“We’d be dead without you.” He slapped Logan on the arm. “When we get to Oklahoma, we’ll be sure to repay you for everything you’ve done.”
“Not necessary,” Logan said in fake modesty.
“We have plenty to share,” Kellan assured him.
I wanted to groan.
Brady watched the exchange with an amused expression on his face, and when my eye caught his, he shot me a wink.
“Tell us about Oklahoma,” he said when there was a break in the pissing contest going on in front of us.
“It’s home,” I said with a shrug.
It was a relief that Kellan and Logan had decided to put their little competition to bed—at least for the moment—and had turned to listen.
“Don’t you get a lot of tornadoes there?” Logan asked.
Beth came back holding four glasses filled with a light brown liquid and passed them out. When she went back to the bar to retrieve a glass of water for herself, I couldn’t stop the wheels in my brain from spinning. I looked from her to Logan, thinking it through. She wasn’t… No. She couldn’t be. Well, she could, but if she was, it had to be early. She was really skinny.
“We have some pretty extreme weather,” Kellan replied while I studied Beth.
He lifted his glass to Logan in what I assumed was a peace offering, and the other man clinked his against it. I almost laughed.
“We had to take shelter in a cellar not that long ago.” I paused to take a sip, coughing when the liquid burned its way down my throat. “The tornado destroyed the house above us.”
“Oh my God,” Beth gasped.
I had to turn my head when I coughed again but managed to gasp out, “Yup.”
“It sounds terrifying,” Beth said.
“It was pretty…” Kellan looked at me, swallowing. “Scary. Fortunately, it wasn’t where we lived, or we would have been screwed.”
“Does your settlement have a basement?” Brady asked. “Or anywhere else you can hide from severe weather like that?”
I looked toward Kellan, waiting to see what he would say. He kept his expression neutral, not even blinking, and paused long enough to take a sip of his own drink.
Once he’d swallowed, he said, “We do have an underground space, thank God.”
It was hard not to laugh.
“Where are Ash and Ava?” I asked, wanting to change the subject before anyone asked more questions.
“Around here somewhere. You know how teenagers are.” Logan pressed his lips together like he was thinking something through then shook his head. “He better behave himself.”
He clearly had no idea that the girl only had eyes for him.
Beth snorted, and Brady gave him a quizzical look that made it seem like he thought the man in front of him might be missing a few brain cells.
“She’s a good girl,” he said simply before taking a big drink, finishing off the last little bit of liquid in his glass before setting it down. “And I am an old man, which is why I must take my leave.” He bowed his head at Beth before doing the same to me. “Thanks for the company and the entertainment.” He shot a look Logan’s way, smirking. “If you happen to see my daughter, let her know I’ve turned in.”
“You aren’t going to wait for her?” I asked.
Brady had started to turn but paused at my question. “I’m afraid there’s no reason to at this point in our lives. She moved into the room across the hall from me several months ago. A teenage girl and a man who isn’t really her father sharing such close quarters can cause more than a few raised eyebrows.” He lifted an eyebrow as if to accentuate his point.
I giggled, and Beth grinned.
Logan let out a groan. “Ash better not set foot in her room.”
“I’m not even a little concerned about it,” Brady replied, shooting Beth a questioning look. “Now, I will take my leave.”
After he disappeared, Logan let out a sigh. “I think he might be a little too trusting. I remember what it’s like to be a teenager.”
“Do you also remember having to like the person you fooled around with?” Beth asked with a smirk.
“You saw how Ash was acting around her,” Logan argued.
“Yes,” she replied, “but I also saw the way she looked at you.”
Logan opened his mouth to argue, but no words came out. He looked from Beth to me, and I nodded. Even Kellan couldn’t hold back a smile when Logan focused on him.
“Can’t lie,” Kellan said, raising his nearly empty glass. “She acted like she was standing in front of Zac Efron when she looked at you.”
“The non-zombie version,” I added.
Logan groaned. “How did I not notice it?”
“Because,” Beth wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him, “you’re always so focused.”
“On surviving,” he said.
“Even in the midst of trying to survive, you can’t avoid human urges.” Kellan gave me a knowing, and slightly suggestive smile. “I know all about that.”
“And I know all about your urges,” I said, grinning even as a flush warmed my cheeks.
He threw his head back and laughed.
“More drinks?” Beth asked.
“Sure.” I didn’t really need one. My head already felt a little fuzzy, but I couldn’t help wondering if she would get water again. “Let’s keep this party going. I think we could all use a night to relax.”
10
Thanks to the gentle rocking of the boat, I slept like the dead—before the zombie virus—waking from a night of dreamless sleep when the bright early sunshine penetrated my eyelids. In a totally uncharacteristic moment for me, I wasn’t the least bit disoriented when I opened my eyes. I remembered the day before, not just leaving the hotel and getting to the boat, and not just the sex—both on the balcony and later that night when Kellan and I got back to our room—but the hours of drinking with Logan. Beth, as I suspected, stuck to water.
Kellan was still out, snoring softly at my side, and while I had the urge to stay in bed staring at him forever, a night of drinking meant my bladder was fuller than it had ever been. It was literally begging for relief.
Once I’d taken care of business, I found I was wide-awake and starving. Logan had told us the night before that he’d arranged for everything to be taken care of while we were on board, so I dressed and headed out in search of food and coffee. And a pair of scissors, if I could manage it. A haircut was on the schedule for today.
Everything was easy to find. The food was in the room we drank in the night before, and the man behind the bar was more than happy to loan me scissors—with the understanding he would hunt me down if I didn’t return them.
When I slipped back into our room, barely able to balance the plate and two cups of coffee as I pushed the door open, Kellan was still out cold.
I set everything on the table and stripped off my clothes before crawling back into bed, diving under the covers so I could crawl up Kellan’s body. His skin was so warm against mine. Not hot the way it had been when he was sick, but in a vital way. It radiated off him, making me want to curl my body around his and wrap myself around him.
Instead, I focused on wrapping my hand around one specific part of his body.
He groaned and shifted, his hands moving to my head, and I took the hint. He gasped when I took him in my mouth, his hands holding my head gently as I moved, urging me to continue but not forcing me.
“Regan,” he said, my name coming out like a groan. “Come here.”
He grabbed my arm, urging me up, and I obeyed. The second our lips touched he twisted our bodies so he was on top of me, his mouth devouring mine as we moved together. Kissing. Caressing. Enjoying the respite from all the horror we’d seen over the last few days.
When we were done, we laid next to each other, drinking coffee and eating as we savored the safety of this boat. For the past nine years, I’d thought our shelter was the best place anyone could live during an apocalypse, but thinking about the life we
could lead on the American Queen, I began to wonder if I’d been wrong. Both places were safe, but here we could enjoy the sunrise and sunset, could see the country, could meet new people. Here we could spread our wings in a way we couldn’t living underground.
After breakfast, we moved to the bathroom. There was only a small tub, which was more than enough for us, and after filling it nearly to the brim with warm water, we slid in, Kellan first and then me. I rested my body between his legs, allowing him to wrap me in his arms and savoring both the warmth of the water and his embrace. This moment of peace felt unreal, but it was more than welcome.
“Just a couple days,” he said, brushing my damp hair back. “Then we’ll be home.”
In response, I twisted the top half of my body so I could kiss him.
After the bath, we dressed and returned to the veranda. Kellan sat in the chair as the ruins of the old world drifted by while I stood behind him, a comb I’d borrowed from Beth in one hand and the scissors in the other. I wasn’t very practiced at haircuts—Emma usually took care of that back at the shelter—but I did my best to trim it up evenly so it stayed out of his face. It didn’t look half bad when I was finished, either.
Once I’d finished, we went to the bar to return the scissors, and with nothing else to do, decided to walk around the boat for a while. I wasn’t used to the feeling of calm that had settled over me yet, but it wasn’t unwelcome. Life on the river was slow and easy. It eliminated the threat from the dead, minimalized the danger from other groups, and made the days seem lazy in a way I hadn’t experienced since I was a child. I wasn’t the only one who felt it, either. When we found Beth and Logan sitting at a table beside the old—and no longer in use—outdoor bar, the serene expressions on their faces said they felt the same way.
“Not sure what to do with myself,” Logan said, smiling up at us. “And I can’t remember the last time that happened. Usually, I have a million things that need to be done.”
“I hear you.” Kellan looked out over the water at the setting sun.
It was barely visible on the horizon, and what we could see was bright orange. Around it, the sky was painted pink and purple and orange, the colors blending together until they almost seemed like one.
“Where’s Ash?” I asked after looking around to confirm the kid wasn’t there.
“Ava.” Beth gave a little roll of her eyes. “She might have gotten over her little crush on Logan and transferred those feelings to a more appropriate location.”
Logan snorted like he still thought we were nuts.
“How’s Brady handling that?” I asked, a grin spreading across my face.
“Pretty well, I think,” Beth replied. “But it probably has more to do with the fact that we’ll be leaving very soon.”
“Unless Ash wants to stay,” I pointed out. “He could, you know. It would be a nice place for him.”
Like in the hotel when I’d first told Logan we’d be heading home, his back stiffened, and he sat up straighter. “We need him with us. We have a job to do.”
“Calm down.” Beth sighed and put her hand on his. “He’s seventeen years old and has his whole life ahead of him. You can’t expect him to never want to settle down. Especially if he meets a nice girl.”
Logan worked his jaw but said nothing.
“Why does it matter so much?” Kellan asked.
“It just does.” The other man didn’t meet his gaze, and after a second, he jumped to his feet. “I need to take a walk.”
Beth exhaled, watching him go with that same pained expression on her face from the other day, but said nothing.
Kellan caught my eye and shot me a questioning look, but I only shrugged.
He cleared his throat. “I’m going to find the captain. See how long before we get to our first stop.”
“Good idea,” I said.
He kissed me on the cheek, his gaze on Beth, then left without saying anything else.
I didn’t watch him go, but instead slid into the chair Logan had just vacated. “You okay?”
“Yes, and no.” She shrugged as if to indicate that even she didn’t know how she felt. “This is how it always is with him.”
“I don’t want to pry, but I have to be honest. I don’t understand why he’s so hell bent on doing this. It seems like a pretty big risk to take for strangers.”
Her eyes darted to me before focusing on her hands. She was twisting a thin golden band on her left hand, something I hadn’t noticed until now, focused so intently on the task that I didn’t think she was going to say anything at first.
Then, out of nowhere, she said, “We had a baby.”
My heart skipped a beat, and I found words impossible. Holy shit. No wonder she’d looked so devastated when she’d talked about losing someone she loved.
“A baby?” I said when she stayed quiet.
She reached back to gather her long, dark hair into a knot at the base of her neck as she nodded, still not looking at me. “Our daughter was born a few months after we found out Logan was immune. We met other people and learned he could have passed the immunity on to her. It felt like a blessing, and knowing our daughter could have that gift made the job of parenting in this world a little less terrifying.
“We were living in a settlement back then, but it wasn’t as secure as some of the other places we’ve seen. There was the occasional breach, but they had a good system in place, and the guards were usually able to take the dead out in minutes. I don’t know what happened that day, if they missed one or what. I just know a zombie came out of nowhere when Elizabeth was playing, and she was bitten.” Beth finished messing with her hair and dropped her hands to the table, staring at them instead of looking at me. “I knew there was a chance she would be okay, but I was still terrified. When she didn’t get sick, I felt like the luckiest person alive.
“Word got around the settlement that she was immune. We didn’t know any better and thought telling people was no big deal. There was a man—he was new—and unbeknownst to us, he was working for the CDC. He’d had his eyes on Logan, had just been waiting for the right time, but he saw our daughter as an easier target. He took her in the middle of the night. Snatched her out of her bed while we were sleeping.”
She balled her hands into fists, staring at them with an expression on her face that could only be described as a look of betrayal. Like she’d expected more out of them and couldn’t believe they had failed her.
“Before he could get out of the settlement, people spotted him,” she continued, her voice low and vibrating with pain and anger. “A fight broke out, and somehow Elizabeth was killed. Collateral damage.”
“Oh my God.”
It was all I could think to say, there were literally no words that would comfort someone after something like that. She tightened her fists until her knuckles turned white, and on instinct I put my hand over hers. They didn’t relax.
“We left the settlement after that. Just went out on the road and left all the pain behind.” Beth nodded, her eyes focused on my hand on top of hers. “We didn’t really have a plan, but a few months later when Logan came across a group searching for immune people, he killed them. He didn’t even hesitate. It was like taking a life meant nothing to him. I was heartbroken, but I couldn’t understand why he’d done it, and all he could tell me was that he wanted to make sure no one else went through what we had.
“It became an obsession after that. We went on the road and found other people, saved them, killed the bad guys. I kept telling myself it was cathartic for him and that he’d eventually move on. Four years have gone by, and nothing has changed. I’m starting to think it never will.”
“It still can.” My hand was still on hers, and I gave it a little squeeze. “Maybe he just needs something big to happen. Something new to live for.”
I chose my words carefully, not wanting Beth to know I suspected she was pregnant. If she told me, fine. But I wouldn’t force her to acknowledge it until she was ready. It had to be t
errifying, especially considering what she’d already lost.
“Maybe,” she replied, letting out a sigh, but said nothing else.
We stopped at a port not too far from where the Mississippi met the Arkansas River. From our position on the boat, we could see the fenced-in area where traders had set up in anticipation of the boat’s arrival. Outside the nine-foot chain link fence, a group of about a half a dozen zombies stood, their fingers curled through openings as they shook it. The clang of metal on metal was louder than the moans, but more unsettling. That fence was old and rusty, and it didn’t look like it could take too much of a beating before it would come tumbling down, and yet the men and women on shore didn’t seem to notice or care.
The captain and a few other people were the only ones to leave the boat. I spotted Brady among them, chatting with Stephen as they crossed the walkway.
“Looks like Brady is going to do some trading,” I said, nodding to where the man stood, a bag slung over his shoulder.
“He mentioned he’d be going ashore,” Kellan said, then out of nowhere added, “Logan seemed pretty upset at the idea of Ash leaving him.”
He put his arm around my waist, and I leaned into him, my mind replaying everything Beth had told me earlier. I hadn’t repeated the story to Kellan, and at this point, I didn’t know if I would. It seemed too personal to share right now. Maybe later, after we were back in the shelter and Logan and Beth had gone on their way. Maybe.
“I think he sees Ash as a little brother,” I said as way of explanation. “He did save the kid.”
“True.” Kellan nodded, a thoughtful expression on his face. “It felt like more than that, and the way he rushes into danger, risking himself for strangers. It seems pretty extreme.”
“He’s a Good Samaritan,” I said.
“Maybe,” he replied, but didn’t sound like he really bought the explanation. “Maybe there’s more to it.”
“If there is, it’s probably personal.”
Kellan shifted so he could look down at me, his eyebrows lifted in a silent question.
The Oklahoma Wastelands Series Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 67
