by Alyssa Cole
“John...”
The pity in her eyes was what did it. If she’d joked back or smacked me upside the head, I could have pretended things would be okay soon. But the look in her eyes so clearly screamed You are alone and I feel sorry for you that I couldn’t stand it. I jumped out of my seat, fast enough that Arden nearly toppled over sideways into the space I’d occupied. Kojack, who’d been settling down, wailed again as he was jostled.
“I’m going to go check on the garden,” I blurted out.
“Right now? Why don’t you wait until morning?”
“It is light out. There’s a full moon,” I said. “Besides, something has been getting into the beets and I need to assert my authority over the animal kingdom.”
She stood and shushed Kojack, patting his back as she began pacing. I handed her the warmed bottle to make up for my awkward departure. She smiled as she took it from me, waiting until Kojack latched on and there was only the sound of his suckling to continue talking. “Okay, Farmer McGregor. Go show those cute little bunnies what-for.”
“Rabbits can be vicious, Arden,” I said. “And what about raccoons? People think they’re cute, but those little opposable thumbs make them a formidable foe.”
Not waiting for her to roll her eyes, I walked to the door and quietly removed the crossbar and turned several locks before creaking it open. Silvery moonlight illuminated the cornstalks swaying in the cool predawn breeze, the cucumber and tomato vines that had wrapped themselves securely around wooden stakes before bearing fruit, and the heads of lettuce that sprouted in even rows beneath them. Under my mother’s careful tutelage, Arden had discovered yet another hidden talent—plant whisperer. Arden always told me I was good at everything, but my mint plants had withered and died despite their supposed hardiness, and my potatoes had never taken. I wasn’t much for omens, but it was hard not to take things personally when every patch of garden except mine grew in abundance.
I looked up at the brilliant night sky. Auroras had blazed for weeks in the aftermath of whatever caused the blackout, but they’d all but faded away now. The universe was unfurled above me like...like nothing. There was nothing to compare it to, no pithy metaphor that could describe that swath of blinking, twinkling, all-encompassing starlight. The Milky Way seared across the sky, unimaginable numbers of stars and planets reflecting their light toward me. Without light pollution dimming their brilliance, the stars dominated the night sky. They seemed to press closer, wrapping around the earth like some delegation of curious observers who were also eager to know the fate of this forsaken planet.
I was so lost in my reverie that I almost didn’t hear the rustling. Something was approaching and it wasn’t a bunny; the quiet deliberation in the movement assured me it was a human.
A bolt of fear straightened my back and made my hands clammy. I had made a dumb move—leaving the house without a weapon. I couldn’t open the door to slip back inside without the intruder seeing light seep through the front door. My family was in there, and Arden and Kojack were much too close. What if Arden decided to come see if I was okay right now? My adrenaline surged at the thought.
Just then, I saw a shadow pass between me and the garden. A very large shadow. As it bent away from me, some primitive part of my brain realized that the shadow had its back to me and this would be a good time to make my move. I hesitated, but inside the house I heard Arden say, “John?” and the sound of her footsteps walking toward the door.
No.
I took off at a run, lunging at the shadow with a yell and catching it around the waist as I tackled him to the ground. Yes, this was definitely a him struggling beneath me. A him that was much taller, lanky even, but well-muscled and strong. I tried to pin him down, but he flipped me onto my stomach, pulled my arm behind my back and threw his weight on top of me.
“Please stop struggling.” A deep voice, rough with strain, breathed into my ear. There was the hint of an accent, but I was too panicked to place it.
“Yeah, that sounds like a great plan. Just lay back and let some crazy vegetable thief have his way with me,” I said as I pushed back against him, trying to throw him off. He was immovable. I waited for him to stab me or punch me or do something to quiet me, but instead he chuckled. His laugh reverberated against my back, and the sensation wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
How fucked up was that? I struggled some more but stopped when my ass pressed into his groin and something pressed back. He moved away quickly, and I exhaled a shaky breath.
“I was All-State for wrestling in high school, man. You’re not going anywhere,” he said, and then sighed. “I’m sorry I tried to steal from your garden. You caught me, so now I’ll just get up and go. No need to battle to the death over a tomato.”
“That depends on whether you ganked an heirloom.” Arden’s voice carried over to me just as fluorescent light flooded the garden. I glanced at the front door and saw her silhouette, armed with the shotgun. “Get off him.”
He released me, and I scrambled from beneath him, turned to glare at him and was completely unprepared for what I saw. I looked up into the face of the garden interloper in the bright light of Arden’s lantern, and my heart stopped. Floppy, dirty blond hair hung down over eyes that were large, cornflower blue and strangely cool for a man who was staring at a woman with a gun. His cheeks were flushed from our grappling, matching the rosy pink of his wide mouth. His nose was large and there was a certain jut to his brow and cheekbones that hinted at some Slavic background.
He was gorgeous. I mean, the sparse growth along his upper lip showed that there was at least one person in the world who had more trouble growing facial hair than I did, but I wouldn’t hold the patchy mustache against him.
Maybe it was the adrenaline rush or the fact that he was no longer a threat—or that I hadn’t been around a man who didn’t share genetic material with me in months—but I suddenly regretted that I wasn’t still beneath him.
“What are you doing here? Are you alone?” Arden asked, scanning the darkness. I pulled myself up into a crouch; there might have been others closing in on us.
The intruder ignored Arden and squinted in my direction as I stood and stepped forward, and then those impossibly blue eyes widened with fear. “Wait, don’t move!” he cried, lunging at my feet.
Why, you idiot? I felt an odd twinge of sadness when he jumped my way. Arden was going to shoot him, and even if he was a thief, he was the most beautiful man I’d ever laid eyes on. It was entirely selfish, but I didn’t want him to die. I also didn’t want Arden to have to shoot anyone else.
My foot came down on something hard, and whatever it was broke under my insole with a loud snap. At the same time, the man’s warm hand landed on my ankle, encircling it as he gazed up at me in despair.
“My glasses!”
Arden came to a running stop behind him; she held the rifle by its muzzle but stopped midswing. I lifted my foot, and he released his hold on me, gathering the remains of his glasses as though it was a fledgling bird that had fallen from its nest.
He’s gentle too. The long-dormant romantic sector of my brain really was stupidly choosing now to kick back into gear.
He rocked back onto his heels and blew out a sigh of relief that ruffled his unruly locks.
Adorable. Dammit.
“They broke evenly in half,” he said with a grin, as if we were all buds. Dumbly, I fought the urge to grin back at him.
“You didn’t answer Arden’s questions,” I reminded him. “What are you doing creeping around here?”
“I was trying not to starve to death. I can’t be the first post-Flare survivor to arrive looking for food. I would have asked, but it’s the middle of the night and—” He raised one half of his broken glasses to his eyes and looked at Arden. He scrambled backward then and came to a stop against the cornstalks “Holy shit, you have a gun? You have a gun. Why do you have a gun?”
“Exactly how blind are you without your glasses?” Arden asked.
M
y question was right on the heels of hers. “What do you mean by ‘post-Flare’?”
We’d interacted with some of our neighbors over the past few months. We’d even bartered for some necessary items; my life was slowly becoming an RPG. But no one had mentioned anything about flares.
“Are you going to shoot me?” he asked, holding half of his broken glasses by the arm to gaze up at us. He looked completely vulnerable, with one eye magnified so it appeared even larger, and I wanted to reassure him he had nothing to fear. But then I remembered the crazy assholes we’d encountered. Some of them had tried to kill us, and they’d come very close to succeeding. My head throbbed at the memory of our arrival at the cabin, although I actually couldn’t remember a thing since I’d been knocked unconscious by scavengers. Hot or not, we couldn’t take any chances. The bumbling European tomato thief act could just be a clever ruse—if he wanted our trust, he’d have to earn it.
“Not yet,” I said, answering for Arden. “Answer our questions and when we’ve determined you’re not a threat, you can go.”
“The flare was a solar event that initiated a large-scale geomagnetic storm,” he said. “That storm hit Earth at maximum power and effectively fried our electrical grids, at least in the northeastern section of the Americas. I’m assuming this was an earth-wide event, given that we haven’t received reinforcements from other countries and I haven’t seen military reinforcements or nongovernmental organizations. It’s a bit more complicated than that, but there you go. Pre-Flare life was normal. Post-Flare, I have to scrounge around in random gardens risking my life for subpar tomatoes.”
“Hey,” Arden said, sounding wounded.
“Can I go now? I’ve answered your question.” He moved to stand, and I shook my head. He stopped, and I realized that for the moment at least, this stranger was in my power. I felt slightly sick—I didn’t want this kind of power. I had occasionally resented my older brother for always wanting to be in charge, but now I was in awe. I couldn’t understand how Gabriel handled this kind of responsibility on a day-to-day basis.
“Why should we believe anything you’ve said?” I asked. Whether I wanted the responsibility or not, I was the one who’d intercepted the floppy-haired thief and I was the one who should make sure he wasn’t a threat. This was what I got for dramatically fleeing from Arden.
“Because I’m an astrophysicist,” he said with that grin of his. “Kind of. An almost-astrophysicist.”
I channeled my inner Gabriel and met his cuteness with a stony look.
“Okay, okay, I haven’t gotten my PhD yet, so I’m technically just an astronomer but—”
“Get up,” I said. “We can’t let you go until we’re certain you’re alone and you’re not dangerous.”
He seemed harmless enough, but we had to be sure. There was no way we could just release him into the night to go tell his theoretical cronies that there was house that had a bangin’ garden and people who looked well-fed and had weapons. I grabbed a coil of rope that had been leftover from sectioning off the garden.
“You can’t be serious,” he said. His grin was gone now; I had killed it.
“Arden, keep the gun on him while I tie him up.”
“John, are you sure?” Her voice was laden with shock—she was supposed to be the badass, after all—but I didn’t know what else to do. My stomach was churning with anxiety and I could feel a headache building, which happened much too often since my head injury. I needed to do something.
“Dammit, no, I’m not, but I can’t let him go if there’s a chance he’ll hurt us!” I exploded.
“Okay,” Arden said. “I understand.”
“What? I don’t understand,” the stranger said, hysteria rising in his voice and thickening his accent. “I won’t say anything, I promise. I swear on my Didus’s grave. Please don’t do this.”
I inhaled deeply, steeling myself against his panic. “Hand over your glasses.” The side of my nose itched, but I didn’t think scratching it would make me look scary or commanding so I ignored it.
The look of fear that crossed over his face at that moment was something that would haunt me forever. It was as if I’d asked him to hand over one of his vital organs. “Are you crazy?” His voice was even higher, reaching falsetto levels. “I can’t see without them. No fucking way.”
“Look, I don’t want to do this either,” I said. “If you give me the glasses, you can’t go anywhere, so I won’t have to tie you up or anything drastic. You’ll get them back.”
“Why should I believe you?” he asked, throwing my own question back at me.
“I don’t know what you’ve seen out there, but in our experience, people show their hands pretty early on in the game,” I said. I realized I was rubbing the spot where I’d been hit by the rock and pulled my hand away from my temple. “If I wanted to hurt you, you’d be hurting right now. Let’s go.”
He reluctantly handed me the two pieces.
“I know this is scary, but as long as you don’t have any plans to hurt us, we won’t hurt you,” Arden added gently as we headed for the front door. The world really was upside down if I was playing bad cop and Arden was playing good. I was about to shoot her a glare for undermining me, but then I remembered that she was the one who had to deal with the memory of being held hostage by strangers.
I nudged the stranger forward through the door into our sanctuary and hoped I was making the right decision.
Copyright © 2015 by Alyssa Cole
About the Author
Alyssa Cole is a science editor, pop culture nerd and romance junkie. In addition to writing, she teaches romance at the Jefferson Market Library in NYC. She splits her time between laidback life on a tropical island and the fast-paced fun of NYC. When she’s not busy writing, traveling and learning French, she can be found watching cat videos on the Internet with her real-life romance hero.
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ISBN-13: 9781426899638
Radio Silence
Copyright © 2015 by Alyssa Cole
Edited by Rhonda Helms
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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