He held up his skinny dead squirrel. “Great,” he said. “We can make stew. I’ll get a fire going. I walked through a beautiful chapel on the way here—we can sleep there tonight. I figure if we put stones around to keep the fire contained we can make a small one for warmth and cooking.”
Emily nodded, but she still seemed distant.
He had really scared her, it seemed. What could he do to reassure her?
* * *
Emily wouldn’t sit next to him by the fire. Mason skinned and boned the squirrel, and Emily put everything to boil with the plants in their pot. Well, it was his pot. He’d started to think of his things as belonging to her too.
“Emily, you’re being…” He trailed off. He wanted to say ridiculous. Or even crazy. But even he had enough wits to know when you want a woman to forgive you, the last thing you do is call her crazy.
“I think,” she said softly, the flames making shadows jump across her face, still beautiful despite the swollen cheekbone and black eye, “I think I’m in over my head.”
Mason looked at her. At least she was talking to him now. “What do you mean?”
“I didn’t think it through, what it meant when I asked you to come with me, to protect me. I didn’t think it through and now a man is dead.”
Now it was Mason’s turn to be silent.
“Actually,” she continued, “two men are dead. I killed Private Andrews, and you killed the old man. Before I met you—I never killed anyone. A whole year of living in the camp and I managed to refrain from becoming a cold-blooded killer. Within days of meeting you, a convicted murderer, I kill a man.”
“Hey,” Mason said in disbelief. “You can’t blame me for what you did.”
“Maybe,” Emily said, standing up, “you’re a bad influence on me. A dangerous influence.”
“That’s crazy,” he said vehemently, no longer caring if his words insulted her. He stood as well and she backed away from him. “You need to own up to your actions. You can’t blame me.”
He drew closer to her and she trembled. With anger, or with fear? “Emily,” he said darkly, pulling her toward him, “this is a new world we live in. Kill or be killed. You made the right choice, and so did I. I’d do it again in a heartbeat to keep you safe.”
She shoved against his chest, hard, pushing him back. Mason grabbed her wrists in his hand and held her still. Her face was inches away, her cheeks flushed.
“Why?” she asked, her voice raw. “Why do you want to keep me safe?”
“Because you asked me to.”
She lifted herself on her tiptoes then and pressed her lips against his, surprising him with her fiery passion. Wrapping his arms around her, he claimed her mouth, kissing her deeper, needing to feel her body on his.
He ripped his shirt off, the fire warming his naked flesh. Emily made no move to remove her clothes, so he reached down and pulled her shirt off for her. She gasped, her breasts bare, her nipples erect.
Mason pulled her pants down and they tangled around her legs, making her tumble to the floor, but she caught herself on her hands before she landed face-first.
Mason dropped to his knees behind her, pulling her hips and ass toward him, his cock hard in his pants. He quickly unzipped his fly, groaning as his cock hit the air, pre-come moistening the tip. Slipping his hand between Emily’s thighs, he ran his fingers across her folds, parting them, exposing her clit.
Emily bucked against his hand as he flicked her clit, keeping up a steady rhythm. He slid his fingers deep within her until she gasped, moaning, her pussy clenching around them. Mason slowly withdrew his hand and positioned himself behind her at the entrance to her wet cunt.
Grabbing hold of her hips, Mason plunged himself inside her, putting all of his fear of losing her into his thrusts, making her cry out as she came again, her slick channel pulsing convulsively around his cock.
She started to crawl forward but Mason wasn’t done. He took her tangled brown hair in his hand and held her in place, her back arching as he continued fucking her until he came, groaning, ejaculating deep inside her.
Emily lowered herself to the ground, gasping, her bruised cheek touching the cold marble floor. Mason lay next to her, running his fingers over her back, kneading the muscles.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
She looked at him, a small smile on her lips. “For what?”
“I didn’t mean to be so… rough.”
Emily chuckled. “I liked it, actually.”
Mason paused mid-massage, his fingers halfway up her back. “Are you still mad at me for killing that guy?”
As soon as he said it he wished he could take the words back. They’d been connecting there for a moment—and now she’d remember why she was so upset with him in the first place.
Emily didn’t answer. Instead, she rolled over onto her back, wrapping her arms around his neck, drawing him on top of her. He held his weight off of her by propping himself up onto his elbows, staring into her brown eyes.
When had she become so important to him? And what did that mean, for his own ability to survive independently?
Emily reached down between their bodies and grabbed hold of his cock, opening her knees wide so she was positioned perfectly beneath him. With a sweet gasp, she held his shaft in place and pressed her hips forward, drawing his cock inside her.
His erection stiffened as she writhed underneath him. He struggled to be slower this time, to take his time and make it last. Sliding deep into her pussy, he withdrew, letting his cock slide against her clit as he came out and then thrust back in again.
She gyrated her hips slowly, moving them in a full circle around his cock. It felt so incredible he never wanted it to end. Kissing her neck, licking a trail to her ear, he whispered, “That feels amazing.”
Her pussy clenched in response, and Mason couldn’t help but come as her muscles contracted over and over again, a sheen of perspiration covering her pale skin. He lowered himself onto her, breathing heavily.
Finally, after their breath had evened out and their heartbeats slowed to a more normal pace, Emily gently pushed him off of her.
“Come on,” she said. “We have to bury the body.”
* * *
Jenna walked slowly through the main concourse at Grand Central Terminal, taking in the scene around her. People were dirty and hungry, purple bags shadowing their eyes. The women who had men to look out for them weren’t expected to live on the Tracks—just the women who, like her, were alone. Maybe more of those families would have survived if those women’s husbands would’ve let them barter the last thing they had to share in exchange for food. Instead, there weren’t nearly as many women living in the main concourse as there were on the Tracks. There weren’t nearly as many women living.
People were already lining up for the dinner ration, a biscuit that was half sawdust and a watery stew made with, if Jenna’s sources were accurate, rat meat. Still, food was food.
She stood in line, wondering if she smelled and looked quite as bad as most of them did. There had been a lice breakout recently and many women, without mirrors, had cut their hair off and didn’t even seem to care.
Her scalp itched just thinking about it—but she didn’t dare scratch or somebody might get it into their head to “help” her by insisting she cut her hair too.
A petite girl with freshly shorn black hair stood in front of her in line. She turned around and said, “Are you Jenna?”
Uh-oh. She nodded, raising an eyebrow.
“I’m Taryn,” the girl said. She dropped her voice, looking around to see if anyone was listening. No one was. “I heard you were friends with the girl who iced Private Andrews.”
Jenna held back a gasp. She still refused to believe Emily would have done something like that. But then… who knew what really happened in that room? Maybe it was an accident.
Taryn apparently took Jenna’s silence as confirmation. “Good for her,” she whispered. “If I weren’t such a chicken, I’d
do the same thing. I’d kill them all, the bastards.”
Jenna gulped. Maybe—maybe Emily had been pushed too far, like this girl Taryn must have been for her to be so full of hate.
“Um, don’t kill anyone,” Jenna said lamely. “I mean, is it really so bad?”
Taryn scoffed. “Maybe not for you. All the guys talk about how you like it. Just last night some creep told me he’d learned a great way to eat pussy and you’d already given him the thumbs-up. I mean, talk about sick.”
“What’s sick about that, exactly?” Jenna asked, confused.
“I don’t want to get off, I want to get fed,” Taryn said matter-of-factly. “The least amount of time I have to spend in the presence of those assholes is still too long for me.”
Jenna shrugged.
“I guess,” Taryn said, looking at her thoughtfully, “if you tell yourself you enjoy it, that it’s not really prostitution, or not really rape, then it’s easier to survive and live happily.”
Huh. Jenna didn’t respond.
“I’m a—well, I was,” she amended, “a psych major at NYU.”
“What would your psychology professors have to say about you wanting to kill the soldiers who visit you?” Jenna asked, genuinely curious.
Taryn huffed as though she’d been thoroughly insulted. Then, to Jenna’s surprise, tears welled up in the girl’s eyes. “I just want to go home. I hate it here.”
Maybe I should tell her about the radio. About the other communities. Give her some hope—so she didn’t wind up “icing” some soldier like she fantasized about. Jenna looked at the long dinner line in front of her and sighed.
“If I tell you something,” Jenna said, her voice low, “can you keep it on the down low?”
Taryn nodded, looking intrigued. “Who’m I gonna tell, anyway,” she said bitterly. “I have no friends here.”
“Emily sent me a message after she escaped—after she killed the soldier. She said the army here has a working radio, and the radio plays a station called American Victory Radio—and there are places outside the city that are rebuilding. Places that are doing better.”
Taryn smiled and shook her head. “No way. They would have told us.”
“And ruin having complete power over everyone?” she asked pointedly. “Colonel Lanche is a fucking dictator. You know that. He’s a sadist, too—you’d know that if you ever spent any time with him on the Tracks.”
From the way Taryn nodded, she had.
“Look, you don’t have to believe me. I just wanted to let you know, in case you wanted to leave Grand Central.” Jenna thought about that for a moment and said, “Not that I think that’s a particularly safe option. I’m saying it’s one option.”
Taryn smiled again, her whole face brightening. “You really think there are places in the US doing better than this hellhole?”
Jenna nodded. “Sure, why not? Imagine farming communities, or places where they could fish or something for food. If they had good leadership—I mean, yeah, they’d still have their problems—”
“No electricity, no cars, no trucks transporting supplies, no clean running water, no medications,” Taryn said, listing the issues off on her fingers. “So they probably lost a lot of people at first, like we did.”
Dejected, Jenna sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“But,” Taryn said, “with a good leader, it would have to be better than here.”
Jenna nodded at the girl. “Yeah, I imagine anything would be better than here.”
“If I decided to leave,” Taryn said, “would you come with me?”
* * *
Emily looked over at the corpse lying on the floor of The Cloisters and took a deep breath. As a nurse she should be used to seeing death and blood. But when she saw the old man’s body, she could only see Mason killing him. Shooting him down—to protect her.
“We have to wrap him in something,” she said.
“There’s nothing to wrap him in. I’ll just carry him,” Mason said, easily lifting the man’s body. He looked down at the man’s face and grimaced as if in pain. “I really wish he hadn’t attacked you.”
“Me too.”
“You don’t have to come with me,” Mason said. “I promise I’ll bury him properly. I’ll make sure no animals will be able to get at him.”
Emily winced at the thought. “No, I need to help. I’m the main reason he’s dead. You were protecting me.”
Mason didn’t respond. He walked, carrying the old man’s body, his shirt already covered in blood.
Out on the grounds Mason nodded toward an old shed and set the body down carefully. Emily followed and watched silently as Mason picked the lock with his knife and opened the door within a minute. He must’ve learned that skill in prison.
Mason reached in and grabbed two shovels and handed her one almost as tall as her.
“Over there,” he said, pointing to a grassy area. He broke the ground with a grunt of exertion, piercing the fresh spring grass, pulling up a shovelful of rich, soft soil. Emily joined him, grateful for the physical labor to take her mind off of what happened.
This is all my fault. That poor old man was dead because of her. He kept The Cloisters safe for all this time, and now he’s dead.
She dug harder, trying to force the thoughts from her mind. “Do you think he had family?” she asked, panting, beads of perspiration running down between her breasts as she continued to dig.
“Everyone has some sort of family,” Mason said. “But no. I imagine he probably worked here… the grounds man maybe… and he stayed on.”
“You shouldn’t have killed him.”
“Stop saying that, Em. I know you’re upset. And there’s only so many times and so many ways I can explain that I had to make this choice.”
“I know.” She lifted another shovelful of dirt out of the grave with a grunt. She did know—as upset as she was she could also see the truth in his words. “I’m sorry. You’re right—he could have killed me. He attacked me, and he could have attacked you too.”
Mason lifted two more shovelfuls of dirt out of the grave before responding. “So you forgive me?”
“Yes.” Emily lifted another shovelful of dirt. “I suppose I have to. Because if I didn’t, then I couldn’t keep asking you to protect me, knowing what that means. But I still need you. I still—I still want you to protect me, Mason. And I’m probably lucky to have someone around who knows what to do and isn’t afraid to do it.”
“I could say the same for you.”
They continued digging in silence, the only sounds the crickets chirping and their ragged breaths as the shovels hit the dirt.
“This is deep enough,” Mason said when they’d dug down a few feet. Emily stopped and nodded, her entire body aching from the exertion.
Mason pulled himself out of the hole and reached down, grabbing Emily under her arms and lifting her out. Her body pressed against his and she hugged him fiercely, a fresh wave of sobs shuddering through her.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry this happened.”
Mason hugged her, stroking her hair. She felt herself calm down, just from his presence, from his touch.
“We have to bury him,” she said.
Mason lifted the old man’s body and set him into the grave. He shoveled dirt onto him quickly, and Emily noticed he wasn’t looking at the old man’s face. Surely that face would haunt him, just as it would haunt her.
When Mason finished he wiped his brow with his grimy hand and bowed his head. “God, please accept this man who protected The Cloisters into Heaven. And please forgive me for killing him.” He shook his head. “It sounds so terrible when I say it like that.”
“No,” Emily said. “It sounds right. Thank you for saying a prayer for him.”
Mason nodded. They left the shovels over the grave, crossed.
“Let’s go clean off in the Hudson River,” he suggested.
Clean. Yes, that’s exactly what she needed. Water to w
ash away the blood and the dirt and the pain. She held Mason’s hand as they walked down toward the riverbed.
Neither of them bothered to strip out of their clothes, since their clothes were filthy from the soil. The shock of the freezing-cold water cold pushed all thoughts of guilt and shame from Emily’s mind and she forced herself to endure the punishing temperature of the river, imagining it as penance that might wash away her sins.
* * *
Emily woke up the next morning at The Cloisters feeling like she’d gone a few rounds with a boxer. Getting pelted with rocks the night before might have had something to do with it, but Emily knew from her aching muscles that her pain came from digging the grave.
Mason slept, snoring lightly, his arm over his eyes to block the sunlight streaming through the beautiful stained-glass windows of the chapel.
Emily warmed the leftover stew they had eaten last night for dinner. It might be the only meal they ate all day if their luck didn’t improve. Now that they were at the very northern tip of Manhattan, though, they’d be out of the city soon. Mason had suggested they go across the George Washington Bridge into New Jersey, but Emily felt strongly that upstate New York would be a safer bet. She didn’t want to cross a bridge and end up in another congested crime-ridden city under martial law. If they kept going upstate, they might find some land and some semblance of freedom.
Mason took her views seriously, to her surprise. Maybe she really did have something to contribute to their partnership. She needed him, true, but she was beginning to see how he might need her as well.
Emily still wasn’t okay with the fact that Mason had killed that man—but she understood his intentions were good, at least. He wanted to protect her.
But what about the fact that she was turning into a person who not only condoned him killing a man, but killed a man herself?
His words came back to her—she had to hold herself accountable for her own actions. It was true, as much as she didn’t want it to be. It wasn’t Mason’s fault she was on the run now as a murderer. It was hers. And when she thought about, she knew she’d make the same decision again if she had to.
The Pulse: Book 1 in the Pulse Trilogy Page 15
