Sadie Walker Is Stranded (32 page)

“Sometimes it’s not easy, you know? It’s nice when you know what’s bad and what’s good,” I said. “It’s hardest when we have to fear each other.”

An icy wind traced across the beach, ruffling the blanket in his grasp.

“And it’s not your fault—what happened with Noah. Everyone was scared and mixed up. I don’t want you to think you did something wrong.”

“But I
did
do something wrong. I shouldn’t have said anything to Whelan. I didn’t know what … I didn’t know.” The blanket came down. He looked at me, right in the eyes, scowling as if determined to take the blame.

“You couldn’t have known, bud,” I said gently. “And it’s okay that you showed Whelan too. You saw something that made you scared and you did something about it.”

“But it was the
wrong
something,” Shane insisted.

“Look, I’ve done lots of wrong somethings…” I didn’t even like saying the asshole’s name in front of Shane, but I considered that owning up to my own lapses in judgment might help him understand what I meant. “Carl was a wrong something. Letting him get near us is one of the biggest regrets of my life. Going into the forest alone was a wrong something. I know that might not make you feel any better, but you’re not alone. In fact, if there’s one thing that makes us all similar, it’s that we all screw up from time to time.”

“You’re right,” Shane mumbled, shaking his head. “It doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“It’s fine to feel upset about this, but … this isn’t your fault. Whoever is trying to hurt us—it’s
their
fault.”

“Then why do I still feel so angry?”

I knew what to say now. It wasn’t easy, necessarily, but natural, and it made me hope that I was getting the hang of looking out for him, or at least fixing things when they went horribly awry.

“Because you’re a good kid,” I said. “And it makes you angry when things don’t turn out for the best.”

This wasn’t a one-time patch job. We would need to talk about it again, later, when he had time to process his confusion. But it was a start.

Shane and I finished sorting through the blankets as Andrea appeared from the far end of the cabins. She offered to make lunch and I left them together to check on Whelan. He probably didn’t need me snooping around and God knew there was plenty to keep us busy, but it didn’t seem right to let him go on beating himself up all alone.

“The raft is looking good, Officer.”

There wasn’t a single hitch in his rhythmic hammering. I wasn’t even offended that my greeting went unanswered. He was somewhere else, on a different plane of thought entirely. Sweat rolled down his neck, and yours truly had the pleasure of imagining those enterprising little droplets picking up speed as they hit the gunnels on either side of his spine before racing down toward the waistband of his jeans.

“Don’t call me that,” he grunted a moment later.

Bang—bang—bang.

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve chosen”—a slight pause as he pulled a nail out of the corner of his mouth—“to work out my frustration this way instead of fucking your brains out. Please respect my decision.”

Calling him … ah. Yes. Well, then. I really dislike the word
flabbergasted
, but sometimes you just have to embrace it.

“Well?”

Oh. He wanted a response to that. Funny, I was just thinking about how I had completely lost the power of speech.

“Hang on. I’m trying to think of a pithy response. Geez, pushy, pushy.”

That actually made him stop what he was doing. He plucked the rest of the nails out of his mouth and dropped them onto the sand before I could consider how incredibly unsanitary it was. Then he twisted at the waist, resting his palms on his bent knees as he pulled a smile out of his back pocket and grinned up at me, cheeky dimple and all.

dis • arm

[dis
-ahrm
]

—verb (used with object)

1. to deprive of a weapon or weapons.

2. to remove the fuse or other actuating device from:
to disarm a bomb.

3. to divest or relieve of hostility, suspicion, etc.; win the affection or approval of; charm:
His smile disarmed us.

4. to completely wipe Sadie’s brain cells of all useful thought or argument; to moisten panties:
His disarming smile should legally be considered a weapon of mass destruction.

“I’ve pissed you off,” Whelan commented dryly, one eyebrow going skyward.

“Uh, no, on the contrary, you have not. In fact, I do not know of this ‘pissed off’ you speak of.”
Look, libido, we need to have a sit down, one where I explain that it’s unacceptable to take over my brain like a Centaurian slug and turn me into a gibbering, sweating dullard.

Whelan stood and the angels rejoiced on high as the salt air and that sweat-that-isn’t-quite-smelly-sweat-but-like-tiger-musk came along with him. His Tee had gone partially transparent from perspiration, showing a bit of the tattoo on his pectoral, the design that I had caught only a partial glimpse of from the collars of his shirts. It was still impossible to make out what it actually was, but knowing it was there was motivation enough to fund an expedition.

One is unfortunately reminded of those sex-crazed maniacs who, immediately after The Outbreak hit, were so desperate to go down doing it that they screwed in the middle of the streets. I bet they were disappointed when they didn’t actually end up getting eaten and had to live out their days with their neighbors knowing the location of every mole, dimple and freckle pattern on their bodies.

That doesn’t mean I was convinced we were all going to die and soon. But danger has a way of making those bits of unfinished business an imperative rather than a choice. Luckily, this imperative was pretty damn appealing.

“That thing you said…”
Really, brain? That’s what we’re going with?
“We should do that.”

“The part about fucking?” Eyebrows that dastardly should really have their own mustachios to twirl.

“Yes.”

“Hmm.”
Hello, tenterhooks, please to be releasing your Shaolin grip on my heart.
“Now?”

“No, not now.”

“Then … later?”

“Definitely.”

“Okay, then. I’ll find a sitter.” Another smile, another little piece of my soul floated up to the clouds to frolic with unicorns and baby Jesus.

“Sweet.”

Sweet
? What was this,
Sweet Valley High
? Christ, at least I didn’t say
rad
. The eloquence astounds, I know, but I dare you to do better with eyes that blue and shiny staring like your mouth is an all you can eat sushi platter.

“I should go,” I said, inching away. Almost at once the guilt hit. We had just buried Noah. Was this what people did at funerals? Did it matter? The initial terror of dealing with the undead meant that the usual ethics went out the window. But now we were a little removed, or at least, used to it, and behaving rashly wasn’t as justifiable. Maybe this wasn’t so rash. Maybe we had been arriving at this point for a long time and the threat of more loss, more death, pushed that deadline up. Comfort isn’t always where you expect it to be.

He knelt again, pushing a dirt-stained hand through his dark hair, working a crick out of his neck as he hefted his hammer.

“Yeah, you probably should. Now I’m only feeling more frustrated, and you absolutely do not want to get sand in the places I’m thinking about.”

And the things
I
was thinking about were not legal in most states.

“Then I suppose it’s a date,” I said, turning to go with a crooked smile of my own. “Officer.”

*   *   *

We move in circles. Success, happiness, love—we move toward these things, graze them, maybe touch them, but something inevitably pushes us away. Maybe it’s a weird drive to feel, I don’t know,
bereft
. If we have the thing we want it’s suddenly not the peak—if we can hold it, feel it or own it, then it’s no longer amazing. Suddenly the intangible is tangible and the magic goes out of it and you’re left moving in that circle again, edging toward the next great person, the next job or whatever else it is you want that’s doomed to become yours and then, by its very nature, unsatisfying.

We kill good things. We do it all the time.

The cabins didn’t let in much light. The rough muslin curtains looked like something a bored campground employee put up long ago to get the tourists to shut up about privacy. Burnt orange stripes ran through the fabric, reminding one not of rustic sunsets—which I was sure was the hope—but of the runs. With the curtains drawn at night, the cabins became little voids, boxes where no light penetrates. That was both good and bad—good because there was no denying the excitement of the darkness. Bathed in shadow, there was mystery and the unknown, there was the chance to explore with senses forgotten in the daylight. There was Whelan, impossibly warm, all of him firm, and the lack of light provided the opportunity to find the variations in that firmness—the callused roughness of fingers that had shot and hewn and protected, the rise of shoulders made iron from a lifetime of physical rigor, a stomach that was neither completely hard nor soft, rigid but forgiving and dusted in coarse hair.

The bad was that darkness meant surprises in the morning. Hopefully happy surprises, but one never knew.

And there were words whispered in the darkness, sometimes incoherent with delight and other times ringing with a strange clarity. Bodies bent more naturally in the dark, unimpeded by self-consciousness or anxiety, moving where they wanted to go and doing what they wanted to do. Desires were communicated subtly, in breaths or sighs, nervousness manifesting as giggles, gasps, and then resolved with another, more certain touch.

I woke up, sore in places I had forgotten about, feeling the savage, deep thoughtfulness of a mind awaken to its physical counterpart, and I stretched and smiled and made those contented, muzzy morning sounds. Then with the light there I turned to survey my conquest, reacquaint myself with the being that gave me so much unexpected joy, and found that the sunshine ruined everything.

Everything. Not happy surprises then.

It was there, on his chest, the design I thought I saw through damp cloth, a design that once thrilled but now, when I could see just what it was, it made the world spin. And it was on his arm, too, not as big, but there just the same. A conversation weeks old lashed out, like a snake you’ve stepped on, accidentally, and provoked—Andrea, making her usual crass conversation, bragging about bedding a Repopulationist, a Rabbit, and his tattoos.

“Oh, my God.” It slipped out and I covered my mouth to stifle the scream that wanted to follow.

It was something you just knew. The aggressive slant on the cartoon rabbit’s mouth, its ludicrously oversized musculature … No wonder they got out before Seattle fell. They knew what was coming.

In the next instant I was sliding out of bed, gathering my things, dressing clumsily with fingers numbed by rage. He couldn’t have said something? He couldn’t have mentioned this when my hand was touching that tattoo the night before? Whelan woke up when the door shut. I heard my name, a confused murmuring, but I was already outside in the cold, storming across the sand and back to my cabin. I was
right
. I should’ve stuck to my people and let him stick to his.

“Sadie? Is everything okay?”

He sounded so earnestly hurt and confused I almost feel bad.

But not
that
bad.

“Don’t play the innocent, Whelan. You know damn well it’s not
okay
.”

Turning to look at him would swing the argument in his favor, so I didn’t, focusing straight ahead, staring at the fire pit. I had to get there, had to get back to Shane and Andrea. Had to get away from—

“Stop. Stop it, just hold on, would you?”

He caught up and a gentle hand closed around my elbow.

It wasn’t like I could avoid him. That raft of his looked about as seaworthy as a sieve and he was, unfortunately, who Banana and Nate looked to for guidance. And I liked Banana and Nate. But maybe they were Rabbits too. Maybe they were just as sneaky and deceptive as Whelan. The beach was empty and we were alone as I slammed to a stop and spun, yanking my arm out of his grasp.

“You make me ill,” I whispered. Before his eyes could get any bigger with confusion I jabbed, hard, right in his left pectoral. He hardly seemed to feel it, but his eyes shifted to where I’d poked him.

“Why do you think I left, Sadie?” It was the too-soft, too-calm voice of a man who knows he’s been busted.

“I don’t care.” Blaming him, not just for the way I felt right then, but for everything, seemed perfectly logical. “How many chicks did you knock up, then? I mean, that’s what you all do, right? That’s your thing.”

The blood drained from his face, from his chest, leaving him ghostly pale.

“I didn’t … Nobody. Look, there are a lot of misconceptions—”

“Fascinating. You’ll have to tell me about it sometime, like when I’m done vomiting on myself.”

“You’re not being fair, Sadie. I never … Would you just listen? Christ, I’m trying to explain—isn’t that what you want?”

“It’s all of you, right? You’re
all
Rabbits, aren’t you?”

Shifting from foot to foot, he wet his lips and glanced around. Ha. Nervous to out his pals. Fucking unbelievable. I turned for the cabin again, eager to be out of his sight, to have an epic cry and let the emotions explode before I actually thought of what to do. I really should have burned the eyeballs out of his head for lying, for
somehow
managing not to tell me about his membership in a fanatical, disgusting cult. They had destroyed the city with their bullshit antics, divided an already divided population, and set in motion the events that nearly took Shane from me. As far as I was concerned, his current status with the group meant nothing. Irrational? Maybe, but you would have to have been in the city, experienced the rising paranoia and discontent, to know what we felt. And Whelan had been part of it.