by Amy Miles
When I turn to face him, I see that his breathing has increased and there is a slight flush around his neck and face. I have gotten to him, but no more so than he did to me. I can use this attraction to my advantage, but I’m unsure if I can do it without letting myself get burned in the process.
He is obviously renowned for meaningless sex. After months of longing for Cable’s touch, I have been left empty and aching for something meaningless to fill that void.
Looking Nox over with new eyes, I know that he would prove to be a good distraction, but I quickly remind myself that this desire can’t happen. Not now. Not ever.
Nox is the enemy. It doesn’t matter how many times I chant this reminder through my mind as he steps back. I still see the smoldering heat in his gaze and know that I will always wonder what he could have been like.
FIVE
Staring down at the plate of steaming food Nox places in front of me not long after I’m settled back in bed to rest, I feel like I’ve just been handed the world’s juiciest bribe.
“Steak? You have actual steak here?” I blink several times and then poke at the perfectly seared meat for a third time with my plastic fork just to be sure that I’m not hallucinating.
“And potatoes, corn, and a hot roll.” Nox points to each item on my untouched plate like I don’t have eyes or a growling stomach ready to do him bodily harm if he so much as hints at trying to take it away from me.
“How is this possible?”
“Well, the outbreak didn’t affect the animals so cows do still exist. You just have to round them up from time to time.” He leans back into the chair that he has placed at the end of my bed so that no matter where he looks in the room I’m still in his peripheral vision. “There’s a lot you don’t know about this place. For starters, don’t expect that sort of meal every day. I can promise you that this is a limited time offer. The doctor wants you back on your feet quickly, so you get the good stuff for a few days then you are back on the normal chow. Trust me, after a few days you’ll be wishing you licked that plate clean!”
Ignoring the aching in my stomach, I push the plate aside and force myself to look away. “I don’t want it.”
“Liar.”
Leaning forward, I naturally cradle my left arm into my chest. The new bandage and weird yellowish ointment that Nox applied earlier feels a million times better, but I’d never tell him that. “You don’t know me. I’ve given up far better before.”
“Maybe, but I know enough about you. Like how you’re a complete idiot for turning down the best meal in town just to try to prove that you’re tough and don’t need our help.”
I’d agree with him on that one but still I hold firm.
“I also know that you’re scared. I get that. I wasn’t all that friendly when I arrived here either.”
Looking toward the window, I stare at the greenery again, but it is lost to the coming darkness. There is something off about how the shadows move. Almost like the plants outside are somehow inside as well with a ceiling overhead blocking the sun’s descent. “Where is here exactly? You’ve never said.”
“I’ll make you a deal. For every bite of food you eat, I will give you one answer.”
When I level him with a scathing glance, he merely grins back and laces his fingers behind his head. “You’ve been on IV fluids for a couple of days. It wouldn’t kill you to eat something solid for a change and I promise to be honest. That promise ends if you ask me something that I’m forbidden to say, though, got it?”
Glancing at my plate, I debate my options then grab a small scoop of potatoes and swallow. The instant the creamy chive and garlic potatoes touch my lips I moan with delight and Nox’s smile widens.
“Great, huh? I’ll admit I may have snuck a few bites of your breakfast. Bacon is scarce around here. My once a week ration just doesn’t cut it for a guy like me.” He turns to look toward the window. “In answer to your previous question, you are currently sitting in what was once the Grand Ole Opry hotel. Now we call it Alpha Base. The civilians who reside here just call it home.”
I lower my fork and lick my lips. “You’re telling me that you were hunting for me up near the Tennessee border and brought me all the way back to Nashville?”
“Another bite please.”
With a frown, I dig into the pile of golden corn kernels and try not to show how delicious the buttery flavor is as I chew.
“Our hunting route is not normally so far north but things are changing out there. We’ve had to adapt our methods, and when we received a distress call on an emergency ban radio, we went hunting. Along the way, we stumbled across you and couldn’t leave you out there alone and injured.”
“I was only injured because that asshat shot me!”
“True,” Nox nodded, “but you were moving into hostile territory. You had no clue what you were walking into so Cap made the call to save you. Like it or not, good men died doing so.”
“I never asked to be saved.” Stabbing a bit of marbled steak with my fork, I raise it to my lips and then pause. “Any chance I can get some ketchup with this?”
Nox smirks. “Even if I had some I wouldn’t let you ruin a perfect slab of beef like that.”
With a shrug, I pop the meat into my mouth and am instantly swept away to a place far from Nashville, back to a time when the world made sense and my mom made a nice meal just like this to butter me up each time we were about to move again. It was the only time I ever really remember her firing up the grill, so I always knew what was coming. Most of the time we lived barely better than traveling gypsies, but at least I got a steak out of it.
Thinking of my mom makes the meat go rancid in my mouth and I sigh. It has been so long since I thought about her and now that I am, I can’t bring up a single memory of her that doesn’t somehow get covered over with the sounds of those monsters tearing her apart while I hid helplessly under her hospital bed. Had it really only been a few months?
“My turn,” he says, drawing me from my thoughts. “Why are you alone?”
“Everyone I knew died, either from the outbreak or from raiders of some sort. I don’t trust anyone now, so it’s not that hard to figure out why I’m alone.”
Nox sits forward and laces his fingers together, resting his elbows on his knees. “That sounds like a lonely life.”
“And yours seems so great here. I’m starting to see the error of my ways.” I lift my hands high enough for them to rise up off the covers. “Managing this fork with bound hands is like fooling around with chopsticks. Care to untie me so I can eat properly?”
“Not on your life.”
“Didn’t think so.” I tear a bit off my bread roll and chew slowly. I had forgotten how heavenly freshly baked bread smells. “So why here? Why pick a building so large and hard to defend? Seems like you’re just begging to get attacked.”
“By the raiders, you mean?”
When he scratches at his jawline, I notice that dark stubble has begun to grow. I have no clue how much time had passed since I woke. After our awkward dressing session, Nox cleaned my shoulder wound, tied me up with instructions to rest, and then returned some time later with food. During that alone time, I discovered that he is a wiz with knots and I was left completely weaponless. Even my dinner had been pre-cut so I wouldn’t need a knife. It’s not like there’s much damage that I can do with a plastic fork.
“There are some among us who have been here from the beginning,” he says. “After the Arnold Air Force Base was overrun, Nashville became the fallback. Cap was among the survivors that helped to create the safe zone on the south side of the city but a lot of people lost their lives in the initial weeks. Panic has a way of creating more problems than solutions.”
I knew that truth all too well myself. Thinking back to the destruction of St. Louis and the speed with which the gangs formed, pushing survivors either closer t
o the grave or a life of servitude, made it easy to imagine what happened here.
“When the safe zone fell to raiders, the survivors were pushed back here. They took up refuge in the hotel, gathering supplies from the mall, which hadn’t already been picked clean. With enough salvaged machinery, the soldiers were able to pile up concrete bollards around the hotel and made one hell of a crushed car heap. There sure were plenty of them just sitting around.”
“So this place is guarded by old rust buckets and pieced together concrete bollards?” I shove my hair back out of my face for the millionth time. Now that it’s nearly dry the frizziness of my curls has begun to set in. “Can’t say that I’m feeling all that safe right now.”
“It’s not just cars. We have other...” Nox starts to explain but falls silent when he hears footsteps outside the room. I tense and shift the plate away but palm the fork just in case.
“At ease, soldier,” comes a call from out in the hallway. The door opens and in step three people. The first I recognize as Cap all decked out in his full military garb. One glance at his hip shows that he has been stripped of all weapons prior to entering. When Nox catches the direction of my gaze he stifles a laugh behind his hand, but Cap is too busy making way for the two people behind him to notice.
The selection of the welcoming party is rather surprising. I’d expect big muscled brutes like Jax or Ryker to come to knock some answers out of me. Instead, I get a balding, four-eyed computer geek type and a grandmotherly woman who looks like she should be standing in a kitchen baking cookies instead of entering a prisoner’s bedroom.
“Hello, dear,” the woman says with a slight tremor in her voice as she approaches the bed. She places an arthritic hand on Nox’s shoulder when he starts to rise. “Please stay. This will only take a moment and then you may resume your duties.”
“Of course.” Nox sinks back down, but I can tell that he’s slightly confused. He glances toward Cap, who gives him a curt nod.
“My name is Iris.” I return my attention to the woman. “It’s so lovely that you are finally well enough for us to officially meet. I see that you are being well cared for.”
“If being tied to a bed and held against my will means well cared for then sure, I’m just peachy,” I retort.
Cap tenses but Nox just smirks and lowers his gaze. Iris’s smile broadens as she turns to look at the middle-aged man just over her shoulder. “I told you she’d be a feisty one, didn’t I, Brian? God, love, she has had to be to survive out in those wretched lands all on her own. I’m so glad that our boys found you in time.”
“In time for what?”
Brian steps forward. “To save you from the Flesh Bags, of course.”
I stare at each of the people in turn then finally settle on Cap. “Those things that were chasing me...they were different than anything I’ve ever come across before. I thought I hallucinated most of it, but when Nox mentioned Flesh Bags earlier, I knew some of it had to be real.”
Cap waits for permission before speaking. He steps forward, plants his feet, and clasps his hands behind his back in what appears to be the most rigid stick up your backside style of standing to attention I’ve ever seen. This guy is in full on soldier mode. “Afraid not, ma’am. The creatures that tracked you are among the newest mutations that we have discovered. This mutation is prevalent to our area but, like a disease, they are spreading faster than we can put them down.”
I frown. “Why only here?”
Although it is the slightest of movements, I notice a tic along Brian’s jaw before he smiles and steps forward to block Cap from sight. “We don’t know that it is only here. Our communications have been limited as of late, but we are working to improve them as we speak. I’m sure once we are fully operational we will understand more. Sadly, the technology needed, and the brain power to run certain machines, leaves us at a disadvantage. We can only work with what little we have.”
“You’ve got a hell of a lot more to work with than anywhere else I’ve seen.”
Iris smiles and places her hands in her lap. “We are very blessed here at Alpha Base.”
There is something off about the way she watches me and I can’t help but feel like she is waiting for something. Probably for me to spit pea green soup, have my head pretend to be a merry-go-round, and prove to them that I don’t belong here.
“Back on the road, I still saw normal Withered heading south, just as docile and unblinking as before. That’s what we call them where I’m from. It doesn’t make sense that they would digress so quickly unless something about this location triggered something new in them.” I watch Brian closely as I speak and I would bet that big juicy steak sitting on my plate that he knows more than he is saying when he lowers his gaze under my explorative eyes.
“The reason for the mutations are yet unknown to us.” Iris reaches up and places a hand on Brian’s arm. “We have our best minds working on the problem.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
Instead of looking at her, I focus my gaze on Cap. He remains at his ready position with his chin held high and his eyes focused on the back of Brian’s balding head. There is no emotion or evidence of a unique thought bouncing through his mind. If I believed futuristic technology were real, I would think he were more robot than human. He barely seems to breathe or blink.
“Are you settling in well enough?” Iris asks.
I nearly betray myself with a laugh when I see Nox roll his eyes behind their backs. It was a stupid question to ask and I’m thankful that at least he acknowledges that.
“When can I leave?”
“Leave?” Iris’s eyes go wide and several of the deep age lines around her eyes disappear. “Why on earth would you want to leave?”
“I have somewhere to be.”
Brian scratches at the barren space between where his sideburns end and his patchy beard begins. “You are not fully recovered yet. We can discuss this at a time that is better suited for all of us. For now, as a courtesy for the food and medicine we have provided, we simply ask that you allow Nox to get to know you a bit. We here at Alpha Base believe that knowledge is crucial. You hold a keen insight into the world beyond our own. Anything that you can share with us will be greatly appreciated.”
I notice how he easily slips in the assumption that I will bend over backward to be off assistance to them.
“And if I don’t feel like sharing?”
Nox shoots me a warning glance that I ignore.
Iris tugs at Brian’s arm and he helps her rise from the bed. “Let’s not overwhelm the poor dear all at once. She needs rest and a chance to clear her head. Once she’s on her feet, we can have this discussion and explain everything that we do know.”
“No.” I lean forward. “I want to know now.”
“I’m afraid that is all of the information we are willing to share until you start being more forthcoming with us, dear.” Her smile feels condescending this time. “From what I’ve been told, you have yet to even share your name with us. Perhaps you would care to do that now?”
I bite down on my lip and remain silent. I can’t let them know my name and risk them putting together my involvement with the doctors near the St. Louis base.
“Nox?”
“Nothing yet, ma’am. We’ve only just begun to chat, but I can tell you that she’s not overly fond of being called ‘love.’”
“Now, I can’t imagine why that would be coming from a handsome young man like yourself.” Iris turns and holds out her free hand to Cap. “Well, perhaps later then. I have duties that require my attention. Zoey will be in to relieve you shortly, Nox. Be sure that she understands her place. We would hate for this poor dear to get the wrong impression of us.”
“Of course, ma’am.” Nox nods his head and the trio turns to exit the room, leaving me more confused than I was before. The instant their footsteps disappear from the ro
om, I pounce.
“Why are these Flesh Bags different? Was it a slow mutation or rapid? What about those bite marks that I saw on your friend Gunner? Do they have anything to do with how it spreads?”
“Whoa,” Nox holds up his hands. “Easy with the whiplash interrogation, love. You heard what Iris said. Once you are up and about, we will tell you everything.”
“Fuck that. I need answers now. And stop calling me ‘love!’”
“No name. No deal. I can be a stubborn ass just like you.” Rising to his feet, Nox comes around to the side of my bed and holds out his hand, waiting for me to allow him to check my bindings. He is no fool. He’s done this on a regular basis since sending me back to bed.
With a sigh, I raise my arms and he retrieves my hidden fork first. “It wouldn’t have done you much good. Everyone here has been trained to fight, including Iris. Against the four of us, you wouldn’t have stood a chance with that little fork of yours. It would have only got you hurt.”
“So?” I snap back.
“So, if you really want to get out of here, you need to be smart about it,” he whispers back.
I start to speak and then clam up. Nox smiles and tugs on my bindings. “You’re learning and that’s good. I told you earlier that you are not a prisoner. You are being restrained for your own good and are in no condition to go out there on your own. Letting you do so would be signing your death warrant, and with as much medicine and manpower that we invested in you, Brian and Iris would much rather help you see things our way so that you can be an asset.”
With my hands momentarily free, I rub my wrists and wince at the biting pain there. This freedom is short lived when he takes hold of my arm and ties me to a rope dangling from the poster that stands just behind my bed.
I watch him carefully as he moves around to my left. “So you drank the Kool-Aid and said thank you, is that it?”
He laughs and tugs on the rope, securing it snugly to my wrist. “Something like that. I’m a survivor and I do what it takes to make it through the next day. If anyone understands that, it is you. Being with people and the biggest stockpile of ammunition around doesn’t seem like a bad decision to me.”
