“I’ll try.”
“I want you to lock the door and try,” Nick demanded. “You are exhausted.” When he saw that her eyes began to water, he ran up to her. “Babe…” He grabbed her and held her. She sobbed into his chest. “Talk to me,” he murmured.
“I’m sorry. I just don’t feel well. I keep having contractions. I’m tired, I’m scared, I’m worried about the baby, I’m worried about you.” She continued to sob and curled her free arm around her stomach, as if she was holding the baby, comforting it. It broke my fucking heart.
“I know. I’m sorry.” He brought her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “This may be a good place for us to settle down and have the baby, alright? We’ll see what we find.” He gave her belly a comforting rub, then wiped her tears away. It gave me the warm fuzzies seeing their interaction with one another, regardless of the situation. They loved each another on an amazing level.
Henry jumped back into the truck and drove it around past us. He backed it up against the building so it was out of sight from the road. We all stood near the side entrance, waiting for him. He came around the corner with a rifle slung around his torso. My nerves danced and my throat felt tight as my master locksmith fiancé picked the lock on the side door. He opened it with caution and we all recoiled, waiting for the stench of death to hit us.
There was a lack of the essence of death, which was good because I really feared that. My poor stomach didn’t appreciate the onslaught of the horrific odor of death. We entered the school and, with quiet footsteps, walked through the hall.
We immediately spotted a sign that said CLINIC. Henry held up his fist, signaling us to stop. He touched the door handle. Locked. He pulled out his trusty tool set and, within a couple of seconds, the door popped open. He cleared it and nodded at Nick.
“Claire,” Henry whispered and waved toward the door. She hesitantly approached it. “Stay in here and lock the door.”
“It’ll be alright, babe.” Nick put his hand on the small of her back, urging her inside.
“But…what if something happens to you? How will I know?” He didn’t have an answer for her. She grimaced as the silence continued. He grabbed her arm.
“Claire, please. You need to rest, and you need to stay safe. I don’t want anything happening to you or my little one.” He palmed her belly. She nodded and looked down, and a few tears escaped. Nick kissed her on the forehead. “We will be back for you.” Just before she closed the door, I blew her a kiss. She flashed me a sad smile as she shut the door and turned the lock.
Nick put his hand on the door and his head sagged. He was choking back his tears. I touched his shoulder, and he shook his head. He fought valiantly, trying to not allow his emotions get the best of him.
“It’s going to be okay. I have a good feeling about this.” His jaw trembled as he forced a few deep breaths. We heard Claire sobbing behind the door and it was tearing him to pieces. It took him a moment before he could pull himself away.
We cleared through the majority of the school. We didn’t look into every closet and room that were behind some of the already closed and locked doors, but we were confident all was clear. It was small, but it was beyond grand to us. We discovered a lot of useful supplies. The impression that we got was that it was deserted.
I watched and waited for Henry from the doorway of the cafeteria. He looked ridiculously sexy standing there with his hands on his hips, scanning the room. He turned around and smiled when he saw me.
“Well, let’s bring in our stuff. As long as no one barges in on us, I say it’s ours for now.” Nick took off and jogged down the hall to get to Claire. Thomas, Henry, and I walked down the hall behind him to go out and start unloading the truck.
Once we had unloaded everything, we locked the doors of the school. We chose to live in the first wing of classrooms because they were located in the central area. Our rooms were spaced out a bit from one another so we could have some sort of privacy. I was so happy that we wouldn’t be right next to one another.
The three men went back to the gym and carried all the mats to a bunch of the rooms. It was not quite a bed, but better than the hard floor. They set up Nick and Claire first. She needed to lie down and relax…or try to relax.
Henry and I decided to go check out the pantry in the cafeteria. We were surprised to see that it was fully stocked. Some of it was unusable, unless we channeled our inner colonist. There were hundreds of cans of soups, fruits, vegetables, and meats, and crazy amounts of prepackaged snack foods, juice boxes, and water. I almost felt bad taking it over, but we were in a time of eat or be eaten. I chose to eat.