Alive (The Crave) (3 page)

“Yes, I…do.”

“So you don’t know for sure if—”

“She’s not. I know she’s not.” Gage was quiet for a moment. Not pressing her for details, which made Eve feel desperate to explain herself. She knew what he was thinking. It was what she had just been thinking about him and his brother, that it’s a sad story, that he never should have gone for him. His brother’s fate was obvious. “We got separated about a year ago. We’d ventured out of state after hearing from others that Barksdale Air Force Base was secure and taking in the uninfected.

“The place was over-run with jenks. There were hordes like I’d never seen before. We traveled with a couple of other people, but we lost track of them in our fight to get out of there. We ran like hell…but they…chased after us.” This was when she saw her first runner. The people she traveled with had told her of such things, but to see it for the first time. To have dozens chasing her,…was life altering.

“Runners?”

“You’ve seen them too? Besides the one today, of course.”

“I didn’t actually get the chance to see today’s runner, did I?” He’d railed at her after she’d ended the jenk, though she hadn’t missed the look of sadness that swept across his rugged features.

“Anyway, we were running and they were starting to surround us. My sister didn’t do well when it came to the undead. I had become her protector. Of course, she was only fourteen when this all began.”
Too young for anyone to face flesh-eating people.
“But she did something different that day. Instead of cowering behind me like usual while I took them on from all sides, she bolted from her normal spot. She barely managed to miss the grasp of two of the jenks as she wormed her way past them.”

“She ran track, right?”

“Yeah, she did.” A bitter wave of jealously swept through her. Olive had gotten to do many things that were forbidden to Eve by their parents.

“She was pretty good too, right?” Eve’s jealously became overwhelmed by the fact that Gage remembered all these things about her family. Olive was four years younger than him, not even in the same school and he knew these things about her…remembered because she told him in passing over four years ago?
Or did I even tell him that?
Wow, no way.
“She didn’t even look back. Just took off sprinting, taking more than half of the horde that was following us with her. I’ve been looking for her ever since.” Telling someone about her sister felt good. She hadn’t come across a decent human since the trip into Louisiana, so naturally there had been no one to tell. She’d forgotten how nice it was.

“So, your sister’s still out there somewhere and you were just going to let those gurghs eat you today.” He said it as a statement not a question. His words sparked a myriad of emotions within Eve’s chest. Guilt, anger, sadness and many more.

“You don’t know me.”

“You’re right. I sure as hell don’t. I don’t know who the fuck you are, but I think it’s safe to say I miss the dress wearing chick who didn’t have a death wish.” His words cut her to the bone. Here she sat listening to his woebegone story and yet when she tells hers all he does is rip her apart? She wanted to yell at him. Tell him what a piece of shit asshole he was for taking her virginity and not giving a shit about her the next day. But she didn’t. Instead she took a deep breath and chose the only words that didn’t eat her up with hatred.

“Do you ever feel like this is all a dream? That tomorrow you will wake up and things will go back to normal. Where your biggest worries will be a missed TV show or football practice?” She ran a hand through her short hair, trying to find the will inside her not to cry. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve been strong for so long, that I’ve done so much in the last four years, that it just can’t be real. I’ve killed so many people.” Her voice trembled on the last sentence, feeling like glass shards as she articulated each syllable.

“They aren’t people anymore, Eve. They’re infected. They died. It’s different.” The kindness in his voice almost kept her from speaking, but she couldn’t stop herself. Now that she had begun, she needed to finish. Someone in this world had to know how she felt. She couldn’t die without someone knowing.

“I’m not talking about the jenks.”

Gage stared into the darkness in silence, Eve’s last revelation fresh in his mind. It shouldn’t have shocked him. He was guilty of much of the same thing. He’d killed people who threatened him, people who wanted him dead for one reason or another. Along with the infection, came a loss of humanity in people as a whole and no matter how long an uninfected tried to cling to it, somehow it always ended up lost.

“Today when they were all coming at me, I thought that maybe a jolt like that would wake me up from this nightmare. That it would save me from knowing that I’ve done so many horrible things.”

This woman with her short hair and ocean eyes, was far from the church girl he once knew and part of him wanted to pull her in his arms and tell her things would be okay. He didn’t though. Just kept his back against the tree where they had been sitting for hours now, waiting for morning so they could be on the move again.

The moon was just a sliver in the sky. Tomorrow night would be a new moon. No visibility whatsoever. They should get out of this rural area by midday and find a house to stay in. Sitting in the middle of the open like this was perilous at best.

“I was being selfish today. No longer, though. No longer.” Her last words were a whisper that he barely heard. He sat for a moment considering what he should say. He didn’t want her to feel this guilt and felt bad for jabbing her with it even if necessary. Sometimes it was easy to lose the will to live and all one needed was a little push to remind them why they fought so hard and made it this far to begin with. He knew the feeling well.

He could feel her moving, the shaking of her body vibrating the trunk of the tree. When the movement didn’t cease for several seconds, he realized what she was doing. Shivering.

“Are you cold?” He wished that he could build a fire, but that would draw the undead like moths to a flame, literally, and they would have another pack on top of them within the hour.

“I’m fine.”

The words were rushed from her lips and nothing could keep Gage from touching her this time. He turned toward her, snaking his hand out and placing it blindly on her. He made contact with the side of her arm and didn’t miss the sharp intake of breath she gave at his touch. She didn’t flinch away though. Sparking awareness flooded his body from the mere contact. His cock kicked hard in his pants, coming to life instantly ready.

“Come here,” he whispered, barely recognizing his own voice. He heard her movement in the dark, the rustling of leaves against the thick soles of her boots. His hand slipped down her arm and he reveled at the smooth skin.

“Don’t touch me.” The harsh words were a shock to his system. She jerked her arm away and scooted away from him.
What the hell?

“Eve—”

“Go to sleep. I’ll keep watch.”

He took a deep breath trying to get his rioting emotions under control. “How do I know you won’t try to kill me while I sleep?”

“You don’t.”

Chapter Three

The Before

“Welcome everyone, to your first day of school and your first class of the day, AP Physics!”

Eve stared at Mrs. Smithers, taking in the bubbly woman, as she talked animatedly about projectile motion. The first day of the school year was a hated enemy of Eve’s. Not because she didn’t like school. She actually loved it very much. Preferred it to the long days of summer spent at home with her family, spending hours worshipping before a life-size cross in the spare room.

She didn’t like the first day because it was the day that everyone would stare at her and point fingers, as if they had forgotten about her existence over the summer and seeing her again was like a freak show. She didn’t totally blame them. Her blond hair fell to her butt and her clothing comprised of a floor length blue-jean skirt, white tennis shoes, and a white long-sleeve blouse. She wore the same type of outfit every day, even on days like today, when the summer heat was sweltering and way too hot for a long-sleeve shirt.

This was the class she had been looking forward to. It was her first time to take an AP course and being a sophomore meant she would be in a class with seniors. They were worse than those in her grade with their finger pointing and rude names. The two girls who sat closest to her seat in the far corner, were two rows ahead of her. They kept looking back at her between snickers and whispers.

She looked down at her hands. Eve could accept that she looked different and that her family was weird. That was how she had lived her whole life, but it still hurt on the first day back. The wound the other kids created had almost healed over the summer, but on the first day they ripped it off, renewing the pain all over again.

“Sorry I’m late.” Eve glanced up at the sound of a voice interrupting her teacher. Her gaze fixed on the senior boy who’d just walked in.

Mrs. Smithers smiled at him. “That’s okay, Gage. I will be forgiving today, but don’t think that I will be in the future, okay?”

He responded, but Eve had stopped paying attention. Her eyes were riveted to the thick muscular build of the speaker who was walking toward her. He was the most beautiful guy in school, no doubt. He wore tight jeans with his cowboy boots and a white v-neck T-shirt that made his dark skin seem even darker than its caramel color. The girls sitting in front of her had stopped giggling and stared at him in awe.

Eve glanced around and realized that the only available desks were the two closest to her. One on her left and one in front of her. Her stomach knotted. She didn’t want him to sit next to her, or worse complain about having to.

He said nothing as he slipped into the seat to her left and sat his book bag down on the floor. He glanced over at her, his gray gaze meeting hers. To Eve’s utter shock, he smiled, his teeth white and even.

She jerked her face forward and fiddled with the number two pencil lying at the top of her desk. Her pulse raced a million miles per second. She was vaguely aware that Mrs. Smithers had started talking again, but what she said didn’t register.
He smiled at me!

A light tap on the shoulder made her jump. She looked over, shocked that Gage was the owner of the fingers that had tapped her.

“A typical number two pencil can write as many as forty-five thousand words,” he whispered.

“What?” She blinked rapidly, trying to process what on earth made him tell her this. He gestured toward the pencil in her hand. “Thought you’d want to know what kind of writing life you were looking at with your new pencil there.” She looked back at the standard yellow writing utensil in her hand.
How does he even know that? Is this a joke?

He looked unsure for a moment and glanced back up at the front of the class. “What’s your name?” He leaned closer.

It should have made her mad that he didn’t know. She’d gone to school in Sunder her whole life and so had he. Their whole high school was compromised of less than three hundred students. Everyone knew everyone. It didn’t bother her though. Part of her couldn’t believe that he was even asking, that he even cared enough to want to know.

“Wait, it’s Eve, right?” He paused. “Or is that wrong?” She hadn’t realized that she was gaping at him, with her mouth open until he asked the second question. She snapped her teeth together and nodded her head, unable to speak. He smiled again. “Cool.”

He turned away and stared up at the front, not saying anything else to Eve. She spent the rest of the day in an ecstatic haze.
Maybe the first day of school isn’t so bad after all.

Chapter Four

“Do you want to go by your house?”

Eve glanced at Gage in the hot Texas sun, doing her best not to show the emotion that his words invoked.

“No. It’s gone now.”

“Gone?”

“I burned it to the ground.” He gave a sharp nod, an unreadable look coming over his face. She couldn’t quite place it, but didn’t spend much time pondering it. Over three and a half years had passed since she’d set foot in the little town of Sunder where she had grown up. It was different than she remembered, even since the last memory she had of it after the Crave. Her and her sister had barely escaped with their lives. Their only saving grace took place when she sent their home up in flames, attracting the undead for miles while they made a break for it. Olive had begged her not to do it…not with mom and dad inside, but they weren’t mom and dad anymore…they were…

A warm hand on her arm jerked Eve from her thoughts. She looked up to meet Gage’s metal gray eyes. They were filled with an unreadable expression—a look she remembered well. It was the last look she’d seen on his handsome face
that
day. The day he broke her heart.

“Don’t touch me.” She jerked her arm from his grasp. There had been some sort of unspoken truce between them today as they’d trudged toward their destination. Gage had been kind, talking to her, trying to engage her in conversation. She replied only when she had to, but mostly keeping to herself. Going over escape plans in her head if things went bad with her former lover.

“As you wish.” His gray eyes turned darker and a look of foreboding washed over his features.

She almost felt bad for treating him with such disdain, especially after last night. She had uttered similar words when he’d placed his hand on her arm. She’d nearly given in and cuddled next to his massive body, she hadn’t though.
Tempting. So tempting.

In the end, she had jerked away from him like he was some sort of diseased leper, refusing to acknowledge the way her body heated from a mere brush of his fingertips. She had insisted that she would stay up and keep a look out, but he wouldn’t let her. He refused to take no for an answer and eventually she’d bedded down and somehow managed to get several hours asleep. It bothered Eve that she allowed herself to trust that he wouldn’t hurt her, when in fact she had threatened him with as much when she volunteered to let him sleep.