“Jenny,” I whispered, my voice ragged.
When his eyes widened in shock, I gritted my teeth, reared back, and brought my head quickly forward, slamming my forehead into his. And as he crumpled to the ground, half unconscious, I stalked off toward the complex, blurry-eyed and with a throbbing head.
Chapter Eighteen
Autumn
Nervous and apprehensive, I paced the floor. Eagle had left me alone here, trapped with my own out-of-control thoughts and the oppressive silence of this rotten place. I had been muttering, whispering things to myself that I needed to do, but then I forgot them as soon as I released the words from my mouth, my thoughts tumbling on to something else. I was anxious, itching for something to do, waiting for some sort of survival instinct to kick in. Because that’s who I was and what I had always done; that’s all I knew to do, how to pass the time.
Think, plan, scavenge, and hide. Survive.
But now everything was different. In such a short time, everything I knew had utterly changed.
Eagle had said I was safe here, that he would take care of me. And I believed him. Even after what had just happened, I still believed him. Maybe I was just weary, sick of being alone and suffering in silence. Or maybe I secretly craved companionship, someone to share the burden of this world with.
But to trust a man like Eagle? To believe him when he said time and time again that he would keep me safe? For how long would, or even could he? I wasn’t sure. Another week, maybe two? He was unstable, unpredictable, and frightening as hell, but strangely enough he was less terrifying than my only other alternative. But I’d believed him, and for some reason I kept believing him. He was like a drop of water to my dehydrated soul.
“He’s dangerous,” I whispered to myself. “They’re all dangerous.”
I stood by the windows, peering through the minuscule gaps between the planks of wood and dirty windowpanes past that, looking out at the tiny slice of a world just beyond my reach. Always on the outskirts, that was me. Before I had liked it that way, it had kept me safe, and yet now with just the slightest interaction with other people, with this forsaken place, I could feel a foreign need blossoming inside me. The need for something . . . more.
“People are bad. They hurt you,” I whispered, repeating my father’s words. “Don’t trust anyone. People are bad.”
People were bad, especially these people. That woman with the bright pink hair was the devil herself; I was certain of it. I could practically see the death lingering all around her like smog. She practically reeked of destruction and hatred, more so than anyone else I’d come across here.
Even more than Eagle.
“Eagle,” I whispered into the empty room.
I shook my head, still mumbling to myself as I moved away from the windows, needing some form of distraction, something for my hands to do to release all my nervous energy. I sat down on the couch, then instantly stood back up, shivering as I recalled what had happened this morning.
“They’re dangerous.”
No matter what, they were all dangerous.
“They scare me.”
But then why was I longing for him to come back? Why was his absence driving me crazy?
“Because I’m not alone anymore.” I practically wailed the words, and then once again started to pace.
I paced as I muttered to myself, whispering out loud the things that scared me most, the things that made me beg for something and nothing and everything and everyone all at once. Everything ached and hurt; my mind was a tumble of confusion. The sadness that had grown so long inside me was now suffocating me with its strangled vines of hope.
Silence had always made me feel at ease, and yet now, I found I needed the sound of his ragged breathing to fill the air, the deep rumble of his chest when he spoke. Somewhere, somehow, my need for companionship had been flipped back on. But at the same time I didn’t want to leave the safety of the darkness.
Shivers raked up my spine and I bit the inside of my cheek hard, crunching down with my back teeth until I felt them pierce the soft flesh and I tasted the tang of blood. I gasped and opened my mouth and I sucked in a ragged breath.
A thump sounded at the door, the sound making me jump, both in fear and delight. He was back, he’d returned, and as relief and panic simultaneously filled me, I dragged my hands down my face, attempting to control my emotions.
Standing there, barely breathing, I listened as he unlocked each padlock and bolt with a thoroughness and precision that I wouldn’t have expected from a man like him.
The door swung open and he stepped into the gloom—my gloom. When he closed the door behind him and shut the sunshine back outside where it belonged. Lifting his head, he paused and simply stared at me from the doorway, looking me over slowly and carefully.
My hands clenched into fists at my sides, my jagged nails digging into the palms of my hands. He had that look again, the one that both frightened and irritated me. Anger, an intense rage that burned deeper than the core of the earth and ran a river of lava right through his veins.
Then it dissipated, the heavy pall of violence hanging over him, and as he sighed and ran a hand across his beard, I sighed too.
“You need to get a job.” His voice carried across the room, grating and rough like gravel. He tossed a bundle of fabric forward that I hadn’t noticed him carrying, and it landed on the floor with a heavy thump. “Clean clothes,” he said.
Clothes? A job? My mouth fell open. I couldn’t get a job. You didn’t have a job when the world ended; you only had survival. That was your only job, to survive.
“You have to earn your keep here,” he continued. “You’re not a child. Everyone works, no one has a choice.” He paused, regarding me warily with narrowed, assessing eyes as if he expected me to fight him on the matter, to start yelling, screaming, kicking, and clawing at him.
And just like that I wanted him gone again, wanted my silence back. Annoyed, I turned away from him and slipped quickly into the other room. Sitting down cross-legged on the floor, I listened as his heavy footsteps followed after me until he stood in the doorway, his broad frame entirely filling the narrow space.
“Did you hear me, Squirrel?” His voice was louder now, angrier.
“Yes,” I whispered sullenly, not entirely sure why I felt this way.
The silence that followed was brooding, weighty, and full of displeasure.
I liked it here in his room where the sunlight couldn’t reach me, where the people beyond these four walls couldn’t see me, where nothing and no one could find me. Out there I would be even more vulnerable than I was in here, I would be a girl—no, wait, I wasn’t a girl anymore. I was a woman, Eagle had said. I was nineteen or twenty, a woman. I closed my eyes and sighed, feeling the weight of those words and of the responsibility that came with them.
He cursed softly, still watching me as if he was waiting for me to say something. I stared at him, at all of him—his messy hair, his deep-set dark eyes, his wide mouth and square jaw, his towering body, packed with an incredible amount of muscle and so much definition that it couldn’t be hidden away, not even under the several layers he was wearing. Everything about him was demanding and intense. So very intense.
“What will I do?” I whispered.
He came into the room slowly. Even in the dimness I could see the frown on his face, the prominent scowl lines made darker still by the lack of light.
“The garage, with me. Working on cars.”
“With you?” Hope sparked within me. I hated the idea of leaving his house, but if he were with me, maybe I didn’t hate the idea as much.
He continued to move around the room and out of my line of sight. “You don’t need to worry. No one will touch you. Not with my brand on you.”
I hated the brand, the tattoo. It itched horribly.
“What will I do?” I asked again, confused.
“Not a lot, but enough to keep you under the radar.”
I rubbed my fingers toget
her, enjoying the sound the dry skin on my thumb made as it moved against the skin on my forefinger. I did it with both hands and closed my eyes. I was going to work. In a garage. With people and cars. A laugh snaked its way up my throat and bubbled free past my lips. It was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.
“What the fuck are you laughing at?”
Sitting there on the floor, I laughed louder, the force of it hurting my throat, and then I laughed until my eyes were leaking tears. Eagle crouched in front of me and glared at me, and I laughed even harder, half of me amazed at the foreign sound of laughter, the other half feeling delirious.
His big hands grasped my shoulders and shook me roughly. And I laughed harder still.
He shook me viciously then, cursing as his fingers dug into my skin. His black eyes ignited with fury, but I couldn’t help it, I kept laughing. I laughed and laughed until my stomach ached and my head throbbed.
Then all at once the laughter left me in a gust of misery, and tears filled my eyes. My sobs broke free and I collapsed forward, into Eagle. He jerked back and fell onto his butt, but I was desperate, needing something, needing him. I reached for him, dragging myself up onto his lap even though I was unwanted and uninvited, hiccupping through my tears.
He was as hard as steel, but as cold as his demeanor was, his body was so very warm. Gripping his shirt, I pressed my face into his chest and inhaled deeply, burying myself in his scent of sweat and anger, and cried harder.
I hated this place and everyone in it. But Eagle had kept me safe, had made good on all his promises. More than that, now I understood the difference between being safe and alone versus being safe and protected by another. It was a relief to have another body to provide warmth, another voice to overshadow the many in my head, another person to fill the lonely space around me.
I still missed my cave, the safety it provided me, but clinging to Eagle, feeling his warmth beneath my fists, inhaling the scent of such a strong and formidable man, I didn’t miss it quite as much as before.
Chapter Nineteen
Eagle
From across the musty garage, seated behind a broken desk with my feet propped up across the top of it, I watched as Adam gave Autumn a pat on her shoulder. She flinched away at first, then simply stood there frozen, looking uncomfortable. Several seconds ticked by before she gave him a smile that better resembled a grimace, and hurried to return to her work.
I snorted. Work. She wasn’t working; she was washing vehicles, the only damn thing anyone could come up with for her to do. A girl like Autumn who had no knowledge whatsoever of cars, who was half out of her mind to begin with, was of little use when it came to the mechanical workings of an engine. Or anything, actually. She was pretty fucking useless.
Yet Adam had suggested she wash the SUV he’d just finished repairing, handed her a bucket of dirty water and an even dirtier rag, and put her to work. Every once in a while he’d stop what he was doing and check on her, and this time his visit had ended with a pat on her shoulder.
As for me, I hadn’t done jack-fucking-shit all damn day. Not one goddamn thing. For starters, I was downright exhausted. What little sleep I usually got, always riddled with nightmares, I hadn’t even managed the night before. I’d been too busy . . .
You can say it, the voice taunted me. You were too busy comforting her.
Grimacing, I shifted uncomfortably in the rickety chair and rearranged the position of my legs on the desk. I hadn’t comforted her, not at all. I’d only allowed her to use me for comfort, like a child uses a teddy bear.
My frown deepened. Had I just equated myself to a fucking teddy bear?
It wasn’t as if she’d given me much of a choice. She’d wrapped herself around me, holding on for dear life while she’d sobbed herself damn near dry. Every time I made a move to untangle myself from her, she’d only cried harder and dug her nails in deeper.
What was I supposed to do? Shove her away? Laugh at her?
That’s what you would have done, the voice said, if it were anyone else.
That was true. I’d never been an understanding sort of man, even before the world had ended. I’d always been more of a doer than a listener, far more comfortable with coming up with solutions than I was in discussing . . . anything at all.
I’d always had very little tolerance for temper tantrums and tears. That was the sort of shit women were better at contending with, not me.
But this girl—
I paused to glance at her again, running my eyes down the slim length of her. Not a girl, but a woman, and dressed in one of Grannie’s ridiculous creations, her curves weren’t just on display, they were showcased.
The dress was ugly, there was no questioning that; most of Grannie’s creations were draperies turned into dresses that wouldn’t look good on a damn dog. In most cases, the women in Purgatory walked around looking like clown-school rejects. But on Autumn, the drapery-turned-dress concoction didn’t look half bad.
Jesus Christ. Why was I thinking about this shit? I must have been more tired than I’d thought. I needed sleep, but first I needed a drink, several drinks actually. Then sleep. But drinking meant leaving Autumn alone here, something I was certain she wasn’t ready for. So drinking would have to wait until later.
And sleep, sleep would have to wait too. And she damn sure wouldn’t be sleeping beside me again tonight. I didn’t sleep with anyone, not only because of the severity of my nightmares, but because I just didn’t. If I was in bed with a woman, it was for one reason and one reason only, and usually a lot less clothing was involved.
An image of Autumn flickered through my thoughts, naked and in the bath, her big eyes wide and full of fear. And then another from last night, her clinging to me as I were her goddamn lifeline, pressing all those curves I suddenly seemed to be unable to stop staring at up against me. Every tear-filled, shuddering breath she’d taken thrust her breasts forward, and every shiver that raked through her tight little figure caused a gyrating sensation that left my body uncaring that she was filthy, stinking, and that her hair was still a rat’s nest probably crawling with vermin.
Out of thin air, Mensa appeared beside me, mumbling nonsense to himself while he pressed the tips of each of his fingers to the pad of his thumb, one by one. It was a tic of his, and one that drove me insane.
“You figure out those new bullet moldings yet?” I asked.
Ignoring me, he continued mumbling as he counted his fingers, his eyes fixed on something across the garage. I followed his gaze to the far end of the room where Autumn was now attempting to wash a filthy wheel well with an even filthier rag.
Raising my brow, I looked back to Mensa, who was still staring.
“Pretty,” he muttered. “Pretty girl.”
The way he said it, with his lisp and barely audible mumbles, it sounded like he’d said “pretty squirrel” instead of “pretty girl.” Combined with my mood, my lack of sleep, and the ridiculous direction my sleep-deprived brain continued to turn to, I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh.
It was all so motherfucking hilarious, and not in a good way, but in a sad and pathetic and hopeless kind of way. And if that wasn’t funny, me becoming this piss-poor excuse for a man, I didn’t damn well know what funny was anymore. So I laughed, and not in the maniacal, get-this-girl-a-padded-room kind of laugh like Autumn had engaged in last night, but a laugh all the same.
And when I was done choking on my own stupidity, I glanced up and found Mensa gaping at me. He wasn’t so much surprised but instead seemed afraid, as if my laughter had sent chills running down his spine. A quick survey of the room showed me he wasn’t alone in his shock, and that everyone was staring at me—Adam, Autumn, and Mensa. Even Tony had popped his head in from outside and was peering curiously at me around the heavy tarpaulin of the makeshift door.
Sitting up straight in my chair, I dropped my smile at the very same moment I let my feet hit the floor, and an unfamiliar feeling coursed through me.
“What the fuck ar
e you looking at?” I demanded, embarrassment burning through me as I glared at each of them. First at Tony, who immediately ducked back outside, then Mensa, who went scurrying off, then Adam, who grinned and shook his head before turning. And then finally at Autumn, who was standing there staring at me from across the room, her clothing now as dirty as the rag she was clutching.
Getting to my feet, I locked my jaw and turned to leave. This wasn’t just embarrassing, this was downright uncomfortable. For the millionth time since I’d picked Autumn up off the ground and decided to become her savior, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing or why I was doing it.
“Wait!”
Just as I was about to storm my way beneath the tarp, Autumn appeared beside me, red faced and breathing hard. “Where are you going?” she asked in a breathless voice. It took me a moment to realize she wasn’t actually out of breath from her sprint across the garage, but was downright terrified.
“Food,” I gritted out. “I’m hungry.”
“So am I,” she said while anxiously jumping from foot to foot. “You never have food at your house.” Then she lowered her voice to a near whisper. “Please, don’t leave me here.”
Jesus Christ, so much about her was so very childlike, and under normal circumstances would have pissed me off no end. I didn’t have the patience for this shit. I didn’t have the tolerance.
But I did. At least with her. With her, for some goddamn reason I did.
“Let’s go,” I said, lifting the tarp and jerking my chin toward the outside. “But you make a fucking scene, you start losing your shit—”
“I won’t,” she whispered as she ducked beneath my arm.
I followed her outside, glaring at her. She didn’t even seem sure of herself, so how the fuck could I believe her? Even now, as I started walking across the wide expanse of lawn, she hesitated.
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