In the opposite corner of the couch, I sit, legs crossed, less concerned about the movie and more concerned about what I can say.
Sparing me, he asks, “So you’re no longer interested in Cory?” His gaze flicks to mine and then away when our eyes meet.
I could watch him like a movie, not that he’s that interesting. But I can’t help but to stare. “No,” I say like the low note of a song. “It was never like that between Cory and I, and him being in my room made me uncomfortable. Plus, it’s not what we are here for anyway.” I shrug.
“Right, we’re not,” he states, crossing his arms. He clears his throat, eyelids low while he blankly stares at the movie. I expect his gaze to flick over to me, but it never does. Instead, he adjusts again, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
“Are you cold?”
“I’m comfortable,” he informs, somewhat standoffish; a much different person from the guy I spent time with last night. “You had a pretty bad day today.”
“My group just needs a little hands-on training,” I tell him.
“A group is only as strong as its leader,” he quotes.
“Are you insinuating I’m weak?” I snap.
His gaze flicks to me. “No,” he says with emphasis. “You are not weak. But, if someone didn’t know you and saw how you train and then witnessed how your group performs, they would think so.”
I don’t respond immediately, testing the weight of his statement. “That’s not going to stay like that.”
“For your sake, I hope it doesn’t.” He rises and leaves. I watch as he strides to the stairs, and I start to feel like I’m being pushed and squeezed inside of a box half my size. I didn’t come to our empty home to run into Marc and Luke and have them judge me. I know my team needs work. Tonight is not the time for reminders.
I slouch on the couch and let my lids fall over my eyes, the stress of the day weighing on me like a heavy sedative. Don’t fall asleep, I remind myself, just rest your eyes. But it’s harder than I think. My body slides to the side, gently hitting the firm sofa.
Screams erupt, clawing from my throat and blaring past my lips. I drive my knee into the crotch of the oversized gray-haired man shoving my hands over my head. “Stop! Get off me!” I cry, but in a child-like voice, words nearly inaudible. I try to shove him away. The weight of his body nearly crushes my ribs. The heat of his flesh beads sweat upon mine. Hitting, kicking, doing everything I can, I can’t get him off me.
He screams my name, “Kylie! Kylie, stop!” I’m pinned and silenced, his hands clamping down over my mouth.
Slowly, as he repeats my name, the world drowns out though his voice grows softer. My eyes shoot open.
“Wake up,” Marc says violently, moving his legs from mine but holding my arms down. His face is red, a handprint the size of my hand over his left eye and cheek.
Adrenaline pumps through my veins, and I force myself to calm, seeing there’s no danger and I’m the one causing harm.
I relax under his grip, and my body sinks into the sofa.
Marc’s grip loosens, but he doesn’t let me go. “Are you okay?” he asks, eyes narrowing, no longer wide as they were a second ago.
I examine my surroundings. To my left, the back of the sofa. To my right, the table in the den and the doorway leading to the hall that heads past the kitchen and to the living room. “Yes. Sorry I hit you.” He backs off me a little. “Are you scared I’m going to hit you again?”
“No.”
I tilt my head, glancing at his hands still holding my arms.
He moves both my wrists into one of his hands, clasping them loosely. His free hand, I watch from the corner of my eye, nears my face. Those smooth fingertips graze my ear, and trail over my jawbone to the back of my neck. Pushing his hand to the back of my head, he tilts my head back to where it faces him.
I try to move my arms, but he holds them still. As his head lowers, he whispers, “Wait.”
I wait, limbs stationary, breath even. His body lowers, almost sealing the air between us. Every time my chest rises, it touches his, and I suck it back in.
His eyes move back and forth, boring into each one of mine before they shift downward, maybe to my lips. I kind of hope they’re looking at my lips.
I remain frozen, anticipation expelling the air from my lungs. I breathe in to subdue the sensation of the wind being knocked out of me over and over again as I wait, wanting his kiss.
I lean forward. He leans back, making himself unreachable. Saying nothing, he stares at me with empty eyes, and I bite back my words, chewing on my bottom lip. Before I know it, he draws back and leaves me, exiting our home.
His gaze, his touch, I don’t know what to make of them. I should be embarrassed, caught in my nightmares, and him witnessing my worst attributes once again. But to my surprise, I find a sense of ease with him greater than I even feel with Luke. It also never alleviates. The look in his eyes, the graze of his touch, the steady state he forces me into, it’s always the same.
“Hey, Ky,” Luke calls from the doorway. “You ready to go to sleep?”
I lift my head from my arms and nod. He waves me on. He’s dressed in his sleepwear, which leads me to wonder how long he’s been here.
Chapter Twenty-One
After we’ve been lying down for a while, neither of us sleeping, Luke says, “We are supposed to go to Chicago and meet with others the day after tomorrow. They said they had an outbreak of those things and need some of us to come in for damage control.”
“That sounds exciting.”
“It does. Finally, some real action. Only some of us are going. Of course, it will be the strongest and most reliable. You fall in that group, but when we get back, you’re going to need to work harder on your team.”
“So much for our off day. How long are we staying there?”
“There will be training tomorrow, we can’t really afford an off day. And it should only take us a day to get things back under control, Jord says.”
“Illinois is a state of Separation. How could they have lost control?”
“Some of their Creations changed into those things. This created some who can withstand those bullets, and they’re more powerful. He said unlike ours here that rummage around at night or in the shadows, theirs are day walkers. This left the opportunity to change other humans into what they are. They’re known to multiply quickly, and their expansion is rapid.”
“Did he happen to mention how he expects us to kill or contain them?” I ask.
“They have been working on some new bullets containing pink liquid, which has proven to be effective against Creation-turned walking dead. He said we’ll be provided with new guns compatible with these bullets and full mags. He’s thinking there will be thousands of them but a minimal number of us, so we’ll need a lot.”
“When we go against them, he always says to make sure we aren’t scratched or spit upon. What happens if they do that to us? What’s to say, a scratch or bite will not change us?”
“I didn’t ask. He’s going to let us know tomorrow. You can ask him then.”
“Okay, but what happens if it happens to us?”
His shoulder jumps in a shrug. “I don’t know, Ky. Hopefully we won’t have to find out.”
I nod, head brushing against Luke’s arm. If Illinois can lose control of their state to those walking dead, as Luke refers to them, then that could happen anywhere. Could this entire country be at risk of this infestation? The planet? Was this the Vojin’s plan?
“Is everything okay?” Luke asks, breaking the silence that had sunk down on his room. “What was that with Cory today?”
“Yes, I’m fine. That with Cory was my way of forcing him to back off.”
“Good.” He ends the conversation by wrapping my head in his arm.
Unlike earlier when I fell asleep and was instantly overwhelmed and infused with my worst enemy, fear, yet again, this time, my thoughts are peaceful. If it weren’t for the thought of Marc’s touch and ga
ze, I would doze off.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“How do you go from feeling one way one day and a completely different way the next?”
“Give me a break, Cory.” He walks beside me as I make my way down the lunch line, packing food on my tray. “I know my purpose and what I want, and that’s the way I feel. You will either respect that and leave me alone, or just leave me alone. Don’t get any of us in trouble.” Collins is in front of me trying to flirt with my brother, who’s in front of her, and I keep my voice down to not be heard by those within earshot.
When I arrived in the mess hall for lunch, I looked for Marc. Unlike every other morning when he catches me leaving Luke’s room, I didn’t run into him today. I was sure I’d run into him here, but instead, Cory conveniently bumped into me “by accident.”
Marc is avoiding me. I spent the morning trying to place the feeling from last night when Marc knocked the wind out of me without bringing me pain.
“Okay, Ky. Compromise. Can I sit by you when we leave tonight? I mean, usually I wouldn’t ask, but with your change in attitude, I feel it’s necessary.”
I walk out of line, satisfied with the food I have. Cory follows. I say, “You shouldn’t have been sitting in my room unannounced. You’re the one whose attitude changed.”
“Is that what this is about?” he questions as we sit.
“What what is about?” Luke sits, glaring at Cory.
“Nothing,” Cory responds, leaving. Finally.
Marc takes his seat. I don’t say a word, waiting on him to speak. He doesn’t, and an invisible elephant wedges between the two of us.
Awkward: feeling embarrassment or inconvenience.
I’m experiencing both. He eats his food and involves himself in a conversation going on over the table.
“Are all of you going to Chicago?” Collins asks, scarfing down her large bowl of soup. The soup is nasty. It’s beef broth, always broth, nothing else. She has bread she dips into it.
Luke answers, “Yes.”
“Yes,” Marc also answers. When Luke mentioned the event to me last night, I was hoping Marc would be going, and something tells me, even if Cory still tries to sit next to me, he won’t be successful.
“I wasn’t invited,” Collins says, biting into her broth-soaked bread.
“I wasn’t either,” Floyd seconds, sitting. “Seems like the only ones are you two,” he points to Luke and me, “you,” he points to Marc, “your brother, Cory, his sister, and the generals.”
“I don’t see why I can’t go,” Collins complains after taking a spoon full of her soup.
I take a bite of my sandwich, and Luke scarfs down his. Marc eats a plum he grabbed from my tray, and Floyd eats an orange. None of us answer her, though her constant gaze at each of us requests a rebuttal or explanation of the decision that was made.
“Maybe you can ask to go,” I tell her, pulling the remaining crust from my bread.
“I shouldn’t have to ask. I should have been first pick.”
“Yeah, first pick after the four of us,” Luke mocks, laughing.
“My name’s over Ky’s,” she states tenaciously.
Before I can defend myself, Luke retorts, “Your group’s better than Ky’s group, not you as a person.”
“Thanks Luke.” We fist bump. My group sucks, but I’m the best at what I do and what I was born to achieve. My mother and father would be proud.
Luke turns his attention to Collins. “Don’t try to play my sister. You know Ky is better than you.”
Slack-jawed, Collins gawks at Luke as though he’s said something ridiculous.
Before she expresses how inferior I am to her, I say, “You’re good too, Collins. This may have been his personal choice,” to neutralize the fire.
“I think it’s saying something,” she states, finishing the last of her bread. I shrug, not wanting to feed into her dispute.
“Well, you guys enjoy yourselves.”
“We will,” Marc responds.
Sean sits beside Marc. “What are we enjoying?” he asks, snatching the apple from Collins’s tray. He’s too fast for her, yanking his arm away before she can smack his hand. She ends up slamming her hand down on her tray so hard it tilts, and the soup turns over.
“This is your fault,” she shouts at Sean, throwing her last bit of bread at him.
And like Sean, he snickers, finding humor in everything. Everyone laughs.
Collins carefully carries the tray to the trash can, cussing the entire way. There’s more soup, seeing as no one eats it but her, but I doubt her toppled-over soup is where her real anger lies.
“Jeez, what’s that about?” Sean asks, gone serious. Rather, he tries, chuckles still accompanying a bright smile in his violet eyes. Sean’s skin is a little brighter than Marc’s, his eyebrows aren’t as bushy and don’t hood his eyes as heavily. He’s a lighter version of his brother.
“She’s pissed she wasn’t selected to go to Chicago,” Marc tells him. Sean shrugs, biting into the apple and jumps into a conversation with Luke and Fred.
My attention is already pinned on Marc when he faces me. I surprise him, but he doesn’t falter, saying, “Can I ask you something?”
I nod, standing from the table with my tray in hand. He follows me. I’m crossing the slick tile to the trash can on the other side of the mess hall instead of using the one nearer our table. We’re just out of earshot of our peers, the way I like it.
Marc rubs behind his ear before easing his hands through his hair. “Sorry, I, um, walked off on you after I pinned you to the couch,” he says, gaze on his feet. We’re heading for the door leading us out of the mess hall.
“You’re…sorry?” I stutter, discomfort of rejection showing through the timid sound of my voice. Even though pinning someone to a sofa without an explanation is a reasonable thing to apologize for, I’m more concerned by him not apologizing for making me question everything I know about everything. Actually, everything I thought I knew about everything.
The tone earns me a questionable glance from him. The same look I use when I glance at him, one of curiosity. “Yes…” he drags on like he’s not sure if he’s answering my question the right way.
“Oh,” I respond, regaining my confidence as my self-esteem lowers. “What did you want to ask me?”
“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “I needed to apologize.”
“Okay. Well, you’ve apologized.” I swallow hard, trying to push down my nerves.
“Are you upset?”
I shake my head.
“You seem like you are though.”
Shrugging, I admit, “I guess I don’t understand why you’re apologizing.”
“It might have made you uncomfortable. By the way you were screaming, I’m positive it did. But I couldn’t watch you suffer like you were.”
In a way, it did make me uncomfortable, but I don’t think it’s the same way he suspects and not because of my uncle or my dream. Those nightmares are often put aside once I wake up. I’ve been dealing with them for so long, they don’t bother me as much anymore. But how he brought on my discomfort was through his solemn rejection. Now I realize I may be attracted to Marc in a way he’s not attracted to me.
I shake my head.
“I thought of revisiting that theory. But like you said, that’s not what we are here for, why you broke things off with Cory, and you have no interest.”
You’re an interest, I want to say, but I swallow it back, realizing he held back not because of me, but what I said.
“I’m not supposed to have interests, and I usually don’t. I honestly never do. I was just curious. But I know how not to explore my curiosities,” he says, looking behind him and back.
Again, I nod. I don’t want to say the wrong thing or the right thing that may come off to him as wrong.
“You don’t have anything to say?”
“Umm.”
He pitches his nose. “Anything else?”
“We aren’t here
to explore our personal interests, but fulfill our purpose. Although,” I take a pause to check our surroundings so I can add, “I will continue to ask you to do that thing when you wrap your arms around me. Even though I shouldn’t, it makes me feel better.”
He smirks. “I’m okay with that.”
“Good.” We stroll at an even distance away from each other. Not close enough for suspicions to arise, but close enough for us to hear our low voices.
“Your hugs are nice too,” he says when we’ve made it out as far as the obstacle course. It’s a place to stroll by that wouldn’t draw attention to us since someone’s always watching when we’re outside.
“That was the first time I was comforted by a hug in a long time,” I say. “Luke and I don’t hug that way. He’ll wrap an arm around my shoulder, or I’ll wrap my arm around his waist.” I draw my lips to the side. “He even wraps his arm around my head.”
Marc nods and drags the heel of his hand down his bearded chin. He’s quiet for a while, overlooking the obstacle course. It’s not until we turn around, five minutes from our arrival, that he asks, “Did that feel weird to you?”
All these situations have me battling with myself, why some are okay, and others are not? How I can feel so many different ways and yet not be able to pinpoint any of these emotions properly. Tugging at the hem of my shirt, I stammer, “Weird like how?” Touching him? Him embracing me? Of course, it felt weird. It felt like a lot of things.
“I don’t know.” Stopping, he furrows his brows and shrugs. “Weird like, different, maybe?”
“Different, yes.” But I’m okay with different; it leaves me wanting more of whatever it is, though I know I shouldn’t. Marc makes me nervous and impatient as I try to read through his shield, beyond the constant nonchalant attitude that makes up the bulk of his personality.
We crowd around Jord as he gives us the run-down for our mission in Chicago. “Urgency,” he instructs. “Do not linger. If you must question it, dispose of it. If it doesn’t look human, dispose of it. A few of you are familiar with what we will be facing. Those of you who are not, these things… we do not yet have a name for them. They look human but are not. Somehow, they are infected, and this infection spreads fast, killing them and somehow bringing them back to life. They have no heartbeat, but their brains are alive and working. The guns you have been given are specifically made for the bullets designed to abolish these things. No bullet is to be wasted.” He taps his forehead with the barrel of his handgun. “Head shots. Do not aim anywhere else.” A quiet bus pulls up beside us. Jord gives the driver a nod and then continues, “These things are fast. Faster than what the three of you have seen.” He points to Luke, Marc, and me. “You have to be faster. Move out if you are bitten, spat upon, or scratched.” He’s speaking low, sure to not alert the others or be heard by anyone listening in on us. “Any questions?”
Imminent Threat Page 16
