The Pulse (3 page)

Mason felt like crying. At this point he would settle for a fucking bottle of aspirin. Anything.

He screamed in frustration, the pain overwhelming his senses. Leaving the empty med room, he stormed down the corridor, kicking the gurneys as he went. His vision swarmed.

Something clattered to the ground. Mason froze and instinctually went to heft his rifle, forgetting that it was gone. He had no weapon for protection.

“Show yourself!” he yelled.

He heard a muffled gasp. Someone was crying. Soft, high-pitched sobs. A child?

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Mason said in the general direction of the sound. “I just want to know who’s there.”

No one showed themselves. Mason groaned as it felt like a knife was cutting into his skull from the head wound. He’d pass out soon.

He couldn’t risk being so vulnerable while unconscious… Finding the source of the crying was his priority now, more important even than finding something for his pain.

He moved slowly, quietly, looking under and behind hospital beds. There, huddled in the corner, was a girl, hiding her eyes as if he wouldn’t be able to see her if she couldn’t see him.

Mason stood over her. “What’s your name?”

The girl looked up at him with tearstained brown eyes. No, she wasn’t a girl; he could see that now. A young woman.

“Please,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

“What’s your name?” he repeated. “I’m—Tell me who you are.” He had almost slipped, almost told her his name, but he couldn’t risk it.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Mason said, trying to make his voice soothing.

“I’m Emily Rosen. I can’t go back. Please don’t make me go back.”

“Go back where, Emily?” He held his pounding head in his hands. Emily seemed to flinch when he moved his arms.

“To Grand Central. I can’t go back to Grand Central.” She seemed panicked now, and she stood up, apparently in some sort of shock.

She cried out like a caged beast when he didn’t move out of her way. “Emily, I won’t make you go back. I don’t give a fuck what you do,” Mason said, dropping to the nearest cot. That wasn’t quite true.

This girl was terrified, and terrified people did crazy things. If he passed out she might steal his gun and shoot him to make sure he didn’t take her back to the camp.

Then he remembered his gun was already gone. He couldn’t even think straight anymore and the pain was getting worse. Moaning, he touched his head.

“What—what’s wrong with you?” she whispered. “Are you injured?”

“The fucking scavengers left me for dead. Took my—” Mason stopped, interrupting himself. He didn’t want to tell her he had no gun, didn’t want her to think he… The pain washed over him again and he couldn’t think straight. “I feel like my skull is fractured or something. I need pain medicine.”

“You shouldn’t really have anything for pain yet, if you have a head injury,” Emily said softly.

“What are you, a doctor?” he asked wryly, his head throbbing.

“No. But I’m a nurse. I used to work here. Before.” Her sobs had quieted, and she was looking at him thoughtfully.

“I just need—” Mason broke off in a strangled cry.

“I can help you,” the girl said, her voice shaky, “but you have to promise to help me.”

“Okay, yes,” Mason said. He didn’t care what he was promising; he’d say anything to stop the pain. “But I need medicine. I don’t care if I shouldn’t, I need it.”

She started to walk away. Mason grabbed her forearm and she cried out, struggling to pull away from his grasp.

“No!” she cried.

“Where are you going?” he demanded, even as he had to shut his eyes against the pain building in his head.

“I know where they keep an extra stash of pills. The army never knew about them, so they didn’t take them.”

“You’re trying to get away,” Mason growled, but he knew it shouldn’t matter. He wanted her to leave, actually.

As long as she didn’t kill him.

“I swear, there’s a locked emergency box of narcotics, enough so if the pharmacy couldn’t get us a med in time there would be extra.” She gingerly took the keys from where he’d dropped them on the cot. “I’ll come back with some. And then I’ll clean up your wound.”

Mason released his grip on her and lay back on the cot. “Hurry.”

She scrambled away from him, the terror written all over her face making him wonder if she’d really return.

Emily took a
deep breath and walked down the hall toward the supervisor’s office, holding the keys in her hand. Now was her chance. She could escape, and never see the terrifying man again.

But she couldn’t leave a man in pain like that. All of her years of nursing couldn’t be dissolved so easily. The skin on her back was killing her from the caning, and she slowed her pace. She was stupid to come back here, knowing Roosevelt was shut down.

But when she’d run from the camp, her legs had acted on instinct. They’d taken her on a familiar route, even though the city streets had never felt so sinister and frightening.

Fleeing Grand Central hadn’t been easy, but when everyone had been rounded up for evening rations she’d found the door to the room with the radio unguarded. Maybe if they fed the people more than starvation rations, the guard wouldn’t have had to leave his post to grab his food before it was gone. From what she heard, no one saved uneaten rations when their fellow soldiers missed getting them—instead they stole the food and used it to barter for sex on the Tracks.

She imagined the soldier who was supposed to be guarding the door would be punished for her actions, but if he was anything like the soldiers who visited the Tracks at night, then he deserved whatever he got.

The radio, a tiny, hand-cranked thing, sat on a table in the abandoned room. That was her chance.

The pain from the caning had motivated her into moving, suppressing her fear. At that point she just didn’t even care anymore. Didn’t care if they caught her and killed her.

Once she had the radio hidden in her bag, though, the fear came back. Running was the only option if she wanted to live to see another day. And for five stress-filled minutes during change of shift, the side exit was open. It had taken her three of those five minutes to work up the courage to escape. And then she just ran, ran blindly.

To the hospital.

Emily looked at the keys in her hand. She’d have to make a go of it on her own. It was the only way.

Unless… Her thoughts flew to the large man on the hospital cot. He said he wouldn’t make her go back to Grand Central.

Could she trust him?

Don’t trust anyone
, she thought. Never again.

She reached the supervisor’s office and went into the locked cabinet to get the pills. Ten Percocet, which Emily shoved into the pocket of her jeans. She’d give the man two to take the edge off, even though she was worried about his head wound. If he was going to die at least this way he would die comfortably.

It still felt strange to her to take what she needed and not sign it out. Or pay for it. Scavenging whatever was left from a store shelf or a dead man’s house would never feel right.

It’s not like they need it anymore.
She refused to let herself feel guilty about it. She turned back around and started walking toward the man. Why hadn’t he told her his name?

Oh God, he’s from the camp.
He had to be. They had tracked her down; she knew they would. Looking longingly at the exit, Emily stopped walking.

Escape, now? Or help the man?

Damn it.

She kept walking down the hall, back to the man. She hoped it wasn’t the last thing she’d ever do.

Mason opened his
eyes when he felt a cool hand touching his forehead. The Percocet had knocked him out, giving him some blessed relief.

Mason touched his head and breathed in sharply. It was still tender to the touch. Maybe the pain pills had worn off. The room swam in front of him and he moaned.

He felt something cool and wet on his forehead and he closed his eyes again. That felt nice, better at least.

“Oh good,” the woman’s voice said.
Emily.
“You’re awake. I was worried about you.”

Mason opened his eyes again and looked at her face, peering into his, her brow furrowed in concentration.

It was
her
. The woman he had seen that day, being carted off. “You—” he started, but then he blacked out again.

She shouldn’t have
given him the narcotics. How could she evaluate him properly?

Oh, stop thinking like a nurse
, she chided herself.
There’s nothing you can do for him but keep him comfortable anyway, so stop acting like you’re prepping him for a CAT scan.

There was something comforting, she supposed, about falling back into old rhythms. Coming back to her old job, with a patient in a hospital bed and not on the floor of a dirty subway car. Being a nurse to this wounded man reminded her that she used to be a strong, capable woman. She could be that way again, no matter what those monsters at Grand Central did to her.

“What’s your name?” she asked softly.

The man looked at her with startlingly blue eyes. He had a handsome face, somewhere underneath the thick stubble that covered his sharp jawline and chin. “Christopher Mason. Call me Mason. Oh shit, I shouldn’t have told you that.”

The man held his head, then looked at his hands, closing his eyes when he saw the blood that came back on his fingers.

“It’s okay, Mason.” Instinct took over and she went into nurse mode. He knew who he was, so that was good. “Do you know where you are?”

“I can’t be here.” The man sat up again, obviously panicked. “They took my rats.”

Rats?

“Look at me,” she said soothingly. “I need to see your pupils.”

She peered into his eyes. In a perfect world, she’d shine a flashlight in them, but there were no flashlights. The only light she had now streamed in through the dirty glass panes of the windows. Man, he was good-looking. Too good-looking. And large.

Mason leaned forward on the cot and grabbed her wrists. “It’s you,” he said groggily.

“I’m Emily, I’m taking care of you,” she said gently. “I’m going to clean your wound. It may hurt.”

“I remember you. I saw you that day, when they picked you up. When you got brought in.”

Emily looked at him in horror. He was from the camp, he had to be. She shrank away from him, feeling her heart race. The washrag hung limply from her hand.
Focus, don’t be blinded by fear.

“I remember you. When they took you away, it was me, hiding behind the cab,” Mason said, staring intently into her eyes. “Are you okay?”

She remembered him now, the man who held his finger to his lips. At the time she had assumed he was hiding from the soldiers, just like she had been.

Like she was now.

“You—you’re not one of them?” she asked, hating how weak and scared she sounded.

“No. I’ve got my reasons to hide from the law. Like you, I imagine.”

She laughed, a dry barking sound. “Not like my reason.” Quickly, she quieted herself. The less he knew about her hidden radio, the safer for both of them.

“Are you… Why are you hiding, Mason?” She had to know, as much as she didn’t want to. He was the only man around she could possibly trust—if he truly had nothing to do with the soldiers. As much as she wanted to make it on her own, it didn’t hurt to know who her friends were—and her enemies.

Suddenly, he looked at her suspiciously. “I should never have told you my name.”

“I’m sorry,” Emily whispered. “I saw the tattoo, on your arm. I thought maybe you had been in prison.”

“Do you know what they do to prisoners now, Emily?”

Emily looked at him and cocked her head. “My understanding is they let all the petty criminals go. The ones who were murderers, rapists, pedophiles and psychos they… they shot them. Killed them all so they wouldn’t take up valuable resources.”

“They kill prisoners, huh?” Mason said, staring at her intently, holding her wrists. “So what makes you think I want you spreading rumors about me being in prison?”

“I won’t tell anyone. Not a soul.”

He dropped his hands then, as if suddenly realizing what he was doing. “There’re no computers to track me. No fingerprint files. I’m a blank slate now, and I intend to start over.”

“What did you do?” she whispered.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “And that’s all you need to know. Understand?”

“Okay,” she said softly, and picked up the rag to finish cleaning his wound, grateful to have a task to keep her focused. He wouldn’t need stitches, but she’d have to check him every fifteen minutes or so for a while to make sure he wasn’t suffering from a brain injury.

Not that she could do anything for him if he was. If his head injury was truly serious, then he would just go to sleep and die. She wasn’t about to do brain surgery. She couldn’t even if she knew how.

His T-shirt was saturated with blood—scalps tend to bleed a lot. “Can you… take off your shirt?” she asked tentatively.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said. His face looked flushed, a deep pink coloring his previously pale cheeks. “I’m not—I don’t expect you to—”

She took a step back. “No! That’s not what I meant. I just—your shirt is ruined. Bloody. I can wash it.”

He turned his face from her for a moment as if trying to compose himself.

“Where you gonna wash it?” he asked as he pulled the filthy shirt over his shoulders.

She glimpsed tight abdominal muscles and an incredibly large, smooth chest before the shirt came completely off. He had a sprinkling of crinkly dark hair leading down around his navel, trailing into the waistband of his cargo pants.

Emily sighed. “I don’t know. But I bet one of the shirts I took with me from Grand Central will fit. Might be a bit tight,” she acknowledged as she ruffled through a worn backpack. “Here.”

It was definitely too small, outlining all of his muscles in stark relief. He panted as if the effort of pulling it on had overexerted him.

“I’m sleepy,” he said, lying back down on the hospital bed. “Thank you for taking care of me, Emily. I’m glad I found you.”