Chapter - 9

The only thing that connected Grisha with Rostov was a rehabilitation center, rumors of which reached his native Belaya Kalitva. The stop at the distribution point of provisions and medicines turned everything upside down.

"You were warned that this idea smells bad"

"I didn't think it would be like this..." he broke off and gripped the steering wheel tighter.

No, he will not make excuses to anyone and for nothing. It's an idiotic idea to enter into a dialogue with your own inner voice. He promised not to do this to himself… He promised not to do this to Nadia. This shit that was sitting inside, that surfaced every time something in his life went wrong, went awry and gave his disgusting voice, now had to shut up. I didn't want to listen to these caustic comments. And I didn't want to make sure once again that you're a loser if you're talking to yourself about what kind of shit you are.

Grisha fumbled for a crumpled pack of cigarettes on the front panel and found a cigarette butt there. A yellowed Winston, which the guy saved for a rainy day. I don't care, he'll smoke it now, because then he'll have to quit anyway. He lit a cigarette and inhaled tobacco smoke with pleasure. His mouth filled with saliva bitter from tar. The cigarette butt was only enough for a few puffs before the cigarette filter burned Grisha's fingers painfully and he threw the cigarette out the window. It got better, but there was still a frenzied queue at the distribution point in front of my eyes. Who knew this would happen? Who knew that it would not be possible to arrive in Rostov far before dark, around five, as he planned, in order to settle down and find housing. The thing is, none of this could have been foreseen.

"You're lying"

Grisha shuddered. No, the guy couldn't resist the opportunity to replenish his stocks. Now for such a risk, which still could hardly be called negligence, had to pay. You had to be a complete lunatic to drive into curfew and try to find shelter in the city after eight. Even if there was a coupon, it could not end well by definition. Something like that. The guy felt a pleasant warmth spreading through his body… He began to calm down and direct his thoughts in the right direction.

"Then what will be the plan of further actions?" - flashed through my head.

Grisha literally jumped up in the driver's seat, almost hitting his head on the upholstery of the roof, momentarily losing control of the car. "Kalina" went into a skid and only some miracle helped the guy to straighten the back of the car and save him from falling into a ditch.

"Shut up..." he hissed through his teeth.

"How to return to the old plan that you followed before you turned off the path to replenish food and medicines… But you know what, I look around and I don't see either the first or the second? Did something go wrong? And Grisha, look at your bracelet, do you want to say anything?"

"Shut up…"

Why did something deep inside him say those words? For what? Prolonged depression after losing a good job? Grisha laughed plaintively. Why didn't he go to a psychologist, as Nadia advised? Maybe because he didn't believe that a part of himself couldn't turn out to be a traitor and stab him in the back?

"My God, why remind me of this now..."

The queue at the distribution point turned out to be too long and he did not have time to get provisions and medicines, leaving the former building of the shopping center with nothing. But he had some supplies left in the trunks and it could be enough to Rostov.

"Don't kid yourself," he whispered.

The guy's eyes slid over the white bracelet on his arm. Due to the fact that he turned to the distribution point, the next time of the "white" mark was missed. Now the bracelet could be removed and just thrown to hell. No label – no person… And if the strange captain nobly turned a blind eye to this, what would happen if the meeting with a group of people in camouflage happened again? I didn't even want to think about it. At night, outside of Rostov, without notes about vaccination… He broke off his thought, realizing what this logical chain leads to. Having lost his mark, he was outlawing himself. Grisha understood this, but now, being in a car on the highway at the entrance to Rostov, he could not change anything. The guy could still put up with the fact that he didn't have a mark himself, but Nadia didn't have one either. Problems could not be avoided, and he could only blame himself for everything that was happening.

However, now, when the military and the government were dizzy with problems related to vaccination and attempts to return at least some sociality and transparency to a society built on people with red bracelets, there was a chance that his problems would go unnoticed. If you put your head on the block right away, then you shouldn't have gotten involved in an adventure? Thoughts cheered Grisha up. It really was. He cringed, expecting that at any moment what was sitting deep inside him would give voice and deal a crushing blow, but silence hung in his head… The inner voice was silent. Maybe he got what he wanted, maybe he just had nothing to say.

"Pull yourself together," he commanded himself.

For several minutes, he stared at the track until his eyes hurt and tried to concentrate. There was a void in my head.

Maybe it's not all that bad. In any case, the business that had been started should be brought to an end, especially since it was not so much for him, but for Nadia and their child.

Nadia and the baby.

The guy repeated these words to himself several times, which worked better than any sedative. He was playing with fire and got involved in a real adventure since the white bracelet was put on Nadia's hand. You can want or not want to, see or not see the obvious, but Grisha could not deny the fact that his wife was infected with a dangerous strain of the NSM virus. In order not to let the authorities say that the new virus has been taken under control and it is possible to live with it, the strain of the NSM virus remained a dangerous disease and Grisha knew much better than others how it affected a person. Once he himself believed in the calls of the authorities to continue living the same life, obeying new regulations. Perhaps, seeing no other way out, he would have done just that. However, the virus was devouring the wearer of the red bracelet from the inside. And Nadia, who got a white bracelet largely because she was pregnant and the test results could distort the samples of an uninfected fetus, only accidentally wore a white bracelet on her wrist.

"I love you."

He gently touched his wife's shoulder. To show the authorities the opposite, to assure them that his wife was ill, meant to betray Nadia and their child. They will be separated, no one will bother with her the way Grisha did now, and it is unknown whether the child will withstand such changes. Will a healthy body survive life in a body infected during an attack? And if she survives, what will happen later, after giving birth, when Nadia gives birth to a healthy baby? Will they infect him? They will put a red bracelet on their hand… He will never see his child again unless he gets infected himself. It will be a different life, life on different sides of the barricades, in different camps. It was worth believing in the best, wasn't it…

These thoughts made Grisha uneasy. A thousand times he thought about it and each time he realized that he had no right to allow such a thing. The only chance for him, their family, was for them to stay together until the end. Grisha did not know whether his methods and the horse doses of sleeping pills that he administered to Nadia from day to day were correct, how they could affect the pregnant girl's body, but he simply did not see any other way out. This was the only way to rule out an attack. And the fact that the strain of NSM is much more dangerous than sleeping pills, the guy was sure.

A turn appeared ahead and Grisha without hesitation turned onto a narrow road strip without asphalt pavement. Rostov was a little less than two kilometers away, but in fifteen minutes he would have to give the injection with sleeping pills again. He drove deeper into the road, stopping in the middle of the forest belt separating the highway from wheat fields, turned off the engine and turned off the headlights. It was necessary to take care that the car was not visible from the main road. Grisha got out of the car and gathered an armful of branches and threw them on the body of the Lada. Now, if you didn't set a goal to look for a car in the middle of the night, a casual glance wouldn't catch it. It remained to hope that the military would not look for them and they would be able to wait out the curfew at the entrance to the city without problems.

Grisha sat in the driver's seat for a while, with a bag of medicines on his lap. Only now the guy realized that he was very tired. Fatigue rolled over the whole body from head to toe and literally nailed the guy to the seat. He didn't sleep for almost a day and spent sixteen hours behind the wheel. My whole body ached, muscles and joints groaned. Grisha took out a thermos from his travel bag, which still had coffee in it. The coffee had been cold for a long time and was slightly warm. Grisha took a few sips. Bitter and not very tasty, but better than nothing. He turned on the radio and grinned. Yes, there were a lot of things to forget now after dark. A feedback crackle was heard from the receiver. However, there were several discs with good music in the glove compartment. Grisha took out the collection of this summer's DFM and inserted the disc into the slot of the radio. The silence that enveloped the fields around was not exactly frightening, but it suggested unpleasant thoughts.

He took a deep breath of the fresh evening air and looked at his watch. It's almost half past eight. After seven minutes, Nadia will need to take the next injection. Then every two hours throughout the night. There was no living place left on the girl's hands from the injections, all the veins were covered with purple bruises. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and checked if the alarm was set, just in case. I didn't want to think about what would happen if he forgot to give me an injection. The scars on his wife's wrists were a fresh memory of a similar mistake made by Grisha. He sighed heavily.

"From now on, this will not happen again... NEVER."

He carefully removed a strand of falling hair from Nadia's face. Perhaps tomorrow there will be a fat point in all this. People from the rehabilitation center in Rostov will be able to help them. It remained to believe, hope and pray that this would be the case. An ampoule with a tranquilizer and a syringe appeared in Grisha's hands. It was necessary to be prepared for the attack in advance.

"I love you, darling," - he kissed his wife on the cheek and stroked her already noticeable belly. After hesitating for a split second, Grisha gave an injection. Done.

He turned the ticket over in his hands and was surprised to notice that a small brochure was inserted inside it. The guy took out a brochure on which only a few words were written by hand.

In the name of our Lord, whose name is the King of heaven, the Savior, and against the will of the Antichrist, for the good of our people. Everyone will find salvation, so that he may turn to the Savior, the heavenly King. Remember, sinner, that the Speaker is among us.

The guy's gaze fell on the last two digits on the back of the ticket. The captain was talking about some address on Nagibin Street, where he could turn for help. Maybe it was worth the risk after all? And there to find much-needed support before the center opens. Be that as it may, he could not do all this before the first rays of the sun appeared on the horizon. And now he needed to get some sleep.