by Elle Aycart
“Thank you,” Sky whispered, her throat clogging.
“Told you. I can’t be carrying him forever. I’d rather carry you,” Logan said, kissing the tip of her nose.
Her cell rang, but she ignored it. “Let’s go to the bedroom.”
“You got it, babe.” He stood up with her in his arms and climbed a couple of steps before Arnie whimpered. “Shit. Almost forgot. Hold on tight.” He went back to grab the all-but-paralyzed dog.
“I can walk,” she said as he struggled to juggle her and Arnie.
“I know you can, but I like keeping you close by.”
Gut churning, she smiled.
When they reached the second floor, he put Arnie on the floor and scratched the dog’s back. “Good night, buddy. We’ll continue tomorrow. I want to spend some alone time with our girl. She looks a bit down. She needs some pampering.”
And there it went again, her gut.
“Logan?” she asked on the way to his bedroom.
“Yes, babe?”
“Do we have antacids?”
He frowned. “I think so. Why? Need some?”
Sky nodded. She needed to prove a theory.
Logan woke up alone in his bed for the first time since Sky moved in with him. As novelties went, he didn’t care much for this one. Worried, he went looking for her. The house was empty, so he headed outside. He found Sky in the greenhouse, cutting mushrooms in her pajamas, Arnie lying by her feet. He kissed the top of her head. “What are you doing here, Butterfly?”
She offered him a smile. “Not sure. This is weirdly relaxing. I thought about snooping around the lab, but I was afraid I’d blow something up. I’d rather stick with low tech.”
“You okay?”
With a shrug, she lowered her gaze and went back to the mushrooms. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Right. For the last couple of days, she’d been hiding something from him. By now he knew her pretty well, but if she didn’t want to tell him, he wasn’t going to force her. “Is your stomach better?”
“Not really.”
She’d been taking antacids for the last two days too. Something about proving a theory, she’d said. And she’d been ignoring her phone. Now she was voluntarily in the greenhouse, not complaining about the smell. Something was wrong.
Then again, not complaining about the smell could have more to do with the cream she was dabbing under her nose every few minutes.
Arnie was making great progress with the stairs. Too bad the only thing that motivated him to climb were those nutty bacon treats, the ones that gave him insanely gross gas. They had to choose between evils, and decided to continue with the training. At this point, Logan feared their olfactory receptors were scorched beyond repair, cream or no cream.
Suddenly, the emergency alarm blasted. Sky knew the sound, because she raised her brows and said, “A drill? In the morning on a working day?”
“They like to prepare for all sorts of scenarios. Aliens won’t schedule attacks only on the weekends.”
“And what if you’re working? What do you do?”
“You haul ass to the staging area regardless, preferably with your gear. They have a messenger group too, in case you’re out of town and can’t hear the alarm.” And that was the more normal option—Bob delivered the local messages. “You want to sit this one out?”
“You crazy? No way. This time around I’m taking my toiletry kit. And underwear.”
He laughed, loving the smirk on her face. “Okay. Let’s get rocking. Alec and my sister will be here soon.”
They hurried inside to change. The bug-out bags were ready, even a small one for Arnie, so when the truck horn sounded, they were all but out the door.
Alec and Megan were there, dressed in camo, moving some gear to the bed of the truck. Drake and Marc, from Alec’s crew, were there too, also in camo attire, offloading cargo to Alec.
A small rental car was parked in his driveway. A Latino woman, resembling Sky but with black hair, emerged from it. “Celeste Macarena Gonzalez, come out right now!” she yelled.
“Who’s Celeste Macarena?” Logan asked, at a loss.
“Me,” Sky answered grudgingly. She headed for the newcomer. “Lola, what are you doing here?”
Lola. So that was Sky’s older sister.
“What am I doing here?” Lola looked around and lowered her voice. “Rescuing you from a doomsday cult, obviously.” She probably thought she was talking in a hushed tone, but she was still very loud. “I didn’t plan on meeting armed resistance.”
“They’re not a cult,” Sky said. “They’re preppers.”
“Tomato, tomahto.”
“This is Logan. I’m staying with him. Logan, my sister Lola.”
“A pleasure.” He plastered on the nicest, most unthreatening smile he could come up with and added, “We’re living together, actually.”
“Yo, Alchemist, let’s get moving,” Drake called out, handing him a rifle.
Lola opened her eyes wide and said to her sister, “You have Stockholm syndrome. Let’s get you back to New York.”
“You don’t understand. We’re in the middle of a drill. We’re—”
“—in a fucking hurry,” Alec finished. “Your sister, right? Just take her with us. You can talk on the way.”
“I’m warning you. I have a tracker on my cell, and I’m sharing my location with friends,” Lola said. “I can’t disappear. People will come asking questions.”
“What’s the holdup, Patient Zero?” Marc shouted. “We’re ready to roll.”
Lola choked. “Patient Zero? What the fuck?”
“Never mind, sis. Long story.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Alec snarled. “Get her in the truck. You can hash it out in the compound.”
The word compound seemed to alarm the already agitated woman. “You will not brainwash me!” Lola shrieked as Sky pushed her into the vehicle. “I won’t sign anything!”
“Don’t be silly,” Sky said, sitting beside her and motioning for Arnie to jump in.
“We got a screamer. Shut the windows,” Alec ordered.
Great. This drill was getting better and better. Either they rolled the windows down and got pulled over by the cops because a woman was screaming bloody murder, or they kept the windows closed and Arnie suffocated them all.
“Dab this under your nose,” Logan said, offering the cream around. “Trust me.”
Everyone did, except Lola.
“It’s just strong-smelling rose Vaseline,” Sky said.
“I will not help you drug me!”
Sky shrugged. “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
Chapter 19
“Thank God,” Lola hissed when they stepped out of the truck. She was as white as a sheet of paper.
Sky had expected her sister to put up more of a fight, but Arnie began to gas them and Lola was too busy fanning herself to notice much of what was going on around her. The customized Mad Max cars at the meeting point. The livestock hauler. The gear. The craziness. All in all, it had been for the best that Arnie kept Lola half in coma.
“You feeling better?” Sky asked after her sister took in several deep breaths of fresh air.
“Still a bit dizzy,” Lola replied. She was going to say something else, but a sneeze interrupted her. Then another and another. “Damn dog allergies.”
Crap. Sky glanced around. No pandemic squad in sight. Thank God. They better have antihistamines along with the fish antibiotics down in the bunker, or her sister was going to end up quarantined.
“What the hell are you feeding Arnie?” Lola asked after she got her sneezing under control.
“Your fault,” Sky said, tugging Arnie away from her sister. “We told you to dab the cream under your nostrils.”
Lola took her aside. “Sure, because any sane El Barrio girl would have no issues using something a guy called Alchemist offered her.”
She had a point there.
“Logan is a chemist, and not i
n a Breaking Bad kind of way. He held an executive position in a pharmaceutical company before he moved here.”
Lola looked around and then back at her. She threw her arms up. “And what the heck happened? He got caught embezzling and he’s hiding in an episode of Duck Dynasty?”
“He quit. He wanted to do something that mattered.” No way was Sky explaining the details. Lola would never believe the mushroom slash diaper thingy.
“You guys gonna be okay?” Logan asked, handing Sky her bug-out bag. “I have to help Alec unload.”
Sky nodded and kissed him. “Go. We’ll be fine. We’ll stay put.” Her sister loved the outdoors about as much as Sky used to. In those heels, Lola was going nowhere. And if this drill was like the other Sky had taken part in, there would be checkpoints at the entries. No one in, no one out.
“Speak for yourself,” Lola muttered under her breath. “I’m not going down quietly. Where are we?”
“Not sure. In the forest somewhere. This is their…” Compound sounded so Waco. Lola would freak again. “It’s where they train. Listen,” Sky said, forestalling her sister’s interruption. “It was very nice of you to come here to rescue me, but there’s no need. Really. This is not a doomsday cult and they haven’t brainwashed me. They prep.”
“Prep? For what? Really, Celeste Macarena, are you speaking English? Because I don’t even understand you anymore.”
Sky could tell her sister was getting aggravated. Lola only used Sky’s full name when she was really pissed.
“All sorts of catastrophes. Pandemics. Natural disasters. The collapse of the economic system. Terrorist attack. Zombies. Invasions. You name it, they prepare for it.”
Lola tsked. “No need to worry about invasions, alien or otherwise. Any moron stupid enough to come this far would run at the sight of these guys.”
That was probably the idea.
“Why didn’t you tell me before that you were staying with a bunch of wackos?” Lola demanded.
“I told you they were peculiar.”
“Cough-drop-flavored Kit Kat bars are peculiar. Meatball-scented candles are peculiar. This is downright whacked. And what’s that?” Lola asked, indicating Sky’s backpack.
“This is a bug-out bag. All you need to survive the first seventy-two hours after a disaster.”
Lola didn’t seem impressed. “Why is everyone staring at me?”
“You’re new and unprepared. Big minus.” Lola’s clothes were a dead giveaway. She looked like she was about to step into a salsa club. Then again, Sky had been wearing a bunny hat when she first landed in NoName, Minnesota, so who was she to judge?
“Unprepared? They haven’t seen my purse,” Lola said, lifting her ten-pound shoulder bag.
“You’re prepared for a broken heel. A wine stain on your skirt. Not to fend off zombies.”
Lola glared defiantly. “You haven’t been much out lately, have you? After two a.m., all the men in New York are zombies.”
True again.
“Are we prisoners?”
“No, of course not,” Sky said, trying to appease her. “We brought you along because we were on the clock. They time the drills. Whenever they’re done, we’ll go back to town.”
“Or we can steal that truck and drive nonstop until we hit the state line. You got the transfer to France, sis. Why didn’t you answer my calls? Last I heard, you were saying some nonsense about not being sure, and then the connection cut out.”
“There’s poor reception in town. Besides, this Friday I’ll be in New York. I thought we could talk then.”
“You were coming to New York and you’re just telling me?” Lola shrieked. Then she lifted her hands and drew in a calming breath. “It doesn’t matter now. Let’s go back together.”
Right. “You know,” Sky said, “when the school here found out about the summer semester in France, they offered to extend my internship in Minnesota.”
Lola’s laugh was dry. “I guess you told them to forget about it unless the internship came with a paycheck that had seven figures in it.”
“Not exactly.” Sky took a deep breath. “I’ve decided to turn down France. I’m staying.”
Silence.
“What do you mean, you’re staying?” Lola looked around again. “Voluntarily?”
Sky smiled. She herself must have had that same expression her first days in town. “Of course voluntarily.”
“What about Paris? The real Paris, I mean. What about your career in fashion? If I recall correctly, all this teaching English to foreigners was a way to get to Europe and have your basic expenses covered.”
“I like teaching English.” She wasn’t only good at it, she loved it. She might even have found her major. After all these years, a trip to Minnesota had cured her of being a permanent student. Go figure.
“You can teach English in New York too. You can teach it in France. You can teach it anywhere in the world. You know what you can’t do anywhere? Be a retail buyer for an internationally acclaimed department store.”
“Logan doesn’t live anywhere in the world. He lives here.”
Lola crossed her arms. “So it all boils down to a man.”
Basically. Sky didn’t dare look Lola in the eye. After all, Sky had spent half her life criticizing her sister for basing life-altering decisions on men. “I’m happy here, sis. Logan makes me happy. I actually look forward to waking up so I can see him.”
Lola’s brows rose disbelievingly. “You look forward to waking up?”
“I still have my moments. I had a rough couple of weeks. But yes, I love being with him. I… love him.”
Lola’s tone softened. “I understand the appeal. He’s gorgeous. But come on. A couple of months here and you’ll go stir crazy.”
She’d already been in Minnesota for longer than that, and so far so good. “I want to give this a go.”
“Come,” Lola ordered, grabbing her by the lapels and staring into her eyes. “Your pupils seem normal. Have you eaten anything suspicious that these people gave you? Beverages, candies? You feeling disoriented? Difficulty thinking straight?”
Sky chuckled. Lola couldn’t even begin to imagine the amount of suspicious shit Sky had eaten since her arrival. “I’m not under the influence of any drug. I want to stay with Logan.”
“And what does he say?”
“I haven’t said anything to him yet.”
“Said what to whom?” Megan asked, approaching.
Sky paused for a long instant. If she uttered those words now, there would be no taking them back. They would be out there, for better or worse. Still. She’d never been more sure of anything in her life. It felt right. He was the one. It wasn’t indigestion. “I’ve gotten approval for a summer semester in France, but I’ve decided to stay in town. They offered to extend my internship.”
Megan smiled wide and hugged her. “That’s fantastic. Logan will be so pleased.”
“Don’t mention it to him. I haven’t told him yet.”
“What haven’t you told him—that you’re staying or that you love him?”
“Either,” Sky confessed. Then she stopped abruptly. “Wait, how did you know about that last part?” Megan hadn’t been around when Sky told Lola.
Megan gave her a glare. “Was it supposed to be a secret? I can see the way you look at my brother.”
Sky blushed. “Please don’t say anything. I’m waiting until the award dinner.”
“Why?”
“One big step at a time.” She was feeling dizzy already.
“Hold on a second,” Megan said, frowning. “If you’re staying, why don’t you want to give up Mrs. Rantala’s unit?”
Sky was taken aback. “You know about that too?”
“Logan told me. I think it bothers him.”
“I was afraid that if he got tired of me, he wouldn’t say a word unless I had another place to stay. You know what I mean?” She didn’t want to impose. Didn’t want him to have to put up with her just because she didn’t have an
ywhere else to go.
Megan snorted. “Got tired of you? Not happening, believe me. He wants you living with him. He loves you.”
“He told you that?” Sky asked, hating that she sounded as insecure as she felt.
“He doesn’t have to.”
Actually, he had to. They’d never spoken about the future, the assumption being that they had none. And they hadn’t said much about feelings either, the assumption being that there was no point in having them.
“People,” Lola interrupted, “aren’t we forgetting something?”
“Right. Lola, this is Meg, Logan’s sister. Megan, this is my sister Lola.”
“I didn’t mean—”
But Megan hugged a surprised Lola. “Very nice to meet you. Let’s go inside and I’ll introduce you to the rest. Sky promised us a crash course about how to avoid frizzy hair. Better get it in before the scheduled drills. God knows how we’ll look after them.”
“This is not what I meant!” Lola whispered to her sister.
Oh, Sky knew. She knew it very well.
After helping Alec with the data collection, Logan spotted Sky alone by the grill, piling up wood, Arnie by her side. He approached her from behind, hugging her as he reached her. She jumped, startled, but melted into his embrace the second she recognized him. He smirked at her but kept quiet.
“What? Spill!” she finally said.
“Celeste Macarena?” Logan murmured, trying to contain his amusement. “Macarena like that tacky dance craze?”
She turned to him. “Macarena like the Virgin Esperanza Macarena from Seville, Spain. She has lots of worshippers in Colombia, where she’s also the patron saint of bullfighters. Or so I’ve heard.”
“Didn’t know you were so religious.”
“I’m not, but my grandma and my mother were. For almost three decades, in the Hispanic Society of America in New York, there was a picture of this virgin on display. In the nineties, it disappeared. I have a strong feeling it’s in storage at home.”
Logan chuckled against her neck. “You’re shitting me.”
