by D. Laine
“I don’t . . .” I shrugged pathetically. “I don’t know what to say right now. I think I’m in shock.”
“Walk away from me,” Dylan suggested softly. “Yell at me. Tell me how disappointed you are, how upset you are, or how much I screwed up and ruined everything. I don’t care how bad it is, just say it.”
“I—” At a loss, I shook my head. I didn’t know exactly how I felt. Sure, this revelation had come as a shock, but it didn’t change how I felt about him. Not even close. I cut the distance between us with slow and steady steps, holding his perplexed gaze the entire time. With numb fingers, I cupped his face and pulled him to me. Forehead to forehead, his eyes squeezed shut, and the right words finally found their way. “You haven’t ruined anything.”
“But I—”
“Did you cheat on me?”
His eyes flew open, permitting me an up close view into an expressive blend of greens. “No. Of course not.”
“So this happened before me.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Then it doesn’t change anything,” I said. “I love you and nothing—”
The rest of my speech was cut off by his mouth crashing into mine. It was a hard and powerful bruising kind of kiss, but it carried an undercurrent of deep meaning that was uniquely Dylan. With his actions, he managed to say so much in a short amount of time.
He abruptly pulled away, but only to rest his forehead against mine. The foggy puffs of our breaths mingled between us.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I keep finding ways to make things even harder. It’s not the way I wanted things to be for us.”
I laughed softly. “Starting a relationship in the midst of an apocalypse is hardly ideal. I think we’ve learned to manage the difficult stuff pretty well.”
That earned me a lopsided smile. It dawned on me that I hadn’t seen a genuine smile on his face in a long time. This whole Maria thing must have really been eating at him. Seeing her taken by the Watchers certainly hadn’t helped.
“That’s why you stopped me last night, isn’t it? Why you let her get away?” I wasn’t upset, but I needed to understand where his head had been then . . . and now.
“Maybe. I wasn’t really thinking clearly last night. All I knew was that she was in there somewhere. And I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I don’t know how much of it is still her, and I don’t know if we can get her back. But if we can get her back . . .”
“We’ll try.”
“There’s nothing between Maria and me,” he assured me quickly—and unnecessarily. “It’s not like that. It’s just . . . well, it’s complicated, but she’s my friend. Both of them are. Or they were.”
The silence stretched between us, and I knew he was thinking about the half dug grave behind him, where we would bury Marcus before the day was over.
“I can’t lose anybody else,” he finally murmured.
“Then we can’t keep going on the way we have been. The group is falling apart,” I said. “We won’t survive much longer like this. Maybe it’s time to consider—”
“Calvin?” He moved his head, putting a little more distance between us. “You think we should go to him?”
“It’s something I think you should consider. He might be able to help us.”
“And what if he’s Lucifer’s new vessel, and we walk right into his trap?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But we have to do something.”
“We will.” He stepped back to peer down at the shallow hole at our feet. A muscle in his jaw ticked once. Twice. When he looked up at me again, the fire in his eyes that had been missing recently burned brightly. My lethal assassin was back. “I’m going to get that fucker if it’s the last thing I do.”
AFTER MY TALK WITH DYLAN, I went with Jake to the campground’s maintenance building on the other side of the property. We gathered two more shovels to help Dylan. Despite the hardness of the ground, the three of us managed to dig a proper grave after another hour of hard labor.
Then came the difficult part.
I found myself looking around for Maria while the guys lowered Marcus’s body into the ground. She should have been there. She should have been mourning her brother’s death with us.
But she wasn’t, and I wondered if we should have been mourning her as well. In theory, she was lost. She may never be Maria again. I may not have been on the best of terms with her, but I never wished her harm. Especially not like this.
What happened to her and Marcus was wrong. Looking around what was left of our group, I sensed we all felt a strong drive to seek vengeance.
One thing I had learned about Dylan since I met him was that he wasn’t afraid to say or do much of anything. He said and did what he wanted, when he wanted, and he didn’t give a damn whose feathers he ruffled in the process. He also remained unusually quiet and calm at times I least expected him to.
The man constantly surprised me, so I had no idea what to expect when he squatted down to scoop up a handful of dirt from the mound that now covered Marcus’s body. A cold breeze caught it as it trickled from his hand, carrying it toward us along with the sound of Dylan’s voice.
“Most of you didn’t know Marcus the way Jake and I knew him, and I’m sure he probably preferred it that way,” he started. “He was a tough ass, and the last thing he would want was for us to make a big deal out of this. He would want us to go on, to keep fighting. So that’s what we are going to do. Not just so his death isn’t in vain, but because that’s what we have to do. We have to fight.”
Dylan dumped the rest of the dirt to the ground and stood to face the group.
“In the end, all we’re going to have left is each other. We might not like each other. We might not agree on everything, but we do have a common goal. And I don’t plan on burying any of you anytime soon, so we’re going to get our heads out of our asses, pull ourselves together, and fight as a unit from now on. We can be strong if we work together. We’re going to win this thing, we’re going to take it all back, and we’re going to send these motherfuckers back to where they came from.”
10
DYLAN
We stayed at the campground one more night, only because we didn’t want to drive through Salt Lake City in the dark. Other than the appearance of an orange-red glow in the distance and the faint smell of smoke in the air, watch was uneventful compared to the previous night.
Despite the peace, I barely slept. Seeing the dark rings under Jake’s eyes in the morning, I suspected his night had been just as restless as mine.
“Sure you’re okay to drive?” I asked when he snatched the car keys.
“Yeah. Driving will wake me up.” He rubbed a palm over his face. “But what I really need is a coffee.”
“That would be nice.” Thea strolled up beside us with a yawn. “Even better than sex.”
“I take offense to that.” My argument was weakened by an involuntary yawn. Apparently, I was too tired to defend my sexual prowess.
Good thing I knew she was joking. Or so I hoped.
I slipped an arm around Thea’s waist and planted a quick kiss to her temple as the rest of our group wandered into the room, led by Robbie. Her eyes immediately landed on Jake before darting away furtively. Behind her, Ewing and Sadie dropped their bags to the floor.
“That’s the last of them,” Ewing announced. Then his empty hands moved on to something else. In an effort to pretend I hadn’t just seen Ewing touch my sister’s ass, I turned a teasing grin on Jake.
“You sure you want to drive? You can slip into the back seat to take a nap if you want.” I dropped my voice so that only he and Thea could hear me. “I doubt Robbie will protest.”
Thea buried her face in my coat with a snort, and Jake’s eyes narrowed on both of us. But mostly on Thea—so I knew my intuition was right.
“Don’t blame her and her ability to sense you,” I told Jake. “I have eyes. I can see it.”
Thea pulled out of hiding to nod. �
��He’s right. You guys are like a couple of middle-schoolers flirting in class, sneaking peeks when you think no one else is watching.”
“Step it up, man.” I gave him a pointed look. “I know you have better game than this. I’ve seen you in action.”
“I’m not playing games.” Jake’s fist clenched around the keys in his hand. “I’ll be in the car when you’re done fucking around.” His lips pressed thinly together as he shouldered past me, out the door.
“Whoa.” Thea slid out of my grasp. “I’ve never seen him that mad before.”
I chuckled lightly. “That was nothing.”
“You’ve seen him madder than that? When?”
There was no contest. My smile grew at the not-so-long-ago memory. “The moment he found out I was sleeping with his sister.”
He had been driving then, and that was probably the only reason he hadn’t hit me.
I promised to tell Thea more about the moment that changed all of our lives as we made our way out to the car. But not today. I didn’t think Jake would appreciate the reminder.
We decided that the six of us would cram into one car. After losing two in our group, we were all hesitant to separate. It was a tight fit, but the sense of security made it worth the sacrifice of comfort. Our rations were nearly depleted, meaning we had to find more soon, but we also managed to fit everything into the trunk of one vehicle.
With Sadie, Robbie, and Matt taking up the back seat, I had no complaints about Thea squeezing into the front with Jake and me. Feeling her curled up under my arm filled me with powerful waves of determination.
We had to succeed. Because I knew, as amazing as our time together had been so far, that the best was yet to come. I wanted to experience so much more with her. Not only in the sack, which hadn’t seen any action in a long damn time so that was a side goal that needed urgent attention, but in life. I wanted to experience life with her. No matter how difficult it may be. And I assumed it was going to be pretty damn difficult from the looks of everything around us.
Twenty minutes after we left the campground, the Salt Lake City skyline came into view—and we saw the source of the smoke and orange glow that had lit up the sky the night before. It quickly became apparent that bad had become worse.
Thea sat up in her seat. “My God. What happened?”
One look at the smoldering remains of the city and I had an answer. “Lucifer happened.”
There was no other explanation for the devastating sight spread out before us. What had likely started off as one raging inferno had swept the entire city before separating into a dozen smaller, isolated fires. The trail of destruction spread from the lake to the north to the mountains in the east and the suburbs in the south and west. We could see from our elevated position on the freeway that downtown had already been reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble. The surrounding suburbs were currently being consumed one block at a time.
Behind me, Ewing made a coughing-snort noise. “You sure do blame Lucifer for a lot.”
I didn’t immediately respond as his words slowly sank in. Honestly, I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. I tried to see the point he was attempting to make. But I couldn’t.
I was pretty sure no one else got it either. When I turned to look into the back seat, even Sadie and Robbie were gawking at him with the same puzzled and surprised expressions.
He wasn’t fazed by our scrutiny. Not at all. “You didn’t consider the fact that this happened the day after a Watcher took one of our own twenty minutes away? It’s just as likely that this is the work of them as it is likely to be Lucifer. Don’t forget we’re up against two enemies now.”
I reluctantly sat back in my seat without argument, because he had a point. As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. The Watchers wanted absolute control just as badly as Lucifer. The two sides were playing a deadly game of chess right now. Each move they made was calculated, even if we didn’t understand it. We were merely their pawns.
“What should we do?” Jake slowed to navigate the number of cars left abandoned on the interstate.
“I think we need to ask ourselves, what do they want us to do?” I suggested.
Jake glanced away from the road briefly. “Explain.”
“Think about it. We’re big players in this game of theirs. Both sides are trying to manipulate us, to trick us into doing what they want us to do and go where they want us to go—where it will benefit them.”
I peered out the window, taking in a wide look at the city beneath the interstate we were traveling on. It was still familiar to me, even after all these years and through all the destruction. I recognized it, and I knew my way around it.
Our initial plan to follow the interstate east, creeping closer to where Calvin and the Preppers were holed up near Hell’s Gate, wasn’t going to happen. At least not the way we had planned. There were too many cars. Soon we wouldn’t be able to make it through all the congestion.
“We need to get off the interstate,” I told Jake.
“But which exit? If we pick the wrong one, we’ll be stuck . . . or get caught in a fire.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, merging the image I saw before me now with my memories. “Take this exit, the one right in front of us.”
“But the fires—”
“I can get us around them.”
“But how—”
My eyes snapped open. “I said I can get us around them. If we stay on the interstate, we’ll get stuck. Trust me.”
Jake veered toward the exit, maneuvering around abandoned cars in our way. Without another word of protest, he followed my directions as we wound farther from downtown and into the land of suburbia.
Though I suspected he had guessed how I knew my way around, he didn’t know everything. He didn’t know that we were traveling the same roads Mom once drove to take Sadie and me to school every day, that I hit my first home run on the charred remains of the baseball field we had just passed, or that my first sleepover had been at a house two blocks away from the church still burning on the corner.
Only one person knew, and she sat silently in the back seat, watching it all pass by. Surprisingly, I sensed little through our connection. Either Sadie had her walls up, or she wasn’t affected by our unplanned trip down memory lane.
Me? I couldn’t help but remember the last time I traveled this road. The day we had left for the agency. The day the Preppers murdered Mom and Dad. The day they took Sadie from me. It was all as clear to me now as it had been ten years ago. Getting Sadie back had eased a lot of the pain, but not all.
Nothing would. But a dose of sweet revenge couldn’t hurt.
HOURS LATER, we put the last of the smoke and flames that consumed Salt Lake City behind us. One daunting mountain range and another wide open desert basin separated us from the Preppers. By morning, we would be close.
But not too close. We decided to cross into Colorado to the south of their location, rather than drive directly to them. If we did it right, we could sneak close without alerting them to our presence. With a little bit of luck, we could confirm or deny Calvin’s identity as Lucifer’s vessel. And if it wasn’t him, we could hopefully discover what he knew without giving ourselves up in the process.
As night descended, the hours we had traveled cramped in the car started to take its toll. Sleep came easily to everyone but Jake and me—and though we didn’t say the words out loud, we both knew why. Thea gave in last, and was currently curled up in my lap.
“She’s like a little kid when she’s asleep.” Jake glanced over from his seat behind the wheel. Ahead of us, the headlights cut through the smothering darkness that blanketed the road. Enough reflected inside the car to illuminate the whimsical smile on his face. “So peaceful.”
“So quiet,” I added with a grin.
“I assume the two of you made up.”
Thea shifted to press her face into my neck with a sleepy whimper. I tightened my arms around her, and nodded. “Yeah, we’re good.”
Someday I would tell Jake about what Maria had told me, and how it had led to my argument with Thea. But not now. Not until I knew the revelation wouldn’t fall on unintended ears. We were on the same team, but I still didn’t fully trust Ewing. Not like I trusted the others. He was no Marcus, that was for sure, and he couldn’t hold a candle to Jake.
“Do you need a break?” I offered Jake. “You’ve been driving a long time.”
“I’m good for now.” He glanced at Thea. “Let her sleep. You should try to get some rest too.”
“I don’t think so, man.”
“Dylan, you need to sleep.”
“So do you.”
He held my gaze for a long ass time—especially considering he was technically driving a car. Finally, he looked away with a sigh. “We’re both scared, but—”
“What? I’m not scared of shit,” I argued. “I’m smart. There’s a difference.”
“We don’t know the extent to which the Watchers can reach us in our sleep,” Jake continued, unfazed. “Maybe it was a fluke. Maybe this is how they weaken us, by scaring us into exhaustion. Remember what you said? That they can’t take us unless we give them permission? They’re wearing us down, and we can’t let them do that.”
“That was actually just a theory. I don’t know if that’s the case.”
Jake silently studied me while I watched the road for him. He had a talent for driving without looking at where he was going. Finally, he said, “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
My lip curled. “Seriously? Are you going to profess your love for me now, too?”
“I’m serious.” His attention finally returned to the road. “I love you like a brother, and I won’t let them take you. Just like I know you won’t let them take me.”
