“Morning. We have a couple of newcomers who could use some breakfast. This is Kathy Gardiner and her daughter, Emily.”
Bobbie smiled. “Ladies. You came in with the doctor?”
Kathy nodded. “My husband.”
“Welcome. It’s good to have you, and your husband. How do eggs, bacon, and some hash browns sound?”
“Good,” Kathy said. “Um, great, actually.”
“Scrambled? Fried?”
“Fried,” Kathy told her.
“Can I have mine sunny side up?” Emily asked.
“You can have them any way you want,” Bobbie said. “That’s what I’m here for.”
“Can you send out four bottles of water when you get a chance?” Rachel asked.
“Will do.” Bobbie disappeared back into the kitchen.
“Bobbie’s a great cook,” Rachel said. “You’re in for a treat.”
Kathy gave a halfhearted smile. It was clear she was still trying to process everything that had happened since Chloe took them from their home.
“How long have you lived here?” Emily asked Josie.
“I don’t. I mean, we don’t. My dad and my brother and me, we just visit sometimes.”
“Oh. Well, where are you from, then?”
That was a good question. Their last home had been in Iowa, but they weren’t there very long. Before that? “My dad was in the army. We traveled…”
Josie lost all train of thought as she spotted Matt and the doctor heading down the hallway toward the dining area.
She stared at them, unable to take another breath. She’d been desperately waiting for news about her father, but suddenly wasn’t sure she wanted to know what the doctor had to say. What if the news was bad? What if her father hadn’t made it? If the latter were the case, then every second she didn’t know was another second her father would still be alive in her mind.
Emily twisted around, following Josie’s gaze. As soon as she realized who was coming, she jumped out of her seat and ran to her father. Kathy was up a second later, following right behind her daughter. All three hugged as if they’d been separated for months.
“You’re okay?” the doctor asked. “Any problems?”
Kathy shook her head, and Emily said, “They’re making us breakfast.”
“Now that sounds like a great idea,” he said. As they turned toward the table, Matt whispered something to the man, and they both glanced at Josie. The doctor nodded and walked over to her. “You’re my patient’s daughter. Josie, right?”
Josie nodded, unable to speak.
“Then I guess you’re the one I need to talk to.”
This time her nod was so slight she almost didn’t move her head.
“As I’m sure you were aware, your dad was pretty banged up.”
This is it, she thought. This is the part when he tells me he couldn’t do anything. She braced herself.
“Shrapnel cut through part of his intestines and destroyed one of his kidneys.”
“Brad!” Kathy said. “She’s just a girl. You can’t tell her that.”
“She deserves to know,” he said, and looked at Josie again. “You want to know, right?”
Want? No. She didn’t want to know anything. But she had to know, so she nodded again.
“Also, one of his ribs punctured a lung.” The doctor paused. “But your dad is tough, a fighter. And thank God for the medical facility you have here. It’s top-notch. If he’d been anywhere else short of a fully equipped hospital, I doubt he would have made it.”
It took Josie a moment to process his words. “He…he’s okay?”
“He’s not okay. Not by a long shot. But he will be.”
She shot to her feet and threw her arms around him. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you.”
She gave him one last squeeze before sprinting out of the alcove and down the hall. When she reached the surgical room, she threw open the door and rushed in. But the room was unoccupied.
Of course he wouldn’t be here, she chastised herself. He’d be back in the room they had him in before.
She raced out the door and down the hall again. Before she reached the medical suite, she nearly ran into Chloe, running out of another corridor.
“I just heard,” Chloe said, falling in beside Josie. “He’s going to be okay.”
Josie glanced at her but made no reply, afraid that if she acknowledged it she might jinx everything and make it untrue. She needed to see her father first. She needed to see him alive and breathing.
They rushed through the open door of the medical suite, into the observation area. Behind the glass wall of patient room number one, they could see Lily in scrubs and a mask, checking the bag hanging from the IV stand. On the bed next to her lay Josie’s father, an oxygen tube running under his nose. Josie watched his chest move up and down, and sighed in relief.
“He looks good,” Chloe said.
She was right. He did look good, or at least better than before. There was color in his face now, and he seemed to be resting a lot more comfortably.
When Lily noticed them, she came out and pulled the mask off her face.
“He’s going to be okay?” Josie asked, wanting the confirmation from someone she knew.
“We’ll need a little more time before we know for sure.”
“But it’s looking good, right?”
Lily gave her a tired smile. “Yes. It’s looking good.”
Josie almost laughed as she hugged first Lily, then Chloe. “Can I go in and see him?”
“He’s still unconscious, and probably will be for another day at least.”
“I don’t care.”
Lily hesitated a second, then nodded. “Sure, but you need to wear a mask and gloves. And you have to scrub up first.” She pointed toward the sink attached to the wall, and glanced at Chloe. “I suppose you want to go in, too.”
“I’m fine out here,” Chloe said. “Just glad to know he’s going to live.”
“We all are.”
Matt watched as Josie raced away from the cafeteria, happy that the girl had finally received some good news.
“I really didn’t think he was going to make it,” Rachel said, moving up next to him.
He glanced at his sister. “Neither did I.”
“Any news on Brandon?”
He shook his head. “Christina’s been trying to get us a good satellite image of the area, but nothing useful yet.”
“He’s a smart kid, and his dad prepared him well. He’ll be okay.” She paused. “I received confirmation that the package arrived in Atlanta.”
“Good,” he said, though he knew it wouldn’t change anything. Still, they had to try every angle they could. “I’m going to head over to the comm room.” He glanced at Dr. Gardiner and his family. “Do you mind staying with them? I’m sure they’re going to have a lot of questions.”
“Already been asking.”
The communications room was a quick walk down the hall. As it seemed to always be now, the room was buzzing with activity. For the first few days after the virus was released, they had monitored the growing disaster, hoping that somehow, someway it would fail. Of course it hadn’t.
As of that morning, Matt had ordered everyone to begin LIC — locate-inoculate-consolidate. Their task was to find pockets of uninfected survivors, get them vaccine, and bring everyone together before Project Eden could move in and eliminate them. The only ones excused from LIC were Christina and her small team. Their focus was on finding Brandon.
It was a massive undertaking, one destined to fail over and over again, but Matt knew they would have successes, too. That’s what they had to focus on.
It had been long assumed that radio would be the main way they’d find survivors, so the Resistance had computers placed around the world that were now automatically monitoring as many frequencies as possible for signals that might indicate survivors.