Pandemic Page 112

She nodded. She reached down to pull up her bloody shirt. He helped her.

Cooper had never seen a gunshot wound before. He wasn’t sure what he was looking at, what he was looking for, but despite the blood it didn’t seem that bad. The bullet hadn’t gone through her as much as it had ripped off a chunk of her side.

He gently put a finger near the wound, not on it, and pressed.

She hissed in pain. “How’s it look, Mister I’m Not a Doctor?”

He shrugged. “Don’t really know. Don’t think you’re going to die, but we need to stop the bleeding.”

Cooper looked around, saw the piled-up tablecloth. He grabbed a handful and dragged it over.

“Sofia, this is going to hurt.”

“Can’t hurt any worse than it already does. Go for it.”

He gently laid the tablecloth on her side, then pressed down. Her body stiffened. She hissed in an angry breath.

“Shit,” she said. “Guess I was wrong.”

“Direct pressure,” Cooper said. “I have to—”

“I know, I know. Just talk about something else, okay? You from around here?”

“No,” he said. “Michigan.”

“Lions fan?”

“Unfortunately, yes. All my life.”

“Sucks to be you,” she said. “Go Bears. I work here. Front desk, hospitality.”

Cooper remembered calling for security after seeing the wounded teenage kid outside his room.

“Did you work with a woman named Carmella?”

He felt Sofia nod.

“I think she’s infected,” Cooper said. “I called down earlier, she said some awful things.”

“That doesn’t mean much,” Sofia said. “Even before this started, Carmella was a real bitch.”

They sat in silence for a moment. The lights clicked out, once again drenching them in darkness.

“So,” she said, “what brings you to town?”

“Work. I mean, a postwork celebration kind of thing. We work on a boat and just finished up a big job.”

“We?”

“My partner and me.”

“You gay?”

“The other kind of partner.” Cooper thought of telling her about the cocoons, but if he did, she might think Jeff was something to be shot, not someone to be saved. “He was gone when I woke up this morning. I can’t find him.”

They fell silent for a moment. He stroked her hair, felt her relax a little more.

“This shit is insane,” Sofia said. “I heard the president was saying something about it a couple of days ago, but I have two jobs — who has time to follow politics, right? Yesterday morning we got a delivery of that inoculant gunk she was talking about. It was meant for the rich guests. I sneaked a bottle, drank it. Maybe that’s why I’m not sick.”

Cooper remembered the speech, remembered Blackmon talking about some kind of medicine.

“Is there any more of that stuff here?”

He felt her shrug. “I don’t think so. Most of it got delivered to the top floors, the suites.”

Blackmon’s medicine had arrived in time to help make a difference, and the one-percenters got priority? It infuriated him, but he knew he shouldn’t be surprised: some things never change.

He felt Sofia’s blood cooling in the damp tablecloth.

“How’d you wind up getting shot?”

She paused, seemed to gather herself.

“This morning, all this shit was going on outside,” she said. “Explosions, fires. These two pigs came in. We thought they were there to take care of things, you know? But they just started shooting people. Peter, a guy who was working with me, they shot him in the head. They got a couple others too, I think. I don’t know for sure, because I ran.”

She sounded a little guilty, as if she should have gone all Rambo on two trigger-happy psycho cops.

“You’re alive,” Cooper said. “You did what you had to do.”

He felt her shrug again. “I guess. One of them shot me just as I reached the stairs. He followed me down. He cornered me. He … I think he was going to rape me or something.”

Cooper remembered the bald man … give us a smooch.

“He tried to kiss you? That why you wanted to see my tongue?”

He felt Sofia nod.

“Asshole was crazy,” she said. “He tried to pull me close … he had both hands on my shoulders. He was so strong. I kicked him in the balls and it didn’t do anything. I think he laughed, like it was a fun game or something. He came at me again … he stuck his tongue in my mouth. I felt those fucking bumps. They stung.”

Cooper tried not to flinch, to jerk away. He realized he’d made a huge mistake. Just because her tongue looked normal didn’t mean she wasn’t infected. She claimed to have taken the inoculant, but how did he know she was telling the truth? Was she going to change? Was she changing that very second? Would she attack him the way the bald man had?

He looked down at her, a dark, warm shape in his lap. She was a danger … he had a gun. All he had to do was put a bullet in her, then he’d be safe for certain.

But Sofia seemed normal. He needed normal. Maybe she wasn’t lying about drinking the stuff from the government. Maybe she was fine.

Maybe.

“I think your bleeding is slowing down,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“You mean aside from being shot?”

Chapter end