Krisis (After the Cure Book 3) Read Free

the pull of the petri dishes became too strong.
    The basement light was on when she opened the door. She thought she’d flipped it off, but shook her head and descended into the impromptu lab. Bill was sitting at the table, waiting for her. The harsh fluorescent light added a decade to his face. Ruth smiled uncertainly. “Hi,” she said.
    He smiled back, but it was a habitual smile. “Hi, hon.”
    “What’s up?”
    He slid a pile of bloody bandages across the table toward her. “Charlie bit through the wrappings again.”
    “Dammit,” swore Ruth, “His hands were almost healed. All right, let me just check up on today’s test and I’ll go rebandage him.”
    “Ruth,” he reached for her hand as she turned to toss the old bandages into the trash barrel for burning. “How long are we going to put him through this?”
    She whirled back to face him. “What are you talking about? I have to bandage his hands, we can’t just leave them, he’ll get a secondary infection—”
    “I’m not just talking about his hands Ruth, you know that.”
    Ruth was silent for a moment, stunned. “You agreed to give me time, to let me research. To give his body time to fight the Plague,” she felt her chest start to squeeze in.
    “It’s been over a year. He’s not getting better. He’s not even fighting it. Nobody is. You said it yourself, his body isn’t even recognizing it as a threat. There’s no cure, Ruth. It’s time to talk about alternatives.” He held out a hand to her. She didn’t want to take it, thinking it would be like agreeing with him. But what they were discussing was so distressing that she needed him. She slid a hand into his warm one and let him run a thumb across the skin on the back of her hand.
    “I have one more test Bill, this could be the one.”
    He nodded. “But it won’t be. And then what? You move on to herbal remedies? Raid university chem labs to find forgotten research?”
    Ruth’s lips thinned into a bloodless slash, but she didn’t say anything.
    “In the meantime, Charlie just gets worse. His hands are torn apart. If he’s awake, he’s furious and starving, even right after we’ve fed him. I know you don’t want to hear this sweetheart, but he’s in pain all the time. He hasn’t had any rest in a long, long time. Neither have you. Neither have I.”
    “What is it that you want me to do? Let him go? Let him wander out into the street to attack someone or be attacked by another Infected or shot by a stranger?”
    “No, I don’t want him to die alone on the street. He’s still my little boy.”
    Ruth took a stuttering breath and squinted her eyes against the sharp tears that sprang upon her. “But we are talking about him dying?”
    “If there were some improvement— if there were even periods of calm or moments when I could glimpse the real Charlie, I wouldn’t be discussing it.”
    “This isn’t terminal. He’s healthy except for his mind. I know he can beat it, we just have to find the right treatment to help him. He’s still in there, Bill, our Charlie is still inside.”
    Bill shook his head and his eyes became red. “I hope to God you’re wrong, Ruth. I hope there’s nothing left of him at all. He would be so confused and frightened and suffering. You think he understands why his mom and dad don’t hug him anymore? Or why he isn’t able to play outside of his room? Christ! Ruth, we shackled him. His own parents. The restraints make sores on his skin. We only touch him to change bandages or clean him or fix the straitjacket. I hope he’s not in there at all. He wouldn’t understand.”
    Ruth sobbed. “We’re only protecting him.”
    “I know,” said Bill, rubbing the back of her hand, “But it’s become torture. For all of us.”
    “I’ll find another restraint system. We’ll make a safe, padded room for him. I can’t just abandon him—”
    Bill began shouting. “But that’s what we are doing, one way or another.” He took a deep breath and