by BB Easton
I glance up just to make sure Rain isn’t about to drive us off a cliff. Then, I slide my hand lower and push my fingers beneath the loose drawstring waistband of her soft flannel pajama pants. They skate over a silky pair of panties. I cup her pussy and bite her earlobe, waiting for her to tell me to stop, to swat my hand away.
But she doesn’t. Instead, Rain reaches behind her back with her free hand and grabs my dick through my jeans.
Fuck.
Yes.
I’m determined to drive her just as crazy as she’s been driving me this entire ride, so I rub two fingers from her clit to her hole in slow, gentle strokes, over her panties. But Rain’s impulsive ass manages to unbutton my fly and get my zipper down in seconds. The moment her smooth fingers wrap around my cock, my plan to tease her mercilessly goes right out the window. It feels so fucking good that I yank her panties aside and slide two fingers into her slick, hot pussy.
Rain’s head falls back to my shoulder, so I look up and try to concentrate on the trail while she whimpers and fucks my hand.
But we aren’t on the trail anymore. At least, not any trail I’ve ever been on.
This one cuts through a forest of dead trees that are in the process of being consumed by sharp, thorny vines. The taller branches, brittle and gray and bent toward the white sky, have red banners hanging from them. We’re going so fast that I can’t read what any of them say, but I can tell that each one is branded with the silhouette of a hooded figure on horseback.
The vines reach up from the forest floor like octopus tentacles, winding around the ancient trees and squeezing them until the wood splinters and breaks and crumbles into the ocean of hungry thorns.
“Faster!” I yell to Rain, but she doesn’t crank the throttle.
She begins pumping my dick even harder instead.
Fuck, it feels good.
I shove my fingers into her deeper and rub her clit with my thumb and thrust into her hand even though I know that if I don’t kick it into third gear right fucking now, we’re both going to die.
I can hear myself yelling inside my own head.
What the fuck are you doing?
I can see myself, a slave to my stupid desire for this crazy girl.
She’s going to get you killed, dipshit! Ditch the bitch and get the fuck out of here!
But I’m powerless. Rain is in control now, and she’s driving us straight toward certain death.
A tree snaps up ahead, and the sound echoes through the woods like a gunshot. As it crashes to the ground, one of its branches falls across the trail. I can clearly see the banner attached to it now, waving like a flag on the way down.
Just above the image of a faceless horseman wielding a flaming club is the date April 23.
I don’t have time to contemplate what that means because, a split second later, I’m flying over the handlebars and somersaulting down the rocky, root-covered trail. When I finally stop rolling, I smack my head on something hard. My cranium explodes in pain. I sit up, clutching my dented skull, and begin frantically looking around for Rain. Blood trickles down my arm as I swivel toward the sound of cavalry in the distance.
Four monstrous black horses are barreling toward me through the forest—heads down, smoke pouring from their flared nostrils—ripping through the brambles and branches like party streamers. They leave nothing but flames and scorched earth in their wake as their faceless, cloaked riders point their weapons—a sword, a scythe, a mace, and a flaming club—toward the colorless sky.
“Wes!” Rain’s voice calls out.
I swing my dented head left and right, but I don’t find her until I turn all the way around. She landed in a thicket of thorn bushes, and all I can see is her face and halo of black hair before the vines constrict around her body and pull her under.
“Wesssss!”
“No!” I run toward her, but the vines grab my legs, their thorns digging into my clothes and skin like fish hooks, and pull me down, too.
Trees pop and hiss and collapse all around me as the heat from the approaching fire intensifies. I struggle to free myself, slicing my hands open as I rip the sharp vines from my body. With every push and pull and grunt and shove, I get closer to the place where Rain disappeared.
My vision is blurry and red. My head feels like it’s about to implode. My hands are shredded and almost worthless, but with one last thrash, I make it out. I stumble toward the spot where I last saw Rain, calling her name with every labored step, but when I get there, she’s gone.
Leaving nothing behind but a puddle of water.
I peer into it—exhausted, confused, desperate—but all I find is my own frantic, bloodied reflection staring back at me.
Then the image splashes away, stomped out by one giant black hoof.
April 21
Rain
“Wes. Wes, wake up. It’s just the nightmare. You’re okay. You’re here.”
Wes is sleeping sitting up. His good shoulder and the side of his head are leaning against the wall of the tree house, and he has my old comforter pulled up to his chin. He yelled my name so loud in his sleep that it woke me up. Luckily, I hadn’t been asleep long, so my horsemen hadn’t shown up yet, but from the looks of things, Wes’s are on the other side of his eyelids right now. His entire face is tensed up, as if he’s in pain, and he’s breathing hard through his nose.
“Wes!” I want to shake him, but I’m afraid to touch his shoulder. I bandaged it up before we went to sleep last night, and it was pretty gross. I decide to squeeze his thighs and shake his legs instead. “Wes! Wake up!”
His eyelids flash open. They’re alert and alarmed, and they land on me like a laser scope.
I hold my hands up. “Hey! You’re okay. It was just the nightmare. You’re safe.”
Wes blinks. His eyes dart all over the tree house, out the door behind me, and then land back on mine. He’s still breathing heavy, but his jaw relaxes a little.
“You’re okay,” I repeat.
Wes takes a deep breath and scrubs a hand down his face. “Fuck. What time is it?”
“I don’t know. I stopped carrying my phone when the cell towers went down.” I look out the door and notice a faint orange haze where the treetops meet the sky. “Maybe six thirty? The sun’s coming up.”
Wes nods and sits up, rubbing the side of his head where it was pressed against the wall all night.
“That was a bad one, huh?” I ask, taking in his battle-worn appearance.
He stretches as much as he can in the confined space and gives me a sleepy-eyed stare. “Not all of it.”
Something in his tone of voice or maybe the look in his eye makes my cheeks flush. “Oh. Uh, that’s good.” I turn and begin rummaging through the backpack, trying to hide my blush.
“Did you fix your hair?” I don’t look up, but I can feel his eyes on me. “It’s all shiny.”
“Oh.” I laugh. “Yeah. I woke up when I heard my mom get home last night, so I went inside to say hey. I figured, while I was in there, I might as well take a shower, brush my teeth, change my clothes …” My voice trails off when I realize that I’m rambling. I look down at the skinny jeans and hiking boots sticking out from under my hoodie as a prickly heat begins to crawl up my neck. I wanted something that was cute but woodsy. You know, bomb-shelter chic. Now, I’m wishing I’d just put a bag over my head.
Wes leans forward and peeks around my hair, which I straightened with a flat iron and evened out with a pair of scissors after the jagged braid-ectomy I gave myself the other night.
“Are you wearing makeup?”
“Yeah! So?”
Oh my God, I’m yelling.
“You just look … different.”
“Whatever.” I grab the travel-sized toiletry kit and the towel out of the backpack and shove them into his chest. “You can go take a shower with the hose.”
“Damn.” Wes chuckles. “That’s cold.”
“Literally.” I grin. “Go on. I wouldn’t want you to lose your preci
ous daylight.” I throw his words from last night back in his face as he crawls past me toward the door.
“You’re not coming?”
“To watch you wash yourself? No, thanks.” I roll my eyes and do my best to pretend like his perfectly chiseled abs disgust me.
“That’s good ’cause there’s gonna be some serious shrinkage.”
I laugh as Wes climbs down the ladder. Then, I remember something. As soon as he gets to the bottom, I lean out the doorway and drop his Hawaiian shirt onto his face.
Wes pulls the royal-blue fabric off his head and holds it to his nose. “Holy shit. You washed it?”
“Yeah. It smells better now, but that blood is never coming out.”
The smile that beams back up at me makes my body tingle all over.
“Thanks.” Wes drapes the shirt over one shoulder and gives me a wicked side-eye. “You sure you don’t wanna come wash my back?”
“Ha! And see your shrinkage? I’ll pass.”
Wes shrugs with a sideways smile and walks across the yard toward the side of the house. The second he’s out of sight, I let out the breath I was holding and shove my hand up inside my hoodie. Grabbing the bottle of hydrocodone I stashed in my bra, I pull it out and shake a little white pill into my hand. I toss it back with a sip from one of the water bottles and realize that the liquid inside is sloshing like crazy, thanks to my trembling hand.
Better make that two.
Wes
I don’t care how heavy that backpack is; after the dream I had this morning, Rain’s ass is wearing it, and she’s sitting on the back.
I shove my helmet on over my towel-dried hair but pause before kick-starting the bike. I’m afraid the sound of the engine will cause Rain’s shithead of a father to come running out, guns blazing, but maybe she was telling the truth about him being deaf after all.
Maybe she was telling the truth about her mom, too.
I look around for her mom’s fabled motorcycle—the “black one”—but there’s no sight of it. I guess she could have parked in the garage, but from the looks of this place, that door probably doesn’t even work anymore.
I pull my helmet off and turn to Rain, who is struggling to climb on behind me with that big-ass pack on. “What did your mom say about the dirt bike in the driveway?”
“Huh?” she asks, swinging her leg over the seat with a grunt.
“Your mom? Did she ask about my bike? She would have had to drive around it to get into the garage.”
“Oh. Right.” Rain wraps her arms around my ribs as tight as she can to keep from falling backward. “I told her I was letting a friend stay in the tree house.”
I can’t tell if she’s lying or not. She sounds convincing, but her eyes look a little extra crazy. Maybe it’s just all that mascara. I fucking hate it. I don’t need Rain to get hotter. I need her to get uglier so that I can fucking focus on surviving the next two days.
“Don’t you need to go inside and tell her bye?”
“No. She’s sleeping.”
“And your dad?”
“Passed out in his chair.”
“Well, shouldn’t you, like, leave a note telling her where you’re going or something?”
Rain cocks her head to the side and raises her eyebrows. “Wes, I’m nineteen years old.”
I shrug. “I don’t know how this family shit works, okay?”
She sighs and drops the attitude. It only lasts a second, but in that moment, I see the real Rain. Underneath all those fake smiles and that sassy attitude is a black ocean of sadness crashing against a crumbling lighthouse of hope.
“Neither do I,” she admits. Then, she presses her cheek to my shoulder.
Fuck me.
I stomp down on the kick-start and head through the backyard, realizing that my dream this morning wasn’t just a nightmare; it was a premonition.
The way Rain’s body feels wrapped around mine, the way she looks, all dolled up like we’re going on a fucking date, the way she wants to help me even though nobody’s fucking helping her, I’m distracted by it. All of it. This bitch is going to get into my head, make me veer off course, and get us both killed. I know it like I know my own name, yet here we go anyway, into the woods.
Rain
We’ve been out here for hours. The morning chill is long gone. Now, it’s just hot and humid and hazy as hell, thanks to the pollen bomb that seems to have gone off somewhere nearby. Maybe that’s why these people built a bomb shelter. It wasn’t to protect them from nuclear fallout. It was to protect them from breathing all this crap in the air.
Wes is so serious about finding this place. So serious. Last night and this morning, he actually joked around with me a little bit, but ever since we left the house, he’s been all business. I feel like I can’t get a good read on him. Sometimes, he’s relaxed and funny and … I don’t know … kind of flirty? Then, other times, he looks at me like he hates me. Like I’m his annoying little sister, and he’s sick of me tagging along.
Maybe it’s because I’m not being very helpful right now. He’s nicer when I’m helping him.
All I’m doing is walking around, poking the ground with a big stick.
Wes said the bomb shelter was underground, and the only entrance was a metal door, like a big, square manhole on the ground. It must have been built in the ’60s, back when family fallout shelters were all the rage, but by the time Wes found it, the only thing left of the house it belonged to was a crumbling stone chimney.
We’ve been looking for that damn chimney all morning. I don’t have the heart to tell Wes that I’ve spent my whole life in these woods and have never seen an old stone chimney, but I guess it’s possible that it fell over after he left. A lot can happen in thirteen years.
Hell, here lately, a lot can happen in thirteen minutes.
“Are you sure it was behind Burger Palace?” I ask in a teensy, tiny voice.
We’ve poked every square foot of earth back here, and that door is either buried so deep in pine needles that a stick isn’t gonna do the trick or we’re in the wrong place.
“Yes, I’m fucking sure. I lived right down there,” Wes growls, shoving his finger in the opposite direction of the highway. “I used to walk by that goddamn chimney every day on my way to …” His voice trails off and he shakes his head, trying to get rid of the memory. “Ugh!” Wes drops the backpack on the ground and sits next to it on a fallen tree trunk, pressing his fingertips into his forehead. His freshly washed hair falls over his face, curling at the ends where it was tucked behind his ear.
I take a seat a few feet down from him on the log and unzip the pack, pretending to look for a bottle of water or something. “Sorry we haven’t found it yet. I’m sure we’re close. Some stupid kid probably knocked the chimney down or something.”
Wes doesn’t even look at me.
You’re making it worse. Just shut up.
I see the bag of trail mix, so I pull it out and extend it toward Wes. “M&M?” I smile, giving the bag a little shake.
Wes turns his head toward me—one eye hidden behind that curtain of hair—and gives me an almost smile. It’s just a twitch at the corner of his mouth really, and I can’t tell if it’s a thanks, but no thanks kind of twitch or the I’m glad you’re here kind or the dreaded you’re annoying the shit out of me, and I’m just tolerating you until I can figure out how to get rid of you kind. Before I realize what I’m doing, I reach out with my free hand and tuck that hair back behind Wes’s ear so I can get a better look at his confusing expression.
Which makes his almost smile disappear completely.
Shit.
Wes is now giving me the same look he gave me behind Burger Palace yesterday. The one that freezes the air in my lungs. The one that is focused and emotionless and intimidating as hell. I wonder what he’s thinking about when he looks at me like that. What he’s hiding.
I realize that I’m staring at him with my hand poised awkwardly in midair behind his ear, so I drop my eyes and yank
my arm back. “We’re gonna find it,” I blurt out, unable to think of anything else to say.
“Yeah? And what if we don’t?”
I peek back up at him from under my mascara-coated lashes. “We die?”
Wes nods real slow and chews on the corner of his mouth as he studies me. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re not too upset about that?”
Because I’m not.
Because I’m looking forward to it.
Because I’m too chickenshit to do it myself.
I shrug and settle on, “Because it means I get a do-over.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Wes snaps, sitting up straighter. “It means you are over. Don’t you get that? It means you lost, and they won.”
I want to tell him that I’m okay with that, whoever “they” are, but I know it’ll only lead to more questions. Questions I don’t want to answer. Questions that will rattle the locks on Fort Shit I’m Not Going to Think About Ever Again Because None of This Matters and We’re All Going to Die. So, I keep my mouth—and the drawbridge—shut tight.
Besides, if Wes knows I’m just using him as a distraction, that I don’t actually want to survive whatever the hell is coming for us, he might not let me tag along anymore. And tagging along with this asshole is kinda my only reason for living at the moment.
I sigh and look around the woods, praying for a burst of inspiration that will help me convince him that we’re in this together.
Blowing out a breath, I lean forward and place my elbows on my knees. “If only we had a metal detector or something.”
“That’s it!” Wes snaps his fingers and points at me in the same motion.
I glance over at him and give myself an internal high five when I see his beautiful, megawatt smile beaming back at me.
“That’s fucking it! Rain, you’re a goddamn genius!” Wes stands up and ruffles my hair before lifting the backpack off the ground and holding the straps open for me to slip into. “Where’s the closest hardware store?”
I push my messed up hair out of my face and point toward the highway.