She couldn’t believe that out of all the pictures that could have survived, this was one she found underneath a battered piece of tin she’d kicked with her black boot the day before.
The picture was the reason she had been ready to go. Ready to get the hell out of there. She had shoved the splintered frame into her pack and turned away from the rubble, before the tears began to fall.
Eve ran her hand up and down the weathered frame. The candlelight danced over the broken glass. She should have blown the thing out by now, but no jenks had yet to show up and she hated to admit how much she enjoyed the sight of Gage sleeping soundly a few feet away.
When she thought of what they did together just hours before, her cheeks heated and she glanced over at his perfect sleeping form. He had one arm over his head, the other gripping the shaft of Hilda. Stupid name. But she smiled in spite of herself. She didn’t want to like Gage, not after their history.
Never in her life had she gotten so carried away when it came to something sexual. The first and only time she’d had sex with Gage, she’d been nervous and scared. But what happened today was totally different. The things he’d said and the unbearable sexual tension that had been building between them had set her on fire, sending her body into the motions of getting what she wanted. She wasn’t that girl who let people walk all over her while she just laid there and took it. She was the girl who got things done on her own terms with a kill stroke to anyone who didn’t like it.
It was nothing. Just two people helping each other get off. That’s all. Really. A strange feeling traced through her body, but she ignored it. She took a deep breath and looked back down at the picture in her hand for a moment before shoving it angrily back into her pack. What was it with these emotions running through her like triathlon? One minute she was horny, the next, she was sad, and then the two converged into anger. Ugh. She thought she had left those petty emotions behind long ago.
She looked up at the—barely visible—chandelier that hung above the huge living room. The candle’s light was too dim to fully illuminate its priceless beauty. In the sweep they’d done of the house she’d seen nothing else that had any sort of value, a bummer, but she could accept it.
She stood up carefully, shouldered her pack and stuck her craftsman in between. Eve was never more than two feet away from it. She had to have it with her at all times in case something happened and she was caught unawares by some jenks. She didn’t want to have to worry about trying to fight her way to the only things that belonged to her. Her pack was everything. Even though heavy and somewhat of a burden, it was hers and it had taken her a long time to fill the inside.
She reached for the candle and stood fully erect over Gage, holding her breath, hoping that she didn’t wake him. There were two reasons for this—one being that he needed his sleep like anyone else. Two—she didn’t want him to know how badly she wanted the damned thing. Her fingers were already shaking now, just at the thought of wrapping them around the sparkling crystal. I’ll just take one…or two and hoof it back down here.
She moved as silently and quickly as she could muster, taking far longer than she would have liked to climb the flight of stairs and walk around the railing closest to the grand chandelier.
She set the candle down on the dark stone floor. She gripped the dusty wooden banister with both hands and hefted herself into a sitting position. With slow movements she maneuvered her body to stand on two feet in a crouching position with both hands still gripping the railing in front of her.
Slowly but surely, she stood up. Her eyes focused on her prize a little over a foot away. She turned her body and wobbled. Instantly she wished she had left her pack down by the candle. It was making it so much harder to maintain her balance. Too late for that now.
She leaned forward, releasing the rail with one of her hands and grabbed for the closest crystal. Her hand slipped around the cool glass like it was a droplet of heaven. She smiled and tugged on the gem until it came free. She shoved it in her pocket, afraid that if she dropped it onto the first floor balcony, it would shatter into a million pieces.
She reached forward for another. Her thighs were burning from her crouched position. Her palms were sweating and she couldn’t stop smiling. Her cheeks ached from the way the muscles pulled. She hadn’t found something as invaluable as this before.
She jerked a second one off, her body teetering on the edge of the railing. This time she had to pull harder and the rest of the little crystals tinkled together, sounding like a rustling wind chime in the breeze. She froze, hoping Gage didn’t hear. What difference does it make if he does? Who cares? Her subconscious prodded at her, but her answer to either of those questions was far more complicated than she wanted to think about.
She’d planned to only take two and call it a night, but now that she was here and could feel the heaviness of them in her pocket, she wanted more. And why not? Anyone who cared about this old thing was long since dead.
She leaned forward again, farther this time, toward one of the large jewels that hung closer to the center of the chandelier. This one will be worth even more than the other two! Her fingers closed around the gem. She took a deep breath, preparing to tug it free. She tightened her grip on the rail, ignoring the way her thighs screamed in displeasure and—
“What in the hell are you doing?”
Eve jumped at the sound of Gage’s voice. Her sweaty palm slipped on the large gem and she was forced to lean back and grab the railing with both hands to keep herself from falling to her death.
“Fuck.” She hopped down. Her whole body trembled, and not because he scared her, but because she hadn’t gotten that last jewel. She could still feel its cool ridged surface against her hand.
“What were you doing?” he repeated.
She glanced up at the sharp edge in his voice. The sight of his gloriously bare torso did a number on her insides, making her want to run her hands up and down his chiseled perfection. How can someone look this sexy? It shouldn’t have been physically possible.
Instead of answering, she shrugged and tried to move past him to head back for the stairwell.
“I asked you a question,” he said between gritted teeth. He blocked her from passing, moving his large body in front of hers.
She met his angry gaze. Why is he so angry? “Just getting a souvenir.” She shrugged her shoulders and moved to go around him again. He didn’t let her.
“You mean stealing?”
Eve frowned. “Not stealing. Looting.”
“Looting is for food and stuff you actually need. Not priceless heirlooms that don’t belong to you.” The rage in his voice had Eve taking a step backward.
A wave of anger flushed her body. “Excuse me?”
“Did you know that James Jackson bought that chandelier for his wife, Jean, when he built the plantation?”
“I hardly see what that has to do with—”
“Did you know that she was sick? Dying—but he didn’t know that. He was sure that if he bought her something that sparkled and lit her home as bright as she lit his heart that she would pull through and live. He was sure that she would get better.” Gage took a step-closer. His fists were clenched at his sides, his gaze bored into hers in the dim candlelight.
“Gage—”
“He had to order it. I don’t know how he found it, but he did. It came by boat from France and cost him more than he spent building the whole house. Each one is a gray diamond and there are more than a thousand on this chandelier.”
“Wow.” The two diamonds weighed heavy in her pocket and suddenly became so much more than she expected them to be. Real diamonds, big enough to fit over half of her palm. They were worth a fortune!
“It didn’t come in time though. She died in the bed they shared, months before it ever reached the plantation.”
Eve frowned at the sadness that replaced the anger in his voice.
“You don’t think it’s sad?”
He must have picked up on h
er shocked expression.
She shook her head. “Sounds like a wonderful way to die—in the bed of the man you love at the hands of a sickness that doesn’t reanimate your corpse and turn you into a monster.” She sounded like a bitch, but she didn’t care.
His gaze hardened again. “You were still stealing.”
Eve couldn’t believe her ears. “So what, Gage? Who cares? It’s not like good ol’ James Jackson, slave owner extraordinaire, is on his way home from work with a ladder to dust the damn thing.” She turned on her heel and took a few steps. She made up her mind to just go around the entire floor to get back to the stairs since he wasn’t budging.
The diamonds pressed against her pocket as she walked, threatening to pop out of the small space of her denim shorts. She stopped and shrugged off her bag. She couldn’t lose them, not after all the trouble she went to, especially having to listen to Gage gripe about it.
“I’m the only living person left in my family, Eve. The diamonds—all of this—belongs to me!” Her pack had just hit the ground when he came up behind her and grabbed her arm. “What were you going to do Eve? Just steal from me and leave? High tail it out of here before I woke up? Was that your brilliant plan?”
She turned back around and looked into his hysterical gaze. “What?” She shook her head in confusion. Is that why he’s mad? Cause he thought I was going to leave? “No.”
“That’s what it looks like to me.”
She jerked her arm from his tightened grip. “Think what you want.” She opened her bag. I should have known that teaming up with Gage was a bad idea from the start.
“Just going to fucking steal from me and my family and leave,” Gage muttered as Eve bent down on one knee to drop the diamonds into her bag. His words had her jerking back into a standing position.
“What did you stay?” She heard him, but the word steal had come from his lips for the third time tonight. It shouldn’t have bothered her. She should have given him the middle finger and got the hell out of there, but she didn’t. Hearing that word from his tongue set a fire under her. Eve had been accused of many sins over her life by her family, so much that it should have desensitized her, but hearing Gage say something like that was different.
“I said—”
“I know what you said, asshole! You really think that any of that matters anymore?”
“Any of what?”
“Your family? The history of this house? It doesn’t fucking matter. What was yours isn’t yours anymore. Nothing belongs to no one and everything belongs everyone! Can’t you see it?”
Gage shook his head. “It matters to me. This house, my heritage. It all fucking matters, Eve. To me,” he said between gritted teeth. “You wouldn’t understand that though since your whole life was based out of some squalid little trailer. Believe me, you did the world a service when you burned that piece of shit to the ground!” Gage’s voice echoed all around her, bouncing off the walls of the dark house.
Eve clenched her fists, around the jewels in her pocket and the other over air, as pain ripped through her body. “Fine!” She jerked the diamonds from her pants and sent them flying at Gage who was only a few feet away. The candle was behind him, illuminating his silhouette. The diamonds smacked into his chest and fell to the floor, each with a quiet thud.
Tears threatened at the back of her eyelids. Don’t fucking do this Eve. Don’t cry. Not because of him. Not again. She bent and jerked at the zipper on her backpack to close it.
“What else did you steal from me?” Gage tore the bag from her hands.
“No!” Eve cried. She lunged for the bag, but he spun away from her.
“What the hell? Why is this thing so heavy?”
“Just give it back.” Her hands trembled and she hated that her voice mirrored the motion.
He said nothing as he unzipped the large back pocket and reached inside.
“Money?” Gage stared down at the green paper inside the bag. With only the light of the candle it was hard to see, but he knew what it was without a doubt. He reached in and pulled out a wad of cash. The money was wrinkled but looked as if someone had tried to smooth it. He ran his thumb across the bills fanning them out. More than twenty Benjamin Franklin’s stared back at him. “What the hell?”
“Give me my fucking bag back, Gage. I gave you your stupid family heirlooms. I didn’t take anything else and you have no right to go through my stuff!” Eve’s voice shook. He almost felt bad, but didn’t.
He’d awoken only minutes before from the best sleep he’d had in years. The satisfaction of having Eve there with him, especially after what they had shared sexually, gave him a feeling of contentment like he’d never known. Only, he’d woken up and she wasn’t there. He had been about to call out for her, fearful that it had all been a dream, to see the flickering light of the candle above him and Eve balancing on the bannister, yanking diamonds off the huge chandelier.
He couldn’t explain the rage that had gone through him at the sight of her up there. The knowledge of what she was doing ate at him. She was stealing. Stealing from me! The fact that she seemed shocked that he was the only descendent left of his line didn’t deter his anger in the least. If he was honest with himself, it fucking crushed his soul that she was stealing from him and more than that, she was trying to leave him. Her pack had been on her back, her sharpened pry bar in its place. How could she do that after what we just shared?
“Why do you have all of this?”
“I said, it’s none of your fucking business.” She reached for her bag and he let her take it after dropping the wad of hundreds back in.
“It’s not like you can use money for anything.”
She didn’t say a word. She moved her bag several feet away from him and ran her hands over the old material, as if protecting it.
“So what was earlier then?” He gritted his teeth.
“What are you talking about?” She jerked the zippers shut and punched her arms through the straps. “Never mind. I don’t even want to know. I don’t give a shit. I’m out of here.” She grabbed her pry bar off the ground from where it had landed.
“You were just going to...what? Butter me up, distract me with sex so you could steal from me, and slip out?”
Eve had tried to walk around him again, but he stepped in front of her.
“Quit saying that word!” she shouted. Her gaze met his. In the dim candlelight he could barely see the blue-green color of her eyes, but he didn’t miss the jewel-like quality of them. She was on the verge of tears.
“What word?” He ran a hand over his short hair.
“You know what word.”
“What? Steal?”
“Yes! Just stop fucking saying it!” She tried to push past him again.
“You can’t just leave.”
“I can do whatever the hell I want.”
Gage put his hands on her shoulders. She jerked away from him like he was a diseased leper. She reached behind her head. His eyes lit on her hand closing around the red handle of her pry bar.
“We can do this two fucking ways, Gage. You move the hell out of my way right now. Or you can stay, and I will gut you and leave you for the jenks. And don’t you think I wouldn’t think twice about it. I guarantee that will be your last regret.” The words were lethal, her voice sounding like a low hiss. He knew what she was capable of and it ripped him apart to know that it would be that easy for her to end him and walk away.
“What about Olive?” The anger he’d had earlier evaporated like stagnate water. Leaving him feeling bereft, sad, and most of all, tired. He wished the anger would come back, but he knew it wouldn’t. Pissed off asshole was not his forte. There were some things that even an apocalypse couldn’t change, though he seemed to be the only who hadn’t lost all of his humanity. The woman before him had nothing left. Almost like a switch she could turn on and off—like something he saw in a bad TV show back in the before.
“What about her?”
“You need my help
to find her.”
“Hah!” Her laugh was bitter, creasing around her eyes when she furrowed her brow. “I can find my way to downtown Fenton. I don’t need you. I never needed you. I just went along with your stupid idea for…I don’t even know why, but clearly it was a mistake.” She looked lost, her mind seeming to retreat somewhere else.
“They won’t let you in.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Maybe I forgot to mention that Noah Smith and I founded Eden.”
“What?” The shocked look on her face said it all. He hadn’t shared it with her because he didn’t know how she would react, had thought she would find it unbelievable that he would leave a place he had a hand in creating.
“If you leave right now, I will beat you there and I will make sure that you aren’t let in.” He was shocked at how hard he sounded.
“You wouldn’t.” The crack in her voice nearly had him caving, and admitting his bluff, but he didn’t. I can’t lose her.
“I would.”
“Then it looks like your dead.” She yanked the pry bar from her back. Gage thoughtlessly left Hilda downstairs and his closest knife was in his boot. He couldn’t reach it before she gored him.
He held his hands up. “You promised, Eve. Yesterday, in front of the General Store, you promised that you would stay with me until we got to Eden.” The tip of the pry-bar pressed into his bare chest.
“Promise? That’s what you’re hinging this on? A promise?” Her eyes narrowed but she stopped her movement.
“Yes.”
“As if promises mean anything to you.”
The jab at the past wasn’t lost on him. “I was a kid. Eighteen years old, Eve. That was different than this. I want to help you to safety—for Olive.”
Alive (The Crave) Page 9
