A stabbing pain lanced her gut from an imaginary ten-inch long needle. She tensed, but kept it hidden. “All right. Stay careful, and come home for lunch.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Abby hugged her, headed to the door, and peered back. “Why don’t you come swimming too?”
“Let me finish waking up first and I’ll see how I feel.”
“Okay.” Abby grinned and darted off.
The soft thump-thump-thump of her running down carpeted stairs faded. Children’s voices got loud for a second as the front door opened, and cut off when it closed.
Tris sighed and rubbed her stomach. “Ow.”
Maybe someday she’d tell Abby about killing Nathan. Her arm clenched with the memory of the knife twist. That was for Abby. It seemed inappropriate to tell an eleven-year-old about such a grisly scene, so she’d left it at saying she’d personally killed the man who sent the Virus to Amarillo.
The need to pee swelled.
Tris stared at her crotch. “Go to hell.”
“What did I do?” asked Kevin, behind her.
“Not you.” She tried to shift her weight in a way that lessened the need to go.
He groaned and crawled out of bed. “Shit, we overslept pretty hard.”
“Yeah.”
Kevin headed for the door, scratching his stomach. “Gonna slap something together for breakfast… Where’s Abby?”
“Swimming. Ann and Cassie are watching them.”
He nodded while yawning. “I’ll be downstairs.”
How can he just get out of bed and not go straight to the bathroom? In another minute or three of sitting there staring at the wall, the discomfort advanced to pain.
“Fine… fine.” She stood and swooned with vertigo. Nausea came back hard enough to nudge her stiff legs into a run.
Seconds later, her ass perched on the bowl and her face hovered over a small wastebasket. Tris hugged the plastic, waiting for vomit, but only a little trail of saliva dangled off her bottom lip. She sat for a while listening to Kevin rattle around the kitchen, savoring the absence of pain in her bladder. Again, she lurched and dry heaved, but nothing came out.
“What the hell is wrong with me?”
A mild pins-and-needles effect washed over her abdomen and a faint beep came from nowhere.
Great. What are the nanites fixing? I guess that dust hopper really did go to hell.
The little blue clock that always floated in the lower left corner of her vision, something that she’d gotten so used to she didn’t even notice it there unless she looked for it, flashed a few times and went off. Crap. Are my implants going?
Text scrolled along the space where the time had been in bright blue letters. Digital information fed into her optic nerve on platinum wires thinner than a human hair.
Self-diagnostic running.
“Oh, that’s new.” She swallowed a mouthful of spit and sat up straight, feeling a little better already.
Diagnostic Pass. No problems detected.
“So what is―”
Status:
She blinked.
Pregnant.
The wastebasket slipped out of her hands and hit the floor with a hollow, plastic thoomp.
“What!”
Dual zygotes detected. Double egg release. Progress: normal.
Tris’ scream of shock turned to a jubilant cheer halfway before her lungs ran out of air.
38
Nowhere Else
Eggs made for a welcome respite from dust hopper. The damnable enormous rabbit-like critters continued to raid the farm, so they piled up in the larders of everyone in Nederland. Meat was meat, but another week of rabbit twice a day and he’d drive to Hagerman just to eat the piss-coated scorpions off the ground behind Wayne’s.
He poked a wooden spatula around the little frying pan, hoping the electric heating element stayed on. Bill would probably want them to take a ride to Amarillo on the sooner side of later to grab more panels, but maybe he could talk them into working out some kind of thing with whatever would replace the Enclave. Having them make new ones beat taking a long ride again. He didn’t want to leave Abby behind and he didn’t want to bring her back to that place. Yeah sure, the pair of them had been inoculated, but having her return to the birthplace of her nightmares would not end well. Bill had filled him in on her panic attacks, so he’d do everything possible to make sure she felt completely safe.
Of course, being inoculated also made him the best person to go. Him, Tris, Zara, Nikki… the four of them could handle it.
Fuck. I’m gonna need a good goddamned excuse to ask them to have someone else do that. No way am I gonna make Abby watch us shoot people she used to know. He grumbled to himself at the sudden wonder if witnessing Amarillo purged of Infected might help her cope instead of traumatizing her more. Nah. She doesn’t need to see that.
White caught his eye, and he glanced left at Tris creeping into the kitchen. He started to smile, but froze stone-faced at the red around her eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
Tris walked up to him; her sky-blue T-shirt didn’t hide much of her shape, and stopped only an inch or two below her crotch. If not for her making a face like someone had shot her dog, he’d have made a move. “Umm?”
“Abby?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Abby’s fine. It’s not about her.”
“Did your parents say something bad?” He tended the eggs one-handed while grasping her arm. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m…” She shrank in on herself and whispered, “pregnant.”
He dropped the spatula.
Tris’ lip quivered.
Holy shit. “That’s fucking awesome.” He grabbed her in a bear hug. “Ack.” He relaxed.
“You’re not going to snap me in half now.” She laughed, sniffling a bit.
He waved his hand around in a small circular motion. “What’s with the tears? This is what you’ve wanted, isn’t it?”
“Two.” She flashed a cheesy smile laced with guilt as if she’d run off and spent all their money without telling him. “Fraternal twins…”
He blinked. “They joined a fraternity already?”
Her eyebrows formed a single, flat line across her head. “Really?”
“What?”
She leapt into him and bawled on his shoulder.
He leaned to the right to pull the eggs up from the stove and flicked the switch to off. After putting the pan on a cold element, he hugged her. “I’m still not sure what about this warrants crying.”
“I figured it out… it must’ve happened that night at the roadhouse, when we were on the way to the Enclave.” She shuddered. “I almost got myself killed while pregnant. No wonder I’ve been feeling like mothering the crap out of everyone. I guess they didn’t take my ovaries out… only some eggs.”
“So…” He put on his rogue’s grin. “When do your boobs get bigger?”
She punched him in the shoulder and cracked up laughing. “I’m serious… what if that failsafe didn’t exist… Or…”
He kissed her to stop her from talking. Minutes later, he leaned back and smiled. “No what-ifs. Forget it. Calm down. It’s over. You saved the world…”
She blushed and bowed her head against his chest.
“At least from the Virus.” He kissed the top of her head. “We’re safe here.”
“Yeah.”
Gunfire popped and rippled in the distance.
She snapped her head up and glared at the wall.
Kevin listened to the tempo of the shots for ten seconds, and relaxed. “Militia practicing. The shots are too paced and regular to be combat… and no one’s shouting.”
Tris moved to a chair by the table and sat. “That smells amazing.” She absentmindedly rubbed her stomach, watching him slide eggs and toast onto two plates. “We’re not perfectly safe here.”
“Nowhere is perfectly safe.” He moved up behind her and reached around to set breakfast in front of her.
She turne
d in the chair to face the table and attacked her food.
“But…” He rested his hands on her shoulders with a gentle squeeze. “Right now, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
Tris looked back and up at him with wide, urgent eyes, a bit of egg on her lip. “You…”
“Missed a bit.” He plucked the egg from her lip on his fingertip and held it up before poking it into her mouth.
She sputtered and giggled.
“You’re eating for three now. Don’t waste any.” He bent down to kiss her.
Tris leaned back after a moment, and grinned. “You should eat yours before it gets cold.”
He grabbed his plate from the counter and sat as close as he could get a chair to her.
“I guess. Nederland’s pretty nice.” Tris leaned against him. “I can’t really think of anywhere else I’d rather be either.”
Kevin draped an arm around her shoulders. She reached up and held his hand over her heart. “I didn’t mean Ned. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than with you.”
She blushed. “Even Dallas?”
“Even Dallas.” He leaned to his right and kissed her again.
Tris nibbled on his lip.
“Ow, hey.” He chuckled.
“You taste like eggs.”
He scraped more food onto his fork. “I better eat this before you take it all.”
She half-closed her eyes. “Even on a bus in the middle of a street packed with Infected?”
“Hey now. Let’s not get crazy.” He winked.
Tris laughed and snuggled into him. “I’m pregnant…”
“If you say so.” He smiled. “You think you’re ready for this?”
“After the Enclave? I’m ready for anything.” She patted her stomach. “Well, maybe if one of them’s a boy, he’ll turn out like you.”
“And?”
“Then we’re both in trouble.”
Kevin laughed. “I can’t argue that.”
She tilted her head back to look up at him. “Kevin?”
He peered down at her. “Tris?”
“I love you.” Tears welled in her eyes, but she wore the biggest smile he’d ever seen on that snow-white face.
Kevin brushed at her hair for a little while, taking in how beautiful she looked. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything or anyone in my life.”
“More than your own roadhouse?”
“Roadhouse?” He furrowed his brows with a rogue’s grin. “What the heck’s a roadhouse?”
fin
Acknowledgments
Thank you for reading the Roadhouse Chronicles series!
Additional thanks to:
Mark Woodring, for his insightful editing and polishing―even if he did utterly despise the Cure pun.
Will Stanton for making the suggestion that turned a single short story into a three-novel series.
About the Author
Originally from South Amboy NJ, Matthew has been creating science fiction and fantasy worlds for most of his reasoning life. Since 1996, he has developed the “Divergent Fates” world, in which Division Zero, Virtual Immortality, The Awakened Series, The Harmony Paradox, and the Daughter of Mars series take place. Along with being an editor at Curiosity Quills press, he has worked in IT and technical support.
Matthew is an avid gamer, a recovered WoW addict, Gamemaster for two custom RPG systems, and a fan of anime, British humour, and intellectual science fiction that questions the nature of reality, life, and what happens after it.
He is also fond of cats.
Visit me online at:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MatthewSCoxAuthor
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/author/mscox
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/matthewcox10420/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7712730.Matthew_S_Cox
Email: [email protected]
Other books by Matthew S. Cox
Divergent Fates Universe Novels
Division Zero series
Division Zero
Lex De Mortuis
Thrall
Guardian
The Awakened series
Prophet of the Badlands
Archon’s Queen
Grey Ronin
Daughter of Ash
Zero Rogue
Angel Descended
Daughter of Mars series
The Hand of Raziel
Araphel
Ghost Black
Virtual Immortality series
Virtual Immortality
The Harmony Paradox
Divergent Fates Anthology
(Fiction Novels - Adult)
The Roadhouse Chronicles Series
One More Run
The Redeemed
Dead Man’s Number
Faded Skies series
Heir Ascendant
Ascendant Unrest
Ascendant Revolution
Temporal Armistice Series
Nascent Shadow
The Shadow Collector
Vampire Innocent series
A Nighttime of Forever
A Beginner’s Guide to Fangs
The Artist of Ruin
The Last Family Road Trip
Standalones
Wayfarer: AV494
Axillon99
Chiaroscuro: The Mouse and the Candle
The Far Side of Promise anthology
Operation: Chimera (with Tony Healey)
The Dysfunctional Conspiracy (with Christopher Veltmann)
Winter Solstice series (with J.R. Rain)
Convergence
Containment
Alexis Silver series (with J.R. Rain)
Silver Light
Deep Silver
Samantha Moon Origins series (with J.R. Rain)
New Moon Rising
Moon Mourning
Maddy Wimsey series (with J.R. Rain)
The Devil’s Eye
The Drifting Gloom
Samantha Moon Case Files series (with J.R. Rain)
Blood Moon
Dead Moon
Young Adult Novels
Caller 107
The Summer the World Ended
Nine Candles of Deepest Black
The Eldritch Heart
The Forest Beyond the Earth
Out of Sight
Middle Grade Novels
Tales of Widowswood series
Emma and the Banderwigh
Emma and the Silk Thieves
Emma and the Silverbell Faeries
Emma and the Elixir of Madness
Emma and the Weeping Spirit
Standalones
Citadel: The Concordant Sequence
The Cursed Codex
The Menagerie of Jenkins Bailey
Sophie’s Light
The Roadhouse Chronicles (Book 3): Dead Man's Number Page 46
