He jerks me into the emergency decontamination room, and he jerks my shirt over my head while flipping on the radiation sprayer.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“That blood could be contaminated by who the fuck knows what. We’ll take a radiation shower, and then we’ll burn these damn clothes along with anything else we’re wearing until we know for sure what’s going on. I’m not going to risk you turning into something like that,” he asserts, and then he starts jerking off his own shirt.
“Hale, we’re not human. We can’t be infected,” I grumble while throwing my boots into a burn basket.
“We don’t know what that thing was, and the doctor’s pulse was starting to pick back up. I sealed the room on the way out.”
My scalp prickles at the mere thought of this infecting us. Dr. Campbell is… or was… a hybrid. What the hell can infect hybrids?
Hale grabs the emergency switch, and he tosses his phone along with mine into the burn pile. The intercom picks up immediately with Clay’s voice on the other end.
“Dr. Campbell, what’s wrong?” Clay frets.
“It’s Hale. Campbell is dead… for now. Get someone down here to test us. This is a new outbreak,” Hale murmurs, and more chills slide up and down me as I follow his gaze.
Dr. Campbell is pressed against the glass that surrounds the lab as he pounds uselessly against the unbreakable layers. It takes all my strength not to say something as cliché as it’s alive.
“Us? Who is us?” Clay urges, knocking me out of my trance, terror slowly stealing my mind with one crazy thing at a time.
“Araya is with me,” Hale exhales, and then he rips my pants from my body before jerking me to him. “We’re taking a radiation shower now.”
“Good. That should kill anything you’ve come into contact with in the last twenty to thirty minutes.”
“I’d like to be safe about this. Find someone to test us.”
“I’ll test you myself,” Clay interjects.
“You’re the commander. It wouldn’t be wise for you to risk your life. Just find someone else.”
“No one else here is better with science than I am. I’ll be there in a damn minute. Stay under the radiation for at least ten minutes. I’ll be in the airlock. Have you sealed the premises?”
“Yes I have, and Dr. Campbell is back with us. It’s official. It affects hybrids.”
There’s silence on the other end of the intercom, and Hale flips the emergency lever back down to end the communication while separating my hair under the stream of water laced with heavy radioactivity. He carefully massages it into my scalp, and my trembling body leans against his as I stand there with only my bra and panties. His underwear is all that covers his masterpiece of a body, then I feel him turning me around so my back can face the showering flow.
“I’m sorry, Araya. I should have secured this place before letting you in,” he murmurs guiltily.
“It’s not your damn place to care for me. Besides, how would you have known the damn thing would come back to life? I would have went in there alone if you hadn’t come with me,” I grumble, and I feel his body shiver at the thought.
“I-”
“Here,” I murmur to interrupt his guilty monologue while turning him into the shower head. “You need to get this shit off you too.”
He smirks as my body presses against his so we can both stay under the radioactive shower. I roll my eyes at his grinning face, and then he hands me a bottle of a lotion-like liquid.
“What’s that?” I muse as he squirts a large amount in my hand.
“It’s a compound designed to lightly infiltrate our skin so the radiation can seep past the top layer. You’re going to have to remove your underwear now and the ring as well.”
I shiver slightly, and I start rubbing my body down with the new substance. I feel a dull burning, almost tingling sensation. Then I remove my bra and panties to toss them to the burn pile. I place my ring in the radiation chamber meant for keepsakes in case the virus is found not to be airborne.
Hale’s eyes widen as my breasts reveal themselves to him, and he cracks his neck to the side before rubbing the substance over his chest. He removes his boxers, and they get tossed into the burn pile as well. Now I’m forced to look at his erection that swears he’s still turned on by me.
Great.
I force myself to look away, and he smiles when he catches my stray eyes.
