by Fitch, E. M.
"I do," he said. He kissed her fiercely, with an urgency that stole her breath. She didn't get the chance to say the words back, not yet, so she put it in her kiss, promising him today, tomorrow, and every day after.
~
Emma wasn't in the cabin when they finally got back. Anna and Andrew were awake, playing a game with a deck of worn cards they had found on a shelf.
"Looks like we're about to have the most chaste wedding night in human history," Jack whispered in her ear. Kaylee could feel the heat in her face as Anna smirked over at her.
"I'll go check on Emma," she said to the room at large. She couldn't help but notice the tension in Andrew's back.
Emma wasn't far. Kaylee could see the outline of her from the stoop of the cabin. She looked small, hunched up and hugging her knees on top of a large flat rock by the lake. The snow from the morning was still there, lighter, just a dusting, the flakes crystalizing in the cold, winter sun. The light was gone from the sky. The stars shone brightly, as they always did now. Huge sprays of light blanketed the sky.
Kaylee walked across the empty square. Curfew would be soon but even now, in this cold, most of the people were inside. Kaylee didn't say anything, she just sat beside her sister.
"Did you have a nice night?" Emma asked. There was s smug teasing to her tone, but Kaylee knew it was to cover up the hurt. She hummed in acknowledgement but didn't offer anything else. The stone was freezing below her and she shifted so she would be seated more firmly on the bottom of her coat. It helped some. "Did you meet Willy? Did he recite his poem for you?"
"We did!" Kaylee answered, caught off guard. Her astonishment showed in her tone. "He's a little creepy, isn't he?"
Emma laughed, a small puff of frozen breath forming in front of her mouth. "I think he's mostly harmless though."
"And that pit..."
"Yeah, not so harmless there."
"I don't like it," Kaylee said, her voice low. "It's so, so wrong to use them like that."
"I know," Emma said quietly before lapsing into silence. The air was cold and still, all traces of insects and wildlife gone. They were there, Kaylee knew, dormant or dead or skulking quietly in the brittle underbrush. Animals who have survived their first summer, learned the meaning of stealth, and the price those paid who didn't.
"Why are you out here?" Kaylee finally asked, nudging Emma lightly with her shoulder. The younger girl cringed away and didn't answer. "You're not used to it, are you? Being touched."
"You know I'm not," she answered, avoiding eye contact.
"Yeah, but Jack should have-"
"He was exactly right," Emma interrupted, shifting away from Kaylee. "He's the only one. The rest of you are idiotic. I need to leave. I shouldn't be here, it's ridiculous. But I have no choice because you'd only keep following me and following me!"
The frustration was saturating her tone, her voice rising steadily in volume. Kaylee watched her fingers clench into a fist and then straighten reflexively. She frowned.
"Don't pretend like you don't have any choices here," Kaylee started.
"But I don't!" Emma cried. "If I leave, he follows. If I stay, he pushes. I can't stand it. I hate being touched and none of you will stop. At least Jack understood, he respected me and he respected the infection. The rest of you..."
She trailed off, resting her head on her bent knees. Kaylee cleared her throat before speaking.
"He's in love with you, you know," Kaylee said softly, watching her sister. Emma was silent for a long time.
"You're not helping," she finally said, her voice muffled by her jeans.
"You're in love with him, too."
"And now you're making it worse," she finally brought her face out of her knees though she didn't look at her sister. She scrubbed her hands over her face and Kaylee couldn't tell if she was crying, or trying to keep herself from crying.
"I'm sorry; it's shitty," Kaylee said, smiling slightly as she leant into her sister.
Emma nearly choked on a laugh.
Kaylee chuckled. It was the same way her sister had comforted her on a night that now seemed like ages ago, when Kaylee had first heard of Bill's plan for her and Andrew to be together. So much had changed since then. Since Jack came into her life and Emma was bit and infected, since their parents were gone and their friends were lost.
Emma sniffed. "Is it real then? Your marriage, I mean."
Kaylee glanced at her sister and found her peeking at her. She nodded, a grin impossible to keep at bay. Emma's mouth twitched into a sad smile.
"You're sure?"
"Very."
"'Cause there's people here for you, too," she added, looking back over her shoulder at the empty camp.
"Not for me," Kaylee said.
"Well, I'm happy for you, for both of you. You know how much I like Jack."
Kaylee hummed in response and Emma's eyes flit back to the still lake. The edges had frosted over in the cold, fragile layers of ice creeping in lace tendrils towards the center.
"It might not be so bad, Em," Kaylee said conversationally. "Once we settle in here, if you want to move back to the dorms, if it seems safe. Until then-"
"Until then, just pretend I'm in love?" Emma asked bitterly.
Kaylee felt the frown slip over her features; but she didn't respond, just nodded. The problem for Emma wouldn't be how difficult it would be to act in love, the problem was how easy it would be for her. How comfortable and right it would feel. All of Andrew and Emma's fighting, bickering, and teasing was obvious. It was more than flirting, it was a denial of what they could have so easily been. It was the safest and easiest way for Emma to pretend that she didn't really want him, didn't want what he could represent for her, a partner and friend, someone to love. Because she could never really have those things, not in the way the rest of them could, because touch and intimacy was out of the question, dangerous.
"How am I supposed to do that to him?" Emma asked, dragging her eyes from the lake and to her sister. "You know that's what he wants, right? He's told me as much. And I'm supposed to act like I love him, just let him in completely? I've kept him out for months now. Months!"
"But you do love him," Kaylee reminded her sister gently. Pain spasmed across Emma's features. But she nodded miserably.
"I can't even tell him, Kay," she said softly, her eyes now tracing fissures on the rock upon which they sat. "You've seen the way he looks at me. It's like he's daring me to say it. And I can't. Do you know he wants to test it out, see if I'm infectious?"
"We talked about that. After you were burned. I told him you'd kill him."
"Well, at least you have your head on right," Emma murmured, flexing her arms in front of her before pulling her hands back, fingers clenched in a fist.
"Not because of the infection," Kaylee corrected softly. She reached over and pulled one of her sister's cold hands into her own. She ignored it when Emma flinched. "I said you'd murder him if he tried."
"Oh, well that's true, too."
They stayed quiet for a long time, Kaylee waiting her sister out, letting her build whatever courage or strength she needed from the cold silence and the warm press of her hand.
"It will hurt him badly, loving him and letting him see it," Emma finally whispered through a yawn.
Kaylee nodded. "But it's really not up to you, is it?"
"No, that was made perfectly clear."
"That's not what I mean," Kaylee shook her head and Emma looked over inquisitively. "You can't help that you love him, and he can't help that he loves you. Hiding it from him, that's as much protection for you as it is for him."
Emma bristled as Kaylee knew she would. "That's not fair," she argued.
"Denying him your love, just so you don't have to feel guilt," Kaylee pressed. "That's the definition of selfish, Em."
Emma spluttered, staring with shock at her sister. "It's wrong! And completely impractical. He can't... We couldn't ever... And letting him think I might let him try? No, Kaylee. You're
wrong."
"He loves you already, and I'm sure he's admitted as much. Hiding your feelings from him protects you, makes you think you're giving him some mythical chance with someone else. But that's not the way it's supposed to work. It's not honest. Honesty would be telling him you love him and that you can't physically be with him and letting him choose what to do about it. He could choose to stay by your side regardless. He could choose to leave you. But if you never tell him, you deny him that choice. And that's not love. It's manipulation. And even if your heart is in the right place, the act itself is still wrong."
Kaylee's words hung in the frozen night, stinging like the air she was drawing in for breath. She knew they were harsh. But they were also truthful. Not an easy truth, but some truths never would be easy. Emma's hands were clenching in her pockets, Kaylee could see the outline of them flexing against the fabric of her coat. Clench, unclench, clench, unclench. It came as naturally as breathing to her younger sister.
Her younger sister. Only sixteen now. But in love just the same. And there was no more finishing high school, planning for college, getting a job, none of the old excuses for starting your life at whatever age you chose. It made sense then; to wait, to date, to find what makes you compatible with another human being. But there were so few uninfected humans left. And what sense was it to wait when the chances of making it to the next day were so remote as it was?
When Emma finally spoke, her voice was soft. "I guess we could always hope some slob eventually tests it out for us, yeah?"
"Don't be such a pain!" Kaylee chastised, rolling her eyes. Emma offered a weak grin in return before settling her gaze back to the night sky. It was only a few minutes later that a warning bell sounded, the first warning before curfew was called. The girls stood as though commanded, trudging back to the cabin and the promise of warmth.
~
"Can you believe they're all already taken?" Samantha remarked under her breath. Her arms were bare despite the freezing air, and red up to her elbows. Wisps of honey brown hair escaped from the wool hat that was pushed high on her brow. She huffed as she leant over the giant bucket of steaming water, exhaling forcefully. Her friend, Jan, stirred her own barrel, nearby. Nearly sixty yet with wiry muscle that showed in cords down her arm as she lifted dripping clothes from the barrel.
Neither acted as though Kaylee existed.
"A fat lot it would have done for me, even if they weren't," Jan said, mopping her brow with her bare forearm. "Too young."
"Yeah, well not for me," Samantha sniffed.
"Sure, but now Marco's back in play," Jan said, grinning at her friend. Kaylee noticed a few holes where teeth should have been.
Samantha laughed. "Poor Marco, didn't see that coming, did he?"
"Here you go, kiddo," Jan said. She dropped a paddle full of clean and dripping wet laundry down at the table Kaylee was working on. The younger girl murmured her thanks and started to separate the pieces. The air was cold and the laundry would freeze in clumps if she didn't hurry. It felt good at first, the warmth of the clean clothing on her cold skin. But it cooled quickly, the air drying her hands and arms, leaving cracks in the skin that looked as though they would start to bleed at any moment. Emma would not have been well-suited to this position.
Kaylee was loathe to realize that she was. She was young and strong and could wring the water out without tiring, longer than either of the two other women with whom she worked. But she wished she was with her sister and Jack, being less useful, but infinitely more comfortable, both in body and in mind.
The women she was paired with were gossips, the worst kind. They talked about her and her friends as though Kaylee wasn't even there. They didn't ask questions, try to get to know her, instead it was as though the arrival of Kaylee and the rest was a new chapter in an unfolding mini drama, the next episode of whatever soap opera was running through their brains.
The only up side was that Kaylee was learning a lot about the camp, stuff that they didn't include during orientation.
Apparently, Marco was considered quite the catch. It had seriously annoyed some of the women when Emma arrived and diverted his attention. Kaylee would have to remember to ask her sister about that.
Miranda, one of the Council, had been seen sneaking around after curfew, or so they said. Apparently she had been going in the direction of one of the married cabins. "Coincidently," Samantha had stage-whispered behind her hand, winking, "Nicolas's old lady, you remember Mandi?"
"No!" Jan gasped, covering her mouth with one weathered hand.
"Oh yeah, the one they threw out of here just last week? Miranda was fooling around with Nick and his wife gets caught out past curfew. Go figure, right?"
"That gets you thrown out?" Kaylee interrupted. Both women turned to her, seeming almost surprised to see her there.
"Didn't you read the rules?" Jan asked, staring over at Kaylee as though she was missing a part of her brain.
"Well, yeah-"
"It's pretty black and white," Samantha added harshly. "I mean, it's right there!"
Both women laughed and Kaylee put her head back down, focusing on a bulky sweater. She took an armful of the clothing she had wrung already and walked the short distance to an empty cabin. It had probably once been a dorm, it was long and there were scuff marks on the floor where beds could have gone. There were no bunks now though, just long lines of rope strung end to end. Half of this was filled with drying clothes. In the summer, it would be no problem to let the clothes hang dry. But with the temperature dipping the way it was, better solutions had to be found.
Kaylee left the pile of rung clothing on the table at the entrance way, moving first to the wood burning stove in the center of the room. She threw a few logs on the fire, poking the coals around to settle them in, before moving the laundry hanging closest to the heat down a bit on the lines. When she had finished hanging the new clothing, there was a new visitor outside. Kaylee only recognized him as someone she had seen walking to work with Jack and Emma. But there was something about him, she saw now, that was very familiar.
Patrick had his head close to the two women, both of whom had their ears to him, listening intently. Jan nodded as he pulled away. He flashed a brief smile towards Kaylee as she came closer, but never stopped. Samantha didn't speak until he was swallowed up by the distant pines.
"He's right, you know," she started conversationally. "I've been saying it for months."
"Then he should have taken that Council seat when it was offered," Jan sniffed. "He didn't and now he gets his back all up any time something doesn't go his way."
"You've said it too!" Samantha argued, slopping a new bundle of clothing in Jan's barrel. "They're too strict! And too many people who piss them off get caught. Mandi, for one."
"They keep us safe. And I'm not about to test them."
"But, if they didn't..."
"Well, yeah, maybe then," Jan allowed, murmuring thoughtfully over the steam. "If they didn't."
"And that outbreak? Just a few days ago?" Samantha pressed. Kaylee stiffened. "Did you feel safe then?"
"No. I didn't."
"Well, then," Samantha sniffed. Jan didn't respond and not another word was said until she threw another twisted pile of clothes on Kaylee's work bench.
"When you're done with that, you can quit," she said. Both she and Samantha flipped their empty buckets over and Kaylee was left alone with a pile of sopping clothes in a circle of muddy, steaming earth and new piece of information about the New North America.
Patrick was dangerous.
Chapter 16
Emma picked up the family photo, worn and dirty, the front of it peeling back at the corners. She had a sudden and desperate urge to see her father's face again, his whole and smiling face as he stared at her mother. Kaylee had a family picture, one of the four of them, all smiling in the bright sunlight. But that was lost with the motorhome. And the rest were lost in the rubble of her first home in the city.
Nicole's childr
en stared up at Emma from the tattered picture in her hand, smiling, completely unaware that the world had fallen apart.
Because they were dead. Just like their mother.
Emma had volunteered to help clean out the women's dorms. It seemed like the least she could do. Miranda and Carla from the Council were there, along with two other women. They all wore face masks and protective gloves. Emma hated it, not just breathing her own dispelled air, the fug it caused inside of the mask and the stickiness she felt on her skin from the humidity of it all; but the pretense, as though she didn't cause this, as though she even could get infected like the rest of them could. But she wore the mask anyway, not for her, but to fool them.
"Keep the mementos," Miranda called out, pacing between two beds. "But let's toss everything else."
Emma wrapped Nicole's bedding up and tossed it in the burn pile. There would be a large bonfire tonight.
"So," one of the women said, sidling up to Emma. She cringed back as the woman leant forward. "You're married? You know, you could have mentioned something before you let Marco get all hot and bothered."
"That's enough, Jenny," Carla chastised. "This isn't a normal work detail, but we're here to work regardless, not gossip."
The woman named Jenny sniffed under her mask but turned away regardless. Emma locked eyes with Carla and then realized that a smile would be lost in the mask anyway. She dropped her eyes and started pulling the clothing from Nicole's bedside drawers.
She hadn't spoken to Marco since Andrew and the rest showed up. That first day, she was too busy, showing them around and reveling in the fact of their survival. Today she had volunteered, as soon as Carla asked for help at breakfast, to clean out the girl's dorms. It was only right that she should. But she would have to see Marco soon. There weren't so many people in the camp that she could hide from him. And truthfully, she didn't want to. She may not be able to care for him in the way Jenny thinks she should. But he was kind. He was good to her and Jack before anyone else was. He was her friend.
