Peyton retrieved a dose of ZMapp from their supply crates, suited up again, and returned to Lucas’s room. She knelt beside him. “Hi, Lucas. I’m going to give you a medication that we hope will help you fight the infection. I’ll stay here for a bit to make sure you don’t have a reaction, okay?”

He nodded.

“If everything goes well, we’re going to put you into a special stretcher and transport you to the airport. You’ll be flown back to Atlanta where they can give you the best care possible. We’re going to do everything we can for you, Lucas.”

A tear rolled from his yellow, bloodshot right eye onto his cheek. He cleared his throat, looked her in the eye, and said, “Thank you.”

Peyton placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’re welcome.”

Lucas had drifted off to sleep when they came to transport him to the airplane. As Dr. Shaw helped him from the bed and into the isolation stretcher, he wanted to stand and hug her. Before she had arrived, he had been sure he would die here. Now he was filled with hope. For the first time since the fever had set in, he believed he had a chance at living.

He felt like the luckiest person in the world.

At the airport, Peyton watched the air ambulance personnel load Lucas onto the plane, along with the samples Hannah had taken.

“You think he’ll make it?” Hannah asked.

“I hope so,” Peyton said. She glanced at the younger physician. “You did great today. Seeing the treatment units firsthand is unnerving. You never get used to it, but it gets a little easier.”

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Elim Kibet was trying his best to read when Nia Okeke entered the room and marched past the rows of dying villagers. Behind her, a man pushed an empty wheelchair.

They stopped before Elim, and Nia squatted down and made eye contact through her clear plastic goggles.

“We’re moving you, Elim.”

He closed the paperback. “To where?”

“A patient room has opened up.”

Elim’s heart sank. It was the answer he had dreaded. If a patient room had opened up, it meant that the young American, Lucas Turner, had passed away.

He tried to stand, but his weakened legs failed him. Hands grabbed him and pulled him into the wheelchair. As he was wheeled out of the room, helpless eyes peered up at him from the floor, but everything passed in a haze, as if he were having a nightmare.

As he suspected, the wheelchair stopped at the exam room where he had last seen Lucas Turner.

“When did he pass?”

“He’s not dead. The Americans are flying him home.”

Elim looked up, surprised. “That’s good.”

“Yes. It is. Now let’s get you into bed.”

Nia and the other man helped Elim up, got him settled, and walked out, leaving a cloud of chlorine in their wake.