Although for the first time, today she’d had trouble buttoning her shorts, leaving the top undone, using a rubber band to give herself another inch or two at the waist.
And she couldn’t stop worrying about it. Worrying about what this would mean for her relationship with Trevor. She had to tell him about the pregnancy, but she was scared. Scared he’d show his true colors and disappoint her that much quicker.
Josie had brought along a pack of Uno game cards and was busy dealing out the cards to the both of them. “Tonight we’re having a party and fireworks!” she said, practically bouncing with excitement.
Rebel picked up her cards and started sorting them in her hand by color and number. “Oh, we are?” God, how could she have forgotten about the Fourth of July? She put her cards down and ran her hands through her hair and sighed. Too much on her mind. Last night she’d had that super-serious talk with Trevor, went back to his apartment with him, made passionate love to him and fell asleep in his arms, all in an attempt to make up for her wishy-washy behavior.
She loved him, he said he loved her, but she couldn’t risk staying with him. Even she had to admit it was pretty fucked up.
She glanced over at Josie, who was staring at her eagerly, waiting for her response. Rebel shook her head, trying to forget her worries. She picked up her cards again and pasted on a smile for the little girl. “That sounds like fun. Who goes first?”
“You do, you go first. Rachel says we gotta watch some movie before the fireworks,” the little girl grumbled.
“What movie?” Rebel asked, distracted. She didn’t have any yellows so had to pull a card, already. Damn.
Josie shrugged. She casually put down a wild card, blowing up Rebel’s game like it was nothing. “I don’t know, but there’s singing and it’s about the Fourth of July.”
“Hmmm. I think I know what movie she’s talking about. It was good. I wouldn’t mind watching it with you. Maybe you’ll like it.” Rebel answered as she reorganized her cards.
“No, I won’t.” Josie shook her head emphatically. She put down four cards in a row. Rebel’s jaw dropped.
“Rachel’s like my teacher now. She makes me watch stuff on TV she says will make me smart. I have to read books and do schoolwork,” the little girl huffed.
“Really?” Rebel grinned. “How awful.” She put down two cards, thinking this was a great tactic, but she was so far behind Josie now, it was pathetic.
“Yeah, Rachel used to be a teacher, or was in school to be a teacher, something like that, and I’m in second grade, so now she’s my teacher.”
“That’s cool.”
Josie sighed as if the weight of the world were on her shoulders. She bit her lip, thinking hard about her game play and then drew a card. “Sometimes. But why do I still have to go to school? Why can’t I just…play?”
Rebel was having the hardest time keeping a straight face. Josie sat there with the saddest look ever. It was hilarious. She was so freakin’ cute. “If you didn’t do schoolwork, you think you’d just play all day?”
She shrugged. “Yeah…”
“Wait. Let’s think this through. Tell me, what does everyone on the farm do during the day, you know, when they’re not eating or sleeping, or helping you with your schoolwork?”
“Um…” Josie swung her legs and thought hard for a second, “Work?”
“Yes, from what I’ve seen no one just sits around and plays all day, maybe unless it’s Sunday. If you weren’t doing schoolwork and learning, what do you think you’d be doing during the day instead?”
She brightened. “Playing?”
“No. Working. You’d be working. Like they are. You need to work too. You can’t just slack off while everyone else is working. That’s not fair, right?”
Josie thought about it for a second. “Yeah, I guess so. I guess that’s not fair.”
“But you’re little, so you can’t do the same work the grown-ups do. You might get hurt or do it wrong.”
“I wouldn’t do it wrong. I know what to do!”
Rebel crooked an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, right. Anyway, I think what Rachel is teaching you isn’t so much schoolwork as job training. Each day, the grown-ups go to work, and Rachel is nice enough to give you lots of job training so that one day you can work with the grown-ups, too.”
“Job training,” Josie repeated, like calling it that suddenly made it not so bad.
“If you don’t do job training and learn to read good and do math really well, how are you ever going to learn to take care of the farm when you’re a grown-up?”
“Well, I don’t know…”
“Didn’t think that through, huh?”
“No… I guess…I wish I could play. But I don’t have anyone to play with anyway…” Josie trailed off.
Rebel’s chest constricted. How lonely would it be being the only child left on the planet? Luckily for Josie two more children would be born that year. But they would be babies at first. It was still a long time before she had anyone to play with. Even then she’d be so much older than them, she’d be like their big sister rather than a playmate. “I have an idea,” Rebel said. “How about you and I do job training together?”
Josie gasped. “You’re going to go to school with me? Don’t you already know how to read?”
Rebel laughed. “Yes, I know how to read. But I’m like you, I don’t know how to do any of the work on this farm, and I need to learn.”
“Because you were a movie star, right? You were special, like a princess, and everyone used to do everything for you, so now you don’t know how to do anything.”
Out of the mouths of babes…
“Yeah, that’s about right, Josie. I have a lot to learn.”
“But she’s a fast learner,” a deep voice said from behind them. Rebel whirled around, startled to see Trevor in the doorway.
How long had he been listening?
“Uno!” Josie shouted, slapping her last card on the stack.
“Oh!”
Chapter Eighteen
Trevor stayed to drink coffee and join in for a round of Uno (Josie beat him too). The little girl had a huge smile on her face as she’d left for more “job training.” Trevor left too to help with 4th of July preparations.
After that, Rebel wasn’t alone for long. Kati, Tiana and Krissy all arrived a few minutes later with Rachel and Phoebe. They squished into the front of the RV with her, which Rebel didn’t mind at all. It was nice how people rotated in and out, keeping her and Justin company and helping with his recovery.
And having people around, hearing their voices and their laughter—this would never get old.
Rebel sat next to Krissy on the small couch. Krissy was trying to boss the other women around, telling them what to do. Basically, a typical day.
“I can’t stay here on the farm,” Krissy told Kati and Tiana. “And neither can you. So, that means I’m leaving in a few days and the two of you are going with me.”
Krissy gave both Tiana and Kati hard stares, trying to cow them into submission.
Rebel rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you.”
“I’m not kidding. I don’t care how charming these people are, I’m not staying here.”
Kati shook her head. “Well, that’s great to hear you want to leave, but why would we leave with you? We just got here.”
Krissy threw her hands up. “I can’t stay at this place. I need to get laid,” she announced. “And so will the two of you. Eventually. And that’s not happening if we stay here.”
“Does Krissy always talk like this?” Phoebe asked the group. “With absolutely no filter?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Tiana answered.
Rebel crooked an eyebrow at Krissy. “I see some things never change.”
“Hey, talk to the hand, you’ve got a man. The most gorgeous man here—”
“Wait a sec. You think Trevor’s the most gorgeous man here? Hold on,” Rachel interrupted. “Adam is the most—”
�
��Okay,” Krissy huffed. “Trevor’s the second or third most handsome man here. Whatever, they’re all freaking handsome, okay? And they’re all taken, grief-stricken, or gay.”
“Gay?” Kati gasped. “Which one of them is gay? Say it isn’t so.”
“Justin’s gay,” Krissy snapped. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“No!” Tiana wailed. “The brother is gay? What the fuck?” She shook a fist at the sky. “How could God do this to me?”
“Oh shit,” Rebel whispered. Justin was going to kill her when he woke up.
“Listen, you guys,” Krissy said. “It’s nice here, but we can’t stay long term. We need to keep looking before we give up and settle down.”
Rachel placed a hand on her hip. “Why? Explain this to me.”
“There are six women, five men and one little girl on this farm. Two of the men are taken, one more who is about to be taken.” She shot a sharp look at Phoebe, who flushed a charming shade of pink and looked away. “And one who is gay,” Krissy continued, “and another who is bisexual.”
“Bi? Who is bi…?” Rachel asked. “Wait. Are you talking about Christian? You have to be, he’s the only one left. You’re wrong. He’s not bi, he’s straight. He was married and in love with his wife. He’s very much heterosexual.”
“Oh wow,” Rebel said, rethinking everything she’d seen over the last few days. Remembering the body language, the glances she’d intercepted. Subtle clues, but when everything was pieced together… “Wow. Just, wow. You’re right, Krissy. Like usual, you’re right.”
“She is not right.”
Krissy sniffed. “I’m telling you, something’s there.”
“But…but,” Rachel sputtered.
“Krissy’s right.” Rebel nodded sagely. “If she says something’s there, then it’s there. She’s pretty much like this with any couple, no matter the makeup. She’s, like, psychic or something when it comes to noticing when a couple is getting together. I’ve seen her spot couples no one saw coming for miles. Doesn’t matter the ethnicity, if they’re straight or gay, rich or poor, does not matter, her skills in this area are actually kinda freaky.”
Krissy nodded. “It’s true.”
“What. Ever! It doesn’t matter anyway.” Rachel threw her hands up. “This is crazy talk. We all just met. You can’t leave. Survivors need to stick together.”
“It’s not like we’d be gone forever and never keep in touch,” Krissy said. “We know where you live. I just want us to scout some more, look for more survivors. More men.”
“What if you go looking and all you do is meet up with a bunch of assholes who want to rape and beat you?” Phoebe pointed out. “Because they’re out there, believe me. A group of them are living in the mountains right now.”
“We’ve been driving around the state for the last two months perfectly safe. I think the risk is negligible. We’ll just stay away from the mountains and head west. It’s more likely we won’t find anyone, but I want to look just the same.”
“Well, I’m not that horny,” burst out Tiana. “I am not willing to take that chance that we’ll run into rapist assholes when we’ve met a perfectly nice group of people here, and neither is Kati. Right, Kati? You want to stay here too, don’t you?”
Kati shrugged and looked down. “Well, I…”
“You’re kidding me? You’re listening to her? Actually listening to her? She’s not in charge, you know. She’s not our fucking boss. Krissy doesn’t get to say what we do. We can think for ourselves.”
“I’m thinking with my vagina,” Krissy quipped. “You should too.”
“Oh, shut up!” Tiana shouted at her. “These people are nice and exactly what the three of us said we wanted. Remember how we used to talk about this? We wanted to start fresh, leave the bad behind? Kati, come on…”
Kati glanced up at Tiana. “I love being with these people. I’ll miss Josie like crazy. It’s not like we have to be gone forever. We can come back anytime. But yeah, I’m with Krissy. We need to keep scouting for other survivors. They’re doing that still on the farm, they’re just using Adam’s radio broadcasts to have people come to them instead of going out and looking. I think after all this time, though, we’re the only people who’ve heard the broadcast who want to come in. There have to be other pockets of people hiding out there. Maybe they haven’t checked a radio. Maybe they’re scared of others until they meet them. I want to go and try again. Sorry, honey, but I guess I’m thinking with my vagina, too.”
Chapter Nineteen
The men butchered a couple of chickens and grilled them on a barbeque. They were all grouped around the bright coals, drinking beer and laughing. The women were on the lawn, inside the house or at the tables on the patio.
And wow, it all seemed kinda normal.
Like an actual Fourth of July.
Krissy was even there like it wasn’t even the end of the world. Krissy’s parents always had a big Fourth of July blowout at their spacious house in Anaheim Hills. Rebel attended whenever she was in town, making a point of staying connected with her family.
Although, yeah, that was gone just like everything else.
Christian and Rachel both agreed that before the end there’d been a whole village of survivors in Africa who inherited the same immunity gene all survivors of Ruyigi Ebola had, but they’d been slaughtered by a military organization that captured them for scientific study, determined to find out why they’d survived and use them to make a cure. Obviously, it hadn’t worked and all that happened was those poor people died a horrible death.
Maybe she and Krissy, were like that village, a cluster of immunity genes.
Rebel sipped at her soda and shook her head.
“Adam,” Krissy shouted, completely out-of-the-blue and out of context. “Why are you so damn big? Are you on steroids or something?”
Adam played along, lifting one of his arms and bunching his bicep to show it off his physique. Everyone laughed.
Krissy walked over and sat down next to her.
“Don’t hold back, tell us how you feel,” Rebel quipped. “At every moment, anytime, anywhere.”
Krissy threw her new black hair back and laughed, a booming sound that enveloped everyone. “Hey, you know you love me.”
“Bitch,” Rebel whispered.
“Cunt,” Krissy whispered back.
“Krissy. Krissy! Get over here and help us with this. We need someone strong and fast to fill out the team!” Tiana shouted from the lawn. She and Kati and now Rachel and Phoebe were starting a game of football with Josie. It was too cute. Sebastian was walking over too.
“Watch my drink,” Krissy said as she stood up, cracked her knuckles, and sauntered over like she owned the place.
“I cannot believe her,” Rebel remarked.
“You want something harder to drink?”
Rebel looked up at Trevor. Normally she’d be all over that, but now it was all different. She was pregnant and everything was off-limits. She was even drinking a damn no-caffeine soda. “No, thanks,” she answered. “I don’t drink much anymore.”
He crooked an eyebrow at her as he sat down in the chair Krissy vacated. He was obviously having trouble believing that bullshit. He knew her too well.
A knot of guilt formed in her stomach. She was keeping a large part of herself from him. She knew she was, by keeping this secret about the baby. And it was weighing on her.
He leaned over and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. They were sitting so close their thighs touched. She loved the feel of him. This whole thing, where she was openly with someone and everyone knew and it was okay to touch and she was, in fact, proud to be seen with him…it was so new. She’d never done this with anyone before, acted this free in public. Not since Eric, her fiancé who left her for Evangelene. After that messy, public, humiliating break-up, she’d kept her cards close.
But she could get used to this.
Trevor held her hand. She glanced down at his large, callused hands. Those tats and
the veiny forearms. Her mind turned over and over again with the baby dilemma. He was a bad boy on the outside, but inside he was loyal. Like a candy with a tough coating but a marshmallow interior.
Maybe, maybe, he could be trusted.
But, oh god, what if she was wrong? What if Krissy was right? What if he wasn’t the nice man he appeared to be? Could she take that chance? All she had to do was leave with Justin and the other women. It would be so easy to go and never look back.
He leaned into her side. “I could get used to this.”
She smiled. “Me too.”
“It’s like the end never happened,” he said. “None of it.”
Yeah, it was. The afternoon was hot as Hades, but there was still a breeze. The sun was lowering in the sky. Out here in the country, she could forget about the cities. Without so many houses filled with dead bodies close or the threat of those nuclear reactors right there…
And she could stay here, with Trevor, and make a new life with him.
The only changes that were unmistakable in her life were the people she was with and the baby she carried. In fact, she’d had a terrific nap that afternoon, drooling on her pillow, Trevor yet again just accepting it and being nice as hell and accommodating. No one seemed to think much of how much she napped. But it wasn’t normal. And she’d thrown up a few times, managing to hide it from Trevor. Luckily it seemed to hit when she was in the RV with Justin, when no one else was around.
But, oh jeez. Rebel put a hand over her mouth. A sudden wave of nausea hit her hard. She sat up straight.
“What’s wrong?” Trevor asked, concern in his voice.
“I…I…don’t feel so good. My stomach,” she mumbled, her cheeks bright with embarrassment. Jesus, she needed a toilet, fast. “I need to go to the bathroom. Stay here, I’ll be right back.”
And with that she hurried away and stumbled inside the main house and found the first-floor bathroom, blissfully empty. She rushed in and fell to the floor before the toilet and threw up again and again.
It wasn’t pretty.
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?” Rachel asked from behind her.
Kill For You Page 18
