Krisis (After the Cure Book 3) by Deirdre Gould Read Free Book Online Page B

than he had been since the succumbing to the Plague. He need never wake up to the shrieking and the hunger and the fury that he had known for the past year. He would die either way. Whether it was in a few months when Juliana’s garden failed and she couldn’t feed them or couldn’t find wood to heat the place, or now from the pneumonia. No one ever need know it was her. He took a long shuddery breath. She pulled the ambu bag from his face. It was a sallow, exhausted face. The circles under his eyes made his skin look shrunken to the bones in the lantern light. It already looked dead and his chest rose and fell so slowly that she began to wonder if she even needed to do anything but sit by. But the wheezing came louder, became a soft scream of air through the thin space left in his lungs. Every time he inhaled, she felt the raw burn in her own throat and tasted the metallic, coppery slickness of blood. She couldn’t listen to it any longer. She pulled a towel from her kit and folded it up.
    She placed it over his mouth and nose, feeling the withering, humid heat of his breath soak through. “Sorry, whoever you are. I wish I’d gotten here sooner. I wish I’d done this for my own son. I’d want someone to do this for me.” She pressed down. The towel dragged inward, away from her hand and he coughed. It was wet and sharp against the cloth. His eyes snapped open and he thrashed. He whipped his head to the side and Ruth wasn’t ready, the towel slipped across his face and he took a stuttering breath.
    “NO!” he cried. His head snapped back to look at her and Ruth scooted backwards in surprise. A low roar began in his throat but it was interrupted by a splashy cough. The man struggled to sit up, pausing every few seconds as his chest seized in a hacking cramp. Ruth stood up and backed toward the door. The man finally raised himself onto his knees. He looked up at her and held out his hands. “Help,” he croaked.
    “You can talk?” asked Ruth, “You weren’t infected? Why is Julianna keeping you here? Are you a prisoner?”
    The man stared at her, through her. “Help,” he said again.
    Ruth fumbled with a container of water. She crouched in front of the man and held the bottle up to his lips. He gulped and then choked. Ruth waited until his coughing subsided and then helped him lie down. “I’m going to help you breathe,” she said, holding up the ambu bag, “Just relax and let the pump do the work for you, okay?”
    But the man’s eyes had already fluttered closed.

Chapter 4
    Ruth pressed the mask into his face and began squeezing again. Every inch of her felt shaky and weak. What had she almost done? And what was Juliana doing, keeping a sane person in this cell? Maybe she didn’t know. Maybe he looked infected. Ruth leaned closer to his face. Whatever scars he might have were not on his head. He was certainly drawn, but everyone Ruth had met in the past several months was starting to look thin. She shook his shoulder. His eyes popped open and focused on hers again.
    “What’s your name?” Ruth asked. The man made a sound like clearing his throat. Ruth thought he couldn’t talk through the thick phlegm of the pneumonia. She leaned closer to hear better, turning her face so her cheek just brushed the rubber bulb of the ambu bag and her ear was closer to his mouth.
    Suddenly there was a painful pull at the back of her head and she tried to sit up. But the man had a grip on her hair. She let the ambu bag go and it tumbled down between them as she reached back to pull his hand away. He snarled and roared, sitting straight up and pulling her almost underneath him by her hair. The restraints stopped his other hand and a fit of coughing overwhelmed him. Saliva and snot dripped onto Ruth’s facemask as he hovered over her and she shut her eyes as she struggled to slide away from him. Ruth rolled free, a clump of hair ripping from her head and staying in his hand. She backed up against the door and pulled