by Kate L. Mary
“I was unaware that I spoke another language,” he said once he’d stopped laughing.
“All men do.” I waved to the people we passed, holding his gaze as I walked backward.
“And how would you know?” Kellan lifted his eyebrows as he shoved his dark hair out of his face again. Still, it refused to be tamed. “You’ve spent the last nine years with the same small group, and before that you were a kid.”
“That may be true, but—”
I stumbled over something on the ground, or maybe even my own feet, it was hard to say which one, and I felt myself going down. Kellan lunged for me, grabbing my elbow just before I fell on my ass, and I suddenly found myself in his arms. Pressed against his chest. He was chuckling, and it was low. Deep. It vibrated through him, and then through me until it made my toes curl.
“You are not allowed to drink anymore.” His voice was soft, his face close to mine, and I looked up to find him inches from me.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Regan.” Kellan shook his head, smiling, and brushed the hair out of my face, his gaze holding mine. “I’m here to look out for you.”
“You’ve always looked out for me,” I mumbled.
“I always will,” he whispered.
It might have been my imagination, or maybe even wishful thinking, or I could have possibly been hallucinating. I wasn’t sure which it was, but I could have sworn his eyes moved to my lips, and when they did, my mouth went dry. My stomach bottomed out, and I found words impossible. Thoughts, too, because all I could do was stare into his eyes and hold my breath and wait for him to pull me toward him and kiss me. I’d been dreaming about it for a year now, and in that moment I felt certain it was about to happen.
Kellan was going to kiss me.
4
“Open the gate!” The panicked words echoed through the air, cutting through the spell that had fallen over Kellan and me.
He let me go. Literally let me go. I wasn’t the least bit prepared, and the second his hands released me, I felt myself falling. My body hit the ground the way it would have a few seconds earlier if Kellan hadn’t caught me, and I let out a whoof as all the air left my body. He didn’t notice. He was too focused on the commotion that had distracted him from my otherwise irresistible feminine wiles, his eyes narrowed as he tried to see through the darkness and gauge what was going on.
“Something happened.” Kellan looked down, and his eyebrows shot up. “Shit, Regan. I’m sorry.”
He reached for me, but I brushed him off. “Forget it.”
He did, much to my displeasure, and instead took off toward the gate. “Come on.”
“Not a single heroine in one of the books I’ve read had to put up with this shit,” I muttered as I dragged myself up off the ground.
I swatted my ass as I headed after Kellan, trying to get the dirt off my butt. He’d almost reached the gate where a group was gathered, illuminated by the flickering flames of a barrel fire. The soft glow it gave off made it impossible to make out much more than the outline of the crowd. There were no more than a dozen people. Two seemed to be supporting one another while a handful of others were gathered around them. Kellan stopped when he reached them, and I started jogging faster, ignoring the throb in my left ass cheek that told me there was going to be a big bruise there tomorrow. It pulsed with each step, and I rubbed it, hating the way my head seemed to sway as if barely attached to my body. I’d forgotten this feeling from the last time I’d gotten drunk, as well as my assertion that I would never drink too much again. As I jogged up to join the group, I silently swore to myself that this was the last time I’d drink like this.
“Came out of nowhere,” a man was saying when I stopped in front of the group. “We were minding our business, and these assholes just came out of nowhere.”
“You say they released zombies?” someone else asked.
“A whole truckload of them. Ten, at least. Bastards just let them loose on us.”
“We barely got away.” The second person spoke for the first time, and through the soft glow, I saw that it was a woman in her thirties with red hair and a round face. “It was like they wanted us to get bitten but not killed. It made no sense.”
“Where was this?” Kellan asked.
“Duke,” the man gasped. “We had a place out in the Duke area.”
“Not far,” someone mumbled.
“You think they’re coming here next?” another person asked.
“No,” Kellan said, even as he looked around nervously. “I doubt it. You’re too fortified. Have too many people. They’re looking for smaller groups.”
His gaze searched me out, and he grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the commotion and toward the hotel. He said nothing, and I didn’t utter a word either. I was doing everything I could to force my body to sober up as I walked, but it didn’t help a damn bit. Too bad force of will didn’t work in situations like this.
Kellan held my arm as he pushed the front door of the inn open, and I let him, knowing I wasn’t with it enough to make the best decisions right now. This was why you didn’t drink during the apocalypse.
He pulled me through the lobby and up the stairs, which seemed to groan twice as loudly as they had the last time we’d come up. I clung to the banister despite Kellan’s steadying grip. It wasn’t rough, more firm. Steady. Like he was.
When we reached our room, he shoved the door open and pulled me inside, pushing me onto my bed with surprising gentleness. How he managed to push me and be gentle at the same time, I didn’t know, but the second I was on the bed and the door was shut, I felt more secure.
Kellan let out a deep breath as he lit the lantern, and once the room was illuminated by the soft glow of the fire, he threw himself on his own bed, his body bouncing slightly when he did.
“I’m sorry I messed up your night,” I said when he didn’t utter a sound.
He waved me off, his gaze still on the ceiling. “I wasn’t interested in her.” He paused, then turned his face toward me. “Did you really think I was?”
I shrugged and nodded at the same time, regretting it immediately when my stomach lurched. Swallowing, I forced the contents of my stomach back down.
“I know what happens in town,” I mumbled. “I heard Cade talk about it for years.”
Kellan snorted. “Cade and I are not the same people.”
“No shit,” I muttered.
When I closed my eyes, my head spun in an uncomfortable way, and I let out a moan.
Kellan sighed, and a second later he was at my side. “I’m sorry. I should have been paying attention.”
“I shouldn’t have had so much to drink.” I gripped my head, barely noticing when he got to work untying my boots.
“You’ll be okay,” he whispered as he eased the boots off me one by one. “Just close your eyes.”
I did as I was told.
A thud sounded as he tossed one boot aside, and then another. My eyes were still shut when I felt his fingers working at the button of my pants. He undid it, and the zipper followed, and then somehow, he eased them off me one leg at a time. His breath brushed my leg when he exhaled, and heat moved through me, but my brain was too cloudy to react. Too unfocused and confused. Kellan was undressing me. I’d been dreaming about this moment for a year, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this. I wasn’t supposed to be drunk and unable to think clearly, and it wasn’t supposed to feel like he was my brother. Or worse, my father. Whatever Kellan was to me, he wasn’t either of those things.
He gripped me under the arms and pulled me up the bed, and I found my head resting on a pillow.
“Sleep,” he whispered.
I was already halfway there, but I was still with it just enough to feel it when he brushed the hair off my forehead.
The door burst open, slamming into the bed and jolting me from sleep. My face was already turned that way when I cracked one eye, and the beams of sunlight singeing my cornea made me regret it immediately. I lifted
my arm, trying to block out the light, but it was useless. Why the hell was it so bright?
“Get up.”
Kellan’s frame took up most of the doorway, the light shining in around him until he was nothing but a dark silhouette. He tossed something across the room, and it landed on my back. Dust motes flew into the air, dancing across the beams of sunlight like they were putting on a show. I groaned and turned onto my side, causing whatever he’d thrown my way to slide off me. It hit the ground with a soft thud, no doubt sending more dust into the air, but I didn’t see it. I was too busy burying my throbbing head under my pillow.
“Regan—” It was impossible to miss the warning in Kellan’s voice. “—you need to get up.”
“Why?” I groaned into the pillow.
The boom of his footsteps gave me less than five seconds’ warning before he was at my side. He ripped the pillow off my face and tossed it across the room, then grabbed my arm and hauled me out of bed.
“We have to go.”
My bare feet hit the hard floor, and I jerked my arm out of his grasp.
His deep brown eyes flicked down, over my body, and snippets of the night before came back to me. Standing in the middle of the street, his arms around me. Had we really come close to kissing, or had that moment been nothing more than my drunken imagination? He’d helped me up here and undressed me. That, I knew for sure. Then he’d tucked me in.
I was still wearing nothing but my tank top and a tiny pair of underwear, and after last night I would have expected it to affect him a little, but the brief glance he gave me didn’t seem to faze him in the least. Not that I should have been surprised. In Kellan’s eyes, I was nothing more than a little sister.
“We need to hit the road,” he said when his gaze was once again on my face.
I huffed and didn’t move from my spot, instead crossing my arms and glaring up at him. “Why are you always in such a damn hurry?”
“Because we need to get home.” Once again, his gaze moved down, but this time his lips tightened. He blew a deep breath out through his mouth before turning his back to me, shaking his head. “Get dressed.” He nodded to the floor where my clothes sat heaped in a pile.
Despite the fact that I knew he couldn’t see me, I rolled my eyes. “Always in such a freaking hurry. God forbid we take a couple hours to relax,” I grumbled, mostly to myself, as I swiped my clothes up.
That was when I saw what he’d tossed my way. It was a chunk of the hard bread we always got in this settlement. How they made it, I had no idea, and even though it was nothing like the soft, fluffy stuff I remembered from my childhood, my mouth watered at the sight. Bread, even this hard, crusty stuff, was a treat.
I swiped it up off the floor and took a big bite before turning toward my clothes. Kellan wanted to leave, which meant it was time to go.
He was waiting for me in the hall, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, his eyes focused on the ceiling like there was a naked lady painted on it. His gaze was so intent that I actually found myself looking up, but there were only cracks in the plaster and some black stuff in the corner that I suspected might be mold.
“‘Bout time.” Kellan didn’t even look my way before pushing off the wall. He started walking, calling over his shoulder, “I’ve been up for three hours.”
“It’s not my fault you don’t like to sleep,” I called as I headed after him.
“It’s not my fault someone decided to get trashed last night,” he retorted.
Unlike the night before, he didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor when it came to how much I’d had to drink. Not that I cared. I remembered more than one weekend when he and Cade had headed off to another settlement and spent two days doing nothing but drinking and whoring around, and only last year Kellan had done the same thing with Blake.
My steps faltered a little when I threw my pack over my shoulder. It was twice as heavy as it had been yesterday, and I knew Kellan’s was even heavier. I pulled it higher on my shoulders in hopes of distributing the weight. It didn’t work. Not that I was complaining. The weight was welcome because it meant we were now restocked on some of the things we’d gotten low on. The stuff I needed to make soap, for one, and plenty of salt. I’d also picked out a few new books for Emma’s growing library. Books were the biggest luxury Kellan would allow me. Although why he thought he got to call the shots was beyond me. He wasn’t in charge. Jasper was.
When we reached the lobby, Kellan stopped just long enough to pass the key to the person behind the desk. It was a man today, and unlike Daisy Mae, he smiled when he called out his thanks. He even told us to come again.
Kellan waved but barely looked at the guy, and ten seconds later he was out the door.
I jogged to catch up. “I want to stop at the market one more time.”
“No.” He glanced over his shoulder, and his brown eyes swept over me briefly before he was once again focused on the street in front of us. “We need to hit the road.”
“Kellan.” I grabbed his arm and forced him to stop. “Why the hell are you in such a hurry?”
“You heard what those people said last night.” He yanked his arm out of my grasp. “Or is that part of the night too fuzzy for you?”
“I remember.” I rolled my eyes as I shoved my brown hair out of my face. “They were exaggerating, probably.”
“I’m not willing to take that chance.”
“Even if they were telling us exactly what happened, who’s to say it’s going to affect us? We live in the middle of nowhere. No one ever finds us.”
Kellan exhaled like he was trying to maintain control. “That’s not true, and you know it.”
I looked down when pain shot through me. He was right. Dammit. Somehow, Kellan was always right, and I hated it.
“Fine,” was the only word I could get out, but it seemed to satisfy Kellan because he kept walking, heading across the settlement to our car so we could hightail it out of here.
5
It was early afternoon when Kellan slowed to a stop at the checkpoint. The limbs of the few nearby trees were spread above us, casting a shadow on the car that helped block out the sun. To the right of the narrow road sat the dry bed of what had once been a stream, the ground now cracked and depressing even among the seemingly endless barren landscape.
Kellan turned the car off and leaned his head back. I couldn’t tell for sure through his goggles, but I was pretty sure he’d closed his eyes.
“Tired?” I asked, unable to resist getting more information about last night. He’d helped me to bed, and had even been sweet about it, but I had no idea what he’d done after I fell asleep. “Did you maybe stay out too late?”
Kellan rolled his head toward me, but his expression didn’t change. “Are you asking if I met up with Chelsea after you passed out?” When I shrugged, he let out a snort. “Why do you even care?”
“I don’t,” I lied.
“Give me a break, Regan. I told you I wasn’t interested.” He let out a long sigh. “It’s just nice to talk to someone other than family every now and then.”
There it was again, the implication that we were related. “We’re not family.”
Kellan lifted his head and yanked his goggles off almost violently. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you like to go around acting like you’re my brother, or worse, my dad, but you’re not. We’re not family.”
“That’s a shitty thing to say.” Kellan shoved his hand through his dark hair but, like always, it refused to stay off his forehead. “I know I get on your nerves, but I didn’t think that was how you really felt. Shit, Regan, we’ve been together for nine years.”
My throat tightened at the pain in his voice. “We aren’t related, Kellan,” I whispered. “That’s all I mean. You’re not my brother.”
His expression softened when sadness filled his brown eyes. “Is this about Matt?”
“No.” My ponytail tickled my back when I shook my head.
<
br /> He must not have believed me, because he reached over and took my hand. At his touch, tingles of electricity shot up my arm. It reminded me of when I was a kid, of how I’d scraped my feet against the carpet in my living room so I could shock Matt. Or, even a few times, Kellan.
“I’m not trying to replace your brother, Regan,” he said. “He was my best friend.”
Having his skin on mine felt good. Better than good. It felt like home, which was an amazing feeling any time, but especially these days. But I was terrified of doing something that would ruin things between us, not to mention of making a fool of myself. As much as I wanted to believe he’d been about to kiss me last night, I couldn’t delude myself. Kellan didn’t look at me and see a woman. No, he saw a girl he’d grown up with, one who’d pestered and annoyed him his whole life. That was all I’d ever be to him.
I pried my hand out of his. “That’s not what I meant.”
God, why did I suddenly sound like a blubbering teenager?
“What then?” Kellan asked.
“Forget it.” I kept my eyes straight ahead. “Let’s just pay attention so we can get home.”
I expected him to argue, but he didn’t, and silence settled over us that made the car seem twice as big. I did my best to focus on the world that existed beyond Kellan and me, but it wasn’t easy. There wasn’t much out here. Nothing but dust and rocks, as well as the occasional zombie or person. Still, I strained my ears, listening for anything that might indicate we’d been followed when we left Altus. But the world was utterly silent.
In the distance, so far away that they were little more than dots, a handful of black blobs headed our way. They moved together, slowly, as if dragging themselves took a lot of effort. I watched their progress in silence, totally focused on the figures even though they were far enough away that they weren’t a threat. I felt mesmerized, just as I always did when I saw one of them from a distance.
Nine years. Nine years had gone by, and little had changed. These things, the walking dead, as a lot of the locals called them, had decayed—it was inevitable in this heat—but somehow, against all odds, they kept going. How? I had no answers, and I had a suspicion that people even smarter than I was didn’t have any either. It defied logic, defied science. It should have never happened, let alone continued for nearly a decade. Except it had.