He cleared his throat and let his body drop back onto his pillows. “Can we talk drugs again? I need something for the pain.”

“We can still administer morphine. It will help with the phantom pains as well,” Doctor Krause replied. She was carrying the morphine injections with her and with Ethan’s approval she administered a dose. “Joey located lollipops too. Fetanyl lollipops. You’ll like them,” she said with a smile.

“Is there any hope for me to walk again?”

Doctor Krause locked eyes with Ethan and he struggled not to break her gaze. “Without access to prosthetics? I don’t know. We don’t know what the world is going to look like tomorrow, let alone in a few months. Years. It’s possible.”

“Be honest.”

With a comforting hand on his arm, Doctor Krause tried to smile, but it came across as pained. “It’s safe to say that your energy should be spent elsewhere. Focus on rebuilding your health, remaining free of infection, positive healing. Positivity goes a long way in recovery.”

“You sound very doctorly,” he scoffed. The morphine was kicking in; a flood of warmth and contentment rushed across his body. He even smiled at Doctor Krause and was no longer bothered by her mass of unruly hair, her unnaturally white teeth, and the tiny mole on her chin.

Without reply, she nodded to Darla and left the room; he was slipping into chemically-induced bliss, and her job was done.

“Feeling okay, then?” Darla asked. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. When she dropped her hands to her sides, her eyes were red, bloodshot. “So, you really don’t remember much heading up to the surgery?”

He shook his head sleepily.

“Look, there’s something you need to remember about the doctor. And Ainsley. Something you should keep in mind.” Ethan tried to appear alert. Darla continued, “They didn’t ask for this. They weren’t given a choice.”

“The doctor?” Ethan was confused. Nobody asked for any of this.

“Spencer forced her to take the vaccine at gunpoint. She told him they would rather die on Day Six than subject themselves to the injections. I’ll tell you the story when you’re better, okay. But you should know…unwilling to come here is putting it lightly.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Ethan asked her, all his anger seeping away, the thoughts of his abandoned leg no longer filling him with dread. The numbness was great; he floated—he looked at Darla’s dark hair, her intense eyes. He felt compelled to tell her she was beautiful.

“So you’ll know,” Darla replied.

“Know what?”

“How much saving you has cost her.”

And with that, Darla left the room, shutting the door with a deliberate slam behind her.

CHAPTER FIVE

The library was empty. Musty and dark and completely empty.

Grant and Lucy wandered the small square building, peering under tables and toppling over boxes in the storage area. They examined each and every corner, but the blonde woman had vanished. There wasn’t a back door and there were limited hiding spots. It was like she simply walked into the library and disappeared into thin air. Frank barked for them from the outside steps.

“I don’t get it,” Grant said and he pulled himself up onto the library’s front counter. Plastic stands displayed new releases, but the books were outdated and dusty. Lucy pulled out a drawer from the card catalogue and thumbed through the aged pieces of paper corresponding with a book in the library.

Lucy paused and let her hand drop. She turned to Grant. “Let the dog in,” she instructed.

Grant nodded, understanding, and hopped down—he flung the library door open and Frank tore into the room. At first the dog seemed confused, running to Lucy and then to Grant, sniffing and jumping. Then he ran to the back of the library and barked twice at a long bookshelf; Frank pawed at the books and whined, his tail wagging.

“You think there’s something back there?” Lucy asked.

“Like a hidden room? No. There’s nothing to the side of this building. If there was a room back there, it would have to be small.”

“She wasn’t a giant,” Lucy replied and she motioned for Grant to raise his gun. He drew the gun and they walked toward Frank and his bookcase-of-interest. When they reached it, they removed some books and pushed against the back of the bookshelf, but it was solid wood. They knocked. Unsurprisingly, nothing knocked back.

“Maybe it slides?” Grant offered and so they tried pushing the shelf first to the right and then to the left, but still the tall walnut bookcase didn’t budge.

“Alright, Frank,” Lucy said, bending down to the dog. “Where’d she go, boy?”

Frank barked a reply.

“Lucy—” Grant said in a soft voice. She recognized that tone and her heart sped up in anticipation. Grant leaned into the bookshelf and put his ear against one of the wooden sides. Then he put his hand flat against the wood. “It’s vibrating.”

Puzzled, Lucy leaned in and put her own hand next to Grant’s. She felt the movement, the subtle shaking, and then she too could hear a mechanical hum emanating from below them. Stepping back away from the bookcase, Lucy’s eyes grew wide. “Come on,” Lucy said in a whisper. “Back away.”

But Grant remained rooted to his spot.

The churning and vibrating grew louder. Then it stopped with a clunk. And without any warning, the middle two bookcases opened outward, springing forward like automatic doors. Lucy looked to Grant, her eyes wide, but he wasn’t looking back at her; his stare was fixated on the blur of movement heading in their direction.

“Run! Run!” Grant called, but it was too late. Two armed men darted outward into the small library. Raising his hand, Grant fired at them without hesitation. The gun blast was deafening and Lucy covered her ears; but Grant must have missed, because in that split second Lucy felt one of the men grab her around the shoulders and yank her toward the open bookcase.

She screamed, but the man wasn’t deterred. Lucy opened her mouth wide and attempted to bite the flesh on the backside of his hand, but she couldn’t quite reach and she ended up chomping on air. From a corner in the library, Lucy could hear Grant and the second man scuffling. There was another gunshot—not by Grant’s gun—and then a pause, a silence.

“No!” she screamed. “No!”

It all happened so fast. The gunfire. The men. She wailed and kicked harder and screamed at her attacker. The man tossed her through the bookshelves and Lucy’s eyes adjusted to the dimmed box. It was an elevator; and a third man was operating the lift system—his hand poised over a green button, a key around his neck on a long chain plugged into a keyhole. A fourth man, who had also stayed in the elevator, grabbed Lucy and pinned her arms behind her back, then tucked her into his body. He smelled like cinnamon chewing gun and cheap cologne.

Then everything went black.

She could feel the fibers of a cloth bag against her cheek and gathered around her neck; blind and afraid, Lucy lashed out more, but the fourth man’s grip on her tightened.

“Grant! Grant!” Lucy yelled, but her voice was lost in the cloth.

From outside of the elevator, there was scuffling, dragging, and—to Lucy’s great relief—Grant’s angry voice calling out.

“Get your hands off of me!” Grant was yelling.

They tossed him into the elevator with Lucy, covered his head too, and knocked him to the floor.

“Are you hurt?” Lucy called, her own voice amplified, her ears ringing.

“Are you?” Grant replied.

The man with the key, turned it inside the lock, pushed a button, and the bookshelves slid back into place with barely a squeak. With a lurch, the elevator began to travel downward, foot-by-foot, into the earth. As it lowered, Lucy could smell dirt and damp even through the bag. When the elevator didn’t stop, Lucy realized that they had to be slipping deep underground and she resisted the urge to scream and flail about. The man’s grip on her hadn’t loosened and the tiny box housed them all, but barely.