“I don’t take kindly to people trying to murder me. I’ve killed for less.” The words were supposed to be a threat, she knew it, but their effect on her body did anything but make her afraid. She fought the urge to rub against him and failed. Her movement brought the soft flesh of her stomach up against the hard protrusion between his hips. His arousal shocked her. I’m not the only one feeling…lost.
A hot hand grasped her breast, teasing her through the thin fabric of her bra. He growled against her ear and he thrust his body against hers. The long length of him throbbed through the pants he wore.
Then she heard it—another sound, another moan of hunger. Confusion streaked through her body. Did I make that carnal sound? Clarity came when the warmth of Gage’s muscular body vanished from on top of her.
Chapter Two
Blood pounded loudly in Gage’s ears as he nocked an arrow on his crossbow and sent it sailing into a gurgh. Never, not once in the last four years, had a group of the undead caught him unaware. This is a fucking first. At least a dozen headed toward them from the south. Must have heard my shouting.
The undead were driven by their hunger, but they were also attracted by noise and Gage had been far from quiet when he’d berated Eve after he’d killed the gurghs that were trying to eat her. From the corner of his eye he saw her stand and grab for the pry bar he’d taken from her by force. She looked unruffled from their encounter only seconds before, while a haze of lust clouded his vision.
What had just happened between them? One moment he’d been pinning her down, threatening her for attacking him and the next she was moaning against him like a wild woman, setting his veins on fire. I can’t believe it’s really her. Gage fought the urge to stare at her again and jerked a homemade arrow from his pack.
“We need to get out of here.” He nocked the arrow and sent it sailing forward meeting its mark in the eye of a staggering male.
“No kidding.” Eve spoke from beside him. “See ya.” Gage let another arrow fly before snapping his head to see her retreating form. What the hell?
He turned from the approaching group and ran to catch up with her.
“Where in the hell do you think you’re going?”
“Away from the things that want to eat me. Where else would I be headed?” The sarcasm in her words almost made him smile.
“You’re just going to leave?”
She gave him a sideways glance, but didn’t slow her stride. She looked confused. Hell, he was confused, especially after the hot embrace they just shared. When she didn’t respond right away, he began to feel out of sorts. A sickness swept through his stomach. What’s up with this? Then he realized he didn’t want her to leave. She was the first familiar face that he’d seen in over a year. He wasn’t about to give that up. “Let’s team up.”
Cue another shocked look from Eve. “I don’t do teamwork.”
“You’re no fun, Eve.” He recalled now that she had never been one to play sports, whereas he’d thrived in the team environment. He’d been captain of the football team, voted All-American when he took his team to state their senior year, only a few months before the world had become infected.
“Funny, cause I don’t care.” Her stank attitude grated on his nerves.
“Why don’t you wanna come with me?”
“I have things to do.”
“Things to do? Like what, a job interview, big date?” After he said the final word a weird feeling thrummed through his body. He ignored it.
“What’s it to you?” As the foliage got thicker they were both forced to slow their gait. He kept his head on a swivel, looking for more gurghs. Reality was, they were everywhere. There was no escaping them. Just running from some into more.
“I know of a place we can go that isn’t like this. It’s safe.”
“Impossible.” She didn’t even glance at him. The scoffing in her tone was understandable. He wouldn’t believe it either, if he hadn’t help build it himself.
“It’s true, Eve, and it’s not too far from here, in Fenton. The courthouse is the center of town.” She’ll finally get to see it.
She slowed her jog to walk before stopping, and turning toward him. “A place without jenks?”
He furrowed his brow at her name for the zombie-like creatures and nodded. “Yes it’s—”
“Wait, there’s just one more thing.” His earlier impatience was beginning to come to a head with this woman. Maybe he should just leave her to head out on her own rather than have to deal with her. “Duck!”
Gage hit the ground as Eve thrust the pry bar over his head.
“Tell me what happened to you when the Crave hit.”
Eve squinted into the dark, but said nothing. She heard a rustle of leaves and perceived his movement to her left where he leaned against the tree they were sharing. Yes, sharing. This wasn’t how she imagined spending the night, but earlier in the day Gage had become the most valuable person in the world to her. A role she had never thought he would play again, though this time for different reasons.
The safe haven. She’d only ever dreamed of such places. In the beginning, she’d dared to hope that the military or someone, would come and save them all from this hell. She’d stopped running, turning on Gage with every intention of goring him with her Craftsman for daring to play with her emotions, when she saw him. Not Gage. A runner.
They weren’t uncommon, but she’d seen very few in the last four years. Most of the undead were staggering fools who lumbered along at a snail’s pace, only dangerous in hordes or if caught unawares. Runners lived up to their names—they were the undead, infected like all the others, only they were forever sprinting. Nothing could slow them, save for a stab through the head.
She’d had to make a decision then. Before the Crave, the choice between the life and death of another person would have been jarring and overwhelming. Now, Eve was more used to it than she liked to admit. She could’ve let the runner have him and be on her merry way, free of hindering souls. But she’d gazed into his eyes and saw sincerity. She couldn’t let the chance that the safe haven be real and never find it. Maybe Olive is there.
This was the only reason she’d spared him. Not because his hot erect body over hers had made her yearn for something she thought she would never want again. Not because she took one look at his scruffy exterior and dazzling eyes and thought, I can’t lose him again.
That wasn’t the case. It really wasn’t.
He’d told her it was in downtown Fenton. A place she knew well. She had lived twenty miles from there her whole life, in the small Texas town of Sunder.
“There isn’t much to tell.” She took a sip of water from a bottle she’d taken out of her backpack.
“Sure there is. You don’t survive in this hell for four years without having a story.” The statement was true, but she didn’t think she could bear telling the story of everything that had happened. It was all too fresh and yet detached all at once.
“I’ll tell you one thing about my life after the Reckoning if you answer some of my questions.”
“One question, and the Reckoning? Haven’t heard that one lately.” His voice was rough and it sent a shiver down her spine. How did he have such an effect on her? He was talking about their post-apocalyptic life and here she was, shivering with anticipation. Wonder what gory narrative he’ll say next that’ll have me creaming my pants?
“Yes. That’s what my parents always called it.” Her words had the same effect as dumping a bucket of ice water over her body. My parents and their devout beliefs. The memory of the last time she saw them still burned in her mind. She ran her hands up and down the cool length of her Craftsman to calm herself. “The Crave, I mean. The Crave.” Hardly believing she’d said the Reckoning. Calling it what they called it made her sick.
“What do you want to ask me?”
“If this safe haven is real, then why did you leave?” The question had been eating at her since she killed the runner. It didn’t make sense, who wo
uld leave a place like that, where one could sleep a full nights rest without fearing death? Eve couldn’t remember what it felt like.
“I had to go find my brother.” His words dripped with emotion.
“Your brother…Collin?” She remembered him, he was three grades above her and one grade above Gage. He was just as well-known as his all-star brother was, but for baseball.
“Yes.”
Curiosity flooded her. “Why did you have to go look for him? Where was he?”
“College in Louisiana, remember?” She didn’t but she nodded her head anyway, before remembering that he couldn’t see her.
“Yes.” The unspoken question hung between them. She wouldn’t dare ask. Him being there alone was enough of an answer.
“I found him.” His statement shocked her. “He was in his dorm room with a couple of others. They were all…infected.” She cringed, fearing her sister didn’t fare much better.
“What about you? You had a sister…Olive, right? A couple years younger than you.” He actually remembered?
“Yes, I…do.”
“So you don’t know for sure if—”
“She’s not. I know she’s not.” Gage was quiet for a moment. Not pressing her for details, which made Eve feel desperate to explain herself. She knew what he was thinking. It was what she had just been thinking about him and his brother, that it’s a sad story, that he never should have gone for him. His brother’s fate was obvious. “We got separated about a year ago. We’d ventured out of state after hearing from others that Barksdale Air Force Base was secure and taking in the uninfected.
“The place was over-run with jenks. There were hordes like I’d never seen before. We traveled with a couple of other people, but we lost track of them in our fight to get out of there. We ran like hell…but they…chased after us.” This was when she saw her first runner. The people she traveled with had told her of such things, but to see it for the first time. To have dozens chasing her,…was life altering.
“Runners?”
“You’ve seen them too? Besides the one today, of course.”
“I didn’t actually get the chance to see today’s runner, did I?” He’d railed at her after she’d ended the jenk, though she hadn’t missed the look of sadness that swept across his rugged features.
“Anyway, we were running and they were starting to surround us. My sister didn’t do well when it came to the undead. I had become her protector. Of course, she was only fourteen when this all began.” Too young for anyone to face flesh-eating people. “But she did something different that day. Instead of cowering behind me like usual while I took them on from all sides, she bolted from her normal spot. She barely managed to miss the grasp of two of the jenks as she wormed her way past them.”
“She ran track, right?”
“Yeah, she did.” A bitter wave of jealously swept through her. Olive had gotten to do many things that were forbidden to Eve by their parents.
“She was pretty good too, right?” Eve’s jealously became overwhelmed by the fact that Gage remembered all these things about her family. Olive was four years younger than him, not even in the same school and he knew these things about her…remembered because she told him in passing over four years ago? Or did I even tell him that? Wow, no way. “She didn’t even look back. Just took off sprinting, taking more than half of the horde that was following us with her. I’ve been looking for her ever since.” Telling someone about her sister felt good. She hadn’t come across a decent human since the trip into Louisiana, so naturally there had been no one to tell. She’d forgotten how nice it was.
“So, your sister’s still out there somewhere and you were just going to let those gurghs eat you today.” He said it as a statement not a question. His words sparked a myriad of emotions within Eve’s chest. Guilt, anger, sadness and many more.
“You don’t know me.”
“You’re right. I sure as hell don’t. I don’t know who the fuck you are, but I think it’s safe to say I miss the dress wearing chick who didn’t have a death wish.” His words cut her to the bone. Here she sat listening to his woebegone story and yet when she tells hers all he does is rip her apart? She wanted to yell at him. Tell him what a piece of shit asshole he was for taking her virginity and not giving a shit about her the next day. But she didn’t. Instead she took a deep breath and chose the only words that didn’t eat her up with hatred.
“Do you ever feel like this is all a dream? That tomorrow you will wake up and things will go back to normal. Where your biggest worries will be a missed TV show or football practice?” She ran a hand through her short hair, trying to find the will inside her not to cry. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve been strong for so long, that I’ve done so much in the last four years, that it just can’t be real. I’ve killed so many people.” Her voice trembled on the last sentence, feeling like glass shards as she articulated each syllable.
“They aren’t people anymore, Eve. They’re infected. They died. It’s different.” The kindness in his voice almost kept her from speaking, but she couldn’t stop herself. Now that she had begun, she needed to finish. Someone in this world had to know how she felt. She couldn’t die without someone knowing.
“I’m not talking about the jenks.”
Gage stared into the darkness in silence, Eve’s last revelation fresh in his mind. It shouldn’t have shocked him. He was guilty of much of the same thing. He’d killed people who threatened him, people who wanted him dead for one reason or another. Along with the infection, came a loss of humanity in people as a whole and no matter how long an uninfected tried to cling to it, somehow it always ended up lost.
“Today when they were all coming at me, I thought that maybe a jolt like that would wake me up from this nightmare. That it would save me from knowing that I’ve done so many horrible things.”
This woman with her short hair and ocean eyes, was far from the church girl he once knew and part of him wanted to pull her in his arms and tell her things would be okay. He didn’t though. Just kept his back against the tree where they had been sitting for hours now, waiting for morning so they could be on the move again.
The moon was just a sliver in the sky. Tomorrow night would be a new moon. No visibility whatsoever. They should get out of this rural area by midday and find a house to stay in. Sitting in the middle of the open like this was perilous at best.
“I was being selfish today. No longer, though. No longer.” Her last words were a whisper that he barely heard. He sat for a moment considering what he should say. He didn’t want her to feel this guilt and felt bad for jabbing her with it even if necessary. Sometimes it was easy to lose the will to live and all one needed was a little push to remind them why they fought so hard and made it this far to begin with. He knew the feeling well.
He could feel her moving, the shaking of her body vibrating the trunk of the tree. When the movement didn’t cease for several seconds, he realized what she was doing. Shivering.
“Are you cold?” He wished that he could build a fire, but that would draw the undead like moths to a flame, literally, and they would have another pack on top of them within the hour.
“I’m fine.”
The words were rushed from her lips and nothing could keep Gage from touching her this time. He turned toward her, snaking his hand out and placing it blindly on her. He made contact with the side of her arm and didn’t miss the sharp intake of breath she gave at his touch. She didn’t flinch away though. Sparking awareness flooded his body from the mere contact. His cock kicked hard in his pants, coming to life instantly ready.
“Come here,” he whispered, barely recognizing his own voice. He heard her movement in the dark, the rustling of leaves against the thick soles of her boots. His hand slipped down her arm and he reveled at the smooth skin.
“Don’t touch me.” The harsh words were a shock to his system. She jerked her arm away and scooted away from him. What the hell?
“Eve—”
“Go
to sleep. I’ll keep watch.”
He took a deep breath trying to get his rioting emotions under control. “How do I know you won’t try to kill me while I sleep?”
“You don’t.”
Chapter Three
The Before
“Welcome everyone, to your first day of school and your first class of the day, AP Physics!”
Eve stared at Mrs. Smithers, taking in the bubbly woman, as she talked animatedly about projectile motion. The first day of the school year was a hated enemy of Eve’s. Not because she didn’t like school. She actually loved it very much. Preferred it to the long days of summer spent at home with her family, spending hours worshipping before a life-size cross in the spare room.
She didn’t like the first day because it was the day that everyone would stare at her and point fingers, as if they had forgotten about her existence over the summer and seeing her again was like a freak show. She didn’t totally blame them. Her blond hair fell to her butt and her clothing comprised of a floor length blue-jean skirt, white tennis shoes, and a white long-sleeve blouse. She wore the same type of outfit every day, even on days like today, when the summer heat was sweltering and way too hot for a long-sleeve shirt.
This was the class she had been looking forward to. It was her first time to take an AP course and being a sophomore meant she would be in a class with seniors. They were worse than those in her grade with their finger pointing and rude names. The two girls who sat closest to her seat in the far corner, were two rows ahead of her. They kept looking back at her between snickers and whispers.
She looked down at her hands. Eve could accept that she looked different and that her family was weird. That was how she had lived her whole life, but it still hurt on the first day back. The wound the other kids created had almost healed over the summer, but on the first day they ripped it off, renewing the pain all over again.
Alive (The Crave) Page 2
