She Will Persist

And they were quarantined!

Owen

6.11 million cases worldwide, the US continues to be the leading country in coronavirus cases and deaths, protests are growing as people want the country to reopen despite the extreme caution warned by health officials, conservatives are embracing conspiracy theories about the virus death toll and its effects on carbon emissions, continues to mainly target those with immunodeficiencies however people of all ages are being claimed, scientists hard at work, 36 million Americans unemployed, hospitals overflowing, crime rates doubling, economy seeing the biggest crash since the 2008 recession, paramedics in New Jersey being forced to withhold CPR procedures in certain cases, the meat industry plummeting, US Postal Service running out of cash, educational institutions changing to online classes, US President Donald Trump--

I switched off the news. I was going to anyway, but the mention of that asshole's name made me jam my finger down on the off button so hard the remote made a cracking noise. I tossed it off to the side and sat back on the couch, raking my hands down my face and then up through my hair. 

I've lived through worse than this. Getting shot, tortured, thrown from buildings and planes, jumping off buildings and from planes. Killing.

But this pandemic seems worse somehow.

For one, I was powerless to help, two, I had Nia to worry about, and three, James wasn't here. That was definitely the worst part.

I was trying to be understanding. He was a trained emergency medic, a nurse with practice under pressure, and a trusted ex of the security branch. It made sense that he would be called up to work overnights, even though he had volunteered in the beginning, and I had to let him go with full confidence that he would do his job and come back safe. But with every passing day and the new accelerating statistics I was starting to go out of my fucking mind.

Six months. He said that they legally couldn't keep him for more than six months. But it's not like the law will matter much if this turns into an epidemic. Plus, I know James, if something comes up he'll stay for as long as they need him to. And if he becomes compromised? He will stay far away from us.

At least I had Nia. Danke Gott, at least I had Nia. Not only would I be going wahnsinnig quarantined all on my own, she was so wholesome and optimistic that it kept me from being consumed by my worries. I had been telling her stories, mostly toned down retellings of some adventures I'd had as an agent, replacing my name with "the hero" (why not?), and also some of the original Grimm fairy tales, the authentic German ones, not the diluted translated version. She distracted me from my own head by having me help her with designing outfits for Bailey, building forts, baking, drawing, cutting up bits of old socks and bed sheets to make hats and leg warmers for Bailey, coloring, painting, making runs for Bailey, teaching Bailey tricks. Thank God for that bunny. I felt bad for Harrison and Jinx who are having to somehow entertain their three hyperactive children with no pet, and definitely Blitz and Maisie who are taking care of Cal's three kids in addition to their own two. Sure Nia was stressing me out, and occasionally annoying me, but at least there was only one of her. Only, I could see she missed her friends, and I was a poor substitute for a nine-year-old girl. She missed James almost as much as I did.

It had been three months since I last saw him or spoke to him. Nia and I video chatted with the group every Friday, sharing arts and crafts and pets and movies that we had been watching. Nia and I had been making our way through Harry Potter now that James isn't here to say that it's too violent for her. Despite all our different time zones we managed to make the video call work --Quinn and Roscoe in LA, Lautaro and Idania in Honduras, Jinx, Harrison, Adira, and Axel in New York, Nia and I in Georgia, Cal in Galway, Blitz and Maisie in Liverpool, Zia in France, Lucky in India, and even Zach in Denver sometimes. James was supposed to be in Atlanta, but I hadn't heard from him since he left.