Shadows Have Gone (19 page)

Carly remembered her own awkwardness when she’d first joined Justin and she had to stand around and watch as he did all the things necessary for them to survive, things she hadn’t known how to do, like set up the tent, purify water, and clean game. She had learned quickly, but she had felt like dead weight at the beginning. She wondered if Justin had ever been tempted just to walk away from her.

“I pushed them hard. Maybe too hard. I lived in a state of anxiety that summer, feeling horribly guilty for the way I was driving them. I felt like a bully, but at the same time, I had no choice. Just like if I was dragging her out of that burning house, you know? We couldn’t linger. But we still didn’t make it south before winter hit. We were in Oklahoma when the snows began. I searched until I found us a house with a wood-burning stove, but there wasn’t much in the way of supplies. I had to travel out every day, looking for wood, looking for food, looking for cars to pump gas from and hope this wasn’t the time the truck wouldn’t start.

“I felt horrible about it, but sometimes I stayed out longer than I had to, just to get some peace. I would start a fire at another house and curl up in front of it with a book. Being ‘at home’ felt like a constant battle.

“In late winter, the little girl got sick. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. Fever, diarrhea. I scouted for medicines for her, tried to keep her hydrated when I was home, but it seemed like she just kept getting worse.

“I came home one evening and found the mother hanging from a tree in the front yard. She left a long note, citing everything that was wrong with the world as the reason why she couldn’t go on.” Pearl stopped and winced. “I can hear the sarcasm in my own voice, and I still feel bad, but at the same time . . . I don’t. She decided to check out and left her daughter lying sick in bed in that house. She was sure the kid was going to die and couldn’t take watching it happen. She never really tried to survive. Fought it every step of the way. And then left me with her child to take care of.

“I kept the note for the child, in case she ever wanted to read it, but I didn’t even finish reading it myself, to tell you the truth. It made me angry. I couldn’t save her. In the end, she didn’t want to be saved. But the guilt still lingers with me to this day, as stupid as I know that is. It’s just something I can’t let go of.

“I went inside and found out one of the reasons why the kid was so ill. She was standing on a chair, filling a glass of water to drink right out of the faucet. I asked her what she was doing, and she said mommy told her to. I had told her mother again and again the water had to be boiled because it wasn’t purified any longer and we couldn’t know about the pipes . . .” Pearl sighed. “I started giving her only purified water, and for a little while longer, she seemed to be getting better. I still don’t understand . . . she died in the spring. I was taking care of her the best I could, but something happened. I was gone, out looking for supplies. When I came back, she was dead. I don’t want to talk about it any more than that. She died and it was my fault.”

“Pearl, I’m sure it wasn’t—”

“Carly, I don’t want to explain, okay? It was my fault, and we’ll leave it at that. I should have . . . she was little. I shouldn’t have left her alone. But she was still recovering from her illness and . . . I’m selfish. I needed some time to myself. I went out for supplies, and when I came back . . .” Pearl’s hands dug into the soil, clenching fistfuls of earth.

Carly nodded toward the baby in her playpen the porch. “Sometimes she’s too much for me, and I love her with every fiber of my being. Fortunately, I have Justin and Kaden to help out when I need a break. You were thrown into a situation of taking care of a little girl, and you didn’t have that love to give you strength and patience.”

Pearl just shook her head and said nothing.

“I know you, Pearl. I know you well enough to know you did the best you could. Probably better than most people would have if they were put in the same situation.”

“Not good enough,” Pearl said from behind the low brim of the hat. “She’s still dead. It doesn’t matter now. She’s dead, and I can’t change that. As much as I want to. And so now you know. Why I don’t want to ever be responsible for someone again. It’s hard enough to be responsible for your own survival these days. I don’t need to carry anyone else’s burden.”

“Sometimes, the ones we’re responsible for help us carry our burdens,” Carly said.

“Yeah, and sometimes they’re just dead weight.” Pearl sat back on her heels and flinched, as if from the impact of her own words. “Wait, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“It’s okay,” Carly said. “You’re right. Some people are dead weight. I was, once. Justin carried me until I could stand on my own feet again, and now we support each other. Some people are just made to carry others, Pearl. Because you
can
.”

“I failed.”

Carly nodded. “Maybe. But you make up for that by trying again.”

Pearl gave her an amused look. “Is that so, Little Miss Sunshine?”

“Or you can wallow in self-imposed punishment. Your choice. I do know this—cutting yourself off emotionally from people isn’t healthy. Especially these days, when we have to depend on one another for survival.”

“I don’t like dependence.”

“No kidding.” Carly laughed. She pinched a bug from a tomato plant. “Justin’s like that, too, but I think his came from the way he grew up. You’ve never really said much about your family, so I wondered . . .”

Pearl shook her head. “No. I had a wonderful family life. I wasn’t like this Before.”

“You don’t have to stay that way, you know, if you don’t like it.”

Pearl looked startled for a moment. “You know how they say we’re products of our environment. You changed, too, according to what you’ve told me. I feel like I was soft clay Before, and now I’ve hardened in the fire.”

“I don’t believe that. Maybe you’re more like steel. Hardened and tempered in the fire, but you can bend. You’re not brittle like pottery. You’re flexible.”

Pearl glanced at her and said nothing, the blade of her trowel biting into the earth as she dug out the root of a weed.

Justin entered the house and spotted Carly in the kitchen. She was carrying a covered plate from the stove to the counter. His dinner, most likely, and she had probably decided to take it off the warmer before it dried out to an inedible mass.

Sam got up to greet him, and Carly was alerted to his presence by the movement. She turned to smile at Justin, but the smile fell from her lips before it was even fully formed.

“Jesus, Justin.” Carly set down the plate and hurried over and put her arms around him in a hard hug. “What was it? What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” he said. “No one’s hurt or anything, and there’s no danger. Not right now anyway.”

She drew back to look up into his face. “Did you . . . did you see someone?”

“I didn’t see anyone in Clayton. They left me a message and said they wanted to meet with me.”

“With
you
?” she asked. “You specifically?” His slight stress on the word had caught her attention.

He nodded. “It . . . it seemed like a message for me specifically, yes.” He saw the question in her eyes, but he didn’t want to answer it. Didn’t want to explain what the stupid cereal meant.

“Who was it?” she asked.
 

He shook his head. “Only suspicions.”

Carly laid her hand on his chest. “You can talk to me, you know.”

“I know.” He gazed down into her sweet brown eyes and felt guilty. Felt . . . shameful, really. There were so many of these weird, uncomfortable things about himself that he had concealed from her. Past sins, insecurities, ugliness that he never wanted her to see. Not only because he worried it would change the way she felt about him, but because he still wanted to shield her from the uglier aspects of this world as much as he could. Shield her from the fact that he used to be
part
of the uglier aspects of this world.

“No, you really don’t.” She sighed. “Is it something I need to worry about?”

“I’m not sure.”

She took a deep breath. “What are we going to do?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“I mean I’m not going to do anything. I’m not going to reply. I’m not even going to go back there. Not for a while, anyway. I’ll keep monitoring the area around here to make sure no one comes around.”

A ridge formed between her eyebrows. “Something must have really bothered you if you’ve decided to adopt my avoidant stance.”

“I can’t say for sure, but it seemed like . . .”

“It was from Lewis?”

He blinked at her. “Yeah.” He couldn’t believe it, but he actually felt a little relieved that she had guessed. He hadn’t even wanted to voice it aloud, but having her know seemed like a small burden lifted from him. “How did you know?”

“I couldn’t imagine another source of the message that could bother you so much. How do you know it was from him?”

“I don’t. It was a box of Lucky Charms.”

She frowned. “I remember you liked it.”

She didn’t know the half of it, but how could she? And he didn’t really want to explain it. She already had that curious light in her eyes, and he didn’t want to encourage it. “That’s why I’m not really sure it was a message to me or just a random gift.”

“If it is Lewis, what are you going to do?”

He buried his hands in his hair and sank down on one of the kitchen chairs. “I don’t know.”

She knelt beside him. “Justin, had you ever gone on the Deadhorse Run before the year of the Crisis?”

“What?” It took a moment before he could shift his mind over to what she was asking. “Uh, no. That was my first year. I happened to hear about the ride through Alaska and sort of made an impulse decision to go.”

“He expected you’d be in Chicago,” she said. “Where you got your vaccination.”

You’re predictable, Justin,
Lewis had told him so many times. He heard the echo of it in his mind, Lewis’s voice layering until it seemed to fill his mind like kudzu vines. But the year of the Infection, he hadn’t been.

“Maybe he’s been looking for you. Or he just happened to hear Bryce’s radio message. Either way, he decided to come down here to make contact with you. What do you think he wants?”

There was only one thing he could want, especially if he was leading a military unit. But Justin just shook his head and drew Carly into his arms again. He laid his cheek on top of her head.

“Let’s go to bed,” she said. She stood and held out her hand. He took it and followed her down the stairs to their cool, dark bedroom. Her warm hands stroked his forearms and slide beneath the sleeves of his T-shirt. Her fingers dug into his shoulders as she kissed him.

One kiss was all it took and he was lost. He buried his hands in her caramel waves, cupping the back of her head as he kissed her. Kissed her with all the passion and desperation in his soul. He kissed her like his desire alone could freeze this moment, this peace, this happiness, and keep them suspended in a place where they were safe in the small world of one another’s arms.

Their clothes rustled to the floor, and Carly drew him down to the bed, hooking one leg behind his. He couldn’t kiss her everywhere at once, though he gave it his best damn try, his mouth moving feverishly over her flesh, savoring the sweet salt of her skin.

He fumbled in his jeans pocket and then in the drawer by the bed, his lips never leaving her, until his seeking hands came up empty.

“We’re out,” he said, wondering if he should stop.

“I know.” Carly moved beneath him, her body sliding against his in a smooth wave.
How does she do that
? he wondered. She made the simplest motion into an erotic dance that turned his blood to liquid fire. “It’s okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure I don’t want to stop,” she murmured and moved against him again.

There was no way he could resist that. He groaned against her lips as he slid into her. His heart pounded so hard he thought it would burst if the pleasure didn’t kill him first.

“Oh my God,” he whispered.

“Better?” she asked, her voice choked.

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t. But yes, it was better.

It was fast, so fast he should probably have been embarrassed, but Carly curled against his side, a smile on her face and a slightly dazed expression in her eyes. He remembered his buddies joking that married sex was boring, but it was the best sex Justin ever had, and every time seemed better than the last. Did love do that? Was it the emotion that sharpened every sensation?