Bronx grabbed my hand and pulled me through the doorway so fast I’d barely had enough time to duck under a broken beam that hung low just outside the door. We weren’t more than ten steps away from the building when a chorus of laughs from inside broke out.
“Give me your gun,” Nick said holding out his hand to Blair.
“What? Why?” she said with a small frown.
He turned to her with a harshness in his eyes that looked like it could pierce flesh. “Because I know how to use it.”
“You could show me,” she huffed.
“And I will, but for now.”
Blair looked like she wanted to argue, but instead, she sighed and handed him the gun. Her shoulders crumpled inward.
“I can’t wait to get out of the stupid city,” Blair said. “I never thought in a million years that would be something I’d say. But this place is a shit hole. Disgusting. It’s filthy. It’s awful. I hate it here. I hate it.”
We traveled through the rest of the city looking over our shoulders, listening and waiting for something terrible to jump out at us. The pale red sky was darkening by the time we reached the outskirts of the city.
We were going to need to find a place to stay for the night because camping in the shallow water was just not an option. Well, of course, it was an option, but it was a last resort for all of us.
“How about over there?” Nick asked, gesturing toward an old motel. The old building sat on a hill that wasn’t surrounded by water, but the ground still looked soggy.
It was a long motel, the kind from horror movies with neon vacancy signs. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if there had been a murder or two inside at least one of the rooms.
We walked up the hill, heading toward the office. Not because we felt the need to check in, but because that’s where the keys would be. Better to use a key than to break down a door and most likely break the lock with it.
The carpet squished under my shoes as we stepped into the office. My hand shot up to my nose to block out the scent of decay.
“Christ,” Nick said shaking his head.
There was a deceased body lying on the ground just at the side of the desk. It looked like whoever had been there had tried to make a run for it, but they hadn’t made it far.
I tried not to look at the grayed flesh that was sunken in hugging the bones beneath. A pale colored worm the size of my fingertip crawled out of the corpse's ear and walked across its cheek. My stomach clenched and I almost lost our expensive meal from the grocery store.
“Don’t look,” Jamie said stepping in between me and the dead body.
“I was trying not to,” I said.
“Good news,” Nick interrupted.
Blair narrowed her eyes at him. “No such thing.”
“They have vacancy,” Nick said holding up a set of keys. “Room ten. Let’s get out of here.”
Nick started to walk around the counter back out to the front waiting area, but before he could join us, a tall, short-nosed dog popped out from the back room. It barked sharply and growled at Nick seemingly unaware of the rest of us. Its dark, brown, thin fur clung to its overly skinny tensed body.
“Holy shit,” Nick said taking a quick step back, his gun aimed at the dog baring its teeth. He’d moved so fast I hadn’t even seen him pull the gun out. “Can’t get a fucking break.”
“Don’t shoot him!” I said keeping my voice calm.
“If it takes another step closer, I sure as hell am going to shoot it!” Nick said without blinking.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the first thing I could. It was some kind of breakfast bar. The dog’s eyes shifted toward me briefly when I tore open the package.
“It’s okay, boy,” I said not having any idea if the dog was a boy or a girl. “You’re hungry, aren’t you?”
The dog growled, but the tightness in its jaw loosened ever so slightly. I held out the bar, and the dog looked up at me.
“Want some food?” I asked softly, and it took another step, and then another. For a second, I worried that it was considering eating my whole hand, and I almost dropped the bar onto the soggy carpet, but it snapped its teeth down on the far end of the bar. He was just as apprehensive of me as I was of him. “That’s a good boy.”
The dog calmed before for their eyes. He looked up at me again with big, round, droopy eyes, and I reached out and scratched the top of his head.
“See,” I said flashing Nick a proud grin. “He just wanted—”
“You can’t keep him,” Nick said. “You only get one, and you picked Danny boy.”
“Funny,” I said cocking my head to the side. If the sweet little doggy wanted to tag along, I wasn’t going to stop him. In fact, I would have shared more of my food with him. He was struggling just as much as any of us were.
I reached out again to give him another scratch, but his bark cut through the air like a razor. I reflexively yanked my hand back.
What was left of the muscles in the dog’s legs tightened, and Nick raised his gun again. The dog didn’t wait around. It bolted out of the door, knocking Danny to the side, and it disappeared into the night.
“Poor dog,” I muttered. It probably wasn’t going to make it much longer out there. Maybe giving it food only prolonged its suffering.
“Poor dog?” Nick asked. “It almost bit your hand off.”
“It did not,” I said squinting at him.
Blair snorted. “Yeah, it did.”
I rolled my eyes and hoped that this time she’d seen it. It wasn’t like I needed someone to back up everything Nick said. Especially when he was wrong. He could pat his own back all by himself.
Nick jingled the keys as if he could feel the tension in the air. Let’s go check out our room.”
Six
We walked along the sidewalk past the scary rooms. I looked at each door counting them as we neared number ten. If each one of those doors could talk, I was sure they’d each have at least one horrifying story to tell, none of which I wanted to hear.
There were plenty of rooms, in fact, we could have each had our own separate room, but we all felt more comfortable sharing. It was safer and smarter to stick together.
When we got to the end of the row, Nick inserted the key into the lock. He jiggled the doorknob and pushed it open. The bottom of the door scraped against the damp carpet, flattening the pile.
Once we were all inside, Nick closed the door leaving us all standing there in the dark. He rifled through his bag and pulled out a small candle, placed it on the dresser, and clicked a lighter. The flame was small, but it lit up most of the sleeping area, leaving the bathroom area in a dark shadow.
“That should do,” he said as he pulled the curtains tight. “Maybe I should go check to make sure the light can’t be seen from outside.”
“I'll go with you,” Blair said. They left the room leaving us sitting there staring at the beds.
The room had seen better days, and it wasn’t because of the storms, the flooding, or the red sky. There were two beds, a small sofa, and a pair of chairs positioned on either side of a small round table at the window. The closet was missing its doors and the hangers with metal clips laid on the floor inside.
“Who would have stayed in a room like this?” Danny asked, sitting down on the sofa as if he was afraid it was going to bite his rear-end.
“You probably don’t want to know,” Bronx said yanking the stained bedspread off one of the beds.
Jamie laughed. “Why bother. I doubt the sheets are any cleaner.”
“You could be right,” Bronx said lying down on the bed and letting his feet hang off the side. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
Was that what we were? Beggars? How could we be when there wasn’t anyone left? Although, with the way things had been going it seemed as though we were at the bottom of the food chain. First the men in masks, and then the incident at the grocery store where we’d lost our weapons and backpacks. We definitely weren’t scoring that well i
n the game of surviving the end of the world.
I jumped when Nick and Blair came back inside the room. If anyone had noticed, they said nothing. I’d been so lost in my thoughts that I was sure someone was coming into the room to take everything we had left.
“We’ll take shifts watching at the window. Whoever is at the window gets the gun,” Nick said looking at me. “You don’t have to use it, but make sure at the very least you wake me up. We’ll treat anyone that approaches as a threat.”
“Is everyone that approaches a threat?” Danny asked.
Nick looked at him for a long moment before answering. “Probably.” He hesitated again. “We haven’t met the kindest of people thus far have we, Danny boy?”
Danny shrugged and looked away.
“Who’d like to go first? Oh, and Danny you don’t get a turn,” Nick said.
“What? Why not? I want to help,” Danny said pressing his palm against his knee.
Nick laughed. “We can’t trust you. You’ll take the gun and our food and run away.”
“The heck I will!” Danny said shaking his head. “If I wanted to be out there alone, I would have just stayed where I was.”
I couldn’t help but grin. Nick on the other hand didn’t see the humor in his comment.
“He has a point there, doesn’t he Nick?” I said, unable to stop myself.
“Point or no point, after what he and his family did to us, he cannot be trusted,” Nick said crossing his harms.
“What can I do to change your mind?” Danny asked.
Nick shook his head. “Maybe nothing.”
Disappointment filled Danny’s rolling eyes.
Nick ignored him. He looked around the room at the others, but before anyone could even volunteer, he held up his palm. “Don’t worry, I’ll go first.”
“I’ll go second,” Blair said quickly.
Bronx opened his mouth, but I spoke before he had the chance. “Then me.”
“I’ll go after Gwen,” Bronx said.
“That leaves me last,” Jamie said.
Nick nodded. “If it’s not morning by then.” He pressed his palms together and rubbed them together. “Now, about the sleeping arrangements.”
Danny got the sofa, and the four that weren’t keeping watch had to share the beds. Bronx was already lying in one bed, and Blair quickly jumped on the empty one leaving Jamie and I standing there looking each other awkwardly.
“Do you want to…,” Jamie’s voice faded as he pointed to Blair’s bed, and then at Bronx’s.
“Whichever,” I said with a shrug, but he didn’t move. “I guess I’ll just, um….”
I took a step toward Bronx’s bed at nearly the same moment Jamie did. He took a step back and gestured for me to go ahead.
It was just sleeping for God’s sakes, it shouldn’t have mattered which bed I picked but for some reason sharking a bed with Blair made the muscles in my shoulders tense.
The bed squeaked as I laid down on my back. I folded my hands on my stomach and looked at the light dancing over the water-stained ceiling. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Bronx’s arms crossed over his chest which was rising and falling slowly. He couldn’t have cared less who was in the bed with him.
It took me a solid twenty minutes before my nerves let my body relax. It was probably another twenty minutes before I fell into a fitful sleep.
I tossed and turned even though I was terribly exhausted. My mind wouldn’t rest. I listened to the silence, waiting for some kind of noise that would destroy whatever amount of safety we had. But there wasn’t anything except for the occasional movement from Nick changing his position.
At some point, I must have dozed off because when I opened my eyes, the flickering light caught on Blair’s face. She was lying next to me, and Nick was sleeping deeply in the spot where she’d been earlier.
I hit the pillow several times with my hand and rested my head back down. Bronx was sitting at the table watching me.
“You’re going to wake the others,” he whispered.
“I can’t sleep,” I said mostly mouthing the words.
Bronx curled his finger at me and then pointed at the chair across from him. “It’s almost time for your shift anyway.”
I closed my eyes wishing I would instantly fall asleep, but when that didn’t happen, I got up and sat in the chair.
“It’s a quiet night out there,” Bronx said.
“That’s good.”
“I thought I saw a light flicker in the sky, but it might have just been lightning in the distance or something.”
I shook my head slowly. “The last thing we need is more rain.”
“At least it’s drying up here. Means it’s receding or evaporating.”
“Maybe both,” I said sighing as I rested my face on my loosely curled up fist.
“What’s wrong?” Bronx asked leaning forward. He reached across the table until his fingertips touched the top of my hand.
I blinked hard. “You mean besides the fact I can’t sleep?”
“Yeah… besides that.”
“It’s just that it took us the whole day to walk across the city. It’s going to take forever and a day to get to my grandma’s farm.”
The candlelight touched Bronx’s dark eyes and melted them into sweet chocolate. My heart fluttered as he wrapped his fingers around my hand.
“We’ll get there,” he said.
Bronx stared out the window while he held my hand. I could hear the other’s slow breathing as they slept.
He glanced over his shoulder and then back at me. “I’ve been hoping to get some time alone with you.”
“We’re not really alone,” I said raising my eyebrows. I didn’t know what else to say. The way he was looking at me was sending a rush of heat through my every vein.
“Yeah.” Bronx looked down at our hands, and a smile grew on his face. “I can’t stop thinking about that night in your apartment.”
“Which night?” I asked playfully, unable to stop my lips from curling slightly at the ends.
Bronx moved closer. His eyes moved down toward my mouth.
“Maybe you need a reminder,” he said.
With the way he was making me feel, there wasn’t anything I wanted more than a reminder.
Bronx inched closer until our lips gently brushed together. My body tingled, and I wanted nothing more than our light kiss to turn into much, much more.
Bronx’s kiss had a way of making me forget about everything. I forgot about my past. All the loss. All the heartbreak just poofed away. Hell, it even made me forget there were others in the room with us.
It was a kiss. Just a kiss. And I wanted more.
I slid my hand around his neck and pulled him closer. Our lips glided hungrily together… hard… passionately, but when someone shifted their weight, and the bedsprings squeaked, I pulled back. It was like I was back in high school getting caught making out on the sofa with my boyfriend during a movie.
My fingertips moved up to my lips as if I was doing what I could to hold on to the feeling of Bronx’s lips on mine. I looked over my shoulder at the others still sleeping sounding in nearly the same positions they’d been in.
“I want to,” I whispered, looking up into his warm eyes. “But I can’t.”
Bronx squeezed my hand. “I understand. Maybe we should have gotten our own room.”
“Maybe.”
Bronx cocked his head to the side flashing me a little frown. “Is something wrong? Doesn’t sound like you’d like that.”
“Oh, no, of course, I would,” I said.
“Is this about Jamie?” Bronx’s voice was so low I felt it rumble through my body.
“What?” I said shifting in my seat nervously. The heat rising inside me made my clothes feel itchy against my skin.
Bronx shook his head. “I see how he looks at you.” He hesitated. “And how you look at him.”
My stomach clenched tightly. Any remaining traces of a smile that had been on Bron
x’s face dissipated.
I didn’t know what to say. Because I didn’t know how I felt. About anything… anyone… or even the conversation.
“All that matters right now is getting to my grandma’s house,” I said, each word stung the back of my throat.
“Yeah,” Bronx said leaning back in the chair.
“Bronx,” I said, tightening my hands into fists. “I really care deeply—”
“Don’t,” Bronx said, turning back toward the window. He opened his mouth to say more, but he shook his finger before standing abruptly. “I should get some rest.”
He took a step around me, and I tried to grab his hand. I wanted to explain that I didn’t want my heart broken. I wanted to tell him that I couldn’t let myself fall for him, or Jamie, or anyone. My heart couldn’t take it. But he slipped out of reach.
Seven
It was early morning, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how Bronx and I had left things. No one could understand just how damaged my heart was after everything I’d been through with my family. Over the course of my entire life.
Losing my mom to suicide had been traumatic enough, but it didn’t end there. It felt as though I’d also lost my brother after all the drugs he wasn’t the person I knew any longer. One of my earliest memories was attending my father’s funeral. He’d had a heart attack. I barely remembered him, and now I didn’t even have a picture of him or my mom anymore.
I’d forgotten their voices. Next, I’d forget their faces.
My life was filled with loss. And I cared so much for Bronx and Jamie that I couldn’t let them in. I couldn’t get close to them because it would just lead to heartbreak.
I had to protect my heart, but I also had to do the right thing and protect them. Maybe I was cursed. I couldn’t knowingly let them into my mess.
“Sun’s up,” Nick announced, letting the curtain fall to the side. “Grab something to eat. We’re heading back out in five.”
Bronx hadn’t looked at me all morning. I wished I could have explained, but maybe this was for the best. It wasn’t something I wanted to explain.
The Red Sky Series (Book 2): Blue Cloud Page 4