“Who’s on first watch?” Nova asked with a stretch and a loud belch. “Please say you.”
“Sure, I’ll do it,” I replied without even having to think about it. I always preferred first watch. I’d much rather stay awake for an extra couple of hours and then get one long chunk of hopefully uninterrupted sleep.
“Cool, then I’m off to bed. See you lovebirds in the morning. Joan, you’re with me, come on.” She held a hand out to Joan, who begrudgingly took it. “Don’t look at me like that, you crazy broad. I’ll spoon you if you want.” She winked at me and then chuckled as they walked to their truck, and I couldn’t stop the giggle that erupted from me.
I watched them grab blankets from the cab and drag them into the bed of the truck, and then the night fell into peace once more. I looked out across the lake again, watching the small ripples move across the surface. It was beginning to get cold again, the frigid winter air showing us that it was still there and hadn’t forgotten that it could kill us as much as anything else in this cruel, hard world.
The air stirred as Mikey moved closer, his hand reaching for mine. I looked over at him and smiled, nervous but glad to have him there, in that moment with me. I had so many things that I had wanted to say to him previously, wanting to get back to the base and tell him all my dark and dirty secrets, yet now my mind was blank, filled with nothing but static noise. Now he knew all of those secrets and he’d still chosen to come and find me. What could I say to that? He let go of my hand and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close to him. I leaned in, feeling the warmth of his body heat wrapping around me and colliding with my own. I let out a shaky breath before I spoke, gaining a little composure.
“I’m sorry,” I said as confidently as I could.
His lips brushed the top of my head and he tsked at me. “Well, now I have to apologize, don’t I? Damn it, woman, I was hoping to come out of this thing looking totally cool and un-blameable for anything.” He kissed the top of my head again and laughed before I could punch him in the ribs.
“You’re such a dick,” I laughed back.
“I know,” he agreed, and I groaned in annoyance at him. “I’m sorry,” he said more solemnly. “I’m really sorry.”
“For being a dick? It’s okay, I’ll get over it.” I stumbled over my words.
“No, I mean, I’m sorry for…wait, stop calling me a dick.” Mikey pulled away from me and looked down with a frown, which quickly broke into a smile when he saw me laughing. “I’ve missed you,” he said, leaning down and placing his lips gently on mine.
I kissed him back just as gently, my fingers reaching up and tangling themselves in his hair. I got lost inside his kiss, a kiss that I didn’t quite realize how much I not only wanted but needed.
Moments passed, and I could have quite happily stayed in the moment for longer, forgetting all rational thoughts and consequences, but I reluctantly pulled out of it, knowing it wasn’t safe to be this unaware of my surroundings. The lake seemed free of zombies, but you never knew when one could stumble upon you.
I smiled at him. “Just to be clear, are you sorry for being a dick or not?”
“Fuck off,” he laughed, and pushed me away from him.
He quickly reached over and took my hand in his again, and I looked down at our intertwined fingers—his large, calloused ones, and my own too-thin ones with broken nails and showing signs of malnourishment. Looking at our hands, his large and mine small, my thoughts drifted to Emily-Rose and sadness engulfed me again.
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” I choked out painfully, and then I started to sob quietly. It caught me by surprise. I thought I had put it to bed, I thought I had said my goodbyes to her earlier, but apparently my heart had decided that I hadn’t.
Mikey pulled me back into his arms and I went to him willingly, needing his strength just then, since mine had left me a trembling wreck of a woman.
“She loved you,” he murmured against my hair.
“Don’t.” I shook my head. “It hurts too much.” I wiped furiously at my eyes.
I struggled to control myself, to tame my raging emotions. I felt anger that was different from anything I had ever felt before. It wasn’t anger at the world, or people, or even the deaders that had likely killed my precious girl. It was anger at myself.
“I was supposed to protect her, Mikey. God, I’m so useless. I couldn’t even keep a teenage girl alive. What kind of person am I?” I said angrily. My cheeks felt hot and my hands shook with sadness and rage.
Mikey stared at me the entire time, his eyes deep brown pools filled with concern. His forehead held that small knit of worry right between his eyebrows, the way it did when he was deep in thought. He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, his full lips spreading into a small smile that made my heart ache. I was in so much pain, and I couldn’t see a way out of it, a way to rid myself of the guilt I felt.
“Nina, you’re a feisty, tactless woman. You speak without thinking, and nine times out of ten you act without any consideration for others.”
I raised a distraught eyebrow. Seriously, if eyebrows could be distraught, this eyebrow was incredibly so. He realized his words were not having the desired affect and continued before I could slam my fist into his face.
“Wait that came out wrong! What I meant to say was, you’re the kind of woman that would go on a suicide mission to find a woman that was impregnated with zombie sperm just to see if she could save her and another woman that was also impregnated with zombie sperm. And that’s amazing—you’re amazing.” His hand cupped my face. “I love you, Nina, and I love the kind of person you are. Don’t you dare feel shitty about who you are.”
I stared dumbfounded at him, not sure what to see by his truthful statement. It was both sentimental and harsh, and I loved him even more for saying it—for saying something so sincere and not sugarcoating any of it. I wasn’t perfect—far from it. I knew that, and so did he. But he didn’t care.
“I love you too.” The words rushed out and I waited for my treacherous heart to turn to stone at my words. I should have felt guilt for loving Mikey—I was still technically married to Ben, after all. My wonderful, long-dead husband. I’m sure that in a court of law the marriage would be considered null and void because of his demise, but in my heart I was still married. However, my heart stayed beating, it kept on despite my words, and I took that as a sign that this was okay. That being with Mikey was the right choice, if it ever really was a choice.
Mikey smiled. “In hindsight, that was an incredibly weird way to tell you how much I loved you, wasn’t it?”
I nodded and grinned, feeling the anger drain from me at his words. “Yeah, little bit,” I laughed. “But I’ve come to expect that from you.”
“It sounded way better in my head, if it’s any consolation.”
“I don’t exactly say the most thoughtful of things,” I sighed. “It’s not like I can really say anything about your lack of tact and weird timing, is it, now?”
He shook his head and grinned. “Not really.”
His hand moved to the back of my neck and he leaned over and kissed me, his mouth feeling hot and needy on mine. I kissed him back, loving the dance our mouths made together, the way his rough beard scraped against my face, making me feel raw and loved. I always felt so connected to him, like this had always been—just me and him. Feeling breathless, I finally pulled away, quickly doing a scan of our surroundings and checking for deaders.
“You need to go get some sleep. You’re on watch after me.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “I’m not leaving you out here on your own.”
“Are you really being a sexist jerk again right now? Because your good looks will only get you so far. I will kick your ass if you don’t stop pulling this shit on me.”
I raised an eyebrow right back at him, and neither of us said anything for a long while, before Mikey finally relented.
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I know you can handle yourself. I�
�ll go get some beauty sleep.” He winked and stood up. “I’ll be in the back of my truck when your shift is over.” He stared at me for another long moment and then walked away.
I watched after him, knowing there was no way I was going to his truck later. Our makeup sex would not be in the back of a truck. Besides, I totally had the heebie-jeebies after the last time we did it in the back of a van and we had woken up surrounded by hundreds of deaders. That was, after all, when everything seemed to really go downhill—ending with the death of pretty much all of our friends. And that was not something I wanted to experience again—mainly because I was drastically running out of people, and people dying was a shitty way to end a hookup.
I shuddered at the memory and continued to stare off into the distance.
THIRTY-FOUR.
I swapped shifts with Nova around midnight—or what I assumed to be around midnight. The moon was fat and round in the night sky, not a cloud in sight, making it both cold and strangely bright out.
Either way, I was glad to be finally getting some sleep. The thing about staying up on watch when everyone else went to sleep was that it was boring—I mean like mind-numbingly boring. Either that or you sunk into a depression that had you wanting to blow your own brains out by the time your shift was over, because all you had during those long, lonesome hours were your thoughts and memories. So it was boredom that made me sleepy as I waited for Nova to come and relieve me. I longed for stupid things like my iPad to play some ridiculous game on to help me pass the time. Of course that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, though, since all electronic devices had become some of the most pointless objects known to man. All that information, trapped inside these silly little gadgets with no way to retrieve any of it. It was so depressing, it was funny.
I bid goodnight to Nova, climbed into the front of my truck, and grabbed my blanket before wrapping it up around my ears. It was freezing outside, and I longed to turn on the engine and start the heaters, but it would be a total waste of fuel and the noise would attract deaders for miles, and Deaders in the Dark was never a fun game to play. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. Around an hour into shivering my ass off, I wasn’t so sure if it wouldn’t be worth wasting a little fuel. I could feel myself on the brink of sleep, only I just needed a little more warmth to send me over.
I peeked my eyes open and rubbed my hands together, blowing into them to generate some hot air. I stared out of the windshield and watched Nova jogging in place and doing jumping jacks for several long minutes. I was guessing it was to keep warm just as much as it was to keep her fit. My door cracked open, the light coming on and startling me, and I jumped before grabbing for my gun and swinging it in the direction of the now-open door.
Mikey stared in at me, his brown eyes almost black in the dark. “Easy.” He held his hands up. “I thought you were coming to…you know, after your shift.”
I was cold, tired, and cranky, and I couldn’t stop the irritation from lacing my words. “You presumed wrong then, didn’t you?” I looked away, not wanting him to see how much he had spooked me, or irritated me in his presumptions that I would just jump into bed with him.
“Whoa, what did I do?” he asked, climbing all the way in and shutting the door behind him.
The truck instantly fell back into darkness, and I was glad of the sanctuary that it provided. I wasn’t really angry at him, though, even if his presumptions were irritating, and I forced myself to apologize.
“I’m just tired,” I said. Okay, so not quite an apology, but I was thinking it in my head so it was almost the same thing. “I don’t sleep much these days, and when I do, I wake in a shitty mood.” No need to tell him I’d been waking from my dreams screaming—nightmares, torture, and zombies plaguing my sleep.
“It’s okay,” he said softly. “Am I okay being here? I can go, leave you to sleep.” He turned to go and I reached out automatically, grabbing his arm to stop him from leaving.
“No, please stay.” The words rushed out of me before I could stop them, and I knew I sounded ridiculously lame, but I couldn’t help it. Now that he was there, I did want him to stay. I didn’t want to be alone. I inwardly groaned at myself. “It’ll be warmer if you stay, and I’m freezing,” I tacked onto the end to save myself from sounding completely pathetic.
“Sure sure,” he said, sitting back down. If it was possible to hear a smirk, then I could definitely heard his.
We lapsed into silence, both of us staring out into the darkness, trapped in our own dark thoughts. I thought of our losses and of our gains, of how much the world had changed, and of the scary things that moved in the night, and I assumed he was thinking the same. And then I thought of Mikey, of his kisses, and his arms around me. I thought of how much I had missed him, missed the physical contact of a man.
“All that ketchup gave me killer heartburn,” Mikey said, breaking the silence.
Okay, so clearly just I was thinking about those things, then. I sighed heavily.
“I’m tired, I need to sleep,” I said, not wanting to talk anymore.
I felt him shuffle around, and I was getting ready to snap at him again when he spoke.
“Come here. Body heat and all that,” he said, holding his arms out to me.
I moved over to him right away, not needing to be asked twice, and he wrapped his blanket over my legs while I wrapped my blanket around the top half of us. I slouched into him, his arm coming to rest around the top of my shoulder, and I laid my head on his chest. The soft thud-thud of his heart made me sleepy, the sound so very human and so very reassuring. Our body heat mingled together and I felt drowsiness tugging at me. It was strange, being this close to him after everything we had been through. I felt both comfortable and uncomfortable. But it also felt right.
His arm traced a pattern on the top of my arm, and I waited for him to try something with me, but he made no move to do anything. Every once in a while he kissed the top of my head, and something akin to pleasure bloomed in me. I relaxed even more and closed my eyes, welcoming the nothingness behind my lids.
I never would have believed that I would find this again. I assumed I would be alone forever, doomed to die a horrible death at the hands of a madman or the teeth of a deader. Of course either of those options was still a possibility, but was nice to know that I wouldn’t be totally alone, and someone would mourn my tragic death afterwards.
I sighed, feeling both sad and happy, but mainly content there in his arms, and then I cringed because obviously I hadn’t mean to sigh and make it obvious that I was somewhat happy and content. Mikey’s hand stopped stroking my arm and I felt his head move a fraction, as if he were trying to see my face and decide if I were asleep or not.
“It was a yawn,” I said quietly. “I’m trying to sleep.”
“A yawn?” he asked.
“Yes, a yawn. I told you, I’m tired.”
“Sure, sure. That was what I thought. Nina is really tired, she often sighs and then yawns.” His tone was ridiculously smug, but I didn’t have the energy to argue with him.
“Whatever,” I replied instead, the hint of amusement in my tone. “Just go to sleep, will you?”
I actually did yawn then, and I felt him chuckle, and I couldn’t stop myself from laughing back. “Just shut up,” I snorted on a soft laugh.
I draped an arm across his middle and I tugged him closer, wanting more of his heat, feeling greedy for it. My fingers danced around the edges of his sweater unintentionally, fingering the hem of it, until they slipped underneath. I grinned in the dark when he froze, his body going tense as my fingers touched his heated skin and made small circles on it. I was about to giggle again, and tease him about garnering some self-control, when his hands abruptly moved from around me and I almost slumped sideways.
“Whoa,” I called out.
He turned his body toward me, and his hands clasped either side of my face without any hesitation. He tugged my face up to meet his, and his lips pressed firmly against mine, hi
s tongue pushing between my lips greedily. I really wanted to say no, to tell him I needed to sleep, and that I wanted our makeup sex to be more than this. But I couldn’t stop him, or me.
Our hands moved restlessly under each other’s clothing, almost frantically, finding skin both hot and sweaty under the blankets, and chilled out of them. We moved clothing and covers aside to reach the parts we were both so eager for—a breast, a thigh, a hard stomach, firm shoulders. Mikey was careful with my fresh wounds; the stitches on my stomach and shoulder were tight and sore and he avoided them as best he could. My hands were on his belt, unbuckling and lowering his jeans before I even realized what I was doing, and then like a woman possessed I was straddling him, tugging the blanket up and around my shoulders to keep us both warm and lowering myself down onto his lap.
We both sighed as he pushed slowly inside of me, and I gasped at the feel of him both hot and hard inside my softness. Our mouths connected and our teeth clashed as I moved on him over and over, eager for this feeling to last, to never have to think about anything outside of this cab again. I wanted to be trapped in this bubble with him, in that moment, for as long as I could, and deny that the world was what it was just outside the window. Because outside the window were nightmares and demons, the very things that went bump in the night and frightened small children. There was loss and death and sadness, and I hated it all. I hated everything about the world, and needed to make it vanish from existence if just for a few moments. I was hungry for it, starving for freedom from this terrifying nightmare that was life.
The Dead Saga (Book 3): Odium III Page 23