Edge Walkers

by Shannon Donnelly

  “Back in a few,” Jakes called. “See if you can keep out of any more goddamm trouble.”

  She thought about swearing out his ass to show she wasn’t some Girl Scout who needed to be told how to rub two sticks together. But she didn’t have the breath or the spit. And Jakes was already gone by the time she’d managed to string a good enough curse together. She really did need to lie down. So did Gideon.

  Settling Gideon’s arm to a spot on her shoulder that almost didn’t throb, she met Temple’s unblinking, curious stare, and begged, “Please tell me you really do have a bed?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I’ve made so many mistakes—Gideon wasn’t one of them. — Excerpt Carrie Brody’s Journal

  It wasn’t so much a bed as padding over a rope frame hung low from hooks sunk into the walls. Carrie glimpsed it as she stepped into the room and flashed the penlight’s narrow beam down carved stone steps and over ragged covers. Temple’s bed was at least more than Gideon’s rough altar padding, and right now Carrie would take anything that wasn’t heat-sucking stone. The hard part came in getting Gideon down the six, shallow, curving stairs. With no handrail, just uneven steps, odds favored someone falling. She let Temple half carry and half drag Gideon to the bed. Carrie followed behind, shining Jakes’ penlight on the stairs.

  The beam gave off a narrow column of blue-bright light at Gideon’s shuffling bare feet. She wished the sight of him, alive even if he was hurting, made her feel better. But the knot, tight and low in her belly, didn’t start to unravel until they had Gideon stretched out and watching them from half-closed eyes, his face blanched by the dim light and exhaustion.

  “You’re really going to be okay?” she asked, worry clipping her words.

  His mouth lifted, curved. That faint smile didn’t reassure her about anything. Smoothing a hand over his forehead, she found his skin warm, but not hot with fever. Gideon’s mouth pulled down in a sudden wincing grimace, so she stayed with him. Temple stepped to one corner of the room.

  Pulling a crystal vial from a cord hung around his neck, Temple poured glowing liquid into lamps tucked against the stone where wall met floor. Four lamps, made of a semi-translucent material—carved agate, she guessed—pushed back the darkness with a butter-soft light. Natural phosphorescence, she thought, watching him. As he worked, Temple kept turning to stare at the penlight in her hand with its bright narrow beam, his dark eyes lit by interest and speculation.

  When he straightened and came back, she glanced at the flashlight in her hand and offered it to him. Hesitating, he looked at her, dark, thin eyebrows arched high, dusky skin gleaming in the pale light.

  “For what you did,” she said. “It’s little enough.”

  Keeping her palm flat, she pushed her hand at him, made the gesture more emphatic. His wide, thick lips lifted in the first real smile she’d seen on his face. The expression lifted only the right side of his mouth in a crooked quirk that dropped a few years off his face, but it left before it could reveal anything more about him. Taking the light, he held it, balanced and weighted, seeming to find value enough to offer a gracious nod. He turned and started up the stairs, taking them two at a time in long, quick strides.

  “Hey, where…?”

  He didn’t glance back, but she got the image of him tagging after Shoup and Jakes, dogging their heels to make sure they stayed out of trouble. Making sure they didn’t kill anyone—just things. Troubled by that vivid picture, she put a hand to her forehead and rubbed. It didn’t help the ache that had settled. But when she glanced up again, Temple had gone. She turned to Gideon.

  He lay on his back on the bed, knees slightly bent and legs spread, limbs loose with exhaustion. Gideon wasn’t a small man, which meant he took up most of the available bedding. A patterned blanket or covering of some kind rucked up underneath him, faded and intricate in its design—geometric lines woven together, golden hues mixed with muted earth-tones. It looked good under him, showed off pale skin and lean, and sculpted bare chest and wide shoulders. She put her hand on the cross he wore, smoothed it straight and flat.

  From what she could see below the bandages, he didn’t have the ripped abs of someone who lifted weights. He was all lean mass—a runner’s body. He didn’t get enough to eat and she glimpsed a hint of raised ribs. Pale hair gleamed from where his jeans rode low on his belly and from a sun-lightened dusting across his arms.

  She brushed his arm with her hand and wished she had him covered to keep him from getting a chill, but that would mean she’d have to get him to move. He seemed to have had enough of that for the moment.

  With his mouth open, his breathing sounded rough. If she ever had a car rumble like that, she’d be taking it to a good mechanic. God, he needed more than a few hours rest. But what else could she do for him? Folding her arms, she watched over him for a minute. Standing still didn’t help anything. It gave time for the memories to flash—vivid, blood bright…Chand…the others who hadn’t made it out. Tears leaked out and she swiped them away before they could cross her cheekbones. She was almost certain Gideon had fallen deep asleep, but he shifted, let out a breath and stretched out a hand to nudge her thigh with a finger.

  “It’s okay. You can sleep here, too.” The words came out heavy and mumbled. His not-reassuring half-smile lifted again and this time it creased the corners of his eyes as he muttered, “Won’t even tie you.”

  She threaded damp fingers into the softness of his hair. “I’m not good with this—not with anyone. Not even myself when I’m sick.”

  Eyes still closed, he shook his head. “Not sick. Need s’m rest,” he said, the words losing shape.

  “An IV and antibiotics and a real doctor wouldn’t hurt,” she told him. Mouth flattening, she shook her head. Stubborn man. Good thing he was, or he’d be dead. But she didn’t have so much as an aspirin to give him—she hated this kind of helpless. God, this was back to her mother’s illness…able to do no more than sit and stare and ask questions that had no answers. That pushed her into doing one thing she could do. Turning, she stumbled up the stairs.

  She came back balancing an alabaster bowl of water—an inadequate offering. But he’d brought her water earlier and somehow it seemed fitting to do this one, small thing for him. He had his eyes open and he’d propped himself up on one elbow, as if that was as far as he’d been able to make it.

  The soft glow from the lamps warmed his face, showed the pain etched in lines around his mouth. He took the water and drank half as if he’d been parched and hadn’t noticed. Offering back the bowl, he blinked at her and a deep shiver shook him.

  Muttering a curse, she looked for another blanket, but he was lying on all of them. She grabbed the bowl and put it down next to the bed. Pulling off her shoes and her lab coat, she thought about stripping everything away. It wasn’t toasty, but it wasn’t freezing. Physics were physics and that meant an underground room would maintain an average temperature. They would generate more heat with skin on skin, but she knew an excuse when she invented one.

  Bottom line—she was tired of smelling like blood. Hell, she was just plain tired. She wanted the comfort of someone alive and close. Besides, it wasn’t like she had much to be embarrassed about with him. Not given what they’d already done with need so raw they were bleeding from it.

  Stripping down to semi-sensible bra and boy briefs, she left her stained clothes on the floor. She’d figure out later how to clean them or get new ones. Gideon was still on one elbow as she sat with her back to the wall and tried to find room on the bed. She got a cushion of some kind behind her back, settled for putting her legs around Gideon. Tugging on his shoulder, she pulled him flat, so her lap pillowed his head. His hair brushed her stomach and tickled. The heat off his body warmed her legs and feet. She watched his jaw clench as she wiggled into comfort, and she kept a hand on him to make sure he stayed put in the space between her legs.

  Closing his eyes, Gideon grimaced. “I think your foot is digging into my back in the wrong plac
e.”

  “No, it’s not,” she said. And it wasn’t, but she wiggled a little lower, got him framed between her legs, and made herself comfortable. She dragged the ends of the blanket up, piled it around them. They weren’t covered, but they were pillowed on either side, tucked in a canoe of fabric.

  Leaning down, she snagged the water bowl from the floor and pushed it at him. “Drink. You need fluids. You only lost what—a couple of liters out of your veins?”

  He shook his head as if he had no idea, but he drank the rest of the water and muttered a thanks. He let out another long breath and turned his head so his cheek rested against the inside of her thigh. His hand closed around her bare ankle. Another breath and he was asleep.

  She could envy him that skill at easing away from the world if she didn’t know it had to indicate he was running on fumes. She was as well. Exhaustion nibbled on the edges of her emotions, ragged and tattered, and she pulled in a deep, shuddering breath, had to wipe at the dampness still leaking from her eyes. Nothing stopped the tremor in her fingertips.

  Resting her back against the pillowed stone, she left the bowl on the bed and thought how good sleep would be. But she didn’t want to close her eyes. The images from today were too near—too fresh. Chand-not-Chand’s face. Had that happened to Thompson, too? The Tech? And to Zeigler? She didn’t want to find out what nightmares her subconscious might make of those faces mixed with today’s sights and sounds. Gideon asleep was a lot better to look at anyway.

  And touch.

  Settling a hand on the curve where his neck met one broad shoulder, she found his pulse had settled to something that no longer pounded as if he was pushing his heart through a marathon. She pressed her hand over that steady beat. His skin lay smooth under her fingertips and his muscles twitching as he dreamed. She stroked her fingers over him, her thoughts drifting to impossible things, like Gideon alive, lying here with her, his flesh remade and no longer in bloody tatters.

  She had him close enough to inhale his scent, and why should that feel like the ease of coming home? Maybe it was the last few hours. What was the saying about no atheists found in foxholes? She’d bet there weren’t any strangers there, either—just souls stripped fast and fused by the intensity of straying too near death. Hand tightening on Gideon’s shoulder, she frowned at the thought and at him. Maybe, for once, this was something she didn’t have to analyze into non-existence.

  Maybe she could just be thankful to have Gideon.

  * * *

  Gideon woke to sharp need. He surged up from dreams of fighting Walkers, from heart-thudding confusion, and turned his face into softness. He breathed deep. His pillow smelled like skin—warm, soft skin. Nice dream, he thought, muscles relaxing again—no need this second to fight for his next breath or duck the next fatal thing.

  Slipping into a half-sleep, he held onto a thread of awareness, to that stirring desire curling low in his belly. It could be good to want something, to remember what life could be like, humming in your veins. Half turning to settle back into the dream, he winced when the movement tugged at his skin. And he snapped his eyes open.

  Staring up at Carrie, flashes of memories grabbed him. Adrenaline rushed into muscles that twitched. The sight of Carrie steadied his heart again, left him able to push out nothing more than a gasp of air. He put a hand on his chest. He wasn’t dead. Neither was she.

  She’d fallen asleep with her back to the wall and one hand on him, with him tucked between her legs. If he stirred again, he might wake her. So he stayed where he was, heart slowing, breath and need moving under his skin into a sluggish heat.

  It wasn’t a hardship to lie with her skin nestled against his.

  He’d turned enough, lay almost on his side, so he could wrap his arm around the long, bare length of her thigh and cradle her hip and spread his fingers around her curves. Glancing up, he could see, under the sharp-edge of a white bra, dotted freckles in the flickering light. The swell of her breasts caught his stare. His mouth dried, thinking of how her skin would taste. The urge to reach up and touch her twitched in his fingers, but he settled for staring instead.

  She had a soft belly, pale and not very flat with her half-lying and half-sitting. He liked that. It’d been so very long since he’d had any softness in his life. Closing his eyes, he breathed deep, took in the aroma of her skin mixed with a tang of earthy desire. He put his mouth over the cotton-covered mound next to his cheek. Just a kiss. He could offer that and a prayer of thanks, although he couldn’t really say he still believed in any god.

  He could wish, however, that she had stripped everything off. He wanted more of her skin, and the taste of her of his lips. But she slept on, so he held still and let her scent drift over him.

  She smelled like sweat—a whiff of deep musk. The illicit thrill of touching her dug into his skin. Part of that, he knew, was from the herbs Temple had given him.

  He’d been through it before. He knew how it went. Healing, sleep—and then the body came alive again in all the most basic ways. Carrie stirred. She canted one leg up, twisted, turned into him and brushed her leg against him. Running a hand along the outside of her thigh, he traced the length of it. He slid his palm over all that glorious, pale softness. She let out another soft sigh and moved under his touch, rubbed into him. He pushed himself against her, the move instinctive. This time her fingers tightened on his shoulder.

  Looking up, he saw her eyes slit open a fraction. She stared down at him, eyes bright between golden-tipped lashes, lips parting and curved. She shifted and her hand slid from his shoulder to brush over his skin. He took a breath, let his expanding chest push into her touch.

  He let out a groan and pressed his mouth against the soft mound that pillowed his head. Smiling, body lazy and tense, he asked, “Revenge?”

  The corners of her mouth lifted, but her eyes stayed half-closed. Sleep soaked her voice, left it rusted. “Complaining?” she asked. Her hand skidded lower, brushed and explored his skin. “I’m not.”

  Pushing up a little, so she was sitting now, she leaned over him. She found the waist of his jeans, traced the button fly front. With a twist of her fingers, she popped open the top three buttons. She pushed his jeans down and left them riding low on his hips, trapping heat, adding pressure to what was already almost too much.

  Reaching for her waist, he tried to drag her around and under him and down next to him, but she put her hands on his shoulders, pushed him onto his back. With his head still between her legs, balanced in her lap, he let her take his wrists. She tucked his hands under her hips so that he lay with his arms stretched up, his body framed by hers. “Shhhhh…lie still. I’m not sure you’re up to this.”

  “Up?” he said, and glanced down to where he was very up. But he did as she asked. She ran her fingers along the edge of his bandages and started unwinding.

  It took time and he squirmed when the cloth tickled. She stopped once, traced the edge of a scar still pink and the skin around it stained dark with now flaking blood. He watched her hands work on his skin, watched her face, fascinated by the subtle play of golden lamplight and the way she was examining, discovering, experimenting. She was so certain and so cautious—and when had anyone ever been this careful with him?

  Bandages off, she threw them to the floor, and her eyebrows pulled together, formed a line between them. He tried to move again, but she put a hand on his chest, her palm flat, her touch firm.

  He looked up at her and glimpsed something else this time—uncertainty dark in her eyes. Long lashes veiled that look as her eyelids lowered. The tip of her tongue wet her lower lip.

  Urgency curled low in his belly. He wanted to offer up whatever she needed from him because this wasn’t about his body waking and demanding to remember the glory of living. Not anymore. But he held still so she could do whatever she planned.

  Leaning over him, she smiled. Her fingers flowed over him—nails a rough edge, pads a velvet stroke—leaving him gasping and his hips lifting.

 
“More…please,” he told her when he could find the words and the breath to get them out.

  “You sure?”

  He opened his eyes to answer, but he didn’t have the ability to ask for this. How could he say, yes, take me apart? He needed that…this. Maybe, afterwards, he could put himself together right again. Or maybe he’d stay shattered in her arms—broken but somehow made good because of that? Ah, he was babbling. Right now, truth was he’d settle for simple feeling—for something that wasn’t worry and stalking and deadly.

  She answered by taking one of his hands out from under her and lifting his wrist to her mouth. Putting her lips over his pulse, she licked, used her teeth to nibble before she bit, sharp and gentle by turns. With a groan, he twisted. He wanted to turn and bite back. But she held him with one palm feather-light on his chest. And he left himself open to her doing this because he knew how it was to need some kind of control back.

  She nibbled again on the inner edge of his wrist, her teeth a soft scrape over the pad of muscle. Turned his hand loose, she asked, “Can you get those off?”

  He didn’t have to ask what she meant and he kept his stare on her as he pulled his hands free and reached for the remaining buttons on his jeans.

  Her gaze followed his hands and her eyes widened and glazed. He watched the flare of her nostrils—her breath quickened and that sent another hot rush though his veins. Pushing off the tight fabric, the pressure eased and he let out a sigh of relief. She ran her fingers over his chest again, her stare now on her hand and on his skin. Her face flushed and her lips parted. Her tongue slipped out to wet her lips as if she was thinking about tasting more of him.

  Leaning forward, she touched her mouth to his chest. When she straightened, she smiled. “It’s—I want…I want to see how it takes you.”

  Heat washed over him, rose from his groin to spread over his chest in a dizzying wave. He stared at her, knew he’d give her anything. But he didn’t understand—not really. He wanted her hands on him, not his own pulling pleasure out of his skin. However, if she wanted this...