Fate Decides

Chapter Eight

This is too good to be true, I think to myself. Things have been going surprisingly well over the past three weeks. Ethan and Erik have been out working on the fence everyday, and I have helped Luna to prepare the houses for the rest of the pack. There have been no more attacks from the infected, and this has made it easier for the fence to be constructed.

Now, as I stand in the kitchen cooking some pasta for lunch, I think of how all good things have to end sometime. Small coughs coming from the living room pull me from my thoughts. Pouring the hot pasta into the strainer on the sink, I try to figure out why Grace or Olive would be coughing. Quickly, I wipe my hands off on the towel hanging on the oven door and make my way into the living room.

Grace is playing with some stuffed animals while Olive lays on the carpet, sucking her thumb and shivering. She truly has to be feeling sick if she is staying still and sucking her thumb. Usually, her and her sister are running all over the place, and she barely ever sucks her thumb.

"Baby girl, what's wrong?" I say as I pick her up and sit on the couch. She lays her head on my shoulder and seems to melt into me, even though she continues to shiver. I feel her head and realize she is running hot. Worried, I cover her with a blanket lying on the couch before walking into the bathroom to find a thermometer.

After a solid five minutes of searching, I finally find one and shift Olive so that she is sitting on the counter. Her legs hang off the edge as she stares up at me with her big blue eyes. I know she is not going to be happy with having her temperature being taken, so I press a soft kiss to the top of her head, hoping to reassure her.

"Grace, open up." She looks at me with tired eyes and turns her head away from me, just like I knew she would, silently refusing to open her mouth. I look at her and raise an eyebrow. "You going to do this the hard way or the easy way, baby girl?" She stares at me even harder than before, and finally opens her mouth.

"Good choice," I say, placing the thermometer under her tongue.

We stay there in silence for a few minutes, waiting for the thermometer to read her temperature. Finally, the little machine finally beeps. Pulling it out, I read the numbers on the screen.

"One-oh-four? No wonder you are burning up," I say, walking out of the bathroom and into her bedroom. Worry starts to gather in my stomach. We can handle a lot of things, our immune systems pretty strong, but just like humans, we are more vulnerable when we are younger. For her to have a temperature this high is worrying.

I quickly change her into some of her footie pajamas and replace her thumb with a pacifier. It took me a long time to break her habit of sucking her thumb, so I do not want to risk having her pick it back up again.

"Let's have some lunch and then you can have a nap, okay?" She simply reaches her arms up to me, and I pick her up, walking back into the living room.

"Grace, it's time for some lunch, sweets," I say.

She looks at me and says a simple, "Yum Yums?" I nod my head, and she quickly toddles into the kitchen after me. Both of them are placed in their high chairs, and tired cries fill the kitchen as I try to get their food together.

"Okay, we have some yummy pasta and sauce, baby girls," I say, putting some of the cooled off pasta into their small bowls, and placing equally small spoons next to them. Grace digs in right away, but Olive continues to suck on her pacifier and seems to be dozing off. I walk over to her and gently pull the pacifier out. The action startles her awake and she begins to cry.

"Oh, Olive, everything is alright. You just have to eat some lunch, then you can have your nap," I say to her.

"No, Li Li," she says in between sobs, reaching for the pacifier I had placed on the counter.