Minutes to Burn

Chapter 35

Tell Iggy that peanut butter will get it out, but he shouldn't go to bed "chewing it to begin with." Samantha shifted on the small bed, cradling the phone to her ear with a shoulder. "No, you can't go to the NVME concert, Kiera. Because you're…how old are you again? Well, there. See-that's much too young to be going to a concert."

She gazed at the ceiling, having memorized each line, crack, and bump over the past two and a half days. She should have made sketches of the ceiling the last time she was in the slammer; she could have wiled away her hours now analyzing the changes in the plaster.

Donald had called to let her know he was sending her thermopro-teaceae pulled from a deep sea core, of all things. Evidently, they'd sur-vived being archived and refrigerated at Scripps, which she supposed made sense-they could endure temperature extremes, sometimes thriving in environments of up to 113 degrees Celsius. Donald sus-pected that the thermoproteaceae were infected with the same virus as the dinos. Once the sample arrived, she'd hand it off to Tom so that he could get it under the lens for comparison.

She was wearing scrubs now, finally having changed out of her chil-dren's clothes.

"Are you remembering to take your meds?" she continued into the phone. "Uh-huh. And aren't you getting report cards or something soon? After the break?" Her face softened with empathy. "I know, I know, honey. English does suck."

Someone banged on the window. Samantha sat up, nervously straightening her hair once she realized it was Dr. Foster. It was a losing battle-her hair stood up in tangles where she'd been resting her head on the pillow. He made her simultaneously buoyant and insecure, a mix-ture of emotions to which she was unaccustomed. She was unsure if she needed buoyancy and insecurity in her life. She pulled on a surgical cap to hide her crazy hair and scurried to the window, speaking rapidly into the phone.

"There are plenty of fourteen-year-olds in day care. Oh. Well, just pretend you're the teacher's assistant or something. Maricarmen will get you over to the college to pick up your microbiology assignment. Good. If there are any problems, make sure she calls me. All right, sweetie. Tell your European brothers I love them." She snapped the phone shut and faced Dr. Foster with a smile.

"Kids?" he asked.

She nodded.

"I have two myself." Samantha nervously adjusted the surgical cap, and Dr. Foster looked at her with amusement. "Getting ready to scrub in?"

She worked her lower lip between her teeth for a minute, gathering her thoughts. "Look, Martin, I wanted to say…well, I don't really date. It's not that I don't want to. It's more that I don't know how. And, well, I could save you the time of finding out how badly I'm gonna botch-"

He held up his hand and she stopped, mouth open. "There's a space suit through the crash door," he said. "Suit up-I need to show you something."

She was into the space suit in ten minutes, and then she was free from the slammer, shuffling down the long, white hallway by Dr. Foster's side. She knocked over a tray of folders with a puffy hip, and Dr. Foster stopped to pick them up for her. For the rest of the way, he guided her, a hand resting softly on the small of her back.

She turned to him, awkward and mushy in the space suit. "Romantic, isn't this?" she said sarcastically.

"Yes," he replied. "It is."

They reached another slammer unit, and he pointed through the large plate glass barrier. A woman whom Samantha recognized as the flight attendant lay on a bed near the window, weak, pale, and dotted with fading bruises, but very much alive. Samantha could tell, even from her pres-ent state, that she was an attractive woman. Gorgeous blue eyes paired with flowing blond hair gave her a sexy, if somewhat unsophisticated, look.

The woman tried to pull herself up to a sitting position, but couldn't. She turned slightly, her swollen face looking through the glass at Saman-tha. She reached out a hand, touching the window, and Samantha raised a glove and rested it on the glass near hers, feeling her eyes tear up.

"She's not out of the woods yet, but I think she's going to pull through, she and the pilot," Dr. Foster said softly. "The titers have decreased substantially. She wanted to see you."

The insides of the flight attendant's lips were stained with dried blood.

"Tough little blond, huh?" Samantha murmured. She blinked back the growing moistness in her eyes, staring at the woman's thin arm extending to the glass. "Maybe I should've been a stewardess. More job security." She leaned forward until her mask bumped against the win-dow. "Are there any openings on your airline?" she asked.

The woman shook her head, confused. "What?" she mouthed.

Samantha smiled. "Nothing." She turned to go, but Dr. Foster gently grasped her elbow, turning her back to the window.

The woman was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling beneath a thin hospital gown. A tear spilled from her eye and ran sideways down her cheek to the pillow. She opened her mouth, her lips forming sound-less words.

Thank you.