Her voice was low and she sounded like a mountain lion ready to strike. “You’re right, Larry. You smell like a goddamned rat.”
“Better than smelling like a tuna factory. How can you live with yourself?”
“Shut the fuck up.” Vera snarled and stuck the middle finger of her right hand up right in Larry’s face, just in front of his nose.
He glared back and grabbed her wrist. “Keep your fucking hand out of my face.”
Kevin was awake by then and said, “Christ. Can you guys just stop talking to each other?”
The two of them stood facing each other, unwilling to be the first to back down. Kevin pulled his arm out from behind me and stood up, and I saw Vera roll her eyes before saying, “Yes, dad. I think we can.” She then flipped Kevin off and plopped in her chair, grabbing the blanket off the back and curling up in it, burying her head inside. A lot of their arguments ended that way, or she’d run off to the bathroom and lock the door or even up the stairs to the sewing room. She was just as aggressive as Larry but she at least seemed willing to get away when it was clear there would be no winner in their fight. Larry, on the other hand, never seemed able to let anything go, and that was the cause of many of their arguments—old wounds continually reopened with his mean-spirited words.
A lot of times, I knew we were all getting off easy, because Larry felt like a ticking time bomb. But if he was a bomb, Vera was the fuse. I knew if we didn’t get out soon, something was going to happen. I could feel it in the air. I could only hope it was like what I’d studied about domestic violence—they’d blow and then they’d have a calm period. If so, the quiet period would no doubt last until we made it home.
Their fights continued to escalate and got more physical. It wasn’t just Larry losing it and slapping her, either. They both became violent and they both got in some mean licks. Kevin broke them up twice until he got a fist in the jaw for it—and then I got involved, too, and we both held them back from each other and told them to either break it up or fight in the garage or outside. They were pissed at us then, too, and that night in bed we agreed to just leave the room when they started up.
The problem was their fighting was becoming persistent.
But then, the weather broke. We had one sunny mild day, followed by another and another, and it was then that I noticed—all of a sudden, it seemed like the sun was rising earlier and earlier and it had seemed to happen overnight.
It gave me hope.
The problem, aside from the fact that I had spring fever worse than I ever had before in my life, was that there was still plenty of snow on the ground. Yes, it was melting, because for days we watched it drip off the roof, and in places where we’d walked and walked and walked, it had already melted and left mud. And the nights were still cold.
Then, before all the snow melted, we got a rain that turned into heavy, wet snow at night, and it continued all the next day. It felt like a setback and we began to feel cooped up once more.
It was the day of the worst Larry and Vera fight, and Kevin and I went out on the deck, bundled up, and watched the snow fall until it was quiet inside once more. Then we gave it another ten minutes for good measure. While we were out there, though, Kevin asked, “When will you feel good about leaving here?”
I couldn’t help myself. I started laughing. “Uh…when this shit melts. And it looks like we have plenty more where it came from.”
He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Soon, though.”
“Yeah,” I replied, resting my head against him. “Soon.”
Chapter Thirteen
Probably another week later, and the weather was nice enough that I was sure spring had already started. It had to be late March or early April, but I had no calendar as reference, no sense of detailed time. I also didn’t know much about the change of seasons at this higher altitude, so I wasn’t sure about any other signs. At home, there were buds on bushes, green grass, birds chirping, and early flowers blooming in addition to the longer days, warmer air, and snow turning to rain. Here, though, the only signs we seemed to have were the sun rising earlier and setting later…and melting snow.
Kevin and I were making our daily water run down to the creek, while Vera and Larry had been getting worse and worse. They hadn’t been physical as much over the last two days, but they hadn’t said a single word to each other that wasn’t nasty.
Except for today. It was eerie how quiet they were…and yet we could feel it. There was something hanging in the air, something charged—dangerous, violent. Something imminent.
I felt relief when we left the house and started walking down the mountain. At least we had warm air to walk through, so lovely we walked without gloves and without zipping up our coats. The inside of the house was beginning to feel colder than outdoors, but the weather had little to do with it. “Shit. What the hell’s going on with them?”
“No idea.”
“How long have they been married anyway?”
I tried to think but they’d never told me. “A long time. Their son is close to thirty.”
He shook his head. “What the hell?”
“I know. You’d think they’d be used to each other’s bullshit by now.”
We were quiet, our shoes making slushy noises in the melting snow, and something gripped me—a stupid question I had to ask, but it never needed to be answered. “I wonder what we would have been like if—” And then I cut myself off. No. I didn’t want to know what his answer would be, and if I kept talking, it would beg for one.
His gait slowed and he glanced my way, first looking at my hand wrapped around the handle of the axe that had become my new travelling weapon, and then his eyes drifted up to meet mine. “If we?” A smile curled up the corners of his lips ever so slightly, and I couldn’t tell if he was being mischievous or if he genuinely wanted to know. “If we’d—”
He couldn’t say it, either. “Yeah. If we’d gotten together.”
We were quiet again and he finally said, “Well, my wife and I stayed together a long damn time. How long were you and your husband together?”
“Over twenty.”
“Yeah. Us, too.”
We didn’t talk for a while longer until I said, “So…chances are…”
“Good.”
I started thinking of how I’d felt about him back then, how infatuated I’d been, how I’d drowned in a feeling of giddy happiness at just the thought of being around him. I don’t know why I felt the need to say anything. I could have just kept my mouth shut, but I was trapped in that old feeling, the sensation of walking on feathers and drinking in sunshine. It was a heady feeling of hope and anticipation, one I hadn’t experienced firsthand in decades. It made me brim over with a need to share.
I should have felt my cheeks redden as I began gushing, but I’d already told him so much and had been through so much in my life that it didn’t bother me like it maybe should have. However, that didn’t stop me from keeping my head facing straight ahead, my eyes looking forward. “It’s hard to say. I mean…I look back at myself then and never in a million years would have predicted that my life would have gone the way it did. But back then? Oh, God. I thought I loved you. You were all I thought about…all I dreamed about. Yeah, my head was filled with ideas of college, and physics, and senior seminar, and music—but you trumped it all. Your face was the last thing I saw in my head before I fell asleep and the first thought I had in the morning when I woke.” My voice got lower but my pace quickened, because I could see him out of the corner of my eye looking at me, and I wanted to finish what I had to say. I kept walking forward and talking. “I wanted to give you everything—everything in me, everything I was. I wanted to be with you, be filled with you, be part of you. Marriage? Forever? Yeah…” I could barely hear myself as my voice dropped to a whisper, but then my steps slowed because the creek was just ahead a few yards. “That would have been just as easy.”
I felt his eyes burning me while my heart thudded in my chest, and not due
to exertion. I was breathless then and, oddly enough, on the verge of tears. When I finally forced myself to look him in the eyes, I saw a kind look on his face, gentle and full of love. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” I let out half a chuckle, but words were no longer easy to access. I searched his eyes and saw them change from amused and sweet to something darker, more animal, tapping into the uncivilized part of himself as we’d been doing more and more over the past few months. “Why didn’t you ever do anything, Nina?” He put down the tire iron and jug, shaking off the backpack, and touched my cheek with his hand. His voice was the equivalent of a pin drop, and—in spite of the babbling creek nearby—I would have sworn animals for miles could hear it. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Because I was afraid of…” Rejection. The very thing he likely felt from my inaction.
“What was there to be afraid of?”
“I—” His kiss interrupted anything else I would have thought to say. His fingers wound into my hair, holding my lips up to his, not that I would have ever dreamed to pull away, because the truth was I still belonged to him, down to the depths of my very being. In desperation, I let the axe drop into the snow below and shrugged off my backpack, grabbing the sides of his coat to pull him as close to me as possible.
I needed him that moment and was not going to wait.
He felt the same way. As my fingers fumbled with the button on his pants, I felt his hands graze down the front of me, under my coat, and I had my hand on his cock by the time the zipper was down on my pants. He slid his fingers down my slit and I gasped, amazed that I was that close already. Then I felt his hands move to my sides as he lifted me up and I maneuvered him inside me as he walked a few steps, backing me against a tree.
We were animals. The last few months had turned us into beasts. But it was more than that. It wasn’t just that we were operating on our basest instincts, our primal needs and desires, but we seemed to be down to the core—raw, honest, and free. Even Larry and Vera, as abhorrent as they’d become, seemed to be stripped of the layers we wore every single day in our old lives. We were living life as it came, taking the cards it dealt, and unconcerned about tomorrow except for one singular desire—to leave this place.
Kevin and I were in tune with each other, it seemed, because we reached our climax about the same time, but as I came down, clenching against him, I felt a stab of dread inside. I felt my eyes widen as I looked at him, and he registered my panic. “What?”
I sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t know.” He set me down and zipped up in seconds, turning around and scanning the landscape. Then he dashed to where we’d dropped our things, gripping the tire iron in his hand while turning around, still searching the land. What we’d done had been stupid, and it was probably the only time we’d ever dropped our guard while outside the house.
“Everything seems okay, Nina,” he said as I joined him. “But maybe we shouldn’t fuck around. Let’s get the water and get back.”
“Yeah.” But I couldn’t shake that feeling of unease.
Chapter Fourteen
As we trekked back up the mountain for what seemed like the thousandth time in the months we’d been there, Kevin moved the tire iron to his hand that held the jug and wrapped his free hand in mine. In spite of the fact that an overwhelming dread had taken up residence in the pit of my stomach, I felt no fear walking beside him. No matter what we had to face, I knew I could do anything with him.
It was like the infected man I’d had to kill a couple of months earlier. I never would have thought I’d have the strength or fortitude to do that, in spite of the fact that I knew I was a strong person, but Kevin’s belief in me and words of encouragement allowed me to grasp the idea that I could do anything I set my mind to.
Anything.
The closer we got to the house, the more anxious I felt. Something was wrong—very wrong—and I had no real way of knowing for certain. It was simply a feeling in the air, in my bones. It seemed as though Kevin could sense it in me or maybe he could feel it too, because we weren’t wasting anytime walking back.
As we rounded the last corner and took in the house nestled on the hill, nothing seemed amiss. It looked just like it had when we left, and yet that feeling of dread increased, making my stomach knot up. “You okay?” Kevin asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“You’re as pale as the snow.”
I frowned. “Something’s wrong.”
“Inside?”
“I don’t know. Just…” The breath caught in my throat before I was able to add, “Let’s just be careful when we go inside.”
He nodded but said nothing. As we got closer to the deck, he pointed at a spot in the snow with the tire iron. I saw it, too. It wasn’t big, and if we hadn’t been looking down, we probably wouldn’t have spotted it—but it was blood.
Had someone infected found our hideaway?
Kevin brought the hand holding the tire iron up to his face and managed to stick his index finger up in front of his lips, indicating to me that he thought we needed to be quiet. I nodded my head to let him know I understood. Then, we walked the last few steps to the deck, and Kevin placed the jug of water on its flat surface, followed by the backpack. I followed suit, putting mine down on the deck as well before picking up the axe once more. Then he signaled me to follow him as he walked toward the front door that led to the living room of my aunt’s house. He didn’t go to the door, though. Instead, he walked to the big windows of the living room and pressed his hand against the glass, shielding the outside light, and then pressed his forehead against his hand. I joined him and also looked inside. Everything seemed still but…not quite right.
Kevin stepped away from the window and turned around to survey the land about the house. Then he whispered, “Well, I guess we head inside. You okay with that, or you want to stay out here?”
“I’ll go in with you.” In fact, I was starting to feel a little silly, because—other than the spot of blood in the snow that could have been almost anything—there were no signs that anything was wrong…other than a funny feeling in my gut.
He opened the door and stepped inside. The only sounds were the crackling of the ever-present fire. He glanced back at me and I followed him in. “Hello?” he called, and I half-expected either Vera or Larry to holler back from upstairs or the kitchen, but as we continued making small steps farther into the house, there were no answers.
It wasn’t until we’d closed the front door and walked all the way into the living room that we saw her. Vera was splayed out on the floor in front of the chairs we’d thought of as hers and Larry’s. She was bleeding from a wound or wounds in her stomach, and the bottom half of her t-shirt was colored a dark red, drenched. “Oh, my God.” Releasing the axe from my grip, I moved toward her quickly.
“That’s not a good idea, Nina,” Kevin cautioned, but it was too late. I’d already dropped to the floor beside her.
I was convinced she was dead, and I wondered if maybe she’d become infected while we’d made our journey to the creek. If so, Larry had likely done the deed and, for all we knew, was off somewhere mourning. But as I sat there trying to sort through my emotions, I saw the slightest movement of her chest. “Vera?” I whispered.
Her eyes fluttered until she opened one of them to look at me. I saw her mouth move a little but she couldn’t say anything. “Oh, God.” I looked up at Kevin. “She’s still alive.” I glanced back down at Vera. I would have thought I would have seen nothing but pain in her eyes, but instead, I saw weakness, numbness, and acceptance. “Can I get you anything?”
She mouthed no and I took one of her hands in mine. I hoped I wasn’t hurting her, but I knew that, at the end of my days, I’d probably want love and comfort—if not from a loved one, at least from someone who might have cared something about me. At the very least, I was no stranger. From the time we’d spent together over the past several months, we were practically family.
Vera answered our unasked question. “
Larry,” she said, her voice barely audible, more a rasp than anything else. I shook my head and felt a tear fall from one of my eyes, but I had no idea why. Then the woman found some hidden reserve of strength, just as I expected her to give up the ghost. “He doesn’t want to go back. The car…”
She blinked a few times and closed her eyes once more, and I thought then that she had definitely passed. In spite of her proximity to the fire, her hand felt like ice in mine, and I knew she didn’t have much time left on this earth. Kevin came and knelt beside me, placing his hand on my shoulder. “What’s she saying?”
“I don’t know.”
Vera’s eyes opened again and she tried to focus on Kevin. “Keep an eye on her.” Her words came out raggedly. “He’s danger…”
“Larry?” Kevin asked.
“Yes.” She pulled in several slow, deep breaths before continuing. “He broke the car, spilled the gas on…” She seemed to fall asleep, but then I knew she’d slipped away. Except she hadn’t. How she managed to continue holding on, I’d never know, but she had more to say. “Wants to stay here, wants to kill.” This time, she looked like she drifted off to sleep again, and I waited patiently for her eyes to open once more.
Only they didn’t.
Kevin reached over and felt her wrist, and then he touched my hand. His voice was quiet and gentle when he said, “She’s gone, Nina.”
My eyes squeezed out two tears and I blinked them away. The sadness was quickly replaced by anger toward the man accused. “Why?”
Of course, he had no answer for me and he didn’t even try. Instead, he pulled me into an embrace after helping me stand. After a few minutes, he said, “We should probably get out of here.” His voice was low as I blinked. “If he really did this, then we’re not safe. Let’s get some water and food and head to our place.” I nodded so he knew I understood him. I got the feeling he wasn’t convinced that Larry wasn’t somewhere in the house…but the blood outside and the heinous thing he’d done made me believe he was long gone. I looked down at Vera one more time and squatted to touch her hand, trying not to look at all the blood. How someone could do something like that to someone he loved…but I knew Larry was gone—something had happened in his head, and he was not the man I’d known back in Winchester. Something inside him had snapped, and this final act of murdering his wife proved it.
Wilder (Savage #2) Page 10
