“Ash.” His name was barely a whisper, desperate and needy, and I pulled him tighter against me, as his hips rocked forward again. “Ash.”
“Do you like that, baby?” he asked.
I nodded, my face hidden in the crook of his shoulder. There was not much between us and yet it was too much. “I love it.”
“You’re so beautiful.” Ash’s voice was low and his words were coming out in gasps but each rang true. “You are so beautiful and you are so perfect. So freakin’ beautiful.”
“Stop,” I said, playfully. “I’m not that beautiful.”
Ash paused, and his eyes bore into mine. He reached for me, my face held firmly between his two hands. “Do you not own a mirror? Do I need to buy you one? Seriously. Just look in the mirror. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”
The words felt just like a kiss or his fingers against me. They sent ripples through my body, and I closed my eyes briefly for a moment, overwhelmed by everything that I was feeling at that moment. “Ash…”
“Scout’s honor.”
I couldn’t help; a small giggle escaped my lips. “You were never a Boy Scout, Ash,” I replied, my nails digging into his back as his fingers dipped below the waistband of my undies.
“Shut up,” he said, but there was a smile on his face. “You’re perfect, okay? Even with everything about you that isn’t perfect, you’re still perfect. I love you. I love you so much.”
A grin spread across my own face. “That never gets old, you know.”
“Good,” he replied, firmly. His fingers were making excellent progress on the clasp of my bra and his tongue was dipping into my cleavage. It was incredibly distracting and I found it hard to focus on words, especially when his fingers found my sensitive spot below. A moan escaped my lips and Ash groaned. “I could listen to you make noises like that forever.” He brushed up against me again and I moaned again, louder this time. “Yes, that. Jesus, Zoey.”
Part of me wanted to be embarrassed at the loss of control that I felt when I laid underneath his lips and his touch, but this was Ash. This was the boy I had known since I was nine years old. This was the boy that drove me crazy, dumped glitter in my locker and threw water balloons at me, but it was also the boy who saved my life again and again. Being embarrassed in front of him just felt silly. If there was anyone in this world that I could feel completely comfortable with, open and honest, it was Ash.
There weren’t many words after that, just murmurs, gasps and moans, as his lips traced a searing line from my collarbone, all the way down between my legs. There was no time to protest and I got lost in the sensations that he was creating.
Before I could completely lose my head, he was back, his lips on mine. Each article of clothing was removed carefully, with just enough touching to drive each other crazy. Each tough, each graze, every kiss, was like a shock of lightning to my system. I lost where our bodies separated, where I ended and he began. We began to blur together, and when our bodies joined, a sigh escaped from the back of my throat and I pressed my lips tight against his shoulder and rode the wave until I crashed.
I woke suddenly in the dark sometime later, clutching the blanket wrapped around me tightly in my fingers. I reached out frantically in the dark, reaching for Ash, but all I found was empty space around me. “Ash?”
He walked out of the bathroom. He had pulled his pants back on but had left his shirt off. My heart was still beating a drum in my chest but I felt calm at the sight of my boyfriend coming toward me.
“Hey, hey, hey. What’s wrong, Z?” Ash’s voice was calm and soothing as he climbed into bed, lifting the blanket so that it covered the both of us. “Did you have a bad dream?”
I nodded, pulling the covers up and squirming closer to him. I liked having the solid presence of him behind me, knowing that all I had to do was lean back and know that he was there.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He asked, his fingers smoothing back my back and placing a soft kiss on the back of my neck.
“I don’t even remember the details,” I whispered back to him. “It’s all a blur now. But I know I was alone and I was scared.”
Ash’s arms snaked around my waist, pulling me tighter against him and his lips were hard against the back of my head. “You don’t have to be scared anymore, Zoey. You don’t. Everything is going to be okay.”
His hand was lying gently against my hipbone and I reached up, lacing my fingers through his. “And how do you know that?”
“Because we’re together, Zoey,” came his confident reply. “And nothing bad can happen as long as we’re together.”
“DOES IT FEEL weird to be out in the sunlight again?” Liam asked, looking around. “Because it is definitely weird for me.” He was poised and ready, a gun clutched in his hands but he also looked relaxed. He looked more secure that I had ever seen him before. The breeze passed through his long strands of blonde hair and I smiled.
“Yes, definitely,” Ash answered. “I can’t believe they even let us out here. Do you think killing a couple Awakened gave us the privilege to do that? Aren’t we lucky?”
I laughed. “I think Octavia knows she’s running low on patrols and she knows that we can hold our own. She had no choice other than to let us out here.” They looked at me and I shrugged. “Hey, I’m not complaining. This sun feels damn good. And the air! God I’m so tired of recycled air. Sanctuary feels like a damn airplane all the time.”
“We could leave, you know?” Liam pointed out. “It’s not like we’re being forced to go back. It’s not like we have to stay. The four of us could leave.”
“Where on earth would we go? Who would take care of Astrid and the baby?” I asked, my arms wide, indicating the forest around us. “This was supposed to be the end goal, wasn’t it? Sanctuary was supposed to just be it.”
“That’s not entirely true…” Liam muttered under his breath. Ash and I both spun around to look at him and he sighed. Loudly. The two of us stayed silent, staring at him, waiting for him to say something.
“What are you talking about?” Ash finally spoke up. “Weren’t you the one that was all for Sanctuary? We didn’t even now this place existed until we met you. Now you’re saying there are other options?” Ash didn’t even sound mad, just tired.
Liam sat down on an overturned log, rummaging around in his pack for a water canteen. It was still very early in the day, but the sun was beating down on us pretty hard. I didn’t know it could get this warm in Colorado; I had always pictured snow-covered mountains. You could see mountains in the distance but they looked dark, gray and worn. Like pretty much everything else around us.
“Months ago, before I was captured by Sekhmet, my parents and I met a group of people on the way here. They cornered me while I was in the woods hunting.”
“They cornered you? No way,” I said, in a teasing voice and Ash smirked. “Sorry, continue.”
“Anyway, as I was saying,” Liam continued, looking unconcerned about my obnoxious interruption. “We ran into a group of people, surviving on the outside. They have a whole thing set up. We stayed with them for a while. They had…well they had something special set up. It was the way I expected Sanctuary to be, on the outside. Not buried below ground. They called themselves Hoover.”
I fiddled with the safety on my gun, feeling a little anxious. “Why didn’t you tell anyone about this before? About this Hoover?”
He shrugged in response. “Because…because it didn’t seem like it mattered. We ended up in Sanctuary, which had been the whole point in the first place, right? And my mom ended up being here so that’s the important part.”
The three of us fell in companionable silence as we patrolled. There wasn’t much going on, which I took as a good thing. It may have caused incredible boredom, but I liked it when it was silent. It was bizarre not to hear much at all, but our patrol leaders warned us not to expect the normal noises one was accustomed to hearing in the woods. Either the animals had died off or completely
abandoned them. But the silence, besides the occasional crinkle of leaves, was welcomed. I would welcome it any time over the raspy breathing of an Awakened.
This became a normal part of our routine. We spent a lot of time training and a lot of time patrolling. The three of us ended up on patrol together almost every single time. We spent time getting to know each other better, Ash and Liam weren’t exactly best friends but they had called an uneasy truce and under the sun, things were just easy.
For the first time since we’d arrived at Sanctuary, I felt free.
The situation was serious though and I knew that. I knew this was only possible because of the bodies that kept turning up on our doorstep but I was grateful to be outside. It felt better, healthier, in more ways than one.
Ash spent more time in my room, even though it was against the rules. I kept waiting for someone to yell at us but no one did. Kaya either just smiled at us and fell asleep in her own bed without comment, disappeared into her family quarters or snuck off to Corbin’s room.
He woke me up one early morning, with a kiss pressed gently against my bare shoulder. I smiled at him, remembering the night before. We had spent quite a bit of time wrapped around each other and my body flushed, remembering how it all felt.
“Where are you going?” I whispered to him.
“Guard duty,” he whispered back. I started to reach for my clothes but he shook his head. “No, stay in bed. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“The bed isn’t the same without you here,” I grumbled and he laughed quietly. He pressed another soft kiss on my forehead and disappeared out of the room. I tried to stay awake but we had stayed up most of the night and I fell into a deep sleep before I knew it.
The hours of the day passed by so quickly that it was hard to keep track of time. It was so much busier now that we had added all this training to our schedules. By the end of the day, I was exhausted and collapsed into bed. Kaya had disappeared to Corbin’s room for the night, which meant that it wouldn’t be long before Ash joined me in here. I felt a jolt of anticipation shoot through my stomach and I smiled. I loved having nights alone with him in here.
I struggled staying awake, waiting for him. I tried to read a book but my skin was on fire in anticipation of his return, and it was so hard to concentrate. I tossed the book aside, determined to count all the slates in the ceiling to keep myself awake until he came back.
I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, I was being startled awake by a loud pounding on the door. I rolled out of bed, my heart beating wildly in my chest. There was low talking on the other side of the door but I couldn’t tell who it was. I stood still, waiting, until the pounding resumed.
“Who is there?” I asked, shakily. I realized I was still alone in the room. Where on earth was Ash?
“Zoey.” I sagged in relief. It was Liam. “You need to come out here. We’re wanted in Octavia’s office.”
Panic quickly filled my lungs and I sunk to the ground. “No,” I whispered. My mind was racing and I tried so hard to remember if I had seen Ash since he had left this room in the morning. It was all a blur. I couldn’t remember what had happened today or the day before.
“Zoey, please, open the door.”
I managed to pull myself into a standing position and I slid the compartment door open. Liam and Astrid stood there, both of them clad in gray pajamas. They both looked just as worried as I felt. Liam looked past me and his shoulders sagged when he saw that Ash was not behind me. My panic and worry grew worse.
“Come on,” he said, simply. One of his hands was already linked with Astrid’s as he reached for me with the other, and I took his hand gratefully.
Each step to Octavia’s office felt wrong. It felt like a huge effort to put one foot in front of the other. Liam and Astrid were whispering to each other next to me but it might as well have been in a foreign language. I focused on moving. It was going to be okay. Everything was fine.
Octavia and Patrick were waiting in her office. Both of them were in normal clothes, like it wasn’t the early hours of the morning. It amazed me that the two of them always looked so well put together. They were like robots or something. There was no emotion on either of their faces, even though I knew they were about to give me bad news.
“Sit,” Octavia said, softly. Astrid sat, looking exhausted. There were deep bags under her eyes and I knew she wasn’t getting much sleep. I knew how that went.
I stayed standing, staring at her. “What is it?”
“Zoey, please…”
“No,” I cut her off, flinching at the way my voice broke with that one simple word. “Just tell me.”
“Ash…” The world went black for a moment and I almost didn’t catch the rest of her sentence. “Ash was captured.”
The words hadn’t quite processed and I looked over at Astrid and Liam. They both looked shocked. Astrid was looking at me, frantically, but it still hadn’t registered. Ash wasn’t dead. He wasn’t dead. He was alive. But he was…
“Captured?” Liam echoed. His voice was loud and both Octavia and Patrick looked uneasy. “What do you mean?”
“He didn’t return from guard duty so we sent out a patrol to look for him. The patrol searched for hours but they came up with nothing. We were beginning to fear the worst,” Patrick explained, but his voice didn’t match his words. He might as well have been reading the morning weather report.
“And?” Astrid cut in.
“We couldn’t do much more. We looked for Mr. Matthews but there wasn’t even a trace of him. He was just gone. Then we received this note. Two other guards were with him and the note was…pinned to them,” Octavia explained, her face pale. I knew without her having to say it out loud that the note had been staked to the dead bodies, just like the ones before. I shook the horrifying thought out of my head and looked at the small white square in Octavia’s hand. It looked like it was once clean and crisp, but being nailed to a dead body had left it dirty and bloody. She held it toward me but I just stared.
Instead, Liam reached for it and read it aloud. “Darling Zoey, Come and get him.” He flashed the card in my direction and I saw the Sekhmet epitaph right below the neatly written message. He looked up at Octavia. “We need to go get him.”
“Absolutely not,” she spoke up, immediately. “I am truly sorry for these awful circumstances…”
“Awful circumstances?” Liam yelled. “One of your citizens was kidnapped! This is not an awful circumstance. This bitch has been killing left and right and now she’s swooped in and taken one of our own, and you just say absolutely not?”
Octavia’s eyes blazed. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her, so tight that the tips of her fingers were white. “I am truly sorry. What has happened to Ash…but he is one boy. We’ve lost so many. I’m not launching an attack against that place for one boy.”
Liam growled in frustration and looked over at me but my world was spinning. I could hear them talking but none of it made sense. Ash was gone. He was at Sekhmet. After everything we had been through and after everything we had done to survive, he had ended up back at that place.
It was hard to breathe. The walls were closing in on me. The voices around me sounded garbled, like we were underwater. I vaguely heard my name being called but I had forgotten how to speak. My mouth opened but the words wouldn’t form.
“Zoey, I forbid you from taking action against Sekhmet. I know that you must be feeling a great deal right now but I won’t have my citizens running away and getting themselves killed. He is gone. I am sorry. But you need to stay here.”
I looked up at her, and even though there were so many mixed emotions burning through me, I couldn’t bring myself to do anything else besides nod. She looked at me surprised.
“I mean it,” she said. She looked at the three of us. “Each life lost here in Sanctuary is mourned. I do not take Ash’s kidnapping lightly. But I can’t risk the lives of everyone who still lives here. I will have your word.”
<
br /> “You’re a coward.” I took a deep breath, surprised at how empty I felt. My voice was soft when I continued. “But I promise, I won’t go after him.” The memory of Ash’s lips on my shoulders that very morning felt like it had happened just minutes ago.
He couldn’t be gone. He couldn’t.
I left the office without a word to anyone else. I hadn’t been dismissed but I didn’t care.
I had to get out of there.
I WAS SURPRISINGLY calm when I left Octavia’s office. Her disbelieving face followed me as I left. I felt numb. The news that Ash had been missing, kidnapped by Razi and her band of evil geniuses was the worst thing I could possibly imagine but my entire body was a flood of ice.
“Zoey, are you okay?” Astrid’s voice was low and concerned. Her small hand wrapped around my wrist but I barely felt it.
“I’m completely fine,” I answered. My voice sounded far away, like an echo in the bottom of a swimming pool. There was a long moment of silence and I looked up at Liam and Astrid. They were both staring at me warily, as if waiting for something to happen. Like I was suddenly going to do the chicken dance or explode. Both felt like equally logical options. “What?”
“You can’t be fine. There’s no way you’re fine,” Liam said, disbelieving. He started to reach for me but I stepped back, out of his reach. “Zoey, come on.”
“I just…I want to go to bed. I want to be alone,” I said, calmly. They started to speak but I didn’t wait to hear what they had to say. I spun around and took off, my feet carrying me away from Octavia’s office, down the corridors and back into my room.
Kaya wasn’t there and I was immediately grateful for that. I wasn’t lying when I said I needed to be alone. I had felt numb while sitting in the office, listening to Octavia tell me that my boyfriend had gone missing while on patrol. The emotions had built up like a dam when I read the note, and when she told me that they couldn’t…no, they wouldn’t do anything to get him back. But now, alone in my room, it felt like the dam was about to break. Tears pricked the corner of my eyes and I climbed onto my bed, pulling my knees up to my chest.
The Sanctuary Page 13