Thicker than Blood (27 page)

People were beginning to stop and stare,
openly gawking at Evelyn and me as they passed us in the hallway.
The building we were in was a smaller one, full of what looked to
have once been managerial offices. Now they were separate places of
business. Evelyn and I were currently standing outside a door
laughably marked
Branding
.

“I used to wish you were stronger,” Evelyn
whispered raggedly, drawing closer to me. “And then…now…it’s like I
don’t know who I am if I don’t have to worry about you. What is my
purpose here, Lei, if I have no one to take care of?”

Despite her tears and her now quiet tone, her
eyes were wild, frenzied even. I’d thought her mood swings had
calmed some, but it seemed as if the past week might have been the
calm before the storm, a storm that was only just beginning to
brew.

“Oh, Eve,” I whispered, reaching for her. As
I took her into my arms, hugging her fiercely, two men passed by,
slowing down at the sight of us. Both of them wore sickly smiles;
one of them winked and the other waggled his eyebrows. Disgusted, I
buried my face into Evelyn’s shoulder.

How easily the world had reverted to what it
once was, where men lorded over women and treated them as if they
were little more than cattle. In a way, the new world was much like
the old West, full of gun-toting cowboys, danger at every turn, and
where a woman was only safe if she was spoken for. If not, she was
fair game.

I should be grateful Evelyn and I had Alex,
and I was, yet I couldn’t help the anger that followed in its wake.
Anger, because I shouldn’t have to feel this way, and because of
how far we’d come as a nation, only to lose it all in only four
short years.

“We’re safe now,” I said soothingly. “We have
electric fences and an entire army keeping the infected out. We
have Alex protecting us. You don’t have to be strong at the moment,
Eve, you can take a breath. You can take a hundred breaths.”

My words were kind, and as genuinely spoken
as I could muster given our current circumstances. I hoped that
Evelyn was too upset to hear the doubt I felt, that she wouldn’t
pick up on the little white lies laced between the truths. Because
we weren’t safe, not really. Safety was now a thing of the past, a
wish on a star, the kind of dream you never wanted to wake from. In
this waking nightmare of ours, anything could happen. Alex could
die, leaving us alone, two women ripe for the plucking once more.
Or the infected could come, too many for these gates to hold at
bay, and then this somewhat safe haven would fall, leaving us as
food for the infected, or again lost to the big, wide open.

“You’re right.” Evelyn pulled out of our hug,
sniffing and wiping the tears from her cheeks. “I’m being
ridiculous. It’s probably that time of the month.” She attempted a
smile and I attempted one back, but our facades quickly evaporated
once the door beside us opened, revealing a very pissed off
Alex.

He held up his wrist, revealing his
branding. Two identical
A
s in
bold lettering had been inked into his skin with two circles
surrounding them.

“A-A?” I asked.

“Alexander Adams,” he answered through his
teeth, his gaze hard as he stared at me. “My name.”

“
One more
A
and you could start a travel club,” Evelyn joked without
humor, but neither Alex nor I even attempted a smile. There was
nothing funny about any of this.

“Who’s next?” Alex asked.

I looked at Evelyn, who shrugged in return.
“I’ll go,” she said. “You guys need to talk.”

As she disappeared inside the room, pulling
the door shut behind her, I suddenly couldn’t bring myself to look
at Alex. He was glaring at me, no, his eyes were wishing a thousand
daggers to pierce my heart. And even though I knew I didn’t owe him
an explanation for my decision, his behavior was making me feel as
if I did.

“It could be worse,” I quietly told the
floor. “I could be stripping, or…” I finally looked up at him and
raised my arms in a helpless gesture. “I can’t fight, Alex! What
did you want me to do?”

He didn’t respond, just continued to stare,
those dark eyes of his burning angry holes straight through me.

“Alex,” I whispered, my tone taking on a hint
of desperation. “Say something!”

He didn’t, of course he didn’t, but my words
seemed to trigger something in him. His shoulders sagged, and his
scowl faded. Shaking his head, he leaned against the wall behind
him and folded his arms over his chest.

I sighed and reached for him, attempting to
pry his arms away from his body. It took several pulls, me getting
nowhere against his strength until he finally chose to relent.
Dropping his arms, he allowed me to wrap mine around his waist and
press myself against him.

Several moments passed, his stubbornness
knowing no bounds, me gripping him tightly and him refusing to
reciprocate. But I wasn’t going to give up, wasn’t going to allow
something so meaningless to drive our small group apart. I kissed
his chest, dug my fingertips into his lower back, and kissed him
again and again through his dirty T-shirt until finally he sighed.
Reluctantly, he lifted his arms and brought them around me.

Another moment passed, and then he lifted me
up off my feet and into his arms, holding me so tightly I could
barely catch a breath.

• • •

As I followed behind our newest guide, a prostitute
named Bethany who couldn’t have been more than twenty and was
noticeably naked under her nearly sheer robe, I took in what was
one of the many living quarters in Purgatory. This particular
building was five stories high, resembling a college dorm with door
after door after door, and very few windows. But this was far from
a dorm, the walls decorated with an odd mix of spray-paint art and
framed art, the paintings all easily recognizable as past works
from historically famed painters.

And there were padlocks on nearly every
single door.

“Doorknob locks didn’t cut it,” Bethany
offered when she caught me staring. “Too many break-ins.”

I gaped, wondering what anyone still had
these days that would be worth stealing, and why people would be
willing to take such a high risk. Maybe I was just being naive
about it all, but Purgatory’s rules were laid out to us by Liv, and
they were strict and harsh. The first time you stole, you lost a
hand. The second time you stole, you were put in a cage, infected,
and left to turn. You took another man’s woman, you lost another
vital body part and got strung up in a cage, infected, and left to
turn.

Each incident had the same outcome. You
became an infected and were left in a cage to rot. I hadn’t yet
seen any cages or infected, but it was a horrific and painful death
to contemplate, and a terrible reminder to everyone not to steal or
cause trouble, yet apparently not a complete deterrent.

“When you’re home,” she continued, “you keep
your door locked from the inside, and when you leave, make sure you
lock it from the outside.”

We followed her in silence, the three of us
simply taking in our surroundings. We passed a pair of young
children playing alone in the hallway with a set of colorful
blocks. I offered them a smile that they both returned with
apprehensive looks, which only made my mood darker.

“Since you’ve got two claims, Liv wanted you
all in the family building.” Bethany shrugged, dramatically
flipping her long black hair over her shoulder. Slowing her pace,
she turned to look over her shoulder, giving Alex a long,
appraising look. “If you’re looking for another girl, I’d be more
than happy to give you a freebie, give you a taste of heaven,
honey.”

She stopped walking altogether, forcing the
rest of us to stop as well. Placing her palm against Alex’s chest,
she ran her red-tipped fingers across his T-shirt. Her tongue
darted out, sliding slowly over her full bottom lip. “That’s what
they call my pussy ’round here,” she whispered as she slid her hand
down his stomach.

Shocked, I watched with more than a little
anger-fueled jealousy as she boldly took a handful of Alex’s
crotch. “Heaven,” she purred throatily, her fingers flexing.

My breathing grew shallow, seconds seeming
like hours as my heart pounded an unsteady rhythm inside my chest.
Why didn’t he slap her away, or better yet, take her by her slutty
throat and squeeze the life from her? Resentment flared inside me,
and I struggled to contain my annoyance at both her and him.

Alex’s hand covered hers and peeled her hand
off him before he pushed her away and took a step back. “Maybe
another time,” he said stonily, thankfully looking as disgusted as
I was feeling.

Bethany’s instant disappointment was
palpable. Miffed, she gave both Evelyn and me a scathing glance,
speaking volumes as to how she felt. Who were we? What was so
special about us that a man like Alex would claim us and not
her?

I found myself feeling sorry for her, my
anger doused nearly as soon as it had flamed. Instead, I was
saddened by her circumstances, and though this woman wouldn’t want
my pity, I felt it for her regardless. Take Alex out of this
equation, and Evelyn and I could both be in her shoes, desperate
for any sense of security and ready to do anything it took to
obtain it.

“
Whatever,” she muttered, then turned away,
leaving us all with an up close and personal view of her backside.
“We’re here anyway.” She flipped her hand carelessly toward a door
on the right. Like the others, it was also fitted with a large and
formidable-looking padlock. A key appeared in her
hand—
Where
had she been hiding that?
—and then, without turning to look at him, offered it to
Alex.

“I’ll be back for you tonight,” she said
flippantly in my direction. “Make sure you shower before work. The
bathhouse is on the first floor.”

With another flip of her hair over her
shoulder, Bethany pushed between Evelyn and me, her shoulder
purposefully colliding with Evelyn’s. And then she was off, down
the hallway and eventually out of sight.

While Alex fumbled with the padlock, Evelyn
and I exchanged uneasy glances.

I’m worried about
you
, her eyes told
me.

I was worried about me too, but instead of
conveying that, I glanced away, my gaze landing on the two children
still playing in the hallway. There wasn’t much I was grateful for
in this new world, only Evelyn and now Alex, yet I found myself
suddenly grateful that I’d never been able to conceive a child. Not
with Thomas and not with Lawrence.

This world wasn’t for children, it wasn’t
conducive to growing and learning, and it definitely didn’t
perpetuate morals. These two children would know nothing but
violence and death, and I counted myself grateful that I would
never be laden with the guilt of bringing life into an already dead
world.

“Home sweet home,” Alex muttered as he pushed
open the door. A moldy smell wafted out into the hall, intermixed
with cleaning solution. One by one we entered, taking in our new
residence. It was a small room, no bigger than a bedroom. Off to
the right, a stained mattress had been dropped haphazardly onto the
floor, and to the left was a battered old armchair, threadbare and
missing half an arm. A shoddy countertop lined the wall beneath a
row of windows, all of them cracked and covered in duct tape.

But the walls were another story. Hanging
over the poor paint job, a sickly green color, were several
familiar art prints. The
Mona Lisa
,
Starry Night
,
and
The Scream
all hung side by side, an odd
sort of mix.

I stared at
The Scream
, thinking how fitting it was. The thought also
occurred to me that, much like children, art seemed to have little
place in this world.

Evelyn

“What now?” Leisel was perched on the edge of the
broken armchair, looking from Alex to me and back again. Her eyes
pleaded with me to give her something of substance to latch onto
inside this strange place, but all I could do was shrug.

We’d only been in this place for a couple of
hours, and already I was edgy and ill at ease with everything. It
would be nightfall soon, and the thought of being somewhere behind
walls, fences, barriers…whatever you wanted to call them, made me
uncomfortable. I was supposed to feel safe now, yet I felt anything
but.

Alex had been silent for hours now, ever
since Leisel had insisted that she was going to dance. Clearly, he
hated the idea, loathed it, and I could almost taste his anger at
the idea of other men looking at her. Refusing to even take a seat,
he’d been standing in front of a window, looking out through the
broken glass at the world below since we entered our room.

Jerking my head in Alex’s direction, I
gave Leisel a pointed look, silently conveying to her to get her
ass up and go to him. Mouthing the word
no
, she shook her head, and in return I glared at her, again
jerking my head. Reluctantly, she finally stood and walked slowly
across the room before reaching him. Tentatively, she reached out,
gently placing her hand on his back, only to have him flinch away
from her. Closing her eyes, Leisel took a deep, shuddering breath,
before opening them and trying again. This time, Alex remained
still, allowing her to touch him, and eventually she began gently
rubbing his back and he began to visibly relax.

Biting down on her lower lip, she looked
at me with an expression on her face that clearly said,
What do I do
now?
Smiling softly, I
simply shook my head and turned to leave. There was only one thing
I knew to do to win a man over. Use your body.