Alex’s gaze narrows. “You fucking idiot,” he grumbles with a shake of his head. “You didn’t take your painkillers?”
“Forgot,” I grunt as I stagger towards the exit. “I took the antibiotics at least.”
“Oh well, that makes everything better,” he says sarcastically before grabbing my arm and throwing it over his shoulder while holding my waist to support my injured leg.
I grimace but say nothing as we slowly make our way to the door at the end of the corridor.
We’ve just reached it when it swings inward, revealing an unfamiliar nurse in uniform. He stutters to a stop, wide eyes flicking between Alex and me as he hastily shoves his hands into the pockets of his scrubs.
Weird, but I guess Alex and I can be pretty intimidating. Especially when we’re both standing in the way like a bunch of twats.
“Sorry, we’ll get out your way,” I say, nudging Alex to move us to the side since there’s no way I’d be able to move us both with my injuries.
The nurse nods and hurries by once Alex has us pressed against the wall.
I expect Alex to move after the nurse is gone, but he doesn’t. He lingers, a frown on his face as he watches the nurse like a hawk. I nudge him again, but he shakes his head and inclines his head towards the nurse.
With a furrowed brow, I turn and look, immediately understanding why Alex didn’t move. “Hey!” I shout, silently cursing that I can’t go after the nurse. “What the hell are you doing?”
The nurse’s eyes snap to mine as he pauses outside Andy’s isolation room. Thelockedisolation room, thatno oneaside from Kevin is allowed to enter. And this guy has his hand on the door handle and a key in his other hand.
My eyes narrow in suspicion as he continues to stand there, looking like a deer in headlights.
“Well?” Alex prompts, his voice low and filled with danger. He’s become such a bear since Ollie and Rhys were taken. Not that I blame him, since I have my own destructive ways of coping.
“I-I,” the nurse stutters, his hands visibly shaking on the door handle. He still doesn’t move.
And then my mind flashes to how quickly he’d shoved his hands in his pockets when he’d first seen us at the door. Something’s not right, and with everything that’s happened in the past few days, I’m not about to ignore the alarm bells blaring in my skull.
“Get us closer to him,” I tell Alex.
The big guy grunts, and the two of us move to the nurse.
“Show me what’s in your pocket,” I bark, causing him to jump a foot into the air.
Panic overtakes his expression. “I-it wasn’t my idea! I swear! I didn’t have a choice!” he cries, still not reaching into his pocket. “Please believe me!”
I untangle myself from Alex’s hold, mostly so he can grab whatever the nurse has in his pocket, and lean against the wall. Alex wastes no time in closing the distance between him and the smaller man and shoving his hand into the guy’s pockets.
“Be careful!” the nurse says, his voice still quivering.
Alex’s brows furrow as he removes something from the nurse’s pocket and gives it to me.
It’s a tiny vial filled with clear, viscous liquid that’s been put into another vial and shoved into a plastic sandwich bag along with an unused needle and syringe.
What the hell?
I stare at it in confusion and horror. “What is this?” I snap at the nurse, anger building inside me. Whatever the fuck is in there, the nurse’s intentis clear; he was going to inject Andy with it. Andy, who’s already dying from the zombie infection.
What the fuck is going on?
“Answer him,” Alex snarls, grabbing the nurse by the front of his uniform and slamming him into the wall.
The nurse whimpers, the blood drained from his face. He looks seconds from passing out. “I-it’s venom,” he squeaks, his entire body trembling in Alex’s hold.
Venom? What—
The realisation crashes over me, threatening to send me to my knees. This motherfucker was about to inject Andy with fuckingzombie venom. I see the moment Alex realises because his hands go from the guy’s shirt to wrap around his neck.
