by Kate L. Mary
“I hope Tessa is okay,” I whispered. “That she’s with Rick and they found somewhere safe. I hate thinking that they got stuck in this, either outside or in a car.” I closed my eyes and thought about what might happen to her. “She’s all I have left.”
Logan’s lips brushed against the top of my head. I expected him to tell me that she wasn’t all I had left anymore, but he didn’t and I appreciated it. As much as I enjoyed being in his arms right now, and as much as I’d loved having his bare flesh against mine, he wasn’t family. With my parents and Claire dead, it was just Tessa and me. Yet I had left her. I had taken off and barely looked back, and now she could be stuck in the storm.
“I shouldn’t have left her,” I whispered.
Logan said nothing, but instead tilted my face up to his. When his lips covered mine, I allowed myself to melt into him, thinking about what Tessa had said about living life to the fullest. Wherever she was right now and whatever she was doing, I knew that she would approve.
I twisted my body so I was facing Logan, putting everything I had into the kiss, and in no time at all things began to heat up. We’d gotten dressed when we first started preparing for the storm, and I found myself pulling at my clothes as I moved closer to him. Yanking my shirt over my head and crawling up the bed until I was kneeling next to him. My hands had a mind of their own as I worked to take off his clothes, and then mine.
The second we were both naked he pulled me over to straddle him. I didn’t break the kiss as I lowered myself onto his lap, and his hands moved up my body to cup my breasts. The pounding of my heart drowned out even the rain, and in that moment everything else was forgotten. This was literally the only thing that we could do right now. Sex with this man had a way of helping me forget what was going on out there, of pushing away my worries, and so I gave myself over to it. I concentrated on how his body felt under mine, on every touch of his hands, and how his teeth nipped at my bottom lip when we kissed.
When he flipped me onto my back, I wrapped my legs around his waist and dug my nails into his arms, desperate to pull him closer. To feel more. Everything outside this room could have very well been falling apart, but in that moment, there was nothing but Logan and me. No zombies, no missing sister, no dead family and friends, and no hurricane.
Chapter 12
A CRASH WOKE ME FROM A DEEP SLEEP, BUT before I had even had time to register what it was, Logan was on his feet. The roar of the wind was deafening, and the burst of cool air sweeping through the room chilled me to the bone in seconds.
“Melanie!” Logan called. “Come on!”
That’s when I realized that a tree branch had knocked one of my bedroom windows out. It was sticking through the opening, and glass littered both the floor and the bed while wind swept inside, bringing rain and other debris with it. The roar made it feel as if a train was barreling down on us, and I found it impossible to concentrate on what was happening.
“Melanie,” Logan yelled again.
He held his hand out to me, and I took it, allowing him to pull me from the bed and out into the hall. We shut the door to my room, but it didn’t do much to block out the roar and I realized that it wasn’t just my window that had been broken. Out in the living room one of the floor length windows had been knocked out, and rain was pouring inside. There were leaves everywhere, and branches too.
Logan pulled me back, away from my bedroom and the living room, back toward my parents’ room at the end of the hall. Once there, he pulled me deeper, through the bathroom to the walk-in closet that sat nestled nearly in the center of the house.
When he shut the door we were plunged into darkness. I was panting, nearly hysterical, but it was only partly because of the broken windows. Tessa was out there somewhere, where I didn’t know, and all I could think about was how she might be exposed to this. How she was in danger.
“It’s okay,” Logan said, wrapping me in his embrace as we sank to the floor. “We’re going to be okay.”
I nodded because I couldn’t find my voice to tell him that I wasn’t worried about my own ass. Although he probably knew that.
We stayed huddled together in the darkness as the storm pounded the house. It went on for hours, longer than any other hurricane that had ever hit the area, and it seemed to be twice as intense. The weather channels were long gone, possibly forever, but I had no doubt that if someone had still been around to track this storm, it would have been a record breaker. It felt like it was trying to finish the job that the virus started. Maybe it would help with the zombie problem, although I doubted it.
Being with Logan helped calm me a little, but the storm was too loud to allow much talking. Instead I dozed, lulled to sleep by the insistent pounding of the storm, but it never lasted long. Not only was it too loud, but I was also too jumpy. Too shaken. Too worried about Tessa.
We didn’t have a clock, but it had to have been late morning by the time the rain and wind started to ease up. Even when it got better though, we stayed where we were, wanting to be sure the worst had passed before we left the safety of the closet.
By the time we finally emerged from the darkness, it was afternoon. My parents’ room was amazingly undamaged, but that couldn’t be said about the rest of the house. Claire’s room was fine, but the window in Tessa’s had been broken and the floor was littered with leaves and water. The living room looked like a tornado had swept through. Not only were there leaves and branches strewn across the room, but chairs had been knocked over, pictures had fallen from the walls, and lamps were on the floor. It was going to take a lot of work to get the place cleaned up.
“It’s not as bad as it could have been,” Logan said.
I knew he was right. The roof could have been destroyed, and while I had no doubt there was damage, it hadn’t collapsed. Which was something to be thankful for. We got lucky, all things considered. The houses along the coast were probably pretty bad off.
“What will we do about the windows?” I asked as I moved across the room, collecting branches.
“We’ll drag out the storm shutters. It’s a temporary solution, one we’ll want to fix before winter hits, but it will work.”
“Good idea.”
We worked together to clean up as much as we could. Outside the sun was trying to break through the clouds, and from what I could see of the rest of the neighborhood, it seemed as if the other houses hadn’t fared much better than ours. There were downed branches everywhere, and across the street an old live oak tree had been completely uprooted and was now lying on its side in the neighbor’s front yard. Two houses down the roof had caved in when a tree fell on it, and a boat sat in our next-door neighbor’s backyard.
The worst part though, was that the storm seemed to have roused the zombies on the island, and here and there I caught sight of a figuring shambling down the road. We’d need to get some weapons together. Somehow.
“Maybe Rick and Tessa will show up now that the storm is over,” I said, as I dumped an armload of branches off the back porch and into the yard.
Below me, our once spotless pool was now littered with leaves and branches, and the water had started to turn green. It would never be usable again. I knew it, but thinking about it still made me sad. I had so many childhood memories wrapped up in that pool.
“They’ll show up,” Logan replied. “Don’t worry.”
But I did. All day as we worked to clean up the house and mop up the water and cover the now broken windows, I worried about Tessa. Worried that she was hurt or trapped, or worse that she’d never made it out of the coliseum in the first place. I knew there was a possibility that I would never see her again, and I blamed myself for leaving her there. Should I have stayed and continued searching for her even if I died trying? Had I taken the coward’s way out by running?
That night, the sunset was the most beautiful one I’d ever seen. With the house cleaned up and our bodies exhausted from a long day of hard work, Logan and I stood side by side on the back porch and watched,
each of us holding a glass of wine while the sun moved slowly across the sky and began to sink below the horizon. The colors were vibrant, and to me they seemed like a symbol that hope was not lost. That even after a horrible storm, there could still be beauty.
I leaned my head on Logan’s shoulder. “I’m glad you were here with me.”
“I am too.”
“Not just because I wouldn’t want to be alone,” I said, “but because I like you. Is that silly? Is it strange to feel this way in the midst of all this?”
“No. Especially because we felt that way before all this started. I like you too, and I like to think that if we’d had the chance, we would have eventually gotten together anyway.” He kissed the top of my head. “We have a connection. One that has nothing to do with the apocalypse.”
I leaned my head against his chest and closed my eyes. “I agree,” I whispered, and I wasn’t lying. It felt like this was meant to be. Like Logan and I were meant to be.
Since my parents’ room had gone untouched, we slept there that night. It felt a little strange to have sex in their bed, but once he was on top of me, his lips on mine and his warmth wrapping me in comfort, I found I couldn’t make myself care.
“LOOKS LIKE YOU TWO HAVE BEEN ENJOYING yourselves.”
Tessa’s playful voice pulled me from sleep, but when I tried to crack an eye, I found it impossible thanks to the light streaming in through the window.
“Tessa?” I mumbled.
I tried to shield my eyes, but it only helped a little. It was enough to make out the outline of two people standing beside the bed, though. One tall and broad, the other short and thin.
At my side, Logan shifted, pulling on the blankets covering my body. That’s when I remembered that we were both stark naked.
“Shit,” I said, pulling the blanket up to my chin.
I blinked, and this time when I opened my eyes, I was a little more used to the light. Tessa’s smiling face came into view, and I almost burst into tears. She was dirty, her blonde hair was a tangled mess, and her clothes were torn, but she was smiling from ear to ear.
“You’re here!” I held one arm out while keeping the other one pressed against my chest so I didn’t flash my sister and her ex, who was standing behind her with a rather embarrassed look on his face.
Tessa dove in, throwing her arms around me. In my ear she whispered, “Slut.”
I laughed as tears sprang to my eyes. “I’ve been so worried about you.”
“Me too,” Tessa said. She pulled back and wiped her eyes. “We were freaking out when we couldn’t find you at the coliseum, but I just knew you had to be here.”
“I didn’t want to leave you. We searched, but the place had gone crazy and I had no idea where you were.” I smacked her with my free hand. “Where did you go?”
Tessa glanced sheepishly behind her to where Rick stood, looking even more uncomfortable now. “We were talking.”
“Talking.” I snorted. “Right.”
“We were!” Tessa said, but the gleam in her eyes told a different story.
“Not to be a jerk, but can you two gab somewhere else? I was sleeping here,” Logan said from behind me, and I turned to find him grinning. He nodded at Rick. “Glad you’re okay, man.”
“Me too,” Rick said. “It was tough, but somehow we pulled through.”
“I want to hear everything,” I told Tessa. “I mean it. Everything. But first Logan and I are going to get dressed.”
Tessa gave me another quick squeeze before turning back toward the door. “Take your time!” She winked. “We’ll cook breakfast. We actually stopped and got a bunch of supplies. You know, since we don’t have electricity now.”
“Supplies?” Logan asked.
“Camping stuff,” Rick clarified. “We took cover in a store, so it worked out.”
“We have eggs!” Tessa sang.
“Powdered,” Rick clarified again. “But let’s face it, these days we can’t get too choosy.”
I had never known Rick to be anything but choosy, and it was nice to learn that he was able to adjust.
Tessa was smiling as she backed toward the door, her eyes on me. She wiggled her brows and nodded at Logan, and heat licked its way up my face again. On her way by, she grabbed Rick’s hand and pulled him with her, and they shut the door behind them.
When we were alone, I let out a deep breath and sank back on the bed. “I’ve never been more relieved in my life!”
Logan rolled over so he was on his side, facing me. “I’m glad. I know how worried you were.”
I twisted to face him. “Thank you for everything.”
“If you really want to thank me…” He rolled onto his back and shoved the covers away, grinning.
I rolled my eyes. Still, Tessa was here and safe, and I didn’t see the point in hurrying. She had even told us to take our time…
“Okay,” I said, getting up on my knees at his side. “But only because you’ve been a very good boy.”
Logan chuckled, but the sound was cut short when I wrapped my hand around him. “God, you’re amazing.”
“Just wait,” I said grinning. “I’m just getting started.”
