In•fec•tion

2

"Are you lost?" I hear from behind me. I turn around and see a tall figure, who I know as Andrew. A smile grow across my face. I shake my head no and he smiles. "Then, would mind if I walked with you?" He asks. It would be nice to have someone to walk with, so I don't get approached. "I don't mind." I say. We walk to a cross walk and I see missing persons pictures all over it. "Do you know who or what happened to all these people?" I say grabbing Andrew sleeve. He looks at the posters with a upset expression on his face. "Uh, yeah. I do actually know a lot of these people. They just disappeared. I have been apart of several search and rescue parties to try to find them. It's upsetting, that we couldn't find one person." Andrew says with frustration in his voice. I rub his back and reassure him that they'll be okay. Andrew shakes his head, we cross the street. "So what are you doing in town?" He asks changing the subject. "I was a part of a group, we were supposed to find Lexi. She is a danger to the public according to Victor." I say looking up at Andrew. His face lights up when he hears Lexi's name. "Oh I know where she is!!" He exclaimed. "Really! Where is she?" I ask. "She is at the bar! She always ends up there!" He says taking my hand leading me to the bar.
Andrew slows down once we reach the bar. He releases my hand and grabs the door for me. I adjust my arm back in the sling and walk in. I take a step to the side, to wait for Andrew. I look around the bar. I see the guys that set my arm last night, I never caught his name. I see Lexi and the group I came down here with. A arm wraps around my shoulders. I look the the person who the arm belonged to, it was Andrew. I move his arm off my shoulders. We make our way towards everyone. Josh and Victor both noticed me. Josh stood up and started to bombard me with questions. "Where were you!? When did you lose us?! Did you even bother to find us!? We all were worried!? You're not aloud to go any where without holding a hand!" Josh says frantically. Victor pulls him back, " I'm glad you're okay kid. We all were worried about you." He says calmly. Shaun doesn't even look at me. My heart feels like it's being constricted. I look over at Lexi and she was totally wasted. Victor and Josh, mainly Josh, asked Andrew questions. Such as where was I, or how did Andrew and I meet. I walk over to the vending machine and get a bottle of water. I make my way over to Lexi. She lifts her head off the table and looks up at me, I hand her the water bottle. "Thanks." She mutters. I just nod my head. I take a seat next to her not saying a word. "Jordan, I'm sorry for everything that happened.. I understand that I hurt you and you don't want anything to do with me. I just need to apologize, I hope you can forgive me one day and we can maybe be friends." Lexi says to me. My eyes widened as I processed what she said. I look at her and nod again. I didn't expect this from her. "Yeah, maybe." I say quietly. She smiles and continues to drink her water.
A couple minutes later, the guy who set my arm approached me. "Hey, how are you feeling?" He asks. "I'm doing much better. Thanks for setting my arm yesterday." I say with a small smile. He extends his hand out towards me and says, "my name is Michael, I don't believe I've introduced myself to you." I take his hand shake it and say, "my name is Jordan, nice to officially meet you" I laugh. He takes a seat next to me and we continue small talk until Josh approaches us some time later. "Jordan, we need to make our way back to the lab. It will be curfew soon." Josh says. I say my goodbyes to Michael. Lexi's condition has improved immensely, she is less hung over then when we found her. Josh was nagging everyone to hurry up and get to the truck. I giggle at how he's like the mom of the group. I follow Victor and Josh out but, I feel someone grab my wrist. I turn around and see Shaun attached to my wrist. My chest releases a sharp ping of pain. "Jordan, I need to talk to you..." He trails off. I don't say anything, I just turn around to face him. He lets go of my wrist, it feels cold. "I can't go on like this anymore," He starts, thinking the worst, tears start to form. "I think.... I like you but, I just met you. I'm not one hundred percent... sure of my feelings." He says. I stay silent but, my face released a color bomb at that moment. "Okay." I mutter. "I'm not sure what you want me to say." I continue. "I just needed you to know that so you didn't think that I hated you." He says and I nod. I hurry out of the bar and catch up with Josh and Victor.
I volunteered to sit in the tail gate by myself. So, I could have some thinking time to myself. Before I knew it, we were at the lab. I got out of the truck without waiting for anyone, I ended up tripping and falling. I propped myself up with my good arm. I looked up into the neighboring woods, once again I see a couple familiar figures. I rubbed my eyes and they were gone. Josh helped me up. "What are you looking at?" He question. "It was nothing." I say, thinking my concussion is messing with my head. I make it to my room. I start to change over into my sweatpants, a knock rings through my room. I put my other leg through and kick my short into a corner. I get the door, I don't open it all the way. It was Shaun. My gaze doesn't meet his eyes. "Can I help you?" I ask, still a little mad that he wasn't clear with feelings earlier. "I can't sleep, can I talk to you for awhile. It okay if you say no, I'll understand." He says. I don't say anything I just open the door wider. He enters and I shut the door behind me. I take a seat on my bed and wrap myself in the blanket. I bet I look like ET. "So.." I start. Before I could get anything else out. Shaun is hovering above me. My face went pale, "sh-Shaun!? W-what are y-you doing-g!?" I stutter. "Can I try something?" He ask completely ignoring my question. I slowly nods my head yes. He takes my hands and puts them over my head with one hand and gets close to my ear and says, "....it's tickle time" I furrow my eyebrows. With his free hand he begins to tickle me. I let out a scream, as I try to wiggle myself away. I start laughing to the point to where I start crying. "Ahhh! Stoppp! Shaun!!" I say out of breath. He stops and curl into a ball. I look up at him and notice his face was lightly dusted with a shade of pink. "What was that for?!" I ask him gripping my sides. "I wanted to make you smile and laugh." He says awkwardly. I give him a small smile. I feel a tension between us. I pat the bed, inviting him on the bed. He climbs up on the bed and sits next to me. I sit up, still clutching on to my sides. We started some random conversation and I told him about Lexi. He seemed relieved. We ended up being very close to each other like early today. I didn't want to make a move again, not wanting him to leave. He cupped my face with one of his hands. He leans in, I quickly close my eyes. I feel his slightly chapped lips press against mine. It was so gentle and passionate at the same time. It felt like forever until, I could breathe again. I open my eyes to look at Shaun. His face was red. He pushed me on my back, he leaned in again. I pull the blanket over myself. "No.." I say under the blanket. "I think this is to fast if this gonna be a thing." I say quietly. Shaun takes the blanket off my face and peppers my face with kisses. Every one of those kisses felt like ice against my face. He lays down next to me and whispers in my ear, "that's perfectly fine." He pauses. "So, you do wanna be a thing?" I asks with a cocky smile on his face. I roll my eyes and mutter, "yeah, but I want to get to know you better before it official." He nods his head. He wraps his arms around me and slowly drifts into sleeping and I play with his Snow White hair. Soon after I fell asleep.
I hear the door to my room open, I must have not closed it all the way. I pop my head up and see Connie standing in my doorway. I notice that Connie was breathing really hard. "Connie are you okay?" I ask. I hear no response. I start to panic. I hesitantly shake Shaun awake. He jolts up and sees Connie. Something doesn't feel right. I quickly turned the lamp, next to the bed, on. I let out a scream. Connie is covered in blood and his skin is a deathly pale. His veins were bulging, giving him a almost blue completion. I see a chunk of flesh missing from his neck. Shaun pulled out his gun. Connie came running at us. I gunshot rung through the room, Connie fell to the floor. Blood sprayed all over my clothes and sheets. A new hole now in his head start to bleed on my carpet. I start screaming and it turn into crying. It was hard to breathe. I was having a panic attack. Shaun put his gun away and picked me up out of bed. Then he set me down and dragged me out as we ran out of my room. We ran right through Connie's blood, to find someone to help. We made it to the main hallway. My feet covered in Connie's blood. We run into Tyler, Josh, Victor, Lexi and Beth. They're eyes widened once they saw the blood. Shaun explain everything that happened. It sounding like he was describing a zombie movie. Then it all clicked the missing people pictures, and the figures in the woods. My eyes widened. "The mysterious deaths." I mutter. Everyone looked at me like as if i were crazy, I explained everything that was going through my head. "That makes sense but, how did people get that disease?" Tyler asked. "I'm not sure. We should take blood samples and do comparisons to other samples to some of Connie's patients he worked with before some of them got the virus or disease." I said. Victor and Josh did a perimeter-check to make sure no more of those things are in or got into the lab. Tyler, Beth, Lexi, Shaun and, I went back to take a blood sample from Connie. I got the blood samples. I cried at I did it though. Tyler ordered the body be burned to it doesn't spread. I open my mouth to pleaded but, words didn't want to leave my throat. Shaun wraps his arm around my shoulder. Tears threaten to spill, I quickly wipe my face. He rubs circles on my back. We leave the room before the moved and disposed of the body. Shaun and I went back to his room. We sat on the carpet and sat in silence. "Do you want to talk about us?" Shaun suddenly asked. My face flares up, I nod yes. "Alright." He starts off, "I want you to know, that I will always be here to protect you. Forever and always." He pauses. "Now, you know my line of work. It's dangerous, I could get killed in the line of work. I never have dated because of this reason." My voice quivering, I being to say, "I understand. P-please don't go getting yourself killed though." He nods his head and pulls me on top of him. I embrace him tightly. I bury my face in his shoulder. "Jo.." he mutters in my long black hair. "Hm?" I say into his shoulder.  He doesn't say anything so I pull away from him. "Shaun? What did you want?" I ask furrowing my eyebrows. His face shows no emotion. I lift my hand to touch his face. Suddenly I was below Shaun. His white hair hanging, a smirk grows across his face. He leans close to my face beings kissing my freckles. I feel his eyelashes tickle my face, I begin to laugh. My laugh echoed through the room and he pulls away and beings to tickle me. I curl up into a fetal position and hide my face red from embarrassment and laughter. He get up and grabs a shirt off his dresser. "Here change into this." He say remembering my blood stained clothes. "Can you turn around?" I ask politely. He turns around and I take my shirt off and my blood soaked sweatpants. I put on the shirt he gave me, which was huge on me and fit me like a short dress. "Where do you want me to put my dirty clothes?" I ask. He cautiously turned around. He saw that I was dressed he grabbed the clothes from me and put them in a hamper. "Are you doing to be okay?" He asked looking at me standing in the middle of his room starring at the floor. I shake myself out of the trance I was in. I look at him and say, "I will be fine." My voice shakes as I say fine, as I remember seeing Connie. Shaun walks over to me and leads me into bathroom. He starts the bathtub. He motions for me to sit on the ledge and for me to put my feet in the tub. He let the hot steam fill the room as he cleaned the blood off my feet. "Do you need to change your cast?" He asked me. I shake my head no, "it should be fine." I say.
     A knock from the door rings through Shaun's room. Shaun lets out a sigh as he leaves to answer the door. I swing my feet in the water and watch the blood mix with the water. My breath hitches as everything processes through my mind. Tears stream down my face, I hold my hand over my mouth. I curl over my knees and continue to cry. I didn't know Connie that well but, my heart aches as I remember the conversations we had. A gasp escapes my mouth, I'd been holding my breath. Why Connie? What was he even doing? Questions race through my mind. I slide into the bathtub, not caring about the water. I held my knees to my chest and stare, numbly, into the water. I eventually couldn't cry anymore. Tears weren't going to bring Connie back. I hear the bathroom door open. "Jo?" I took at Shaun. I get out of the bathtub, soaking wet. I don't say anything, I just hug him. He embraces me back. "I know it hurts." He mumbles into my hair. I squeeze him, not wanting him to leave. "It hurts so much." I say into his chest as my knees give out. I begin to sob, I let out a wale as he holds me. Shaun slowly lowers use both onto the bathroom floor. He holds me like a child in his arms, I feel something hit my cheek. I look up at Shaun, he is looking down at me and crying. I sit up in his arms and cup his face and wipe away his tears. "It's okay," I let out a hiccup and continue "let it out, it's okay to cry." He pulls me into an embrace. I hold him back. We sit on the floor and cry for a while. I feel my consciousness slip away from me as I fall asleep in Shaun's arms.
I wake up to a pounding on my bedroom door. I look at Shaun and he is still asleep. I move his arms off me and crawl out of the bathroom. My clothes still a little damp. I use Shaun's dresser to help me off the floor. I answer get to the door. I open the door before the pounding could continue. Behind the door was Josh and Victor. Victor plopped his hand down on my head ruffled my hair. "Glad you finally decided to answer the door, kid." He says chuckling. I pout. "What's up?" I ask Josh. "Oh, nothing we just wanted to check on you. Is Shaun up?" He says. I shake my head, "I'll go get him up." I invite them in and go get Shaun out of the bathroom. I get down the floor and shake his shoulder. "Shaun, time to get up Victor and Josh are here." I say. His eyes shoot open as he jumps up from the floor. He pretty much runs out of the bathroom. Before I could get up, Shaun pops his head in and says, "throw on a pair of my shorts or sweatpants." I think about what he said. My face heats up when I realize that I only was wearing his slightly damp T-shirt. Get up and pull the shirt down as much as I can without it looking like I'm trying to hide something. I walk out the bathroom and go into Shaun's dresser and pull out a pair of sweatpants and a new shirt. I go back into the bathroom, keeping my gaze on the floor as I quickly change my clothes. I unlock the bathroom door and enter Shaun's room. The guys look at me and fill me in on their conversation. "If you are feeling well enough Jordan, you can being working on the the comparisons. If you don't that is completely fine. We have plenty of other scientists." I shake my head in disagreement, "I can't really do anything with my hand being broken." I say. " I understand just, stick with Shaun." He says. I nod my okay. We all head down to the cafeteria, for breakfast.