by Stasia Black
That was the idea anyway.
Too bad it had been a total clusterfuck. Turned out horses could sense when you were nervous or uneasy. Damn things were friggin’ lie detectors. She’d barely get near one before the damn thing bolted on her. Instead of bonding with a potential means of escape, she’d spent her afternoon relegated to shoveling manure and sweating her ass off.
All she had to show for the day were some wicked blisters and the image lodged forever in her brain of Nix’s amused face as he smirked at her every chance he got. Ugh!
Whose bright idea was it anyway to fling themselves on the back of a giant animal that weighed to a ton, and then hurtle themselves down the road at speeds of up to twenty-five miles per hour?
Nope. It was back to looking for a vehicle and some gas.
Which was a problem. The whole reason she’d come back to the damn stables was because she had no freaking idea how to get her hands on a car or truck. Even if she did manage to find one that hadn’t been fried in the EMP bombings, she also needed one that was gassed up. And considering gas was one of the premium bartering currencies… Yeah, cars and gas were some of the most guarded things in town.
With a car or truck and clear roads, she could make it down to the coast in as little as five hours. Granted all the highways were congested with abandoned cars so it would take her longer still.
She was just five to ten hours from freedom. When they’d left Uncle Dale’s, Charlie had made her swear that if anything happened to him, she’d go on without him and start over…
She glanced down at her lap as she pulled the towel off her wet hair and swallowed hard.
Once she got to the coast, she could finally just stop. Stop fighting so hard. Stop running breakneck toward the finish line and never taking a breath. She might even finally give herself a moment to grieve Charlie.
Her jaw went rigid. But until then, no.
She had to go harder.
Get more cunning.
Outthink and outsmart.
So the horses wouldn’t work out. Fine. Back to Plan A. She’d wanted to leave inconspicuously but if she gave up on subtlety, maybe just stealing one of the town’s larger vehicles would work. But that would mean she’d have to—
A knock came at her bedroom door. “Are you decent?” called a male voice. Clark’s, she thought. “I sure hope not, cause we’re coming in.” Yep, definitely Clark.
She scrambled to yank a t-shirt on over her head. Thank God she already had her jeans on.
The door slammed shut instead of pushing further open. Audrey heard multiple muffled voices through the door yelling at each other.
“Audrey?” Graham asked with a knock. “Are you ready for us?”
Audrey blew out a long breath and tipped her head back to face the ceiling. “No,” she whispered. “Definitely not.”
But louder, she called, “Yes, you can come in.”
“Excellent,” Clark said, pushing through the door, a wide, charming smile across his face like always. Danny eagerly pushed in behind him, followed by Nix and then Graham, and finally, Mateo. She made eye contact with Mateo for only a second before his eyes dropped and he clasped his hands behind his back.
She couldn’t focus on him for long, though, because Danny was busy putting himself on display with all the subtlety of a peacock. He pulled his shirt off over his head.
“Whew, is it hot in here? The sun was roasting us out there while we worked on the Clan McKinley’s roof.” He wadded his t-shirt up into a ball and tossed it near the wall, then grinned at Audrey.
She didn’t know whether to laugh at him or go snatch his shirt up from where he’d thrown it and tell him no shirt no shoes no service.
Except… well… Okay so a little part of her might admire the way his abs were cut and just so damn well defined. Seriously, back before the Fall, he could have been an underwear model. Hands down. His face was nice too, his features blunt and boyish, but that body… whew.
While she’d been intimidated by Danny that first day, after spending a week with him, the idea of being afraid of him seemed laughable now. He was like a big, sweet, goofy puppy. And when she wasn’t afraid all those muscles weren’t going to be used to attack her, well… she couldn’t say he wasn’t nice to look at.
“Do you want to know what we’re having for dinner tonight?” Clark asked, “or should we just leave you alone with Danny’s abs?”
“What?” she shouted, jerking her eyes away from Danny’s happy trail at the same time, Danny said, “Awesome!”
Audrey crossed her arms over her chair and glared at Clark. “You’re not as funny as you think you are.”
Clark held up a hand in a so-so gesture. “I don’t know. I think I might be.”
Audrey rolled her eyes and threw her hands up in the air but thankfully conversation moved on. Too bad she didn’t like the next topic any better than the last.
“Let’s get going,” Nix said in his characteristic rumbling bass. “It’s moving day. Food’s ready at the house and we don’t want it getting cold.”
Audrey was the one who went cold. “Moving day?”
“Didn’t someone tell you?” Graham asked, pushing his glasses up his nose. “After a week, you move into the residence with your clan.”
Audrey’s mouth dropped open. “No, I was not informed.” Her eyes darted from one face to another. Goddammit. She wanted to lose her shit on them.
She wanted to scream and throw a fit and grab the candelabra like she had the first time they’d barged into her room. Except this time, she’d throw it. At Clark’s head. Or Nix. Ooo, it’d feel good to clock Nix right in the forehead.
But dammit, she had a strategy.
Outthink. Outsmart.
Play it cool, Aud. Play it fucking cool.
They hadn’t attacked her.
Her virtue was intact.
So far at least.
It wasn’t that she didn’t catch their eyes wandering. She did. Clark and Danny were especially bad about it.
But it didn’t the feel the same as when she’d catch Rodney staring at her back at Uncle Dale’s. When these guys looked at her, she didn’t feel that… unnerving sense of menace behind it. At the time she’d thought Rodney was resentful of her costing him extra rations. Till she learned better.
And maybe it was just because these guys expected her to put out soon. If she continued denying them, would all the good easy banter disappear? Would they turn into monsters just like her cousin had?
Either way, just because they’d managed to play nice for a week, she was still outta here. If only she was closer to being ready. Every avenue she looked into, she only had more doors close in her face. She still had no weapons or transportation leads.
And now they thought she was moving in with them?
She took a deep breath in and out and leveled her glare at each man in turn. “There’s still no sex. Got it?”
“Got it,” said everyone.
Fine. She wouldn’t balk because she still needed to play a certain role if she was going to make what she needed to happen. But that didn’t mean she was going to be Mary fucking Poppins about it.
“Fuck right, you got it,” she muttered, snatching up another pair of jeans and a couple shirts Sophia had provided that she’d come to think of as hers. Then she stomped down the stairs and out of the Commander’s house, all her fiancés on her heels like a trail of ducklings.
Chapter 12
NIX
Audrey was up to something.
Nix stared at her shapely ass as she stormed down the sidewalk to their new house. All the other guys’ eyes were glued the same place.
Well, except for Mateo, but who the hell knew what was up with that guy? Nix hadn’t thought much about him before, but if anyone had asked, he would’ve guessed he was gay. Guess not if he’d put in for the lottery.
But Nix was getting off track.
Audrey hadn’t tried to escape since that first night. But no way a woman like her
would have just given up. No way in hell.
So this little act she’d been putting on all week? Going along with them, if not gracefully, at least without kicking and screaming? He didn’t buy it for a second.
She was buttering them up. Trying to get them to let down their guard.
Well, he wasn’t the town Security Squadron Captain for nothing. The Commander had given him the position because he was a damn good fighter and he had a nose for sniffing out security threats. Both from without and within. And Audrey was a flight risk if he’d ever seen one.
Which was a problem.
Because she was theirs.
Theirs to protect.
Theirs to pleasure.
Theirs to create a clan with. A family.
The more time he spent with her, the more attached he got to the idea. Him. If he wasn’t so busy blowing off work and shadowing her every step to make sure she was safe, he might take a second to be disturbed at the sudden swing his priorities had taken.
But then, fuck that. Because the world was full of bitter and if you were lucky enough to get a taste of sweet, he was gonna hold onto it as hard as he fucking could.
“Come on.” Graham waved Audrey up the drive to their house. “Mateo made spicy black beans and rice. I had a taste earlier and it’s amazing.”
Audrey smiled at him. And then her eyes darted around the yard. Like she was sizing it up and checking for escape routes.
At the same time, when Graham put his hand on her back to guide her through the front door, she didn’t jerk back from his touch.
Nix smiled. She was getting used to them. Little by little, they were burrowing their way in. The Commander knew what he was doing by setting a three month get-to-know-you period. Time and patience brought down barriers more effectively than force ever could. It was your run of the mill siege tactic.
Nix followed everyone in the house. Like others in the neighborhood, it was a basic two-story design, with a big open living room and kitchen area downstairs and bedrooms upstairs. It was built about eighty years ago and remodeled maybe a decade before the Fall. It was extravagant to have a house all to themselves for just six people.
Moving in here after years spent living four men to a room, sharing ‘sanitation buckets’ with all the other guys in the apartment complex… yeah, Nix had only been out of there for five days and already he felt so damn pampered by this place he never wanted to leave. Each of the houses in this little neighborhood had its own septic tank, so if you were willing to go pump the water from the well a couple houses down and haul it, you could even keep using the damn toilet. You just had to pour a bucket of water in the bowl and you could flush. That simple. He’d forgotten what a luxury it was to shit like a civilized man.
“Here, sit down, take a load off.” Danny pulled out the chair at the head of the dining room table.
Clark rolled his eyes and shoved Danny out of the way. “Go put a damn shirt on,” he said. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
Danny was undeterred. “What? You jealous you don’t have the brass to compete in this gun show, old man?” He lifted his arms and proceeded to flex one bicep and then the other.
“Old man? I’m only—” Clark sputtered. “I mean, I can’t be that much older than—” Then his eyes narrowed. “Just how old are you?”
“Twenty-three years young,” Danny proclaimed proudly. “What about you? Forty? Forty-five?”
A vein stood out on the side of Clark’s neck. “I’m thirty-six,” he said through clenched teeth. “And I don’t look a day over thirty-three.”
“Yeah, old man, you keep telling yourself that.” Danny clapped him on the shoulder, before pulling back. “Oh, my bad. I should take it easy on you. Be kind to your elders and all that.”
Nix was keeping out of this one. At thirty-eight, he was pretty sure he was the oldest one of the group. Fuckin’ last thing he needed was anyone making Dad jokes.
Audrey had her hand over her mouth but she wasn’t doing a good job of stifling her giggles. Clark pretended to glare at her. “This is not funny, young lady.” Then he frowned at her. “How old are you, darlin’?”
Audrey sobered. “Twenty-two.”
Suddenly she looked small and vulnerable, standing there surrounded by the five of them. Christ, Nix had never felt more like the big bad wolf.
“All this talking is making me hungry.” Nix grabbed a chair and hefted himself down.
Everyone else murmured agreement and sat too. Well, except Mateo. He put the rice and beans in the center of the table so everyone could serve themselves and then went around filling up everyone’s glasses with water.
The last time Nix had been waited on like this was pre-Fall at an Olive Garden his sister had dragged him to for his birthday.
She’d been so pretty that day. Black bows in her hair and that black lipstick that made mom so fucking nuts. But that was Roxy. If there was a way to express herself and piss Mom off while doing it, she was all for it.
“How was your day?” Graham asked Audrey as everyone tucked into their rice and beans. “Were you making candles again? I saw you there yesterday with Camila when I was walking by to the Pantry.”
“No, I was helping out with the horses today.”
Nix snickered and Audrey shot him a glare before looking back to Graham.
Still Nix couldn’t help adding, “More like you were on sanitation duty for the horses.”
Audrey’s lips pursed and she pointedly ignored looking his direction. “Mucking out stalls was invigorating exercise. It really made me appreciate the effort that goes into working with the animals that are so crucial to the town. And seeing the composting system the town has set up is really remarkable.”
“That was Graham’s idea,” Mateo said.
Audrey’s eyebrows lifted. “Really? It’s really impressive.”
Graham’s cheeks went pink and he shoved his glasses up his nose. “It’s no big deal. It was just the logical solution. Two birds with one stone. That’s the saying.”
Audrey tilted her head, eyes questioning. “How so?”
“Well,” Graham shifted in his chair. “We use horses so much now but there was all the shit that kept piling— Sorry, I mean,” he adjusted his glasses again, “there was all the manure piling up. Then we have the crops and we can’t run down to the Lowe’s to get fertilizer anymore. So it just made sense to compost the manure. I knew about the basic principles of what was necessary for the oxygenation process, so it wasn’t hard to set it up.”
Audrey just shook her head, eyes wide. “You’re kind of awesome, you know that?”
Graham shoved his glasses up his nose so violently Nix thought the things would fly off his damn head.
Alright. Nix called bullshit.
You didn’t go from four escape attempts to suddenly laughing with and admiring your supposed captors just one week later.
He narrowed his eyes at Audrey.
But she looked genuine as she smiled and laughed along with everyone as Clark told a story about the delegation from the West Texas Coalition trying to pass off a wagonload of solar batteries.
“Really? Solar batteries?” Audrey asked.
Clark scoffed. “Maybe if they were real. It was so obvious they’d basically raided an auto shop and gotten a load of car batteries and then jerry-rigged some shitty little half-baked solar panels on to them. One of those tiny solar panels might be enough to generate the power for an electric toothbrush. For about a minute at a time. But they certainly wouldn’t be enough to charge a battery that size, even if those had been solar batteries.”
“Oh no,” Audrey said, taking a bite of beans. “So what’d you do?”
Nix tuned out as Clark rambled on about riding the swindlers out of town.
“What about you, Mateo?” Audrey asked when Clark finished his story. “How was your day?”
Mateo’s cheeks pinkened, eyes lowering like he was embarrassed to be the center of attention. “Oh, well. Not much. Just
tinkering with things. Working on a few long-term projects.”
“What kind of projects?”
Mateo shrugged. “Odds and ends. Sometimes an engine when we get one in, but mostly other machinery. Stuff that wasn’t killed by the EMP blasts.”
Clark clapped Mateo on the back an Mateo about jumped a foot out of his chair. Clark either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “Mateo here is our resident Mr. Fix It.”
Graham nodded. “He can fix almost anything.”
“Oh?” Audrey’s eyebrows went up and she looked interested. Almost too interested.
Nix studied her as she leaned in to listen as Mateo described a microwave he’d just restored. She seemed very engaged, just like she had when Clark was talking. She laughed at the right moments. Oooed and ahhed when she was supposed to. Smiled and nodded as she cleaned her plate.
It was a good performance. But where was the fiery candlestick-wielding vixen from six days ago?
“So, are you excited about the wedding?” Nix interrupted, taking a leisurely bite of rice. “Just two weeks away now.”
Ah, there it was. Audrey’s blue eyes flashed with rebellion—a clear over my dead body, pal expression if Nix had ever seen it. The next second, though, she took a deep breath and looked down at her plate. To her credit, she didn’t paste on some bullshit smile.
She met his gaze dead on.
“Am I happy about the situation? No. Is this how I pictured my life?” She looked around the table. She shook her head and let out a long, drawn out breath. “God, none of us did. And yes, I’ll admit, part of me hopes that getting to know me will make you change your minds.” Her eyes came back to Nix. “That you’ll choose to help me get to the coast and to Nomansland instead of forcing me into a marriage I never chose.”
Her gaze dropped to her plate and her voice got quieter. “But I’m starting to realize that might be more and more of a pipedream.”
“Audrey, we’d help you in a second if we didn’t think it was a death sentence,” Mateo said, his face more pained than ever. “We’d do anything to protect you. Give our own lives—”
Her jaw tightened and she glared at Mateo. “Other people have made it. The broadcasts on the dark web are real.” She turned to Graham. “Tell them.”