A huge grin crossed Remy’s face, the expression lighting up her features in a way that Ethan found highly attractive. Despite that, he gave her a look of warning as she exclaimed, “Oh my God, are they—”
“No the hell they’re not,” he snapped. He focused on the can in his hand, cracking it open with a crunch. “Mind your own business, Remy. They’re talking, and they need to be left alone.”
“I hope to fuck they’re talking,” Gray grumbled. Ethan turned his annoyed look from Remy to Gray, prepared to jump to Cade’s defense as necessary. “They’ve been dancing around each other for ages,” he continued. “It’s starting to get ridiculous.”
“I take it they’re…what, in love?” Avi asked. She sat up straighter and smiled before taking a swallow from her bottle of water.
“In love?” Ethan repeated. “No, I don’t think they are. I think they’re just…attracted to each other or something. I doubt it’s love. I’ve never heard Cade express any sort of interest in him like that.”
Remy grinned like she knew something he didn’t. The expression irked him to no end, and he gave her a dirty look. “Oh, she likes him, all right,” she said gleefully.
“Like and love aren’t the same thing,” he pointed out, sitting back down in the spot he’d abandoned. Nikola was sprawled on the pillows, half asleep, and she looked up at him drowsily as he reclined back against the headboard beside her once more.
“They love each other,” she said, smiling. “They just wouldn’t admit it. Maybe they will tonight. I think they’d both be happier.”
“They’d be downright fucking pleasant if they just got laid already,” Gray said, getting up and starting to dig in a bag of supplies. “Then maybe Cade would quit being such a bitch.”
“Cade is not a bitch,” Ethan snapped, glaring at the other man, even though he couldn’t see the look with his back turned. “She just doesn’t like you. Quite frankly, I’m rather in agreement with her.”
“Since when does she not like me?” Gray asked. He stood, clutching a pack of cigarettes in one hand and starting to work on opening it as he added, “Or is that just you projecting your own assholish ways onto her?” He pried a cigarette from the package and stuck it in the corner of his mouth.
“Hey, no fighting!” Remy ordered, getting up and stepping between Ethan and Gray before things got uglier. She put her hands on her hips and gave both of them a stern look marred by the grin twitching at her lips, even as she snatched the cigarette out of Gray’s mouth. “Let’s keep this a pleasant celebration of Brandt and Cade’s hookup, okay? And no smoking, Gray. I don’t care how stressed you are. You’ll give yourself cancer.”
Ethan groaned and leaned forward, resting his elbows against his knees and covering his ears. “Oh God, can we please stop talking about Brandt and Cade and sex? That’s like talking about my little sister having sex, and the thought makes me gag.”
Remy laughed and flopped onto the bed beside Ethan, squeezing into the small space between him and the edge and patting his knee in her own brand of affection. “Oh, Ethan. Cade’s thirty-three. I’m pretty sure she’s had sex before, you know? Nothing new there.”
“That doesn’t make me any more inclined to want to think about it.”
Remy laughed again. “You’re, what, forty? Since when does sex embarrass you?”
“It doesn’t,” he protested.
Nikola interrupted at that point. “It kind of embarrasses me, so can we please not talk about it?” she asked, her cheeks flushing red.
“Dropping it sounds like a superb idea, Nikki,” Ethan agreed, draping an arm around her and giving her a gentle, affectionate squeeze. He felt a certain amount of protectiveness toward her. She was the youngest of the group, and Ethan thought she looked up to him. He couldn’t imagine taking her into Atlanta. He wondered what possessed him when he allowed her to decide to go. She shouldn’t have been there, but she was. She’d never been the type of girl to allow them to leave her behind.
The thought of Nikola being in that city, the thought of her being infected with the Michaluk Virus, sickened Ethan. He was supposed to protect her, not let her go into the deadliest city in America with nothing but a baseball bat for protection. He made a mental note to have a discussion with Cade in the morning. If Nikola was going to travel with them, then the teenager should have a better weapon. It would be impossible for one of them to keep an eye on her all the time while trying to simultaneously watch their own backs.
He looked up as Remy stood and moved toward the dividing door. She glanced back at him mischievously, and he shook his head in warning. “Remy, no,” he ordered, his voice firm. “Get away from that door and sit down.”
“But—”
“Leave them alone,” he said, pointing at the bed across from him. “Sit down. Now.”
“Aw come on,” Remy protested, flopping heavily onto the bed and crossing her arms in a playful sulk.
Ethan shook his head again. “They’d give us privacy if any of us asked for it,” he pointed out. “The least we can do is offer the same courtesy.” He picked up a package of licorice whips and threw it at her. “Now eat your damn candy and shut up,” he added with a grin.
* * *
Cade blinked.
Her reaction wasn’t quite what Brandt had expected. Then again, she’d been throwing unexpected reactions at him all evening. As soon as the words left his mouth, Cade simply sat there, her back to him, her shoulders stiff and straight as if she were frozen. She was obviously uncertain and surprised by his words, and he scrambled to smooth things over before they got really messed up.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. He dropped Cade’s thick hair and set the comb, slowly and deliberately, on the bed beside her. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was wrong of me to bring it up, and—”
“No. No, it’s okay,” she said. She shook her head, and her dark hair swing across her shoulders and back, drawing Brandt’s eyes to the heavy strands. “I just…you caught me by surprise is all.”
Before he could respond, there was a noise at the dividing door. He looked up and saw Ethan giving them a smile as he pulled the door between the rooms closed. He glanced at the ceiling and sent up a silent prayer of thanks for the small amount of privacy that Ethan had managed to grant them.
“Did I really?” he asked uncertainly, studying the back of Cade’s head. The woman really did have beautiful hair, dark and rich and thick and healthy looking. His fingers itched as he struggled to not reach out and touch it.
Cade twisted around, sliding so she could fully face Brandt on the bed, curling up and tucking her legs underneath her. She gave him a small, tentative smile. “Yeah, you did,” she said. There was a tremor of nervousness in her voice, a tremor that piqued his interest even more. “Truth be told, Brandt, I really like you. I mean, really like you.” She hesitated then added softly, “If I say it’s not at least a little bit of love yet, then I’m fooling myself.”
His breath caught in his throat as her words registered, and he forced himself to breathe out slowly. He looked into her blue eyes, steadying himself as his mind reeled from the surprise at her words. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” he asked. “You’re not just saying that to spare my feelings, are you? Because, I mean, I’m thirty-eight years old. I think I can handle a little rejection by this point in my life.”
Cade laughed quietly, and he fought back a smile. She looked up at him, her eyes sparkling merrily, and then she said, “No, I’m not just saying it.” She raked her damp hair back from her face. The movement drew his eyes to the curve of her jaw and neck, and he followed it to her shoulder before tearing his eyes up to hers again. “I really do mean it. I’ve felt this way for a while. I’m just…well, I’m terrified, Brandt.”
“Terrified?” Brandt repeated questioningly. He leaned forward to look at her more closely, his eyes concerned. “What are you terrified of? I’m not going to hurt you.”
“No, it’s not that,” she said, shaking her
head. “It’s more that I’m scared we’re going to fall for each other, that we’re going to get involved, and that I’ll be really happy for the first time in a long while. And then something will happen to one or both of us, and the other will end up alone again. I don’t want that hope and joy snatched from me, so I’ve tried to avoid it to begin with.”
Brandt looked at her sadly. “God, Cade, that must be the loneliest existence ever,” he murmured. He found her hand with his own and gave it a gentle squeeze, hesitating before lacing his fingers between hers. “But it doesn’t have to be like that, you know.”
Cade squeezed his hand back, but she didn’t let up on her grip. Instead, she clung to his hand and closed her eyes. “Do you really think we’re not going to live through this?”
“I’d like to think we will,” he said. He felt a renewed hope at the idea of living through the horrors of Atlanta, of being given the chance to possibly start a life with Cade. “But like I said, the chances are small,” he was forced to acknowledge. “The city is a mess. There’s no order; it’s nothing but chaos. And the infected are likely more highly concentrated there than anywhere else.”
“Fair enough,” she acquiesced. “I just wanted to make sure there aren’t going to be any regrets before I do this.” And with that, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his before he could formulate a reply.
The kiss caught him off guard, and it took his brain a moment to catch up with the action. Once it did, he returned the kiss, cupping her face in his hands and tracing his thumbs along her cheekbones, pressing his mouth to hers more firmly. He pulled back an inch from the kiss, resting his forehead against hers momentarily, and murmured, “A little warning next time?”
Cade grinned and nipped his bottom lip affectionately before she rose up onto her knees and pushed him back flat on the bed. “A little warning?” she repeated. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Chapter Ten
The group made fantastic time in their travel toward Atlanta. Their progress across the state was going as smoothly as they’d hoped, and Ethan even stopped the van at a reasonably safe-looking city park to let them eat their lunches in the sunshine. It was almost like a pre-war picnic, marred only by the presence of several weapons lying on the grass beside their owners. The afternoon was the definition of pleasant, and it was a memory of happiness that Ethan would cling to for the rest of his life.
Now, though, it was late, and dusk and sheets of pounding rain from a bad thunderstorm were doing a fine job of blurring the windshield and making it difficult for him to see the road ahead. He squinted more often than not as he struggled to see through the veritable waterfall pouring down the windshield; the wipers weren’t helping one bit, probably months past their expiration and half dry-rotted. On top of the low visibility problems, he was dog tired. No, he was completely exhausted. With the exception of their lunch stop and, later, their brief dinner and leg-stretching rest, Ethan had driven the van for almost eight hours, a slow slog mile by mile, impeded by debris and vehicles and even fallen trees littering the roadway. He was beginning to feel each and every one of those miles. He contemplated pulling the van over and letting Brandt drive, but a quick look in the rearview mirror revealed the other man sleeping on the bench seat behind him. He didn’t begrudge Brandt rest; the man had been awake almost nonstop since they’d left the safe house, and when they were in Walmart, he’d noticed how tired Brandt looked. If anyone needed the rest, it was Brandt.
With his thoughts so occupied, Ethan didn’t see the blockade that spanned the entire stretch of road until it was too late. His eyes widened as his brain registered what he was seeing. With a gasp, he wrenched the wheel hard to the left, instinctively attempting to avoid the concrete barricade. The van swerved and shot off the side of the road, rolling down the sharp embankment and careening toward a muddy, waterlogged ditch.
Ethan barely heard a startled shout behind him as he tried to correct and pull the van up the embankment, back onto the road. He’d already slammed on the gas and gunned the engine. The motor roared with the strain of working up the hill, tires spinning in mud and wet grass before gaining purchase and shooting up the steep incline. He sucked in a breath as he saw a large truck parked on the opposite side of the barricade, right in the path of the van.
The front passenger side of the van slammed into the truck with shocking force. He was jerked violently in his seat, and his head slammed into the window beside him. He was just conscious enough to feel the van tilt, the ground lurching into view of the driver’s-side window. Then the van began to tumble back down the embankment.
Overcome by the pain in his head, Ethan closed his eyes, his world sliding into darkness before the van even reached the bottom of the hill.
* * *
The van came to a stop on its roof. Its wheels still spun as the engine thrummed a few more moments before sputtering to a rough stop. Remy hung upside down in her seat, her seatbelt digging painfully into her chest, shoulder, and hips. She closed her eyes and mentally assessed herself for obvious pain and injuries. Finding none other than the soreness on her body where the seatbelt pressed against her, she tried to collect herself enough to figure out what to do.
The van was oddly still and quiet. Someone behind Remy let out a harsh cough, the kind of cough that suggested the breath had been knocked out of them. Everything in the van was dim, and she squinted as she fumbled at her seatbelt. A voice somewhere toward the front of the vehicle broke the silence.
“What the fuck just happened?” Cade asked shakily. A flicker of lightning illuminated the interior of the van for a moment, and she spotted the woman shifting onto her knees from where she’d fallen onto the ceiling of the van. There was a crunching, wet noise underneath her, and Remy saw that the sunroof was busted. A not-quite-small stream of water was collecting in the ceiling of the van.
What an odd thing to notice in this situation.
Remy braced a hand against the roof below her, sucked in a fortifying breath, and unbuckled her seatbelt. She fell out of her seat and landed heavily on her shoulder with a pained, “Ow.”
“We crashed,” Gray said from beside Remy in answer to Cade’s question. He’d already unfastened his own seatbelt and was crouching in the growing puddle, looking around almost wildly. “We need to get out of this van,” he said, ducking to look past the back seats peer out the shattered back window. “It’s a fucking death trap.” He straightened and called, “Theo?”
“We’re fine. Pretty sure I cracked a fucking rib or two, though,” Theo’s voice growled out from the very back of the van, sounding a little winded. Remy shook her head and crawled to the busted window to her right, slogging through the mud and water that ran ever more steadily into the van.
To her surprise, Brandt was already outside the van. He offered her a hand to assist her wiggle through the window as she tried to avoid the sharp bits of safety glass still left in its frame. She scrambled out into the pouring rain, her fingers digging into the wet earth as she hauled herself from the wreckage. She waited until Cade made it out of the van before sticking her hand back inside and waving it around vaguely. “Gray, my knife,” she called to him. After Gray passed it to her, she let out a slow, relieved breath at seeing that it was undamaged. The knife was the one thing she still owned that she wouldn’t ever leave behind.
As Remy climbed to her feet, she saw Theo helping Avi out through the back window, one hand clutched over his left ribs. Gray was in the process of climbing out of the window Remy and Cade exited. Cade, meanwhile, was slipping in the mud, circling around to the driver’s-side door to help Ethan and Nikola out, since the passenger side seemed to be smashed to hell and the door probably wouldn’t open. As they dragged themselves out of the wreckage, Brandt headed for the side of the road, climbing the steep embankment to examine the highway. After Remy cast one more glance at Gray, she started to scramble up the slope after Brandt, slipping and sliding on the rain-slickened grass and mud, starting to shiver as the
water soaked through her clothes.
“What did we hit?” she asked as she reached the top. She was covered in mud, grass stains, rain, and sweat, and she grimaced as she ran a hand over her sleeve, attempting to scrape mud off her clothes. She shielded her eyes from the rain as she, too, glanced in either direction down the dark highway.
“Almost hit that roadblock,” Brandt said over the rumble of thunder. He pointed to a large concrete barricade that was now behind them, the type of barricade normally used along the sides of bridges on highways. It had been erected across the entire highway, blocking traffic from both directions. Several large military trucks were parked around it, a few Humvees backed against the barricade itself. Barbed wire lined the top of the barricade, and despite the year that had passed, it still looked sharp and potentially deadly. “We hit that truck there.” He pointed to the truck in question, illuminated in the flash of lightning that preceded the next burst of thunder. It was one of the Humvees; the panel above its front passenger tire was bashed in from the impact of the van.
“Why is that roadblock even here?” Remy asked in exasperation, raking her wet hair out of her eyes and off her face.
“Because we’re in Georgia now,” Brandt said somberly.
Before she could formulate a reply, an agonized cry rang out behind them. It was anguish, despair, and lament rolled into one mash of heartache. She turned, brandishing her knife instinctively, prepared to fight off any threat that came at them. She squinted into the darkness, but she couldn’t see anything immediately in their vicinity, not through the dark and the rain. Her eyes shifted to the dead van below her and Brandt as her brain registered the sound. It had sounded almost like…
“Ethan,” she breathed out.
Wielding her knife as a precaution, Remy began to slip and slide her way back down the embankment. Brandt was right on her heels, following her down the hill as he, too, realized that something below was amiss. “Ethan!” she shouted as she came closer.
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