Chris turned around in the saddle to face me, then he put his hand on my forehead.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I was suspicious that something might be up when I disinfected your feet. You were warm, Ashley. Positives run a slightly high temperature. About a hundred and one degrees. I felt it in your feet. And, yes, I can feel your temperature now. It's high." He pulled his hand from my forehead and turned back around. "So are you sure you didn't die?" he whispered. "Are you absolutely sure you never woke up filled with energy and in an unusual state of elevated confidence? Are you sure that never happened? I bet you've even been craving milk protein and high-caloric foods, haven't you . . . ?"

"Oh my God."

I suddenly remembered the motel room.

I'd woken up after a night of extremely heavy drinking, but feeling great. I remembered feeling like I could race up a cliff.

"Oh my God," I said again.

Had I died that night? Was it possible? Had I been too drunk to notice?

"That night," I whispered.

"What night?"

"...It wasn't the first time I'd slept with Bryce two days ago," I confessed. "The first time I slept with him was the first night of the fair. The night everything happened. but I don't remember anything. I have no idea if we even used a rubber. And when I woke up late the next day, I felt, well . . . really amazing." I let my head fall against Chris's back. "Oh my God. Chris? Am I dead?"

He turned around to look at me.

"I think you must have . . . died, that night." He shook his head in amazement. "That must have been when it happened. You must have contracted the pathogen from Bryce, then passed out from alcohol. You didn't even know it happened. You must have fallen into a coma, died there in the motel bed, then woke up thinking you'd just had a heavy night of drinking."

"But how is that possible?" I was still totally confused. I didn't want to believe any of this. "I'm not walking around like some kind of zombie!" It was getting hard to keep my voice low enough that the refugees wouldn't hear me. "I'm here! I'm me! If anything, I should be only stage one? Right?"

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