But this isn’t any of those, and my head’s a ’lil bit twisted from all the shit I’ve been through. I have no idea how to gauge this. I dig my dugout from my pocket and grab a lighter from the table. A glance inside the wooden cubbyhole makes me sad. It won’t be much longer until it’s all gone.
I spy the bottle of tequila on the counter, two-thirds empty, and rise from the chair. Being closer to Logan makes me nervous, but liquor wins this round. When I get to the counter beside Logan, he watches as I unscrew the cap and swig from the bottle with a cringe.
“Ever do Tolly?” he asks.
“A few times, yeah. Years ago.”
“There’s some cans and shit up there.” He motions to the cabinet above the sink.
I’m not an inhalants person. Then again, I’m not really who I was anymore, either. My chest flutters as I walk to the cabinet and open it up to rows of cans of various chemicals. “Not even sure I remember how.” I chuckle, half joking.
Logan wipes his hands on a rag and flips it over his shoulder. When he reaches over my head for a can, I smell a different men’s deodorant than Gideon’s, and my hormones fluctuate. I discover the cursive name on his collarbone isn’t a name at all, but in fact, the words carpe diem.
Without a sound, he takes my hands and cups them, before folding up the rag from his shoulder and setting it inside. He puts one hand beneath my cupped palms, and with the other, he sprays the chemical into the cloth for a few seconds. He sets the can down, guides my hand up to my face. “Inhale.”
I take a few deep breaths, and the room begins to pulse. As my head warms and my body numbs and disappears, the lights seem to flicker and I sway.
“Whoa, here.” Logan guides me to Missy’s bed. “Can you color at the table, little sister?”
She grabs her colors and book and relocates to the table, and Logan helps me sit.
“Fuck, I’m high.”
“Yeah.” He sits beside me and stuffs his face into the rag in my hands. After a few seconds’ inhale, he sprays more into the rag and goes for it again, then sinks against the wall beside me.
I breathe it in again, deeper this time, and swing out to left field, falling into Logan. He chuckles, then huffs again, before wrapping his left arm around me and helping me sit back up.
He holds me close for too long. Long enough to see straight teeth and the glisten of his tongue behind them. Long enough to see the faint circles beneath his eyes that says his bad boy brilliance and heart have kept him awake many late nights. Long enough to see the way those deep blues size me up as though I were a royal banquet.
A glance at Gideon brings me back, though, and I sit against the wall, to equalize my wicked desires.
“So, husband, huh?” Logan says.
“Well . . . not technically.”
“I thought so. A little creature comfort and delusional empty promises are what it’s all about now.”
“Hasn’t it always been about that?”
He scrutinizes me for an intense moment. “I’m gonna fuck you one day,” he whispers, before huffing more Tolly.
I say nothing. His words activate something warm in me, and it makes me furious.
“If you’ll let me, of course,” he adds.
“I’m taken.”
“That means shit now.”
I glance away.
“You know I’m right.”
“It means something to me.”
When I turn back, he kisses me, and I’m hot with a mixture of rage and lust as I push away. “Why’d you do that?”
“Oh, come on, you wanted me to. I see the way you look at me.” He brushes my cheek with his thumb. “Had to make sure you come back. I’m looking forward to this.”
Fourteen
I leave Logan in the breakroom and head to the storefront, the heat from his lips still lingering. With a tornado of shit spinning in my mind, head throbbing from the Tolly, I choose all of the best makeup, because I need the distraction. A voice somewhere accuses me of making myself hot for Logan . . . but that’s not it. At least, not all of it, or even the majority of it. The Apocalypse took a dump on my head a few months ago, and I just left it there for a while. Maybe I just want to be fucking pretty today.
I hardly remember what it’s like to feel sexy. Not that I’m the same person I was before, anyway. I’m learning all over again how to be a woman. A different woman. Which also means to ignore Logan’s advances at all cost. He kissed me—so what. I didn’t do it, and I shouldn’t carry the guilt. But I won’t let it happen again. I can’t do that to Gideon. I have to set boundaries, otherwise this whole “family” situation we have going here will explode in all of our faces. I’m not about to let that happen. What would become of Missy?
After I’ve collected everything I need and set it by the cash register, I grab a screwdriver from a cabinet behind the counter and go to the bathroom. While holding my breath for the longest intervals possible, I remove the mirror from the wall, then haul it to the front, gasping for fresh air. There’s no way I’m sitting in that disgusting bathroom for anything close to ninety seconds ever again.
I sit it in the indirect light of dusk, the perfect lighting for this. I trace each contour and scar without bias, as one would gaze at a foreign painting. It’s been forever since I’ve . . . wait, nope. I’ve never sat and stared at myself in the mirror before. At least, not like this.
For too long, I cursed that two-dimensional monster, hurled insults at her paper face. I tried to paint away her many imperfections with stolen Cover Girl, Maybelline, to blur her edges with whisky-flavored turpentine and hallucinogens. Anything to make her fade away . . .
But that’s not who I am now. I have an urge to accentuate my features as opposed to camouflaging or redefining them. For the first time, I like the delicate slant of my eyes beneath the thin, black eyebrows, and the slight curl upward at the corner of each lid. The full, pink lips, the latte cream skin . . . This is me, bare bones, no bullshit. And for having no running water for months, fighting, running, and hiding from vicious predators, I don’t look half bad. I see a strange beauty in my stripped façade. It took a while, a lot of unmendable heartbreak and sorrow, and the near-total devastation of mankind, but hey—I’m finally okay with Grace Vincent, in all of her imperfect glory. Even when her hormones seem to have a mind of their own.
I clean my face first with baby wipes, then decide on smoky eyes, light on the liner. After defining with the shadow, I trace my eyelid with a thin line of liquid liner, brush on some Blackest Night mascara, and translucent, pink lip gloss. As I’m applying it, I notice Missy’s reflection in the mirror, spying from the aisle behind me.
“Want me to do yours now?” I ask her.
After a moment’s hesitation, she takes timid steps toward me, hands clasped around her bear, and she sits in front of me. In the sunlight, her hair has a soft, golden-brown shimmer, and her skin is handmade paper, or porcelain, now that she’s clean.
I spread out the various palettes of shadow between us. “Choose three colors again, sweetie.”
She examines the row before choosing lavender, pink, and powder blue.
“Of course.” I laugh. “I vaguely remember what it was like to be a six-year-old girl. Lots of pink stuff, right?”
She nods, goes to chew on a nail, then, remembering the polish, redirects her hand to twist her shirt hem.
“Good job,” I tell her. “Now, close your eyes and I’ll do your shadow.”
She snaps her eyelids shut, and I go to work brushing the color across them. “I bet you were pretty happy Logan found you, huh?”
She gives a slight nod, followed by a giggle.
“What?”
She touches her lips with a finger, points at me.
“Oh . . . you saw him . . .” I say in a low voice.
She nods, giggles again.
“He shouldn’t have done that. I have a boyfriend.”
She shrugs, as if to tell me it was okay, because this is the end anyw
ay. Carpe diem.
I wonder if she were raised by a single parent and ran when mom or dad went undead on her ass. If that were the case, then she’d have no clue you’re supposed to be faithful to one man or woman. At least, those were the old rules. Shouldn’t those rules still apply now?
With the questionable reprogramming of my moral compass comes gratitude, but also confusion. Eileen and Henry gave me an example of what true, faithful, committed, unconditional love looks like, and it doesn’t resemble anything remotely similar to any of this. And that’s the catch—there’s no control subject. If my life and relationships were “normal,” it would be easier to compare their example to. But that life is gone. We’re at the dawn of a new era.
My relationship with Gideon is a promise carved in the winds of the end of days. All bets are off. Not only are we battling living and undead monsters, but my lover, my companion, the only person I have left in the world, continues to withhold things about his past from me. And we’ve only been together for a little over two months, so how well do I know him anyway? How stupid am I to think we could ever have a happy ending?
That’s what I get when I intellectualize it.
But my heart comes up with a different equation for my head to solve. I love him more than anything on the planet—no doubt. But did this love arise from a need to be cared for, to not be alone? For distraction, to fill the void, etcetera . . .? Would my love for Gideon still exist if he were no longer “needed”? And more importantly, am I just trying to justify and rationalize my wicked desires right now? Years of therapy and self-help have ill-prepared me for the circus of horrors that is my everyday life.
“Okay, all done with the shadow. Open.” With a sigh, I unscrew the top of a brown mascara, then carefully coat her eyelashes. “I hope you decide to talk to me one day, Missy. I sure would love to hear your pretty voice. And I’d love to have another girl to talk to sometimes.” I open the lip gloss, making a kissy face so she’ll pucker her lips. “Do you like to sing?”
She nods, copying me, and I apply a thin coat of gloss to her chapped lips.
“I love to sing. It would be cool if we could sing together one day. Want me to sing you a song?”
And when she grins, nods, I scan my brain for songs with words I know off the top of my head. I settle on “Home” by Flyleaf, and with one last peek in the mirror to remind myself I’m wearing makeup—and therefore cannot cry—I take a deep breath and start, quiet at first. But singing is a drug I can’t control the dosage of. The moment the notes are set free, I sing louder. I close my eyes, swept away by such a freedom, a freedom I could’ve given myself all along had the bars to my cell been visible to me. But I’m free now; there’s no turning back. And when the last note sails from my lips and I open my eyes, there’s clapping behind me.
“Wow,” Logan says.
“She’s amazing, right?” Gideon gives him an elbow bump.
I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life. But Missy’s face makes me smile, too, though my cheeks grow hot and I inspect the floor tiles.
“I was in a band,” Logan says. “I played bass. We could’ve used a singer like you.”
I laugh. “Thanks. But I would’ve never done it before.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t sing for a lot of years. Since I was about eight. Long story.”
“Ah. Well . . . at least you’re doing it now, though, right? Better late than never ’n shit.” And with that, he lights another cigarette and walks off toward the breakroom again.
Gideon offers me a hand and helps me to my feet. “Every time you sing, my quality of life levels up jus’ a little bit more.” He pinches the air between us before he kisses me.
More snickering from Missy, of course.
“You look beautiful,” Gideon says.
“Thanks. I clean up well, I guess.”
“I’ll say.” He glances down at Missy. “And what about you, pretty lady? Did you do your makeup, too?”
She points at me.
“Oh, Grace did your makeup? Well, she did a great job. You look even more beautiful now than you did earlier.”
She’s beside herself with joy. It doesn’t take much anymore for any of us. We all appreciate the littlest things now.
“It’ll be time to head out soon,” Gideon says. “We’ll need to eat, then as soon as nightfall gets here, we move quick.”
“Will we be able to get to the record store and then to the church tonight?”
“That depends on a lot of things. We’ll see how midnight traffic is tonight. Let’s hope we hit a dry patch.”
“That would be lucky.”
When Missy sniffles to my left, I find her sobbing into her hands.
“Missy, what’s wrong, sweetheart?” I crouch in front of her.
When she points a trembling finger toward me, and then the window, it hits me.
“Oh . . . you’re upset we’re leaving . . .” I glance at Gideon for guidance, but he shrugs. “We’re coming back.” I take her hands and remove them from her eyes so she’ll look at me. “I promise we’re coming back, okay?”
And when she shakes her head “yes” and hugs me tight, as if she were afraid to let go, I know I’ve already gone too far.
Fifteen
I hug Missy tight, kiss her crown. “We’ll be back soon, promise.”
She sobs into Logan’s side, gripping her bear. It terrifies the hell out of me, but I’ve already grown to love this little girl and accept that she’s also my responsibility to care for now.
With an arm around her shoulder, flashlight tucked into his right armpit to light our way, Logan finishes a cigarette and stomps it out on the tile. Once Gideon disappears through the window above me, Logan kisses two fingertips then throws me a peace sign. “Be careful out there.”
“We will be.”
“I’ll miss you.” He winks.
I climb up the shelving to the window. “Protect her.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He gives me a half-assed salute.
Gideon helps me onto the propane locker with a finger to his lips. A group of runners moves a few yards ahead, stumbling away from us. It’s a cloudy night—good for traveling. Gideon hops from the propane locker, I follow suit, and we hurry to the Lincoln.
When I get to the passenger side, there by my door is the mangled carcass of who I assume was calling for help yesterday. I hesitate, gag, but behind Gideon and about a block away, a black cloud moves toward us across the earth—a plague.
“Shit.” I swing the door open, hurdle the corpse, and jump inside, synched with Gideon.
He locks the doors as soon as they close and starts the ignition. “That’s a big ass horde of them.” He reverses enough to pull out, then takes off to the left, away from the coming storm.
“Could be thousands of them,” I mumble.
He reads my worry for Missy and Logan. “Too bad we don’t have a two-way radio. Walkie-talkies or something. We should stay on the lookout for some.”
“Okay. I’m sure they’ll be fine.” I scan the scenery. I’ve been in this neighborhood once or twice, though I couldn’t tell you the name of it. I recognize the El Rancho Supermarcado with the green parrot wearing a sombrero on the neon sign that is no longer neon. And the enormous electrical tower behind the Eggroll Express that Henry took me to once, and up ahead, the Braum’s Eileen took me to after my orthodontist appointments. It’s strange, comparing the two times—black and white. As Logan said: a permanent fucking opposite day.
We pass Braum’s, on the corner of Heritage and Monarch, now a charred shell of a building. With it, the memory of sharing an extra cup of maraschino cherries with Eileen, talking graduation plans the last time we went. It was one of the few times I remember telling her I loved her.
I take out a cigarette, light it, and crack the window, prepared to defend my tobacco, but Gideon takes my free hand and kisses it instead.
“How far is it again?” I ask, facing the window to hide the wetness on m
y cheeks.
“Not too far. It’s by a bar I used to go to. Well, it’s kind of a bar, I guess.”
I take a drag and blow the smoke out the window. Gideon glances at me and sighs.
“What’s wrong?”
“When I look at you . . .” He shakes his head and begins again. “When I look at you, I see the thing I’m scared of most—losing you. And the fucked up part is that one day, I will. I’ll lose you, in one way or the other, and I’m not prepared for that.”
“Let’s not think about those outcomes. It’s bad Magick.”
“Bad magic?”
“Yes. When you focus on anything for too long, you’re casting a spell, wishing more of whatever it is into your life. I may not be a practicing Zalaan anymore, but there are a lot of scientific truths to the teachings. The Law of Attraction, for example. Not that I was ever any good at applying them in a positive manner in my own life.”
“Wow. You’re an intelligent woman. Just when I think I know you, something else blossoms forth and blows me away. Did you used to hide your intelligence or something?”
“No, I just didn’t care. I was apathetic and indifferent to it all for a long time.”
“Well, your intelligence is one of the biggest turn-ons for me.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yeah. I always hoped to find a woman I could hold deep, intellectual conversations with, someone who was open-minded, not set in their ways or conformed to any of society’s belief systems.” He tugs my hand to his lap. “Someone passionate, beautiful, and sexy to top it all off . . . Basically, I was always meant to meet you, Grace.”
I smile up at him and puff on my cigarette again. “You just like that pussy, don’t ya, baby?”
“No. I love that pussy.” He slides his hand beneath my pants and panties and gropes me, sensually.
A light flashes in my side view mirror. I turn around in the seat to better scope out our wake, but there’s nothing but darkness.
“Did you see that?” I ask.
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