My Precious Nightmare

Chapter 43: Quarantine

Lea woke up in a dim room on a hard bed. She drifted among the white-washed cinder block walls. There was a toilet across the room. The light wasn't coming from the room itself, though, but from the front, which was made of metal bars, thin, and well placed so not even a small hand such as her own could get out.

She sat up, only to regret it as her head tried to fall off her neck. A machine beeped loudly, words scrolling across the digitized screen faster than she could read. A deflated bag, still lined with red, fed a tube down through the machine where it ended under a plastic sheet in her arm. Her mouth tasted like steel, and she winced at the inhuman smell clogging her nostrils. At least she was warm now. Hot packs and blankets had been stuffed and thrown about her with deliberate care, which contrasted with the tiny cell she now found herself in.

Somewhere, she heard a chair squeak.

"How are we feeling?" came a small, petite voice.

Lea rolled her head around to get a look out the bars, where a young woman in blue scrubs had appeared.

Now she was really confused.

"Why am I in a prison?" she asked, then squinted. "Or is this some weird sort of asylum?"

The little nurse gave a tight smile. "We have to be sure you don't show any signs of infection before you can be released. The cell is only to protect others should you be infected."

"Infected?"

"By whatever virus is causing this vampiric-like disease. You were admitted with blood loss and puncture wounds consistent with an attack by one who is infected, so it is just a precautionary measure." She wrote on her clipboard as she said this with the tone of one who had to repeat that one too many times, and without any breaks.

Oh.

"Don't worry," she said, the scratching of her pen sort of comforting. "We'll do everything we can to make you comfortable until you're checked out. You've done nothing wrong."

Lea looked at the bare, empty toilet and the tiny sink beside it and had a hard time believing that.

"The bars and brick are a little extreme though," said Lea conversationally, even though in her gut she knew it wasn't. Husani had already told her of the inhuman strength vampires could possess, as well as their ferocity when taken over by their instincts. Thus, she was only half invested in the conversation. A major part of her still felt like she was back in the smelly closet getting colder and colder as she fell deeper into the dark.

It wasn't like she'd ever have the power to do anything about getting out of the jail, just like she'd had no power to get out of the closet.

The nurse didn't respond to this. She glanced back up at Lea a few times, asked her general questions about her throat, which had been bandaged, to her energy levels, appetite, etc. All Lea's answers reflected her emotional state: dark, bland, and empty. She almost didn't care to think how she had gotten here. It didn't really matter.

Husani rose to her mind, his warm arms tight about her and a spike of heat went through her. It was her only memory after she had fallen asleep in the closet, and even then it was more of a dream. But it had to be him. She'd smelled his lemon and sage scent. He had been asleep in her room when she'd been kidnapped. Perhaps he'd come down to find her and then followed the scent of her kidnapper.

But, then, if he had brought her here, and if they were locking up everyone who was bitten by a vampire, what would they do with an actual vampire?

A sudden thrill of fear clenched her gut.

"What happens to those who are infected?"

The nurse didn't so much as pause in her writing. "They are taken elsewhere so they do not disrupt the recovery of those who are not, where they can wait in safety for a cure."