Shadow of Nevermore

Home > Other > Shadow of Nevermore > Page 19
Shadow of Nevermore Page 19

by Lilly Black


  As Ravi kissed his way up my body to my lips, his face was glazed with my juices, my need for him won.

  "You have to make love to me right now," I said, my hands fumbling for his zipper, knowing I needed him inside me even if I didn't know why.

  "I can't tonight," he replied apologetically. "I didn't expect this. I didn't bring any condoms."

  I didn't care.

  "Just pull out," I said.

  "We can't do that, June," he protested.

  "I'll finish you with my mouth," I offered to sweeten the deal.

  "I care about you, and it would be irresponsible of us to risk getting you pregnant with no hospitals or..."

  "Do you not want me?"

  "Oh, Lady June. I've wanted you from the first moment I saw you, but I won't let that cloud my judgment."

  "Trust me," I insisted. "I won't get pregnant." It wasn't a fact, but I did have reason to believe I couldn't get pregnant anymore. Jimbo climbed on top of me up to five times a day almost every day, and he hadn't knocked me up in over seven years.

  "June..." Ravi said, and I could see the desperation in his eyes. I reached into his pants and wrapped my hand around his already hard penis. I didn't have the experience I needed to accomplish this seduction, but I suppose that what I lacked in skill, I made up for in enthusiasm because it only took me a few seconds to win him over.

  "Are you absolutely certain?" he asked.

  "Absolutely certain," I lied, and he gritted his teeth for a long time before he finally stood up and took off his pants and underwear. Then I saw it for the first time. It wasn't tiny like Jimbo's or massive like Jobe's felt when he tried to shove it in me, and when Ravi gently slid himself inside, I realized it was the perfect size, gliding against every part of me. And it felt good. Sex had never felt good.

  "Oh, Ravi," I moaned, smiling up at him as he hovered over me, and he grinned as he reached down and lifted my left leg over his arm, his body rolling against me in an undulating motion, making love to me slowly and deeply. He kissed me, and I held him tight, rocking my hips forward to meet his thrusts until I found an angle and rhythm that amplified the sensation.

  "Oh, my God," I growled as I felt that sensation growing, and I tightened my grip on him with my arms and legs as I urged him to give me more. It didn't feel like it did with his tongue. It was something different, something somehow both more and less intense, but whatever it was, I chased after it until I felt my legs start to tremble.

  "I think I'm going to have another orgasm," I said, surprised.

  "Come for me, June," Ravi commanded. "I want to feel you come."

  "You, too, Ravi. I want to feel you, too," I whispered, wishing I had the guts to say something sexier. Instead, I slipped my hands downward, grabbing his ass as I pulled him into me, and the slight change in position took me over the edge. I cried his name as my body began to shake, my hands clenching his ass, forcing him in deep, and I could hear him breathing erratically as he sped up.

  "Oh, June! Oh, God!" he groaned, and I felt him stiffen all over as his orgasm overtook him. It was almost simultaneous except that he had to pull out to finish, and in the moment just before I became keenly aware of his absence, my mind was open to millions of possibilities even as it was so flooded with pleasure, I could barely think. I had learned that so many things my friends had talked about that I considered bullshit were true, and I was ready to test out every single one of them. But not right now. Right now, I just wanted to melt into Ravi's embrace and try not to tell him I loved him. I understood what he was afraid of because even though I knew it was just orgasm-induced, I felt like I did love him. Then the right words came to me.

  "Oh, Ravi, I love having sex with you," I whispered with a giggle, and he smiled, a knowing gleam in his eye.

  "I love having sex with you, too, my lady."

  He kissed me atop the head, and though I felt like I could fall asleep, I knew I would just lie there sharing the wet spot on the bed where he pulled out and biding my time until I could get him hard again.

  Day 56, Later

  "Where's Dani?" June asked Olivia as she walked into her office without knocking. It was early afternoon, and Ravi was working his shift at the front gate.

  "I don't know. Why?" Olivia asked.

  "Because I need to talk to her. I've looked everywhere."

  "Well, I haven't seen her," Olivia said, then she went back to the schedule she was working on. With Liana taking many of their best fighters tomorrow, Olivia needed to make sure that the Deadfall would be thoroughly protected in their absence, but when June sat down rather than leaving, Olivia looked back up from her work and asked, "Is there something I can do for you?"

  "Well, since I can't find Dani," she began sheepishly, then she fell silent. Olivia waited for her to continue, but when she didn't after several seconds, Olivia put down her pen and gave June her undivided attention.

  "What's going on, June?" she asked.

  "It's nothing. I shouldn't have come," she said, and though Olivia felt annoyed and impatient, clearly her friend needed to talk about something, so she prodded her.

  "Don't be silly. I'm here for whatever you need...even if I am just a runner up to Dani," she said with a snarky grin, putting June at ease.

  "Okay," she said, then she took a deep breath and the flood gates opened. "I wanted to talk about last night because I had sex. Not just sex, I had an orgasm last night, and it was with Ravi, and it was so...oh, dear Lord, it was so..." She trailed off into a deep growl before jumping right back into her stream of consciousness babbling.

  "Why didn't you tell me, Olivia? Why didn't you all come down to North Carolina and smack me around until I listened? I'm thirty-five-years-old, for Christ's sake, and I just had my first orgasm. Thirty-fucking-five, Olivia! That's not something any of those people had the right to take away from me. And they were men! My father, my husband, my preacher! Is that what sex feels like for men when they come? Like what Ravi did with his tongue? Oh, God, Olivia! He did this thing with his tongue... I... I can't even describe it, but you have no idea what it felt like."

  Though Olivia kept her thoughts to herself, she was pretty sure she had a far better idea than June of what it felt like. She had two men giving her multiple orgasms with their tongues, but as she listened to June go on, even she was intrigued.

  "When he finally made me, you know, come," June said, giggling at the word because it was a sentence she'd never been able to say before, "it just went on and on. Is that what it's supposed to be like? Like just this constant, unbelievable pleasure that lasted, I don't know...it felt like five minutes, and he just kept going. Oh, Olivia, it was so intense, I thought I was going to die, and I didn't even care. God! That's exactly how I want to die! I want to just do that all day every day until there's nothing left of me." June hugged herself and shuddered, but then she suddenly switched gears.

  "But I need to know; did Jimbo feel that every time he climbed up on me like I was goddamn breeding sow? How could a man do that to a woman he's supposed to love? How could he feel that amazing, incredible thing and not break his fucking neck trying to make me feel the same way?

  "Do you know how I feel right now? I'm happy. I'm so fucking happy, but I'm also angry and hurt. I've been lied to my entire life! I fucking hate Jimbo! I hate my parents! I hate my pastor!

  "You tried to tell me the truth, but I wouldn't listen. I just said you were going to Hell and I was going to Heaven so it didn't matter, but it does. God, it matters! And it can't be a sin! Any God that would make it possible for my body to experience that then tell me I'll burn in Hell for all eternity if I do it would be a monster! But God never really said that, did he? I never read the word clitoris in the Bible. That whole devil's doorbell thing was just an invention by men who were afraid they were inadequate, wasn't it?"

  ...Or lazy or selfish, Olivia thought, but she couldn't get a word in as June continued.

  "God! I don't know what to do! I feel like I might just fly apart. I
want to tell everyone in the world that they have to experience this! But I also want to dig up Jimbo and kill him again. And I want to kill my parents for raising me like that. That was child abuse, wasn't it? You knew it. You were a kid, too, but you knew it all along. God, you were always right. I never wanted you to be right, but you were!

  "I'm sorry, Olivia. I've been so shitty to you. And so wrong and stupid," June said, then she shook her head and sighed. "Anyway, I appreciate you listening to me."

  Taken aback, Olivia only stared at her as she processed everything, and when she finally replied, she spoke one word, "Ravi?"

  June blushed, but it was just residual, carried over from the old days. She wasn't ashamed anymore.

  "Ravi," she admitted with a dreamy smile, then she proceeded to tell Olivia every last detail of why Ravi's face had become the visual embodiment of orgasm in her mind before trying to get him out of being part of tomorrow's invasion. Of course, Olivia couldn't make that call, and there was no way June was going to ask General Navarro on the eve of battle. She had grown bold of late but not insane.

  Day 57

  The Deadfall army departed for the prison in shifts, taking different routes to avoid potentially drawing attention from the Sinner's group and planning to meet in Beaver. Teams led by Alek, Liana, and Aiden were already gone, and the last team, led by Ravi, was parked in front of the exit as June came running down the road toward them. She had already said goodbye in private, but at the last minute, she felt like it wasn't enough. As the tall, metal gates began to swing outward, she caught up and opened Ravi's car door.

  "I mean it," she said breathlessly, leaning in, completely unconcerned with the passenger or anyone else who might see her. "You'd better come back to me."

  "I promise I will come back to you, my lady," he whispered. She grabbed his collar and kissed him deeply, falling into his lap as he sat behind the wheel, and when she finally released him, she left him semi-hard and winded.

  "Don't you dare disappoint me," she commanded with a stern look.

  "So, does this mean we're dating?" he called out as she backed away to let him pass, but she only grinned at him.

  Of course, they were dating. June was falling in love, and even if Alek begged for her now, she wouldn't choose him over Ravi. She walked back up to her cabin as if floating on air, her feet only kept on the ground by her fear of something bad happening to him. There was always that possibility, but Liana had carefully planned every detail of today's invasion. It wasn't going to be like the solar farm where a previously unknown militia would pop up out of nowhere. Once they met with John and Phil, who had been monitoring the prison, she anticipated smooth sailing. They expected to be home by lunch.

  And everything was going to plan...until they reached the prison itself and found absolutely no resistance. John was supposed to take out the guards in the towers with arrows, but there were no guards to take out. As he stayed in position prepared to do his job, thinking perhaps a shift change had caused the towers to be unmanned, the invasion force entered the prison grounds one at a time through a hole they cut in the fence. They were quick and quiet, avoiding the corpses in the yard as they slipped through the door in the back that Jax left unlocked for them.

  It was easy - too easy, and as the group moved through the abandoned hallways, hearing only the sounds of the dead, something didn't feel right, like they were walking into an ambush. They reached Death Row, but instead of finding caged women, they found it empty except for a couple of ambling corpses loose in the common room.

  They moved on to the next section and the one after with no resistance. When they came to the burned out cellblock, Liana recognized the aftermath of grenades and realized that the prison had been attacked from the outside at some point since the onset of the apocalypse, but the blackened, brick walls stood high enough to keep the dead outside from getting in. In fact, there were no open doors or any clues to explain why they encountered so many zombies - and only zombies - along their route.

  "What the fuck is going on here?" Aiden demanded suspiciously as he put his knife in the head of yet another walking corpse.

  "I have no idea," Liana said, then she whispered into her walkie, unsure where their enemies might be. "John, have you heard anything from Jax at all in the past 36 hours?"

  "No contact," John replied. "We took shifts watching with the binoculars from the tree stand, but neither of us saw anything out of the ordinary."

  "How many people came and went during that time?"

  "Two crews returned from the outside. They brought in eight new women and three new men, all tied up."

  "How many teams have gone out?" Aiden asked.

  "None," John said. "There may be another out there from before we got into position but nothing since we arrived."

  "According to Austin, they sent the teams out right after the Sinner's visits so they'd have more time with the women before he took them," Alek said, and based on the recordings from the recon mission, they knew the Sinner wasn't due back for another three days. "That means there's a good chance that they're all inside here somewhere."

  "But where?" Liana asked as she stood with a group of twenty invaders in the middle of the prison where there was absolutely no sign of life.

  Then they came to a crossroads.

  It was a large vestibule where the various wings of the prison converged, and the hallway from which they had entered was one of five. Since there were no windows, the only light came from their flashlights, and all of the unexplored hallways were completely dark as well. But they were not empty. They could hear the sounds of the dead echoing, and Liana immediately ordered them all into their formations, each team of five making a circle with their backs together as they moved toward the four dark hallways.

  Alek had Chase and Mateo in his group. He had volunteered to look after them because Reid had advised against taking them at all, but both were eager to prove themselves since Liana had been working with them on their shooting. They had begged to be included. So far, under Alek's leadership, they had done well, but when their team was assigned a hallway that led them into windowless darkness, neither training nor leadership could calm the terror in Chase as the flashlight affixed to his rifle illuminated the faces of the dead coming for them.

  "Hold your formation!" Alek shouted, and though he could hear him through the headphones, Chase had already let his fear overtake him. He opened fire too soon, spraying bullets across the legs of the corpses, and more began to enter the hallway from rooms on both sides. It was because of these doors that the teams had moved into circle formations rather than lines, and if they broke, no one would see what was coming at them from the unattended directions in the pitch blackness.

  "Calm down," Mateo warned his friend, but it was too late. Chase lurched forward, shooting wildly and missing far more zombies than he hit, and because he now stood between the dead and his team, the others were afraid they might shoot Chase if they tried to help.

  "Watch the back and sides," Alek commanded the rest of the team as he moved to catch up with Chase. He managed to shoot three zombies in the head, and Chase shot two himself, which would have been the end of it in any of the other hallways. But this hallway led to the sleeping quarters of Rundo's men, and there were more here than any other spot in the prison. They kept coming, closing in on Chase and Alek as the other members of their team did what they safely could from the sides. Chase's fight or flight had already set in, and he felt like fighting wasn't working. He began to run, holding his gun higher, hoping to take out the corpses as he passed them, but all he did was put himself right in the middle of the small herd.

  "No!" Mateo cried. He and Alek both opened fire, hoping to get them before they could bite Chase, but it was too late as one from behind tore the flesh of his neck out with its teeth.

  With Chase down, the entire team began firing until bodies covered the floor. When the hallway was clear, Mateo rushed to his friend's side.

  "I'm so sorry, b
rother," he said as he crouched down beside him.

  "Shoot me," Chase demanded, gurgling blood as he spoke.

  "I...I can't..." Mateo whispered.

  "Please, brother," Chase begged, "you have to."

  "You don't have to," Alex said. "I'll take care of him."

  But Mateo shook his head. Steeling himself, he turned to Chase to give him one last act of kindness.

  "I love you, man," Mateo said as he pulled off Chase's headphones and placed his gun at his temple. Chase nodded that he was ready, and Mateo pulled the trigger. The shot rang out, echoing through the hallway for several seconds before an eerie silence fell.

  Then they heard faint music.

  As the other teams began to join them in the hallway, having explored their shorter corridors to empty cellblocks, Alek stood up and shushed them to hear better. The muffled sound was coming from the end of the hall. He motioned for everyone to follow, and they quietly moved toward a set of double doors they had, the windows of which had been covered with cardboard. They didn't hear any of the dead on the other side, but there was no way to know for sure until they opened them. With everyone poised to attack if necessary, Liana opened one side to find a clear hallway that led to the cafeteria, and now that they were closer to the source of the music, they realized that it was the sound of a lone, acoustic guitar coming from inside.

  The windows on these doors were blocked as well, but those above the doors were not. Following hand signal commands from Liana, the teams formed two lines on opposite sides of the doors to the dining hall, and from the front of his line, Alek carefully stood up on his toes to peek inside as they were set too high for anyone else to see. Instantly, his posture fell.

  "You have got to be fucking kidding me," he said with a roll of his eyes, then to everyone's astonishment, he swung the door wide open. The rest of the group immediately raised their weapons ready for anything, but what they saw was Jax Bonham sitting atop one of the tables playing a guitar with a satisfied smirk on his face.

 

‹ Prev