Marked

“Oh, Ray, honey.” Simone blew Rachel a kiss across the room.

It’d taken a lot of convincing, but Simone had finally agreed to leave the room for her own safety. Since she hadn’t had any direct physical contact with Rachel, it was better for her to quarantine separately until her lab work came back.

“I will be right down the hall. As soon as your test comes back negative-and it will come back negative- I’m coming right back in here, ok?”

“I’ll be counting down the minutes,” Rachel said with a smile.

“I’ll see you in a bit then, my beauty queen.”

Simone departed, led by a nurse into an adjacent room while Doctor Everest and Hector stood in a semi-circle around her.

“Hector, I would advise that quarantine separately as well.”

“Listen doc, my abuelo, he caught something very similar this back on our farm. I can’t be sure what it was, though, since we never took him to a doctor, but my brothers and I took care of him and never got sick. Is that possible?”

“Sometimes, though rare, certain people have natural immunity to certain diseases. The human body is fascinating that way but I think we still need to get you looked at in case you’re a carrier, especially if your grandfather passed away from this.”

“I’ve already been exposed which means you’ll just quarantine me in another room. Let me quarantine here. I’m not leaving Rachel alone.”

Dr. Everest sighed.

He nodded to the nurse that had just finished hooking Rachel up to an IV.

“Keep your mask on and keep your distance,” he said before giving Hector and Rachel a meaningful departing glance.

The door hissed closed after them.

An assortment of instruments lay strewn across her body- a cuff over her arm that would inflate every once in a while, cutting off her circulation, a small gadget over her pointer finger, thin plastic tubes sticking from the inner crease of her elbow.

The vents overhead hissed every now and then, filtering the air in the room to prevent disease from spreading, as Dr. Everest had explained.

The steady beeping of her heart on a monitor began to drive her insane and so was the bouncing of her legs which she couldn’t seem to still no matter how hard she tried.

Hector reached out, one hand steadying her knees, while his weight indented the mattress by her legs as he sat down.

“Doctor Everest said no contact,” She protested.

“He can say it till he’s blue in the face. I’m still not leaving you alone. Rachel sighed. A nurse had given her a mask of her own.

“How are you feeling?” Hector asked.

“I don’t know, a little numb, I think.”

He nodded. “Dr. Everest said he gave you a sedative just in case...”

“I die in a fit of bloody convulsions?”

He grimaced and ran a hand over his face. “You’re not dying today.”

Rachel studied the lines of his face- how worry was etched into his eyes. Glancing at the clock, she realized it was nearing noon. That meant it had been six hours since Ramos had coughed blood all over her.

She was down to sixty-six hours.

“Can you promise me something?”

“Anything,” he replied.

Warmth spread across her chest, a tightening of emotion, mostly affection toward him.

She drew in a deep breath and willed herself not to cry, “If I die, please don’t forget me. I want to live on, even if it’s just in someone’s mind.”

He swallowed hard and picked up her wrists, pressing them to his chest. Someone had had the good sense to give him a shirt and the fabric was smooth and soft beneath her fingertips.

“How could I ever forget you?”

His eyes were sad. She saw in them, a ghost of the sadness she’d seen in him, after his mother and brother had been murdered.

She hated the fact that if she truly was dying, it’d only further solidify the idea that he shouldn’t allow anyone in.

He deserved love and to be loved, even if the prospect of death hung over them every day.

Hector tapped her on the leg and motioned for her to scoot over.

Rachel moved aside and Hector climbed into the hospital bed next to her. He placed an arm under her neck and pulled her close, letting their fingers intertwine and rest against her lap.

Just last night, their kiss had sent her heart soaring with hope and now all she could think was how stubborn they had both been to not admit what they felt for each other. They had wasted so much time. Maybe if she’d told him she cared about him in a way that was more than just a friend they could have shared more memories together, could have allowed this thing to maybe grow into something beautiful.

With her ear pressed to his chest, she could almost pretend everything was right with the world. As he stroked strands of her hair, the steady beating of his heart lulled her into a peaceful state, but she couldn’t bite her tongue for long.

Live like you’re dying, just in case you are.

“Yalina seems to love you a lot...”

“Rachel, we talked about that—”

“No, please, just hear me out. I want you to know that whatever this is—“She gestured between them—“Whatever it is you feel for me, once I die, it’s okay to move on.”

“Don’t say things like that. Please. You’re not dying.”

“But if I do.” she insisted. “I need you to know that you don’t owe me anything, ok? Promise me you won’t close your heart off, Hector. You have to promise me.”

Realizing she wanted an answer, he sighed but his heartbeat quickened against her ear.

“Rachel,” he said, in a pained voice. “I don’t think I could say no to you even if I wanted to. I promise.”

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you,” she said, “You deserve all the love in the world, Hector.”

His brown eyes scanned her face, softening.

“I never got it, Ray, this idea of love. At least not in this world.” He muttered, his chin moving slightly over the crown of her head where it rested as he spoke. “Before the transition, you were free to fall in love with whoever you wanted, get married, have children. But what do any of us really have to look forward to in this life? Persecution? Starvation? Death?”

“I get that.”

He nodded. “So I thought I had it all planned out, you know? I’d live on the farm for the rest of my life, take care of my parents, watch my sisters grow up. And then, if life was good to me, maybe I’d even die a noble death- protecting my family or saving someone I cared about from the capital or something—but love was never really in the equation.”

“Were you not in love with Yalina, then?” She asked gently. She didn’t want there to be any jealousy or accusation in her voice- she was simply curious.

Did Hector know what it was like to love someone the way she wished someone would love her before she died?

“Well- that’s hard to explain. Our families expected us to end up together. There weren’t many options, so in a way we both just settled.”

“When you love someone, I think you just know. You don’t have any doubts. Your answer is yes—always yes.”

“I suppose I didn’t love her, then. Don’t get me wrong, I really did care for her, but we would argue all the time, this constant fighting. We never agreed on anything.”

“So, what happened? Why did she think you were dead when she first saw you?”

“We had a pretty bad fight one night and she took off into the woods on a horse and didn’t return for a few days. Around the same time poachers raided our fields- both her home and ours-- and I’m assuming by the time she came back she didn’t find anyone left. She must have assumed we were all dead.”

“It must be terrible, coming back to find everyone you now gone.”

“I bet,” he said. “Those first few days after she left were hell for me too. I’ve carried this guilt with me ever since because it was my job to take care of her and I failed. No matter how hard I try, I always fail. Just look at what happened to Jose and my sisters.”

Rachel stroked circles onto the back of his hand. She shivered a little and though her body still felt deliciously numb, she felt cold.

“I know what you mean. After my brother ran away to the city to be marked, I felt responsible for it too. I thought that maybe if I had tried harder, maybe he would have stayed. But with time I began to realize that there was nothing I could have done to change things just like there’s nothing you could have done either. It’s not your fault people die. None of it is, you understand?”

“Maybe you’re right but when you love someone you want to protect them and sometimes...sometimes you just can’t.” He looked at her then with his big, brown eyes and she shrank back against the pillows.

“Anyway, after Yalina I changed the plan. I decided I wasn’t ever going to feel anything for anyone. The less people you love, the less you can be hurt.”

“Hurting is a part of life, Hector. It’s...unavoidable.” She said. “Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t love.”

“Rachel," He sat up, shifting to meet her eyes. He ran his thumb across her palm where her hand was cradled in his. His face was mostly obscured by his mask, but his eyes were perfectly open and clear and burning with emotion. "I--I don’t know if I love you yet. But I think I could. I think you’re someone I could love a whole damn lot and that scares the hell out of me.”

A slow blush worked its way up her neck and onto her face. She swallowed, her heart beating fast, her fingers twitching to touch him, run her fingers through his hair.

“That first night after the compound was destroyed and I saw how vulnerable and small you looked,” He broke eye contact and chuckled. “Well, I just wanted to protect you. I know that sounds silly and cheesy but--”

“It’s not,” She interrupted. “It’s sweet.”

“Yeah, well, I guess I’m just a sucker for pretty girls that need saving.” He admitted.

He pressed his forehead to hers and was quiet for a few moments.

“So when I took you to the simulation room and I saw that you wanted me to kiss you, I sort of panicked—”

“I didn’t—” She stammered but he cut her off.

“It’s okay, I wanted to kiss you too. I never wanted anything so badly in my life. I was just being a coward.”

His eyes met hers and it shattered her, the look in them, the intensity, the desire set her on fire.

"It's all I wanted then and all I want now. Something about being near you, Rachel, it gives me hope."

Rachel reached up with the hand not connected to wires and ran her fingertips across his jaw, just barely exposed beneath his mask.

Hector closed his eyes.

"Hector," she whispered. "I never told you this, but out there in the forest...when we were with Charles, and everything seemed so hopeless. It was only your bravery that inspired me to keep going. You're so brave...so noble."

He let out a small, breathy chuckle.

"I think you believe more in me then I do.

“Yes," she said. "I believe you can do anything. Including saving the compound kids. With or without me.”

He shut his eyes closed tightly again and drew in a deep breath and grimaced as if the gesture caused him physical pain.

“Please, Rachel, you’re not dying.

As if fate wanted to challenge the validity of his word, Rachel suddenly broke into a fit of coughs.

She felt it before she saw it; the taste of blood, warm and metallic in her mouth. The sudden proof of her sickness and impending death settled slowly into her stomach.

She thought of swallowing it so Hector wouldn’t worry more about her but it was too late now- blood spewed out the sides of her mask with her next cough, leaving a slowly spreading stain on the crisp, white hospital sheets.

She turned away from Hector and coughed up blood again.

A/N What do you think is going to happen to Rachel, reader? How do you think she will make it out of this one?