novelraw Chapter 84: Four Days Later
Chapter 84: Four Days Later
The silence didn’t feel right.
Zubair’s eyes opened slowly to shadows pooling in the corners of the ceiling. His chest rose once, then again, uneven and shallow like he’d surfaced from deep underwater.
The room was still. Stale. And it stank like a locker room full of gym clothes.
He blinked, his eyes blurring for a second before going back to normal, then he sat up.
The sheets beneath him were soaked. The pillow damp beneath his head. The air inside the bedroom felt thick, like it hadn’t been stirred in days. He rolled his shoulders. Nothing cracked. Nothing ached. Even the dull throb in his arm from the infected wound had vanished.
He pressed his fingers to it, expecting pain. There was none. No crusted blood. No scab. Just skin—smooth and warm.
Too warm.
Zubair looked down at his arms. At his chest. Every inch of him radiated heat, like a furnace just below the surface. Not the icy fever of infection. This was something else. Something... internal.
It felt like heat lived under his ribs now.
Slow, low, coiling.
He swung his legs off the bed, testing his weight. No dizziness. No nausea. His knees didn’t protest. Old aches were gone. The stiffness from last week’s fall during the supply run—gone. Even the bone he’d cracked two years ago in the Hindukush wasn’t singing in the cold anymore.
It was like... nothing hurt.
Zubair stood. The room creaked faintly under his step, but not as much as he remembered. He reached for the dresser that had been wedged against the door. It slid aside easier than expected.
The door creaked open.
He stepped out—
And stopped.
Elias was standing just outside the threshold, a clipboard in hand, and his eyes flicking up at the sound as if he wasn’t expecting Zubair to be leaving his room at that moment.
Zubair didn’t hesitate.
His hand shot forward, and in one smooth motion, he slammed Elias back against the hallway wall, forearm across the other man’s throat.
"I promised you," Zubair growled, voice low and tight, "if I ever got out, I’d kill you."
Elias’s eyes widened in confusion as he frantically looked around as if that would give him a clue as to what was going on.
Zubair pressed down against his throat harder so that even moving his head was impossible. "Or did you think I’d forgotten?"
"Holy shit," grunted a voice that Zubair recognized even through the cloud fogging up his brain. "What happened that Zaddy is wanting to kill the Doc?" continued Noah, walking into the hallway ahead of Alexei, Lachlan, and Sera.
It took Zubair less than a second to catalogue all the people, the potential threats, and to notice that Lachlan was no longer blue.
"Sheesh," continued Noah like everything was a joke. "You send me off to play babysitter to a bunch of stuffy officers at the rec center and the moment I get back, you are trying to kill each other. So come on, tell me, what did I miss?"
"The next word out of your mouth will result in me ripping out your tongue and forcing you to eat it," snarled Zubair, his eyes flashing for a moment as he struggled for control. "Don’t think that I forgot about you, either."
"I should hope that you hadn’t forgotten about me," chuckled Noah, apparently not understanding just how close he was getting to being killed. "You might not want me on your team, but you are stuck with me until the higher ups tell you otherwise."
"Okay," sighed Sera, weaving her way between Lachlan and Alexei where the two men were standing in front of her, their arms cross in front of them. "Since no one else is going to stop it, I will. Zubair, let him go. He has done nothing wrong besides pacing back and forth in front of your door for four days, freaking out that you might need him. Did you really have to put so much stuff in front of your door?"
"Four days?" grunted Zubair, his eyes training on Sera like she was either his savior or his demise. "I don’t understand."
"Yeah," replied Sera putting her hand on his forearm and gently pushing it down. "That’s a common theme with you guys. Put him down. I already promised you that I wouldn’t let you kill any of your men, and I meant it. You aren’t yourself right now. Let’s go down into the forest and talk there... yeah?"
"You could also try a Snickers," sneered Noah, not moving from where he had almost plastered himself against Sera’s back. "I hear that helps when you are hangry."
Zubair grunted once with a stiff nod before releasing Elias.
The other man rubbed his throat, his eyes narrowing on Zubair. "I forgive you," he said, taking in a deep breath before picking up the clipboard he had dropped in the confrontation. "Don’t beat yourself up over it."
Zubair looked at the man up and down. "I didn’t ask for your forgiveness, and I definitely don’t forgive you. Stay out of my sight for now. Why don’t you and Noah go back to the rec center and see when the military are going to pick everyone up. I’m tired of trying to find supplies for them."
With those parting words, he stormed down the hall, pushing past Lachlan and Alexei before throwing open the back door.
"Will you be okay?" asked Lachlan, cocking his head to the side as he stared at the path Zubair took.
"Do you really think I won’t be?" smirked Sera. "But don’t bother making dinner for the two of us. This might take a while."
"Got anymore bear?" asked Alexei, already turning around and going to the fridge. "I haven’t had such good meat since the old country."
"Look in the freezer. If not here, then in the garage," replied Sera absently as she wave him away. "If not, I’m sure that I will find some."