Chapter 4

Forget Me Not

Fire season picks up after that. They spend two months bouncing from hotel to motel, slowly using up their financial cushion, mostly hanging out inside to hide from the weather. Soon they'll have to hustle again, but right in that moment, they're too busy kicking each other's asses in fighting games.

"I got us a six pack this morning," Nat says, putting their handheld aside.

"Yeah?" Ron asks. "The good stuff?"

"Absolutely not." They get up to pull the alcopops out of the cooling box of the hotel room. "They keep that behind lock and key around these parts. I had to pay for this with our actual money."

"Damn." He holds his hand up high. "Gimme anyways. I'll take it."

Nat cracks the corn Styrofoam six pack apart and hands him a bottle, then takes one for themself, putting the rest back.

"Twelve percent," Ron reads out, eyebrows raised, turning the glass bottle in his hand as Nat sits back down on the floor.

"You want to cheers on surviving?"

"Sure," he snorts. While he pulls the bottle cap off with his teeth, Nat hits theirs against the edge of the hotel bed. The drinks fizz, dark purple in brown glass.

"Cheers to yet more bullshit coped with," Nat holds theirs out.

"Cheers to that," Ron clinks his bottle against theirs. "To way more bullshit to come." Then they both throw back the first gulp.

"...Eugh," Nat notes.

"Have had worse."

"Oh well."

They fall silent. The air filter dins. Ron's handheld is still blaring the title music to Beat Down Brawl Five, but neither of them reaches to turn it off. Outside, the sky glows orange.

"We've got 2k left in the bank," he says quietly.

"We will have to find work again soon, yeah."

"Probably before the end of the season. Want to do some internet scams?"

"I'd hate to get investigated again. That needs more preparation."

"Got any better ideas?"

Nat takes another long sip of the alcopop. "We could go west. Take some money off some lithium rushers."

"In this shit weather?"

"A fair point."

Another silence spreads between them. Nat tugs at their shirt to get some airflow against their unbound chest. It's too hot for more than one layer. Luckily, the alcohol tastes a little better with every sip. Maybe they don't mind it all that much.

"Been meaning to talk to you about heading south again," Ron says.

"South?"

"Yeah. We could hit that Joseph guy up for some jobs. And, y'know. Check on Teo."

"Teo?" Nat asks. "You're still worried about him?"

Ron rubs his face. "Yeah. He's been real shit at answering my texts. I'm talking weeks in between replies instead of days now."

"Hm." Nat looks down the neck of their bottle. "Are you still into him?"

Ron sputters, spilling a splash of purple onto his naked leg. "Dude, fuck off," he grouches as he wipes it with his hand. Lower, he adds: "And you know that's not the right question to ask anyways."

"What is the right question?"

"Fuck off," he repeats. "What, are you jealous about him too?"

"I am not jealous," they point their bottle at him in protest. "And what do you mean too?"

He rolls his eyes. "Oh, come on. You got so shitty with Matcha over me flirting with her that she's not texting me back at all. I'm pretty sure she just straight up blocked my number."

"It wasn't because I was jealous!" they huff, trying to cover up a pang of anxiety at the mention of her name. "Of course you're allowed to flirt with people, just like I am! It isn't like we're dating. I just didn't like her, and I have no idea why you do. She is so grating." Was.

"Yeah, yeah." Ron delays another answer by drinking, having to lift it higher and higher, apparently burning through his bottle faster than Nat.

"No, I'm serious. This was a deeply personal thing. Especially because she was state employed. Why would you want to talk to a fed any more than necessary?"

"She was fine," he huffs. "You barely even talked to her. She's not as much of a stickler as you think she is."

"Still. It isn't like you could have told her just about anything about yourself. She would rat you out in a heartbeat. She wouldn't get it."

Ron turns his head away from them, then, his gaze on something a lot further away than the walls of their small hotel room. "Yeah. Me and you against the world, I guess."

"...Yeah," Nat agrees quietly. The orange light of the sky is tracing Ron's profile, down his big brown eyes and to the contours of his rounded nose. It's like somebody painted him into the room, line by line. "Yeah, me and you against the world."

They finish their drink quietly.

"Hey," Ron says, his head turning towards them again, catching the light against the unshaven stubble on his chin. Although he shaves clean, here and there he lets the routine slide, and Nat gets a glimpse at what he's been growing for a couple years now. Trying to grow, that is. It's not very impressive. "You want to talk about what happened?" he asks. "With the zombie?"

"I don't think I do," Nat says honestly.

"Up to you," he shrugs, but his eyes stay on Nat, and he doesn't manage to pull a casual face with it.

It makes Nat sigh. They scoot closer, so they can lean their head against his shoulder, holding up their brown bottle to see it glow in the light. "Why do you think she was able to talk?"

"I honestly have no idea." He puts his head against theirs, so gently they barely feel it. "That means her brain was still working, yeah?"

"Yeah. I believe that's what that means, yeah." They reach out for Ron's drink to tilt it towards themself and peer into it. Empty as well.

"You think they're evolving? Or was this a fluke?"

"That beats me, really." God, though, Nat doesn't want it to be a fluke. They lean their head harder against him. "...Hey," they say, "how did you find me? Down there?"

"I dunno," Ron says. "I guess I just know how you tick." They can hear his smile in his voice.

It's not until the fires pass that they find work again. It tears a large hole into their bank accounts, bringing them down to barely a hundred quid between the both of them, so it's more than welcome when one of Nat's contacts asks them to move some goods for them in the next city over. Five days and some sweat later, and they're meeting Ravindra at a fast food chain restaurant to hand them their part of the proceeds, late at night to escape the heat as fire season turns back into summer.

"You sold everything?" Ravindra asks, leafing through the cash. They're a sour-faced person, short, with brown skin, a blind left eye, and the habit to make everything sound like an accusation.

"All sold, all there," Ron grins, unfazed. "We got a great deal for half of it, and the rest we moved ourselves."

"The proceeds are split fifty fifty, as agreed and as always," Nat drawls. "It's all there."

"Let me decide that for myself," Ravindra says, and counts again, underneath the booth desk, then shoves the money into an inner jacket pocket. "It's there."

"Always great doing business," Ron grins. "So! How's it going with you?"

Nat excuses themself to the bathroom, letting Ron do the talking. Ravindra makes for unpleasant company, and they'd like to head out as soon as possible.

As they wash their hands, they look themself in the eyes through the bathroom mirror. Unchangingly green as ever, though the bags underneath are darker than they were yesterday. Nat keeps dreaming about Matcha's body at the foot of the stairs, twisted. About the fading warmth of it as they dragged her away, their arms hooked under hers. And about standing there again, at the top of the stairs that shouldn't be, and about Matcha waiting for them in the dark.

They shake their head. The living have to keep living. What's done is done.

Nat looks down to turn off the water, then stills. They lift their wrist up to their face, squinting to try and see it clearly—underneath the still fresh, shiny pink scar of their healed palm, is a small green line running parallel to their veins. Is that a bruise they didn't notice? Why is it so straight? But when they touch it, it shifts underneath their skin.

They nearly lose the floor under their feet as they stumble their way back into a stall, staggering down to their knees to hurl.

"We have to go," they all but whisper as Nat staggers back to their booth.

Ron and Ravindra both look up at once, their faces falling when they see the state that Nat is in, pale and shaking.

"What happened?" Ravindra asks sharply.

"It's nothing," Nat tries. "I just need to get out of here."

Ron doesn't need more of an explanation to grab Nat, even as Ravindra jumps out of their chair and demands to know what's going on.

"Need to go, text you later, thanks for everything," he rattles off quickly as he drags Nat through the door and back to the car.

The parking lot is empty so late at night, the street lights burning rapidly through their charge from the day. It should be a comfort, to be hidden in the dark, but Nat can't seem to raise their voice above a whisper.

"Ron," they try. "Ron, I think I'm infected."

He lets go of their hand like it's burned them, cussing an expletive as he fumbles with a mask. "When the fuck did that happen?"

"It's in the same spot that I got that abrasion in two months ago."

"And you're sure it's not just your regulars?"

"They don't spread."

"How far along is it?"

"It's just a root so far, no flowers—Ron, the incubation on this was two months. Did you check yourself?"

"I've got nothing." He breathes out slowly, shakily, pressing his face mask down on the bridge of his nose. "And they did a round of herbicides and a blood cycle on me when they had me for the arm thing."

"They're called sanguiherbicides," Nat corrects him quietly, and Ron heaves a sigh. "What now?"

"We can't go back to the hotel," he shakes his head.

"We can't," Nat agrees.

Ron gets into the driver's seat of their car. He looks over his shoulder, paranoid, and only then shuts his door. He's got the air filter on high before they can even climb into the passenger seat.

He pushes the keys into the ignition, fox tail and dice charms dangling, but he doesn't start the engine. His dark brown eyes are trained on Nat, wide and worried.

"You're going to die," he says.

"I might."

"I'm not fucking letting you die."

With jerky movements, he gets out his phone and searches the internet, then moves over to his contacts to text as Nat watches him sidelong.

"Why on earth are you texting Haru?" they ask, half numb with desperation and preemptive grief.

"Because she always knows a guy," Ron says without looking up, "and I'm getting you medical attention. The type that's so illegal backyard that whoever it is is not gonna kill you."

Nat sinks back in their seat. Their hands are shaking in their lap. "...Rabbit would probably be better for that."

"Fuck Rabbit," Ron laughs shakily through the fabric of his mask. "I'm not talking to Rabbit."

"Fair enough," Nat smiles, numb. They pick at one of their bracelets for a moment, then add: "You're aware that I didn't seek out that zombie on purpose, right? We never talked about it."

"You weren't yourself," he shakes his head, resolutely not looking at them. "No fucking idea what happened to you there, but you were acting like you were high off your ass."

"It was just—the moment I stepped into that room, it's like I just stopped thinking clearly. There was just this—this draw."

"Didn't feel it," Ron says. With a glance at their face, he quickly adds: "I'm not fucking blaming you. Okay? Something really wild and gross and awful happened there, and you would've been toast if I hadn't had the smart idea to try and look for you after you stormed off. But I'm not blaming you."

"Okay," Nat says, and doesn't know how to feel.

Haru does know a guy. Of course Haru knows a guy.

Said guy is a girl called Laquita Stone, Lucky for short. She lives on the western side of Diné Bikéyah, the piece of land that the Navajo reclaimed for themselves in the 22nd century during the great shift. The buildings here are squat and wide, made of mudbrick and smoothed into pleasing shapes.

Lucky's apartment is located in one of these adobe houses, its facade clean, but corroded from acid rain, washing away at the rounded corners. Nat hesitates by the parked car for a moment, holding on to the door of their lime green ATV. Medicine has many faces, each one unkinder than the last. They are walking willingly into the lion's den, and all they can hope for is that the thin thread of relations and propriety that bind Lucky to Haru will keep her from mauling them.

"Nat," Ron tears them out of it, his hand up to his face mask to adjust it. "C'mon." They wish he'd squeeze their shoulder. They know he won't.

The girl that opens the door is a good head shorter than Nat, with bleach blond micro braids, their ends hanging loose in smooth curls, and a mask on her brown face.

"You're Natalie King and Aarón Odo?" she asks. How formal.

"Haru gave you the whole shebang, huh?" Ron snorts, pissy.

"Yes, I asked her to," Lucky says. "I don't like using nicknames with people I don't know."

"I take it we're not calling you Lucky, then."

"I would ask you not to," Laquita says, and steps aside to let them in.

Her house is a lot cooler than the weather outside. It is also a mess. The walls are completely plastered in medical diagrams, and there are books face down on the floor with titles that Nat recognizes as university reading material. And she's brave enough to patch up criminals, with an education at stake? Nat can't decide between grudging respect and contempt for her intelligence.

Still, they hover by the entryway. When was the last time that a doctor touched them without wanting to cut them up? Has it been seven years? Eight? No choice, they remind themself. They drag their unwilling body through the door, stiff.

Laquita ushers them into the kitchen, and Nat and Ron exchange a confused look.

"Have some tea," she gestures to the wooden chair surrounding a small kitchen table. It's pushed up against an open window, with a lone dying plant watching over it from the center of the window sill.

"Two of us are wearing a mask," Nat snorts. "What do you mean tea?"

"Sit with me anyways," she insists. "You have to be tired."

"We're really just here for the medical care," Ron says with another look in Nat's direction.

Laquita stares them both down, unwavering, and it's so unnerving that Nat folds and takes a seat. Ron shakes his head and takes the seat next to Nat. "There you go," Laquita says, satisfied, and starts to brew water. "Did you travel far to get here?"

"Two hours," Ron says as he folds his hands on the table, fidgeting. "We were already pretty much in the area. Pretty lucky, I guess."

Nat isn't sure they would call anything about this lucky. They sink down in their chair.

"Well, that's good," Laquita says, and pulls out the last chair for herself. "So, you two are friends of Firebird's?"

Nat can't help but snort. Haru still goes by that stupid moniker? And friends is overstating it.

"We're friends, yeah," Ron tries to smooth it over. "Pretty close ones, actually!"

"Is that so," Laquita inclines her head curiously. "Well, I'm honored that she trusts me with you two, in that case."

"Ugh, don't start," Nat groans. "What is this, a networking event? I'm sure you can ask for so many favors from Haru for putting up with us. Can we move on to the part we're actually here for now?" Ron kicks them under the table. "What?" they snap.

"No, they're right," Laquita sighs, "we should get started."

The boiling water and any idea of tea thankfully forgotten, Laquita leads them to the bathroom. It's just barely big enough to squeeze two people in. Ron lingers by the doorway, leaning his back against a small square inch of free wall space.

It's windowless. Laquita hits a button on the wall right below the light switch, and a cobbled together looking air filter kicks up. As she's pulling on gloves, she looks Nat up and down. "Sit," she says, pointing at the closed seat of the toilet. Nat sits. "I'd like an exact account of what happened first. Firebird only gave me the absolute basics."

"They made close friends with a zombie," Ron jokes dryly.

Laquita looks over her shoulder at him, then back at Nat, a crease between her black brows. "Close? What was the level of exposure? And how long ago was this?"

Nat pulls a face. Hesitant, they explain: "I was... Within touching distance. About as close as one can be."

"How well did the wounds heal? I assume that you were bitten?" Laquita squints. "Scratched? Choked?"

"Well—" Choked, almost. Bitten? But injured—Nat fusses with their scarred palm, a shiny spot right where it meets their wrist, and the sleeve pulled up to hide what entered them through it. "Yes, I healed just fine. And the entire thing happened two months ago, so with the normal incubation period, I assumed—"

"We thought Nat was in the clear," Ron finishes what they can't bring themself to say. Nat swallows heavily. Their hands are cold with silent terror.

"Two?" Laquita asks, aghast. "Did I hear that right? Two months?"

Both Nat and Ron shrug a little, embarrassed.

"You must've been exposed again after that," Laquita shakes her head. "It's highly likely that you just didn't notice."

"I know for a fact that I wasn't," Nat says.

"You can't know that for sure. Show me," Laquita says, and Nat rolls their sleeve up.

She takes their freckled wrist into her gloved hand, warm through the blue nitrile as she brings it up to see better. Nat got over their squeamishness regarding things sitting below their skin years ago, but this, they cannot bear to look at, so they turn their head away. "What color were the flowers?"

"I don't recall." Nat bites the inside of their mouth. "The memory is blurry."

"Blue," Ron offers. "Small, clustered, five petals each."

"That sounds like forget me not," Laquita says.

"What?" Nat whips to look at her.

Laquita's gaze flicks up to meet Nat's, something unreadable in her brown eyes. "The name of the flower. Myosotis. Forget me not."

Nat draws their wrist out of her grip and clutches it. "Are you serious?" they breathe. "Forget me not?" What a cruel joke.

"Hm." Laquita draws back up to her full height. "Where else are the flowers breaking through?"

"I haven't checked."

"We came here straight away," Ron says. "No time to check anything on them."

"Alright, let me see. I'm going to need you to take your clothes off for that though," Laquita says to Nat. Turning to Ron, she asks: "Are you their boyfriend?"

"We've seen each other naked more than once," Nat cuts that line of questioning off. "It's fine. He stays."

Ron crosses his arms over his chest uncomfortably. There's a crease between his brows as he meets Nat's eyes. They know what he's thinking.

"He can check me over," Nat hurries to correct themself. "I'd rather have you out of the room."

"Out of the question," Laquita says, too fast. "You don't know what you're looking for. This is not the time to get shy. I need to know how far the infection has spread before we start treatment."

"Well," Nat smiles coldly, "I'm not showing you."

"Then I can't help you."

Nat stares at her, at her grimly determined face, at the way she stands her ground, all five foot something of her.

"...hey, man," Ron steps forward. "I've got good eyes."

"You're half blind," Laquita says without so much as turning around to him, and Ron's shoulders cringe up. "You think I haven't noticed? No, I will be checking Natalie over. I've seen countless of naked bodies, dead and alive both, it's really not a big deal. Do you want my help or not?"

"The help," Ron grits out. He looks to Nat for confirmation, and they want to throttle him. How can he decide that for them? "It's this or nothing, Nat," Ron adds on. "The fuck kind of other options do we have?"

Nat grips their nails into their upper arm, seething. "We have none," they grind their teeth. "It's this or nothing."

"So let me help you properly."

"Fine," Nat snaps, and crosses their arms in front of their body to take off their long sleeved shirt. It catches on their bandaged shoulder, and for the briefest of moments, Nat can't quite breathe. But the bandages stay in place. Their shirt peels away, and the bandages stay.

"The undershirt as well," Laquita requests as Ron takes their shirt from them. "Everything. And the bandages too."

Nat freezes with their hand against their binder. "Oh no, no," they laugh. "The bandages are staying."

"Why?" Laquita asks sharply, squinting at them, and Nat feels a cold shudder run down their spine. Just for the audacity to take that tone with them right now when she has this kind of sway over them, this kind of power, they'd very much like to make her eat glass.

"Hey, that's just a healing injury," Ron jumps in when Nat misses their moment. "It's got nothing to do with this."

"It has everything to do with this!" Laquita raises her voice. "That is the place to look!"

"The wound is clean," Nat hisses. "We checked."

"You said you didn't check yourself over," Laquita says slowly. And oh, shit. "If that wound is festering, if you're full of spores, then I deserve to know. I let you into my house with the assertion by Firebird that you are in the early stages, that you aren't infectious yet, and that I will be fine so long as you don't sneeze into my face or spit in my mouth."

"Well," Nat smiles wider, "you are fine. This absolutely minuscule little plant root is all that I have. The shoulder wound is clean, it's fine, and it is a lot fresher than my exposure to the zombie. Just because I don't want to unwrap it, possibly tear the whole thing open again, and get God knows what germs in there, doesn't mean that I am hiding anything."

Laquita is silent for a long, tense moment, just about the exact time it takes for Nat's heart to start beating in their ears and their hands to itch for their knife.

"Describe to me what happened," she says, then. "The shoulder wasn't involved?"

That was too fast of a heel turn. "I scraped my wrist somehow," Nat says slowly, suspicion pricking up the hairs in their neck. "It looked like an abrasion."

"You fell," Ron supplies. "Backwards." Right. If anyone has a clear picture of what happened, it's him.

"How come you know this better than Natalie?" Laquita casts a glance over her shoulder. "Between this and the description of the flowers?"

Ron rubs his neck, nervous. "Just got a better memory. It's been two months, y'know?"

"...Right," Laquita says. She turns back to Nat, who is hugging their arms around themself now, hunching over. They're sitting here in only binder and bandages, and they feel terribly naked. "Natalie," Laquita says, "do you have reason to believe that your lungs are affected?"

"I wouldn't think so," Nat says. "No—well, they might be. There were spores in the air. And the lungs of the zombie that got me were definitely full of roots. You could hear it when she talked." They shudder.

Laquita stares at them.

"Talked?"

And oh, shit.

"Yeah, like, groaned, you know?" Ron interjects quickly, but Laquita holds her hand up to shush him.

"No. Natalie said talk. What did you mean by that?"

"Nothing", Nat snaps, "Do you want me to get naked now, or what?"

There is something in Laquita's eyes, and Nat wishes so direly that she wasn't wearing a mask, that they could read her expression properly, but there is something in her eyes like a fight, a struggle, like she's wrestling with herself. "If you think," and her voice shakes, "if you think that this is a new strain with new features, with more human features. With consciousness! If you think that there could be value in this for us as a species, that it could get us even one step closer to getting out of this apocalypse—you have to check yourself into a research lab."

Nat scrambles away from her. Their back hits the wall far too fast, and suddenly this tiny bathroom is too small to breathe. "I am not going to become growth medium for the good of humanity!"

"You promised Firebird you'd help us," Ron bites. "Does this look like helping to you?"

"I know what I promised Firebird!" Laquita's hands twitch by her side, itching to ball themselves to fists. "I know what I promised her, but do you not understand the responsibility you have?"

"We're leaving," Ron says.

"Are you?" she asks.

For a terrible moment, it's like Nat can see the thin thread that this entire situation has been hanging off of snap. Damocles' sword falls.

Laquita brings her elbows back hard and hits Ron in the guts. Ron doubles over, and Laquita dives for the medicine cabinet before Nat can grasp her. She throws it open—"Gun!" Nat barks out, and lunges.

Laquita shoves them away, her shoulder to their chest, hitting hard enough that it makes Nat hit the back of their legs on the lid of the toilet. She thrusts her hand inside the medicine cabinet again, takes ahold of the gun—black market blaster model, handheld, modified, serial number filed off—and fumbles for the safety.

Between the two of them, Nat and Ron are only carrying knives. He's just barely picking himself off the floor again, Nat is trapped between him and Laquita—they are running out of options, and fast. If Nat doesn't manage to disarm her, if this woman gets them at gunpoint, they're toast.

Nat kicks for her shins. Pulls their knee up, into her stomach, feels her organs squish up against their bones. Lets the gun fall out of her hands, safety still on. Grabs for Laquita's braids, forces her head back, tears her mask off, and spits.

Nat barely registers her crying out behind them, nor her retching as they whirl around to grab their shirt from Ron. Ron, who stares at them like he's staring death in the face, wide eyed and terrified.

"She's dealt with," Nat tries to soothe him, even as their heart beats a mile a minute. "Come on, move, go."

But the look doesn't leave his face.

Your contact was a bust, Ron texts Haru as Nat puts the pedal to the metal and drives. They can't fully tell what he types next on the small screen of his phone, his arm clutched over his stomach where Laquita elbowed him, but they think they see a 'help me please'.