by Annie Walls
“Uh, I believe so. Panic attack.” I rub my head from a dull throb. “That’s never happened before.”
“What the hell am I going to do with you?”
The floor suddenly has my attention because I don’t know how to answer that. “Thanks for getting me off the floor. How long was I there?”
“I don’t know. An eternity. I tried looking for a brown paper bag but…” He starts looking around as if he can find one now that he doesn’t need it. “You can’t stay up here by yourself, Kan.” He studies me, “What triggered it?”
I sit up, even though all I want to do is lie down and sleep. “Nothing. I don’t know. I was talking to Reece and had to get away.” I make sure my heart and breathing are normal before I stand up to get my pack ready. I’m probably late. “Rudy, I gotta go. We’ll talk later, okay?” I look back and notice he shaved. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine.”
He shakes his head. “Where are you going?”
I hate lying, but I don’t have time to explain something he’s against. “A loot job.”
Crossing his arms, his eyes narrow. “You were talking to Reece, huh? I talked to him last night. What are you looting?”
I take a little too long to reply, and Rudy starts to smirk.
Reece bursts in. “Let’s go, Kan. This is your shin-dig, after all,” he blurts, and then notices Rudy standing next to the bed. Rudy’s neck turns bright red, reaching to his ears as he figures out what’s going on. Yeah, we’re busted.
*
I sit in the back of the van with Reece driving and Glinda in the passenger seat. We are following Rudy in his armored truck. After telling Rudy the truth about the trip, I think he has his own agenda, and after finding out about Jeremiah, he has no reservations about going.
“What was he doing in my loft, anyway? And how did he know where I’m staying?” I muse out loud.
“I told him. The least we can hope for is for him not to murder anyone,” Reece mutters.
“He doesn’t know who Joshua is, and Sam got Hungry Jeremiah this morning.”
Reece looks at me through the rearview mirror. “Ty and Sam told me how that went down. Then, you have a panic attack, which is the reason Rudy will be on a warpath. You shouldn’t even be going.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “We’re just scoping the place out. Everyone could be dead already for all we know. As long as I stay busy, I’ll be fine.”
“If it was four years ago, you would need to see a shrink for all you’ve been through.”
Now I do roll my eyes. “Then that would be true for everyone.”
“Everyone didn’t shoot their significant others while they were still coherent! Fuck knows what else happened to you, because you won’t talk about it,” he spits out. He’s right. I haven’t told them everything. Maybe if I do, they’ll stay off my back. No, I’d rather them be this way than have pity on me. I ignore it.
“Reece!” Glinda chides him. She turns to me. “Don’t listen to him, Suga. He’s bein’ too harsh,” she spits right back at him.
I glance out the window. When I told him about Malachi, I was drunk in New Orleans one night. He took it in stride then, but apparently thinks I’m a little off my rocker. Maybe that’s true, but I don’t want it thrown in my face.
I decide to let it go. “It’s all right, Glin. Reece is just worried about me. I have a weird way of dealing with things. Sorry, Reece.”
He glances at me again through the mirror. “Damn it, Kansas. It’s not your fault. I want you to see that and try to help yourself. Let us help you.”
“You are.” I push the shades up my nose.
He sighs, not knowing how true that is.
*
We park two blocks away from the target area. Bunyan, Ty, Sam, and Rudy climb out of his truck. The sun shines down as we make some plans, drawing out a map of the few blocks surrounding the apartment building.
Rudy is no less than a sculpture of stone, still not bothering to hide his scorn. He leans against his truck with his arms crossed, having no right to be pissed off. If he wouldn’t have kept me in the dark or shut down my idea, I wouldn’t have been reluctant to tell him. Everyone pairs off into teams with Glinda staying in the van, waiting on a signal in case she needs to go for help.
Rudy takes matters into his own hands. “This plan sucks. I’ll go with Kan.”
Rudy’s new plan consists of Reece teaming with Bunyan. “That’s not going to work. Neither one of them can use a bow,” I try to reason with him.
“Reece can pair with Ty and John with Sam. They aren’t joined at the hip.” Rudy points out.
“Neither are we.”
“Doesn’t matter. Let’s do this,” Reece pushes us along.
Putting a Bersa in the back of my pants, I cover it with my hoodie and start walking. “We can be,” Rudy mentions, catching up beside me.
“What?” I ask, a little peeved at him.
“Joined at the hips.” The suggestive comment stops me. I glance over my shoulder and Reece looks away from us quickly, grinning. Shit.
I try not to stare at Rudy with an open mouth. I don’t know how to take him being aggressive. Usually he is a laid-back, go-with-the-flow kind of guy. Him saying something like that would have gotten blood to flowing a few weeks ago. He’s trying to get me to blush, but come to think of it, I’ve been a dry well. Bleakness clouds my mind. I bite my lips together as I scrape my fingertips down the brick building. Loose mortar cascades to the ground.
Rudy must see something on my face. His eyes go flat. We make it around a block and start for another before he says anything else. “You could have told me it was these women you wanted to help.”
“I tried.”
“No. You said something about finding Jonathan.”
Sighing and brushing debris from my hand, I tell him, “I thought it would get you on board quicker.”
A loud engine startles us. Rudy pushes me into a doorway and squeezes in with me. I almost laugh at the way he tries to flatten himself against the door. “Way to be inconspicuous, O-Small-One,” I whisper, waving my hand as if I’m following a very small aura on his body. He snatches my arm down as we watch a military vehicle pass the perpendicular street.
He grins down at me, “The only downside.”
“I’m sure that’s torturous for you.” We wait to see if any others pass by, but nothing. “What do you think that was all about?”
“I hope it’s the Coalition.”
When we get to the apartment complex, everything is in chaos. Rudy and I watch as women and children are loaded into a van. Lines of men are sitting along the sidewalk. Rudy’s breath catches and my gaze follows his line of sight. A girl, no older than her preteens, carrying a small animal carrier stands next to the van. Dalton leans down, conversing with her.
Rudy pays me no mind. His attention is steady on the girl. He hands me his bow and several guns. “Stay here,” he utters and leaves the shadowed corner toward the scene. When the soldiers notice Rudy, several guns train on him.
Panic seizes me. “No.” The hoarse whisper slips out as I grip my own gun and step forward to have his back in case someone gets trigger-happy. A hand clamps around my upper arm, jerking me backward out of sight.
“Don’t you listen? What are you thinking?” Spinning around, I come face-to-face with a furious Mac. A storm brews in his eyes, and they seem darker. A total one-eighty from the last time we were face-to-face.
“What the hell are you doing here?” There’s no other word for my tone besides incredulous.
“I should really be asking you the same question, but I’ll bite. I was on my way to the community when I saw Rudy’s truck headed in this direction. I followed knowing today was a raid day. I’m glad I did because it could have been a fucking disaster!” He paces in agitation, running his hands through his hair. The gesture makes his curl fluff up. Dark circles line his eyes and sandy stubble covers his face. The stains on his jeans signal he fought a horde of zomb
ies recently.
“Raided? Why doesn’t the community get raided? Why does this have special fucking attention over the community and everything else?”
He stares me down, but I don’t shrink back from him. “Because no one is being harmed at the community, Kan.”
“Lucy wasn’t harmed? The fighting? The lawlessness of the place? Sorry, but I beg to differ on that one.”
Shock wearing off from seeing Mac, I turn away from him to make sure Rudy is okay. The guns no longer focus on him, and he’s on his knee hugging the girl.
Mac sees it, too. “Holy fucking shit! Is that— ” Turning on me, he grabs my arm again. “Okay, Sunshine. Go to Rudy’s truck before the big bad people use you for more than your uterus.”
I jerk my arm away from him and slap him across the face. “Fuck you.”
He stalks away, but not before throwing, “Already have,” over his shoulder.
CHAPTER TEN
When I get to the van, the team is waiting on Rudy and me. I explain in as few words as possible what went down and climb into the van. They decide to wait a little while longer for Rudy and Mac. Glinda gets into the driver’s seat and leaves them there to take me back.
“Want ta talk ‘bout it?”
“No.”
When we make it to the community, I end up taking a long shower. Maybe my inside funk will go down the drain along with the outside funk, but standing in the shower does nothing except give me chill bumps and waste water.
The one good thing that came from the trip is knowing those women and children are on their way to something better. My relief is palpable, and I didn’t even have to do anything.
I’m glad for the cooler weather as I dress in jeans and a thick sweatshirt. Bruises still mar my body in yellow splotches, and I’m able to cover most of them up. The worst is still my neck, and I’m afraid my voice is somehow permanently damaged.
To keep my mind off things, I tinker with my laptop. It takes a little while to unravel cords to find a match for the electronic notebook I filched from the base.
After plugging them together, I turn them both on. I know from countless times trying to figure out a password on my own that the notebook uses twelve characters or less. The program I have for passwords will take forever to go through sequences, especially since the laptop is slow. I can only hope the password consists of letters or numbers, but if it’s a series of letters, numbers, and symbols? It’ll take days. After typing the twelve-character max into the program and hitting start, I peer at the darkened sky through the window and know everyone is back by now. Including Mac.
I’m not sure why he pulled his cold bastard routine on me today, but I’ll be damned if he does it again. It should hurt, but it only makes me angry. Where has he been, anyway?
The numbers on the screen tick and pause a moment when checking the sequence. My eyelids droop and my body feels heavy. Groaning, I lean back in the chair. The next couple of weeks are going to drag. I feel it. My mind flips through everything at a rapid pace. Mago. Mago’s daughter. Mac’s whereabouts. Julie’s pregnancy—
Wait… Julie. I can’t believe I haven’t thought of Julie before now. If someone knows something about Mago’s daughter, it will be her. Of course, the last person I ever want to converse with. “Figures,” I mutter.
*
To procrastinate against going to find her, I eat some fresh fruit from the marketplace I bought when Reece and Glinda and I set up my place. Hopefully it’ll give me a small burst of energy. Eating some bread or something would help, but I don’t have any.
With my feet kicked up on the table, I’m steadily watching numbers when a soft knock sounds and the door swoops open to reveal Rudy with an armload. We watch each other for several seconds. He doesn’t have on his bandana, so his hair falls around his face. I look away first to chew my cuticle, curious as to why he has the same animal carrier the little girl had.
With a sigh, he walks in. “Here, hot noodles. I made me some, so I figured…”
I kick out a chair for him to sit. Pleased at my invitation for him to stay, he puts a steaming cup in front of me and carefully places the carrier on the floor.
He grins when I keep peeking at the carrier.
I meet his gaze. “Cut the suspense. What’s that?”
“Mine and Rudy’s love child,” Mac announces, letting himself in. Irritation spikes, but I trample it down in belief he’ll tell us where he’s been. I narrow my eyes at him. Rudy leans down and opens the little door, I suspect to cut the tension.
“Poindexter, but we call him Dex,” Rudy informs me. “Mac saved him as a kitten from a pack of zombies.”
A huge, orange cat crawls out, sniffing around curiously. I laugh when I realize how he got his name. Black fur circles his eyes like glasses.
“We should start calling him Fat Bastard,” Mac mutters as the cat rolls over for Rudy to pet his belly. Dex is pretty fat. Both men seem happy to have him in sight. There’s something endearing about two grown men attached to a cat. I bend to scratch his tummy, too. When the cat realizes it’s not Rudy, he flops over and skitters away. I scowl in its direction.
Mac laughs and claps his hands. “Okay, drink some of that broth and I’ll check out your throat.”
I eye Rudy with suspicion. “You’re not fighting for this are you?”
Rudy shakes his head as Mac says, “No, I want to.”
Relenting, I drink some of the soothing broth. I’ve been worried about my voice and don’t want to think about permanent damage. Rudy and I watch as Mac opens a text and checks it over, but not before he stares at the laptop for several moments with tight lips. Finally, Mac asks me to sit up straight and begins to feel my neck, working around to my throat and asking me if it’s tender or to speak every now and then. I ask Rudy who the little girl is.
A smile touches his face. “Michelle. She just turned ten. I came across her and her older sister, Marie, during the outbreak on my way to the quarantine.”
Mac scoffs. “Don’t let that bastard fool you, he saved them both.” My chest swells even though he makes it sound like a bad thing.
“Because he has a big heart.”
Fondness shines out of Rudy when he meets my gaze. Mac only rolls his eyes. “Yeah, a heart that’ll get him killed.”
My stomach drops as the reoccurring dream bitch-slaps me in the face when it flashes through my mind. I pull back from Mac’s hands, glancing at the computer screen. “Says the one who saved a cat.” I say, waving my hand at him.
Mac scoffs, “I might have climbed the tree, but it was his idea.”
After a long moment, Rudy continues his story. “Anyway, when the base was overrun, I sent them out ahead of me with Dex.” His throat contracts, “Apparently, Marie didn’t make it, but Michelle was picked up by the cult. She’s different from when I last saw her, but she’s safe now.” He glances at Mac with some animosity before covering it up.
Mac stands up and peers down at me. “Like the rest of your body, your vocal folds are bruised and swollen. You need to stay hydrated and not speak as much as possible. You also need to rest. Drink water,” he emphasizes, snapping the textbook closed, moving toward the door.
“You’re not going to enlighten us on your whereabouts? What about those women? Where are they? And the men who raped them day in and day out?” By the time my spiel of questions finishes, my voice chokes out. This is unbelievable, yet believable at the same time.
Mac makes a pointed look to Rudy before leveling his gaze at me, “No wonder your vocals are as swollen as they are. I’ll be back in the morning.”
The rickety fire escape creaks loudly as he bounces down. “What the fuck is his problem?”
Rudy’s lifts a shoulder. “Stress. I laid into him about not being here to handle his shit. And having to get up close and personal with Julie probably isn’t helping matters.”
My eyebrows skyrocket. “What?”
“The midwife thinks there might be complications. She’s rea
l close to labor. Had a few bouts of Braxton Hicks.” At the expression on my face, he explains, “They’re like practice contractions.”
“Learn something new every day. For what it’s worth, I hope there aren’t any complications.” It can mean a completely new set of problems. I don’t want to say anything to bring on more pressure or worry, so I keep my mouth shut. It’s like a storm cloud follows him around judging from the slight slump of his shoulders. I dislike the uneasiness, thinking I’m part of the cause. “You don’t have to take care of me, you know?”
Lines develop on his forehead as he lifts his eyebrows. “I know, but you haven’t had a chance to heal and take a break.”
A rhythmic sound starts when he drums on the table with his fingers as if lost in thought. I slurp down noodles, and when he doesn’t say what’s on his mind, I fill the silence. “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”
He stands up. “Okay, I’ll make you a deal.”
“Huh?” I manage, knowing it’ll be something I don’t like.
A little dimple appears on the right side of his face. “A deal, Kansas. You apparently know how to make them.” He turns to pace, thinks better of it, and squats by the fireplace to light it. “Give yourself one week. One week of nothing. No looting. No rounds. No weapons. No drinking. Eat, sleep, and heal.” He peers over his shoulder at me to see my reaction.
I narrow my eyes. “Are you grounding me?” I mean for it to come out jokingly, but it sounds accusatory.
He shakes his head. “If you do this for one week, then I’ll help in finding Mago’s daughter. I’ll help with whatever it is you think you need to do.”
I scoff, “I don’t have a week if Mago is here tomorrow. Reece and Glinda will be ready.”
Walking over, he leans down face-to-face and pulls off my sunglasses. They land on the table with a clang. His eyes sparkle mischievously. “No, Darlin’, they won’t. I’ve already talked to Reece. We agree. Everyone agrees.”
I’m more than a little agape, realizing the look Mac threw him a minute ago is all part of their plan. “You’re all conspiring against me?”
