Lives We Lost,The by Megan Crewe Page B

have
to start moving patients.”
“What about Mowat and Fossey?” Meredith said. “Are we just
leaving them?”
“They came racing to see me when I came in,” Leo said. “Seemed
pretty happy having the run of the place. I put the bags of food on
the floor so they can eat as much as they need to.”
“Thanks,” I said, with a second wave of relief, and he shot me a
half smile. The memory of our kiss flashed through my mind. My
face flushed and I dragged my eyes away.
“Nell didn’t seem too upset when I told her what we were going
to do,” Leo went on, showing no sign that he’d noticed my reaction. “She said . . .” He hesitated and glanced at Meredith, who was
digging at the pavement with the toe of her boot.
“Meredith,” Tessa said, “could you check the boat and make
sure we got all the supplies?”
She frowned, and then seemed to shake herself. “Of course!” she
said, and jogged toward the docks. Leo lowered his voice. “She said it’s probably good for us to get out of there for a
while—the town’s in such bad shape she might end up having
everyone move across the strait anyway. And she said she really
hopes we find the people we need.”
All the heat washed out of me. No one had been interested in
leaving the island when we’d realized the strait was now unguarded,
because it hardly seemed worth giving up a place we knew for some unknown across the water. Nell must be desperate to be consider
ing evacuating.
“Nothing left in the boat!” Meredith called as she came running back.
“Thank you for checking,” I said, giving her a squeeze. “I guess
we should eat, and then call it a night. We’ll want to head out
first thing.”
“I’ve got a kerosene camping stove in the truck,” Tobias said.
“A hot dinner sounds pretty appealing right now.”
“I saw spaghetti in the bags,” Meredith said. “Can we have
that?”
“Sure,” I said. “Go on and get out a few cans.”
“We heard someone coughing when we went farther into town,”
Gav said to Leo as Meredith scrambled into the back of the truck
after Tobias. “There are people still here. We’ll have to keep an
eye out.”
A weariness passed over Leo’s face. For all I was trying not to
focus on him, I felt a pang of concern. He’d only just come home
a few weeks ago, and now we were dragging him away again. If he
didn’t think he could take it, he’d say so, wouldn’t he? “We’ll want to alternate watches while we’re sleeping, then,” he
said. “We can’t be too careful.”
He was right. And maybe I could take away one of the fears
that must be haunting him, that was going to haunt me as long as
he and Gav and Tessa were unprotected.
“I think the three of you should take the vaccine,” I said. Gav, who’d been about to speak, stopped with his mouth half
open. Tessa blinked at me.
“There are five samples,” I continued. “So we’d still have two. We’re obviously going to run into people who are infected—we
almost did today. I don’t want one of you to catch it.” “We will run into people,” Leo said cautiously. “I’d be surprised
if we don’t. But are you sure you don’t want to hold on to them,
Kae?”
“We don’t even know if the vaccine works,” Gav added. “If it does, then it’ll be a good thing you took it,” I said. “And
if it doesn’t, then it won’t matter that you did. Either way, it can’t
hurt. We don’t have any other way of protecting ourselves while
we’re on the road. And I can’t see why anyone would need more
than one sample to understand what Dad did, when we have all
his notebooks too.”
“They make vaccines using parts of the virus, don’t they?” Tessa
said. “Is there any chance we could get sick from it ?”
I hesitated. “I guess. My dad tried it on himself and he was fine
for almost three weeks. He wouldn’t have used it if he wasn’t sure
he’d gotten it right.”
“If anyone was going to get it right, I’d say it’s your dad,”