by A. M. Geever
“You have butter?” Doug asked before he could help it. He knew she didn’t, but he could almost taste the fatty, creamy goodness on his tongue.
“No, I don’t have fucking butter!”
“I’m sorry, Miri… I knew that.”
“Christ, you’re useless sometimes.”
Her anger was directed at him, too, which never happened. And meant she was really hurting.
Doug said, “He’s worried about you, that’s all.”
“Then why doesn’t he ask me if I’m going to cut myself instead of doing that?”
Doug tried but couldn’t smother the laugh. “Because you won’t talk to him.”
“Don’t make this my fault,” Miranda snapped.
“I’m not,” he said.
They sat in silence for a minute or two. Then Doug said, “Are you going to cut yourself?”
“Not at the fucking moment. I don’t have the goddamned tools.”
Doug mentally sighed, because if she really wanted to, she could find them.
“Are you feeling bad about the abortion?”
“No,” she said, her voice a cross of what-the-fuck and don’t-be-stupid. “Were we supposed to hope his heart wouldn’t be as fucked up as everything else? Pretend his arms and legs wouldn’t be like every other thalidomide baby? Teach him to crawl away from zombies? There was nothing else to do, unless we wanted to make him suffer before he died.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, his voice conciliatory. “I’m just making sure, because you wanted the baby.”
“Yeah, I did,” she said, tears sliding down her face again. She wiped them away and got to her feet. The flash of her eyes was murderous. “I don’t want to talk anymore. Don’t push.”
She marched away, not to the building, but to the parking lot. Doug watched her retreating form. She was angrier than he had ever seen her. With Miranda, that was saying something. And instead of directing it at Jeremiah, who had done this to her, she was dumping it on Mario.
34
Miranda sat in the back seat between Commander Smith and Mario. Smith had not taken the hint, or she just didn’t know, because she had insisted that Miranda get into the vehicle ahead of her. Miranda didn’t know why Mario was coming along to LO. It had to be something to do with Smith and producing the vaccine. She didn’t think he would subject himself to this otherwise.
Now she was stuck between them, wishing she had brought Delilah along. If she had, then she almost certainly would have gotten the front passenger seat to accommodate the dog. But she hadn’t, and now she was stuck.
Mario looked out the window, his face in three-quarter profile. He ignored her, mostly. Which was what she wanted. And not what she wanted. The front of this Toyota whatever-it-was mini-SUV had been designed for adults, but the back seat had been designed for kids and car seats. As a consequence, she and Mario touched from hip to shoulder, and knee to hip. There was no getting around it.
Miranda found herself wanting to lean into the warmth of his body, and also wanting to vent an anger toward him that she could not explain. Nothing could mask the feel of his shoulder against her, the rise and fall of his breath. The inch of his wrist below his shirt sleeve, the shape of his hands, almost made her swoon. His snug jeans did nothing to mask the shape of his thighs.
She wanted to push him out of the SUV, be rid of him and the fury he stirred, because she could feel the weight of his legs against her, her thighs wrapped around him, his face above hers. The more she tried to banish the memory, the more detailed it became—his breath hot against her neck, his lips on hers, his voice whispering in her ear all the things he wanted to do to her, and the things he wanted her to do to him. And below the memory this anger, this fury, that percolated just under her skin.
The few times she had chanced a glance, his eyes had been shut, the look on his face that of someone just hanging on. He was doing as she had asked, leaving her alone. It infuriated her. It also made her want to lean into him, melt against him, feel the comfort of his arm around her.
When they got to LO, Mario bolted from the vehicle. She scooted over on the seat to get out, feeling the residual warmth of his body on the upholstery.
Goddammit, she thought. She needed to ask River when her hormones were supposed to level out. When she could expect her body to start feeling like her own again, instead of a vessel overflowing with this anxious, urgent desire and seething anger.
The townhouse was quiet when she returned. Her downstairs neighbor wasn’t home. She knew because Delilah would have seen her coming and barked up a storm, her paws on the windowsill as she looked out the window.
Once upstairs and inside, Miranda undid her bra and wriggled out of it without taking off her shirt. It was a little too big now and slid around just enough to be annoying and uncomfortable. She needed to find one of her regular bras that fit her correctly. She closed her eyes and pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. Thinking about a bra that fit made her think of the house with the lingerie. Images of the night she had surprised Mario with the lingerie leaped unbidden to her mind’s eye. The way his lips had curved in an appreciative, hungry smile. The feel of his hard cock in her mouth. His work-roughened hands gliding over her shaved pussy, how he had teased her with his tongue, the tight embrace of her body as he slid into her—
Stop it, just stop it, she hissed at herself. But her body hummed with frustrated desire.
She set the bra on the kitchen counter and gulped down a glass of water. She looked around at the furnishings that had been someone else’s, the framed prints on the wall she didn’t particularly care for. It had felt like her place, like home for a while, but it didn’t anymore. She didn’t know why she was so angry with Mario. None of this had been his fault. Of course he needed her. Of course he felt the loss, the grief, of losing the baby. She didn’t have a lot to give, that part was true. But she had a little. Instead of trying to share it with him, she guarded it greedily. She would probably feel better if she tried to talk to him, but the anger got in the way every time. It pushed everything else out, blinding her. She had asked herself a thousand times why but never got an answer.
She sat on the upholstered chair by the picture window and tipped her head back. What in the world was she going to do?
When she woke, the shadows outside her window had lengthened to early evening. The knock. That was what had woken her. She got up, stretching as she walked to door. When she opened it, Mario stood in front of her.
A rush of desire mixed with anger swept through her. She closed her eyes, trying to push them away. Mario looked uncertain. Maybe about being here. Maybe about her.
“Can I come in?”
She took a moment, uncertain herself.
“Sure.”
He followed her to the living room but lingered by the junction of the entry hall and main living room. She sat on the couch before realizing this, which made the logistics of talking to him feel awkward. He was both too far away and not far enough.
“I’m sorry about the ride here,” he said. “I didn’t mean for that… I hope it wasn’t too uncomfortable.”
She almost said that it was, but he would take it the wrong way. He wouldn’t know that she had wanted to sink into him, let him in, but that this anger prevented it.
“I know you didn’t plan it any more than I did.”
He nodded, a flash of relief in his eyes.
“Doug talked to me,” he said.
Of course he did, she thought, annoyed. But she had known that he would, had maybe wanted him to tell Mario. Everything inside her felt so mixed up that she wasn’t sure.
Mario looked down at his feet. “I don’t know what I’ve done to make you so angry.” He looked over to her, his eyes seeking an answer. “If you, when you figure it out, I hope you’ll talk to me. Tell me about it.”
“Because I have to be the one to tell you. Because you can’t figure things out. Because it’s my job to figure out your emotional shit for you.”
His response did not give an inch. She could see the flare of temper in his eyes, in the way he took a deep breath before speaking again. “I’ve said what I wanted to, and I’m just pissing you off, so I’ll go.”
Miranda was on her feet in an instant. “You’re good at that. Leaving.”
Mario turned back. “What?”
“You heard me,” she said, walking closer. “That’s what you do. You drop out and leave, then expect me to take you back.”
“You threw me out,” he said, looking bewildered. “And if you’re talking about before, at home, you know I’m sorry that I ever did any of it.”
“I’m not talking about San Jose, but you left me then, too.” Only a foot separated them now. The tension in his stance made her fingers itch. “I’m talking about that night. When you left us, and all of this happened.”
Mario’s lips were slightly parted, breaths coming fast. “I didn’t know you were pregnant because you didn’t tell me.”
“In the five minutes before you took Brock away?”
“I would have stayed, and you know it.”
She saw the truth of it in his eyes. Knew the truth before she accused him. But it didn’t change that when she had needed him, he had not been there.
“What were you thinking when you went out there? There were other people who could have gone with Doug,” Mario said. “Did you even stop to think that maybe it shouldn’t be you?”
Icy shock pulled Miranda up short. Doug had questioned her decision to go with him to investigate. She had responded to his concern with annoyance, brushing it aside because it had felt patronizing.
“I didn’t know what would happen,” Miranda answered, defensiveness filling her voice. “We had no idea what we were dealing with.”
“You had no idea what you were dealing with, and you still went to look, because Miranda Tucci’s not afraid of anything. She charges in, consequences be damned.”
“You’d be dead if I stopped to think about everything the way you do,” she countered.
“But it’s not me that’s dead because you put yourself in harm’s way, is it? And it’s not you, either. If one of us left the baby behind, it sure as shit wasn’t me.”
The dagger-sharp pain of his accusation plunged into Miranda’s heart. Into the place where she had been foolish enough to nurture the small, soft dream of their child.
“What do you care?” she said angrily, tears springing to her eyes. “You already have three children. You just abandoned ours faster.”
Mario recoiled, shock supplanting the anger flashing in his eyes, followed by a fleeting glimpse of anguish. She had landed the blow with just as much skill as he had landed his, weaponizing his heartache because he had trusted her with it.
They stood feet apart, but a wasteland stretched between them. Mario looked at her for another moment, then left without a word.
35
Doug and Skye were nowhere to be found at the Nature Center.
“I can’t believe they’re late, Delilah. I’m starving,” Miranda said.
Delilah’s eyes flicked up from where her head rested on her paws and yawped at Miranda, almost disinterested. Miranda reached down and gave Delilah’s head a scratch.
“I guess you’re not perished with the hunger, little dog, but I am.”
Miranda could go to dinner on her own but wanted others around in case she ran into Mario. Doug had mentioned he was back at LO. The less she saw of him, the better.
Miranda checked her watch again. Doug was a punctual person, but Skye took punctuality to a whole new level. It was kind of unnerving, in Miranda’s opinion, but she was probably not the best judge. Doug teased her she would be late for her own funeral.
“They’re probably fucking in a closet,” she muttered.
She wished they would show up because she needed a distraction from the fight with Mario. Two weeks later, it still rattled inside her head on a nonstop loop. She couldn’t help the way she felt. Even if the feelings were unfair, they were what they were. But she could help how she acted. Nearly every single thing she had accused him of was unfair or untrue. She’d said the kind of things you can’t take back. So had he.
Doug had tried to dissuade her from going with him that night to investigate why the macaques were so noisy, and she blew him off. Where Doug had expressed legitimate if annoying concern, she had seen only a double-standard. She had compared walking into God knows what to an imminent threat, called it even, and done what she always did.
It was too late now. Why the hell was it her job, anyway, to put things back together? The anger always prowling below the surface of her emotional facade broke free, hitting her so hard it felt like it would knock her down. She wanted to strike out at Mario, to hurt him, demand he take the blame. And to shield him from this anger she could not control. To distance herself and protect the man she loved instead of destroying him.
“You okay, Miranda?”
Her head snapped up. Phineas stood in front of her, his hand on her shoulder. She had not even felt it.
“Uh, yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” she said, trying to pull herself together. “I, um… You look a lot better.”
Phineas’ crutches were real ones, manufactured of metal and rubber, not like the pieces of crap she had used at New Jerusalem. The cast from his heel to just past his knee had to weigh a ton.
“What are you doing out?” she asked. “Shouldn’t you still be resting?”
“River finally agreed to let me take short walks. For my morale,” he said, grinning.
“Through the Big Woods is not short.”
“I’m on my way back. Don’t rat me out.”
“I’m glad you’re doing better. You haven’t seen Doug and Skye around, have you?”
“They were heading in the direction of the Comm Shack a couple minutes ago.”
“Guess I was wrong then,” she said softly.
“Wrong about what?”
She laughed a little, almost under her breath. “Oh, I was thinking they might be late meeting me because they were getting it on in a closet.”
Phineas’ eyebrows shot skyward. “What? But…isn’t he a priest?”
“They are a thing,” she said, standing. “And he’s packing in the priesthood. You really haven’t been getting out. Or you’re just that young and unobservant.”
A rakish grin curved Phineas’ jaw. “I haven’t been getting out, and I’m not so young that I couldn’t handle you, Miranda. I’m still holding out hope.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she said, laughing.
The kid just did not stop. For a moment she thought how easy it would be. What a relief an uncomplicated, casual fling with Phineas, who was easy on the eyes and probably knew a thing or two, would be. At twenty, his youthful optimism was still intact. There would be no history and no expectations.
She gave herself a mental shake.
“I’ll see you when I see you, Phineas.”
She crossed the parking lot, feeling unsettled, and took the northerly path that led to the Comm Shack. Delilah raced up the path ahead of her and around a bend, then began to bark. Maybe at Doug and Skye, she thought, hoping to catch up quickly. Instead, she walked the whole way there while Delilah crashed in and out of the brush, barking and chasing squirrels. When Miranda reached the Comm Shack, the door was open. Doug stood in it, leaning against the doorjamb.
He looked over his shoulder and motioned her over. Skye stood just inside the door. She glanced at Miranda, then looked back to Commander Smith. Smith was next to Larry, leaning over the sound defense control board. LO’s Comm Shack Operator looked as harried and anxious as when Station Eight had gone off-line. She had seen him in the dining hall this morning, and he had not looked bent out of shape in the least.
Something had happened.
“Station Twelve radioed in twenty minutes ago, said the mach
ines were showing error messages. Then their comms went off-line and I haven’t been able to raise them since. None of the other stations can raise them, either. Then Stations Eleven and One did the same thing about eight minutes ago. There’s nothing I can see on this end that accounts for it. The system looks like it’s operating normally.”
Miranda looked at Doug sidelong. His brow was furrowed, and his tongue worried the inside of his cheek.
“So, the stations reported errors but not malfunctions, and now we can’t raise them, but things look normal on the board and the system is working. Or, we really do have a problem with two gaps this time,” Smith said. “Is there anyone besides Phineas who can go out to see?”
Larry shook his head. “Apart from me, no. Crystal died at Station Eight. Her replacements and Phineas’ backups aren’t trained up enough for this sort of thing. We could send someone from an adjoining station to meet whoever you send.”
“I don’t like that idea,” Smith said. “Not when we’ve lost contact with three stations already.”
“Then I go,” Larry said. “Phineas can hold things down here, no problem. He doesn’t need to be mobile for this.”
Smith nodded, then looked at her watch. “It’ll be dark in an hour, seventy-five minutes at the outside. Goddammit.” She took a moment to marshal her thoughts. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Station Eleven is closest to the Institute, so it’s the priority. Doug, I’d like you to go with Rocco and Larry. And you too, Miranda. Get a sit-rep. If you can fix what’s wrong, stay there and do it. If you can’t or it’s not safe, fall back to the Institute.”
“I’ll go, too, Anna,” Skye offered.
Smith shook her head. “No. I need you here. Get patrol group alpha together and brief them. They’re tasked with Station One, since it’s closest to Portland.”
