The Truth is Contagious (The Contagium Series Book 4) (19 page)

I froze. Did that really just happen?

Hannah’s jaw dropped as if she couldn’t
believe what she had walked in on either. Her hands went to her
face, covering her eyes. Hayden grabbed the blanket and pulled it
over us.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Hannah!” he yelled.
“Don’t you know how to knock?” He flattened himself against me.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” she muttered and
turned around.

Hayden yanked his boxers on.

“I am so sorry!” She stepped out of the
room.

“Close the door!” Hayden called after
her.

Hannah still had her hands over her eyes. She
bumped into the doorframe twice before she found the knob. “I just
wanted to tell you happy birthday,” she muttered. “You really
should lock this next time.” Then she slammed the door.

Hayden stared at the closed door for a few
seconds before turning to me. He shook his head, hazel eyes
flashing.

“Well that was awkward,” he huffed.

“I didn’t even realize it was your birthday,”
I blurted. Guilt grasped at my chest. “I stopped keeping track of
days.”

Hayden rolled off me, heavily plopping down
on the mattress. “I did too,” he confessed. “And I’m not exactly
excited to be twenty-nine.”

I straightened my top and turned onto my
side. “You’re old.” I wrinkled my nose at him.

“You’re only four years behind,” he
teased.

I stretched again and put my hand on Hayden’s
hip. “Still in the mood?”

Hayden snorted a laugh. “Not anymore. And
knowing Hannah,” he said and sat up and grabbed his boxers, “she’s
still in the hall, waiting for me.”

“Then you should go,” I said, pulling the
blankets up to my chin. “She told me last night she’s sorry for not
getting along with you in the past. Take her horribly-timed happy
birthday as an olive branch.”

“You’re awfully calm about all of this,” he
said, smirking as he put his pants back on.

I shrugged. “It’s not the first time someone
walked in on me during sex.” I tried to say it casually but
struggled to keep the smile off my face.

The smirk instantly faded. “That’s not funny.
I don’t want to know about anyone else. Maybe. No, no I don’t. I
like to pretend you’ve only been with me.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, ‘cuz I’m such an
innocent virgin.”

“You are. Well, were. Stop it. It’s not
funny,” he repeated.

I laughed and reached for him, wrapping my
hand around his arm. “Are you jealous of my ex-boyfriends?”

“Kinda,” he said and scooped me up into his
lap. “I wish we met a long time ago. So much time was wasted not
being with you.”

I pressed my head against his chest. His
words stirred emotions in me and my heart swelled. I loved him so
fucking much.

“I know,” I said. “But then I wonder how
different we’d be if we had met years ago.”

“I’d be happy,” he whispered. I turned my
head up and kissed him.

“Ugh!” Hannah said as she opened the door.
“Don’t you people ever stop?”

Hayden and I broke apart. I moved off his lap
and got out of bed. I was only wearing a tank top and underwear. I
had never been shy about people seeing my body and I rarely stopped
to think if others would be offended by it. Hannah’s eyes ran down
my legs.

“You are so muscular,” she said flatly. “I’m
kinda jealous.”

“I work out a lot.” I opened the bottom
drawer of the dresser and pulled out a pair of shorts and tossed
pajama pants to Hayden.

“How did you get up here?” he asked Hannah as
he pulled on the pants.

“Ivan let me up. He didn’t know it was your
birthday either. Why didn’t you tell people it was your birthday?
Are you really that ashamed of your age? You shouldn’t be since you
don’t look that old. Though you’re way more covered in scars since
I last saw you but that doesn’t age you and I guess it doesn’t
matter as long as Orissa doesn’t care since she’s the only one who
your appearance should matter to, ya know?”

Good lord that girl talked fast. I don’t
think she even stopped for air while she spoke. I pressed my lips
together in a reminder to keep my mouth shut and be nice to her.
How the hell did she remind me of a younger version of myself last
night?

She sat on the other bed, bouncing on the
mattress as she looked around the room. “I like your room. It’s so
normal. Except the bars on the window. It looks like a real room,
though. Not that I’m complaining.” She whipped her head back and
forth in a manic shake. It was the first time I had seen her with
her hair down. It fell a little past her shoulders and had a slight
wave to it. I wondered if Hayden’s hair would be wavy if it was
longer.

“It’s safer downstairs,” I said and opened
the closet, pulling out my bag of toiletries.

“I know,” she said. “I can handle myself.
Remember I survived a lot longer out there than you guys did.” She
shot Hayden a look.

He inhaled slowly, steadying his nerves.
Hannah was on his last one. “Now you can relax.”

“Right,” she said, meeting my eyes. I tipped
my head down just a bit, giving her a please-don’t-start glare.
“And I have been relaxing. It’s so freaking nice to watch TV
again!”

“The little things,” Hayden sighed and
straightened the blankets over our bed. I yanked the hair tie from
the bottom of my braid. Several strands of hair snapped and broke.
I raked my fingers through it, carefully working out a few big
knots before brushing it.

“When is your breakfast time again?” Hannah
asked. “Mine is the first session.”

“We don’t have a time,” Hayden told her.

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh, since you’re
the boss and all, right?”

“I’m not the boss,” Hayden told her. The
stress that had slipped away overnight came crashing down on him.
Little lines of worry appeared around his eyes and his shoulders
suddenly became tense.

“Well whatever, hurry up and come with
me.”

“We still have forty-five minutes until
breakfast,” I said, looking at the clock. “Why are you up so
early?” Our bed was calling my name. Resentment built up inside me.
I was tired, stressed, and wanted nothing more than lazy morning
sex with the man of my dreams and then to pass out naked and sweaty
in his arms.

“I couldn’t sleep. Well I could but only for
a few hours. Then I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep and then
I realized what day it was and had to come up and say happy
birthday to my big brother.”

“You could have waited,” I said under my
breath.

“Have you been sleeping?” Hayden asked,
concerned.

Hannah shrugged. “Yeah enough.”

Hayden didn’t press. I flipped my head over
and gathered my hair into a messy bun, too lazy to braid it again.
I sorted through my pile of dirty clothes that I had discarded on
the floor last night, looking for my bra.

“I want to shower before I go down,” Hayden
said, running a hand over his messy hair. It needed to be cut.

“Ok,” Hannah said, jumping up. “I’ll wait
here.” She strode over to the bookshelf and picked up a book.
“You’re such a nerd,” she said to Hayden, looking at the cover of a
fantasy novel.

Hayden sighed again and grabbed clean clothes
from the closet. Taking his lead, I did the same and joined him in
the shower.

* * *

“Do you think Padraic knows much about psych
meds?” he asked me while he washed his hair.

“Probably. Why?”

He shook his head. “Hannah needs
something.”

“She’s a little hyper, but she’s not
that
bad.”

“Little?” He raised an eyebrow.

“She’s been calmer since she got here,” I
pointed out.

“She’s bipolar,” he stated. “She’s manic
right now and handles this phase pretty well…until the no sleeping
thing starts.”

“Oh, shit.” My stomach did a little drop. I
was so worried about finding food for the winter and fighting off
crazies that I forgot about normal problems that we had to deal
with. It felt insignificant when compared to life and death
situations. “I think we can manage her,” I assured Hayden.

“The mania only gets worse until she’s
talking nonsense and not sleeping for days. Literally. Then she’ll
bottom out and get depressed.” He turned the water up as hot as it
could go and stepped aside, letting me rinse the conditioner out of
my hair. “She gets suicidal, Riss.”

My stomach dropped even further. “We will get
her meds.” There. A simple solution. Go out and find the
medications Hannah needed to gain stability. But it wasn’t that
simple, not at all. Nothing was simple anymore. There was no just
going out anymore. Every move, every action had to be thought out
and carefully planned. We had to be prepared for anything. One step
forward and two steps back. Hayden’s head drooped. I put my hands
on his shoulders. “Hey. We’re going to take care of everything. I
have no freaking idea how, but we will. We have to.”

Hayden just nodded, wanting to believe my
easy fix. The water temperature dropped. I quickly rinsed and cut
the water before it became icy. We got out, dressing in silence.
Before Hayden opened the bathroom door he paused, taking a moment
to put on a happy face and hide the stress that was weighing on
him.

With two very forced smiles, we joined Hannah
and went down to the cafeteria.

* * *

“It’s been a week,” Ivan said, turning around
from the map that hung on the wall in Hayden’s office. “And they’re
still not back.”

“Should we go after them?” Jason asked. He
leaned forward in the metal folding chair, putting his elbows on
his knees. His eyes met mine for a second before looked at Hayden,
who was sitting behind the desk. Wade and Brock were crowded behind
him. I was perched on the edge of the desk and Hector sat to
Hayden’s right with his hands tightly clasped together, pressing
against his chin. His daughter, Gabby, was among Alex’s group who
had yet to return.

“Maybe they had to take a detour,” Hayden
said. His words sounded more like a question than a statement.
“It’s happened to us before.”

Ivan held a narrow strip of paper to the map,
measuring the distance from the compound to the farthest town the
group was assigned. “They should have been back by now.”

Hayden looked down at his to do list, hoping
for a magical solution to pop up. He bounced his leg up and down
and drummed his fingers on the dark wooden desk. “If we go, there
will be no one left to defend the compound in place of an
attack.”

“Are we expecting an attack?” Jason asked,
straightening up. “Everyone from Eastmoore is dead, right?”

“I assume so,” Haydn answered. “And attacks
can happen when you least expect it.” An uneasy silence fell over
the office. Hayden looked around at all of us. “But we can’t do
nothing.”

“What about the A2s?” Brock asked. “Most of
them have been guarding the perimeters for months now. You don’t
think they can handle it?”

“Zombies, yes. That’s what they were trained
for,” Hayden said. “Anyone who fights back…” He shook his head. “I
hope they can.”

“No one can get inside,” Brock reminded
him.

“But anyone can get to the fields,” I said.
“Which is why we pulled some of the A2s from the house to go there.
We don’t have many left inside these fences.”

Hector leaned forward. If it were up to him
he would have sent us out moments after the allotted four days was
up. I hadn’t worried when the fifth day came and passed. We had
overstayed our estimated return plenty of times.

When day number six came to a close, the
unwelcome feeling that something was wrong crept up. And now it was
late in the evening on day seven. Hayden called a meeting after
dinner to discuss our best option.

“What if just two of us went out?” Brock
suggested. “And we keep this strictly a search mission, only get
out of our vehicles if necessary.”

Hayden considered it. Before he could reach a
decision I said, “If they ran into something bad enough to take all
five of them down, we should send out more than two.”

“Herds disperse,” Wade reminded me. “It
that’s what they ran into…” he trailed off, eyes flicking to
Hector. He pressed his hands against his legs and shook his head.
“If it was, the herd could be long gone by now.”

“This place,” Hayden said and jammed his
finger onto the desk. “Has to be our priority. If this place falls
or if we lose our farm, we will not make it through the
winter.”

His words hung heavy in the air. Then he
leaned forward, rubbing his eyes. “There are more than enough
people here capable of handling a weapon. I know Fuller wanted to
let the people make their own choices but, maybe it’s time for a
draft.” He looked up, taking in our reactions.

“You’re right,” I said. There were plenty of
residents here, young, healthy, and able to stand in the
watchtowers. They chose to stay underground where it was safe.
Fuller had allowed that without even batting an eye. Truth be told,
his valuing free will weighed heavily on my decision to stay at
this place.

“We can bump everyone up,” Ivan suggested.
“New A1s, A1s to A2s. Then there would be enough to guard the
estate.”

Hayden nodded and turned to Hector. “What do
you think?” he asked.

Besides looking like he wanted to burst into
tears over the potential loss of his daughter, Hector agreed. “It’s
a good idea; one that could work.”

“We need to implement this now,” Hayden
said.

“Call an assembly,” Hector started. “Explain
the situation and ask for volunteers first.”

“What if no one wants to?” Jason asked. After
losing Jessica and then Rider, Fuller opened up a position for an
A2 to move up. Jason was the only one who applied. Another man
named Mike volunteered at first, but backed out after realizing the
danger we were in every single mission.