Viral Nation (Short Story): Broken Nation Read Free

can’t make herself tell him that she can’t walk. The memory makes things worse.
    Alex brushes a hand across one cheek and then lets it rest on my half thigh, his fingertips barely touching the blanket covering my lap. “It doesn’t hurt as much,” I say. I want to be as strong as I can. I don’t want him to think he has to leave me here again.
    “You’re still on antibiotics and pain medication,” he says. It’s not a question, not when we’ve wheeled the pump that delivers my medication out with us. It’s absurd, to be out there with all of this equipment and no supervision at all. A sign of how absurd everything has become.
    “You can’t leave me again,” I say. Also not a question.
    “I won’t.” He leans forward and kisses my forehead, the way he did before he left me the last time, and stands up.
    “Was it hard to get into the city?” I ask. “Our nurse said no one is allowed in or out.”
    “Not too hard, but not easy either.”
    “What’s Denver like?”
    He shakes his head. “We aren’t in Denver.”
    He was right then. If he had stayed with me right after my surgery, we wouldn’t have found the others later. Something lets go in my chest, some resentment that I didn’t even know I was holding on to. “Where are you?”
    I expect him to say Sacramento or Boise or Salt Lake City. Some city in some state. Instead, he says, “Outside Denver.”
    “What do you mean outside Denver?” I look at Maggie, to see how much of this she’s taking in. She’s sitting next to Alex, wedged under his arm, as close as she can get without climbing into his lap. Her eyes are closed. “Are there two cities in Colorado?”
    Alex shakes his head. “We’re not in a city.”
    “What about the shots? How are they getting you the shots?”
    Maggie flinches at the mention of the painful injections, and Alex soothes one hand down her arm. “We don’t take them.”
    I’m so shocked by this statement that I don’t know how to respond. When I find my voice again, it’s tinged with anger. “Do you want to get sick? Do you want to lose a leg, too?”
    Maggie sits up and looks between me and Alex. I take a breath and try to calm down.
    “We aren’t getting sick,” he says. “None of us have been sick. We had the shots here, before we left. I don’t know why, but none of us are sick.”
    Something about what he says tickles at the back of my mind, but whatever it is, it doesn’t come to me right away. “What’s the plan?” I ask.
    “When you’re healthy enough to leave the hospital, we’ll go to the compound.”
    He makes it sound so easy. It’s impossible not to believe him. “Compound? Really?”
    He smiles, and that is enough for me for now.
    “Where’s Tomas?” he asks. It’s the casualness of his voice, combined with the way that Maggie’s face crumbles as she turns to hide it in his shirt, that almost does me in. I open my mouth but I can’t find any words, so I just shake my head. I see the realization dawn on him, and he takes a breath and nods. “I’m so sorry, Maggie.”
    “Are you staying here with us?” she asks.
    “No, but I won’t be far.”
    “I don’t want you to leave.”
    I don’t want him to, either. When he says, “I’ll be back soon. I won’t leave the city without both of you,” I’m afraid that he’s making promises he can’t keep.
    We make arrangements to meet at the same time the next day, and Maggie wheels me back toward the hospital doors just as Angelica opens them.
     
    • • •
     
    We see Alex every day. I think Angelica must be relieved that we’re willing to spend so much time outside without the need for her direct attention. She’s looking better, but still rough.
    We head out right after the doctor has been by to see us in the late morning and we stay until Angelica comes to bring us in for his afternoon rounds. She brings us lunch, outside, and comes every hour or so to check my vitals. She never mentions Alex. She doesn’t even