by Tracey Ward
We fall into a silence that doesn’t feel as awkward as it is. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t know. It’s a one-sided feeling of anxiety and dread that he’s blissfully unaware of. One that’s tearing through me like acid in my gut, eating me from the inside out. How he doesn’t see it on my face is beyond me. Maybe he’s too spent. Maybe now isn’t the time after all.
“You seem all right,” he says suddenly.
It’s surprising how wrong he is.
“I am,” I lie.
“When you kicked Bray out I was ready for anything. You being all right wasn’t what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Crying.”
“Ha,” I chuckle nervously. “Not if I can help it.”
“Why then?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you kick Bray out?”
I look away, unable to face him. My heart is racing in my chest so hard it hurts. It’s so loud he has to hear it. He has to know. If only he could know it and I wouldn’t have to say it. I wouldn’t have to be afraid of him. Of us.
“Joss?”
I ignore him, focusing on my breathing. I can do this. I want to do this. I need to do it because I need him and it doesn’t make me weak or stupid. It makes me human. It makes me alive.
“Joss, look at me.”
I shake my head faintly, closing my eyes tightly. I hear him stand up. I feel it in the air the way I felt Bray leave, my skin hypersensitive and wild. He comes to stand in front of me and I’m so grateful when he doesn’t touch me. I’m tense from top to bottom. I’m trembling, shivering, shaking: a convulsing mess as though I’m having a seizure. Maybe I am. Maybe my body is going into shock from the crushing weight of this moment. From the heavy heft of his eyes settled on me.
My hands move on their own, guiding themselves smoothly over his body because my eyes have tapped out—they’ve taken themselves out of the equation. And this thing that I’m doing—that I’m trying to work through—it’s going to have to happen in the dark—in the unknown and the unseen—and it’s sick that I’m steady there. I’m best where the nightmares live. I’m comfortable here.
“No way,” he says deeply, his hands stopping mine. He holds them in his own firmly. “We’re not doing this. You can’t even look at me. There’s no way that’s happening like this.”
“Don’t you want to?” I rasp, my eyes still closed.
He takes a tight, deep breath. I lean forward to lay my head against his chest. I follow it when he blows the breath out, resting my head against him in the safety of his heartbeat. I can feel it pounding against my skin through his thin T-shirt. Erratic. Uncontrolled.
I know how it feels.
“Yeah,” he admits roughly. “More than you know. But not like this. Not with you upset.”
“I told you I’m all right.”
“Joss, you can’t even look at me.”
A hot tear escapes my eye and slides down my cheek. I shake my head back and forth as I try to open my eyes. I try to look at him and see him and know it’s all right. That this is Ryan. That this is right. I know I want this, I want him, but I’m a hot mess and I’m screwing it up. I don’t know how to do this. I can’t do any of this, not like a normal girl. I’ve never been normal and I never will be and I’m so much baggage and crazy that I can’t believe there’s enough room in this house for all of me to be in here at once. I’m shocked by every second that passes when my emotions don’t blow the walls of this place.
My tear drips off my cheek. I manage to open my eyes in time to see it land below me. It drops right onto Ryan’s naked foot.
Immediately he knows.
“And it’s definitely not going to happen when you’re crying,” he says softly.
His arms release my hands and go to wrap around me. He’s going to pull me into an embrace, tell me everything is all right, and he’ll fall asleep chastely beside me, snuggling in next to me and all my issues. It will go on night after night until infinity or we die and he’ll never say a word. He’ll never ask for more. But if I ever want the chance to let him in and watch him chase away my demons the way his laugh lights up a room, I need to man the hell up and offer what he’ll never demand.
I push back from him before he can embrace me, my eyes finding his. He looks so worried it hurts. It almost lets me chicken out and bail on this entirely. It could be an awkward moment we both remember forever but never talk about. It could be the setting of the status quo. The beginning of our ending, riding this even plane until the end of our existence. Never more, never less.
Or it could be what Crenshaw said. The Beginning of Everything.
“I’m not crying because I’m sad,” I say shakily. “I’m crying because I love you and I’m going to give you all of me.”
He stares at me, stunned. I’ve seen Ryan in a lot of dire situations, facing a lot of overwhelming odds and obstacles, but I have never seen him so at a loss before. As the silence drags out between us, I worry I’ve broken him.
“Joss,” he says gruffly, pausing to clear his throat.
Terrified of what he’ll say, words begin to spill rapidly from my mouth. “I know it won’t be your first time, but it is for me so don’t ever tell me. Never let me know for sure. I never want to know a name or a hint or hair color. Warn Trent, too, because he’ll spill it and I’ll kill him and I’ll get mad at you an—”
“I love you,” he cuts in quietly. My mouth clamps shut, making him grin slightly. He lifts his hand to run it along the side of my neck, back into my hair. “I’ve never said that before. You’re my first time.”
I can’t handle this feeling. It’s too full, too big, too much. It’s him, it’s Ryan, and it’s everything in me until I’m bursting at the seams, and while I couldn’t look at him before, now I can’t look away. Not to save my life. Not even to save his. I don’t know what happens to me. It’s nothing I expected and I can tell from his reaction that he wasn’t expecting it either. But when autopilot engages, when my survival kicks in, it’s best to just stay out of its way and enjoy the ride.
I grab onto his shirt, fisting it in my hands and pulling him toward me. The last thing I see is his grin spreading into a smile before his mouth is on mine. Then I’m gone. Lost. All I know from that point is the cold of the room on my rapidly exposed skin, the heat of his body close to mine, the sound of his breath always so close, so desperate, echoing mine. I know fear, joy, want, a pinch of pain and a world of heat that starts in my stomach and burns through my veins until I can hardly breathe and I’m clinging to him as he clings to me, his heartbeat racing against my chest and sending me soaring over the night sky into nothing. I gasp his name, hear him whisper mine, then it’s silence and stillness.
It’s dark in the room. Nearly pitch black. Pure shadow and nothing, but it’s all around me, surrounding me on all sides while I lay there with Ryan—with Helios. Burned by the sun, igniting the dark like a star on the velvet black. Unreachable. Untouchable. He’s done this to me. For me. The dark, the empty, the lonely has been pushed from me until it’s enveloped this room and left me nothing but a bright ball of energy, life, and light.
Shaking.
Afraid.
Awake.
Chapter Twenty Three
The Garden Gate.
That’s what Westbrook calls his mansion. His fortress. His castle on the water.
It’s a reference to the Pearly Gates and the Garden of Heaven, but it’s also a nod to the guy who designed and built the place. Apparently he’s taken over the home of a man who was once an electronics and computer expert—Bill Gates. The name means nothing to me, but the older crowd recognizes it: Ali, Alvarez, Todd. It makes me a little happy that Trent didn’t know who he was either. We learned something together, and isn’t that a fresh and new experience?
We got information on the building and the security around it from a few people that survived the destruction of the southern Colony. The Vashons watched last night as people spilled
over the walls, desperate to get out and away from the zombies. I listened with Ryan as a lot of them landed on their own mines spread out along the shore, and we didn’t sleep a wink. The few Colonists that survived were very eager to talk. Whatever it took to be kept safe from the absolute hell we unleashed on them.
“I feel like this has gotten away from us,” I confessed as we laid together staring up at the ceiling of the dark, decaying house. “I thought we were freeing people, but what happened with this Colony… It’s not how I saw it going down.”
“It’s more brutal than I expected,” he admitted.
“Why did they do it like that? Why leave everyone alive in the stadiums but murder the entire southern Colony?”
“They weren’t slaves here. Plus, we’re getting closer to this Westbrook guy. You know how the Vashons feel about him. The closer we get, the angrier they get.”
“Remind me not to piss off the Vashons,” I muttered.
“Hmmm,” he grumbled in agreement. I could feel his voice vibrating deep against my cheek where it lay on his chest, making me grin. “Once this is over we’ll get some distance from them.”
My grin vanished as I felt a strange panic set in. “Where will we go?”
“Where do you want to go?”
“Home.”
“Your loft?”
“The city. Seattle. It’s home. I don’t want to leave it.”
I felt his fingers thread slowly through my hair, stroking it gently. My eyes rolled closed with the relaxing feeling. If I were a cat, I’d have been purring.
“What about the woods?”
“Crenshaw’s woods?”
“Yeah. We can add on to his house. Make it big enough for the two of us. I can keep up his gardens.”
“Do you know how?”
“He was teaching me for years. I can run that place exactly the way he did.”
“Will you wear a bathrobe and cook me smoked rabbit?”
He chuckled. “I’ll even talk down to you and call you Athena if you want me to.”
“No,” I said, wrapping my arm around him and hugging him tightly. “You’ll call me Joss. Always Joss.”
“Tinkerbell?”
“No.”
“Peter Pan?”
“No!”
“You sure you don’t want me to call you Kitten?”
I pinched his side, making him yelp. “No.”
“All right,” he conceded. His breath brushed hot across my head. His lips landed lightly in my hair. “I love you, Joss,” he whispered.
“I love you, Ryan.”
I will never in my life get tired of saying that.
Now we stand on the deck of the Vashon boat guiding us across Lake Washington toward Mercer Island. Garden Gate is there in the gray morning mist that hovers over the water. It looks like a freak show against its perfect black backdrop. There are no lights anywhere on that island except for this one house—this one weird glass-walled house that’s blazing with unnatural light.
“It’s totally self-sufficient,” Sam tells us as we stare at it in amazement. “It’s built into the side of a hill and uses the earth for a lot of its walls to keep it cool in the summer and warm in the winter. It’s covered in solar panels, it’s using the water in the lake to generate power, there’s a row of wind turbines up on the hill it’s built into. Totally gated in on the back to keep the zombies out, but it sounds like they cleared them off the island same as we did.”
“How do you know all of this?” Ryan asks him.
“Alvarez.”
“How does he know?”
Sam grimaces slightly. “Interrogations.”
“I don’t want to hear about that,” I warn him.
He shrugs. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“An interrogation is a formal line of questioning,” Trent informs us. “It doesn’t necessarily mean violence.”
“Based on what happened to the southern Colony, I’m assuming this interrogation was violent.”
“Safe assumption.”
I shiver against the thought and the cold.
“Is Ali on the boat?” I ask Sam, surprised he’s not with her.
Sam suddenly won’t meet my eyes.
“Yeah,” he says quietly, “she’s here.”
“Are you not guarding her anymore?” Ryan asks.
“No, I am. I’m on a break. She’s with Alvarez.” He shifts on his feet before muttering, “She shouldn’t be here.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s sick?” I ask, wondering if that’s rude. Ryan doesn’t nudge me so I figure I’m okay.
“Yeah. She’s kind of on the edge right now,” Sam says with irritating vagueness. “She…” He sighs heavily. He looks over his shoulder and stares at the back of the ship where I can see Alvarez and a long mass of dark hair whipping in the wind.
“Sam?”
His eyes snap to mine. He looks worried.
“Docking in five!” someone shouts.
We’re coming up on the shore outside Garden Gate. My heart begins to pound in my chest.
“Just watch out for her, okay?” Sam says urgently.
“Everyone to their stations!”
Ryan nods as he turns to leave, going to our assigned post. “Yeah, we’ll help you keep an eye on her.”
“No, I mean watch out for her,” he says emphatically.
The deck is swarming with people. A line runs between Sam and I, blocking him from sight.
“You mean like ‘watch your back’?” I shout to him.
He doesn’t answer and when the line of people is gone, so is he. Trent and Ryan have already moved on so I get my butt in gear and head to my post, but Sam’s words are still swimming in my head, confusing me. Worrying me.
We break the mist and there it is, clear and glowing against the hillside. Somewhere inside, Westbrook is milling around in his pajamas. He’s probably munching a donut and sipping tea. Maybe listening to music. He might be watching a movie. Or cartoons like a Saturday morning when we were kids and had homes and parents. And Saturdays.
“Hold!” Alvarez cries.
We all wait, dying to jump off this boat and head inside. It’s going to be brutal, and I remind myself to be ready for that. I don’t plan on killing anyone and I haven’t asked, but I doubt Ryan does either. I’m not afraid to break an arm or deal out concussions with my ASP, but I’d rather not have any more living, human blood on my hands than I already do. I wonder for a second if anyone should clarify that to Trent, but before I can there’s an explosion on the shore.
Several go off, dirt flying into the air and then raining down, pelting the side of the house and the water around us. Some lands on the boat but we all hold steady, waiting.
Alvarez’s team launches two more volleys of stones against the shore until he’s convinced every last one of the land mines waiting for us is dead. We learned our lesson back at the southern Colony; no one is falling for that trick again.
I wait anxiously in the silence that follows the last piece of dirt falling to the ground. It’s creepy quiet. No one is moving inside the house and there are no guards or soldiers rushing out to meet us. It’s completely calm and still. Almost like no one is home.
“Now!”
People spill off the boat, our feet pounding down the small ramp and onto the dock. We run in teams, each of us with our own orders of where to go. We’re fanning out over each floor of this place, going into the guest houses, the massive garage.
Everyone’s goal—find Westbrook.
We burst into the house and I do my best to not be distracted by it, but damn. It’s ridiculous. It’s unholy. It’s so freaking normal that it’s stupid.
Nicely upholstered chairs and couches, undented, unscratched tables, glass that hasn’t been shattered, lights that are glowing warm and strong. It’s completely ignorant to the world across the water. It’s everything that annoyed me about the MOHAI and so, so, so much more. It’s not just clean or nice—it�
��s luxurious.
It makes me sick.
I snap out my ASP. I clench my knife in my left hand. I breathe in steady, I breathe out even, I swallow back the angry bile, and I calm my heart.
“Joss!” Ryan calls over his shoulder.
I nod, quickening my steps to follow him. “I’m right behind you.”
We’re the team searching the lowest level. Trent and Ryan move cautiously through the hallways, trying to find us a door that will take us down. Trent guides us through a huge, gleaming kitchen, past pristine bathrooms, some kind of game room. Finally he comes to a stop in front of a glass enclosure with a sturdy metal frame.
“No way,” I mumble, staring at it like it’s a unicorn in a tuxedo.
Trent pushes a circular button beside it. It lights up, followed by a polite ding!
“Yes way,” he says in equal awe.
The doors to the elevator slide open silently in front of us. Soft classical music pours out into the hallway.
Ryan shocks me when he barks out a short, loud laugh.
“What’s funny?” I ask incredulously.
“I don’t know. When was the last time you rode an elevator?”
I shrug. “Not since I was kid. Are we taking this thing down?”
“Why wouldn’t we?” he asks me like I’m crazy.
“How do we know we can trust it?”
Trent steps inside and jumps up and down fearlessly. When he doesn’t plummet to his death, I sigh with relief.
“What if we get trapped in it?” I ask.
Trent shrugs. “Then we know it doesn’t work.”
Ryan steps inside, offering me his hand. “Are you coming?”
I don’t hesitate to take his hand, but when he pulls me inside I feel like I’m going to hyperventilate. I don’t trust this thing at all, but I trust Ryan and Trent so when the doors close behind me, I do my best not to scream and claw at the walls.
Trent pushes another button, a B this time, and we start to drop down smoothly.
“This is weird,” I whisper.
“But also kind of fun,” Ryan whispers back.
“We’re here to take down the evil head of a totalitarian regime. We’re not supposed to have fun.”