I finished up what I was doing and eased myself out from under the van. Michael offered me a hand up and I took it, glad for the assistance. Once I was back on my feet, I grabbed a rag I left nearby and used it to wipe the grease off my hands.
"That is good news," he agreed, examining the solid-looking van with an approving eye. Like me, he knew at a glance that we could fit a lot of good supplies in the back of a vehicle that size. Those kind, dark eyes shifted back to me, and he gave me a quirky smile. "You missed a spot."
"Ehh?"
"Right here." He reached over, and wiped a spot of grease off the tip of my nose. I felt my cheeks burn at the contact, but he pretended not to notice.
"Oh, thanks. Didn't see it. Remind me to enjoy another hot shower before we leave." I sighed. The thought of losing the hot water was too tragic to imagine.
"No hot water where we're going?" He looked equally disappointed.
"Not unless we can find a heating coil before we go." I shook my head. "I turned that township upside down looking for one before I hurt myself, but they were all blown."
"Hmmm." He stared thoughtfully off into space. "Actually, I think I know a place. A plumbing supply store. I found it a few years ago, but I didn’t need anything at the time so I left it untouched."
"Add that to the list of things we need to do before we go." I heaved another long-suffering sigh, and then shot a sideways glance at him. "What about weapons? Any hunting stores here? I’m not familiar with the area."
"Nothing in the way of guns, if that’s what you’re asking." Michael grimaced and shook his head. "There used to be, but they were looted or burned out in the riots, and someone cleared out the gun lockers down here before I had a chance to look." He paused for a moment, then flicked an uncomfortable glance at me. "I got my shotgun off a corpse, in the early days right after the riots. We’ve found a few others since then but they were all too rusted to be any good to us."
"Damn. Well, at least you’ve got spare ammunition." I decided that it was politic to change the conversation at that point – Michael looked a little uncomfortable talking about weapons, and I couldn’t blame him. It was a cultural thing. We Kiwis always were peaceful little birds. "So, what are you doing here, anyway?"
"I came to call you to lunch, madam." He put on his best charming smile and sketched a mocking half-bow. "We need to make sure you put on some more weight before we go."
The playful wit and the quick, appraising glance he gave my physique made me flush all over again. Suddenly I felt awkward and uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure how to deal with such obvious flirtation.
I settled for my usual defence mechanism: sarcasm.
"What, are you saying I’m too thin?" I put on an offended face. "I’ll have you know that the emaciated look is totally en vogue at the moment."
Thankfully, he took my comment the way it was intended and laughed. Without being invited, he slipped an arm around my waist, and I let him. Despite my nerves around other people, there was just something about him that put me completely at ease.
"Ah, mademoiselle." Michael faked a French accent teasingly. "I am afraid that your fash-ions are somewhat, how you say, out of date?"
I smiled, my embarrassment alleviated by the levity. In the week I’d spent in the bunker enjoying good food and minimal exercise, I’d gained a decent amount of healthy weight – a fact which he clearly hadn’t missed, either. As we walked, I caught him glancing down at me on occasion, studying me with interest.
"What?" I asked at last, curious and slightly unsettled by his glances.
"Just thinking that you’re filling out rather nicely," he answered softly. The humour was gone now and replaced by that gentle kindness that I’d come to appreciate. And something else.
I would say that got me blushing, but my cheeks were already on fire. Aside from sunburn, it was the biggest disadvantage of being as fair as I was – the slightest blush was painfully obvious.
"Are you calling me fat?" I retorted, I didn’t know how else to react, so I fell back into humour.
He, however, did not.
"No." His voice was a whisper, and his arm tightened around my waist. I tensed, but his strength was tempered with gentleness. Suddenly, he stopped walking and caught my chin, to turn my face up towards his. "Never."
There was more to the word than just the obvious, I could sense it. He didn’t even have to say it; I saw it in those dark, fathomless eyes as I gazed up at him, frozen with indecision and confusion.
He would never hurt me.
He would never let anyone else hurt me.
He would never leave me all alone, unless I told him to.
His face was so close to mine that I could smell his scent, feel his breath on my skin. Even so, the kiss caught me by surprise. The wild part of me panicked, terrified and desperate to get away, but for once it was held in check by the rational, intelligent part of me.
That was the part of me that longed to be close to someone, to be cared about again. That was the part that was so fascinated by my growing attraction to the man who had almost killed me and then saved my life within the span of a few minutes. That was the part of me that wanted this kiss so badly.
My eyes closed as his lips tasted mine, softly, as though expecting at any moment that I would panic and flee. He was right, of course. He understood me so well already. If it had been anyone else, then I would never have let that kiss happen. I would have fought him for all I was worth.
Not with this man, though. I’d come to understand him in the short time we’d known each other. I understood that he had nothing but the best of intentions for me, and that when he kissed me it was because he meant it.
I drew a sharp breath when our lips parted, my heart racing, my mind surging with a mix of fear and longing. When my eyes finally opened, I found him looking down at me with a bemused smile on his face. I felt a stab of concern. "What now?"
"I just had a silly thought." He looked a touch embarrassed as he trailed gentle fingers along the length of my jaw. "Like, maybe I should thank you for not hitting me."
I stared at him.
"You hit like a truck!" He exclaimed, sounding defensive.
"Um— you’re welcome." My brain was in a million places all at once, and I couldn’t quite process his humour. Sensing my need for time, Michael let the conversation lapse into silence and led me the rest of the way to the kitchen. Just before we arrived his arm slid away and I found myself experiencing a sense of loss that I hadn’t expected, a feeling that left me even more confused.
"Why is my sister the colour of a tomato?"
Skylar’s voice cut through my confusion like a knife, and I shot her an embarrassed glance. She eyeballed me and Michael both, like she sensed something was going on, but Michael only shrugged and let me keep my privacy.
I felt a flood of relief at his discretion. Of course, Skye would be the first person I talked to if I decided I wanted to talk, but I needed the time to figure out how I felt before I said anything to anyone.
I eased myself into a chair to take the weight off my injured foot, mumbling something non-committal about not feeling well. With a knowing smirk, my sister set a bowl in front of me, and put a fork in my hand.
The group dynamic had changed since my arrival. They had gone from each making and eating their own food to sharing group meals at every opportunity, cooked by whoever felt like being adventurous that day.
Frankly, most of us were terrible cooks, me included. But eating together, sharing stories and camaraderie, it brought all of us a little bit closer together. Not to mention, all of us agreed eating off crockery tasted better than eating out of a can.
It also helped us to learn more about one another, and it gave Skylar and me the chance to get closer. She had been just a sweet little child when I last saw her, and now she was a spunky teenager with a bun in the oven.
I had discovered that I liked her a lot, as a person. Despite being eight months pregnant and looking like she was
about to pop, she was a bundle of energy and rarely complained about anything.
It felt like her belly was almost as big as she was, and yet she was up and about from the crack of dawn, doing laundry or organising supplies or poking around in the kitchen. If something needed doing, you could count on Skylar to think of it before you did and be halfway through doing it by the time you got there.
This morning, I’d woken to the sound of joyful squeals, and emerged bleary-eyed from my room to find her chasing a delighted Madeline up and down the corridors with gleeful abandon. When she paused to catch her breath, she explained that she’d caught the child moping, and a good game of chase seemed like the easiest way to keep her spirits high.
Though I hadn’t quite accepted the thought of being someone’s aunt, I really hoped her baby would be okay. From the way she was with Maddy, I knew she’d be a fantastic mum, just like ours was for us.
Although she readily admitted that Ryan saved her and kept her alive all these years, it was quite obvious that she was the one who wore the pants in their relationship. He doted on her like an adoring puppy and was perfectly happy to follow her instructions in any circumstance. More than once, I’d seen her handing out orders and him trundling off about her bidding with a dopey smile on his face, perfectly content with his lot in life.
Given how young they both were, it was kind of adorable.
The doctor was a different story. I learned that he was kind of a loner by nature and preferred to spend his free time reading quietly in his room. Although his face was set in a permanent scowl, I’d come to realise it wasn’t because of some deep-seated anger at the world — it was because he was short-sighted. He had glasses, but the prescription was ten years out of date and the lenses were scratched all to hell.
That knowledge came as something of a relief, since he had slightly intimidated me when I first met him. It was nice to know that most of the time, if he was glaring at me it was not because he was mad at me, it was because he couldn’t see me properly. We’d come to a grudging understanding over the last week, and while I wouldn’t call our relationship anything warmer than cordial, we had found a mutual respect for one another.
Now, Madeline was truly an enigma. I’d come to the realisation after spending some time with her that, although she was just a child, she was intelligent to the point of being brilliant. As much as we all instinctively wanted to protect her from the world, she always seemed to know what was going on around her. She flip-flopped between periods of childish play and moments of intense, adult clarity that never ceased to surprise me.
Sometimes I wondered if she could actually read minds.
Although she got bored swiftly with adult conversations, I often found her watching me doing things that should not interest a seven-year-old at all. Earlier that morning, she had spent nearly an hour watching me work on an engine, asking me questions about everything. Some of those questions were too technical for me to answer.
Right now, she looked like any other child as she shovelled her food down so fast that her grandfather needed to scold her and warn her that she’d choke. Ryan was off in his own world that completely revolved around Skylar, and Skylar was talking to me.
"So, how’s it going?" She prompted while she spooned her culinary creation into a bowl for Michael. He took it gratefully, and settled himself into the chair beside me as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
I tried to ignore him and focused on my sister.
"It’s good. I found a couple of salvageable engines, though only one vehicle large enough for what we need. I’ve got the battery on charge overnight, so with any luck it’ll be good to go tomorrow morning."
"When did you learn to fix a car anyway?" Skye peered at me askance as she served up her own lunch, and then sat down opposite me. I just shrugged sheepishly.
"Well, in Year Twelve I decided to do a practical class, and automotive engineering was the only one I could get into without a ton of prerequisite classes." I didn’t want to explain that Dad got me interested in cars in the first place, so I chose an answer that didn’t dredge up old pain. "Who would have thought it would end up being the only useful thing I learned in school?"
"Handy. I wish I’d gotten the chance to go to high school." Her eyes drifted out of focus, and one hand absently rubbed her swollen middle I knew what she was thinking without her having to say a word – that she wished her child would have that chance, as well.
"You weren’t missing much." I tried to distract her with humour. It worked, sort of.
"Oh, really now?" She laughed. "What about Robert? And Bryce? And Harry? Oooo…" One by one, she named all my high school boyfriends, then playfully made kissy fish lips at me. Michael shot a look at me with raised eyebrows, and I felt the heat rush back into my cheeks. Suddenly, I wished I could just crawl under the table and die.
"How the hell do you even remember their names?" I demanded, fighting the urge to run away and hide. Or maybe kick my sister to the moon. Yes, that seemed like an appropriate response. "I barely remember them at all."
"Well." This time, it was her turn to look embarrassed.
My anger faded, replaced by curiosity. "Well?"
She blew out a sharp breath, and then finally admitted. "I named my Ken dolls after them, alright?"
"You did what?" I was flabbergasted. Why on earth would she name her dolls after my high school boyfriends?
"Well, I named my Barbie after you." She hung her head like she was admitting something humiliating. "It seemed like a good idea at the time, okay?"
I stared at her while I processed that information. She named her doll after me? She loved that doll. It went everywhere with her, to day care when she was tiny and later on to primary school as well. I remembered Mum having to pry it out of her hands when it was bedtime. If Mum failed to tuck the doll into its bed at night, she would kick up such a fuss. One time she got so loud that the neighbours complained, thinking someone was being murdered in our house.
"Aww." My brow furrowed and I fought an unreasonable urge to cry. "That’s so sweet, Skye. I never knew."
"Well, don’t go telling everyone now," she shot back dryly, tilting her chin up in a petulant manner that reminded me of our mother when she was teasing Dad. "They’ll start thinking I have a heart or something."
I immediately forgave her for embarrassing me in front of Michael. How could I possibly be mad over something like that?
Overcome by a flash of almost unbearable affection towards the young woman that had once been my baby sister, I reached over and squeezed her hand. She didn’t say anything, but she gave my hand a squeeze back.
She understood.
Chapter Eighteen
Shortly after lunch, Michael and I took Skylar to examine the prisoner transport I had managed to salvage.
"This is good," Skye murmured thoughtfully to herself as she circled the van, examining it from all angles. "Very good, but I think we need another one."
I looked at Michael, who nodded thoughtfully. "She’s right. From what you’ve said, the supplies down south are limited. We should take as much with us as we can."
"Particularly medical supplies." I nodded my agreement. "There’s almost nothing down there. That’s why I had to come north to begin with."
"There are a lot of things we need to take." Skye sighed, bracing a hand against the small of her back to stretch her spine. "We need more vans."
"How many of us know how to drive?" I glanced back and forth between them, uncertain.
"You, me and the doctor," Michael answered without hesitation, ignoring the irritated sound Skylar made. "Skye and Ryan say that they know how, but I’d prefer not to trust them behind the wheel of a heavy vehicle."
"We may not have a choice. I can’t really drive with this." I gestured at my foot. "And we need as many supplies as we can carry."
Michael grunted and Skylar beamed. I raised a brow, but neither of them explained what was going on between them, so I just h
ad to guess it was some kind of inside joke.
"Okay, so we need to find one more. A van or a light truck, something along those lines then." I looked around the garage at the other vehicles and shook my head. "We'll need to look outside. Everything we have here is either too small to be any use, or too far gone to fix."
Michael stared at me, his exasperation fading into a deep frown. Concern etched itself across his handsome face. "Are you sure you can handle a trip outside? You’re still wounded."
I felt a surge of warmth at his concern. It was nice to know that someone cared.
"You can't keep me locked up in here forever." Feeling a little bold all of a sudden, I gave him a fearless grin and limped off towards my room. "Besides, you'll be with me if anything goes wrong. Go get your kit on, officer. Time's a’wasting."
Behind me, Skylar snickered.
***
I found it kind of funny how in one short week, I’d adapted to a life where I no longer had to carry everything I own on my back like a tortoise. It wasn’t all that long ago I was so paranoid I took my taser with me even for something as simple as a dash to the ladies’ room. I’d grown comfortable in this bunker though, and I no longer felt the need to have my hand on a weapon at all times. Those things I once considered vital necessities now sat in my room, in a neat row upon the table by the door.
I stood looking at them for a minute, thinking over the changes that had happened in my life in such a short period of time. I was a creature of habit, but it was interesting how quickly those habits had changed. One by one, I checked that my necessities were all in working order and packed them into the pockets of my fatigues, until all that was left was the gun.
I stared at the weapon, wishing that I didn't have to take it with me, but I knew in my heart that I did. If that horrible weapon was the only thing standing between me and death, then Mum and Grandma would forgive me for using it. It wasn’t the gun's fault, it was only a tool. It was the disease that had taken them away from me, and now I had Skylar to protect, not to mention my unborn niece or nephew.
The Survivors (Book 1): Summer Page 18
