Apokalypsis | Book 6 | Apokalypsis 6 Morris, Kate (cheapest way to read ebooks TXT) 📖

room where I knew you’d gone, but by the time I got there, nobody was in there. Then I was really screwed.”

“But I saw you crawling out of the cafeteria.”

“I know,” she nodded. “I went in there to see if anyone had gone that way, but I ended up trapped. I saw some of them at the other end coming in. When I turned to go back out the way I came in, others were entering from there, too. I was totally boxed in, so I got down and crawled out the other way towards another exit. I had to hide under a table and then move again and hide again under a booth. It was horrible. I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared in my life.”

“I’m sorry we got separated,” he apologized. “That won’t ever happen again.”

Jane fell silent, and Roman was left to wonder if she was hesitant to answer because she didn’t really want to be around him anymore.

“I don’t know if we’ll always be together, Roman,” she said quietly and pulled back further. “Not now. Not anymore.”

His instincts were right. She’d moved on from him emotionally already.

He took a steadying breath and rolled away from her, “Then I’ll keep you safe for as long as we are. Good night.”

There was a pause before she said, “Good night, Roman. And thanks again for rescuing me. I owe you. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me.”

He didn’t answer but lay there instead, staring into the darkness until she fell asleep. Then Roman rolled onto his back and stared up at the black ceiling. The point of the blackout rooms was so that the doctors pulling long shifts could sleep in silence and darkness undisturbed. It felt tomblike and not cool at all as he’d perceived as a kid. It was almost like lying in one’s own coffin, and he wondered if the doctors ever felt that way, too. Perhaps it was just the way his heart felt at the moment. He’d spiraled into a black hole of heartbreak, and nobody could make it better, certainly not the girl beside him because she was the one responsible for it.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Elijah

He was pretty sure that he only slept about an hour last night, and today he was paying the price. Stephanie and Wren had slept in a surgery recovery room while he and his brother slept outside of it on beds they’d wheeled out into the hallway. The ward was locked down. They were sure of it because they’d checked every possible point of entry, every room, broom closet, bathroom, nurse’s station, and anywhere else one of those things could’ve hidden and locked the place down tight. Without the passcode, key card, or a pry bar, nobody was coming in or out. That hadn’t made him sleep any better. The second he nodded off, he would hear one of those things. Or perhaps he really wasn’t hearing them, and it was a figment of his imaginative mind as it was falling into a deeper sleep. Either way, he’d awakened with a start many times. Alex didn’t look much better.

“Here’s another box,” Wren told him, handing it over.

They were taking everything they could that seemed of value from the recovery suite. It was nearly four in the afternoon already. Under Alex’s amended orders, they’d not exited their safe areas until nearly noon to allow for the last of the monsters to seek the refuge of darkness, which they figured were the basement levels and the attached parking garage lower levels.

They’d met up finally with Jane and Roman, both who looked as unrested as them. They all slowly made their way to the hospital kitchen again and found it somewhat raided. Jane theorized that those things had not, in fact, come from the hospital but had found a way in after either hearing them inside the day before or were drawn to the smells of cooked food. They’d cooked more food for breakfast, though, from the walk-in cooler and freezers. The hospital still had quite a lot of food stored in those, surprisingly enough. They’d been able to make pancakes, frozen sausage patties, powdered eggs, even toast from the frozen loaves of bread they’d found. Then they began packing as much as they could of the food while others worked on medical supplies.

They were loading boxes, crates, and plastic storage tubs full of medical supplies, baby clothes, blankets, diapers, formula, bottles, those little rubbery things that babies sucked on, and even hospital gowns. Elijah wasn’t too familiar with most of what was loaded into the box delivery truck, but it didn’t stop him from stacking it neatly to make room for more.

Jane brought out another box from the kitchen, and he stacked that one, too.

“Man, I still can’t believe you made it outta’ there,” he remarked after Wren walked away. “I felt so bad leaving you.”

“No,” she said with a shrug. “It’s cool. You would’ve only gotten yourselves hurt or worse. I was fine. I’m good at avoiding danger.”

Elijah offered a smile and said, “Well, then I’m glad for that, at least.”

She clammed up as Roman exited the building with a dolly cart full of boxes. Alex was right behind him with a rolling cart like big box stores had available for customers to load larger items like a tv or sofa. It was stacked full. They both began pushing boxes and crates full of goods towards him in the front of the truck, where he tried to keep everything tidy. He noticed Jane ducked her head and squeezed past Roman back into the building. Elijah wasn’t great at such things, but he was pretty sure they were fighting or had broken up. They hadn’t seemed like a couple lately when he was around them. Jane was always very reserved when it came to anyone other than her father, but Elijah knew they were a couple. Roman had pretty much told him so. They sure didn’t seem like a match