Die For You: Catastrophe Series, Book 1 (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

“Let’s get this staff meeting started.”

“We’re here,” Adam cut in, his hand on the small of Rachel’s back. Chairs scraped across the floor as they both sat down at the kitchen table.

“Sorry we’re late, guys,” Rachel said with a cheery voice. Adam crooked an eyebrow at her. She might be sorry, but he wasn’t. Rachel’s hair was a twisted bed-head mess, lips swollen, eyes bright and sparkling. It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to understand what they’d been up to. And it was certainly more important than some made-up meeting. Adam met Christian’s annoyed gaze and threw him a lazy, self-satisfied smile.

“Staff meeting?” Trevor snorted into his coffee. “That’s what this is?”

Christian cut Trevor a glance. “Something wrong?”

“Oh, nothing. Just waiting for you to whip out a projector and a PowerPoint slide show.”

“Asshole,” Christian coughed into his hand.

Trevor laughed. Christian grinned. Adam shook his head. Well, at least Trevor’s outrageous personality was good for something. He had the ability to snap Christian out of a foul mood in seconds. The two of them seemed to be forming a tight friendship despite being the polar opposite of each other.

“Let’s get this party started,” Christian announced. “I need to get back out to the barn to check on the animals before I head out to the tour bus for the night. Okay, first order of business.” He cleared his throat and checked his agenda. “Hot water.”

“What about the hot water?” Rachel asked.

Christian met Rachel’s startled gaze. Adam sighed. His woman was a first-rate energy waster. It was true. She was a girl who’d obviously been raised with every creature comfort, never having to worry about the electricity bill or where her power came from. It didn’t bother Adam so much, he figured she’d learn in time, but it drove Christian crazy. “Well, thirty-minute showers are not necessary when we have limited resources and rely on a solar-powered water heater.”

Adam draped an arm across Rachel’s shoulders. “Thirty-minute showers?” he asked. “Who takes thirty-minute showers?”

Christian looked pointedly at Rachel.

She gasped. “I do
not
take thirty-minute showers.”

“Yes, you do.”

“How do you know?”

Christian remained quiet, obviously letting her figure it out for herself.

“Are you kidding? You timed me?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. Three days ago I waited outside your bedroom and clocked you at thirty minutes.”

“Who are you? Big Brother?”

Christian frowned. “Rachel, the rest of us don’t take that long.”

“That’s because you’re men. I’m a woman, and it takes us longer. There’s more to do. I’ve got long hair, so I need to wash and condition it. And I need to shave my legs while I’m in there too, and…”

Trevor raised his hand.

Christian reached up and rubbed his fingers against his forehead. “Yes?” he sighed.

“I have an easy fix. I vote that Rachel be allowed more hot water than the rest of us.” He turned toward her. “Honey, you take as long as you want. You can have my ration. Keeping you looking and smelling fantastic should be a top priority around here.”

She flashed Christian a
gotcha
look and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Thank you, Trevor. I will.”

Christian groaned. “Adam? What do you think?”

Adam put both hands up, palms out. “I’m neutral.”

“Ah, playing the Switzerland card. Smart move, my man,” Trevor remarked.

Christian cursed under his breath. He looked up at the ceiling, a pained expression on his face. Adam imagined Christian was envisioning other meetings, with long-time work colleagues now gone. Biologists who’d treated him with respect, language specific to his field flying around the table. The good old days. He felt bad for the guy and decided to cut him some slack and redirect the meeting.

“Christian? What’s next on the agenda?” Adam asked.

“I’ve got new business,” Trevor broke in before Christian could answer. He sat up straight, his smile gone. “I saw new tire tracks again this morning. Footprints.”

Adam cursed. “Where were they this time?”

“Closer to the main house. At the edge of the orange orchard. The fuckers could’ve watched us from that vantage point.”

“What do you think that means, that they watch us but don’t come in and say hello?” Rachel asked.

“Nothing good,” Adam replied.

“Maybe they’re scared. Maybe they just want to make sure we’re not a bunch of freaks before they make first contact.”

“And maybe they want to figure out how many of us there are, how much firepower we have and how many females we have before they bring in back up?”

Her eyes widened. He knew she was remembering the fuckers who’d killed that woman back in Oxnard. Good. Because she should never forget. Never, ever forget. He never would. It was always in the back of his mind. And he would do whatever it took to ensure that Rachel was never in that same position, having to make the same decision as that woman.

Never fucking going to happen.

“I think you and I should start laying those sensors for the alarms out in the new location first thing tomorrow,” Trevor said. “I’d feel safer knowing if someone was that close to us.”

Adam lifted his chin. “Yeah, me too. Good idea.” The farm was a great place for supplies, creature comforts and growing food, but it was a bitch to defend. The area was so large and wide open and there wasn’t any consistent fence of any consequence. If there was a barbed-wire fence wired with electricity and watch towers…then they’d be talking, but there wasn’t, just sheep, chickens, coyotes and squirrels and whatever else was out there. They were all living here on exhibition, like exotic fish in a fancy aquarium. A spectacle for anyone to inspect or take.

“And I got another one of those garbled messages on the radio this morning,” Adam told them. Twice now he’d received messages that started out with a female voice, but faded out to silence before he could get past hello. It was damn annoying.

“Do we think those messages and whoever is watching us are coming from the same source?” Christian asked.

Adam met Christian’s gaze, his mind working it over. “Could be…could be. That’s the second time I’ve gotten that half-assed message. Can’t make anything out of it. Short but sweet.”

“I think they’re one and the same,” Trevor said. “It’s what I would do if I heard about you over the radio. I’d make a bit of contact to make sure you were real. It’s not a recording, but I wouldn’t reveal a damn thing about myself, then I’d come and scout the place out first before making contact. Doesn’t mean they’re out to get us, could just mean they’re cautious and don’t trust anyone.”

“True. Well, since we don’t know their intentions, we assume the worst and keep on watch,” Adam said. “We lock up at night. No one is ever alone. Are we agreed?”

“Agreed,” everyone said at once.

“Uh, since that’s taken care of…let’s move on.” Christian squinted and examined his pad of paper. “Next agenda item…nuclear meltdown.”

“Oh, no.” Rachel groaned and sank into her seat. “Not this again.”

“Yes. Some of us might want to live in
denial
and think that it’s never going to happen, but it is. I found more books and information on nuclear reactors at the library in Fresno.” Christian reached into the bag he’d brought, pulled some books out and started dropping the heavy tomes onto the table for all of them to see.

The tone of the meeting changed immediately. They all looked at the books on the table as if they were radioactive.

“Have you read them?” Adam asked.

“Skimmed. But from what I can gather, it looks like without having humans to keep them in tip-top shape, all the reactors in the world will go Chernobyl in something like…two weeks to a year.”

“Two weeks?” Trevor sat up straighter.

“Nuclear power plants need people to maintain them, and when no one is there to do that, eventually they will all overheat and go into nuclear meltdown. Some of these sources say that will happen quickly, others say it could take as long as a year. I can’t find a clear answer, so I can’t give you a date when this will occur, but it
will
happen and we need to be ready.”

Adam leaned forward. “Do we know where these reactors are located?”

“I found a better map than the one you and I had before.” Adam had known about and avoided the two reactors on the coast during his travels with Rachel. Christian had done the same thing while traveling with Trevor. Both of them considered the reactors to be their biggest threat to survival and the number one matter to attend to after food and shelter were secured. Who knew when those damn ticking time bombs would blow?

Christian spread out a map the United States on the kitchen table with red dots to show nuclear reactor locations. They all stood up and leaned in.

“Much better, this is exactly what we need,” Adam said.

“Jesus,” Trevor exclaimed over Adam’s shoulder. “There are nuclear power plants all over the East Coast. If anyone survived out there, they’re fucked if they don’t get out of that area fast.”

Christian pointed at the map. “Out west, there are two in California and one in Arizona. Both of the reactors in California are near the ocean. One is in the Central Coast and the other in the L.A. area.”

“But they’re far enough from us so we won’t have to worry about them when they blow, right?” Rachel asked.

“You’d think we’d be safe here in the Central Valley next to the mountains, but the only problem is that the radioactive mushroom clouds from those explosions will float in the wind and can land anywhere. The mushroom clouds from the Midwest and East Coast could drift here too. Hell, we need to worry about every reactor in the whole world, because we have no idea where that radiation could eventually land after they blow. It could dump into the atmosphere and pour down as rain. Acid rain.”

Rachel’s face paled. “You’re scaring me, Christian.”

“I’m not an expert on this by any means. I think the best we can do is stay away from the areas I mentioned, assume they have at least a one-hundred-mile-radius kill zone.”

“What?” Rachel exclaimed. “Kill zone? What does that mean?”

“In Russia, after the Chernobyl meltdown there was an exclusion zone…an area that is still dead to this day. No one lives there. The kill zone is what you think it is. It’s the area around a reactor where nothing and no one survives after the meltdown. Not now, from an initial blast, or later, from radiation poisoning and cancer. After the earthquake in Japan, they evacuated to twenty miles out from their nuclear meltdown. I don’t think that’s enough, I want us to respect a one-hundred-mile kill zone, just to be safe.”

“Fucking A,” Trevor said.

“We plan for the worst and are pleasantly surprised if it never happens,” Adam agreed.

“What do you mean?” Rachel asked.

Adam locked eyes with Christian. “We need to stock up on supplies and gear that will protect us from the radiation.”

“Agreed. How about we put you in charge of that?”

Adam nodded. “It’s doable but slow, considering the internet doesn’t exist anymore.”

Christian looked around at all of them. “There aren’t that many of us left. So far, we’ve only found the four of us to join our group. Every life is precious. We have to be careful. We have to do everything in our power to survive. We can’t afford to lose a single person to the aftereffects of the outbreak. I believe we will eventually find other survivors we can live with, people who care about living and planning for the future and not killing others for sport, but their numbers will be small. It’s up to us to survive and carry on the human race.”

Rachel looked stricken, fear stamped on her face. “I’m the only woman,” she whispered.

Adam pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her gleaming hair. She pressed her cheek against his chest and shivered. For all Adam knew, she could be pregnant right now. He didn’t want her sick with worry over possible radiation poisoning, or to feel burdened with the importance of the child she might be carrying. He tightened his arms around her.

“Don’t worry, baby,” he whispered into her ear. “I’ve got you. I’ll keep you safe.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Adam tossed his book aside, turned his head and glanced at Rachel, propped up next to him in bed.

In
their
bed.

In
their
room.

They were both reading by flickering candlelight. The golden glow from the berry-scented candles creating an ambience of peace and quiet that should have knocked him out by now. Instead, he remained awake and alert.

He watched Rachel turn a page, her face a mask of concentration. Her hair was up in a messy ponytail, a book in her lap and a pillow tucked behind her back. Christian’s comments about the nuclear power plants had scared her. She was reading about radiation poisoning.

Within a week after they’d met, she’d demanded he stop at every bookstore, every library they’d encountered. Now there were stacks of books in every room of the farmhouse.

“I’m going create a home library here to rival the one Thomas Jefferson had at Monticello,” she’d told him a few days ago. “That way we’ll have all the information we need right at our fingertips. It’ll be almost as good as having the internet.”

He’d nodded, bemused. Who compared anything to Thomas Jefferson?

Rachel. Rachel did.

“Okay, babe,” he’d told her. “You do that.” He supposed he’d have to get used to it. She had been a history major, after all.

Rachel sighed next to him and turned another page, so intent on her task she seemed unaware of his existence. His lips curved. Her clothes were next to his in the closet, her bottles and brushes, all that stuff women needed, were in the bathroom mixed with his things. This was good. She was right where he wanted her.

Mine.
The familiar word floated through his head. The one he’d been hearing since the first day he met her.

Rachel bit her lip, marked a sentence with a yellow highlighter, pulled out a Post-it, wrote a note on it and stuck it to the top of the page, creating a bookmark.

Fuck, she had that sexy librarian thing down pat. His dick started to stiffen. “Rachel.”

“Hmm?” She glanced up at him, distracted, and met his gaze with those beautiful blue eyes he loved. Adored. His heart squeezed. Warmth spread across his chest. He hadn’t said more to Rachel about the possible pregnancy, not wanting to burden her with worry, but he thought of it often, trying to figure out how he felt.

Did he feel happiness at the thought of Rachel swollen with his child? Yes, he did. And that was new. Shocking, in fact. He’d never been a kid person, consciously choosing career over family. But now, everything had changed. After the apocalypse, there was no career, just survival, and the only way for them to continue, for there to be a future, was by having children. Lots of them. That primal instinct, that need to keep going, to repopulate, to reproduce, that must explain his change in attitude, right?

Because what else could?

“Babe, time to put the book down,” he told her.

Rachel gave him a sideways glance. “Why?” An eyebrow shot up. “You got something better for us to do?”

“Much better.” He gave her a slow, lazy smile.

“Are we watching a movie?” she asked eagerly.

“Better.” His voice deepened.

“Better than watching a Schwarzenegger movie?” she teased.

“Better than a Benjamin Bratt movie,” he shot back.

“Oh, really?” She laughed. “Well then…” She snapped her book closed. “Let’s get to it.”

He plucked the textbook and highlighter out of her hands and tossed them to the floor with a heavy thump. She looked at him wide-eyed and serious, her chest rising and falling quickly, her lips parted, face flushed, waiting for his instructions. Fuck, he loved how she knew exactly what he wanted. Already in tune with him.

She was perfect.

First things first.

“I want you naked. Now,” he ordered.

The vibe in the room changed instantly. “But, Adam—” she looked confused, “—we’ve talked about this. You know I’m like a vampire. No one sees me naked in the light. No one.”

“Yeah. I know all about your goddamn rule,” he grumbled. He’d heard it repeated enough to last a lifetime, and he was fucking sick and tired of it.

“Adam—”

“This is bullshit.” He got up on all fours and crawled on top of her, a predator on the prowl.

Her hands flew up, palms against his bare chest. They were nose to nose. “Adam, what are you doing? Stop!”

His jaw clenched. “That’s ridiculous. You know I saw you naked in the shower two days ago before I turned the lights off? I saw your tits that time in the tent too. I know what you look like, and I like what I see, Rachel. I like it a lot, and I want more.”

She stiffened in his arms, her lips tight and her face grim. “I
know
what I look like. And it’s nothing to write home about.”

He ran a hand along her hip, along her panties, under the fabric of the over-sized T-shirt, skin against skin, stopping at her rib cage. She sucked in a breath. “Where is this shit coming from? You’ve lost weight and you’ve been exercising. The Rachel I know is healthy and fit. I’ve made sure of it. Your body has changed, but your attitude about yourself hasn’t.”

“No shit,” she said, eyes flashing with something wild and out of control. “As if I need you to tell me that?”

He sucked in a deep breath, trying to control his rage.

She cupped her hand over her mouth, eyes wide. Suddenly, her body relaxed underneath his, she dropped her hand and her gaze skittered away. “Sorry.” She exhaled. “I just…I can’t…” When they fucked, it was always with the lights off, she always changed her clothes in the closet, and when they slept together at night, she wore his T-shirts. He was damn tired of not being able to visually feast on her naked body.

“That T-shirt is coming off. I want to see every inch of this body.”

He reached for the hem. “No!” she snapped, grabbing his hands and trying to force them back down, her eyes flashing with anger. “No,” she yelled again, frantic, trying to twist away. He couldn’t help laughing at their wrestling match. Like she was going to be able to stop him? Hilarious.

“Adam, Stop it!” Rachel hissed. She tried everything—bending, turning, squirming, biting, slapping, but he was so damn big, she couldn’t get him off. “Get. Off! God, stop it. You’re like a bulldozer, a bull in a china store. Leave me alone!” She bucked her hips and jerked her arms, desperate to escape.

“Are you gonna finally tell me what happened with that asshole who hit you? Give me a clue as to why you’re acting like this? Why you’re hiding yourself? A woman as beautiful as you doesn’t get like this by accident. Something happened, and I want to know what it is.”

“I’m not telling you a goddamn thing until you get off of me,” she shouted.

“Is he the reason you’re like this?” One of Adam’s impossibly large hands now held both of her wrists immobilized above her head and his other hand jerked her panties down her legs as he talked. “What did he do to you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She panted. “Oh, don’t, no!” He slid her underwear to her ankles, yanked them off in one smooth motion and tossed them to the floor. Now she was just wearing his T-shirt. No bra, no protective layers of clothing, just the shirt. And the lights were on. Her throat tightened. Tears burned behind her eyes.

“Tell me,” Adam growled.

“Yes,” she choked. “It was him. He was an asshole. My friends tried to tell me. But I didn’t listen. I didn’t listen…” Adam was gazing at her,
down there
, his espresso-brown eyes glowing with desire. She used to hate her stomach. Hate it. She tried to snap her legs closed, but he leaned in, his skin bronze and vibrant against her paleness. He forced her thighs open. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“All of it. I want the whole story.”

Adam’s hands pulled up her shirt, exposing her new and improved stomach, complete with hip bones poking out at the sides. It seemed foreign. That smooth, flat belly couldn’t possibly be hers, could it?

It was hard to remember that girl, her old self. The girl who’d thought so little of herself had ignored all the red flags and stuck to her ex, Justin, convinced he was the best she could get, or maybe on some level, what she deserved. The memories were raw and embarrassing.

“What was he like?” Adam prompted.

She turned her head to the side, kept her eyes fixed on the wall. But look at her. Here she was, still hiding, hiding from Adam. She wasn’t over it like she’d thought she was if she couldn’t tell him. She turned back and met Adam’s gaze, determined to man up.

Adam’s hand rubbed her stomach, sending delicious signals between her legs. She sighed.
Damn, that felt good.

“Um, I met Justin in high school. He seemed to have all the good qualities. And well, Justin wanted us to start having sex right away. But I wasn’t ready. I managed to put off going all the way with him for a little over a year.” She kept her eyes locked with Adam’s, determined not to look away. He reached out and threaded his fingers through hers, holding her tightly. Her body relaxed and she continued. “He is the reason I chose to go to Davis. I followed him there. Things were good at first. But then one night we went to a party together. So we were both out of it. We snuck back to his dorm room and the making-out went on a little farther than I was comfortable with, so I told him to stop, but he didn’t want to stop. He started saying all kinds of mean things to me, about how no other man would want me, how I was fat and I’d never find anyone else, how lucky I was to have him and if I didn’t put out, he’d find someone else to fuck. It was like he turned into a raging bull, he started ripping my clothes off. I screamed and started fighting him, and he…he…slapped me. I remember I fell to the floor. His class ring cut my face, and later, I had a black eye, it was all swollen.”

“Christ.”

“I know. It was bad. One thing I’ll say for Justin though, he seemed shocked at his own behavior. After he hit me, he snapped out of it. I think he was scared by how he’d acted too. I left, and he didn’t try to stop me. I called campus police and pressed charges. My dad was pissed. Everyone was pissed at Justin. My parents and his parents had been friends, so things got messy.”

Adam was silent. His face a mask of barely contained fury.

“Adam?” she whispered. “Are you okay?”

“So you had two assholes telling you crap about how you looked and you believed them. Why?”

“Two?”

“Yeah, you told me your first asshole boyfriend told you if you lost twenty pounds you’d be beautiful, as if you weren’t good enough as you were.”

“When did I tell you that?”

“The night we were all drinking on the tour bus.”

She did? Shit, she really needed to stop drinking and running her mouth.

Rachel sighed. “I know. I should have shrugged that crap off, right? I see that now, but I grew up with both my mother and sister looking like movie stars. I was constantly compared to them. People would whisper behind my back and sometimes ask why I wasn’t as pretty as my sister? What was wrong with me? For years I was shy, so shy.” She paused and took a deep, steadying breath before continuing. “And my therapist helped me to see that this was a symptom of what happened with my sister. How I thought I was a total loser because of how I shot and almost killed her. Well, you know about that.”

He nodded.

Wait a sec. She looked down at her chest.

“Adam!”
Oh my God.
When had her shirt come off? And how long had she been lying in his arms completely naked?

Two hours later, Adam lay in bed with a naked Rachel, one arm around her waist, his cock pressed against her ass. She was asleep, worn out from fucking. He felt victorious, like a conquering general. He’d gotten that T-shirt off, studied her figure in glorious detail and made love to every inch of that luscious body with the candles glowing around them. He buried his nose in her hair, inhaled and closed his eyes.

Tomorrow, he’d take her to the practice range again.

If she could vanquish one demon, maybe she could tackle another.