Apocalypse Plus One: My Snarky Sidekick novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Day Four

"I've got eight hundred people and a full medical wing," Lindsey said through the static. "I've got a bed for Maisy. I know she needs her insulin, honey."

I stood with my hand on the radio and didn't breathe.

"I know what you're carrying, and I know why. I remember too, Annabel. Bring it in and we'll share. Gate hours are six to six."

I turned the crank down until the voice dwindled to a hiss.

Jude was watching me.

"Same bargain," he said. "In a nicer coat."

"I'm not going."

"I know."

"Lindsey has no idea what I'd do," I said, "if I had to look at that gate again."

Hank had stopped bothering to hide what he'd noticed, and by the fourth night he had hauled the old double mattress into the sewing room without a word.

He said only that his back hurt and the sewing room needed "airing."

Maisy said only, "Use the lamp, not the overhead," and went upstairs with her hands over her ears.

So at ten that night Jude stood in the door of the sewing room, on his own feet, without the cane.

"I said I'd be standing," he said.

"You said two days. It's been two."

"I'm a man of my word, with some help from the doorframe."

He crossed the room and kissed me with his back against the door.

I pushed his shirt up, and he let me take it off over his head.

He was thin. His ribs showed, and there was a long pale scar low on his hip from the crash.

"Not much to look at," he said.

"I've been looking for a month."

"That doesn't count. I didn't have a body."

"You have one now."

I put my mouth on his collarbone, then his chest, and I felt him shudder.

"Annabel."

"Yes."

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