“Probably,” I said. My eyes lowered because it felt greedy and selfish to demand it, but I wanted him to stay, nonetheless.
He raised my chin with his fingertip. “Sometimes sacrifices must be made to ensure that our family is safe. This is something I have to do.”
I nodded, because I understood his reasons. Even still… “That doesn't mean I have to like it.”
“Fair enough. You have a right to be angry, and I won’t try to change your mind, but I want you to come outside with me now, Kitten. The stars are out, and I want to look at them with you.”
He stood and held out his hand. I took it. Of course, I took it.
* * *
We gazed at the stars,each of us pointing out the constellations we knew–Taurus, the bull and Orion, the hunter. When the lights first went out, my dad would take my brother and me outside to stargaze in the backyard and tell us what he knew about the heavens, and we would make wishes on shooting stars, which were really just meteoroids burning up in the earth’s atmosphere; that was before the first Rabids started attacking.
Cipher had some marijuana he’d gotten in Atlanta and rolled a joint with it. I asked for a puff, but instead, he had me sit in his lap with my knees on either side of him and gave me what he called a shotgun. Close enough to kiss, he opened his mouth to exhale. The smoke traveled from his lips to mine as I inhaled deeply, feeling the slight burn in my chest and the floaty feeling that came afterward. His dark eyes focused on mine intently, conveying feelings neither of us could put into words, and even though I was mad at him and we were technically still in a fight, I may have also been falling in love.
Now we were lying on the blanket with my head against his chest as he stroked my hair. The weed had calmed me, and I was a little bit hungry too, even with dinner. I tried not to think about tomorrow morning when Cipher would pack up to leave, and I’d tell him to be careful, to please come back to me. I’d kiss him goodbye, maybe for the last time, and have to hope for the best.
I tried to be brave for us both.
“I miss being tucked into bed,” I said to him. These quiet nights caused my mind to wander back to the Before. “The ritual of it, my mother’s words.”
“There is something precious about wishing someone sweet dreams, knowing they’re going to a place where you can’t follow, and you want them to be safe.”
“Did your mother tuck you into bed?” I asked and hoped the question wouldn’t cause him too much pain.
“My father,” he said. “He was the more affectionate one. My mother was very driven. They both were, in fact. They met at med school and were researchers together at Georgetown University. Their lab was doing cancer research when the plague hit. They quickly shifted their focus to study the fever.”
“What happened to them?” I asked and held my breath.
“My dad was attacked by a Rabid late one night on his way home from work. This was before we knew about being able to cut out the infection before it spreads. My mom took the opportunity to study him, kept him housed at the lab with the other patients. She brought us there once to visit him, near the end. He was strapped to the gurney. I don’t think he even knew who we were anymore. He wasn’t himself and his face was… well, you know.”
“Yeah,” I said as I tried not to think about it too vividly. I rolled onto my stomach and gazed into Cipher’s downcast eyes.
“We said goodbye to him, though we weren’t allowed to get too close. It shocked us both, my sister and me. We hadn’t seen the fever up close like that before. We’d heard about it and seen the news reports, but watching it happen to our own father was something else.”
I knew exactly what he meant. Every morning, I used to greet my mother hoping she’d turned a corner, some sign that her body was healing, but every day she was sicker and less herself.
“What was your sister like?” I asked.
“She was my best friend. We were only a year apart, she was older, and we fought like cats and dogs until the plague hit. Then it was just the two of us. Our parents were always at the lab. They even slept there some nights, so we had to take care of ourselves. We were under quarantine and there was no school, so we got into our parents’ medicine cabinet and did a lot of drugs, watched a lot of television, and read a lot of books, burned a lot of meals. We argued about stupid shit, and we confided in each other too, and we tried to make sense of what was going on.”
“What was her name?” I asked.
“Aiko.”
“Did she catch the fever too?”
“No, but my mom did. She’d been bitten in the neck, but neither of us knew about it because she didn’t tell us, and she wore a scarf to hide it. I didn’t realize…” His eyes pooled with tears. Wincing, he pinched the bridge of his nose savagely. “I’m the one who killed her, Kitten.”
He sat up, arms curled around his knees, his shoulders shaking with muffled sobs. I pulled him to me and held him tight.
“She bit me,” he said, sounding like a lost little boy, “and I didn’t know what else to do, so I ran into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. She ran right into it, mindlessly, still trying to get to me.”
I’d held the point of my knife to Cipher’s stomach that first day we met, and he’d tempted me to use it, as though he were asking for it, as if some part of him wanted it.
“It was self-defense,” I said. “Remember what you told me? It’s kill or be killed. She attacked you, Cipher.”
“I know, but she was still my mother.”
