Thicker than Blood (35 page)

Inside what I was assumed was the Cave was
even eerier than the ghost town outside. There were eyes
everywhere, peeking out at me from behind partially cracked-open
doors, following me as I padded softly after Dori. The entire place
smelled, not of garbage or mold, but of sweat and sex. Considering
what I’d just been about to do, it was an unwelcome smell, only
serving to remind me how low, and how weak, I really was.

“Where are we going?” I whispered.

“My room,” she responded simply.

At the end of the hallway we turned left,
where two more men were waiting. Dutifully they picked her up,
wheelchair and all, and ascended a nearby staircase. I followed
lamely after her, still unsure and feeling uneasy as to why I was
being forced to remain here.

When we reached the second floor, Dori
quietly thanked the men and took control of her chair, wheeling
herself along another hallway, this one much narrower and even
darker than the first floor. Three doors in, Dori finally wheeled
herself to a stop and pulled out a set of keys. Pushing open her
door, she gestured for me to enter first. The room was pitch black,
the only light coming from a small crack in the dark curtains.

“What do you want?” I asked, not hiding my
annoyance.

“Come here, Wildcat,” she said, and I could
hear the quiet swishing sound of her wheels spinning as she pushed
herself toward the window.

Rolling my eyes, I followed her over,
watching as she pulled back the curtain and let in the sunlight.
“Take a look,” she murmured.

Blinking through the brightness, I peered out
into the daylight, seeing nothing below but an empty camp, thinking
again about how eerie it seemed, this loud and boisterous place
suddenly so still. But I was also slightly awed at how quickly and
proficiently they’d all worked together to keep this place safe and
free from the infection.

“Look up,” Dori said, pointing her finger.
Lifting my eyes, I followed her finger past the market place, past
the fences, and looked out into the wide stretch of empty land
surrounding us on all sides.

I saw something dark on the horizon,
reminiscent of a storm cloud from far off in the distance. But this
wasn’t a storm cloud, and it appeared to be moving. My eyes widened
in realization as the words
wall of death
lodged in my throat.

“Infected,” I murmured, then clasped a hand
over my mouth.

“Rotters,” Dori said, correcting me. “And
yes, it is.”

Flustered, I looked down at her as panic rose
in my throat. “We can’t just sit here and wait. They’re coming
right for us!”

She shook her head, smiling kindly. “As long
as we’re silent, as long as they don’t see or hear or smell us,
they’ll pass us by.”

“But there’s hundreds,” I protested, glancing
back at the horizon. “Thousands!”

“We’ve done this before, Wildcat. It’s never
failed us. We work together to keep them out, to protect one
another. We’re not as bad as you seem to think.”

I knew she was speaking, but words—any
words—seemed irrelevant, not when there was a horde of infected
headed our way. Far too many for any fence or any number of guns to
keep them out.

“I need to get to Leisel!” I shouted, pushing
past her, nearly tripping over one of her wheels.

“I can’t let you leave here,” she replied.
“My men won’t let you leave, not until the horde passes. And it
will pass. You will be safe.” Giving me a small smile, she
continued. “No one goes outside when a horde is near, it’s for
everyone’s safety.”

“But Leisel,” I said, feeling tears threaten.
“What if she needs me?”

“She doesn’t need you, she has her man.”

Dori wheeled herself forward, toward a small
bed in the far corner of the room. Patting the mattress, she smiled
at me. “She’s safe with him, and you’re safe here with me. Come,
lay down, rest a bit.”

Deep down, I knew Dori was right. She was
only repeating the words I’d been telling myself all day, that
Leisel no longer needed me. But I couldn’t stop the stomachache
that not being with her at a time like this, not being there for
her, was causing me.

And then it hit me, a realization that only
deepened the empty, queasy sensation in my gut. Maybe Leisel never
needed me. Maybe it was me who’d needed her all along.

No. I shook my head. No. She had needed me in
the past…and I had needed her. I still needed her. I would always
need her.

The only difference was now she had Alex, and
I had been placed on the back burner.

With slumping shoulders and tears begging to
be freed, I took Dori’s offered seat on her bed, and let my head
drop into my hands.

“We’re all a little broken, Wildcat, it isn’t
anything to be ashamed over. Just look how broken I am.” She
laughed, a quiet, tinkling sort of noise. “You don’t have to go
back to her, or to him. You don’t need to subject yourself to her
happiness. You can stay here, I’ll look after you. We all will. We
don’t ask much in return, just a bit of your body every now and
then to help fill our bellies and keep us clothed.”

Sure that at any moment I was going to
lose what little remained in my stomach, I lifted my head to look
at her. “I’m sorry,” I said, my voice trembling. “That’s not who I
am, I don’t do…
that
.”

But even I knew a lie when I heard one.

Dori was still smiling at me, a comforting
and kind smile, but it was also a knowing one that made me feel
exposed and uncomfortable.

“A strong woman knows what she is, Wildcat.
And embraces it.” She smiled again.

My trembling hands curled into fists as I
jumped up from the bed. Glaring down at her, I shook my head. “No,”
I said through clenched teeth. “No, that’s not who I am. I’ll wait
here only because I have to, but I won’t work here. I won’t be a
whore for you or for anyone.”

Lifting her chin, Dori cocked her head to one
side. “You have one man’s brand on your wrist, darlin’, yet I saw
you with E, trading food for sex. Only reason I can reckon you’d be
doing that is if your man isn’t really your man.”

Locking my jaw, I spun away from her and
counted to ten before I attempted speaking again. “I’m no one’s
whore,” I gritted out, facing her. “No one’s.”

“If you believe that,” she said, the blatant
sarcasm in her tone making me even angrier. “But just remember,
you’ll have to be the one to tell E that. And he isn’t a man to be
turned away so easily.”

I shook my head. “I’m not afraid of him.”

She looked at me with sympathy, as if I was
the poor deformed woman in the chair and not her. “You should be,”
was all she said.

“I’ve met worse than him, worse than you,” I
gritted out, though fear was building in my belly. The realization
of what I’d almost done, with what kind of man I’d almost done it
with, began to dawn on me.

“No, darlin’, you haven’t. There’s never been
a man like him before. E is one of a kind.”

I opened my mouth to say something, anything,
but the words wouldn’t come. Closing my mouth, I turned away from
her, doing my best to ignore the welling panic rising inside
me.

“E is a dangerous man,” she said. “He’s done
things that…well, things that no man should ever have to do. But
he’ll look after you, and if you’re good to him, he’ll be good to
you. He could do with a good woman like you, and maybe you can tame
him, Wildcat. Lord knows we’ve all tried. He doesn’t ask for much…”
she said, her voice trailing off into a whisper as her gaze dropped
to the floor.

My stomach churned as I watched shame flood
her pretty features. What had he done to her?

Bending my knees, I placed my hands on either
side of her wheelchair, forcing her to look up at me. “I already
told you,” I said firmly. “I’m nobody’s whore.”

Leisel

“I can’t stay up here!” I insisted, trying not to
shout. “I can’t stay up here not knowing whether she’s okay or
not!”

Leaning over the countertop, staring out at
the empty paths below our building, tears were streaming down my
cheeks. We’d been ushered, forced actually, back inside our
building, and there had been no time to search for Evelyn. Despite
all my protests, the armed guards now stationed inside our
building’s exits refused to let me pass.

I felt Alex’s body behind me as he aligned
his torso against my back. Not for the first time, his arms came
down around my waist, hugging me to him in an attempt to comfort
me.

“There is no one out there,” he said
pointedly. “She’s inside another building. She’s safe, Lei, I
promise you.”

“But I never got to apologize,” I whispered,
then swallowed another sob. “I said horrible things that I didn’t
even mean, and what if something happens? What if the infected get
inside the gates and it’s too late?”

“She knows you didn’t mean it. She knows
you’re sorry.”

“You don’t know that!” My tears began to fall
faster, harder, splatting across the stained plastic laminate. “You
don’t know her like I do.”

“You’re right, I don’t know that,” he
admitted. “Not for sure, but I have to believe it.”

I twisted my body, turning in his arms so we
were facing each other. Looking up into his face, I shook my head.
“Why do you have to believe it?”

“I just do,” he answered, averting his
eyes.

I stared up at him in wonderment, seeing
something I’d never seen before. There was a sadness in his eyes,
in his downturned lips, in the way his shoulders had drawn in.

“Alex?” I whispered, placing my hand on his
chest. “Talk to me.”

He shook his head, still refusing to look
at me, and so I tugged on his shirt. “Alex, you’ve been there for
me, let me be here for you. Talk to me,
please
.”

Releasing me, Alex stepped back, then turned
away and faced the door. The muscles in his arms and back flexed
while he shifted agitatedly from one foot to the other.

“My mom,” he said quietly, his voice cracking
over the last word. “She didn’t come home one day. The infection
hadn’t reached us yet…or so we’d thought. She’d just gone to a
friend’s house to check on them, to drop off some food, and then
she never came home. My dad and I were freaking out, calling
everyone, trying to find her. We drove around for two days looking
for her.”

Biting down on my bottom lip, I resisted the
urge to go to him. I wanted to comfort him, to show him the same
sort of support he’d shown me, but I could tell by his body
language and his tone of voice that this was a private moment, that
I wasn’t welcome within it. So, I remained where I was and just
listened.

“My dad…he went sorta nuts after that.
Everything combined, the shit on the news, the looting, the whole
fucking town was panicked, and my dad…without my mom…he just lost
it. He started blaming me for crap that wasn’t my fault, always
yelling at me. He got sick, you know, from not sleeping, not
eating, and from being constantly worried about her.

“It was about a week after she’d gone missing
when the infection showed up. Everyone was packing up and leaving,
and I was trying to get him to do the same. But he wouldn’t leave,
he kept saying he had to wait there for her, to be there when she
came back. I tried to force him, for his own fucking good, but he
was a big guy, even bigger than me. We ended up fighting…”

He let out a humorless laugh. “Last time I
saw my dad was when I punched him in the face, called him a fool,
told him he was stupid for waiting, that mom was already dead. Then
I left.”

My hand flew to my chest, over my rapidly
beating heart, and I swallowed hard. He sounded so young right now,
like the nineteen-year-old boy he’d been when everything changed.
Gone was the quiet, gruff-spoken man. This was a brokenhearted
teenager.

“I ran out of gas eventually. Got lucky,
though, ended up getting picked up by a military caravan. They were
just handing out guns to anyone, hoping that the more people they
armed, the better chance we had.”

He turned, facing me with tears in his eyes.
“I never went back, Lei. I never saw him again. But I have to
fucking believe that he knew I didn’t mean what I said, that he
knew I loved him.”

A choking noise bubbled up in my throat as
more tears poured down my cheeks. Unable to refrain from touching
him for one more second, I ran forward, slamming my body into his
and wrapping my arms around his waist.

“He knew it,” I whispered through my tears.
“He knew you loved him, I promise you.”

Looking down at me, Alex cupped my cheek and
tilted my face. Then he bowed his head to mine and kissed me.

• • •

Evelyn

“It doesn’t matter how much you pace, time won’t go
any quicker,” Dori said, her voice soft and kind. “And stop
worrying, everyone will be fine.”

Her words should have been soothing, but
considering that she’d just tried to convince me to work as a whore
by telling me I was already one, her words were anything but.
Instead they were annoying and obnoxious, like nails raking shrilly
across a blackboard.

Shooting a glance in her direction, I glared
at her, but refrained from unleashing the bucket load of
profanities that were on the tip of my tongue.

We needed to leave here; I could see that
now. This place, these people, the way they lived, it was vile and
corrupt, just as bad as Fredericksville had been, if not worse. The
only thing that was different was that this place wore their
corruption like a badge of honor, whereas Fredericksville hid
theirs behind closed doors.

Eventually this place would ruin us. It would
change us, harden us to the point where we’d only be concerned with
ourselves. It would pry Alex and Leisel apart, Leisel and me apart,
all by forcing us to become something we weren’t. I refused to let
that happen; I might have been broken but I was still worth
something. At the very least, I was worth more than a grilled
rat.