Alive (The Crave) (2 page)

Her blond hair had been chopped short, barely reaching her shoulders. A little taller than before, her body had filled out in the places where a woman should be full. Her olive colored skin was bronzed, and barely covered, only wearing a pair of khaki shorts that were shorter than sin. The light-colored material clung to her womanly curves, making his mouth water. She wore only a white, blood spattered sports bra for her top. The brown flesh of her tight stomach exposed for the world to see.

“Gage!” A sharp pain just above his groin accompanied the word. The pry bar pressed into his skin. He jumped back and met her gaze. Ferocity burned within their depths.

“Woah now. Chill out. Don’t kill the guy who saved your life.”

“For your information I didn’t need saving.” Her words were volatile as she pursued him, brandishing her weapon.

“You didn’t need saving? Those gurghs were about to make you dinner, hon. Give credit where credit is due.”

“I could’ve gotten out of it.” Was that shame in her words? He couldn’t place it.

“I have food, remember.” She paused in her pursuit and he ceased his backpedaling. He didn’t want to have to hurt her, but if she thrust that thing at him, he would be forced to. He’d survived out there this long and he wasn’t about to let the little goody goody kill him with a pry bar twice her size.

“I don’t want your food. Now you have two options.” She paused, her breathing calm and her hands steady.
She’s not afraid of me?
“You can turn around and head in the other direction and forget you ever saw me. Or I can gut you like one of the infected and be done with your ass, once and for all.” Her confidence irked him. He was not a man that took kindly to having his life threatened by the living.

“Done with me? You weren’t done with me before now? Man, sounds like your anger was enough to keep you going all these years, huh? Who would have thought that one night would spurn so much anger from such a little girl.”

She lunged at him, but he anticipated her move and dodged the blade. Before she could turn and try to stab him again he grabbed her wrist and squeezed. She cried out before the pry bar slipped from her fingers.

“Now can we please—” Gage’s words died in his throat when she spun in his grasp. Her foot made contact with the back of his knee and propelled his body backward onto the ground. She made to jerk her hand from his grip, but he held on.
If I’m going down, I’m taking you with me.

Eve full on panicked when her body became airborne, following Gage’s massive form to the ground. This hadn’t been part of the plan.
Wait, what was my plan?
She hated that she hadn’t had one at all. So unlike her normal antics. She always played everything smart when it came to the uninfected humans she came across. Calculating her every move, because most times people underestimated her—a woman brandishing a big screwdriver and a backpack that looked too heavy. But she’d let Gage goad her, piss her off, into an uncalculated attack that would probably get her killed.

When Gage’s back slammed into the ground, her body fell flush with his. She made a fist with her free hand, but before she could swing on him he gripped her appendage with his other hand, rolling their bodies until she was pinned beneath him.

His big frame loomed over her, his expression one of menace that creased his brow and made his square jaw pulse as he snapped his teeth. He took her hands and clasped them together in one palm, forcing the two above her head.

His big thighs straddled her mid-section. She wriggled trying to twist out of his grip on her hands. Her pack dug into her back, the contents pressing like knives against her skin. She looked around in panic, assessing the surroundings, looking for a weakness in his hold, a chance, anything to escape.

“There’s something you should know about me.” His words were a growl above her, forcing her gaze to return to his dark gray eyes. It surprised her to find that they weren’t filled with the previous fury. Something else was there. Something that softened his gaze and heated it all at the same time. It seared her to the very bone, making her body come alive like it hadn’t in so many years, if ever. She couldn’t remember if her first and only sexual experience had ignited such a fierce longing within her like she felt now.

Eve stopped her struggles. Gage leaned down. She hadn’t noticed before just how full his lips were, how they were several shades lighter than his milk-chocolate skin. She remembered kissing them before, but he hadn’t had the dark stubble on his cheeks. His hair was the same though, shaved close to his head.

For a moment, she thought he would kiss her. He poised his lips only inches above hers, his gaze burning through her like a hot poker. He moved though, and she held her breath as the stubble on his cheeks brushed against her skin. His breath was hot against her ear, sending delicious tingles up and down her spine.

“I don’t take kindly to people trying to murder me. I’ve killed for less.” The words were supposed to be a threat, she knew it, but their effect on her body did anything but make her afraid. She fought the urge to rub against him and failed. Her movement brought the soft flesh of her stomach up against the hard protrusion between his hips. His arousal shocked her.
I’m not the only one feeling…lost.

A hot hand grasped her breast, teasing her through the thin fabric of her bra. He growled against her ear and he thrust his body against hers. The long length of him throbbed through the pants he wore.

Then she heard it—another sound, another moan of hunger. Confusion streaked through her body.
Did I make that carnal sound?
Clarity came when the warmth of Gage’s muscular body vanished from on top of her.

Chapter Two

Blood pounded loudly in Gage’s ears as he nocked an arrow on his crossbow and sent it sailing into a gurgh. Never, not once in the last four years, had a group of the undead caught him unaware.
This is a fucking first.
At least a dozen headed toward them from the south.
Must have heard my shouting.

The undead were driven by their hunger, but they were also attracted by noise and Gage had been far from quiet when he’d berated Eve after he’d killed the gurghs that were trying to eat her. From the corner of his eye he saw her stand and grab for the pry bar he’d taken from her by force. She looked unruffled from their encounter only seconds before, while a haze of lust clouded his vision.

What had just happened between them?
One moment he’d been pinning her down, threatening her for attacking him and the next she was moaning against him like a wild woman, setting his veins on fire.
I can’t believe it’s really her.
Gage fought the urge to stare at her again and jerked a homemade arrow from his pack.

“We need to get out of here.” He nocked the arrow and sent it sailing forward meeting its mark in the eye of a staggering male.

“No kidding.” Eve spoke from beside him. “See ya.” Gage let another arrow fly before snapping his head to see her retreating form.
What the hell?

He turned from the approaching group and ran to catch up with her.

“Where in the hell do you think you’re going?”

“Away from the things that want to eat me. Where else would I be headed?” The sarcasm in her words almost made him smile.

“You’re just going to leave?”

She gave him a sideways glance, but didn’t slow her stride. She looked confused. Hell, he was confused, especially after the hot embrace they just shared. When she didn’t respond right away, he began to feel out of sorts. A sickness swept through his stomach.
What’s up with this?
Then he realized he didn’t want her to leave. She was the first familiar face that he’d seen in over a year. He wasn’t about to give that up. “Let’s team up.”

Cue another shocked look from Eve
. “I don’t do teamwork.”

“You’re no fun, Eve.” He recalled now that she had never been one to play sports, whereas he’d thrived in the team environment. He’d been captain of the football team, voted All-American when he took his team to state their senior year, only a few months before the world had become infected.

“Funny, cause I don’t care.” Her stank attitude grated on his nerves.

“Why don’t you wanna come with me?”

“I have things to do.”

“Things to do? Like what, a job interview, big date?” After he said the final word a weird feeling thrummed through his body. He ignored it.

“What’s it to you?” As the foliage got thicker they were both forced to slow their gait. He kept his head on a swivel, looking for more gurghs. Reality was, they were everywhere. There was no escaping them. Just running from some into more.

“I know of a place we can go that isn’t like this. It’s safe.”

“Impossible.” She didn’t even glance at him. The scoffing in her tone was understandable. He wouldn’t believe it either, if he hadn’t help build it himself.

“It’s true, Eve, and it’s not too far from here, in Fenton. The courthouse is the center of town.”
She’ll finally get to see it.

She slowed her jog to walk before stopping, and turning toward him. “A place without jenks?”

He furrowed his brow at her name for the zombie-like creatures and nodded. “Yes it’s—”

“Wait, there’s just one more thing.” His earlier impatience was beginning to come to a head with this woman. Maybe he should just leave her to head out on her own rather than have to deal with her. “Duck!”

Gage hit the ground as Eve thrust the pry bar over his head.

“Tell me what happened to you when the Crave hit.”

Eve squinted into the dark, but said nothing. She heard a rustle of leaves and perceived his movement to her left where he leaned against the tree they were sharing. Yes,
sharing.
This wasn’t how she imagined spending the night, but earlier in the day Gage had become the most valuable person in the world to her. A role she had never thought he would play again, though this time for different reasons.

The safe haven. She’d only ever dreamed of such places. In the beginning, she’d dared to hope that the military or someone, would come and save them all from this hell. She’d stopped running, turning on Gage with every intention of goring him with her Craftsman for daring to play with her emotions, when she saw him. Not Gage.
A runner.

They weren’t uncommon, but she’d seen very few in the last four years. Most of the undead were staggering fools who lumbered along at a snail’s pace, only dangerous in hordes or if caught unawares. Runners lived up to their names—they were the undead, infected like all the others, only they were forever sprinting.
Nothing
could slow them, save for a stab through the head.

She’d had to make a decision then. Before the Crave, the choice between the life and death of another person would have been jarring and overwhelming. Now, Eve was more used to it than she liked to admit. She could’ve let the runner have him and be on her merry way, free of hindering souls. But she’d gazed into his eyes and saw sincerity. She couldn’t let the chance that the safe haven be real and never find it.
Maybe Olive is there.

This was the only reason she’d spared him. Not because his hot erect body over hers had made her yearn for something she thought she would never want again. Not because she took one look at his scruffy exterior and dazzling eyes and thought,
I can’t lose him again.

That wasn’t the case. It really wasn’t.

He’d told her it was in downtown Fenton. A place she knew well. She had lived twenty miles from there her whole life, in the small Texas town of Sunder.

“There isn’t much to tell.” She took a sip of water from a bottle she’d taken out of her backpack.

“Sure there is. You don’t survive in this hell for four years without having a story.” The statement was true, but she didn’t think she could bear telling the story of everything that had happened. It was all too fresh and yet detached all at once.

“I’ll tell you one thing about my life after the Reckoning if you answer some of my questions.”

“One question, and the Reckoning? Haven’t heard that one lately.” His voice was rough and it sent a shiver down her spine. How did he have such an effect on her? He was talking about their post-apocalyptic life and here she was, shivering with anticipation.
Wonder what gory narrative he’ll say next that’ll have me creaming my pants?

“Yes. That’s what my parents always called it.” Her words had the same effect as dumping a bucket of ice water over her body.
My parents and their devout beliefs.
The memory of the last time she saw them still burned in her mind. She ran her hands up and down the cool length of her Craftsman to calm herself. “The Crave, I mean. The Crave.” Hardly believing she’d said the Reckoning. Calling it what they called it made her sick.

“What do you want to ask me?”

“If this safe haven is real, then why did you leave?” The question had been eating at her since she killed the runner. It didn’t make sense, who would leave a place like that, where one could sleep a full nights rest without fearing death? Eve couldn’t remember what it felt like.

“I had to go find my brother.” His words dripped with emotion.

“Your brother…Collin?” She remembered him, he was three grades above her and one grade above Gage. He was just as well-known as his all-star brother was, but for baseball.

“Yes.”

Curiosity flooded her. “Why did you have to go look for him? Where was he?”

“College in Louisiana, remember?” She didn’t but she nodded her head anyway, before remembering that he couldn’t see her.

“Yes.” The unspoken question hung between them. She wouldn’t dare ask. Him being there alone was enough of an answer.

“I found him.” His statement shocked her. “He was in his dorm room with a couple of others. They were all…infected.” She cringed, fearing her sister didn’t fare much better.

“What about you? You had a sister…Olive, right? A couple years younger than you.”
He actually remembered?