by Kit Tunstall
I snuggled closer. “You’re taking this amazingly well. We used condoms, so I didn’t expect a pregnancy, let alone without knowing which of you is the father. By the way,” I withdrew slightly to look up at him again, “Grace suggested we check the expiration date on our condoms. I think they’re clearly defective.”
He laughed, looking far happier than I would have expected under the circumstances. “I guess it’s a moot point for now, at least for the next few months. I’ll try to see if we can find some that aren’t so old for later though.”
“You’re also taking it amazingly well that you might or might not be the father.”
He shrugged. “You sort of have to expect that when you enter this kind of relationship, don’t you think? At some point, if we’d all decided we wanted a child, we either would have had to decide who was the father, or we would have just left it up to chance. I’d say this baby was meant to be, even though it wasn’t planned. It doesn’t bother me if I’m not the biological father. I never knew who was my ‘real’ father. I had a Dad and a Papa, and they were both my fathers. I looked a lot like my mom, so it wasn’t obvious who’d fathered me, and it never mattered. They didn’t let it matter, and I didn’t know any difference until I was far older and realized not everyone had two dads.”
“Wow,” I said softly. “I can see why you’re so amazing. Your dads must have been great men too.”
He nodded. “They would have loved you. So would my mom. You make me happy, and that would have been all that mattered to them. That, and we’re having a baby. They would have been thrilled to be grandparents.”
Tears stung my eyes as I imagined sharing my news with my parents. They probably wouldn’t have been as thrilled as Ben’s parents, especially if they’d known about the unorthodox relationship I’d had with Ben and Joshua. That would have shocked them, and the idea of me being pregnant at twenty wouldn’t have thrilled them either.
My mother was sixteen, my father seventeen, when I was born, and they’d always wanted me to take a different path. They’d seen me finishing school and establishing my career before I ever considered having a family. They probably wouldn’t have liked the circumstances of conception, but I had no doubt they would have loved our child and been good grandparents, even if they would have given me grief over the choices I’d made.
I longed for them to be there in that moment to give me that grief, but a different type of grief entirely filled me, and tears spilled down my cheeks as I mourned the loss of them all over again. I hoped it was simply hormones, though the idea of turning into a sobbing mess for the next few months didn’t appeal to me either. “What about Joshua?” I asked softly.
His arms tightened around me. “What about him?”
“Should he know? Does he have that right?”
Ben pulled away slightly, framing my face between his hands before kissing me gently on the nose. “Of course he has the right to know, but unless he returns to the camp, I don’t see a feasible way to tell him. I’m certainly not risking you by approaching Fort Glacier, though I doubt he went back there.”
“You always did have more faith in him than I did,” I said, feeling a bit embarrassed by the admission. Technically, I’d been the one sharing my body with Joshua, but Ben had always had more trust in him. That wasn’t really a good thing, I supposed, since he had betrayed us both. It still made me wish I could be a better person like Ben, but it wasn’t in my nature to trust blindly.
“He might still surprise us and do the right thing. I think it’s obvious he didn’t tell anyone at Fort Glacier that you’re here if he did return to their base.”
“Not yet,” I said softly as Ben lowered his head to kiss me, this time on the mouth. It was a gentle kiss, demanding nothing, and I had a feeling he was going to treat me like spun glass for the next few months. It was sweet and endearing, but it could also quickly grow maddening. For now, I was happy to allow him to take care of me as he tucked me against his side and led me back to our tent to ensure I made it to bed for rest.
As expected, he refused to allow it to be anything but relaxation, and I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t going to spend the next few months frustrated with longing for him, so I’d have to check with Grace to get the okay to continue being intimate, but for now, it was nice just to have him lie beside me and hold me in his arms, blocking out the outside world and all of his responsibilities as leader of the camp, at least for a little while.
It was just the two of us—three of us, I amended silently, as I put a hand on my stomach. His hand joined mine, cupping my hand and my flat stomach with one of his. It was a quiet, special moment, and I clung to it, determined to remember every part of it and call forth the sense of peace and security of love I felt whenever I panicked in the forthcoming days.
When I woke up later, I found Ben was unpacking my bag and returning my items to the organization bin. He saw me watching him, and his expression was resolute. “There’s no way you’re leaving now. We’re both staying here. We can’t have a baby out there with just the two of us and no other protection or security.”
I let out a ragged sigh, but I nodded. I had already reached that conclusion myself. “I know, but I shouldn’t stay here either. I put everyone at risk.”
“We’ll figure out something and come up with a plan to deal with Fort Glacier. We were going to have to anyway, since they’ve clearly made it known they’re encroaching on everyone’s territory and trying to invoke the authority of a dead government to run roughshod over all of us.”
I sighed. “I know you’re right, but we don’t have enough people, gear, or training to face them. We’d never be able to hold them off. They might have a smaller force, at least from what I observed when I was being held there, but they still have access to the various weapons left behind. We don’t have any of those things.”
His expression was grim, but determined, when he finished emptying my clothes into the drawer before turning back to face me. “We’ll find a way to get it then. We’ll come up with a plan, something to keep everyone safe—at least the safest we can all be in this new world—and we’re staying here. This is where we need to raise our baby. Out on the road, I could lose one or both of you in the blink of an eye. That’s unacceptable.”
I nodded. What was there to say? I didn’t feel like arguing with him. He was right. Leaving would be foolhardy, and it would put both me and the baby at unnecessary risk. Staying put in the camp was a risk too, but at least we had a chance to prepare.
“And I’m no longer bound by the promise you extracted from me.”
I frowned at him in confusion. “What promise?”
He moved closer, coming to sit beside me on the bed. “It almost killed me to agree to let you walk out of here if the people from Fort Glacier came prepared to battle. I agreed to it then, but I don’t think I could have let you. There’s no way I could now.” He put his hand over my stomach in a tender gesture. “There’s too much at stake to just let you turn yourself over to them. If they decided the pregnancy was interfering with their experiments or whatever else, they might just decide to terminate. They wouldn’t let a little thing like your consent or lack of stop them. And who knows what they’d do to our baby if they let you have it? Presumably, he or she will be immune since I’m immune to both strains, and you have antibodies to the HLV hemorrhagic strain. They might decide he or she is a perfect test subject.”
I shivered at the thought. I wouldn’t allow myself or my baby to fall back into their hands. “What are we going to do?”
He let out a slow smile, and there was confidence in his features that bolstered my own. “I think it might be time to discuss an alliance, Sofia.”
Chapter Thirteen
“You aren’t going,” said Ben in a harsh tone.
I put my hands on my hips and glared at him. “I want to be there.”
He shook his head as he withdrew his weapon from his holster, pointing it away from me at the floor as he checked to ensure i
t was loaded before putting it back. “It isn’t safe. We don’t know what the other group’s reaction will be to our proposal, and we might run into the people from Fort Glacier.”
“Or they could come back here while you’re gone, tear the place apart, and find me. If they do, they’ll take me back there. I don’t want to be away from you, Ben.”
He paused in the middle of his preparations to look at me, his brow furrowed. “I’d rather have you by my side too, but I don’t want to take you into a situation that could be this dangerous. It’s not just you we have to think about now.”
I grimaced at the trump card he’d just played. “I agree, but if they take me back to that base, you’ll never see me or the baby again. We’re safer with you, no matter where you go.”
After a long moment, his shoulders slumped. “Fine, but you listen to everything I say and do exactly as I say. If I tell you to run, you run and don’t look back. If I tell you to drive back to the base and leave the rest of us behind, you damn well do it. We have an understanding?”
As it was the only way he was going to let me go along, I nodded quickly. For the most part, I intended to obey him if he told me to do something, since he had more experience in the field than I did. I drew the line at blindly leaving him and the others behind, and I’d decide that situation for myself if it came to that. I left that part unspoken. I suspected he knew, from the skeptical way he eyed me before his expression cleared.
“Pack your weapons and some gear. I’ll see if we have any body armor in your size.”
I did as he requested, filling my backpack with enough essentials for an overnight stay should we be stuck out that long, along with checking my gun. I’d just cleaned it a few days before, so it should be ready if I needed it. I’d never had to fire it except during target practice, and the thought of doing so against someone else, another living human being, was enough to make my stomach surge with nausea.
Or was that the pregnancy? I wasn’t sure. Until I’d found out I was expecting, I hadn’t noticed any real difference except being more tired, but now I was overanalyzing everything, wondering if it was a normal reaction or spurred by pregnancy.
That was still a surreal thought, to contemplate the idea there was currently a child growing inside me, one that would change from that little blob we’d seen into a human-looking child over the next few months. At the end of those months, the baby would be coming out of me, and that was enough to make me sway slightly as I recalled Maisie’s birth.
I knew it could just as easily be quick and done. My mother had birthed five children, all healthy, and all born naturally. My little brother had been so quick to arrive that they barely made it to the hospital, and apparently either my mother didn’t have much pain with childbirth, or she was just tough enough not to let it dissuade her from having more.
I’d never thought about my mom that way before, as someone who was tough and a warrior. She’d been a stay-at-home mother, and she’d taken good care of us and my dad. I realized suddenly how much strength that must have taken, and I put my hand over my stomach almost reverently, feeling a renewed bond with my mother. Tears stung my eyes as I fiercely wished she could be there with me for this experience. She might not have approved to start with, but she never would have turned away from me, and I could have used her sage advice and years of wisdom as I entered an unknown phase.
Thankfully, Ben returned before I could dissolve into a sobbing mess. I was certain if he’d come back to the tent and found me in tears, there was no way he would have let me go. I blinked them back and took the vest he extended. “Can you help me put it on? I don’t know how to wear it.”
He nodded as he helped me slip on the surprisingly lightweight vest. I eyed it doubtfully. “Are you sure this will do anything to prevent a bullet?”
“We found it at a police station, along with our other SWAT supplies, so I’m going to assume it will. It’s never been used before, but we all decided to look for some type of armor after that encounter where we were shot. This is an extra one, but it’s the same model as what we all wear, and though it hasn’t been put to the test, we’re going to assume the SWAT people knew what they were doing.”
I nodded. “Okay.” His words reassured me, and it made sense that the SWAT teams and other people in dangerous situations wouldn’t want to wear something bulky that would impede their ability to move or act. I felt secure with the vest, pleased that it went to my hips and completely covered my stomach.
I hoped it would be just a peaceful meeting with the other group, but I also understood it was wise to be prepared. We’d been in such a hurry the last time I had gone with them, needing to scavenge supplies for Maisie’s baby, that no one had bothered with body armor. As Ben and I left the tent to join the other members, I discovered that had changed. They all wore body armor too.
“We’ll take two vehicles,” said Ben. “That way, we have an escape option if something happens to one of them.”
I followed Ben to the Suburban, along with Clint and Trenton. Jerry and his team took a Land Rover parked closer to the fence, and I giggled suddenly. At Ben’s questioning look, I said, “Ben and Jerry, diplomats at the end of the world.” Clint and Trenton laughed, though Ben’s ears turned slightly red.
“I wonder what flavor that would be?” asked Trenton.
“Give Reese’s Pieces A Chance?” suggested Clint.
I giggled along with them, appreciating the release of tension before sliding into the Suburban. “I miss Ben & Jerry’s,” I said softly. I used to crave it, especially during my period, and I feared I’d have a similar situation during pregnancy, but I doubted there was any Ben & Jerry’s left in the world that was still stable or edible. I imagine Joel and Betsy could make ice cream, at least with the right ingredients, but I doubted it would be the same.
“I miss Monday Night Football,” said Clint. “There was nothing like cracking open a cold beer and watching the teams play.”
“I miss dancing,” said Trenton. “My girl and I used to go to the club every weekend, and we’d spend hours there. It was always crowded, loud, and you left sweaty and exhausted. We still have music, and probably still people who like to dance, but I can’t imagine there will ever be enough people in my lifetime to give that same crowded, all in it together feeling I used to get at the club.”
I didn’t ask about his girlfriend, figuring she had succumbed to the virus like most of the rest of the world. If he’d wanted to talk about it, he would have mentioned it. Instead, I looked at Ben. “What do you miss?”
“My family,” he said softly, reaching across the bench seat to take my hand. “My mom would have been so excited about the baby.”
I tensed slightly as Clint asked, “You’re pregnant?”
Before I could answer, Ben nodded.
“Should you be along?” asked Trenton, his disapproval obvious.
“I feel safer with Ben,” I said simply, leaving it at that. They could either accept it or not, but I was here now, and there was no way I was going to let them pressure me into going back to base even if Ben was willing to turn around and take me home. He showed no indication of doing so, and we fell into a comfortable silence after that, broken only occasionally as we reminisced about the things we missed most.
I deliberately didn’t mention my family, and I tried to avoid thinking of them too much, or I’d be sobbing by the time we reached Helena, and that wouldn’t be good for any of us. I needed to focus on the task ahead of us, and I couldn’t afford to get emotional or indulge in the surge of grief temporarily overwhelming me. I was certain I was thinking so much about my family because I’d just discovered I was about to have my own, starting a new family with Ben.
Another pang shot through me, this one different in nature. It was a tantalizing reminder of the future I thought I’d have, with Ben and Joshua. He should have been here too, or at least the man I’d thought he was. Since I didn’t know how much was sincere, and how much was a façade he’d
put forth to obtain his objective, I shouldn’t miss him so much, or long for him to be with us.
That didn’t stop me from doing so though. As much as I didn’t want to, I still loved him. I’d always thought you had to trust someone to love them, but apparently, I could manage to do so without that necessary ingredient. It was an unwelcome realization, and I would have preferred it if my emotions had immediately disconnected, and any love I’d felt for him had died upon learning the truth.
Once we entered Helena, the tension in the car changed, the silence no longer comfortable. We became watchful and alert, as though we were all holding our breath and poised on the brink of disaster. Ben had deliberately plotted a course far away from the area Collier had warned us about before, but we all knew they weren’t likely to stay in one place unless they were setting up a base of operations in the city.
They would have probably been moving systematically through the city, stripping the resources available as they moved around. The reality was they could be anywhere, and our hope was we could find Collier’s group first, and not end up in a shooting match with them.
After they had taken the time to warn us about Fort Glacier, I didn’t think it was too likely, but this wasn’t necessarily a friendly meeting. They might not like what we were here to request, and they might resent the thought of being dragged into business with Fort Glacier, though surely they had to realize by now that they would be considered just one more obstacle in the way of the Fort Glacier people. Briggs would run roughshod over anyone who got in his way and didn’t fall in line. I was hopeful this group wasn’t the fall-in-line-type, because if they were, there was no way they’d agree to an alliance.
Ben went to the hospital, hoping it was an area they kept under observation and would soon make contact. When we got there, he slipped carefully from the vehicle long enough to tie a white cloth around the antenna. We were hoping they would realize that meant we came in peace. When he returned to the vehicle, we waited. I wasn’t certain what the plan was if they didn’t contact us soon.