He did not wake up happy.
Chapter Three
KRIS
She hated the snow. She didn’t use to, but after being stuck in the lodge and basically barricaded away from the rest of the world, she hated everything to do with it. She hated Arizona. She hated the changes her body was making every day. She even hated Connor. He walked around as if nothing had changed, like it was business as usual for the rest of them. As if life hadn’t handed them one shit-storm after another. Kris had never been one to feel sorry for herself, but she had been lately. There was a lot to feel sorry for. Life wasn’t just unfair; it was fucking brutal.
She picked at the top button of her jeans, then popped it open. Instant relief. Her stomach was oddly shaped now, like she’d over-eaten and had PMS from hell, but it wasn’t the kind of bloated her body had known since she had turned thirteen. There was a baby in there. Well, not a real baby, not yet. But something that would soon look like a baby. Right now, she just looked fat and felt sick pretty much all the time. And every little thing made her cry. She was miserable. And confused. And hurt.
The snow was beginning to fall again, leaving behind a thin layer of icy crust along the bottom corners of the windows. With a fingertip, she tapped at the glass, but pulled her hand away; it was freezing. When Drake trudged into the room and tossed his coat onto one of the lounge chairs, she glanced up at him, recognizing the sour look on his face.
“You talked to Connor,” she assumed. It was more of a statement than a question. It didn’t take much to piss Drake off, but Connor had a knack for doing something extra special to Drake’s features by twisting them into a murderous glare every time they talked.
He grunted, then sank into one of the chairs, freely cursing at his wet jeans. Kris took this to mean he was less than interested in talking, so she rose from the window seat and patted at her leg for the dog to come with her. Before she left, she stopped at the fireplace and carefully put another raggedly chopped log on the top, then shuffled out into the hall, pulling the door closed behind her. Drake had spent much of his days pouting, like she had, but for him, it was only about one thing. One person, really. Riley. She’d become the center of his and Connor’s universe. And Kris’, too. She often wondered what happened to Riley. Where was she? Was she hurt? Was she dead? Why did she leave them? Why did she leave Kris?
If Riley was alive, Kris wasn’t sure she’d even want to be found. Not after the Ark. She probably felt abandoned. Alone. Riley was tough, but something had happened to her. The guys had told them about what they found in the woods. All the blood. The bodies. As Kris was deciding which way in the hall to turn after leaving Drake to pout, she wondered if the men that had taken Riley hadn’t just buried her in in the woods, and then met their fate by some other random freak. She thought, more than once, if Riley truly was out there, she’d have been looking for them.
She turned toward the stairs to retreat to her room, the first that was upstairs on the left. Once inside, she locked her door and then flopped onto the bed, pulling a pillow over her face. She cried till the material was soaked. Zoey had fallen asleep at her side, with a furry foot gently draped across Kris’ arm. Once she closed her own eyes, she slept all through the night and well into the morning, and didn’t wake until dawn, when her irregularly scheduled nausea had her fumbling for the stale package of crackers she kept on the bedside table. She ate three, slowly nibbling at each, and gave the dog two.
“Sorry for the sucky breakfast, girl,” she apologized, stroking Zoey’s ears and neck. “I’ll get you something better in a minute, when I don’t feel like my insides want so badly to be on the outside.” In response, the dog softly pressed her black nose into Kris’ stomach, then fake-sneezed. She knew. Animals had a way of figuring things out long before their humans did.
So, when the dog jumped off the bed and ran to the door with her tail wagging, Kris expected the knock before it came. “Hey,” a quiet female voice said from the hall. “Are you coming out this morning?”
It was Ashlyn. Kris rolled her eyes and nibbled on the corner of a fourth cracker. “Not really feeling too great right now, sorry,” she said louder than necessary.
“Oh, okay,” Ashlyn replied. “Well, I’ll just leave this tray here.”
Kris stood slowly, afraid moving too fast would make her vomit on the rug. Once steady, she crossed the room when she was certain Ashlyn was no longer waiting for her. To be safe, she pressed an ear to the door and listened for a solid minute before glancing into the hall. Ashlyn had left a tray of food for her and a full water bowl for the dog. Well, Kris thought. She couldn’t hate her for that.
When Kris was eleven, she got the stomach flu so bad that she spent a week home from school, sitting on the toilet with a trashcan in her lap during most of it, wishing every ten seconds that she would die already. Fast-forward to post-apocalyptic pregnant Kris; as she hovered over the bucket she kept by the bed, she began to recall that horrid flu week, and how fabulous it was to have running water and a flushing toilet back then. Now, she’d have to dump her puke bucket out the window, and wipe it clean with a rag. There was no flushing toilet. She had to use the same bucket for pee and shit. She puked again. Out came the rest of Ashlyn’s watered-down vegetable soup with tiny bits of alphabet pasta, floating around globby chunks of stale water crackers.
Everything was stale these days. Except for the air. Kris stood up long enough to push open a bedroom window and sucked in the mountain air that was mixed with a hint of burning firewood. The chill felt great on her hot throat where stomach acid had made the tissue raw. The trees in the distance were so peaceful compared to the cold walls that surrounded her. She rested her chin on the sill, ignoring the flaking paint that stuck to her skin, and breathed in through her nose. With a pale hand, she reached out and caught a few dozen snowflakes and let them melt into a wet puddle on her palm.
When she looked over her fingertips at the distant trees again, she spotted a grey curl of smoke blowing up the mountain. She wondered, not for the first time, who the not-so-close neighbors were. Was it one man, a hermit, hiding out for the winter? Or was it a group like hers; a mismatched set of wanderers hunkered down and simply waiting for the next steaming heap of shit to hit the fan? Maybe it was a pack of rapists and killers, watching the lodge in the valley with a sinister interest, counting the days it would take for the snow to melt enough to travel down the mountain safely and kill Kris and her friends, horror-movie style.
She sucked in another gulp of frigid air and blew it out in a ragged sigh. It didn’t matter who was freezing on top of the slopes. They were stuck for now, just like she was. Still, Kris was curious about them. Curious enough that she vowed to find out who kept the fire in the trees going. Because it meant one thing, really. They weren’t dead. Not yet. And neither was Kris. She pushed away from the window and threw up in the bucket again.
ASHLYN
Her hair was a frizzy wreck and there was no conditioner. She used a bucket of melted snow to rinse the lodge’s complimentary shampoo out of her hair, then squeezed it for several minutes with a towel. After twisting it all into a funky bun on top of her head, she fumbled open a jar of coconut oil. Slowly, enjoying every second, she rubbed chunks of the cold coconut onto her skin until it melted, using special care on her face, elbows, hands, and knees. She released her hair, combed the knots out, then saturated the ends with more coconut. When she was done, she stood before the bathroom mirror, a shining, oily, pink mess.
“Better,” she mumbled at her reflection.
Bathing had become a thing of necessity, a once a week treat, if she was lucky. Being dirty and smelly was hard for Ashlyn. Being hungry, even harder. But the worst part of her days wasn’t about how she looked or how empty her stomach was when she crawled into bed, it was how lonely she felt. No one talked to her or cared about what she thought. Connor wouldn’t even touch her on purpose. If they accidentally bumped shoulders while passing in the hall, he’d mumble an apology and
continue on his way as if she was a complete stranger. He thought of only one thing, and that was finding Riley.
He’d talked enough about her in California for Ashlyn to know she was important to him. How far-reaching his love for the other woman was had turned into an obsession since Connor realized Riley wasn’t dead. It wasn’t fair. Over the last year, Ashlyn had stumbled upon only a handful of people, most of whom were men. None of whom were kind. That is, until she found Connor.
Ashlyn was pulling on her jeans, tugging them over her heels as she went through the memory of the plane landing on the highway, ushering them inside and taking flight again as flames leapt at the tail, hungry for more. It was the day that changed everything, because it was the day that they were taken to the Ark.
She secretly hoped Connor would never find Riley. But even if that woman was lost forever, Ashlyn wasn’t sure that Connor would ever look at her the same way again, if he’d ever touch her, make love to her, or kiss her with those perfect lips of his. Riley had become his world. Ashlyn knew it was wrong, but still, she hated the woman that had stolen Connor’s heart away from her.
Chapter Four
COLE
The first thing that he sensed was the searing pain that radiated outward from the center of his face, like a slow-moving fire crawling across his nose and mouth, working its way to his ears. Before he opened his eyes, Cole was certain he was burning and that his face was melting off. Blood was trickling down his throat, making it hard to breathe. He sat up gasping and flailing like a drowning man, afraid to touch what was left of his head.
“Relax, it’s just a broken nose. You’ll live.”
Cole’s eyes flew open, and he began to cry. Not because of where he was, or from the pain, but because he still had eyelids. He reached a hand up to his forehead and slowly felt down his face, turning his glove red.
“Am I bleeding?” he stammered.
Someone kicked his leg. “Yes, you asshat. You’re bleeding all over the pretty wood floor.”
He looked over the top of his stained fingertips at the jeans standing to his left, and followed them up until he recognized her face. Riley. “You,” he choked.
“Yeah,” she answered, kicking at his leg again. “Not happy to see me?”
When she squatted down to his level, he flinched away from her. “You broke my nose!”
“Guilty,” she confirmed with a tight smile. “And if you move an inch without permission, I’ll break something else.” She made a jabbing motion at his throat, and he flinched again.
“Why would you do that?” he whined.
“What, this?” She pointed at his throat and he protected it with his arm. “Did you know there’s a little bone in there that breaks if you strangle someone hard enough?” she asked.
He gaped at her. “Th-that’s not what I m-meant,” he stammered. “Why did you p-punch me in the f-face?” He swallowed, tasting blood on the back of his tongue, realizing that he was crying like a little kid, not a man.
She laughed, and he jumped again, striking the cabin wall with the back of his head. The dull pain was nothing compared to the hot one still pulsing from his nose. “Oh, that?” she chuckled. “Are you sure you can’t answer that question on your own?”
The shadows shifted beside him, and for the first time Cole was aware that the man who went by ‘Jin’ was hovering in a nearby corner. Cole threw his hands up and struggled to keep his voice calm, but tears spilled out of his eyes anyway.
“Please, don’t hurt me,” he begged. “I won’t cause any trouble!”
He watched Riley’s face change. The smile fell away, and her eyes glossed over. He was sure they went darker, like the deep waters of the ocean at night. Cole felt the color drain from his face, and froze when Riley’s arms grabbed hold of his shoulders and began to shake him.
“Trouble?” she yelled in his face. “All you are is trouble, you conniving little shit!”
Cole began to cry freely. He no longer cared about how much of a pussy it made him look. When the quiet man intervened, and pulled Riley free, Cole folded himself in half and sobbed.
“Come with me,” Jin told Riley. “Now.” Cole watched them back away, concern on the man’s face, and pure hatred on hers.
They were going to kill him, Cole realized. It probably wouldn’t be the man who did it, but it was going to happen. Cole had seen the look on Riley’s face from others before. She was going to murder him. And she would enjoy every moment of it.
“Please,” he begged again. “Let m-me explain…I’ll tell you everything.”
RILEY
I glared at Jin as he pulled me away from Cole and shoved me into the small bathroom space. We weren’t out of earshot, but the kid was blubbering so hard that even if one of us began shouting, Cole would barely notice.
Despite that, Jin wouldn’t raise his voice louder than a hush. “That’s enough,” he hissed. “We won’t get any good information from the boy if you kill him first. Or scare him to death.”
He was still holding onto my arm, so I yanked myself free. “Don’t tell me what to do,” I snapped.
Jin straightened his shoulders and sighed deeply. “What’s your plan?” he asked after a pause.
“That doesn’t include snuffing out his life?”
He frowned. “Be smart.”
I slapped a hand onto my thigh. “I am, Jesus! You don’t know what kind of mess you’re walking into, allowing him to breathe the same air as you!”
“The air is fine,” Jin stated.
I almost laughed, but decided instead to sit down on the edge of the cold tub with a thump and rubbed at my temples. “Okay, Jin. What’s your suggestion?”
The wind picked up outside, slamming a branch against one of the back walls. We both turned toward the sound and followed the scraping noises along the wood paneling until the wind shifted and the branch returned to its normal place alongside the cabin.
“He wants to talk, so I say we let him,” Jin recommended.
“Even if what he says is total bullshit?” I lifted an eyebrow.
“Will you know if he’s lying?”
“Probably.”
“Then I’m not worried,” Jin said with a shrug.
You will be, I thought. “Fine. Play the game your way.” I rose from the tub, then grabbed Jin’s arm before he had a chance to walk away. “But just so you know, I’m not above saying, ‘I told you so’. Watch him closely.”
With a nod, he led us back into the common area of the cabin, where Cole still sat on the ground, crying against his arm and rubbing snot across his bloody face. From a safe distance, Jin handed Cole a towel, and the boy stopped crying long enough to press it against his nose.
“You aren’t going to kill me?” he sniffed.
With my arms crossed, I shrugged at him. “Not yet.”
He nodded, then wiped his chin clean with the towel. We watched him remove his gloves and place them carefully in his lap. After he glanced around the room, he smiled at me.
“This is a nice place.”
“Jin,” I interrupted. “If there’s something you need to ask him, do it now before I use him for knife-throwing practice.”
Cole scooted away from me, then pointed with a crooked smile. “Funny. You almost had me there.”
Slowly, so he’d see every move I made, I reached behind me and pulled out a blade longer than his hand and let him get a good and long look at it. “You thought I was joking?”
Jin stepped between us about two seconds before Cole shit his pants. “Enough, Riley. Tea.”
I gaped back at him. “Are you asking for yourself, or him?” I snapped.
“Both.” He gave me a reassuring pat, and then a wink.
He had a plan, unlike me. I told myself this as I stepped away from them and stomped into the kitchen. For more than a few seconds, I considered what we had on hand that could be dumped in Cole’s tea for a slow and excruciating death. As the water boiled, I imagined hurling the steaming pot acros
s the room, and then pouring what didn’t spill on the kid, down his throat. I could finish him off with my knife and then toss him outside in pieces to feed whatever wildlife wasn’t sleeping under the ground for winter.
“Riley,” Jin said.
I blinked over the counter at Jin, who was leaning against a chair. Both he and Cole were staring at me as the pot whistled with shrill cries. I snatched it off the burner and began pouring the water into mugs, and dipped a strainer into each until the clear drink turned a mossy color. I didn’t trust myself to carry Cole’s mug over to him without bashing it into his skull, so I left it there and lifted myself up onto the counter by the sink, my own mug secured in my hands.
“Tea’s ready,” I grumbled.
By the time my cup was empty I’d found a more comfortable spot in a chair, far enough away from Cole that he didn’t sweat every time I moved, but close enough to remind him that I was only a few steps away from slicing his ears off if I wanted to.
Jin, on the other hand, had almost immediately gained Cole’s trust. The boy talked freely to him, answering every question asked with detail, and from what we could tell, total honesty. In less than half an hour, we discovered that Cole had set out from the Ark not long after I’d been forced out, and was holed up nearby in a small camper he claimed to have temporarily borrowed from his bosses. He found us three weeks prior, but didn’t know how to approach safely, so hung back, observing. It was the only smart part of his story.
I asked him nothing, and only grunted at his words a handful of times. I even tuned him out as he talked about getting snowed-in and running short on supplies. I didn’t care one bit how hard his struggle had been to survive over the last few weeks. My mind kept circling back to the biggest flaw of his tale: why he was here to begin with.
Find Me Series (Book 4): Where Hope is Lost Page 3