Quarantine

Healing

As the group got ready to pack up and leave that morning, Timothy and Dante going in a different room so that the girls could change in privacy, Lexi made her way over to her sister.

"So how are you feeling?" She asked from under her mask.

"I'm sure very similar to how you felt when you found out you could be the answer. What about you- how are you feeling?"

"Still sick- like I usually feel." Lexi replied, her skin still a little pale, but it wasn't as bad as when they were at the apartment alone together, the medicine Yvette had been giving her was helping her. "What about your wound?" Kayla asked.

"It's fine," Lexi said. Kayla gave her a look of disbelief. "No truly, look." Lexi lifted up her pant leg and, while there was still a deep mark from the attack, her leg didn't look infected.

"That's amazing." Kayla said in shock.

"I know, Yvette said she is almost sure I must be immune or I would be in much worse shape."

"That makes me so glad, Lexi."

"Well you should be glad for yourself too. Yvette seems to think you could be immune as well."

Kayla shifted uncomfortably, "Yes, well she doesn't know for sure. She is just going off of the fact that I MAY have been exposed to it a couple of years ago and didn't turn."

"Why didn't you tell me that?" Lexi asked as she started to take a water can out of her pack.

"I didn't know about the Rabid at that time. For all I knew, the people I ran into just had a cold or Covid, I had no idea it was the beginning stages of the Rabid until we saw Red on the bridge the other day. Then I remembered that I had seen someone like that before."

"Well, if you did get exposed to it and now carry the Rabid virus, it would explain why I get sick so often, that's what Yvette thinks." Lexi threw some medication that Yvette had given her earlier with a quick swig of water.

Kayla was hit with guilt again, not only was she the reason Lexi had received the vaccine in the first place, now she was possibly the reason she had been getting sick for so long? "I'm so sorry if it is true."

"Don't be sorry, Kayla, truly. We didn't know." Lexi gave her a small smiled before putting her mask back on over her mouth. Kayla smiled back even though her mouth was covered. "There's something else bothering you?" Lexi said finally.

"No. Well of course. I mean it's not everyday we trek across the country with a group of strangers to be tested in a facility that could possibly help cure people who have turned rabid."

Lexi rolled her eyes, "Other than that."

"I mean, it's just a lot of pressure, isn't it? We COULD be the answer to helping the rabid, but there could be no cure after all is said and done. I'd hate to disappoint...." she paused before saying Timothèe's name, "anyone." Kayla finally finished.

Lexi gave her a knowing look, "Well hopefully, EVERYONE"  meaning Timothèe, "understands that the solution isn't up to us. It's up to the scientist, and all we can do is get there in one piece."

Kayla smiled again under her mask, Lexi was right. At the end of the day, they were going to a safer and better place, everything that happened after was out of her control.

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Timothèe had ridden close to Kayla during the first leg of their travels that day, and Dante close to Lexi's side as always. Yvette stayed in the back of the group, making sure that no one was left behind.