To make matters even more frustrating, she’s entirely of the belief that Commander Nyler made a special exception for Jeremy and coordinated a med run with a small team to find his insulin “just in the nick of time”. That’s the shit Nyler sold to the community, and they ate up every bit. Just one more thing to hate him for.
Forcing down a scream, I stare at the scuffed-up gym mat below my feet, seething.
My thoughts are more jumbled than ever, but one freight sized train pushes its way to the forefront, fueling my anger: Mom’s lack of care for the man she spent over twenty years of her life with. How she’s even capable of looking at someone with attraction in mind so soon after Dad’s passing boggles my mind. To have that person be complete scum like Commander Nyler?
Prudence Walton is a despicable human being.
Putting my whole body into it, I angle a punch at the taped-up bag in front of me, hitting home and making my poor hand scream in protest simultaneously. The impact of my wayward hit causes the bitch to swing back and forth slowly on its chain, but not as much as I’d like. I need more. Physical activity takes the edge off of my self-loathing, but this isn’t going to cut it.
“You’re doing it wrong. You need to plant your feet or you just waste all that momentum you’ve built up.”
I jump a good two feet in the air, hair swinging forward from my high ponytail to whack me square in the face. Twisting around to look behind me I see Luca - the ‘eyes that see too deeply’ guy I’d met the day my father died - making his way across the practice mats toward me. He’s dressed in tight-fitting black workout gear, looking good enough to eat. How I hadn’t heard him come in, though, I have no clue. Lately I’ve been so attuned to every little sound, it’s made it hard to sleep.
Or that could be because of the lack of a bed, and some old rickety theater seating becoming my place of rest.
Definitely could be that. I need to get some bedding soon.
“I’m sorry, what?” I bite back, pent-up aggression leaking into my tone. “Did you have something to say?”
His eyes widen in surprise at the venomous words, but I can’t bring myself to care. “Wow. Someone hasn’t had their coffee yet today, eh?”
I meet his gaze with a glare. “I’m not in the mood, dude. Are you here to train, or did you need something?”
I knew Luca worked out, but not typically at this time of day. I’d usually see him coming from the gym right around curfew, when he’d stop by the cafeteria to grab dinner in all his workout glory. Much like he looked at this moment. It made for a lack of napkins in the caf., after I cleaned up my drool every evening.
Ha!
Why he’s here now, looking at me like he wants to eat me with his eyes, is a mystery to me. One I want solved quickly so I can get back to taking my anger out on the bag at my back, still squeaking quietly from my hit.
He must see something in my gaze, because all humor leaves him as a serious expression settles over his handsome features. “I wasn’t criticizing, Saedie. I was trying to help.” He comes over and stands directly in front of me, so close I can feel the heat coming off his body. He unexpectedly nudges a foot between both of mine, shoving them farther apart. Cupping both of my shoulders in a firm grasp, he forces me to stand straight or topple backwards.
I choose the former.
“First, figure out where your feet go, then work on the rest of your stance.” He guides. “Good, now shift your body back onto the ball of your foot.” I shift, playing out his words. “No, on the side you’re going to swing with.” I immediately switch them out, trying not to feel ridiculous for standing here and allowing him to lead my movements. “Follow through like this.”
Pulling and twisting, he smoothly maneuvers my body into the correct form to throw a punch, then has me turn around and practice a hit on the bag. I’m surprised to see, and feel, the difference his tips have made. The force behind my swing has nearly doubled, and the hit doesn’t hurt my thumb half as much.
“There, that’s better. Did you feel the change?” He asks quietly, his body just behind mine. His breath fans across my neck with his words warming me from the inside out.
Shivering, I try and disguise my reaction by taking another go at the punching bag. “Yeah,” I grunt. “I see what you mean.” Dropping my hands, I sidestep away, putting some distance between us while internally telling my lady bits to cool their shit.
If he can sense my shift in mood, Luca doesn’t comment, instead he nods and walks toward another part of the gym, calling back over his shoulder, “I’m glad I decided to come by early today and see who keeps leaving the weights out. Have to say, I didn’t expect it to be you.”
And down goes my libido.
“Why wouldn’t it be me, Luca? You have something against me, or just women that want to better themselves in general?”
He huffs out a chuckle. “Chill, new girl. Take it out on the bag, not me. Might want to wrap your hands first though, or you’re going to leave here with bloody knuckles.”
Smarting at the ‘new girl’ moniker, I force myself to go back to not caring — things are much simpler that way. Making sure his back is turned I surreptitiously follow his advice before beating the bag’s ass to the next town over.
Luca gives me a few more tips as the hour passes, and by the end of it he’s quietly lost in his thoughts as he stands behind me, lifting a weight bar back into the hooks. We’d moved from punching to weightlifting when my hands started to ache, and he’s been teaching me how to bench-press sixty-five pounds like a boss. Despite sweating like a glass of tea in the Georgia sun, I’m feeling fairly accomplished, if I’m being honest. Sixty-five pounds isn’t much, but it’s a start.
It’s definitely more than I thought I could handle.
Taking a step back, Luca swipes a towel across his face before grabbing his water bottle and preparing to leave. “Meet me back here at 4am. You’ve got a lot more to learn.”
Without giving me a chance to respond, he’s across the room and out the door, leaving me panting on the bench, hoping I heard him right. Despite him being a bossy bastard, the prospect of more time alone with Luca has my sluggish heart knocking in my chest, beating overtime. Butterflies the likes of which I haven’t felt in ages swirl low in my belly.
I’ll be here, no doubt about it.
◆◆◆
Another two weeks pass of complete silence from The Incubator — aka my mother. Left with nothing better to do with my time outside of chores, I quickly picked up some new fighting techniques, thanks in no small part to Luca.
Excuse me, Corporal Duncan.
Apparently, he’s a member of the British Army who was vising his Pops, an immigrant to the U.S., when Outbreak Dead Rain hit.
Hold your tits, lady-bits… Military men are heart breakers, no doubt.
He’s taken it upon himself to become somewhat of a personal trainer behind closed doors. Encouraging me to keep pushing myself, and hone additional skills, to play both offense and defense in a fight. Under his tutelage I now have a mean right hook, stamina for days — okay, more like a few hours — and know three different ways to take down a grown man larger than myself. I can also get out of restraints if needed. I insisted on that part.
My body is more toned than it’s ever been, and I can comfortably run a mile without breaking down in a coughing fit halfway through.
Admittedly, it took some time for me to really buckle down and focus during each ‘session’. Luca is fucking hot, with a capital ‘H’, and it created some interesting situations for me with all the touching training has turned out to have.
Little brushes of his fingers across my skin here, his body pressing a bit too close during certain combat maneuvers. The hint of strength his form holds as he sweeps me off my feet and to the ground — over and over again. Eventually I caught on how to avoid that particular move, but I habitually find myself trying to get closer to inhale his cedar and rain scent. More often than not, the heavenly aroma clings to me
after training until I can wash it away in the shower.
Some days I don’t even want to - he smells that good.
Needless to say, the sexual tension between Luca and myself is starting to get to me. The shitty part is, I honestly can’t tell if it’s one-sided. All in my head.
Is the heat in his gaze as he watches me warm up every morning him enjoying the view of my sweaty ass bouncing around the gym, following his commands? Or is it simply a skilled soldier, showing appreciation and dedication to the athletic high of bettering oneself, that shows through when he stares at me?
Honestly, I’m not even sure what genuine sexual attraction looks like from a man, seeing as I’ve yet to be intimate with one.
Don’t get me wrong, I know lust when I see it. But lust and attraction are two different beasts — both of which I’ve yet to conquer.
Yes, I’m a twenty-year-old virgin. So what. Doesn’t mean I’m a stranger to orgasms!
Outside of training, Luca is cool as a cucumber around me. Acting like we didn’t know each other if anyone else is nearby. He’d gone so far as to deliberately turn his back to me one evening at dinner when I’d tried to start up a conversation.
I’m starting to get freaking whiplash from his continued mood swings, I swear. After his latest brush off, where he’d turned his back and pretended I didn’t exist while everyone watched, I decided to go back to training alone for a while.
He set me up for success, and I’m going to run with it on my own until I can work through all the complicated emotions clouding my judgment.
I hope.
CHAPTER 5
Eight weeks after my father’s passing, the leaves have begun to turn with the first touches of fall. Transitioning into bright hues of yellow, orange and red, they scent the air with an intense crispness that’s heaven to the senses.
I love this time of year — always have. And to top it off, I finally feel ready to begin staking out the secret door I’d followed that bastard Nyler to.
I haven’t forgotten it. I’ve been preparing.
I’ve even learned some code-breaking skills from this cool computer nerd named Kenji that I met in the caf. one day. Atlas has yet to pull into their exclusive network - use her for their own gain - which is surprising to say the least. There’s been no lack of trying, I hear. Chick just isn’t interested in what they’re selling.
More power to her, I say, seeing as she’s one of the only holdouts on drinking the Kool-Aid left, beyond myself. And maybe Luca and Jer.
Apparently, the Nigerian bombshell was in lockup for a three-year stint Before, for hacking into a top secret database at the NSA. She’d released highly classified documents on the Internet for everyone to see — and got caught.
Badass whistleblower, anyone? Minus the getting arrested part. Or did that make her even more of a boss bitch? Hmm.
Kenji seems like a good person, all things considered. I can see us being friends down the road, if I can manage to pull out of this new numbness that’s formed a cloud in my brain lately.
I’m not quite clear on how she managed to not still be stuck in a dark prison somewhere, but I’d hazard the correctional system fell into disrepair, just like many other facets of life as we knew it pre-apocalypse.
A few local jails had literally crumbled to the ground not long after the Outbreak. Like a damn Jenga tower - no joke. Earthquakes sprung up out of nowhere to rip the city apart, like Mother Earth was pissed and decided to join in the mayhem of humanity’s downfall. I don’t even want to know where all those inmates got to.
Gathering up a canteen of pre-filtered water, a few energy bars and my old phone - there’s no service obviously, but pictures, yo - I close up my messenger bag and pull it over my head. Dressed in black skin-tight jeans, a dark long-sleeve tee and equally dark combat boots I’d swiped from the training room lockers, I slink out the doors of the observatory and make my way across campus to the Sports building.
It’s one in the morning, making the niggling fear I’ll randomly bump in to anyone fairly unfounded, but it’s still there nonetheless. The guards do rounds every three hours, which means I have just under two to get as much surveillance done on ‘the door’ as possible.
I decided on night-stalking because one, I’ll be able to use the darkness to my advantage. And two, because Nyler is always out and about during the day, shaking hands and kissing babies. I figure if he’s up to something, it would have to be done while the rest of The Compound sleeps.
I don’t plan to sneak into whatever lays beyond the door tonight, but I need to scope out how often people come and go over the next few evenings. Specifically Nyler, of course, but I know he can’t be the only suspicious individual at The Compound. I mean… Atlas. They advertise themselves as a group, and yet I haven’t been able to suss out all the players. Commander Nyler sits at the top of my list, along with Nurse Nance and a skeevy ex-soldier named Donnel who’d found my family and I.
Not good enough. I want to know them all.
Call it instinct, or a grudge for dating The Incubator, but I don’t trust Commander Nyler as far as I can throw him. This task I’ve given myself? I need a goal… a mission … to keep me from falling into the pit of depression that’s threatening to swallow me whole.
Since I’d started avoiding Luca in the gym a few days ago my only true human contact centered around visiting Jeremy. Occasionally I had the hacking crash courses with Kenji but, outside of those short interactions, I spent my time entirely alone.
I even managed to avoid the puppy-like guard - whom I’d promised a date to all those weeks ago - for long enough that I think he finally got the picture it just wasn’t going to happen.
Not sure if that’s a win or not…. He was pretty sweet. Too late now though.
Centering back on the present, I duck behind one of the large unkempt shrubs that line the campus walkways, scanning the last open space I need to cross before entering the Sports complex. Off the beaten path there’s complete darkness, but thanks to some massive generators, the street-lamps across this particular quad still shine brightly. The setup definitely works to my advantage as a sleuthing ninja.
Fuck yeah, I’d make a great ninja!
Not thirty seconds after my head passes below eye-level of the greenery, a man I’ve never seen before comes rushing down a separate path, catty-corner to where I’m crouched. He’s tall, lanky even, with grey-ish white hair that recedes far back from his forehead. He’s so freaking skinny it makes me wonder if he’s ill, or just doesn’t eat enough. Dude sports a limp that has me picturing a penguin slipping on ice, and if I weren’t so full of adrenaline at the moment, I might laugh at the comical image.
Getting myself under control, I shuffle on silent feet, inching closer to the entryway. Shadowing his uneven steps, I make sure to keep behind the semi-protection of the shrubs.
With all of my focus on this new person, I feel silly for not having immediately noticed he’s wearing a white lab coat. It’s reflecting brightly under the lights as it flaps in the autumn breeze.
Could he be some kind of doctor or scientist, or is Mr. Penguin playing dress-up?
I know there are some still around, contrary to propaganda The Compound throws out saying no one has been in contact with such learned individuals in months. I’d overheard Nurse Nance mention a Dr. Strance in passing one day, in the present tense, not past. Maybe that’s who this guy is?
As he disappears behind a side door of the gym, I check to make sure the coast is clear before quickly trailing along after him, slinking in through the same access point.
Inside, it’s hellishly dark and too quiet. The lack of noise helps me pinpoint the faint clomp of loafers stomping across the tiled hallway I’ve stepped into. Hoping my ears aren’t playing trick on me, I go right — towards the sounds. I do my best to not make a peep as I stick to the darker shadows against the walls.
The hallway is lined with trophy cases that, Before, would have been lit from within to showcase al
l the triumphs former university students had achieved. Now, the glass memory boxes are dank and covered in a thick film of dust, blocking out any bittersweet view into the past.
I wonder how many of those people survived? Likely very few.
The bang of a door slamming echoes down the hall, sending my nerves into overdrive.
How the hell am I supposed to know which door that was?!
Turns out it’s not that hard to figure out. After another twenty paces or so, I begin to see a faint glow leaking out from under a wooden door near the end of the passage. We aren’t in the same area where Nyler had gone through his inconspicuous entrance, but I’m itching to see what this dude is up to anyway. Who walks around in a lab coat after the world ends that isn’t important? I quickly make my way to the wooden barrier, stepping close.
Soft muttering catches my attention and, leaning forward, I press my ear to the smooth surface. My heart is racing so loudly, I can’t hear anything but it’s pounding for a few seconds.
“Look… said we need … subjects. Are you going to question his … because I’m not … to risk it.” The voice is disjointed at best, but they get my gears turning. What does Mr. Penguin, and whoever he’s chatting up, need to collect? “Look where it got Josephine! Dead!” This time it’s a shout, loud and clear.
Silence follows the outburst, and I can hear shuffling feet as someone moves around the room, their steps growing closer. My adrenaline spikes, but I stay put for now. They haven’t moved near enough that I’m worried the door will open — yet.
“Just do it, York.” A gruff, craggy, voice orders.
“I’m not going to be singularly complicit this time, Price. You pick the target and find a way to let me know who it is.”
“Fine.” They’re right on the other side of the door now.
Atlas (Apocalyptic Cries Book 1) Page 4