The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Tris tilted her head. “Is Lizzie like you… adventurous?”

  Athena grinned. “No, she’s five… maybe six now. I got tired of being the ‘bad’ daughter. Couldn’t stand being stuck in a place where nothing ever happens and everyone just exists. Only thing I had to look forward to was pumping out kids.”

  “I used to know a girl who wanted to be a mother so bad she was ready to get started at thirteen.” Kevin chuckled. “Well, I hope you live long enough to get the itch to settle down.”

  Athena rolled her eyes. “Okay, Dad.” She slouched on her elbows, voice quieter. “I never did really thank you for letting me stay so long. Sang’s great by the way. Whatever you’re doing out here, I hope you live long enough to settle down.” She winked.

  “Yeah…” Kevin chuckled, eyeing the blood trail to the front door. “So do I.”

  The proprietor’s wife traded her rifle for a mop, while barking, “Not yet,” at someone in the back.

  Kevin eyed the brown curtain blocking off the kitchen, picturing all the kids huddled on the floor or perhaps down in a basement. And that’s why we took Abby to Ned.

  When the proprietor walked back in, he clapped a few times to get the room’s attention. “Silver pickup truck for sale. Thousand coins.”

  Kevin laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Tris.

  “You saw that truck. Someone put a car suspension on it, dropped it to like an inch of ground clearance. That guy deserved a bullet.”

  Athena laughed, though Tris continued to give him a befuddled stare.

  “Never mind.” He tipped back his water.

  “Oh.” Athena pointed at him. “No matter what Neeley tells you, we did not fuck.”

  Tris rolled her eyes. “That man is impossible.”

  Athena stared at her with ‘you have no idea’ written across her face.

  “The perpetual optimist.” Kevin sent a suggestive look Tris’ way. “S’okay. I wouldn’t have believed him if he told me that anyway.”

  Stretching, Tris yawned. “Why can driving make you so tired when you’re just sitting there?”

  “Takes a lot of focus.” Kevin stood. “Is that a hint?”

  “Yeah, maybe a little.” Tris smiled.

  “Night you two.” Athena stood to let Tris out of the bench. She sat, ate one more fry, and looked up at them with a coy wink. “Have fun.”

  9

  Two On The Way

  Tris hurried up the narrow stairway to the second floor and followed the hallway to the sixth room on the left. Kevin slipped in behind her and locked the door. The room contained a battered metal-framed bed, pale grey wherever the paint hadn’t flaked off the steel, and about two feet of open space between it and the left wall. She twisted to gawk at the door.

  “How did they get that bed in here? This room is so small.”

  Kevin embraced her from behind. “Probably took it apart.”

  They shuffle walked together to a tiny handmade table in the left corner next to a small square window that even Zoe couldn’t have squeezed through. Despite its size, they’d put a cage of rebar outside. Tris set the key on the table and reached for her belt.

  “Wow, I’d hate to be in this place if it caught fire.”

  Kevin grasped her hand. “Let me.”

  Tris bit her lip and let her arms hang loose. He swayed her side to side for a while, kissing at the back of her earlobe. Oh… She closed her eyes. Kevin slid one hand up her front, kissed her again, and tugged her T-shirt out of her jeans. She stood still as he worked the shirt up and peeled it off her. Her hair tickled at her back for a few seconds until he pressed himself against her from behind. His hands alighted on her hips and slid up over her bare stomach to cradle her breasts. Breath ran in hot puffs over her skin while he kissed the curve where her neck met her shoulder. She bit her lip as he played with her nipples for a while.

  The urgency to chase down the phantom number receded.

  Take my pants off before they’re soaked.

  She squirmed her ass into him, smiling to herself as he stiffened against her.

  He traced his right hand down her stomach while his left continued teasing her breast. It took him a moment to fumble open the button on her jeans. With excruciating slowness, he slid his left hand over her side to her hips while he sank downward, kissing across her shoulder and along her back. She reached forward, bracing her hands against the wall to keep her weakening legs from dumping her on the floor.

  She tried to hold still as he pulled her jeans over her ass, and trailed kisses down the back of her thigh.

  “I love every inch of you,” he whispered, and kissed the back of her knee.

  Oh… Her legs gave out, and he guided her to sit on the mattress before removing her shoes. She kicked free of her jeans and stretched out naked on the bed, smiling up at him. Already, her heart raced and a fine layer of perspiration glowed all down her front.

  Kevin slipped out of his armored jacket and dropped it before removing his boots. Tris arched her back and bit her lip while he took his sweet time tugging his shirt up and over his head. She teased at his jeans with her toe. He grinned, undid the button, and let them fall.

  She crawled backward as he climbed up onto the bed and hovered over her. He planted the lightest of kisses on her stomach, a little below the navel before moving upward, touching her only with his breath until his lips found hers. Tris wrapped her arms around him as they kissed, moaning into his mouth. His erection traced across her thighs.

  Grinning, she grasped his shoulders and twisted, pushing him over on his back. Light brown hair, the longest she’d seen on him yet, spilled out on the sad excuse for a pillow. He grinned like the entire world could blow up all over again and it would be worth it for being with her at that moment.

  Tris reached down and grasped his length, guiding him in as she lowered herself onto him. “Oh…” She gasped. “You got me so wound up.”

  “I haven’t unwound since last night.” He winked and gave a little thrust, which almost hurt.

  “Ooh!” She squeaked.

  He slid his hands up her front and played with her breasts while she gyrated in a gentle up and down motion. His eyes fluttered, half closing. She caught his right hand and pulled it up to her face, sucking on his finger, letting the tide of ecstasy build.

  “Faster,” he wheezed. “You’re so damn beautiful.”

  She dropped his hand and bent forward, grasping his shoulders―and slowed down. “How about I go slower?”

  “Ngh!” He clenched his teeth and shuddered.

  Tris flattened on top of him, kissing his nipple; he wrapped his arms around her and held on, moaning. He grunted. His fingertips dug into her back and his body convulsed in a series of short thrusts. Warmth bloomed inside her. He held on, groaning with the paralytic clutch of release. Tris bowed her head, panting, so worked up by his foreplay she found herself on the precipice within seconds of his tension fading.

  “You are so amaz―”

  She smothered him with a kiss before collapsing on top of him in the throes of bliss. He moved her to the side and rolled on top, kissing at her throat while he continued making love to her. She bit her forearm to muffle the gasps and moans she so desperately had to release into the world. Kevin let out a long groan, his body convulsing with spasms. He held her by the hips, his length thrust to the hilt inside her, and shuddered. Everything burst into flashes of sparkling light, and her body spiraled out of control for a heavenly moment.

  Gasping for air, she went limp, arms splayed out to either side like a crime victim. “I love you so much.”

  He eased himself down at her side and half pulled her on top of him with an arm around her back. “I wouldn’t know what to do without you.”

  They held each other, both breathing hard and covered in sweat.

  Her mind spiraled down a torrent of worry. What if something happened to him out here? What if Abby resented their going and never forgave her for it? What if this
all turned out to be another of Nathan’s games? I want to go home. She drew in air to tell Kevin they needed to turn around, but anxiety fell on her with a crushing weight. It felt as though the entire world (what remained of it anyway) counted on her to do something about the Enclave. As if somehow, she could make a difference―one woman against ten thousand high-tech soldiers―in defiance of all logic.

  Guilt at wanting to walk away from that… destiny twisted her guts up and welled out of her eyes. The very idea of going back to the Enclave seemed the most terrifying thing imaginable all of a sudden. What if they catch me? I’ll never see Kevin or Abby again. I’m being such an idiot. What can I hope to accomplish there? Really… I’m only one person. The chilling grip of fear seized her; she burst into tears, clinging to Kevin like a frightened girl awakened from a nightmare.

  “Whoa…” Kevin ran a hand up and down her back. “I wasn’t that bad, was I?”

  The urge to laugh died like a dust hopper straying onto the road, though it slowed her avalanche of fear and guilt enough to allow her voice to emerge. “No… I’m. Ugh. I was wondering if this is really the right thing to do, but the guilt… it’s eating me inside. It’s like if I don’t do this, everything the Enclave does from now on is my fault, but I’m terrified they’ll catch me and put me back in Detention and I’ll never see you again.”

  “Tris.” He traced lazy circles around her back with his fingers. “You’re no mouse. This might not sound quite like I mean it, but you’re the scariest person I know.”

  She sniffled into a chuckle. “Thanks, but the Enclave soldiers have all the same boosts.”

  “Yeah, but you’ve got two things they don’t.”

  “Breasts?” She frowned. “Not going to help. And about a quarter of the military are women.”

  “Not half?”

  She grumbled. “No. The Council wants to keep women safe and alive to have kids. That whole repopulation thing.”

  Kevin smiled and tapped a finger to the tip of her nose. “I wasn’t going to say breasts. You’ve got experience and a strong motivation.”

  “They’ve been soldiers longer than I have.”

  “Maybe, but they sit behind hovercraft controls and push buttons. How many of them do you think have been shot at for real, or been thrown around by an Infected?”

  “I’m sure they keep up on the sims.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not real.” He kissed her again.

  She shivered. “It’s real enough. I was telling Abby about my escape training. They had to unplug me the first time they threw me in the pool. I almost had a heart attack from the sim making me think I drowned.” Tris clenched her jaw as a wave of fear smashed into the wall of urgency pulling her forward. “I’m so worried about her.”

  “She’s really preoccupied with those handcuffs. You afraid she’ll turn out like Zara?” He chuckled.

  “Not at all. It’s nowhere near the same thing. Zara gets a thrill out of it. Abby’s morbidly terrified of them. If she’s holding them, she can pick them open in like six seconds now. Put them on her, she freezes and panics.”

  He exhaled. “Can’t say I blame her after that situation with Warren. If she’s that scared of them, why is she doing that to herself?”

  “She’s trying to conquer her fear… but it’s winning right now.” Tris stared into his warm hazel eyes. “Is this a good idea?”

  “Right now, we’re only on the way to see what that number turns out to be. If it looks like a one-way trip, I’ll drag you back home. I’ve still got rope in the trunk.”

  She jabbed her finger into his side. “Ass.”

  “If you ever wanna play around like Zara…”

  Her blood chilled. “No. Please never do that to me. I… absolutely cannot stand being helpless.”

  “Like mother like daughter?” He smiled.

  She glared. “I’m not kidding.”

  He raised both eyebrows, and his bad-boy grin faded to a look of concern. “All right. I promise.” He brushed a thumb across her cheek. “Wasn’t my fault, was it? For leaving you tied up so long?”

  She rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes. “Maybe that made it a little worse, but I’ve always had this aversion to being contained. Even as a kid, I hated the structure of school. It was like being in prison for the crime of not being eighteen yet. Curfew, work schedules, play schedules. They never even let us socialize with each other, like ‘fun’ was somehow going to ruin humanity’s chances at survival. Maybe that’s why they kept me under watch because I kept pushing the edge of all the rules. Drag my feet, not quite comply until the threat of punishment got close.”

  “Sorry you had to grow up like that.”

  “Don’t feel bad for me.” She snuggled into him. “My life was easy compared to yours, just rigid.”

  “I think you’re afraid, but anyone with so much to lose would be.” He kissed the top of her head.

  Can we spend the rest of time together like this? Forget the Enclave?

  “You said you had these odd feelings before.”

  “I did?” she asked, her voice already heavy with the approach of sleep.

  “Yeah… something about your knowing the Virus couldn’t hurt you. You mentioned it a couple days after we got back to Rawlins. You were standing on the road burning that Infected and it struck you out of nowhere.”

  “I didn’t think you believed in that stuff.” She smiled.

  Kevin chuckled. “What we’re about to do? If it’ll get you home safe, maybe I’ll make an exception.”

  10

  Sky Watch

  Abby clutched her sweatshirt/nightdress in a ball to her chest, feeling awkward as Zoe freely whipped off her dress, tossed it into a basket and walked nude across the loft bedroom to retrieve an actual child’s nightgown from a different basket as though she didn’t have someone else standing nearby. Her embarrassment didn’t make much sense considering no one seemed to care at the lake where they all swam together. She sighed and changed. After draping her dust-hopper hide dress over the back of a chair, she crawled into bed next to Zoe.

  The ceiling angled to a point overhead, with individual boards visible under a layer of wine-colored paint. Here and there, a nail stuck out from inexpert construction, or perhaps more recent repairs. Zoe’s room had a lot of space.

  Her father and brother live with Bill and Ann. Wonder why her dad didn’t take the big room and put Zoe in with Cody. She was here first, guess it woulda been crappy to steal her room. Abby lay flat on her back with her arms at her sides, staring straight up. Zoe yawned, close enough to feel warmth on her arm, but not touch.

  I hope they’re okay. She wondered how far away her new family had gone. It wasn’t fair… they hadn’t even been here a month and already she might wind up an orphan again. The look on her dad’s face appeared in her mind again as he rasped his last breath. Abby closed her eyes, forcing warm tears out the corners, which slid down her head and gathered in her ears. She swayed from sorrow to rage while trying to keep still so Zoe didn’t notice the storm going on in her heart. Had Tris not shot Warren, she’d have gone off to deal with him herself… something to do instead of sit here waiting and hoping for Tris and Kevin to come home alive. If they didn’t come back, would she wind up like that feral girl?

  As much as she dreaded the thought, she had trouble sleeping without being tied to the bed. Her fear that Warren would come out of nowhere, see her loose, and shoot her for being a risk kept her up. If she couldn’t go anywhere, she wouldn’t be a threat. She slipped one hand out from under the sheet and wiped her eyes. She wanted to run down the hall and climb in bed with Tris and Kevin. She almost felt safe there. Not here, basically alone, waiting for Infected or Warren to kick in the door.

  She lifted her head and peeked where she expected to find a door. An open gap gave her a clear view into a small section of empty space above the hallway below. I’m in the loft. A ladder didn’t scare her as much as a door. For one thing, Infected couldn’t climb;
for another, her mental image of Warren storming through the door of the room where they’d kept her didn’t work with a ladder. Never mind that more than anything, the dread Tris and Kevin would never come back left her too frightened to sleep.

  “You’re not sleeping,” whispered Zoe.

  Abby swallowed. “No. Neither are you.”

  “Nope. We haven’t talked yet.”

  “What?” Abby rolled her head to look at the grinning blonde at her right.

  “You’re sleeping over. We have to talk all night.”

  “I guess.” Abby stared straight at the ceiling again. Is there anything up there, watching us? Waiting to kill us? “Not like I sleep anyway.”

  “You don’t sleep? Like ever?” asked Zoe.

  “I try, but I always wake back up.” She swished her feet side to side.

  “Why?”

  Abby shrugged. “Bad dreams.”

  “I didn’t like my dreams either. So I stopped having them.”

  Abby glanced to her right again; Zoe’s smile had faded to a serious look.

  “How do you stop dreaming?”

  Zoe rolled on her side, facing Abby. “Ann said bad dreams are like letting whatever scared me keep scaring me. So I didn’t be scared anymore. What are you scared of?”

  “Stuff.”

  “You’re scared your parents won’t come back.”

  Abby twitched at the sudden contact of Zoe taking her hand. “Yeah.”

  “They’ll come back.” She grinned. “They went to Chicago and got my Dad and brother.”

  “Is that what you had bad dreams about?” Abby looked at her again.

  “No.” Zoe’s confidence faltered. For a second, she looked frightened, but she closed her eyes and sucked a deep breath in her nose before letting it out her mouth. “There’s lots of Infected in Chicago. Lot of people were in this building. A man got a bus working, and people were gonna leave. My dad made them take me even though they had no room for him or Cody. I didn’t wanna go. Daddy didn’t want me to get hurt by the Infected.” She kept quiet for a while. “Mommy died tryin’ to protect me.”