We stayed that way for a long time, Donaghy teasing me. Driving me mad. I tried to move his hands, always so close to the bull’s-eye but never quite reaching it, but he refused to be deterred. I even tried other ways to shift gears. Running my hand down his chest to his stomach, dipping my fingers past the waistband of his pants.
He groaned, but pulled my hand away. “No.”
“Why?” I asked against his lips.
“Not here. Not in a hellhole like this. You deserve better.”
His lips covered mine once again, making it impossible to respond. Not that there was much to say to that. I wasn’t sure if there was anywhere better than where we were, not anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Donaghy
After the day’s events, the make out session hadn’t just useful for letting out some of this pent up sexual frustration; it had been therapeutic.
I had wanted so badly to take Meg’s clothes off. Even now, after the heat had died down and we were no longer kissing, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Her head was resting on my chest and she was running her fingers up and down my stomach, but the only thing my brain could focus on was what it would feel like to flip her onto her back and strip her down so I could plunge into her. I knew it would feel good, but I also knew it wouldn’t feel right.
I had to be better than that.
“Is Donaghy your first name?” she asked out of nowhere.
I cleared my throat and shook my head, partly to answer her, but also to try and get my brain to think about something other than screwing the girl at my side.
“No.” My voice came out strained, so I cleared my throat again.
Meg pushed herself up so she was looking me in the eye. “What is it?”
“Michael Donaghy Fallon,” I said. “Donaghy was my mom’s maiden name. She’d always planned on using it as a middle name, but she hadn’t intended to call me that. Only, I was premature. When I was born, I weighed less than two pounds.” Meg’s eyebrows shot up and I nodded. “Donaghy means fighter. She said from the moment I was born, that’s what I was. A fighter. So, that’s who I became.”
Meg smiled. “I love it.”
“Seems ironic now, doesn’t?” I shook my head. “My name meaning fighter, and here I am. Doing this.”
“I think it’s your destiny. Without you, I probably would have been killed in that bathroom. I think you were sent here to save me.”
When I wrapped my arms around her, Meg put her head down on my chest and hugged me back. I was glad, because I couldn’t stand the thought of her seeing the tears in my eyes. Not because I was ashamed, but because I wasn’t sure where they’d come from. Was it the thought that Meg might have died without me, or the realization that Patty had? Both, maybe. Whether or not it was destiny, I didn’t know, but I knew that I was here now and I had to do everything I could to embrace it.
“Patty was the most forgiving person I’ve ever known,” I said, the tears in my voice making the words shake. “Thinking that I let her down would most likely kill me if I didn’t remember that. I know, more than I know anything else in this life, that she would want me to move forward and be happy.”
“Of course she would.” Meg’s arms tightened around my chest.
“What about you?” I asked, hoping to move on to a happier subject. “You said Vivian and Axl James aren’t your biological parents. What happened to your mom and dad?”
Meg’s shoulders moved when she shrugged. “The apocalypse, I guess. My entire family was in Colorado when they found out Angus was immune, and they knew they had to bring him to the CDC if humanity was going to have a chance at surviving. My mom was pregnant with me at the time. Dad died along the way and Mom right after I was born. Complications. Joshua—” She paused to suck in a deep breath. “—couldn’t save her. Before she died, she asked Vivian and Axl to raise me. That’s about it, really. Except that I’m named after Dad’s sister. I don’t know the whole store, apparently it’s a sad one, but Megan is how my parents met.”
“I’m sorry.” I should have known there were no really happy stories anymore.
“It’s fine,” Meg said. She pushed herself up so she could look me in the eye again. “If they had survived, I would have loved them and had a great life, but I’ve had a pretty great life with my adopted parents too. Despite everything, I mean. I’ve been loved and protected, and that’s about the most you can hope for these days.”
“That’s the truth,” I said.
Meg smiled before leaning forward to kiss me again. I’d just managed to banish the thoughts of her naked body, and all it took was her lips pressed against mine for them to come screaming back. My hands went to her back without thinking, then down and over the curve of her ass. When I reached bare skin, I swear to God she spread her legs for me.
“I want you,” she said against my lips.
Her own hand had migrated down my chest to my stomach, working its way south. Every ounce of blood in my body had switched directions, flooding to my crotch and taking my brain cells with it. I slid my hand up the inside of her thigh. She pushed her fingers past the waistband of my pants. My fingertips had just brushed warmth when the door flew open behind us.
“Son of a bitch,” Dragon growled as he charged across the room. “What the fuck did I tell you?”
Meg rolled off me just as Dragon reached the cot. He grabbed my arm and yanked me to my feet so fast that Meg toppled to the floor and I almost tripped over my own two feet and fell on my face.
“I told you the girls in my bar are off limits.” The words hissed their way through the hole where his teeth used to be.
“Dragon,” Meg said, hauling herself off the floor. “What the hell? I’m a big girl, and you have no right to tell me who I can and can’t sleep with.”
The man whirled around to face her, letting me go. “What did you say to me?”
Meg blinked at the fury in his voice. “I said, I’m a big girl.”
“You’re my responsibility, and the last thing I need is for you to get knocked up by some asshole convict who’s on his way out. Do you have any idea what Jackson would do if he found out about this?”
“Jackson?” Meg shook her head. “Wait, what? What do you know?”
Dragon’s face went a whole shade lighter and he took a step back. I’d never seen the man look like he wanted to unsay or undo something before, but he did now. He’d let something slip, but I wasn’t sure what and I could tell by looking at her that neither was Meg.
Dragon licked his lips and looked between Meg and me. “Nothing. I just know that after last night, the Regulator’s son has it in for both of you. I’m just looking out for you.”
“Bullshit,” I said before Meg could respond. “You know more. I know you do because I heard you the other morning, talking to that man about Axl. You know where Meg’s dad is, don’t you?”
She looked like she was holding her breath. When Dragon didn’t respond, she let all the air out of her lungs and stepped forward.
“Tell me what’s going on,” she said through clenched teeth.
“I can’t.” Dragon’s voice was low, but he looked more sure of himself than he had a second ago. “Not yet. I swear to you that when the time comes, I will tell you everything. But there are things happening that will put you in danger, and I swore I’d look out for you.”
“Who?” Meg asked. “Who told you to look out for me?”
“A friend.”
“The gray man,” I said.
Dragon’s eyes clouded over but he didn’t respond before he turned his back on us and headed for the door. “Get to work or you’re fired. Now.”
Meg didn’t follow him, and once we were alone she turned to face me. “What now?”
“Helen,” I said. “Talk to Helen tonight. Every chance you can get.”
“She’s going to be on Dragon’s side.”
“I know, but I think she’ll be more sympathetic to your situation. At the very least, she may give yo
u an idea of what’s happening.”
Just like the romp in the back room with Meg, the fight tonight felt so therapeutic that I might as well have been stretched out on a leather couch and spilling my guts to some disinterested man with a notepad. Every time I slammed my fist into the zombie in front of me, I pretended it was Jackson or that asshole JO’s son from Dayton. Picturing Patty, her innocent face cut and bruised, or looking at the other side of the room to see Meg’s swollen lip kept the adrenaline moving through my veins. The throbbing in my knuckles felt like aloe on a burn, and the spray of black blood across the ring was more exhilarating than it had ever been before.
The pricks of this world thought they had us where they wanted us. They thought they could prey on the weak and take whoever and whatever they wanted. But they were wrong and I wanted to prove it to them.
By the time I had smashed in the skull of the last zombie, I was having a hard time catching my breath. My body was on fire. I’d never felt anger like this before. It threatened to burn me alive from the inside out and made it difficult for me to see straight. Even when Dragon came into the ring and announced my win, I couldn’t get my vision to focus. The world around me was red. Painted with the blood I wanted to spill. Jackson’s and that asshole who had killed Patty.
Chapter Thirty
Meg
I’d planned on spending the fight chatting with Helen and attempting to wrangle some information out of her, but instead my eyes were glued to the ring the entire time. Donaghy was more amped up than usual. His punches seemed to come harder, his eyes not really focusing on the creatures in front of him, but instead looking through them. It was like his brain was somewhere else. His fists hitting someone else.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out who or where.
The fight was over in record time, but the cheers were minimal when Dragon announced the winner. Mostly because the crowd was thinner than it had ever been before. The coughing had disappeared, but so had a lot of the population. It was like they had all vanished in the blink of an eye. Here one day, gone the next, never to be thought of again and definitely not to be missed.
“They’re bulldozing it,” Helen said from behind me, her scratchy voice cutting through my thoughts.
I turned away from the ring as Donaghy headed back to get cleaned up. He was even more covered in blood than usual, so he’d most likely take a shower. The idea of joining him popped into my head, but it floated away the second I set eyes on the older waitress. The National Newspaper was in her hands, and her blue eyes were focused on it as a cigarette dangled from her barely closed lips. They moved slowly as she scanned the article in front of her, the cigarette bobbing up and down with the silent words, ashes barely missing the newspaper before dropping to the floor.
“What?” Glitter asked before I could. Her pink hair was slicked back and brighter today, the dark blonde roots no longer visible.
“Shantytown.” Helen shook her head and closed her lips long enough to suck in a mouthful of poison. She blew smoke out of the side of her mouth before reading the story. “’The population has been reduced enough to get rid of the shacks and move the remaining citizens into apartments. The removal of bodies will start next week, along with a census to find out how many people were taken by the most recent flu epidemic. Once apartments have been freed up, the relocation process will begin. The government expects it to take only a few days, and as soon as shantytown is no longer inhabited, a bulldozer will be brought in to remove the shacks. The CDC blames the unsanitary living conditions for the spread of the illness, and the bulk of the deaths, and the Regulator has declared that measures must be taken to prevent another outbreak of this or any other flu. He has pledged to keep on top of the housing situation from now on, and is in the process of writing up a bill that will ban the building of any unregulated homes within the city.’” Helen’s mouth scrunched up and she snorted. “Assholes. Like they don’t know how many people died.”
“Was it worse than the last one?” I asked.
The older woman shrugged and tossed the paper on the counter before plucking the cigarette out of her mouth. “I’m willing to bet the number of deaths will be about the same, although who knows what the National Newspaper will report about it. I’ll get the real figures at work, though.”
Most of the patrons had left the bar, leaving only a handful staring into their glasses at the end of the counter. Tips were going to be shitty tonight, not that it mattered. I was more interested in clues about what was going on than credits at the moment.
“You’re that high up?” I asked. “At the CDC, I mean.”
Helen was in the middle of inhaling more smoke into her lungs—I swear they had to be black as night. She pulled the cigarette out of her mouth and held her most recent breath in as she stared at me, almost like she was trying to give the chemicals a chance to poison her lungs.
She let the smoke out in one breath. “I am.”
I swallowed, my heart beating erratically in my chest. The expression in her eyes said she was dying to say more, but she didn’t. She just pressed her lips together and stared at me, one arm crossed over her chest and the elbow of the other arm tucked into her side while between her fingers the cigarette burned.
“Do you have access to all the top secret areas?”
Helen nodded once.
Behind her, Glitter shuffled her feet. “Helen, I—”
The older woman waved her off. “It’s okay, honey. Let her ask her questions. I don’t have to answer them if I don’t want to.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to answer me if you have the answers I’m looking for?” I was well aware that the question came out sounding like a riddle, but I had a feeling Helen knew what I was getting at.
“Sometimes, the truth hurts. And I’m not talking about hurting emotionally.” She put the cigarette between her lips and took another drag. “I wouldn’t want to tell you anything that would get you hurt, if you know what I mean.”
Heat moved up my neck to my face as anger swirled through me. She knew something, just like Dragon did, but neither one of them was going to tell me. My father’s life was in danger, but they weren’t going to help me even though they could.
“So you and Dragon are never going to tell me what’s going on?” I snapped. “I’m just going to have to figure it out on my own, is that it?”
Helen shook her head. “No. In fact, trying to figure it out on your own is the last thing you should do.”
“What exactly is the first thing I should do? Since you’re so quick with the advice.”
“Wait. You won’t be in the dark forever, but if we move too fast on this, something bad could happen.”
“Something bad could happen if we move too slow, too,” I snapped, waving my hand at my face, which was bruised and cut up.
Not one of my coworkers had asked me how I’d gotten hurt, but since Donaghy had seen the gray man in here the other day, I had a good feeling they all knew where my injuries had come from. Because whoever the gray man was, he was hiding here and he was plotting something with Dragon and Helen. Maybe even Glitter.
“You’re okay, right?” Glitter asked as her big, gray eyes swept over my face.
“Wonderful.” I let out a deep breath. “Just wonderful.”
No matter what Helen said, I wasn’t going to just sit back and do nothing. Not anymore. Tonight I would talk to Mom about everything that was going on, and she and I would decide what our next move would be together. I was tired of waiting on other people. Screw Helen and Dragon, and screw the gray man. He may have saved me a couple times, but he wasn’t looking out for my best interest or he would have told me what was going on in the CDC by now.
I turned away from the other waitresses and scanned the room. Dragon was talking to the big men who doubled as bouncers, but Donaghy was nowhere in sight. He must still be in the shower.
When I headed across the room, Glitter called after me, but I heard Helen tell her to let me be. Good. I
was done talking. It was time for action.
The holding room was quiet now that Donaghy had taken the zombies out, and when I shoved the door to the back room open, the small space was filled with steam. The pitter-patter of water as it hit the shower floor echoed off the walls, loud in the tiny room.
When I stepped into the bathroom, I stopped dead in my tracks. There was no shower curtain on the stall, giving me a perfect view of Donaghy. He stood under the trickling stream of water with his back to me, stripped down to nothing. His head was bowed and the water ran down his back, magnifying the lines of his tattoo. Every inch of him was muscular and firm. Like he’d been carved out of the strongest marble.
My breath caught in my throat and I couldn’t make myself leave. The anger I’d been feeling was still there, but it now felt muted by the desire swimming through me. Donaghy wanted to wait for a reason I couldn’t comprehend, but I had no desire to wait. I hadn’t wanted to wait earlier, and certainly didn’t want to now. After losing Colton, I never thought I’d want another man, but I did, and he was here and I knew firsthand that time was an abstract thing. This moment could be our last. Every moment could be our last.
I slipped my shoes off and shimmied out of my underwear, dropping them to the floor next to my heels. When I pulled my dress over my head, I tossed it aside just before stepping into the shower.
The water was lukewarm, but refreshing in the muggy atmosphere of the bar. Donaghy didn’t move, unaware that I was even here, but the second my hands touched his back he stiffened. He lifted his head slowly, turning it so he could look over his shoulder at me. He didn’t twist to face me, but his eyes held mine as I ran my hands down his back, not stopping until they were on his ass, my fingers curling around his hips. The urge to move them around to the front made my legs tremble.
“Meg.”
He didn’t say anything else, but his shoulders rose when he took a deep breath, and he squeezed his eyes shut like he was trying to decide what to do. Like if he didn’t look at me, he’d be able to resist.
Twisted World Series Box Set | Books 1-3 & Novella Page 31