“I’ll miss you telling us we’re stupid for going to the track to run,” I say. “Thanks for saving my life today.”
“I’ll miss your cooking,” Reed says. When several people turn incredulous stares in his direction, he wrinkles his nose. “Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, but you sort of sucked at cooking.” This sends a ripple of laughter around the room. “But you were really good at heating up cans. And dammit, it was sweet of you to try and find protein sources for us.” Reed’s eyes water.
“I loved your cooking,” Ben says. “You could have given any army cook a run for his money.”
“She brought me a bag of clothes last night,” Susan says. “And I know it might seem stupid that I would even care about clothes when my husband is unconscious from blood loss after a shark attack. But last night, it seemed like the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me.”
“Lila never complained about sharing a room with me and Jenna at the start of the apocalypse,” Carter says. “She always knew when we needed privacy and gave it to us.”
We go around the room, all of us sharing memories of Lila. It feels good to remember happy times with Lila. But it also compounds her loss, sinking me deeper into sadness—and into the bottle in my hands.
After we share stories about Lila, Reed stands. A fresh joint is in his hand. “Jesus was my brother,” he slurs. “We sold drugs together. We partied together. We stole shit from the mini mart together. We went through the Taco Bell drive-through every Thursday night to get seven-layer burritos with extra sour cream.” He raises the joint in salute. In his other hand is a half-empty bottle of vodka. “I’ll miss you, brother.”
“He was a damn good shot,” Ash says. “I never told him, but I admired him for that. And it was nice to speak Spanish with him.”
Caleb, red-eyed and gloomy next to Ash, hunches his shoulders and tightens his knuckles around the clear bottle in his head. His competition for Ash might be gone, but he’s as miserable as the rest of us. Instead of adding a tribute to Jesus, he takes another long drink.
“He never complained,” I say. “It didn’t matter how long I made him run, or how much work we did. He just did whatever had to be done.” My throat tightens. “He saved our lives today. He never hesitated. He saw the danger and acted. We all owe him our lives.”
Ben speaks up next. “He wore that dent on his forehead like a fucking badge of honor. He was loyal. That’s a rare quality.”
A rare quality. Ben is right. Jesus had a lot of rare qualities.
And now he’s gone. Him and Lila.
Their loss hits me like a baseball bat. To keep myself from breaking down in front of everyone, I lock my lips around the bottle and take a long drink. The liquid burns all the way down.
“Woah there, Kate.” Ben pries the bottle away from me.
Anger flashes through me. “Get your own bottle.” I snatch it back.
His eyes weigh me. He doesn’t try to take back the bottle. I feel two inches tall. I wish he would stop looking at me like he knows what I’m going through. I’m raw and wretched inside. I don’t want anyone knowing how I feel right now.
I turn away from him and take another drink.
26
Sixteen
BEN
This isn’t so different from that night in that shitty desert town in Iraq. Or that night in the dirty bar in Pakistan. Or in the med tent in Somalia.
Wakes are all the same.
Besides the two shots he took with Kate, Ben elects not to drink anymore. Kate isn’t wrong about shit going sideways when everyone starts getting shitfaced. Someone needs to be sober. Gary doesn’t count since he’s still unconscious.
Besides that, if he’s drunk, he won’t be able to look after Kate. One look into her eyes tells him she’s on the edge. She’s taken on the burden of Lila and Jesus’s deaths.
He knows what that feels like. He carries a long list of names in his head. People he’s failed. People who have died because of him. He wishes Kate didn’t have to carry that same burden. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone, most especially her.
It’s only a matter of time before people start getting sick. It’s all a part of drowning pain.
Susan is the first to beeline into the bathroom and puke her guts out. Reed and Johnny aren’t far behind her.
Ash has the grace to pass out on the sofa. Eric, stoned and drunk, curls up in the fetal position on the floor and also passes out.
“I—I think I need to lie down.” Kate sways to her feet, blinking bloodshot eyes. One hand presses to her stomach.
“Mom, wait, I’ll come with you.” Carter sways to his feet.
“Yeah, I’m ready for bed,” Jenna says. She and Carter cling to each other, keeping one another upright.
Ben rises to his feet without a word. He positions himself next to Kate. If she passes out, he’ll be there to catch her. If she starts puking, he’ll make sure she doesn’t face plant in her own vomit. He’s done that once or twice and it isn’t pleasant.
“I don’t need an escort,” she growls at him. She takes one unsteady step toward the door.
He ignores her, keeping himself positioned next to her.
“Maybe we should turn tonight into sleep deprivation training,” Caleb slurs from his slouch against the wall. “I mean, we’re all up.”
“Dude, half of us are passed out.” Carter gestures to Ash and Eric.
“We could throw some water on them.” Caleb punctuates this with another swing from his bottle of gin. The asshole has a stomach of iron.
“If anyone throws water on anyone else, you’ll have me to answer to,” Kate says.
She takes another unsteady step toward the door. Then walks right into the wall.
“Dammit.” She smacks the wall with an open palm. She hits it a second time, then a third, until she’s smacking the wall over and over with both palms. “Dammit!” she yells.
Ben is pretty sure any intervention on his part will not be welcome. He’s grateful when Carter totters over to his mother and takes both her hands in his. She glares at him, trying to yank free. Carter is taller and stronger than Kate. He smothers her in a bear hug.
“It’s okay, Mom,” he whispers.
“It’s not fucking okay!” She pounds her fists on his shoulders. Her sobs disappear into his chest.
Somehow, Carter gets her out the door. Jenna is on their heels, one hand on the wall for balance. Ben trails them, determined to see all three of them safely to their beds.
A few steps into their dorm room, Carter staggers. “Shit, sorry, Mom—” Hand covering his mouth, he rushes toward the bathroom. He doesn’t even manage to close the door before he starts throwing up.
Jenna hurries after him as best she can. One look at her face and Ben is pretty sure she’s not far behind in a round with the toilet.
Kate stares after them with red-rimmed, bleary eyes. She looks so wretched and lost Ben has to look away.
“Come on, Mama Bear.” He takes her by one arm, intending to get her to her bedroom.
She stiffens and tries to shake him off. He ignores her efforts and remains by her side. He sees the battle raging in her features.
“Let me help you. Please.” Before she falls and knocks out her front teeth, or something equally stupid. He resists her feeble effort to shove him away. He steers her toward the tiny dorm room where she sleeps.
She grunts then leans on him. It takes them a few minutes, but at last they enter the tiny rectangular bedroom with Grateful Dead posters all over the walls. He helps her onto the bed.
She tips sideways, moaning into the pillow.
Ben stares down at her. He hates feeling helpless. He knows what she’s going through. How can he tell her that without sounding like a condescending ass?
“What did you do when you lost people?” Kate surprises him with the question. “You lost people, right?”
She reaches up and brushes her hand over his arm, which is covered by his customary fatigue shirt. He kn
ows she’s referring to the tattoos hidden beneath the fabric.
“Yeah, I lost people.” A barrage of images tumbles through his head. Sand. Narrow, stinky alleyways of worlds far away from this one. A bloody courtyard filled with the bodies of college kids
He can never entirely shake free of those images. Cynthia came to haunt him last night. The lithe, blond-haired college girl made it her mission to crack jokes until she got Ben to laugh. He tries to remember her quick smile and sharp blue eyes, but overlying it are memories of her prone on the courtyard pavement of College Creek, her body shot up with bullets.
He sees all the kids. Ricky. Jim. KP. Suzy.
Pain blooms in his chest. All those dead kids. And now Lila is among them. Sharp-tongued, quick-witted Lila.
“Ben?” Kate blinks up at him from the pillow, curled into the fetal position. Her pale face makes him think she might be joining Carter and Jenna in the bathroom soon.
He sinks into the wooden desk chair, rubbing a hand over his face. “I think I need another drink,” he mutters.
Kate moans, pressing a hand against her stomach. Ben registers the act. He has just enough time to snatch the wastebasket from under the desk before Kate heaves. She vomits several times into the trashcan before groaning and rolling back onto the bed.
A few bottles of water sit on the desk. He passes her one, moving the trashcan next to the door. He drapes a dirty shirt over the top to block the smell.
“I never drank when my husband died.” Kate’s scratchy voice fills the room. “I just ran. I’ve always preferred running to alcohol.”
Ben returns to the desk chair. He searches for words in the darkness but doesn’t find any.
“I know running can’t solve everything,” Kate whispers. “But dammit, it’s times like this I really wish ... I wish I could lose myself on a trail and just run.”
“Some days, I wish I could just lose myself.” Ben isn’t sure where the words come from. He stares around the room, as if expecting to find a third person there, even though he knows there’s no one else.
“You’ve lost people, right?”
It’s the second time she’s asked him this question.
He feels like it takes a crowbar to pry his mouth open. “Yeah. I know how you feel.” His voice is rough, the words dragged from his throat. Why is it so fucking hard for him to form words? “Cynthia ...”
Kate’s face is half-buried in her pillow. There are no lights on in the room. Even so, Ben sees one eye staring at him in the darkness.
“Who’s Cynthia?”
Maybe hearing his shitty story will help her forget her own. “One of the young college women I ... lost.” He swallows back the emotion that tries to fight its way free. “Cynthia. Ricky. Jim. KP. Suzy. Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber. Shelby. Jen. Ditto. Erin. Jason. Scarlet. Andy. Ted. Ginger.” The names fall from his lips, dropping into his lap like hundred-pound weights.
Kate’s eye never wavers as he speaks. Bloodshot and grief-stricken, that single eye watches him from the pillow. “The kids from College Creek?” she asks.
He nods. “I need to find a tattoo artist.” He rubs absently at the blank spot on his shoulder, the place that will some day bear a tattoo memorializing those poor kids. “I know what you’re going through, Kate. It’s shitty. I’d be a lying asshole if I told you it gets better. It doesn’t. You just get better at dealing with it.” Sort of. If insomnia is a clinical definition of dealing with it.
She rolls onto her back, staring up at the posters on the ceiling. “You would have been a shitty motivational speaker.”
“Guess it’s a good thing I signed up to carry a gun around for a living.”
Her laugh catches him off-guard. It fades as quickly as it came.
“I feel like it’s my fault,” she whispers. “I feel like they’re dead because of me.”
“I know.” Something inside him breaks at the pain in her voice. “Shit, Kate, the only thing that really makes it better is time. We both have to live long enough for time to work its magic.” He stands. “You should sleep. Drink some more water if you can.” He doesn’t envy the hangover she’s going to have in the morning.
“Don’t leave.”
He stands in the middle of the room, feeling awkward. More than anything, he wants to stay. He’s never wanted to stay with a woman more than he wants to stay with Kate at that moment.
“Please don’t leave,” she says again. Tears leak out of her eyes.
Terrified he’s going to wreck this perfect, fragile moment, he grabs a pillow off the bed and lays down on the floor.
He could lay on the bed. He’s pretty sure that’s what she meant when she asked him to stay. But he suspects this moment between them is because she’s drunk and sad. She’ll still be sad in the morning, but she won’t be drunk. He can’t stomach the idea of her waking up and recoiling from him. She can’t recoil from him if he’s on the floor.
“Here’s a blanket.” She pushes a quilt in his direction.
When he reaches up to take it, their fingertip brush. Kate grabs his hand.
“Thanks for not lying to me,” she whispers.
He says the only thing that comes to mind. “You’re welcome, Kate.”
She laces her fingers with his. A few minutes later, her breath evens and the grip of her hand relaxes.
She’s asleep. Kate is asleep, her hand laced with his.
For once in his life, his words hadn’t completely fucked things up.
27
Hang Over
KATE
I wake up with the worst hangover of my adult life.
I open my eyes. Psychedelic Grateful Dead posters hang on the ceiling above me, but all I see is Lila’s face—the calm, determined set to her jaw when she raised the Sig to her temple.
Next, I see Jesus. His brave expression in the face of death. His earnest look when he asked me to put him down.
I close my eyes, trying to block out their faces. I still feel the jolt of the knife when it punched through Jesus’s temple and into his skull. I still feel the way the air vibrated when Lila discharged the gun into her own head. I shrink back from the memories, wishing I could hide from them.
The only thing that really makes it better is time. Ben’s gruff voice trickles in from my drunken memories of the night before.
That’s when I notice my left arm hanging over the edge of the bed, the skin cold from being left uncovered. My fingers twitch, held in place by something.
I scrunch forward and find Ben on the floor, fully clothed. A thin throw blanket is draped over his torso, too small to cover his tall form. His eyes are open. He gives my hand a squeeze before releasing it.
I realize with a shock that he’s been here with me all night. I’m equal parts grateful and embarrassed.
Our eyes meet. “When’s the last time you had to hold back a girl’s hair?” I ask.
“Technically, you don’t have any hair to hold back.”
I squint at him. “Did you just make a joke?”
His response is cautious. “Did you think it was funny?”
“I’ll let you know later. When my head doesn’t hurt so much.”
The skin around his eyes crinkles. I think that might be his version of a smile. Another thing to ponder when my head doesn’t feel like it’s going to crack in half.
I reach out and find his hand. “Thanks for everything you did last night.”
He squeezes my hand without speaking.
It’s what Ben does that always touches me. It’s the tattoos on his arms commemorating thirty years of life and loss in the army. It’s the way he looked after me last night when I was no better than a drunk teenager. It’s the warm coffee on a cold morning. It’s the way he holds my hand in silence right now.
I remain prone on the bed. Eyes closed, I savor the feel of Ben’s hand in mine. His palm is rough with callouses, his grip strong. I like the way it feels. I like him more and more every day.
My eyes snap open. “I fo
rgot. I have a present for you.”
“A what?” He frowns, as though convinced he didn’t hear me correctly.
“A present. For you. Don’t get too excited. It’s not a Ferrari or anything.”
I push myself into a sitting position with a groan. My stomach threatens to revolt. I lean back against the wall to let it settle.
Ben, watching the operation, wordlessly hands me a bottle of water. I down it with a grateful sigh.
“How are you feeling?” Ben ventures.
How am I feeling?
I want to stay in bed and let the world fade away. I don’t want to wait out the agony of losing Lila and Jesus. I don’t want to face the terror of losing more of my new family every morning when I get up. I want to run away from it all.
But after Federico died, I made myself a promise that I wouldn’t run away from my problems. I owe it to him to stick it out. Hell, I owe it to all the kids.
I want to tell Ben all of this, but instead, I say, “I feel like any college kid feels after a night of binge drinking.”
I groan again as I fumble at the top desk drawer. My brain feels like it wants to pound its way out of my skull.
“Here.” I produce a stick of Secret deodorant hand it to Ben.
His brow furrows. He turns it over in his hands, frown deepening. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
My eyes widen. “That’s not—I didn’t mean it that way. We’re all a little smelly. That’s for your chafing.”
He stares at me. “My what?”
“Your waist. The chafing from your fatigues.”
“I thought runners used Vaseline for chafing.”
“No.” I shake my head, grimacing at the backlash of pain. “There’s too much moisture in Vaseline. That just makes it worse. Antiperspirants work much better. They’re designed to get rid of moisture. I use it under my sports bra.”
At the mention of my sports bra, his eyes travel to my chest. I clear my throat, feeling embarrassed. I’ve never had much up top, even less with constant running chewing up my fat reserves.
“You’re carrying a lot of heavy fabric around your waist,” I say. “I don’t know how well it will work, but it’s worth a try.”
Undead Ultra (Book 3): Lost Coast Page 15