by Kate Morris
Wren pushed open one of the changing stalls, fully expecting a monster-human thing to come charging at her. Nothing did, but it was still pretty dark. She was a complete ninny.
However, she didn’t dawdle and stripped and re-dressed in her new gift shop clothing faster than she would’ve thought possible with damp skin. She meant to grab the sweatpants to go over the shorts but was sidetracked by him throwing the football team’s logo socks at her. Now she was wearing volleyball shorts, which were very short, and her legs very bare and cold.
When she emerged, he was already there and dressed in black track pants with two white stripes going down the sides, and a gray hoodie.
“I’m gonna go rummage the snack bar. You can dry your hair. I’ll come back here and pick you up, okay?”
She didn’t want to tell him no, so she nodded. He left, and Wren was alone in the locker room. The water faucet was dripping, but with Elijah gone, she felt a thousand times more unnerved by it. Instead of dawdling, Wren made fast work of it. She set up her phone on flashlight mode and aimed it toward the ceiling to try and brighten some of the dark shadows in the scary space. Then she flicked on a dryer and tried to make some sense of her tangled hair without the assistance of a brush or comb.
When she flipped her head back upright from being upside down, Wren squelched off a scream at the shadow in the mirror. It was only Elijah, though, so she turned off the dryer.
“Elijah!” she said and spun and slapped his chest.
“What? Did I scare you? Sorry,” he said. “All done?”
She nodded but wanted to be angry a second longer.
“Let’s go. We need to find a spot to stay tonight,” he told her as she collected her things.
She followed after him, but Elijah stopped, turned around to face her, and took her hand, pulling her up next to him instead. As they passed by the entry doors they’d come in earlier, she couldn’t stop herself from looking to see if that person was still out there. He wasn’t, but it didn’t mean others weren’t.
Elijah led her upstairs, and they checked in different rooms. Some didn’t have locks, so those were immediately ruled out.
She noticed he was carrying a backpack and asked, “What’s in the bag?”
“Snacks. The most important thing,” he said with a grin, which she returned.
At the end of one dark hall was an exercise classroom with hardwood floors. There were padded mats used for gymnastics tumbling on the floor. She checked for a lock and found that it had a good, sturdy one and another on the knob.
“This’ll work,” he nodded and crossed the room where he dropped the pack and his wet clothes. Then he stacked the tumbling mats three high to offer some protection from the hardwood beneath them.
“The room before this one might have some things we can use,” she said and left to check it out while he worked on arranging things.
There were bean bag pillow thingys in the classroom one over, which said “Lamaze” on the paper taped to the door. She assumed they were some sort of device the pregnant moms used in their class for their backs or something. Wren figured they could use those as pillows. He’d even found a couple keychain flashlights in the gift shop with the name of his football team on the side, of course, and when she returned with the pillows, he had them switched on and a buffet of snacks set up.
“You were busy,” she remarked. “That’s a lot of snacks.”
“You have a lot of hair to dry. I figured it was pretty good odds I could finish looting for food before you finished your hair.”
“All those sprints you do in football practice,” she remarked.
“How do you know I do sprints?”
Elijah shut and locked the door behind them. One wall facing the class was all mirrors, which had spooked the hell out of her when she’d first entered the room.
“This is quite the meal,” she observed, ignoring his question.
He’d scavenged packages of Little Debbie Swiss Roll cakes, bags of chips, two bags of pretzels, a few sodas, two sports drinks, and a handful of candy bars.
“I’m so disappointed,” she said and placed her hands on her hips, staring up at him.
“What were you hoping for? Chinese takeout?”
“I do believe I was promised a slushie,” she said.
Elijah didn’t even pause. He dashed out of the room to her calling his name. When he ran back upstairs and delivered her a red slushie less than three minutes later without even getting winded, she was shocked.
“M’lady’s slushie,” he said and handed it to her with a bow.
“Elijah, I was just joking. Besides, my favorite flavor is blueberry anyway,” she teased but in a deadpan tone and laughed with devilish intent when his eyes widened.
“Wren Foster, I oughtta’ throttle you,” he threatened with good humor. “Now, sit your spoiled butt down and eat this feast.”
She did as he said, and Elijah locked the door again. He made sure to place his father’s shotgun on its side right next to the mats. It got a little wet in the rain, but he’d dried it off with one of the towels. He flicked on another one of the small flashlights but aimed the beam toward his balled-up letterman jacket so that it didn’t give off too much light.
“Where’s your pistol?” he asked.
“Right here,” she said, patting her damp hoodie.
Wren removed it and set it beside her. She was still cold but drank the slushie anyway. Her best friend had gotten it for her, after all. She smiled over the rim of her cup at him and had to look quickly away. It had been so long since she’d had a friend of any kind, let alone a best one. She knew this could all come tumbling down at any second. All it would take was for Elijah to get sick. Then he would be gone within days. She shivered again, but not from the coldness running through her this time. This was a different kind of chill. It didn’t settle in her bones from being caught in an ice storm. This settled in her soul.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“Do you want some sweatpants?” he asked and offered, “I’ll go back down and get you a pair.”
The short black volleyball shorts were an added bonus because she had great legs. He tried not to be a perv and stare.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll be fine. I just forgot them when you threw me the socks.”
“Sorry,” he said, feeling bad for not grabbing her the sweatpants that were hanging right beside the ones he had on. He wasn’t a creeper, but he also wasn’t a monk.
“No, this is fine. My pajamas don’t look a whole lot different from this.”
That got his mind racing. Now he wanted to know what she slept in. He’d have to content himself in knowing what Wren was going to be wearing this night.
“Eat up, kangaroo girl,” he said and joined her on the mat. They ate in silence for a few minutes before Elijah said, “I need to come up with a better nickname for you. I can’t have my new friend being called kangaroo girl.”
“Kangaroo girl? That’s the best you could come up with?” she finally asked.
Elijah smiled and felt a tiny tinge of victory that she wasn’t denying his friendship, at least. “I can come up with something. Just give me some time.”
She blushed and looked away, nibbling at a pretzel.
By the time they were done, Elijah had eaten the majority of the food. Wren had eaten half of a candy bar and a few pretzels. She did drink most of her slushie, though. He walked her to the bathroom down the hall, picking up on her desire to be escorted. He handed off the flashlight to her and let her go in without him. She was fast and was only in the bathroom for about two minutes. She certainly didn’t dilly-dally.
“Everything okay?” he asked when she rushed out and ran into him.
“Oh!” Wren exclaimed and braced herself with both hands against his chest. “Sorry.” She glanced over her shoulder.
“Wren, is…”
“It’s fine. Just got a little spooked.”
Elijah stepped back, looped an arm over her shoulder prote
ctively and walked her back to their room for the night.
“Can you wait here and lock the door? I’m gonna check the building again and see if I can find some blankets for us.”
“I’m okay. I don’t need anything else.”
“I’ll be right back,” he said. “Just lock this. I’ll knock when I come back.”
She nodded but bit her lower lip. Elijah left and made a quick circuit of the building checking doors, even windows that were lower to the ground. Then he used the bathroom, washed up, and went searching for some blankets. The best he came up with was a few blankets in the lifeguard shack that they must’ve kept for emergency shock victims. They were the same gray wool ones that fire departments used when someone was rescued. At least they’d keep her warm.
When he went back upstairs, something caught Elijah’s eye. Motion moving across the front lawn of the big complex. It was three of them. The night crawlers. They were running at a fast pace, as fast as he could, and he trained all year long doing the sprints Wren had mentioned. He should’ve tried to make it home with her. Now they were stuck till morning even if something happened and they needed to evac the rec center. He shouldn’t have even brought her tonight at all.
When he tapped on the door, he heard her yip with fright on the other side.
“It’s just me,” he assured her, to which she immediately opened the door.
She flung herself against him, her arms encircling his neck, on her tiptoes to do it.
“Forget flowers. Guess I should bring you blankets more often,” he said, feeling her shake. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“I saw some,” she said softly, pulling back. She had tears in her eyes. “Two of them. They were in the parking lot. When you left, I went to the window and looked out. I saw two of them. They…they…”
“What?”
He slipped inside the room and locked the door behind his back.
“They were…” she shuddered.
“Just say it,” he encouraged. He held onto the sides of her shoulders and gave them a reassuring squeeze. “Tell me, Wren. What were they doing?”
“I think they were eating a dog,” she said and shivered under his hands.
“Jesus,” he swore and pulled her close, wrapping her in a comforting hug.
After a minute, she settled down, so Elijah led her to the mats and encouraged her to lie down and get some rest. He went to the windows and looked out. Whatever was out there before eating someone’s pet was gone now.
Elijah closed the blinds after checking to make sure the windows were locked. Even though they were on the top floor, it still made him antsy. Then he went back to her on the mat. He pulled one of the gray blankets up over her slim body, and she turned to face him.
“Lay with me? I-I don’t like this place. It’s making me jittery.”
“Sure,” he said agreeably, knowing she was upset about what she’d seen. Elijah stretched out beside her and rested his arm over her waist on top of the blanket. “It’s gone. Don’t worry.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything.
“In the morning, I’ll check the place out again before we leave,” he told her.
She was still quiet. He wasn’t sure what was going through her head. She was hard to read most of the time anyway. Tonight was certainly no exception. Elijah reached over her and turned off the flashlight.
He asked against her hair, “Comfortable? Warm?”
He got a nod.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know why I’m so freaked out.”
“No, don’t be,” he said quickly. “You just surprised me is all. I figured you’d rather I stay somewhere over there in the corner with the spiders.”
She chuckled. They lay there a while in the dark and the quiet before she said something that would’ve made Elijah spit his drink if anything was in his mouth.
“Can we talk about sex for a minute?”
“What?” His voice cracked. Real cool.
“It’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You know, when I asked to talk to you about something.”
“Why’d you take so many days to bring it up again? I thought you wanted to tell me to go pound sand.” Her dark lashes rested against her cheeks, and she wouldn’t look at him. Whatever she had to say, it was embarrassing her. She just gave him a nod.
“I don’t get that saying- pound sand- but I think it means ‘get lost’.” She admitted, to which he nodded. “No, I didn’t want to tell you to pound on the sand.”
Elijah smiled but held back a laugh. He didn’t care if she was from another country and didn’t always understand what he was talking about. Wren could be from Mars, and he’d still like her.
“I know you think I’m some interesting and worldly person who’s been all over and experienced a lot,” she said. Then Wren shook her head. “But I haven’t. I’m never allowed to have friends. My friends are all gone. Once everything happened, I was forbidden from having any contact whatsoever with my old friends. The official story was that I was dead along with my family in a tragic house fire. Boyfriends weren’t even a consideration, not even for a second. Until I met you, I didn’t even have a friend for the last four years. Lila, I suppose. But my contact with her was also limited because of my inability to be able to talk to people openly or be myself. She only got to see me as who I projected, mostly just her neighbor who babysat for her sometimes. One slip-up and we were moving again. I got really good at not talking to people, mostly so I didn’t screw up and reveal something. Jamie was already sacrificing so much for me. I never wanted to put him in danger. Most weeks I’d go the whole time without talking to anyone but Jamie. You don’t know what that does to a person. It wasn’t just lonely. It ruined my ability to talk to people. If I made friends, I was just gonna be saying goodbye in a matter of weeks. I knew that. I was so used to moving. But when I met you, it was different.”
Elijah leaned up on one elbow slightly so he could see her better. He stroked his hand past her cheek and brushed back her hair. It had a wavy, sort of frizzy texture to it, but it was still really soft under his fingertips.
She added, “I actually wanted to know more about you. I liked talking to you, even though I knew it was breaking the first rule.”
“I like talking to you, too,” he admitted and traced her brow bone with his thumb.
“For the first time, I didn’t actually want to leave somewhere,” she said softly.
“And now?”
She shook her head. “Elijah,” she said and shifted her hips slightly.
“Yes?”
“The thing I wanted to talk to you about…” she started, stopped and bit her lip. Her breathing was shallow and coming out in nervous little pants.
“You can say anything to me, Wren,” he said. “I’ll never betray you.”
“I don’t want to die a virgin,” she stated and snapped her eyes shut and didn’t open them again.
He gulped. He didn’t mean to. It just happened. That was not what he expected her to say. He was hoping for maybe that she wanted to be his girlfriend or she was glad the flu virus brought them together or maybe she wanted him to kiss her. Hell, he would’ve just been happy if she called him her friend. Most of the time, she was just trying to get away from him, physically and emotionally. This was so much more. This new girl with the chip on her shoulder was burrowing her way into his soul.
“Um, okay,” he said stupidly. Then Elijah got his shit together and said, “Wren, that’s a big decision.”
“I know,” she interrupted. “It’s just that we could die, you know?”
“No, that’s not going to happen. I won’t let it.”
“You can’t stop it. I could get sick. You could. One of us could already be infected and just don’t know it yet. I could get killed. There also seems to be a lot of people out there who want to kill me, including our school principal. It could happen.”
He vehemently shook his head this time. “I’m not leaving your side. Nobody’s
going to get to you again.”
“I could still get sick. You know that, Elijah.”
“No.”
She looked crestfallen, which made him feel terrible.
Wren finally said, “It’s okay. I get it. Just forget it, okay? I’m not…I know.”
“What do you know?” he asked.
She tried to pull away, but Elijah wouldn’t let her.
“We shouldn’t, Wren,” he said. She looked hurt again. “I want to. Trust me on that one. I more than want to. I’ve thought about it.”
“You have?” she asked with surprise, making him smile. “You’ve thought about…you know, us being…together?”
“Of course,” he admitted. “I’m a guy, but I wouldn’t want you this way. I don’t want it to be something that feels like you getting to experience something because you’re afraid you won’t get to. That wouldn’t be right. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I’m not that kind of guy.”
“But I don’t want to die without ever experiencing sex. Everyone else has already done it. But when you move around every few months and can’t have a boyfriend, it makes it kinda’ hard to get someone to have sex with you.”
“Wait,” he said with a grin. “How many other guys have you asked?” He was teasing, but he also hoped it wasn’t true. Pretty much any guy she ever would’ve asked would’ve jumped at the opportunity. Him included, until about ten seconds ago when he realized his own morality was going to cock block him.
“Nobody!” she asked as if he offended her. “Just you. I’ve never asked anyone else that. Ever. It was hard enough asking you. If I’d known you were just gonna reject me, I wouldn’t have asked you, either.”
He used his forefinger to tip her chin up so that she would be forced to look at him. “I’m honored. I am. Really.” She didn’t look convinced. “I just don’t want you to do that with me just so that you can check it off your bucket list. That’s not what it would be for me. I care about you too much to let you do that. You’re… my friend.” The words felt and sounded forced, but not because he didn’t mean them. Elijah did mean it. She was a friend. It was just that other parts of him that weren’t friend zone spots were starting to think differently about her, despite trying to suppress them.