Footsteps pounded up the stairs at my back, and I turned toward the sound, waiting to see who was coming. A few seconds passed before Kellan appeared, already frowning like he, too, could hear the argument. His dark hair was longer than it used to be and now had the annoying habit of falling over his forehead and covering his eyes. He was constantly pushing it back even though it never made a difference, and he was in the process of running his fingers through the dark locks when he stopped in front of me.
“They’re going at it again?” His hair flopped across his eye.
“You should get a haircut,” I said instead of answering his question.
There was no need, not when Emma’s voice had reached the shrill tone Blake liked to refer to as her mom voice. It never failed to make whatever argument they were having even more heated than it had been before. Not that he seemed to care.
As if on cue, Emma snapped, “Maybe if you didn’t act like a child I wouldn’t have to act like your mom.”
I exhaled and leaned my head against the wall. “I need a break.”
“We all do,” Kellan said.
He kept walking, though, shaking his head as he made his way into the war zone, and I pushed off the wall, either resigning myself to the inevitable or gaining courage now that I had Kellan as backup. I wasn’t sure which one.
Emma and Blake used to stop fighting when someone walked into the room, but now they didn’t even pause. They kept at it as Kellan hurried by, with me right on his heels, both of us pretending they weren’t there.
Maybe if we didn’t make eye contact they wouldn’t engage…
“Can you believe this, Regan?” Emma said as I passed her.
Ducking my head lower, I took off in a sprint.
“Coward,” Kellan hissed when I charged past him.
I didn’t slow until I’d I reached the old computer room, which we now used for storage, allowing him to catch up.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Kellan said when he fell in next to me.
Emma’s and Blake’s voices hadn’t faded completely, but once we reached the control room level they’d be out of earshot—I couldn’t wait. Although, leaving the shelter altogether was the only way to escape them completely.
Once we made it up the stairs, putting more distance between the fight and us, I turned so I was facing Kellan, walking sideways and batting my eyes as I smiled up at him.
He cocked his head to the side, the corner of his mouth twitching with amusement. “What?”
“Just thinking about how handsome you look.” I waved to his ratty shirt and worn jeans. “Like the dashing hero of a post-apocalyptic movie.”
Kellan snorted, letting me know he thought I was full of shit, but his dimples deepened at the same time. “What do you want?”
“We should take off for the day.” I stopped and grabbed his arm, hopping up and down like a kid begging for sweets. “Pleeeease.”
“No.” Kellan pulled his arm from my grasp and kept walking. “We have work to do.”
I rushed to keep up. “Then we’ll make it a work trip. You can take me hunting.”
He snorted yet again, only this time there was less amusement in the sound and more annoyance. “You’re a shit shot.”
“Only because you won’t let me go anywhere,” I grumbled and then pasted the smile back on my face. “Fishing, then. It’s nice out.”
“It’s over a hundred degrees,” was Kellan’s flat reply.
We had almost reached the control room when he stopped walking, and I knew I’d won. He liked to give me a hard time, but only yesterday he’d said he wanted to head out and do some fishing, and even though I wasn’t the least bit interested in catching fish, doing a little swimming sounded amazing.
“We could jump in the water, maybe, like we did when we were kids,” I continued. “Cool off a little. It will be nice.”
I grabbed his hand, and when his gaze moved down, focusing on our entwined fingers, a strange expression crossed his face, one I couldn’t read. It was gone in a second, though, and he jerked his hand out of mine.
“I don’t know if there’s enough water left in the river.” Kellan shoved his hands in his pockets, his focus not on me, but on the wall at my back. “We can give it a shot, though.”
Kellan had been right about the river. The drought had dragged on for so long that the riverbed was narrow and shallow now, the earth lining it cracked and dry like the lips of a person who’d been wandering the desert for days. What little water remained looked more like a mud puddle than the river I remembered from my childhood, and I wasn’t even a little interested in swimming in it.
We’d had to park on the side of the road and hike to find an area deep enough for fish, and all the while the June sun had pounded down on us. Sweat had begun to collect under my breasts less than a minute after we started walking, and by the time we reached an area deep enough for fishing, my shirt was clinging to my skin like it was holding on for dear life.
Kellan stopped under a tree and set the fishing equipment down. “This should be a good spot.”
The branches above us were sparse, the leaves, withered from lack of water, providing almost no shade from the intense Oklahoma sun. Not that it would have mattered if they had, not when it was this hot. With weather apps a thing of the past, it was impossible to know what the temperature was for sure, but it had to be well into the hundreds, and when it got this hot, there was no escaping it. Shade or no shade.
“I’m dying,” I said in a dramatic tone as I plopped down on the ground under the tree, allowing the shadows from the branches to dance across my scorched skin.
Kellan, who was in the middle of preparing his fishing rod, looked up long enough to shoot me a grin. “This was your idea.”
“What can I say?” I didn’t look his way, instead focusing on untying the laces on my boots. “I’m an idiot.”
Once I’d successfully untied them, I kicked the boots away and peeled the socks from my sweaty feet, wiggling my moist toes. It did nothing to help cool me off, so I got to my feet and hiked my shirt up as far as I could without exposing my breasts, fanning it up and down in a futile attempt to get the air moving.
Kellan, still crouched in front of his fishing equipment, stared up at me with an odd expression on his face, frozen in place like he’d forgotten what he was doing. His brown eyes, shadowed under dark hair that had once again fallen over his forehead, moved over my bare stomach, and he swallowed but said nothing. He didn’t even move.
I stopped fanning myself. “What?”
The way Kellan’s eyes darted down to his fishing rod reminded me of a startled jackrabbit taking off. “Nothing. Sorry.” He let out a chuckle that sounded forced then cleared his throat. “I was thinking about how different things are now compared to when we were kids.”
“Wow. Thanks a lot, Debbie Downer.”
Again, Kellan looked up at me, this time smiling until his dimples deepened in an adorable way, and I found my own thoughts going to the kid he’d been before the apocalypse changed everything.
“Debbie Downer?” he asked.
“You know, the person who always has to bring you down when you’re having fun.”
“Were you having fun? Because from where I’m sitting, you were bitching about the heat.” Kellan dropped the fishing rod and got up, giving me a mischievous smile that reminded me a little too much of when we were kids. “If it’s fun you’re looking for, though, I can make that happen.”
I backed away, my hands out in front of me and my shirt still hiked up, stuck to my damp stomach like someone had glued it there. “What are you doing?”
“You said you were hot.” His smile grew as he nodded toward the river and took another step toward me. “There’s a way to fix that.”
“Kellan,” I said, giving him a warning look that contrasted with the smile on my face. “Don’t.”
“I thought you were hot?” He grabbed my wrist and pulled me forward, wrapping his arms around me.
I let out a squeal. “It’s muddy!”
“This is the apocalypse,” he said, his mouth right up against my ear. “You need to get used to being dirty.”
My legs flailed when he lifted me, desperate for purchase but unable to find solid ground as Kellan moved toward the river, laughing just like he had when we were kids. I was cracking up, too, but also yelling at him and fighting to get away while he dragged me closer to the muddy river, his own chuckles vibrating through his body, and mine.
“Here we go,” he said, swinging me around.
“Kellan!”
I grabbed onto his arms even though he wasn’t really going to throw me, and my legs swung through the air as he spun in a circle, turning around until we had our backs to the river, where he finally set me down.
His arms were still around me, though, and he was still cracking up, but something about the moment had changed for me. Maybe it was the comforting warmth of his arms on my bare stomach, or how his muscles had flexed under my hands as I tried to hold on, or possibly even the way his soft stubble had brushed against my face. I had no clue. The only thing I was certain of, was that after twenty years of knowing Kellan, I was aware of him for the first time.
“Jerk,” I said, pulling out of his grasp and stumbling away.
My heart pounded in my chest, twice as hard as usual, and my blood was hot, burning through my veins and heating my skin in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature. It was all Kellan.
He turned back to his discarded fishing rod, still laughing, while I watched him through the curtain of hair that had fallen over my face. His black hair had fallen over his forehead, nearly covering one of his eyes, and when he went to cast his fishing line, his muscles flexed. His skin was several shades darker than mine thanks to his Kiowa heritage, which he’d gotten from his father, and the dark stubble dotting his chin that only a few minutes ago had rubbed against my neck was softer than the stubble Cade and Blake sported—another attribute he’d gotten from his father.
When had Kellan gotten so good looking, and why had I never noticed the way his eyes sparkled when he smiled, or his dimples? I’d always known he had dimples, but I’d never thought about them before now. Why?
“You should have seen your face.”
His focus was on his task, but he was still chuckling, and I was still staring, still thinking about how soft his brown skin had been against mine.
The sudden fear that he might be able to tell what was going through my head hit, and heat crept up my cheeks as my face grew hotter, and I forced myself to look away before he caught me ogling his muscles.
“You’re a jerk,” I said, but it came out halfhearted, and too shaky for him to take my words seriously—not that he ever had before.
Kellan looked over his shoulder, shooting me a grin, and I forced my eyes to stay down, certain that if I looked at him now I wouldn’t be able to hide what I was thinking.
“I was trying to help you cool off.”
Cool off? If that had really been his goal, he’d failed, because I felt like I was standing on the surface of the sun.
“Whatever,” I said.
I turned away from him, desperate for some space, and pretended to focus on my boots even though I had no idea why I would be staring at my boots right now. I needed to focus on something else. Anything but Kellan.
He stood and moved to the edge of the river. My head was still down, but my focus was completely on him, watching as he lifted his arm to cast, focused on his biceps and how they flexed. Thinking about his skin against mine, about his soft stubble brushing my neck…
“Get a grip,” I mumbled under my breath.
Something scratched against the ground to my right, and I looked up just as a hot gust of air swept over me, bringing with it the scent of death. The bushes rustled, and my pulse quickened. I opened my mouth to call out to Kellan, but the words were cut off when a zombie stumbled into view.
I was in a crouched position when it lunged, its mouth already open and its decaying hands reaching for me, and I stumbled back, too taken by surprise to do anything other than crawl away. I only succeeded in falling, though, and when I went down, the zombie went, too, dropping on top of me in a tangle of rot and stink, growling and reaching, his mouth open and ready. Somehow through my twisting and struggles, I managed to wiggle out from under him, but I didn’t make it far before his fingers had wrapped around my right ankle. He pulled, and I vaguely registered the sound of Kellan yelling my name, but it all seemed to be happening in slow motion, and I couldn’t do anything but watch in frozen terror as the zombie’s mouth opened and his teeth sank into my flesh.
Blood burst from the bite, and a scream ripped its way out of my mouth. It should have hurt, and pain did pulse through me, but oddly enough it wasn’t my leg that throbbed. It was in my heart.
The creature was still gnawing on my ankle when Kellan slammed his knife into the zombie’s skull, freeing me from its bony grasp. I scooted back, away from the dead man, my eyes focused not on the bite for some reason, but on Kellan, while my heart thumped in my ears.
“Regan.” He took one step before his legs seemed to give out and he dropped to his knees at my side.
I couldn’t force myself to look at the bite, but it seemed to be the only thing he could focus on, so I stared at him while he stared at my throbbing ankle, and for a few moments neither of us moved.
It didn’t seem real. I’d thought I’d long ago accepted the reality of what it meant to live in the zombie apocalypse, what could happen if I wasn’t careful. I’d been wrong. This was something no one could prepare for, something that could never feel real. It was the end, and never in my life had such an overwhelming pain shot through me.
A moan broke through the air, and Kellan’s head snapped up. He looked around before reaching for me, grabbing my hand and yanking me to my feet, yelling, “We have to go!”
I took a couple throbbing steps before reality sank in and I yanked my hand out of his. “No.”
Kellan spun to face me, his brown eyes wide and more terrified than I’d ever seen them. “We have to go. Now!”
“There’s no point.” Tears filled my own eyes, blurring his face, and I fought to hold them back, knowing it would only make things more difficult.
“Don’t.” Kellan took a step toward me, his hand out, reaching for me. “Don’t say that. Don’t, Regan.”
“Kellan, I—”
He grabbed my arm, his fingers digging into my elbow in a punishing grip. “You will come with me. You will come back to the shelter. Do you hear me?”
Something in his tone made it impossible to argue, and when a group of zombies broke through the trees at our side, I allowed Kellan to pull me forward.
We charged into the trees, in the opposite direction of our car, while at our backs the horde growled and snarled. I was barefoot, running over jagged rocks and prickly plants that left microscopic stickers in my skin. My ankle throbbed with every step, but even worse was the knowledge that the zombies were still behind us and I was slowing Kellan down. At our backs the dead moaned as they barreled through the brush, either a newer strain or recently turned, because they were faster than they should have been. And I was putting Kellan’s life in danger.
“Kellan,” I gasped. “You have to leave me.”
“No.” He moved faster, pulling on me harder, not looking back.
“I’m dead weight,” I screamed, throwing the words he’d said to me eight years ago in his face. “I’m going to get you killed.”
“Shut up,” was his only response.
We kept moving, but I was in too much pain—both physically and emotionally—to register where we were going until we’d burst out of the trees and onto a road. The farmhouse came into view, only the top of the roof visible through the trees and thick weeds, and Kellan finally stopped. He was panting and drenched in sweat when he scooped me into his arms, but when he started running again, he didn’t even seem winded.
Adrenaline, I realized. This was what adrenaline did to a person.
The dead were still behind us when we burst into the farmhouse. Kellan set me down and dashed across the room, pushing the couch aside so he could pry the loose floorboards up and retrieve the weapons we’d long ago stashed there. Then he was out the door, gun and knife in hand, and I watched him from where I stood in the middle of the room, gasping and sobbing as a pool of blood collected on the floor at my feet. He was like a wild animal, taking the zombies out one after the other, roaring in either triumph or fury each time his blade sank into a skull.
By the time he turned back to me, his face and arms were splattered with black blood, and his shirt was dotted with the stuff like he was a canvas instead of a man. Kellan’s shoulders heaved as his eyes met mine, and that was when I collapsed.
“Regan.” A hand moved over my forehead, gentle and as soothing as the voice of the person calling my name. “Wake up.”
I fought to pull myself from the black abyss, feeling like I was climbing out of a hole deeper than the Grand Canyon. My eyes fluttered, light penetrating the darkness surrounding me, and when I shifted, pain pulsed up my ankle.
Then I remembered.
“No.” I bolted upright, reaching for Kellan even though I should have been pushing him away.
I was on the couch, and he was kneeling next to me, and I only managed to grab his shoulders. I wanted to pull him up with me, to have him wrap his arms around me, but I didn’t dare do it because I was too afraid I would attack him.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re okay.”
But I wasn’t.
I forced myself to look at my ankle for the first time. The bite was on the inside of my leg, throbbing, the blood smeared across my skin making it impossible to get a good look at it. Not that it mattered. A scratch from an infected person was a death sentence. There was no coming back from a bite.
“You need to take care of me,” I said, still looking at the bite, unable to force myself to meet Kellan’s gaze while asking him to do the unthinkable.
The Oklahoma Wastelands Series Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 30
