“We’ll still need water.” Simon stared at the bottled water stacked in the dining room. “That’s okay for drinking, but we’ll need more for washing and flushing.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we have to.” She fell into the overstuffed leather couch and propped her feet on the coffee table. “Now, we rest, collect our wits and figure out what kind of rolling house we want.” She waved him over. “Bring the first aid kit. We need to replace your wrap.”
Simon sat next to her, handing her the first aid kit. “You still want to look for a mobile home?”
“An RV. Yeah. Something we can stock up and have standing by in case we need to hit the road.” She unwrapped his arm and sat back, her nose wrinkling.
“What’s wrong.”
She gave him a worried look. “It smells horrible.” She turned him slightly so that they could use the light from the window. “I think the infection is getting worse, not better.”
Simon sighed. “I need a strong antibiotic.”
She reached for the alcohol and gave him a sad face. “I’m sorry, baby. This is going to hurt.” She swallowed. “A lot.”
Simon sighed as he sat back and turned his arm toward her. “I wish I had something to bite into.”
She glanced around the room then picked up an old magazine. She rolled it up and handed it to him. “Try not to bite through the Architectural Digest. There might be some cool ideas in there for our dream home.”
Simon clamped the magazine in his jaws and squeezed his eyes shut.
The fire that shot up his arm and into neck was almost as bad as the fire that shot down his arm and into his fingers. He screamed as his teeth sank in the glossy paper.
As she emptied the bottle into the wound, Simon fell back, his eyes rolling up into his head. She started to panic until she realized that he had only swooned and hadn’t blacked out. “I’m sorry, baby,” she cooed as she blew on the wound.
She quickly applied an alcohol soaked pad then wrapped it with more gauze. She tore open a new ACE bandage and began to wrap the arm as Simon whimpered into the pillow. “Fuck me, that hurts.”
“I’ll tear apart the house and find you some antibiotic.” She finished wrapping the stretchy fabric then clamped it with the metal fasteners. “I’ll go look now.”
Simon fell back and took deep breaths. “If you can’t find any, you know what that means.”
She stuck her head out of the bathroom and shook her head. “We ain’t cutting off your arm.”
He sat up and stared at her. “I was gonna say we’d have to find a pharmacy.” He swallowed hard and stared at her as she made a surprised face.
“That’s what I meant.” She smiled at him then disappeared.
He continued to stare at where she’d been and shook his head. Under his breath he muttered, “We’re gonna have to work on our communication skills.”
26
Hatcher stepped out of the truck and walked back into the compound. Roger sat in his office drinking coffee and Hatcher had to do a double take. “What are you doing out of bed?”
Roger smiled at him. “Vic gave me my walking papers.” He pointed to the sling wrapped around his arm and tied behind his neck. “This is supposed to keep me from moving it too much and maybe opening the wounds again.” He stood from the chair and reached for the coffee pot. “As long as I don’t spring a leak, I’m cleared for limited duty.”
Hatcher raised a brow as Roger poured him a cup of coffee. “And Candy is okay with this?”
Roger shrugged slightly, wincing at his shoulder. “She said that if it would help me to heal faster, she was okay with it.” He put the pot back and took his seat again. “I’ve been going over the damages from the attack and the fires.” He shook his head slowly. “I can’t believe I missed the fires.”
“You were a little busy bleeding all over the triage.” Hatcher sat at his desk and reached for the paperwork Roger had. “How far have they come on the repairs?”
“Security cameras are back up and running. Will had to replace a couple of them.”
Hatcher looked up, surprised. “Where’d he find replacements?”
Roger pointed to the monitors. “He readjusted two of them to cover a wider area and moved some others. We still have full perimeter coverage, but we’re physically down two.”
“Okay,” Hatcher groaned. “We’ll make do with what we have.” He glanced at Roger. “At least, until we move from here.”
Roger nodded absently then looked up. “We’re moving?”
Hatcher leaned back in his chair and eyed his friend carefully. “If you’re moving out, others will want to as well.”
“I was just bouncing ideas around.”
Hatcher grinned at him knowingly. “That’s why you were talking to Candy about it?”
“How could you possibly…” Roger’s face fell. “Hank. I forgot that he walked in on us.”
“It’s okay. I knew you were serious about it when you told me.” Hatcher shrugged. “I’m glad you told me first before somebody else did.”
“I was just bouncing the idea off of Candy.” He sat forward, lowering his voice. “The idea of raising a kid here? I mean, yeah, it might be nice for them to have other kids to play with, but this isn’t my idea of a home. Not a permanent one, anyway.”
“You don’t have to explain to me, pal. I understand completely.” He sipped his coffee. “What did Candy say?”
Roger shrugged again. “She said that once I was healed up, we could look around.” He grinned at Hatcher. “But she wants to make sure that it’s secure.”
“Makes sense.” He leaned back in his chair again and nodded to Roger. “What do you think about maybe all of us finding a subdivision or something? Make it a community.” Roger raised his brows. “I may have spoken to Will about it and he may have said that most of our resources could
