Read Quarantine #2: The Saints for Free Online Page A

out of his bed this morning. Lucy held up his bed sheets and drew their scent in. They smelled vaguely like campfire smoke, like the rest of the room. But they still smelled like David’s sheets. Detergent smell. No one had cleaner sheets than him. Still, there wasmore. She thought she smelled a pinch of his sweat, the pink bathroom hand soap he’d used to wash his hair, and some of the vanilla extract she used to wear as perfume. But the sum of all those ingredients would never compare to smelling the real thing, David in the flesh, holding her in his arms. Lucy felt tears warm her eyes.
    Their time together, really together, had been too brief. They had kissed for the very first time at the Geek show, but that same night he’d been attacked by Hilary. After his eye had healed, they only had a few weeks before he phased out of the virus and needed to leave. The food drops had stopped in that time, and their world was falling apart, but in this room, in this bed, wrapped in these sheets, they shared a couple of peaceful mornings together, where nothing past those curtains existed. When the school was still asleep, and the day hadn’t started, they had their time alone to talk, to learn about each other, or to just lay there, in the quiet, with his heavy arm laid over her, and not say anything at all. She still fantasized about going further with David. She’d wanted to lose her virginity to him, but he’d held back as if somehow he knew he wouldn’t be around too long.
    The lights came on.
    Lucy looked up. The fluorescent ceiling panel overhead flickered back and forth from dim to bright until it finally settled on bright. Cheers echoed up the Stairs, followed by applause. Lucy stood in disbelief. The power was back on.After a month of living in the dark. The parents had come through after all. That didn’t change the fact that they were still holding McKinley prisoner.
    Will popped his head through the curtains. He wore a big smile, and it was a pleasant surprise. His dirty-gray hair was swooped to the side. He held his hands out, splayed like he’d just done a magic trick.
    “Eh?” he said.
    “What do you mean ‘eh’? You’re taking credit for this?”
    “I mean, I can’t say it wasn’t me. I have been putting out some pretty positive vibes.”
    Lucy laughed. “Well, now you are, at least. What’s with the sunny attitude?”
    “I realized we had way more weapons than we could ever use, so I traded the extra ones and got a bunch more food. And then with the lights coming on like this? I think things are going to be okay.”
    Lucy smiled. She wasn’t going to tell Will this, but he sounded like David.
    “Nice smile,” Will said.
    Lucy blushed and smiled wider. “Oh, you like?”
    “Oh, not that one though, that one looks terrible.”
    She burst out laughing and hugged him. She wasn’t expecting to laugh today. It blew away the gloom for a moment.
    “Hey, guess what?” Will said when they separated. “You know how the Nerds have been working on getting graduationgoing again? They got it working. Kemper’s graduating right now in the quad. Wanna go check it out?”
    “Sure,” Lucy said. “That sounds good.”
    He took her hand and they walked down all three floors of the Stairs. It was dirty and dusty and there was still a lot of work to be done, but the stairs felt positively cheerful now that the lights were on. They stepped out into the bright hallway.
    “Look at it all lit up!” Lucy said. “It actually feels like daytime again.”
    “No more torches!” Will said at the top of his lungs. “Thank God.”
    Lucy laughed. “Let me never see another torch again.”
    They moseyed toward the quad at a pleasant pace. It was nice to just walk with Will, without any crisis hanging over their heads, without the tragedies of their lives on the front of their minds. She was able to push that all away for a bit and savor the normality of merely strolling down a hall with someone she trusted.
    As