What now? Derrick was sure to be tied up downstairs, and she was locked away up here. There was nothing nearby that she could use to free herself, and she was starting to panic.

“Nam,” she called out. “Nam, please. I…I need some water!”

The room was so much bigger than she remembered now that it was empty. The wallpaper hung down in long strips, and the ceiling was spotted with brown rings and sagging so that the entire space felt like being inside a rotting ribcage. She moved her joints at different angles and pulled, trying to slip them through the loops that held them. They tightened and refused her movements.

Long minutes passed before she heard someone on the stairs. Minutes during which she imagined what might be happening to French, to Derrick, to herself, scenarios that ended with them dried out like corn husk dolls, discarded in different desolate rooms on different stained mattresses. When the footsteps echoed down the hallway, she lay perfectly still, trying to quiet her hysteria, trying to look like she still had a mind to lose.

The door opened, and Nam entered with a red plastic cup. “Brought you water.” They wouldn’t meet her eyes.

She licked her lips. They were starting to chap and peel. “Nam, listen, I…I’m scared. I’m really, really scared. And I need your help.”

Rose talked so fast the words tumbled into one another. She didn’t know how long Nam would stay, and she had to get through to them. Plus, her voice felt smaller by the minute. She was weak, and that made her even more frantic. “This is not fair. It’s not fair. And it’s not right.”

“I can’t help you,” they said after a moment of pause, standing just inside the door.

“You have to! You’re the only one here.”

“But I’m not. I’m not the only one, and the others…”

“Those women have the Plague,” Rose hissed, cutting them off.

Nam was across the room in a flash, clamping their fine-boned hand over Rose’s mouth. “Shut up. Just shut up. Don’t say that word. It’s forbidden.”

Rose shook them off. “Drinking our blood is not going to give anyone dreams! That’s just madness!”

“Jesus, I’m not stupid. It’s not the blood. He knows that, I think.” Nam separated themself from the Chief in one sentence. “It’s not about that, anyway. It’s about hope.”

“Hope?”

They placed the cup on the floor and sat on the edge of the mattress. “People can’t dream because their way of life is gone and they can’t accept it. They lived through pandemics, but they didn’t, not really. He wants to give them hope that there is a different way.”

“What does that have to do with us?”

“We are the different way.” Nam’s shoulders slouched. They looked so slim and young, like a willow in a white tank top, the outline of a pentagram charm showing through the material like a birthmark. “So he gives them us. One drop at a time. And I guess it’s enough.”