by L. A. Boruff
“We’re family. Nothing comes between that.” His hand glided up the slope of my neck, his thumb brushing my jawline. “We all survive. We all get to Subterranea. And we all live happily fucking ever after… together.”
It was a nice thought, but the pit in my stomach refused to let me fall into his words. There were too many factors out of our control. But I didn’t argue. Zephyr needed this, the way I needed the three of them.
“Hey, what’s up?” Cavendish and Denver approached us.
“Just getting Kyra up to speed with the plan,” Zephyr said, tucking me into his side.
“Oh yeah?” Denver’s eyes danced with anticipation.
“Yep.” Our leader nodded. “Survive this trek, reach Subterranea, and live happily ever after. Did I miss anything?” He gazed down at me.
“Nope.” I pressed my hand to his chest. “I think you covered everything.”
“Well then, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Something changed after that. I didn’t know if it was the shift in our relationship, or the renewed sense of hope, but we walked harder, moving faster, and by late afternoon we’d covered almost sixty-five miles.
“We should stop soon, find somewhere to set up camp for the night,” Zephyr said as he walked ahead of us. “Shit, is that what I think it is?”
We all squinted into the distance, the wall of blistering heat rippling before us. Off to the right, nestled between the valley of the mountain was a gas station. It had seen better days, but it was the first building we’d seen that hadn’t been torn to shreds by the solar flare.
“It must have been protected by the mountains,” Denver said.
“We should check it out,” I added.
“Remember what happened last time?” Cavendish grumbled. “That last place almost came down on us.”
“We’ll scope it out.” Zephyr motioned for us to follow him. Cav grabbed my hand, pulling me along with him. I offered him a tight smile, but the color had drained from his face as he no doubt relived his near miss when the other gas station had caved in on him and Zephyr.
But despite our renewed energy, our supplies weren’t going to last forever, and if there was even a chance there was water or food inside, it was a risk worth taking.
As we drew closer, it became apparent the gas station was in pretty bad shape. There was huge fracture right through the middle, the land beneath cracked and scorched. Everything was charred, part of the roof missing. Still, it gave me a seed of hope.
“Maybe there’s a storeroom in the back?” I pushed to the front of our group, but Zephyr’s hand shot out.
“I’ll go.”
Rolling my eyes, I knocked his hand away. “Cute, but I’m coming.”
He studied me for a second but finally relented, letting out an exasperated breath. “Fine, but stay close to me and you get even the first sign of things going south, you run. Got it?”
“Stay close. Run if things go south. Got it.”
Denver and Cavendish stayed on watch while me and Zephyr slipped inside the store, although it barely resembled a store anymore. The whole place looked like it had survived an earthquake.
“I doubt we’ll find anything of use here.” Zephyr gave a resigned sigh but kept sifting through the wreckage all the same.
I moved deeper into the store, my eyes widening when they fell on another door in the back. “Here.” It was locked from the outside, but a couple of kicks from Zephyr and it broke off its hinges.
A blast of fetid air hit us both, and I pulled up my scarf to tamp down the overwhelming smell. But then Zephyr was shining his flashlight inside the small room, laughter spilling from his perfect lips. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “I don’t fucking believe it.”
Poking my head inside, I found myself grinning with sheer joy when my eyes fell on the motherload—a crate of unspoiled water bottles.
“Grab whatever you can,” he instructed, and we began to load up with whatever we could. When we were done, Zephyr moved ahead of me, and I smiled to myself. But something gave me pause, a fleeting thought, and I glanced back at the storeroom.
“Did that seem too easy to you?” I asked Zephyr as we made our way out of the gas station.
“What do you mean?” he replied; his arms laden with the bottles of water we’d found stashed in the back of the storeroom. There was other stuff but most of it had perished.
“I don’t know.” The strange feeling I had trickled up my spine. “It’s just we’ve walked for days and found nothing… not a thing, and then we stumble on this place and there’s a crate of water just ripe for the taking. It feels like—”
“Don’t. Move.”
My eyes went wide as I saw a man—his skin ravaged by radiation burns—push Cavendish forward, a barbed club jabbed into the back of my best friend’s neck.
Zephyr crouched down slowly, placing the water down, and stood up, his hands extended in surrender. “We don’t want any trouble.”
“Doesn’t look like it,” the man spat, revealing a blistered tongue behind a set of yellow-black teeth. He looked a breath away from death, but he was strong if Cavendish hadn’t managed to overpower him. As if he sensed my thoughts, Cav gave me a little shake of his head. Don’t play hero, he was saying.
“Our other friend, Denver, where is he?” Zephyr asked, his voice calm. Calmer than my pulse which was hammering in my skull as I tried to figure out how we could all walk away from this in one piece.
“Drago’s taking care of him.”
Drago?
Who the hell was Drago?
And did I even want to know?
“How about we leave your water right here,” Zeph kicked the crate of water toward them, “And we’ll be right on our way.”
The man completely ignored him, flicking his head to me. “Haven’t seen a girl around here in a while.” His lip curved in a wicked smirk, his bulbous tongue running along his cracked bloodied lips. I suppressed the urge to puke right there.
Zephyr inched closer to me, trying to shield me slightly.
“She yours?” he spat. “I’ll give you all the water you want if you let me have some fun with—”
Cavendish ducked and rolled, kicking his leg out into the man’s stomach. He grunted, cussing into the dense air, and swung the club high. But Zephyr, knife unsheathed, was already sprinting toward them. The two of them fought, Zeph ducking and dodging the heavy swings of the wooden club. Cavendish managed to get to his feet and tore a small blade from his boot and slammed it straight into the man’s stomach. He staggered back, the club clattering to the ground, blood trickling from his mouth as he crumpled into a lifeless heap.
“What the fuck is going—” Another man appeared but my bow was already drawn, arrow nocked. Panic flashed in his eyes as I released the trigger. The arrow struck him right in the forehead and his body fell to the ground in a plume of dust.
“DENVER?” I yelled, scanning the area, my voice echoing off Cheyenne Mountain.
“I’m here,” he choked, and I ran toward the sound of his voice, finding him tied to an old water pipe in the ground.
“Caven—”
“Is fine,” I said, withdrawing one of my knives and slicing through the twine wrapped around his wrists. “We took care of them.”
“Fuck, did you see them? How messed up were they?”
“We should get moving,” I panted. In case there are more of them.
Chapter Six
Day 745
Cavendish is hurt. He says he’s fine, but I see the pain in his eyes, notice every wince and hiss as we follow the winding road to Subterranea. Zephyr reassures me we’re almost there. That we have one more day left. Two at the most. But our energy is depleted, our movements sluggish and desperate. My bow no longer provides me comfort but feels like a heavy weight strapped to my back. Denver has offered to take it more than once, but I decline. It might be painful, the skin where it rests sore and tender, but it’s a part of me now. A vital organ I can’t
relinquish. I’ve killed Gamma-Muts with it, saved Cavendish from the savages we encountered.
But I won’t lie, I’m worried. Terrified we might not make it. Ten miles is nothing and yet, it feels like a hundred.
Since that day at the gas station, the guys hold me close at night. Kissing away the pain, erasing the never-ending ache that radiates in my bones. I know we seek comfort in each other, in silent kisses and heated touches and whispered words. We make no promises; we don’t talk about what happens inside our tent when night falls. But it’s there, flowing between us like a warm current. It’s in the way Cavendish brushes my hand with his; the way Zephyr’s amethyst eyes search mine when he asks for my opinion; how Denver helps me adjust my pack each morning. It wasn’t supposed to happen, but somewhere along the way, I became the center of their universe and they my stars.
I know in my heart, I can never go back. I’ll always belong to the three of them. My best friends. My everything. But when—if—we reach Subterranea, things will change. It will no longer be the four of us, fighting for survival, for each other.
And that terrifies me more than anything.
But still, I hope we make it. We’ve come too far now not to.
K.
“Are we going to talk about what happened back at the gas station?” Zephyr asked as we gathered outside the tent. It’s two days after we fled yet another scene of death and destruction, and we haven’t talked about what happened. Not yet. I didn’t want to relive it, to acknowledge what I did, and the guys had been patient with me. But I knew Zephyr would push eventually. Because he knew the truth; he knew it was slowly eating away at my insides.
He offered me a bottle of water, with a hint of a sad smile. It was the same water that had almost cost Cavendish his life. My eyes slid from Zephyr to Cav and then to Denver. We’d been doing so well and then everything had gone to shit in the blink of an eye, and now I didn’t know what to feel.
“I killed him.” The words left my body with a pained sigh. “I shot him point blank in the head.”
Cavendish moved to my side, perching on the stone. “You did what you had to.”
“I know, I just... what if we don’t make it? What if—”
“Ssh.” He pulled me into his shoulder, letting me sob against him.
“Ky, don’t you dare feel guilty for what you did.” That was Zephyr, his unyielding voice carrying over us. “That motherfucker was ready to kill us, and his plans for you...” He trailed off.
Peeking out from the comfort of my best friend’s embrace, I met Zephyr’s intense gaze. “You did the right thing,” he added.
I knew that.
I did.
It just felt like another stain on my soul. Another brick layered around my heart. If we did make it to Subterranea, I wondered what would be left of me; the girl and her crossbow.
“Hey, look at me,” Cavendish’s voice pulled me back as he touched his head to mine, forcing me to look at him. “We’ll get through this.” His lips brushed over mine, soft and searching. I melted into the kiss, slipping my tongue into his mouth.
Someone—Zephyr, I think—cleared their throat, but I flipped him off. I needed this. I needed the connection.
The reminder.
The temporary escape.
“Make love to me, Cav.” I whispered trying to climb up his body.
“Fuck, you can’t say that shit to me.” His hooded eyes broke away from me, sliding over to Zephyr and Denver who were watching us with interest.
“I need this,” I said, my voice cracked with desperation. “I need you.” My fingers curled into his t-shirt.
I needed to know he was here, that he was okay.
“You’re sure?”
I nodded, feeling drunk on desire, on my need for him.
Desperate for him to fill the void carving through my stomach.
He said something to the guys, but their muted words barely registered, then he was pulling me toward the tent. We stumbled inside, tearing at one another’s clothes. He managed to get me out of my pants before kicking off his own and then I pushed him down onto the pile of sleeping bags. He landed with a thud, hissing with pain.
“Crap, I’m sorry. You’re hurt.” I straddled his legs, careful not to put any weight on him. My fingers reached for his t-shirt, but he swatted me away.
“I’m fine.” But his eyes told a different story.
“Let me see.” My fingers covered his, lifting the damp material from his slick skin, gasping when I saw the huge purplish bruise. “Oh my—”
“It’s not that bad.” He shoved my hands away again, pulling his t-shirt down.
It was bad.
He just didn’t want me to know how bad.
“What can I do to make it better?” The words spilled from my lips and he gave me a crooked grin.
“Come here.”
I leaned over him precariously, kissing him softly. “You could have died.” Tears collected in the corners of my eyes.
“But I didn’t.”
Cavendish leaned up on his elbows, deepening the kiss, growing hard beneath me. The truth about his injury was sobering, but I still wanted him. I still wanted to feel him inside me. I wriggled back, gliding my hands over his erection.
“Holy shit,” he choked out, falling back against our sleeping bags. Slowly, I worked his boxers down his legs, leaving them bunched up on his thighs. Then I gripped his shaft in my hand, stroking him up and down a couple of times, before pulling my panties to the side and sinking down on him, crying out with ecstasy.
Cavendish’s hand went to my hips, helping me rock back and forth over him. Sweat rolled down my chest and between the valley of my breasts, the air impossibly dense, as I rode him harder. Faster. Pushing through the deep ache I felt. Letting him stretch me, fill some of the void inside me.
His whisky eyes were like two pools of molten lava staring at me, pulling me under until I was drowning in nothing but him. Our skin was slick, burning with desire and heat as we both raced toward the edge.
“Fuck, Kyra, you are…” His teeth ground together behind his lips as he thrust harder, bending his legs behind me. I leaned down, sweeping my tongue into his mouth as my body began to tremble around him.
And then we were both crying out, drowning our moans with clumsy kisses and harsh breaths.
After a couple of seconds, I rolled off him, curling into his side, my fingers tracing the bruise I knew lay underneath his tee. “Thank you,” my voice was small.
“You don’t ever need to thank me.” Cavendish twisted his head around to look at me. “I’ve waited for you for a long time.”
“I know. Just promise me something,” I swallowed over the giant lump in my throat.
“Anything.” He reached out, brushing the damp hair from my face.
“Promise me nothing will change if we make it.”
“We’ll make it, Kyra,” he said without hesitation. But the words no longer held the same meaning. Somewhere along the way, I’d made peace with the idea of never making it.
Welcomed it even.
I was tired—so fucking tired. Just the thought of leaving this tent tomorrow to walk the last few miles was devastating.
Sensing the change in my mood, Cavendish said, “You can’t give up now. We’re so close.”
“I don’t know how much more I have left to give,” I admitted.
His arm tightened around me and I drifted off into a bittersweet sleep.
Sometime later, I heard the rustle of clothes and the shuffle of bodies, and then I was being drawn into Zephyr’s naked body, his very hard, very obvious erection pressed up against my ass. I wiggled against it, feeling my body begin to stir to life. He chuckled behind me.
“Sleep,” he rasped, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. His fingers danced lazy patterns over my stomach, soothing me.
And before long I was out cold.
The next morning, the mood was distinctively less tense. Zephyr was all business as he double-checked his map
and kept glancing over at Cheyenne Mountain looming up ahead. Even Cavendish seemed brighter, and every time his eyes caught mine across our small camp, we shared a secret smile.
“Are you trying to drive me crazy?” Denver approached me, a mischievous glint in his eye.
“Me?” I played dumb, inching away from him. But he advanced, his long legs eating up the distance between us.
“The tent might be military grade, but it is definitely not soundproof.” His hand shot out, curling around my waist and pulling me into his chest. “Those little sounds you make...” He dipped his face to mine, eyes glittering lust. “I can’t wait to be the one making you moan like that.”
Heat pooled in my stomach as I clenched my legs together. Last night, somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d wondered what Zephyr and Denver would make of me dragging Cavendish off to the tent. But it hadn’t changed anything. Zephyr had held me all night, kissing me hard this morning while the others lay next to us.
“Denver...” His name spilled from my lips in a breathy moan.
“Yeah?” His eyes flashed, as if he was right there, imagining me underneath him as he moved inside me. Fixing his lips over mine, Denver kissed me.
“Hey, you two, cut it out.” That was Zephyr, but there was no hint of jealousy in his voice. “We need to get going if we want to make it by nightfall.”
Zephyr was certain we had less than eight miles to go. If we kept a steady pace, dug deep and found one more burst of energy, then chances were we could make it today.
Denver smiled against my lips. “Are you ready to find Paradise on this godforsaken planet?”
Heart heavy, chest tight, I nodded.
I did want to find Subterranea.
I just didn’t want it to change anything.
The walk was quiet, each of us lost in our thoughts. The last two weeks had felt like a lifetime, but it was all worth it when Zephyr spotted the ravaged sign welcoming us to Macoby.
“This is it. We did it. We made it.” I’d known Zephyr Dalton a long time, most of my life, and I’d never seen him cry. Not when we hugged our parents for the last time, watched their faces as they closed the hatch, sealing our fate, and theirs. But standing here, with Cheyenne Mountain looming over us like a beacon of hope, I could have sworn I saw tears streaking down his face.
