Apokalypsis Book Two

by Kate Morris

  “Does Dad know yet?” she asked.

  “He’s in Bulgaria, and I think they’re six or seven hours ahead of us, so it’s already morning there. I couldn’t reach him. He’s probably either in a meeting or preparing to give his lecture. Try him for me in an hour?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  Tristan broke in to say, shocking her, “Ma’am, if it’s alright, I’d like to stay and help. I’m not needed till Monday afternoon on base. I’d feel better if I stayed until we know more, especially since there was already one of those infected people in your neighborhood. They could still be out there. Others, too.”

  “Yes, that’ll be fine, Sergeant Driscoll. Avery, make up the guest suite.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she answered. She was pretty sure her mother was only agreeing to this because she was flustered and scared.

  Abraham came in and announced, “Mom, Cyrus is puking now.”

  “Oh, dear!” Ophelia said and rushed off.

  Avery put on a pot of tea to brew in the kitchen while Tristan helped Abraham carry the girls out to their mother’s vehicle, a Cadillac full-size SUV. She heard Tristan telling Abraham, “Make sure you wash your hands a lot and wear a mask at the hospital, man. Gloves, too. This shit’s really contagious, or so I’ve read. Make sure your mom does, too. Here, take my cell number. If you have any trouble at the hospital, call me. If anyone looks sick or starts mumbling or anything, get away from them stat. And watch out for your mom. The people with the other virus are really violent, Abraham. Be careful.”

  “Yes, sir,” Abraham replied as Cyrus stumbled into the kitchen in his pajamas. He walked over and hugged Avery around her middle. He wasn’t a very tall boy, probably wouldn’t be much taller than five-feet-seven or so. But he was her brother, adopted or otherwise, and she loved him.

  Her mother came in a second later in a flurry and kissed Avery’s cheek. “Call me as soon as you hear from your father.”

  “I will. Don’t worry. Just take care of the kids. We’ll handle everything around here.”

  “My darling girl, whatever would I do without you?”

  Avery smiled, hugged her mother, and watched her leave with three of her siblings and another one driving. She couldn’t help a sense of foreboding from coming over her as their taillights disappeared from view.

  “Wash your hands, Avery,” Tristan said behind her, making her jump.

  She nodded solemnly and with heavy steps went to the kitchen sink to scrub at her hands.

  “I’m going to wash their bed linens,” she said next.

  He followed her through the house to the girls’ shared room and helped her strip their beds. There were three sets of washers and dryers in their home. One set was in the basement so that the boys had their own and were responsible for their own laundry and their linens and anything else that came up down there. And the other was in this wing between the girls’ room and Finnegan and Cyrus’s shared room. The laundry room actually held two washers and dryers since it was the one most everyone used. They loaded the washer with sheets and pillowcases and the other with two blankets. It would take running more than two loads to complete the wash, though, because they needed Cyrus’s linens next.

  When she pulled the knob to start the second washer, her hands were shaking too badly. Tristan put his hand over hers to still it.

  “Tristan, you don’t…you don’t think it’s this flu, do you?”

  He didn’t answer, just stepped away from her. Not answering her was just as bad as telling her the truth. It conveyed everything she didn’t want to hear.

  “I want to check out this house, make sure it’s locked down for the night,” he said instead.

  “Alright, I’ll show you around,” she offered and left the laundry room, the light extinguishing on its own.

  Avery pointed to the door a few feet to their left once they were in the hallway. “That’s Finn and Cyrus’s room. You already saw the girls’ room.”

  He went into the girls’ room anyway and checked their three windows. Then she followed as he crossed the hallway and found a bathroom on his own. Apparently, he wasn’t waiting for the full tour. The kids’ bathroom on this side of the house didn’t have a window, but it did have two skylights that didn’t open. He even opened the linen closet door in their bathroom.

  Trailing after him, he paused at the boys’ room, “If I go in, will it wake him?”

  “No, Finnegan could sleep through a tornado.”

  He opened the door and entered, the light from the hallway and the boys’ globe nightlight his only source by which to see. Tristan must’ve been used to walking around in the dark, though. He even avoided stepping on airsoft gear and a bunch of LEGO pieces on the floor as he made his way to their matching three windows. One was unlocked, so he pushed the lever and engaged the lock. Then he silently backed out. Avery pulled Finn’s door closed again.

  “What’s down there?”

  “Another linen closet. Nothing else. No windows or anything,” she said and got a nod.

  She took him to the other wing where only Kaia slept. And she was dead asleep, too, when they entered. Her window was not only unlocked but slightly open. She always liked to sleep with a cool draft. Not tonight. Tristan latched it. Then he scoped out her attached bathroom and locked that window, too.

  Next was her mother’s office wing and the guest bedroom.

  “This is where you can sleep,” she showed him.

  He immediately locked both windows above the bed. This room didn’t have the nice views the others did, but it did have its own bathroom with a skylight. He frowned up at it before leaving and turning off the light again.

  “What’s down there?”

  “Just my mother’s office,” she explained as he brushed past her toward it. Avery clamped her hand down on his ridiculously thick wrist as he reached for the knob. “No! We’re not allowed in there. At all. It’s off limits. Patient privacy and all.”

  “Security trumps privacy any day. She has a mostly glass door that leads right outside and a shit ton of windows. I know it.”

  “She always locks up. Patient privacy.”

  He laid his other hand gently over hers and pried it away from the doorknob. Then, completely ignoring her mandate not to, he turned the knob and walked in. There was no way she was going in. That was breaking a very important family rule.

  He came out a minute later and said, “Unlocked door and one window.”

  She tried not to bristle. “Gosh, that’s crazy. The other night when I had that problem, I thought we went through the whole house and checked all the windows and doors. We’ve been trying to be a lot more careful.”

  “Cookies. Cello. Drawing things. That’s your specialty. This is mine. Let’s keep going.”

  This time she did stiffen at his insulting comments about her skills. She continued their tour to the second floor where none of her parents’ windows were unlocked, but the patio door that led to their second-story deck was. Avery was starting to feel stupid and inept. She could do more than bake cookies and design websites.

  On the first floor again, he checked the atrium and all the French doors in the living and dining areas leading out to the various patios. At least they were locked. The windows were, too. In the basement, everything was also locked down, probably from Abraham or Ephraim double-checking at night before they crashed.

  “This is a big house, too big,” he declared as they arrived back in the living room. “I mean, don’t get me wrong or anything, it’s great. Cool architecture. It’s just a defense nightmare with all these windows and walls of glass.”

  “We have a gate and fencing and an alarm system.”

  The German cuckoo clock in the foyer chimed, and she looked at the digital display on the double oven. It felt like three in the morning, but it was actually only half past ten.

  “But what if someone came at you from another way, not your driveway?” he asked as she went to the kitchen to pour herself a mug of hot t
ea. Avery didn’t want to admit that she hadn’t thought of that. She only assumed someone would approach from the driveway.

  “Want some?” she asked, to which he shook his head. “Anyway, I think we’re safe. I don’t think this place isn’t safe.”

  He gave her an incredulous look as if she were crazy.

  “No guns?” he questioned again.

  “No guns,” she confirmed as she stirred a teaspoon of local honey around in her hot tea. “We’re not anti-gun. It’s nothing like that. We staunchly believe in the Constitution and the freedoms and rights this country affords. We just don’t own any. My father’s not into that sort of thing. We do have airsoft guns, though.”

  He scoffed, which she found particularly rude. She watched as he removed his jacket and laid it across a stool near the kitchen. He returned and stood with his arms crossed and his hip resting against the countertop of the peninsula. His tattoos were on full display because he was only wearing an olive drab Army t-shirt with yellow lettering across the chest.

  “Tristan?” she asked and stepped a little closer. Just a little. He still made her nervous. “What do you do for the Army?”

  “What’s my MOS?”

  She shook her head, “I don’t know what that means.”

  He paused as if trying to find a way to explain it simply, “Er, basically it means, your job description.”

  “Okay, what’s your MOS? What do you do for them?”

  He didn’t answer right away but glared at her in a calculating manner.

  “Why do you word it like that, Avery?” he asked very directly and served her an intense stare.

  She said it like that because she got the impression Tristan wasn’t just a regular soldier. She got the distinct impression that he was recruited to do specific work, possibly dangerous work. He wasn’t just a normal man, either. Instead of answering, she played dumb and shrugged.

  “My MOS is engineer,” he said, although she got the impression he was leaving something out.

  He was an evasive, secretive man. He was also damaged, or he wouldn’t be seeing her mother.

  “Um, and what does that entail?”

  His dark blue eyes narrowed this time. “Why?”

  “Just trying to understand you better.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “You’re standing in our kitchen. You’re about to spend the night here. You’ve saved my life twice, but I barely know you.”

  “Once,” he interrupted and looked away.

  “Twice” she adamantly corrected. “If you weren’t there tonight. If you…if you hadn’t come like you told your friends you weren’t going to,” his eyes darted to hers at the realization that she’d asked about him, “then that man could’ve attacked me, too. Not just Freddie.”

  She set her mug down and stepped much closer to him. It was a risk. For some odd reason, standing close to Tristan was a risk, she knew. She felt it in her marrow that this man was dangerous, but he kept coming to her rescue. He acted a bit caged in by her nearness, just like when she’d first seen him earlier today at the riding arena when he looked like he would’ve rather been anywhere else. He was such an enigma.

  “I could be dead. Just like my friend, your friends. He could’ve killed all of us, but he didn’t because you were there. Again.”

  His mouth pinched at the corners, and his biceps jumped. The tips of his fingers were slightly white as if he were digging into his arms too tightly. Why was he getting upset? Was it because she was standing too close? Or was it because he didn’t like thinking of her being hurt? Surely, it wasn’t that. They hardly knew each other.

  “Have you ever done something like that before, killed someone with your bare hands?” she asked, genuinely trying to figure him out.

  “Why? You gonna throw me outta’ here?”

  She jumped at his tone and tried to step closer, but Tristan skirted around her until Avery’s back was against the counter instead of his. “What? I didn’t say…”

  “You really think you can take care of yourself while your mommy’s not here? You can’t. You live a cushy little life protected on your gated property and your lame security system and think you can take care of yourself. Well, ya’ can’t. You got me? You live in a fucking glass castle, but, Sugar, it’s glass, not stone. I could be in here in about ten seconds flat.” He snapped his thumb and finger together making a loud crack to accentuate his words. She reared back. “And your place? Forget it. Jesus, why don’t you just hang a sign at the end of the road that says ‘this chick wants raped and murdered in her sleep!’? Yeah, do that. The whole world ain’t cookie baking and horseback riding with your girly girls and sipping herbal, fucking tea. You’re so damn naïve, and it’s really fucking annoying.”

  He was trying to insult her, to hurt her. It did, but only a little. They were just words. She had struck something in him to set Tristan off like this. A vein was pumping hard in his throat, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down a few times.

  “That was rude,” she softly declared what she was thinking.

  “It was the truth, and you needed to hear it. So what? You want me to go now? Is that it?” he challenged and crossed his arms over his massive chest.

  She tilted her head slightly thinking. “No. I’m not throwing you out. You-you do scare me a little,” she admitted and watched him flinch as if he didn’t like hearing that. “I will admit that. And I’ll grant you that I’m not an expert at security or defending myself very well. But I don’t want you to leave, Tristan. Not at all. I want you here. I feel…” She reached out and laid three fingertips on his crossed arms, the muscles jumping under them. She stroked his arm just barely and felt strange ridges, scars or something. “I feel safe.”

  “Yeah? Well, maybe stop getting yourself into stupid and unsafe situations, Avery. Then you won’t need me around.”

  “Why? You’ll always be there to help me, right?” she asked, dropping a heavy, weighted silence between them.

  “Don’t say that,” he finally implored in a softer tone. “I’m leaving soon. Maybe a few months from now. Don’t go relying on me. I’m not the reliable type. I’m not like your dad. I’m not like that Joshua guy or any of the other men in your life. Don’t even start thinking of me like them.”

  “I don’t. I know that, too,” she admitted. “I love my father. Joshua is dear to me. But you’re not like them at all.”

  He snorted as if to say that she proved his point.

  “That night? The night I ran home from one of those things?” she asked, looking him in the eye. He offered one brief nod of his head. “I wished you were with me. I wished you were with me when I went to my apartment later that night, too. And that you would’ve stayed the whole night with me. For some reason I don’t even understand, I just feel safer when you’re around.”

  He swallowed. It looked painful and stiff. Tristan raised his chin a notch. Then he stepped away from her as if he didn’t appreciate her proximity. Avery suddenly felt foolish. Tristan was definitely not giving her mixed signals. He only felt concerned for her and her siblings’ safety. He was just a nice guy- well, sort of- a patriot soldier who was concerned about people. Likely the reason he got into the military in the first place. She had a very overinflated sense of self-importance where he was concerned but suddenly felt like a sublime fool.

  “You should get some sleep,” he said. “Stay here. Not your apartment. Take the guest room. I’ll just get some shut-eye on the couch. I won’t be sleeping much anyway. And take a shower. You were handling bedding and hugging your family and were around me after I ki…just shower.”

  Avery smoothed her hands down over her sweater and kept one lingering on her now sick stomach. “Right. Sure. Thanks for staying. I really appreciate it.”

  He nodded once and walked away toward the living room to stare out the glass doors in a dismissive pose.

  She bolted for the guest bedroom where she expelled a long-held breath. Then she took a fast show
er after calming her racing heart. There was nothing worse than looking or feeling like an idiot in front of someone. Tristan was older, so intense, and a lot more experienced. Here he was trying to do the right thing, and she was ready to spout poetry about his heroism. And maybe his muscles.

  After showering, she slipped into the robe behind the door and sneaked out and upstairs to her mother’s room to borrow clothing since they were the same size. After choosing black satin pajama shorts and a matching camisole, she blew her hair dry next. Then she grabbed a black cashmere open cardigan, carried it over one arm, and went to the top of the stairs. She could hear Tristan talking to someone on the phone. She wanted to know who it was but didn’t want to get caught eavesdropping. Deciding honesty was better, she went down.

  “Yeah, thanks,” he said and turned at the sound of her approach. His eyes widened just the tiniest spectrum. Then he leaned against the back of the leather sofa and jammed a hand on his hip while he continued to listen to whomever he was talking.

  “I’ll just go,” she whispered, feeling bad for listening in, and pointed toward the kitchen. He stopped her by shaking his head and holding up a finger for her to wait. So she waited, pinned by his gaze and a single, commanding finger of authority.

  “That’s so wrong, man,” he said.

  Avery watched as his eyes casually trailed down her body and back up as if he weren’t in any type of hurry and didn’t care whether or not she was bothered by it.

  “Yeah, let me know if you hear anything else. Yep. Thanks, man.”

  He ended the call and held his phone in front of him. Then he pointed at her using his phone. He ran the pad of his thumb along his jawline.

  “What’s this?”

  Avery looked behind her. “Excuse me? What do you…”

  “You live in a glass house, and that’s what you traipse around wearing?”

  “Um…they’re just pajamas. What do you mean?”