Alive (The Crave)

by Martin, Megan D.

  “Wow.”

  He turned back around and flashed her a grin, before pulling his shirt over his head, covering the beautiful scene. “How’s the stitches?” He came forward and rested his hand on Eve’s shoulder. The tenderness in his eyes nearly consumed her.

  “Feels fine.” Eve didn’t want to admit that thing still stung like a bitch, not to mention that she was tired from getting no sleep after leaving Gage alone in the bedroom. The living room had offered little comfort. Getting away from him seemed like the perfect way to clear her head, only it hadn’t. It had made her realize just how lonely she had been all this time, even before her and Olive split up. Gage seemed to fill a gap, which made no sense. She pushed it back to the fact that he was the first person that she had seen in years whom she knew and didn’t mistrust. Wait a second. I trust him?

  The realization came like a slap in the face. He was the last person who deserved her trust.

  “I think we should put some more of that salve on it before we head out. I’ll go grab the first aid kit. I need to wake up Maddie anyway. It’s not often she gets to sleep somewhere that feels halfway peaceful.”

  Eve didn’t say anything as he went back in the house. She looked around her and breathed in the fresh air, which still smelled like impending rain. It hadn’t rained during the night, though judging by the dark clouds overhead, they would be getting wet today. The rain scent reminded her that the air was bleach-rot free. Weird. It was nice that the jenks were AWOL, but she still didn’t like it. Something was off.

  Joseph had just finished putting the cream on her wound when Gage emerged from the house. He didn’t even spare her a glance as he stormed past them and into the yard.

  “Where are you going?” Eve called after him.

  He swung around with a quick jerk, his angry gaze meeting hers, causing her to suck in a deep breath in alarm. “To take a piss, sweetheart. That okay?”

  “I was just wondering,” she mumbled, trying not to yell back at him. What the hell is his problem anyway?

  “Why you wanna come hold my dick for me?” he said the words teasingly, but Eve could hear the hard edge in his voice and his face showed no hint of a joke.

  “Seriously, dude?” Joseph narrowed his gaze and glanced back at Maddie who had just stepped out onto the porch.

  Gage had the decency to look half-ashamed when he glanced at the little red head. “Sorry,” he mumbled and stormed off into the trees.

  Eve stood up and rotated her shoulder.

  “So, what’s going on with you and that guy?”

  Eve glanced over to where Joseph was putting the cream back into his first aid kit. Maddie stood next to him, watching her dad’s every movement, as if she was memorizing it for future use. Eve looked back at the tree-line where Gage had just disappeared. What is going on with Gage and I? She closed her eyes and remembered the feel of his hands on her, the way he said the word “mine” against her lips. The thought jolted her back to the present. Remembering the first time he had made a claim like that years ago, with his body hot against her skin.

  “Nothing.” She looked away from the trees and back at Joseph who was now brushing Maddie’s hair. “He’s just some guy I met on the road the other day.”

  Olive couldn’t believe it. She honestly couldn’t comprehend the situation she was currently in. Laney’s actions the night before had drastically changed everything that she had come to know as normal in her little world with Reno and the two women. She played the events of the night back over in her brain, though it didn’t seem real, even now as she walked down the broken, overgrown road that would lead into the town where she had lived her entire life.

  The walk toward Sunder wasn’t what made her reel with disbelief. No, the walk toward something familiar was the only comforting thing about the day. She tried to wriggle her fingers, but they were numb from the ropes that bound her hands behind her back. She glanced behind her at Rose, who stumbled along at a snail’s pace, her large belly protruding from the shirt that was too small for her altered form.

  The rope that bound Olive’s hands behind her, also connected to Rose’s wrists in front of her body, binding them together. A separate rope was tied around Rose’s mid-section, above her pregnant belly, and was connected to the carcasses of the jenk’s they took with them everywhere.

  Olive quickly realized that her glance back was a mistake when her foot connected with something hard in front of her. She stumbled forward as pain shot through her foot, which was protected by a very ratty pair of Chuck Taylor’s. She tried to throw her arms out to stop herself, but couldn’t and completely lost her balance. She fell forward, sprawling on the ground with an explosive crash. A heavy weight fell on top of her, pushing all the air from her lungs. The weight rolled off of her quickly and Olive knew she had brought Rose down with her.

  “What the hell is going on back here?” The sound of Reno’s voice would have made her cringe if she hadn’t been fighting with her lungs, trying to gasp for precious air. Her eyes stared at the worn sole of his brown boots that were only inches away from her face. Boots that had fresh stains of blood on them. “Can you fucking hear me?” He bent at the waist and slapped Olive across the face. The act sent a thousand needles of pain stinging across her skin just as she managed to suck in a breath of air. A piece of dead grass hit the back of her throat, making her cough.

  “I tripped.” She managed to sputter in between hacks.

  “You don’t know how to walk? Funny cause you never had this fucking problem before.” He grabbed her shoulder and jerked her off the ground to her feet. Rose moaned behind her and Olive staggered.

  “It was an accident Reno. I’m not used to this.” She shrugged her shoulders to indicate the rope binding her hands.

  “It’s your own fault that you’re bound like this and you know it.” His dark eyes appeared almost black now, as if he wasn’t human anymore. His formerly handsome face was set with a look that was so grim, it terrified Olive to the very core of her being.

  “It isn’t Reno! I had nothing to do with her actions.” His palm slammed into the other side of her face, throwing her off balance as another wave of pain exploded in her head. She would have fallen over, if he hadn’t grabbed her shoulder roughly to prevent it.

  “You bitch. You lie!” He screamed the words in her face, spittle flying out of his mouth and splattering across her skin and onto her shirt. Tears filled Olive’s eyes.

  “Oh, so what? Now you’re going to cry? You think your pathetic tears will change anything, Olive?” He took a step back and jerked a hand through his shoulder length dark hair. She realized that his left hand clutched his machete. A tork of fear hit her in the gut and the tears came more freely. “Shut up, Olive!” She was blubbering like a fool, her mouth gasping for air. Rose was silent behind her. “I said shut up!” He moved forward, his free hand making a fist.

  Olive stumbled backward and fell to her knees and did the only thing she knew how to do. She prayed. “Please, Lord in Heaven, protect me. Lord please. Protect me! Protect me!”

  Reno stopped a few feet away from her his hand still clutched, ready to punch. She kept praying. It’s working.

  “Look at you, Olive. Sometimes you have the best ideas.” He undid his belt and fumbled with button on his pants.

  She didn’t want to put it in her mouth. Not after where it had been last, not when it was still stained with Laney’s blood. But she would. She would do whatever she had to do to stay alive.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Gage trudged down the old Tim Pistol road, keeping his gaze focused solely in front of him. The murky sky above reflected his mood perfectly. He refused to be a part of the happy-go-lucky group behind him. Who were chattering away like a group of teenage girls in a bathroom. Never in his life had he seen Eve act this way, not even in the before. She seemed so…happy, making small talk with Joseph and chattering away with little Maddie. Like she had been waiting her whole life for them to come along and make
her world a better place.

  That should be me.

  The thought only further enraged him. Her actions last night had been sobering. Her words right before she ran out of the door still clung to the inside of his head like fucking mold. She didn’t want to do this again. It didn’t matter that it was a repeat of what he’d said to her before. He’d said them to try and bring clarity to his befuddled brain, but it hadn’t worked. He couldn’t deny that he wanted her. Her rejection was still fresh in his mind, yet here she was, laughing with Joseph like he was an old friend that she’d missed, not a stranger that she was suddenly clinging to.

  Gage had bent over backward for a chance and here this new asshole with a fucking beard just waltzes in like some sort of dream date. He bit down on his cheeks when he heard the tinkling sound of her majestic laugh, to keep him from turning around and attacking Joseph. Who did this punk think he was? Waltzing around like he was dad of the year, dragging a little girl around with him. Trying to take what was his.

  Gage shook his head. He had to stop or he would lose his mind, especially with the way this was going. For once, he wished there were some gurghs around for him destroy. The thought of stabbing the shit out of something’s brain was more appealing than ever. With no gurghs in sight, he looked up at the angry cloud overhead. Raindrops can fall at speeds up to twenty-two miles per hour, while snowflakes fall only two to four. The ridiculously unimportant fact sent a wave of calm through him. Facts about anything, about history, about useless trivia. They calmed him.

  As if his thoughts were a trigger, rain started falling from the sky, pounding down on his back. He welcomed the hot downpour, stinging all over his body. Almost like it was washing away the past that he should have let go of a long time ago. The past that he never should have pursued when he gave Eve a ride home that first Thursday. He should have just let her walk home and forgot about her. The girl who didn’t come to homecoming. But he hadn’t. He’d picked her up anyway and changed his life forever, but now it didn’t matter. The rain was taking all of that away and making him new.

  “Come on, Gage!” A hand wrapped around his arm, jolting him from his tumulus thoughts. “We’re going to get under the trees.” The rain was so loud that Eve had to yell, leaning in close to his ear. Even through the rain, the heat of her breath sent a wave of fervor through his body. Her soft hand gripped his bicep making his cock hard as granite in his pants.

  “We should keep going. This rain will throw any gurghs off. I don’t like being under the trees.” he yelled back.

  She rolled her eyes, her blond hair was pasted to her face and the white sports bra she was wearing had already become transparent revealing the buds of her nipples. Nipples that were hard, just waiting for him to have a taste.

  “I don’t either, but the rain is hurting Maddie. Joseph wants to get her out of from under it. Hopefully it will pass over soon.”

  “What are you, his wife now?”

  Eve had started to walk away from Gage, when she heard the words. “I’m sorry, what?” She turned around trying hard not to stare at his perfect rain-slicked form. His body seemed even bigger with his sleeveless tank sticking to his taut muscles. Muscles that were thicker than Joseph’s. She could see the outline of each peck, each ab, clearly defined, and soaked with hot rain. Her mouth watered, hungry for him.

  “You heard me! Are you his little bitch now, or something?” Gage took several steps toward her, eating up the space she’d put between them.

  Eve’s mouth dropped open. “His little bitch? What are you talking about?”

  “That’s all you do now, Eve, is fawn over that motherfucker. I didn’t know you were auditioning for wife and mommy. Didn’t think you could play the part, but hey you proved me wrong.” He threw his hands up in the air. “Looks like I don’t know you at all.”

  His words singed her to the bone. Wife and mommy? “You don’t know me, Gage,” she shouted through the rain, staring up into his dark complexion. “I’ve told you that how many times?”

  “That’s right, because the girl I knew wasn’t like this. The girl I knew wasn’t open she didn’t laugh, she—”

  “What, so I’m supposed to just be some depressed little girl who doesn’t have a future. Is that what you want for me Gage? To be the desperate weird girl who was just dying for someone to pay attention to me? Well, I’m not that girl anymore. You of all people should have figured that out by now! I’m no one’s bitch.” She spat the last word at him. Clenching her hand around the handle of her Craftsman so hard that she felt like it would disintegrate under the pressure.

  “No, Eve. That’s not what I fucking want for you!” He lifted his arms up and placed them on top of his head, he gripped his scalp before letting go and jerking his hands down with more force than she’d ever seen. “I want you to be happy! I want to be the person who—”

  A sharp prick at the back of Eve’s neck diverted her attention. Gage was yelling at her, he was about to say something important, but now his lips were moving and she couldn’t hear what he was saying. Almost as if in slow motion, she reached up and touched her neck, feeling a small sharp object protruding from her.

  She looked up at Gage who was leaning in, his gray eyes full of concern. He grabbed her, but she barely felt the pressure of his hands on her arms. Her body started to sag, but not with relief. Her legs gave out beneath her. The last thing she saw before the blackness swallowed her whole, was Gage’s face and the funny looking darts that protruded from his chest.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The Before

  Thursdays had become the highlight of Eve’s week, and if she was honest with herself, her life in general. After the first Thursday Gage picked her up and dropped her off at the end of her street, he hadn’t missed a Thursday yet. Every time she stepped out of the elementary school, his black mustang would be parked in the parking lot with him in the driver’s seat.

  Each ride was like the first. She would climb in and he would give her that lazy smile that made her heart flutter erratically inside her chest. He wouldn’t say much and Eve wouldn’t either, but she would stare at him, in total and complete awe of his beauty. She didn’t know what they were doing, or why he gave her a ride home, but she wasn’t one to ask questions.

  Something foreign built inside of Eve each time she climbed into that black mustang. There was a yearning for him that she couldn’t explain and it spasmed in the air between. Can he feel it too?

  This Thursday was no different as she slid into the plush leather seat, but it was her first ride home from him since winter break, and even though she had seen him in class, he still hadn’t been sitting by her. It had been months since his perfect body had sat in the seat next to her and she missed him with a fierceness she couldn’t explain.

  “Have a good Christmas?” Gage put the car into gear without looking at her. He was wearing sunglasses today, she could see the little emblem on the side displaying the word RayBan. She’d heard the girls in school talk about them before, an expensive pair of sunglasses, apparently. They looked good. So good that it hurt to look at him.

  “Mmhmm.” She nodded her head. “Did you?” She didn’t want him to ask what she got for Christmas. She didn’t want to tell him that she got a whole lot of nothing from a family who hated her.

  “Sure did. Got these babies.” He tapped his fingers against the side of his glasses. “Mom says they look good on me. What do you think?” He turned his face and flashed his pearly whites. The question took her aback. Never, not in all the weeks he’d given her a ride home had he asked her a question that directly involved what she thought about him.

  “I—” She opened her mouth to tell him that he was perfect. He could wear lint for glasses and still look like a god, but she didn’t. She closed her mouth with a snap, and shrugged her shoulders.

  He glanced at her, his brows creasing, but didn’t say anything.

  Shoot, is he mad? A wave of panic smacked Eve in the face. She didn’t want him
to be upset. He had already stopped sitting by her. She didn’t want him to stop giving her a ride too.

  “I mean, they look nice.” Her hands fidgeted in her lap. “On you.” She looked away and made the most awkward sound that had ever come out of her mouth. It sounded somewhere between a dying cow and a goat giving birth. “I mean—” She cleared her throat. “They look really good on you. Better than anyone else.” Oh sweet Jesus, what am I doing?

  One would think that after spending every Thursday for more than two months in the car with him, that she would have learned how to act around him, but she hadn’t. She was on a course that most certainly was well on its way to a crash-landing.

  “Thanks.”

  She snapped her head up and looked at him. He wasn’t looking at the road, but at her. The lazy smile was gone from him lips, replaced with something else, a different kind of smile that she hadn’t seen before. It tugged at the corners of his lips, like he was satisfied about something.

  Eve looked away first and rubbed her hands up and down her blue-jean skirt, trying to squash the butterflies that were zooming around inside her chest. Her left hand barely made it down her thigh before a large hand covered it. Gage’s hand. She sucked in a breath at the feel of his bare skin against hers. The tension that had been building inside her each week, mounted with his touch, seeming to explode inside of her like a bottle rocket. Even though she had been riding with him all this time, he had never touched her before. She was immediately thankful that she no longer had her cast obscuring her.

  She stared down at his hand taking in how dark his skin was against her own. It laid there, unmoving for several moments, and she watched the entire time, as if the hand wasn’t actually part of Gage, but like it had a mind of its own. She wondered what it would do next, this hand that rested on top of her own.