Read Online Lives We Lost,The by Megan Crewe - Free Book Online

Leo
agreed.
“Okay,” Tessa said. “I’d rather take a chance on the vaccine than
see what happens if we’re exposed without it.”
Leo wavered a moment longer and then said, “All right. Let’s
do this.”
“Then we’ll have three samples left,” Gav said. “Because I don’t
want it.”
“Gav,” I started, and he motioned for me to wait.
“Give us a moment?” he said to the others.
He took my hands as Tessa and Leo drifted away to help Tobias
set up the stove. “Kae,” he said. “I can see why you want to do this. It just doesn’t feel right to me. If I get some false sense of security from a vaccine that turns out not to be effective, maybe I’ll make a mistake I wouldn’t have otherwise. I don’t want to have that idea
in my head, that I’m safe.”
“So just take it and assume it does nothing,” I said. “We have
no idea how bad it’ll be in the city, Gav.”
“I know,” he said, and swallowed. “But I still—you know, my
mom was one of the first to catch it? When we started hearing
the news, all she’d say was, ‘Someone’ll come up with a cure in a
few days, it’ll all be fine, it always is.’ She was so convinced that
the doctors and the scientists could solve all our problems that
she didn’t take precautions, she didn’t worry. And now she’s lying
somewhere in the quarry with all the other thousands of people
the virus has killed.”
“You’d never be like that,” I protested.
“No,” he said. “But taking the vaccine is going to change how
I think. No one has that much control over their mind. You know
that.”
I did. I also knew how much it would hurt him, if I said I
wasn’t letting him on the truck unless he took the vaccine, that
I’d rather he stayed on the island. It wasn’t fair of me, was it, to
force something on him that he felt so strongly about, so that I
didn’t have to worry as much? It was his decision. He was already
doing so much for me.
“You have to be incredibly careful,” I said. “No playing the hero.” “No hero business,” he agreed. “We’re both coming back here
safe, Kae. I promise.”
The resolve in his eyes made everything else around me fade
away. The cold. The long road ahead. The other boy who might be watching us right now. I slid my hand around his neck and kissed him. Gav kissed me back, his gloved fingers cupping my cheek. And for the space of that moment, at least, I believed what he’d said too.
seven
    Our first day on the road, we passed homes and warehouses and off-ramps leading into towns, but we only stopped twice, by stretches of vacant land, to pour all our extra gasoline into the tank and to switch drivers. Now and then I caught a glimpse of what looked like chimney smoke in the distance, but that was the only sign of anyone still living. The truck’s tires hissed endlessly over the snow-covered freeway.
    For the first time, the gravity of what Leo had told us about the mainland completely sank in. The rest of the country hadn’t been callously ignoring our island’s plight. They’d been so overwhelmed they couldn’t even save themselves.
    In the middle of the second morning, Tobias wiggled a finger toward the dashboard and said, “We should stop at the next town with a clear enough exit ramp. Gas is getting low.”
    He’d been sounding more confident since he’d taken the wheel the day before. Guilt pinched me. I’d snuck Tessa and Leo into the harbor office before I gave them their doses of the vaccine, to avoid any argument. I wasn’t going to offer something so precious to someone I hardly knew who was only helping us out of obligation. Who might run like he did from the army base if things got tough. But it was harder to think that way with Tobias sitting next to me, drumming his fingers on the wheel in time with a tune he was humming.
    I shifted Meredith on my lap and peered at the map book. We’d passed the signs announcing we were entering New Brunswick just a few hours before we’d stopped