Mercedes found me outside. “How are things?” she intoned.
“I’ve only been sick once this evening, but since I’m about to eat a ton of food, it probably won’t be the last time,” I laughed.
“Well, at least you’re in good spirits about it,” she said.
“Where’s Roman?”
“Inside getting something to eat. I was heading there, too, when I found you.”
I took a glance inside, but I couldn’t see anything but a thick wall of bodies. “You should stay with him tonight.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why is that? Your cabin isn’t ready.”
“You don’t have to babysit me. I’m a big girl now.”
“You sure are,” she teased with a grin. “And maybe I will. We’ll see how the evening plays out.”
“Oh, I bet I know exactly how it’ll play out. I can’t unsee what I’ve seen, Cedes.”
She grinned. “It was hot, though!”
“Ewww. No, it wasn’t.”
Saul squeezed out the door and walked toward us. “Mercedes,” he greeted.
“Saul. Are you behaving now?”
“I am,” he smiled.
“Good,” she said simply, bouncing on her feet. “Then I trust you’ll see Porschia home? I think I’m sleeping elsewhere tonight.”
Saul groaned. “Do try to keep it down. We can still hear you from the house when you get really loud.”
Mercedes just laughed. “I’ll try to remember that when he’s-”
“And that’s enough of that,” I interrupted. My face was on fire. I was probably glowing hot even in the dark.
Mercedes throaty chuckle filled the air as she went to find Roman.
“It’s weird, right? It’s not just me?” Saul asked. “Those two seem like they fit, but then again, they don’t.”
“They’re different, but in a lot of ways they’re alike. I guess all that matters is that they seem to enjoy one another for the time being. I can’t tell if it’s just a fling or something that might turn into more.”
“Time will tell.” He began eating and paused when he saw I wasn’t. “You scared to get sick?”
“Yes and no.”
“You’ve had the worst luck. You were sick when you turned, and now you’re sick again. I think you’ve had more than your share of sickness for your lifetime.”
I giggled, holding my fork to my mouth. “Well I agree, but someone up there doesn’t.” I pointed the prongs into the air, heavenward.
We ate in silence, quietly exchanging the occasional glance. It was awkward on a comfortable level, if that was possible. We’d grown familiar with this feeling. Friends, but so much closer than friends. Saul’s jealousy over Tage and his anger at finding out I might be pregnant with Tage’s baby didn’t surprise me at all. The fact that I wasn’t angry with his reaction did. Once upon a time, I would have been mad as hell. Now, I was just tired.
When our forks slowed and our bellies were full, he took my plate and glass back into the crowd. I brushed my arms. It didn’t matter that it was warmer than it had been in months. Summer was shoving Spring out of its way, but I was still cold-natured.
“Hey, are you ready to head back?” Saul asked, helping me up and absently rubbing my upper arms to warm me.
“Yeah,” I said, stepping to the side.
“Sorry,” he apologized.
I gave him a smile. “Nothing to apologize for.”
We walked back to my house in the Colony. It would soon be his, or maybe Mercedes’ when I left. I guessed they would fight over it unless Cedes moved in with Roman. Either way, it didn’t matter. I was close to not having to worry about it. I could almost smell the fresh planks of wood that would make the exterior of my house. Pine. It was strong and the wood was so yellow, it nearly glowed.
“What are you thinking about?” Saul asked as he opened the front door for me.
“My new house.”
“Are you excited about its progress?”
“Very,” I admitted. “I can almost breathe.”
He paused, holding a hand against the door as I walked in, but he didn’t follow me inside. When I turned with a questioning look, he peered up at me. “If Mercedes doesn’t move in with you, I want you to consider letting me,” he finally said.
My brows must have touched my hair. “Um...”
“Just hear me out, Porschia. You’ll need help. I mean, if you’re—” he motioned to my stomach, “well, then you’ll need a lot of help. I can haul water and do anything you need me to. I’m strong and I—”
“I know, Saul. I’ll think about it.”
He exhaled loudly. “Okay.”
“I’m exhausted,” I told him, a yawn following closely behind my words. “Do you mind if I turn in?”
“No, I plan to do the same,” he said. I looked at his pillow and blankets folded on the end of the couch in neat rectangles of red fabric, the color reminding me of blood. Appropriate, I supposed, but any reminder was difficult to suffer through at this point. Pretending it was all a dream was simpler.
It was simpler until I remembered the smell of the palms, the feel of the hot sand on the soles of my feet and in between my toes. Until I remembered him…and remembered that it was impossible to forget him.
Roman, Ford, Carson, and I were loading things into the wagon—Porschia’s things. It was moving day. We’d worked to finish her house, which was really just a makeshift cabin. We weren’t home builders like the ones in the time before the Infection, but it was nice and Porschia was happy. Over the past several weeks her sickness gradually went away, and I’ve been holding my breath and praying that her stomach doesn’t bulge in the slightest. So far it hasn’t.
If she is carrying Tage’s child, it won’t change things for me. She won’t be changed. She’s still Porschia. But being that she was still a night-walker and Infected when they... Well, I don’t think she could be carrying a child. She wasn’t well enough to. No night-walker had ever conceived, and no Infected either, according to Roman. His authority and knowledge was all we had to go on since he had lived the longest and experienced more from both of those worlds than the rest of us.
Recently, Porschia had asked him the strangest thing. At The Manor, she said the women immediately started aging upon being turned back into humans. Then she asked why he wasn’t aging now.
He shook his head and said he didn’t know, but wondered if it had to do with his body being changed from the healing of both curses and not just from an individual. No one knew. No one might ever know.
“That’s the last of it,” Ford said, hefting a box of kitchen things: plates, bowls, silverware, cups. “Don’t break it.”
I shoved it farther into the cart and locked the short gate on the back. Hopefully, it wouldn’t fall out going up the hill. Ford and Roman climbed into the cart. “We can steady it,” Roman said, eyeballing the load. Ford didn’t seem as confident, but of course, on his best day he wasn’t nearly as cocky as Roman.
I climbed onto the wooden seat as Carson took the reins from the tree branch, handing them to me. “Is she okay?” he asked, holding the small of his back. His hair was much whiter than it had been even last month. His wrinkles were deeper, but he’d also smiled more in the past weeks than I’d ever seen him.
“She’s doing great. Excited to be out in the woods by herself.”
Carson groaned. “I asked her not to do it.”
That made me smile. Porschia was twice as stubborn as any woman I’d ever met. There was no asking her not to do something. Maybe when she was a kid, but not now and not again. “I’m looking out for her,” I said.
“Not too much,” he warned sternly, as only her father could.
“Yes, sir.” I chuckled, steering the horse toward the river. Two more trips across the bridge and she could rest for the night.
After the guys unloaded, Mercedes and I asked them to go find some dinner for everyone. I had very little—okay, nothing—at my new house. I’d planted a fall
garden, but didn’t know how well it would produce its first year. Until then, I was dependent upon the kindness of others. Father was very kind, and everyone was willing to pitch in. Saul had begun leading hunts in the forest again, but this time it was only humans and crossbows, muscles and determination. Ford was eager to join him, and I’m not sure he left Saul’s side during the overnight hours. When the hunts were over, Saul would come to my house, quietly remove his boots, and crash on the couch. Tonight, I wasn’t sure if he would do the same or not. The couch was now at my new house; ‘The Cabin’, as we affectionately called it.
Ford came back on foot with a basket full of vegetables and fruits. “Roman’s getting bread from one of the new ladies from Mountainside. She’s amazing!” he said, out of breath from the uphill climb.
“Where is Saul?”
“Saul’s with him,” he answered.
I don’t know why, but I was worried he would walk away and never come back. Especially with what was happening with me. I could feel a hardening of my lower abdomen, just a small lump, but it was there. My period was missing and I knew that one plus one equaled two. I would be having a baby this winter. Swallowing down that truth, I took the basket from Ford. “Thank you for this. There’s enough to eat on for a few days.” It truly was. All of us could eat for a few days on what he’d managed to round up in an hour.
Ford shrugged. “When a lot of people pitch in a little, it helps us and doesn’t hurt them. I think people are starting to understand that now, where they used to hoard every scrap.”
Hoarding every scrap was necessary back then, and it might become necessary again. Everyone ate well in the summer. It was early in the season and while some of the items would need to sit in the windowsill and ripen more, time would change them into something amazing.
“Father’s pissed,” he said nonchalantly.
“About what?” I asked.
Mercedes snorted. “Probably going to have a heart attack when he sees-”
“Shut up, Mercedes!” I yelled.
“What?” she said sweetly. “I was going to say Saul sleeping on your couch when he comes to visit.”
“Saul’s staying here?” Ford asked with a grin.
“Thanks a lot, Mercedes. And he hasn’t said he is or he isn’t, so you could be totally wrong.” So there. I told them.
“What are you wrong about?” Saul asked from the front door, which my brother left wide open. Roman smiled from behind his shoulder.
“That you’re gonna shack up with my sister,” Ford offered. I wanted to melt into a puddle and sink between the floor boards. Seriously? My siblings were the worst.
Saul just laughed. “If she’ll let me stay, I’d love to.”
His eyes searched mine. “We’ll talk about it later,” I grumbled. “But right now I’m starving. Come help me, Mercedes.”
Roman entered the kitchen with us. “I’m great with knives,” he said with a wink. “Among other things,” he said into Mercedes’ ear, all gravely. I was seriously going to kick them out. After dinner.
Because, hunger.
Mercedes and I battled Roman for space in the small kitchen. We built a small fireplace and it worked well, cooking the vegetables into a delicious stew. Roman was even able to sweet-talk an old lady from The Glen into giving us some canned chicken. My mouth had watered since smelling it boil.
When it was finished, Ford and I raced to see who could finish our bowls first. He won. Barely. “Are we going hunting tonight?” Ford asked Saul.
“I’m going to check the snares, but I think I need a night off,” Saul answered tiredly.
Ford nodded. “Can I tag along?”
Smiling, Saul answered, “Sure.”
Roman and Mercedes finished their soup and then Mercedes cleaned the dishes in a basin of water on the porch. “I can get those,” I told her. She ignored me, except for the dramatic rolling of her eyes. I felt useless. I hadn’t hunted since I got back, not able to will myself into the woods at night, and now I was too nauseated to do much of anything. Loud, heaving vomiting wouldn’t attract animals, it would scare them a mile away in the opposite direction.
Mercedes and Roman took off when the dishes were cleaned and stacked neatly on the wooden countertop Brian made. “See you tomorrow,” she said with a hug around my neck.
“I’ll be here.”
“You can still come into Blackwater, you know.”
I did know that. It wasn’t that I had anything against the Colony or the people in it, I just needed distance right now. Maybe I always would.
Ford hugged me after Mercedes. “I’m going to run home for a bit. I’ll meet you at the crossing, Saul. Midnight?”
“Sounds good,” he answered. He must be planning to leave, too. Saul stood and stretched his arms to the ceiling. He and my brother were wearing their standard slacks and white button-ups. It wasn’t that they needed a dress code anymore, but that they wore what was available.
“Ford, could you help me get some things from Maggie’s tomorrow?”
He scuffed the toe of his shoe. “Are you sure we’re allowed to do that?”
“I just want some fabric, needles, and thread. We’ll be fine. I think you need some new pants,” I said, nodding toward the hem along the bottom of his. It was rising more each day because he was growing tall fast.
“I could sure use some,” he answered. “And you know I’ll help you with anything, Porsch. Well, I’m heading home. Be safe tonight,” he said, stepping off the porch and walking fast down the hill. That left only me and Saul.
I turned to see him right behind me and nearly jumped out of my skin. “You scared me!”
“Sorry,” he smiled, meaning he wasn’t sorry at all.
I turned back to see my brother disappear into the dusk. “He’s learning a lot,” Saul offered.
“In the forest?”
“In general. He helped us finish your cabin, too. Brian took him into the city to look for cabinets and he helped install them. He’s doing great in the woods, learning snares, and he’s damn good with a crossbow.”
“Maybe Father should have given in and let him hunt after all,” I said, but then I remembered the smell of rot, the shrieks from the Infected, the speed of being a night-walker, and the hunger of being both. It was too dangerous for him.
“He did the right thing. The Colony needed Mercedes and you, but Ford was young. He had time to wait.”
“Or time for the pair of us to fall before they needed fresh meat to offer up.”
“It wasn’t a sacrifice, Porschia.”
“Wasn’t it?” I turned to face him.
His jaw ticked. “It wasn’t meant to be, I don’t think, but you’re right. We were offered up; put in danger. And it could have ended a lot differently than it did, so we ought to be thankful we came out on this side of the daisies.”
Daisies made me think of Meg’s grave, of Maggie’s, of the neighbors my mother slaughtered, of my Mother’s grave – the one Father insisted on having erected for her. Love made no sense. Father still loved her on some level, and I missed her as well. Not the hateful woman who hurled daily reminders that I was the bane of her existence, but the pensive one who every so often sat on the porch and just watched the sky. I missed the moments that resembled normal. There weren’t many that I could recall, but the ones I could, I clung to.
And Saul was right. It could have ended a number of other tragic ways, with any of us or all of us dying, but it didn’t. And when the others went home that night and he and I stood on the porch alone, I was glad he didn’t go back to town.
“Sometimes, I think it never happened; like it was just a nightmare.” I’d never said those words aloud before now.
“It was a living nightmare, but it did happen.” He folded me in a hug and asked, “Can I stay here tonight? On the couch?”
I nodded against his shoulder.
“Thanks,” he said softly.
I wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t want to be
alone or because he didn’t want me to be alone in the woods, but either way, I was glad for his company and friendship. Now that we’d gotten that back, I didn’t want him to go anywhere. Too many people I loved disappeared.
Porschia was fine when I left her later that night to meet Ford. She was asleep in her bed with three blankets over her, despite the lingering heat of the day. I slipped out and didn’t think I’d woken her. Ford was already at the crossing. We made our way quickly through the snares and came back with a raccoon, a hare, and a mink. It wasn’t a deer, but it would do. My muscles were sore from working hard to finish Porschia’s cabin, so a night off from spending hours in the woods was worth not bringing down something bigger, not that we did every night anyway.
I walked Ford back to the crossing, saying goodbye with a huge yawn. He laughed, then told me I was getting old and should go get some sleep. He was wrong about me being old, but I did need sleep.
I just didn’t know I wouldn’t be getting much when I got back to Porschia’s. I pushed the door open, the hinges letting out a small squeak. But the door didn’t wake her. Porschia was already up, sitting on the couch I used for a bed, curled up with her knees propped up and her arms wrapped tightly around them.
“What’s wrong?” I said, rushing to her. A single candle provided what scant light we had. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she blubbered, and then burst into tears, angrily wiping her face and nose.
“What’s wrong?” I sat down beside her and began to rub her back.
“You left and didn’t say goodbye.”
“You were sleeping, Porsch.”
“I don’t care. Everyone leaves. Everyone leaves and sometimes they don’t come back, and you left and I didn’t get to say goodbye!” she cried.
I pulled her over against my chest, brushing strands of her hair back from her face. “I promise to always tell you goodbye if I have to go. I promise.”
Fraud (The Frenzy Series Book 5) Page 10