“He’s my big brother.”
I grasped a tongue depressor from my kit and twirled it around—the younger people in camp seemed to like that. “Let’s have a look.”
She didn’t react to the twirling, but she obediently opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue, allowing me to have a look at the reddish mass that was her throat.
I winced. “That can’t feel good. And…your brother? I just saw him.”
“Yeah, he said I should ask for you. Said you’re nice. Not like her.”
Her gaze darted around, as if she feared Lattimore would appear just by referencing her.
She wore regular clothing, but I’d quickly learned that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Soldiers might change out of their uniforms from time to time. “Civilian or Army?” I asked.
“Army, but I’m not very good at it. Kind of skated through Basic and probably would have gotten out if all this shit hadn’t happened.” She lifted a hand and her eyes skyward.
“Did you follow Logan, or did he follow you?” I should have stopped her from talking and just conducted the exam, but she was a nice change from my current roommates.
“Eh. I think I followed him. He loved it. I got a divorce and lost everything and thought it’d give me a fresh start. Or at least station me somewhere away from my ex.” She rolled her eyes. “Didn’t think I’d wind up right near Logan, but hey.” A mischievous smile crossed her face. “Did you really come here from Elderwood?”
“Yes. They’re worried about you guys.” I peered into her throat, up her nose, and started feeling around her neck. It felt normal enough, though her skin seemed colder than it ought to be, and almost…clammy.
I stepped back to look her over. “It doesn’t quite look like the start of the flu, to be honest.”
“I didn’t think it was,” she said as I fished a stethoscope out of my kit. “But it’s not a cold, either. It’s just lingering and Logan was hassling me and, well…”
I had her sit up straight and placed the stethoscope against her ribcage. “Breathe in…breathe out.”
Her lungs sounded clear enough. No fluid sloshing around. That was good. Her heart was a little bit rapid, but she might just be nervous about visiting the medical tent—I was sure a good number of her buddies didn’t come out of here. “Good,” I said. “Blood pressure time.”
I wrapped the cuff around her upper arm and squeezed the ball. She sat very still, her gaze fixed on something I couldn’t quite see. I half-turned and realized she was looking at a puddle of blood on the ground.
Oh, gross.
“Someone should have cleaned that,” I said. I was pretty sure that someone was Dax, who would probably vomit if I asked him to clean it…which meant I was going to end up busting out the mop.
Her blood pressure was low. I frowned at it. Could just be a cold, maybe. Or one of any number of new viruses that had cropped up in the admittedly unique circumstances of our changing environment.
It was nothing I would run screaming to the doctor about, but still…
“Open your mouth again,” I said.
She did so, and I peered down her throat with a small light. The redness seemed to emanate from further down than I could see. “When did this start?”
“Last week.”
Interesting.
I pretended to rummage through my gear as I tried to make my brain fit her symptoms together. “So Logan’s a sniper. What did you do?”
“Communications. Radio, mostly, since getting here.”
I didn’t even pretend to look only professionally interested anymore. Here, sitting in front of me, was part of the very reason Tony had been dispatched to Hastings in the first place: the radio silence. I turned around, my eyes widening. “You worked on the radio? Why the hell did you guys stop talking to us?”
She stared at me for a split second, confusion plain on her face. “What?”
“We came here because Hastings stopped responding to hails. General Hammond thinks you all got munched!” I left out the part where Elderwood might well have fallen after we left—Alyssa seemed harmless enough, but maybe that was news we didn’t want spread around.
Alyssa gnawed at her lower lip. “The radio broke a few weeks ago,” she said. “I don’t know how long anymore. It was right before the shit with Durkee went down. After that, Keller rearranged people. He put me in processing.”
I stood in front of her, all hope of actually being medicinal fleeing my brain. Finally I cleared my throat and said, “They didn’t fix the radio?”
“My CO asked for parts or a completely new radio a bunch of times. Since Keller was shifting people around, I figured that meant they’d gotten it up and running again…just that no one was answering.”
“Who did he put in charge of the radio instead?”
She shrugged. “Guys he knew, I guess.”
I filed that piece of information away.