“No.”
“But it’s all I have left—”
“No. I don’t care if it was Schwarzenegger’s, we’re leaving it here. It’s a liability at this point and…”
Suddenly, her face crumpled and tears formed in her eyes. Oh, Jesus. He didn’t know how to handle this. Why were women so emotional? “Come on, don’t cry. We’ll—”
“I’m not crying,” she bit out.
He blinked. “Whoa. Of course not. My mistake. You’ve probably got something in your eye.”
“Sorry.” She sniffed. “I’m not acting like myself…laughing one minute, crying the next.” She stopped and took a deep, steadying breath. “I’m just one big hot mess.”
Did she want him to agree?
“Oh!” Rachel gasped and her eyes flew wide in shock.
Shit, what now?
His hand automatically gripped his gun. She pointed a shaky finger over his shoulder at the crazy bastard, who should be dead already. “That guy moved!”
Adam’s response was almost Pavlovian. He grabbed her arm and started walking them to her car’s trunk. “Let’s go, time to start moving your stuff to the Hummer.”
“But…” she sputtered.
He stopped, cupped her jaw and looked straight into her frightened eyes. This close, he felt her heat, saw how full and kissable her lips were. He felt an odd pressure in his chest. Shit. He tried to ignore his wild hormones and the strange sensations that rocked through his veins. Being this close to an available female was playing tricks on his mind. That had to explain why he felt drawn to her. It couldn’t be anything but lust. They’d just met.
He needed to concentrate on what he had to say. Fucking could wait until later, when they were safe and secure.
“He’s dead,” he told her. “You imagined it. We need to leave this place before it drives us crazy. Come on.” He dropped his hand. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to spend one more night in this godforsaken city. We need wide open spaces and fresh air to clear our heads. We need to move on, search other cities, other areas and find a group of survivors we can join up with.”
“Fresh air,” she said, as if he’d mentioned being handed priceless jewels. “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go.”
He saw her eyes dart in Crazy Bastard’s direction. Thankfully, he must have remained still, because she straightened, pulled the keys out of her pocket and used the remote to pop the trunk. She paused, pursed her lips and looked at him with watery eyes, rimmed with both pain and despair. “I have nightmares they all turn into zombies. I’ll always be scared of the bodies. I can’t help it.”
“And I’ll always have my guns.” He patted his holster and smiled. “So no worries.”
Chapter Three
Hours later, Rachel watched the sunset with her new companion, Adam, the stunningly handsome Marine she’d met that morning on the freeway. Both of them perched on a stark cliff overlooking the Los Angeles Basin. The colors were stunning, the weather was perfect. It would have been downright romantic if not for the utter devastation down below.
Kind of ruined the moment.
“Can you hand me another beer?” She sighed, slipping further into a surprisingly comfortable foldout camp chair.
Adam eyed her with uncertainty, his own dark bottle dangling from his fingertips. “That’ll be your fourth one.”
“So what? You’ve had plenty yourself, you know. Come on, the world just ended, cut me some slack here.” Her lips were numb, her fingers tingling. A few more drinks and the rest of her would follow. Anything to ease the tension in her back, her passion for the unattainable man sitting beside her and the iron ball that seemed to be lodged in the pit of her stomach.
Adam twisted his luscious muscle-man torso. Glass tinkled and ice rattled as he pulled a beer out of the cooler. “That’s your last one.” He handed her a cold, wet bottle. Their fingers brushed together for an electrifying moment. She sucked in a breath, and her gaze collided with his. For one brief, shining second, she thought she saw lust stamped across his features, the same look she thought she’d seen that morning, but then his face morphed back into a mask of disapproval and she knew she’d been wrong. Darn.
They’d gotten along well when they’d first met. He’d been very attentive, almost as if he were…were…attracted to her or something. But throughout the day, as they’d spent more time together, she could tell that Adam was becoming annoyed with her. At first, she tried not to take it personally, thinking he was upset at their situation, as anyone would be. But after a while, she was certain he was upset at her. Her. And she had no freaking clue why. And she felt the opposite. After spending the day with him, she’d come to realize she’d been left alone with Captain America, and she was as starstruck as if he were Chris Evans.
But Adam didn’t feel that way about her, and she was really fucking sad. So she drank some more beer and took her frustrations out on him.
She snorted. “You’re not the boss of me.”
He chuckled.
Oh God, had she actually said that? Maybe she should stop drinking.
Nah.
Well, at least he was lightening up. She popped the top off with a bottle opener and proceeded to chug down a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale like there was no tomorrow. Because maybe there wasn’t.
She blinked and caught a flash of white as Adam smiled at her. Her stomach swooped pleasantly. Wowza. She’d never spent so much time alone with a man as good looking as Adam. She usually only saw men like him on stage, from a distance or on TV. And not only was he gorgeous, but he also had the kind of teeth celebrities paid big money for. How did a Marine who wasn’t on TV end up with such great teeth? Did he bleach them, or was he just naturally blessed? Was he fanatical about his dental health? Dental health was important, Dad used to say—
“Rachel?”
“Huh?” she grunted behind her beer.
His face turned serious. “Tomorrow morning we’re going to pack, continue loading up with supplies and start searching for other survivors.”
She lowered her drink and sat up straight. Terrifying images of the last two months flashed through her mind. “Oh, no. There is no way I’m going back down there.” She sucked in a breath. “Smell that? It’s fresh air, Adam. Fresh air. If you drag me back into the city, I’ll throw up, I swear I will. As soon as that stink hits my nose, I’ll—”
He held a hand up. “Calm down. No one said anything about going back the way we came. We need to search other parts of the state.”
She deflated. “Oh, well, okay then.”
Adam’s gaze met hers, and she was struck dumb yet again by his manly beauty. She itched to trace his scar with a fingertip, right after she kissed him silly.
“We’ll head north,” he told her.
“Okay.” She nodded and lifted the bottle to her lips, unable to disagree. Unable to say anything. Which was unusual, because there was one thing Adam didn’t know about her—when she drank, she talked a lot, as in she couldn’t shut up.
They watched as the sky dimmed and glittering lights spread out over the cities below like a jeweled death shroud. A cold wind whooshed through the campsite, causing the blaze in the fire pit to crackle and spark. Despite the warmth, she shivered.
“You okay?” he asked.
“No,” she answered. Why lie? This sucked. This whole situation sucked. He knew it sucked. She knew it sucked. They might as well tattoo it to their foreheads.
Life sucks.
She bit her lip. Her nose and eyes burned with unshed tears. The crying had begun the day her mother died and hadn’t let up since. She’d cried so much, she must have fulfilled her lifetime quota, and she was really just so tired of it. Rachel swallowed against the lump in her throat and took another sip of beer. No more tears.
Adam sat quietly, elbows braced on his knees, the firelight flickering
across his perfect profile. He looked like a dark, brooding hero of old, deep in thought, the weight of the world on his wide shoulders.
“Weird how all the lights are on, even though no one’s home,” she started out, simply unable to keep quiet.
“I’ll give it a week before the Western grid goes out,” he replied.
“What?” she squeaked.
“The power is going to eventually go out. You know that don’t you? We have to get out of this area. Start a new life far away from here.” He used his bottle to gesture toward the valley. “There’s no one out there to maintain the power plants. They’ll shut down one by one and the whole grid will go. Then the nuclear plants on the coast will all—”
“Oh, I don’t want to hear this.” The iron ball in her stomach grew three times its original size. “Tell me tomorrow, when I’m sober. Not now, Adam. Not now.”
But he kept going. “You need to hear this, Rachel. You need to know for your own safety. Those nuclear reactors, they’re dangerous, without anyone to keep those rods cool, they’ll—”
“Stop it!” she snapped. She stashed her drink in the cup holder in her camp chair and covered her ears, deciding denial was her best bet. “La, la, la. I can’t hear you.”
“Rachel,” he warned. “Stop acting like a kid.”
She closed her eyes and rocked back and forth, humming. Childish, but what the hell? Tough times called for tough measures.
“Shit.” He sighed.
She waited. Numbness, where was that numbness? Come on numbness. She took a cautious peek. “You done?” she inquired.
He gave her a curt nod, lips tight. Like a parent watching a misbehaving child.
Whatever.
She relaxed a bit, slipped further into denial and grabbed her beer. Anger at the unfairness of it all began to ripple through her. Anger at the waste, at the utter destruction of life, of culture, of humanity, of everything. What. The. Hell. The anger swept through her and exploded from her lips.
“You know what?” she shouted, leaning toward Adam. He sat up. “You know what? You know what pisses me off the most about all of this? Even Noah was given enough warning to create an ark before the end. He had enough time to build a whole damn boat. And it was big. And what did we get? Nothing. Did I get to save two of every kind of human? No. Did I get to bring my family with me? No. Did you? No. We were cheated, Adam. Cheated.” She stopped to take a breath. “This sucks. Doesn’t this suck? It’s unbelievable!”
His face softened and his lips twitched. “It sucks,” he agreed.
“And why are we the ones who’re immune? Why are we the special snowflakes who survived? I just…I can’t believe it’s all over. That everything has stopped. Our world, our life is all gone. I liked that life.” Her voice cracked. She paused, turned her gaze toward the flickering flames and continued. “I loved those people. It was good, and I’ll never get it back. They’re all gone.” She fisted her hands against her thighs. “It’s not fair. I mean, I haven’t even done anything yet. I never went on a cruise or to New York for a Broadway show. I never got married, never had kids. I didn’t even get to finish college or the teacher credentialing program…and I’m still a virgin for chrissake, how pathetic is that?”
She heard a noise, jerked her head and saw Adam watching her with an intense stare. Oh no. She was so engrossed in her tirade, for a moment she’d forgotten he was there. Did she just tell him that she was a—
“You’re still a virgin?”
Oh, lovely, she had.
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen,” she whispered.
“Nineteen?” he exploded. “You’re nineteen? Christ, you’re not even old enough to drink. You’re still a goddamn teenager. Out of all the people on the planet, that’s who I’m stuck with?” He looked up at the sky and yelled. “What the fuck?” He said it so forcefully, so passionately it kind of reminded her of Scarlett O’Hara vowing she’d never go hungry again.
She jumped out of her seat, swayed a little and braced herself against the chair. “Hey, cut that out. What’s wrong with being stuck with me? I’m not a total loser.” She poked a finger against her own chest. “I’ve. Got. Skills. I’m smart. You’re lucky you ended up with me.”
He crooked one eyebrow. “That right?”
She pushed away from the chair and put a hand on her hip. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Skills? What skills? Can you shoot a gun? I know you pointed one at me earlier, but do you actually know how to handle one?”
“Um, no.”
“Can you cook?”
“Well, no, I… What does this matter? You think I’m worthless because I’m young, still in college and a…a…”
“Virgin.”
“Yeah, a virgin. What’s the big deal about that? It’s not like I’m a leper or something. I’ve just never had sex before. Jeez. Get over it.”
He stood slowly and loomed over her. She looked up. Six-feet-plus of pissed-off alpha male right in her face. Oh, shit. The iron ball in her stomach grew heavier, but somehow the attraction she felt for him increased.
“Get over it?” he ground out. “You don’t get it, do you? You’re a liability, Rachel. A target. Every asshole we meet is gonna want a piece of you because you’re female. And who’s gonna stop them? Me. You can’t take care of yourself, so I have to take care of you. I’ve spent the whole day with you, and you know what I learned? You’re weak, soft. You don’t have a single survival skill. Jesus, I might as well have been left with a fucking child.”
She sucked in a breath. His words cut to the bone, hitting like blows. And he’d said it all in a voice she hadn’t heard from him yet. A voice he probably used in combat. The kind of voice that made his enemies pee their pants. Part of her wanted to cower. But wasn’t that what he was expecting? He thought she was weak. A dead weight? Fuck that.
Filled to the brim with alcohol and post-apocalyptic, PTSD-induced rage, new Rachel stepped closer and jabbed a finger into his impossibly wide chest. She saw surprise flicker across his face before he could hide it. “You. Are. An. Asshole. I’m still a virgin because, first—my last boyfriend was a creep who hit me. Okay? I told him no, I wasn’t ready and he hit me. Backhanded me right across the face. And then he immediately dumped me for someone else who he felt would give out.” Adam growled but she kept going. “Not something I usually admit to people, but there you go. I’ve been a little leery ever since. Got it? And second…second.”
She paused to suck in a breath. “Eight months ago, I weighed sixty pounds more than I do right now. Yeah, you heard me right, sixty pounds. I finally got healthy, got myself moving more and lost the weight, so I’m actually damn proud of myself. Right now, I’m in the best shape of my life. I’m doing pretty darn good. And if that’s not good enough for you, then you can just pack your stuff and leave. Make like sheep and get the flock out of here, because I don’t need you. Did you hear me? I don’t need you. I can take care of myself!”
That last part, she shouted at the top of her lungs. It felt damn good.
“Rachel.”
Her breath was ragged, like she’d just run the mile. “What?”
She looked into his face, watched with fascination as a muscle ticked in his jaw. “No one’s going to lay a finger on you. Including myself, you hear me? No one,” he vowed.
Okay. She decided to process that one later. “I’m not weak,” she shot back.
“Fine. Tomorrow morning, we’ll go for a run and you can prove me wrong.”
“What?” she choked.
“You heard me.”
“But I don’t want to—”
“I didn’t ask if you wanted to. I told you what we’re doing, and you’re doing it.”
Her alcohol-induced post-apocalyptic PTSD rage crashed and burned, and suddenly she hit a wall of pure exhaustion. As in ready to pass o
ut. Weak as a newborn kitten. She swayed on her feet, all the vim and vigor from earlier swirling down the drain.
“Go lay down,” he said gently. “Get some sleep.”
As a testament to her exhaustion, she did as he said without any lip. Rachel shuffled over to the tent he’d picked out for her earlier in the day at an abandoned REI. He’d set it up, making sure she was comfortable, not ten feet away from his own.
She raised the flap, turned around and whispered, “Thanks Adam…for everything.”
He lifted his chin.
She went inside and passed out.
Chapter Four
The next morning was hellish.
Some lower level of hell.
“Stop! Wait, I—” Rachel yelled and crashed to the ground.
Ouch, that hurt, dammit.
She lifted her head. Adam halted and glanced at her. He looked like a Hispanic G.I. Joe, with his gun slung over his back, strong, proud and graceful in black track pants and another tight-fitting T-shirt. He shook his head and marched back along the trail they were following, coming back to check on her. Was he still pissed off about what went down last night? It was hard to tell through the stinging haze of sweat and tears.
Today, her Marine had turned into a badass track coach trying to make her life a living hell, more so than it already was. Which was hard to do.
Rachel gagged and threw up, wincing as bile rushed past her lips, hot as lava. She squeezed her eyes shut, sweat dripping off her chin.
Humiliating.
They’d been jogging around their campsite in the Santa Monica Mountains north of L.A. for twenty minutes. Just twenty damn minutes. And he seemed to be keeping it slow for her, but it had still kicked her ass and pounded her into the ground.
She was supposed to be proving to Adam that she wasn’t hung over. Proving that she was in the best shape of her life, that she was strong and capable and the dark secrets she’d let fly out of her mouth the night before were a figment of his imagination.
Not.
She couldn’t believe the stuff she’d said, or what he’d said for that matter. It was awful, just awful.
Die for You Page 3