Broussard reached out tentatively and checked her wrist. “Pulse is still strong.” He let go and stepped back.
After a moment, the woman’s eyes fluttered open and she looked around the room, fear in her eyes. Tammy stepped closer and looked down at her. “Can you understand me?”
The woman nodded slightly and tried to speak past the ball gag choking her. Tammy looked to Andre who nodded, then she reached for the straps holding the gag. “I’m just going to remove this.”
The woman spit a piece of the rubber from her mouth then looked at the researchers. “What’s…going on?”
“I don’t believe it,” Carol muttered. She looked to Andre and shook her head. “You’re batting a thousand.”
“Not yet.” He stepped closer and leaned over the woman. “Can you tell me your name?”
She nodded. “Deborah Winegard.” She swallowed and looked at the other researchers. “Where am I?”
“You’re still in Cheyenne Mountain,” Tammy replied gently. “Do you remember anything?”
The woman slowly shook her head. “Not really.” She swallowed hard. “Can I have a drink of water?”
Tammy quickly stuffed a straw into a bottle of water and let the woman sip from it. “How about before?”
“Before what?”
Tammy looked to Broussard who shook his head. “Do you remember coming to the facility?”
“Of course.” She coughed slightly and tried to sit up. “Why am I tied down?” She started to panic then looked at the foot of the table at the infected man staring at her. “Oh my god! He’s one of them!”
Andre waved William away and tried to calm her down. “Please, I need you to relax.”
She struggled with her bindings then broke down and started to cry. “There’s poo in my pants.” She sobbed as the realization struck her.
“Great,” Carol sighed. “She’s more concerned with her hygiene than what’s happened to her.”
“Not so quick.” Broussard held a hand up and patted the woman’s cheek, slapping at her but not hard enough to hurt her. “Hey, hey Deborah…I need your attention.”
The woman sobered somewhat and stared at him, her face still betraying her fear. “Wh…what?” she choked out between sobs.
“I need to know what you remember and what you don’t.”
She shook her head then squeezed her eyes shut. “We went out for some sunshine.” She sniffed back tears, her lower lip quivering. “We came back in that night and…and some of the people started fighting.” She inhaled ragged breaths then opened her eyes. “They got infected, didn’t they? They attacked.”
Broussard narrowed his gaze at her. “You were included in that group.”
She nodded. “I know. I went out there with them.”
He shook his head. “You became violent.” He nodded to the side. “Like them.”
She turned her head and gasped. “Oh my god…” Her eyes rolled back in her head and she passed out.
Broussard sighed as he stood up again. “This is not going as I had hoped.”
“The human mind can only accept so much at one time,” Tammy stated. “Apparently, hers maxed at that point.”
Carol stepped up and patted Andre’s shoulder. “But, you found the way through to her.” She inhaled deeply. “Now to see if it’s a ‘one and done’ application or if she’s going to need a steady supply of LSD to be able to function.”
“Fingers crossed,” William replied.
“I can’t believe that they pussied out,” Lana huffed as she fell onto the mattress. “I was so wanting to celebrate their executions.”
Simon raised a brow at her. “It wasn’t our decision, my love.”
“Sure it was.” She turned and gave him a confused look. “You’re the new leader. You should have just proclaimed them guilty then blew their heads off.” She pointed her finger to his temple and ‘pulled’ the trigger. “Bang. Splat. Go to breakfast.”
Simon sighed and fell back onto the mattress. “It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
He opened his eyes and stared at her. “They have to need us.” He sat up and took her hand. “If we roll in here, especially being new, and say, ‘I’m mad at these assholes because they wanted to do bad things’ and then shoot them without anybody’s say so? They won’t follow us willingly.”
“Who cares if they follow out of fear?” She stood and planted her feet, staring down at him. “They SHOULD fear us.”
Simon shook his head. “Those days are over. There are far too few people left to try to ride roughshod over them. They’d just run away or worse…turn on us.”
She shook her head. “No. They’re all too squeamish to stand up to you.”
“I’m not saying stand up to us, I’m saying run away.” He pulled her to him and gave her a gentle smile. “You want them to follow us, right? You want to be Empress, yeah?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“In order for that to work and I mean, REALLY work, they gotta love us.” He pulled her to him. “They have to want us to lead them.”
She groaned as she fell to the bed next to him. “Fine,” she sighed.
“No…come on now. You have to be onboard completely.”
She rolled over and punched the mattress. “I don’t like it, but I’ll go with it.” She turned and narrowed her gaze at him. “How long will it take?”
“How long will what take?”
She sat up and punched him playfully. “For them to fall in love with us?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Who knows.” He pulled her back down to him and kissed her forehead. “However long it takes.”
She snuggled in next to him and rested her head on his chest. “I don’t like to wait.”
“I know.” He patted her arm then rubbed his good hand up and down her back. “But I can tell you this. As long as Trent and the nutsack twins are out there threatening them, they’ll be looking to us for protection.”
She looked up at him. “You really think? They sure weren’t too keen on offing those assholes.”
“People don’t like to get
