Salvaged

by Maya Riley

  Finally, I whispered the question that had been burning inside me for a while now, but I hadn’t been able to voice. Until now. “What if we’re not the only ones?”

  “The only ones… what?”

  “I’ve apparently unlocked these… powers, from two people now. Am I the only one that can do that? If I’m not, then who else is out there?”

  “That’s a pretty tough thing to know for certain. We know you were the only one of your kind, and your absence in that lab set them back. What we don’t know, though, is exactly what all had been going on at the other labs around the world. And honestly, I’m a little afraid to find out. The unknown is a scary thing, and this unknown is a huge one.”

  “At some point, though, I’d like to find one of those other labs. To see. Because curiosity.”

  I felt his throat bulge against my head as he swallowed. “We’ll see what we can do. I have no idea where to even start looking for one, but we can see what we can find.”

  “Adam?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Thank you for being here.”

  “Of course.”

  “All of you guys. Thanks for not letting me run away when I first woke up at your camp.”

  “You couldn’t do much running back then.”

  “You know what I mean.” I playfully tapped my hand against his chest, and felt it heave when he laughed.

  He raised his hand and held it over my ear as he tangled his fingers around in my hair. His thumb rubbed against my scalp, and it was a soothing feeling. So soothing that it could possibly put me to sleep if I wasn’t careful.

  I wasn’t ready for sleep though. I wanted to keep the nightmares at bay as much as possible.

  Lifting my head, I brought it out from under his chin and then stretched up. My lips found his without issue, and his fingers tightened in my hair as his kisses grew hungrier. I wanted to feel his hunger and to satiate it.

  His arm around my back gave a gentle squeeze, and I was pressed up against him so tightly, that not even air could get through.

  Our mouths opened and closed to the cadence of the crackling fire, the heat between us feeding it more than the log did.

  He loosened his grip from around me and dropped his hand from my hair, tracing my jaw down to my neck, and then to my collarbone.

  I maneuvered myself around so I was straddling his lap. Our faces were now at a more even height, and my tongue slipped out to run along his lips, tasting every morsel of his kiss.

  His hand continued its way down the front of my body, leaving prickles of excitement behind on its way. He traced the outline of my breast before continuing even farther down.

  Shivers ran through me when he reached my hip, and then squeezed. My breath hitched as his fingertips dipped into the waistband of my pants, squeezing my ass as he hefted me closer to him at an even better angle.

  “Skittle,” he breathed, barely pulling his mouth away far enough to whisper.

  I draped my arms around his neck and closed the miniscule distance between our mouths once more. I didn’t like it when they parted. My hips rolled forward, feeling his hardness beneath me.

  I untwined my arms from around him and trailed my fingers down his chest, moving slow so I could feel each inch of every muscle on the way down. My fingers found the belt buckle and with deft movements, his erection was freed before he even realized what I was doing. I grinned against his mouth at his surprised gasp.

  I wrapped my hand around his cock and began to stroke. His mouth stopped moving against mine and I smiled when I felt a shudder roll through him.

  He leaned his head back, and I took the opportunity to admire his beauty in the firelight. The way the shadows danced across his face, and how the light illuminated the features I’d come to rely on.

  Even the moon was shining through the window above, the light mingling with that of the flames to create a perfectly beautiful glow.

  Light glinted off his lidded eyes as he moved both hands to the front of my pants. After a few quick movements on his part with the zipper and button, I rose onto my knees so he could pull them down, along with my underwear. Another awkward movement, and my legs were completely bare. I lowered myself toward his lap and stopped for a moment, hovering my face over his.

  A cloud must have moved in front of the moon, casting us in absolute darkness once again, except for the slightly lowering flames. Our mouths clashed together, and I lowered myself the rest of the way slowly, to accommodate his size.

  His hands landed on my hips, rocking them back and forth in a smooth, sensual motion. My body responded to his, grateful to finally have this connection. I arched back as he slid in deeper. Adam’s hair tickled the sliver of bare skin on my shoulder as he leaned forward to place gentle kisses down my neck. Molten heat seared through me with each connection of his lips, before he brought them back to my own.

  Our tongues met and tangled to the rhythm of my hips. He kissed and fucked me with as much yearning as I felt for him. His fingers bit into my skin, as I felt the waves of ecstasy begin to break through. A few more moments, and he pressed his mouth harder to mine, swallowing my moans.

  His arms banded around me and we fell until his back met the floor and our mouths parted. I stopped trembling, and laid my cheek on his chest, enjoying the steady thrum of his heart in my ear.

  “You’re amazing, Skittle.”

  I smiled. “You’re pretty amazing yourself.”

  “I don’t just mean that,” he corrected with a chuckle. “In general.” His palm rubbed up and down my back, while my fingers curled against his chest. “I know cleanup is probably a bit more of a hassle nowadays, but we should have some wipes or something somewhere.” I lifted my head and placed my palms on the floor, framing his head with my arms. “All that, and all you care about is making sure I’m cleaned up right after?” I exclaimed with incredulity.

  His shoulders brushed against my wrists when he shrugged. “I’m considerate.”

  A laugh bubbled in my throat. “Alright. Maybe in a minute. Right now, I just want to enjoy you.”

  I bent my head back down and placed a kiss on his lips.

  Missing Assistant

  We drove down a street until we saw the remains of a pile of rotters.

  “She was here,” Michael stated, pointing out the obvious.

  I pulled over, parked the car, and we got out, careful to step around the incinerated corpses that littered the road. Scorch marks were burned into the black pavement, alongside various tire marks. Someone left this area in a hurry. Although looking around, I couldn’t blame them. Looking like they were left no other choice.

  Walking around, we inspected more of the carnage. There was even more than before when we walked into the large Hennessy house weeks ago, and that was a lot. “They’re getting more restless, the rotters.” Michael went toward the steps of the house the carnage was surrounding. He moved so fast, he must have expected her to be in there. They’d be long gone by now, this battlefield was cold.

  “They’re not in there,” I called to him.

  “They?” His voice was an echo from inside.

  “She has to have found others and brought about their power. It’s the only explanation.” I walked toward the steps to follow him inside. “She can heal, but she doesn’t have the power to destroy. At least not on this level. She needs others for that. She may not even be fully aware of who, exactly, she’s traveling with.”

  I walked inside right as Michael reappeared from the hallway. “No one’s here. There are piles of stuff in the room, but nothing that’s really all that usable.”

  “Come on, let’s get back to the car. If that radio transmission that came across holds any truth to it, I’m sure they’d be heading south.”

  I turned around to face the door, but froze in place at the sight before me.

  Standing in the doorway was something I’d heard about from eavesdropping over the past several months, but had yet to see for myself.

  There was
a man, but nothing about him was ordinary. He wore a seemingly wrinkle-free black suit with a navy blue tie. He had one hand in his pocket, and the other hand was gripping a chain.

  I had a bad feeling I knew what may be on the other end of that chain.

  “Good day, sir.” His voice was level, as though this were the most normal situation in the world. “You wouldn’t happen to know about a girl going around on a killing spree, now would you?”

  I gulped. The chain in his hand moved, and whatever was on the other end of it and out of sight most likely moved as well.

  “I don’t really know much, I’m sorry. I just got here a moment ago and thought I would investigate this strange occurrence.”

  He stood there calm as could be. His face expressed zero emotion, and I mentally began to remember where each of my weapons were. I had two on me, one in the back of each pants pocket. Those were the small pocket knives, though, that didn’t cause any trouble when sitting down, so they were great in an emergency, but not the best to use as a primary weapon.

  I had a boot knife on the inside of my calf, which would be my best bet. Michael, who was still at the entrance of the hallway and farther away, had a knife strapped to his forearm. I really needed to learn his preparedness, and start strapping a knife to my forearm. This was the first time I’d felt like I needed one.

  “I can tell what you’re thinking, boy, and I’ll go ahead and stop you right there.” The man tugged on the chain, and a rotter hobbled into view.

  It had a muzzle over its mouth. What surprised me most of all, though, was the recently pressed black slacks and button up with the same shade of blue as the man’s tie. I gulped. Yup, we had definitely wandered into an area that may very well be more dangerous than scavers.

  He spoke again. “Now, I’ve been tracking this girl, who’s seemingly on a killing spree. My travels brought me here, so imagine my disappointment when I found you two instead.” He sighed, as to really drive home the feeling of his disappointment. “You don’t even fit the description of her companions, so I really have no use for you.”

  The man reached over and took the muzzle off the rotter. In the process, a chunk of skin fell onto the rotter’s shirt from its nose, along with a gooey yellow substance.

  The man sighed. “Oh, look at you, Billy. We just had this cleaned this morning.” The guy shook his head. “Well, may as well go all out now.” He then dropped the chain, and the rotter turned the remains of his nose toward us.

  Without wasting another moment, I lifted my leg and pulled the knife free from its holster on my calf, and raised it just in time to shove it into what’s left of the flesh on the rotter’s neck.

  Blyss

  I awoke to the low glow of a dying fire, still warm and snuggled in one of my favorite pairs of arms. Lifting my chin, I peeked through my eyelids at the man before me. He was fully awake and alert, his gaze focused on something over my head. He didn’t seem to realize I’d woken up yet.

  Taking advantage of the element of surprise, I quickly moved my body a little bit upward, so I could place a kiss on his lips.

  He smiled down at me when I dropped back into my laying position and snuggled into his chest.

  “Morning, Pepper,” I mumbled, into the cotton fabric that was stretched across his chest.

  “Morning, Skittle.”

  I pulled my head farther. “Did anything exciting happen last night?”

  He hesitated for a few moments. When my brain caught up to my mouth, I rushed to explain. “I didn’t mean that. Of course that was exciting. I meant you didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary? No rotters?”

  His chest reverberated with chuckles, and his grip around me tightened a fraction. “No rotters. Yes, something interesting did happen last night, but nothing along the lines of what you actually meant.”

  I was glad my face was buried in his chest so he couldn’t see my cheeks shifting between every single shade of red in existence.

  “Good,” I mumbled.

  He placed a kiss on the top of my head, before lifting my chin up with his finger and kissing my lips. Noises nearby distracted us, and we jumped up on instinct. We already had blades drawn by the time it registered that the noises we heard were coming from the bedroom, which I was actually supposed to be sleeping in.

  I apparently had a habit of disappearing from the room at night and causing them to panic in the mornings. I really needed to work on that.

  As I expected, somebody came crashing into the hall, running straight into the wall across from the room, probably forgetting about how Jonah had accidentally taken the door of its hinges the day before. This time it was Mateo’s wild, unkempt hair that I saw first. The wild locks had grown, and were now framing his forehead and giving his single eye a more menacing look, which I secretly loved.

  Blades drawn, he looked around with frantic eyes until they fell on me.

  “All is okay,” I stated, answering his unspoken question, right as Puppy appeared beside him.

  “Another nightmare?”

  I nodded, and he sheathed his blades before walking over to me. The others emerged through the open door, looking for a threat that wasn’t there.

  “Come on, guys, let’s see what we have to eat.” The fireplace only had faint embers left when I pulled together the backpacks that were mostly food.

  Jonah helped me shuffle around inside them, producing a few items. We decided to finish off the few crackers we had, along with a package of dried fruit and some nuts, so that it would make enough of a serving to get everyone by.

  “Do you want me to stoke the fire so you can have tea or coffee or something?” Lincoln asked, as he used a long wooden paddle to poke around in the embers. The blackened logs crumbled in the process, sending wisps of smoke swirling into the air.

  “Nah, I’m good. I still have half a bottle of the tea from yesterday. I’ll drink that.” I pulled out said bottle and the liquid inside swished around as I shook it.

  “Isn’t that cold?” Adam inquired.

  I shrugged. Cold tea was pretty low on my list of concerns for the day.

  Lincoln walked over and took the bottle. After a few moments, he handed it back to me, now much warmer to the touch.

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded and moved over to grab some of the food we’d set out.

  “Is that reheated tea?” Mateo questioned, his forehead creasing.

  I shrugged. “Not really in a position to be too picky about what I consume.”

  “No, not that. I’m trying to think of a reheated tea joke, but it doesn’t seem to be working out.”

  My body lurched as I tried to keep myself from spraying my drink everywhere in my laughter. Once I got myself together and managed not to choke, I collected myself and moved closer to them. “Well, that may not have been the typical kind of joke, but you still succeeded pretty well with it.”

  “Thank you.” With a straight face, he picked out some dried fruit and tossed it into his mouth.

  Maura selected out some crackers and tossed them to Puppy, before picking out a few more for herself. “So, what’s the plan today? Are we going to try and make it the rest of the way?”

  “As much as we can,” Adam answered around a mouthful of food, then swallowed. “As long as we don’t have any more problems, then we should be able to make it the rest of the way. Once we’re in the area, it hopefully shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

  We don’t know if it’s the whole city, or an area within the city. We don’t know how big this Salvaged Lands really is. But once we’re in the area, we can simply stumble around until we find it.

  “So, worst case scenario, we might find the place tomorrow at the latest,” I supplied.

  “What does this mean?” Maura repeated one of Jonah’s signs.

  I realized I seemed to have gotten the gist of most signs, and when someone used one I didn’t recognize, I still pretty much understood the sentence because of the other ones used. Being immersed in somet
hing new on a daily basis really changed a lot. Using signs while also speaking became second nature, and now I was doing it most times without really even thinking. I was pretty sure I’d made up my own signs most of the time, and Jonah was too nice to say something. He seemed happy I was even trying.

  “It means stumble,” Adam answered. “So, we’ll stumble around the city until we find something, basically.”

  We finished our meals and made sure our bags were all packed. Jonah and Mateo started loading them in the car, and I decided to walk around and see if there was anything else we could scavenge. We’d ended up leaving our river water clothes behind, so it would be good if we found some replacements around here before we left.

  Maura and Puppy followed me as I moved away. I walked to the nearest house and stepped inside.

  This was much like the one we stayed in—small and empty. “I think survivors may have already picked their area clean,” I commented, as I turned back toward the door.

  The sound of metal hitting the ground startled me, and I pressed my back against the wall. My hand ran along the wall until it got to my hip and pulled the blade from its sheath hooked to my shorts. Puppy was next to me, on full alert.

  Mentally counting to three, I poked my head around the doorframe. The only sign of life that I could see was the others loading the car. Mateo was standing by the opened car door, looking around as well. I definitely didn’t imagine the sound. It was more worrisome that neither of us could see anything.

  I stepped outside to get a better view. Off to my left, at the corner of the house, was a metal trash can. Small chomping sounds came from inside.

  Motioning to Mateo and pointing at the trash can, I slowly edged my way closer. In one giant movement, I lifted the trash can upside down to spill all of its contents onto the grass.

  I screamed once I realized what had caused the noise. Inside the can, and now on the ground, was a small opossum family—one adult and three babies.

  “Awww,” Maura gushed from the door of the house.