot creaked as I sat up and they both stopped talking and turned to me.

"How are you feeling?" Sam asked. I flinched as the beam of his flashlight spun to hit my face.

"Light," I croaked.

"Sorry." He dropped it back to the floor.

I retraced my thoughts of bolting, running in the rain, the taste of triumph. Then it came back to me. Turning a corner, and . . . someone. I couldn't bring his face into focus, only a glimpse of lightning long enough to see shadowed pits for eyes, and the butt of a rifle smashing into my face. I touched my fingers to my forehead and winced. I tried to clear my throat, and Sam stood up.

"They gave us a bucket of water," Sam said. "Do you want some?"

Sam was already up and moving to the door, where a bucket had been placed next to a metal slat opening. He brought it to me, and I drank straight from it, nearly choking on the metallic taste. I cleared my throat again, this time managing words. "Is Kaden all right?" I pushed myself out of the bed and was hit by a wave of nausea. Sam caught my elbow, steadying me.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." Despite my insistence, I had to lean on Sam as I walked over to Kaden. Sam spun the light briefly to his face, and my legs suddenly felt weak. His face was pale, covered in a sheen of sweat. His eyes were tightly closed, his mouth pinched, as if he were trapped in a nightmare he couldn't escape.

"Where are we?" I turned to Sam, but it was Issac who answered.

"We're under quarantine," Issac said, voice calm. "Either he dies by the morning and they kill us, too, or his fever breaks and they let us out."

"They?" I asked.

"Welcome to the Castellano Clan, Ara." Issac's eyes were sad.

I sank back onto my bed and surveyed the heavy metal sheeting of the small shed. The only opening was a small area beside the door, where the bucket had been. Another bucket sat in the far corner. The rain pounded above, and I was thankful that at least they'd put us somewhere dry to wait. I knew little of the plague, but what I did know was the sickness came on fast and killed just as quickly. There were so many theories about how it spread: the air; the water; person-to-person touch; on surfaces. No one knew because nothing seemed to stop it. There were theories that it had been man-made, a form of biological warfare designed to lie dormant and infect the world before a single symptom showed, and that all attempts to stop it were already doomed. The why of it all hardly seemed to matter anymore. If Kaden didn't have white eyes by the morning, then we were fine. And if he did, then there would be no escape. As I looked around, I realized we were missing one of our number.

"Where's Jeb?"

Sam's eyes suddenly creased. He glanced at Issac, who stared at his hands in silence, before he answered. His voice barely rose above the pound of the rain. "You ran into one of the guards at the front entrance. Issac caught up to you before the guard could do anything more than knock you out. Jeb ran when he found out they were going to quarantine us—" He swallowed hard, suddenly looking pale. "I think one of his friends was quarantined, and they ended up burning the whole shed down the next day."