Infectious

Chapter 2: Kai

I will be haunted for days, weeks, and months. Seeing the final jolting twitch of his body as the bullet pierces through the skull sends chills down my spine. I close my eyes as nausea hits me like a tidal wave on a calm sandy beach. Blood. Lots of blood. Cold dead eyes wide in anger. I snap my eyes open unable to relive the moment just yet. Blinding white stars begin to fill my vision.

"Jax, we might need to stop for a second." His head turns in confusion. Bile moves up my throat at an alarming rate.

"We're almost there, only one more block. You can do this." He gives my hand a reassuring squeeze. Each step brings it further up my burning throat. Threatening to break the seal my lips have formed to keep it down.

"No Jax, you don't understand. We have to stop now." My stomach does one more flip and that was that. Hitting my lips in my attempt to keep it down. I rip my hand from Jax's to wrap them both around my stomach. I cannot seem to stop the tremble racking my entire body. He holds my hair away from my face and gently rubs my lower back in consolation. "I'm sorry, I am stronger than that." I wipe my mouth off with my dirty blue shirt. Jax stands there looking at me for a moment longer than he should have before pulling me into a tight hug.

"You're the strongest girl I have ever known."

"Thanks," I mumble. Taking a second to gather ourselves, feeling his chiseled muscle he calls arms holding me tight as the warmth of his neck comforts me. Wait. Why am I focusing on his features so much? I pull away from him suddenly. My cheeks burn a little with embarrassment. "They have never shot anyone." I blurt out as I see his eyebrows come together slightly in confusion. "The patrols always threaten, but they never actually follow through in a mass public setting. It has been empty threats up until now. Which makes me wonder, why today? Why was that man cause enough for the first shoot to kill in the public's eye?"

"If they didn't shoot him, Kai," his hand ruffles through his thick black hair, "he would have killed the patrol. You saw the craze in his eyes, there was no other way. Even I, a person who doesn't believe in killing for population control, could see it fit for him to be stopped. They can't have a citizen murdering someone we are supposed to fear. Today just happened to be that day a situation gave them no choice. Realizing they were losing control, and with their desperate need to regain some control before they lost it all, they had to shoot him." His hand slides my untamed hair behind my ears, " you were going to tell me something, right?" I weakly nod. "Ok, then let's keep going. We only have one more block to cover."

"There isn't any point. I can tell you here." Once more his eyebrows scrunch together.

"You can tell me here? In the streets? Why did you wait to tell me then?" Astonishment and anger hint into his voice.

"That's the thing!" Rushing to calm his quickening anger, "I was going to tell you about a robbery earlier today in one of the labs. One like the lab you work in Jax. Four scientists were murdered, I'm not exactly sure how, but it was enough to cause shock amongst the crowds down on Jeffery Avenue. However, that isn't even the worst of it, three vials of an unknown substance were taken." His eyes fade of any residual anger. Replaced with pure fear. "Government officials tried to keep it all from us. Per usual course of action when any significant crime is committed. They haven't been able to identify the guilty party, so they went to the families of those murdered. Trying to pay them off for silence. Of course, they didn't stay quiet. Guilt, pain, and fear must have all added up, pushing them to spill the truth to the general population. Not much information they had was really helpful though. All they knew was the murdered scientists worked with a highly deadly virus with the ability to kill millions, billions, of people fast and undetected. There is one thing I don't seem to quite understand. Why were they experimenting with something that evil to begin with? Why create such a thing?" I can see his vivid facial expressions as his suspicions play across his mind.