Razor Girl (14 page)

“Can you stop for a second and tell me what we’re running from?” Chris asked breathlessly, grabbing her arm. They’d fled the hospital and run off into the woods, Molly looking like she’d seen something a lot worse than a ghost. He leaned over, hands on his knees, and tried to catch his breath.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Molly sobbed, sinking down to the forest floor.

He joined her, concerned. He put a hand on her back and peered into her eyes. She looked terrified.

“What did you see?” he asked. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. What could be worse than the pile of corpses in a Dumpster?

“A…it was like a monster. I mean, it was sort of like a person. But…different. And it wasn’t dead. It really wasn’t dead.”

He rubbed her back, trying to calm her. He needed her calmer so she would start making sense. “A monster. Are you sure?” he asked.

She looked up sharply. “I know what I saw.”

“Okay, okay.” He held his hands up. “I believe you. I’m just trying to get all the information. What do you think happened?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like…a zombie or something.”

Chris remembered his earlier jokes with Stephen. They’d
seemed a lot funnier at the time. But it was also ludicrous to believe in zombies. Molly had apparently been watching the wrong types of movies herself. “Er, maybe I should go back and take a look.”

She grabbed onto him, her knuckles white and her eyes wide. “No!” she cried. “Please don’t! I don’t want to be alone!”

Instinctively he pulled her into a tight embrace. She responded, her body pressing against his so close it seemed she was trying to push inside of him. He desperately willed himself not to get too turned on, though this was like a dream come true. God, she’d feel him growing hard and think he was taking advantage of her, and he didn’t want that. Still, it was next to impossible not to be aroused, what with her breasts smashed up against his chest and her shaky hot breaths against his earlobe. She smelled so sweet. Like honeysuckle and mint gum. It was all he could do not to kiss her.

But no, she didn’t think of him like that. She was only clinging now out of fear, not desire. He would end up, once again, in the role of friend. And he’d have set himself up for disappointment.

He could enjoy the physical contact now, though. And he’d protect his goddess from what ever came after them. At the very least, maybe she’d be grateful.

“Shhh,” he whispered, stroking her head. “I won’t let anything happen to you.” He liked saying that. It made him sound manly and brave. He wondered if she’d buy it.

“Thanks,” she sniffed. She pulled her head away from his shoulder and looked him in the eye. “I really appreciate that.”

“Of course,” he said. He gave her a little wink. “You know I’d do anything for a diamond.”

She chuckled a little and sank down on the forest floor, leaving his arms. He felt lonely, rejected. But he fought it.

“All those dead bodies,” she mused. “And that one…What does it all mean?”

Chris shook his head, forcing his thoughts back to the hospital. “I have no idea,” he said. “But it seems to me that the
Super Flu rumor is very real. And obviously the government isn’t telling people the truth. I mean, you’d never know from watching the regular news that this is going on. And it’s happening right under our very noses.”

Molly picked up a stick and broke it in two. She looked at Chris. “I’m scared,” she admitted. “I’m really scared.”

Chris sat down next to her and took her hand in his. He squeezed it. “I’m scared, too,” he said. “But we’re in this together, okay? If things get bad, we’ll figure something out.”

“Like what?”

He wasn’t sure. Thinking for a moment, he suggested, “We could leave town. Go someplace safe up in the mountains.”

“Away from the Super Flu?”

“Yes. Where we go…well, up there the air will be cleaner. There won’t be any people. We’ll be safe.”

She nodded. “That may not be a bad idea,” she said. “If things get really bad.”

“Yes. But hopefully they won’t. Who knows? By this time next month we could be laughing about the whole thing.”

She smiled ruefully. “I hope you’re right,” she said. “But for some reason, I just don’t think it’ll be that easy.”

Choking back vomit, Chris pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. Truth be told, neither did he.

“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry!” Molly cried as blood streamed from between Chase’s fingers. She’d cut him. How badly? “I didn’t mea…I didn’t mean…”

Her mind flashed back to what he’d said as they first walked into Wal-Mart. No doctors. No hospitals. A single scratch could be a death sentence.

“Fuck!” Chase swore under his breath. “Damn, that stings.”

“Let me see,” she commanded, retracting her razors. “I need to know how bad it is.”

Chase obediently removed his fingers from the wound. It was impossible to tell how deep the cut was with all the blood. Molly looked around at the children—they were asleep, thank goodness; she didn’t need to deal with freaked-out kids as well as everything else—then rushed quietly inside the motel room behind them. Grabbing a couple washcloths, she came back and pressed one against Chase’s wound. He twitched but didn’t cry out.

After a moment, she pulled the bloody cloth away. “I think you might need stitches,” she said, eyeing the cut. It was long, though thankfully not deep. Apparently the razors had been at a shallow angle.

“Great.” His face was pale. His lips trembled. Obviously he was in a lot of pain, even if he wasn’t comfortable showing it. “Just great.”

“It’s okay. My mom taught me how to stitch wounds. She
was a nurse before she had me. I can sew you up,” she assured him. “Where’s that first-aid kit?”

He motioned to one of the supply bags a few feet away. She handed him back the washcloth and he held it against his face. “Be right back,” she said.

Scrambling to her feet, she headed over to the bags and began her search for the med kit. What an idiot she’d been. This was exactly why she shouldn’t be playing around like she was. Molly Anderson wasn’t some innocent little girl anymore; she was a soldier, a killing machine. And anyone who came between her and her mission ran the risk of bodily injury, whether by her choice or not. This was the price people paid when she allowed herself to be distracted.

She shot a mental promise up to heaven: she wouldn’t touch Chase again. He was better off without her, even if he didn’t realize it.

But, oh, that kiss. That kiss.

Her lips still felt a bit bruised, and she was sure her face was flushed bright red. She licked her lips, remembering how it felt to have his mouth on hers, tasting her as if she were some gourmet treat and he’d been banned from the dessert bar for a thousand years.

Come on, Molly! The guy’s bleeding to death over there, and all
you can think of is kissing him? What would your mother say?
What would your
father
say?

She found the first-aid kit and headed back to where he sat. Pulling out her supplies, she handed him a vial of antiseptic and some gauze, then instructed him to clean the cut. He complied, cringing at the sting of alcohol on the wound. In the meantime, she threaded her needle and, grabbing a stick from the fire, brushed the flame across it: a makeshift sterilization, the best she could come up with on short notice.

“How are you doing?” she asked, half-afraid of his answer.

“Fine,” he replied through clenched teeth.

He didn’t look fine to her. In fact, he looked like he was going to pass out at any second. He was paying big time for her stupid mistake. A part of her wondered if he’d thought the
kiss was worth it, but then she scolded herself for being ridiculous. More than likely he was regretting he’d ever run into her.

“God, I’m so sorry,” she found herself saying again. As if repeated apologies would make the skin meld back together and magically heal. “I never meant to…Oh, never mind.” She quit talking. What good would it do anyway? And besides, there would be time for apologies later. Right now she needed to focus. She needed to get him sewn up before he lost any more blood.

“Um, one second,” he said as she readied herself to start stitching, reaching into his pocket. She watched as he withdrew some kind of prescription bottle. What were those pills, and why did he have them? But he didn’t say anything by way of an explanation, only “This should help,” and he popped the cap with his teeth and tossed back a few pills. Swallowing, he removed the bloody washcloth from his cheek. “Fix me,” he said, closing his eyes.

And so she fixed him. Carefully, so as to not hurt him any more than necessary, she stitched the cut closed. Each time she jabbed the needle into his flesh, his body trembled a little. But through it all he stayed silent, brave, solid, only his clenched jaw and the beads of sweat on his forehead giving any indication as to his pain.

It didn’t take long, and the bleeding subsided. The cut looked nasty and he’d probably have a scar. But as long as the cut didn’t get infected, everything should be okay. Maybe they could find a hospital in a neighboring town, find some heavier-duty antibiotics than the ones in the first-aid kit, the topical salve she was currently applying.

“I’m done,” she informed him, then realized he couldn’t hear her. He was out for the count, completely passed out. Was it from the pain? Or the drugs he’d just taken? Either way, she guessed it was probably for the best. She dabbed his sweaty forehead with another washcloth then sank down beside him, wondering what she should do now. They had talked about sharing night watch duties, but she doubted he was in
any state to handle them at the moment. And he wasn’t going to be much help moving the kids into the motel room.

Chase groaned and shifted, his head dropping onto her shoulder. Lost in sleep, he looked like a little boy, his mouth twisted in unconscious anguish.

She wondered if pain was chasing him through his dreams. Against her better judgment, she reached over and stroked his head, trying to soothe him into a more restful sleep. She shouldn’t have cared. She should have risen to her feet and left him there, stopped herself from getting emotionally involved. She should have carried each of the children inside the motel to a better-protected spot. But she found she couldn’t, and instead she ran her fingers through his hair, feeling each silky smooth strand. Chase thrashed a final time then fell still, unconsciously cuddling against her, wrapping an arm around her waist.

It was too tender. Too poignant. She should remove his hand. Stand up. Walk away. But she didn’t. She just sat there, willing herself to stay awake, praying they wouldn’t have any unwanted visitors. Some tough girl she was. Her father would be so proud.

Trapped in the strong grip of Oxycontin, Chase swam from nightmare to nightmare, chased by flesh-eating zombies who’d soon catch him and tear him apart, limb from limb, only to put him back together and have the process start all over again.

At last he woke, suddenly, dripping in cold sweat, and for a moment he wasn’t sure where he was. Then it all came back to him. Molly. The kiss. The searing pain that interrupted that kiss as she’d sliced his cheek open with one of those razors.

He couldn’t help laughing, albeit hysterically. He supposed he knew now how the Others felt. Reaching up he touched the cheek in question, surprised when his fingers found tiny stitches striping the cut. Then he remembered the rest. She’d sewn him up. She’d stopped the bleeding and likely saved his life.

“You’re awake,” she remarked. He looked over, surprised that she was sitting beside him, awake. His little Florence Nightingale. The moonlight reflected off her ocular implants, and her face was illuminated. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said she was beautiful, and he had to fight the urge not to start kissing her all over again, to remind himself that beauty was also a beast.

“Yeah,” he said, stretching his hands over his head. “Barely.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean…”

He waved her off. “My fault,” he said. “I got carried away. Pushed you too far. You were just…you were just saying no—in your own special way.”

She snorted softly. “That’s one way to look at it.”

He wanted to explain, to tell her it wasn’t her fault that she moved him as she did. She was just too delicious. The way she’d pressed her body against him, kissing him, her little tongue darting greedily in and out of his mouth. Her soft breasts crushed against him—he’d dared touch them only for a moment. But that had obviously startled, perhaps even scared her. She’d just been defending herself.

Truth be told, if he had to do it over again, he would have done the same. It was worth the scar.

Part of him recoiled at how pathetically overpowering her draw was to him. He’d only had sex once, when he’d turned eighteen years old. Tank had taken him to see a woman who lived near the refugee camp and turned tricks in exchange for food and medicine. She’d taken Chase to her dilapidated cabin and showed him how it was done. He still remembered the damp, musty smell of the bed. It was built to vibrate if you inserted a quarter, but things like that no longer worked. Which was probably just as well, since Chase had been vibrating a whole lot on his own at that point.

She hadn’t been particularly attractive. Stringy hair, cratered face, jutting hipbones on a scrawny frame. But she’d been a woman willing to fuck, which was what Tank had thought he needed. And his body had responded to her touch, despite her appearance. He’d taken her against the wall and lasted
about two seconds. He still remembered how she’d laughed—a witch’s cackle—as he pulled out of her, wet and spent and mostly relieved to have the thing over with. She’d scolded him for his impatience and suggested that if he ever had a chance with a real lover, he’d better learn to take his time. After all, the act was supposed to be about the woman’s plea sure, too.

He hadn’t really thought about it at the time, but now, looking at Molly, he felt ashamed. As much as he wanted to have sex with her, as much as he liked the idea of taking her roughly against a wall, fast, hard, and quickly coming inside her, the idea of caressing her slowly was much more enticing. He wanted to peel off each layer of clothing one by one, touching and tasting every millimeter of her skin. And then, when he could bear it no longer, he’d guide himself into her, fill her and take her to the same point of ecstasy he would experience himself.

He shook his head.
Fucking dumbass
, he rebuked himself.
You’re gonna get yourself hurt, just like before
. She was playing with him. Once they were down at Disney World it’d be sayonara. If and when they found her father, he was certain she’d leave him. She’d find better things to do with her time, guys who had their shit together—if there was anyone left. He’d waited for her once like a fool. He shouldn’t put himself through pain like that again. This kiss had been a mistake, pure and simple. But Chase never planned on making the same mistake again.