Ryan, or I guess I should say Ian, turned his attention to Azami. He had a plethora of emotions playing across his face. “You’re hungry, huh? Why don’t we get you something to eat?” He glanced at me, silently asking permission.
I nod and agree, my tongue still tied in knots. I can’t let on that we know one another in any way. I don’t hate him, but I don’t trust him, either. I had to play this so that James would never know, or make his brother look anything but the person he always looked up to and adored. I couldn’t, no, I wouldn’t take that from James. Not him.
Ryan and their Uncle walked us to the kitchen, which was through another tunnel in the large cavern. Azami was hopping along next to James, holding his hand with a large smile on her face. Ryan watched every move she made in total fascination.
“After you all finish eating, we’ll give you a tour. I’m going to go out and explain everything to the others.” Their Uncle said, looking at Ryan while he spoke his last sentence.
Ryan nodded and their Uncle left the kitchen area.
“So, how did you end up here? And where did you find Uncle Dane?” James asked.
Ryan considered his words before he spoke. “When I couldn’t find you, I’d hoped that you’d remember the games we played when we were younger and you would come here. It was a long shot, but one I’m glad to see finally paid off.” He paused and stole a glance in Azami’s direction, his gaze lingering. “We have everything we need here. We have this kitchen, a garden area, even sleeping corridors. It’s no five star resort, but we’re comfortable. We have a pool area with a hot tub, bathing tub, and a bathroom. It’s a pretty sweet set up. We’ll show it to you after you’re done eating. As for Uncle Dane and Aunt Rosie, I ran into them at the house when I went back to look for you and mom.” Ryan glanced at James with dozens of questions written across his face. “I found mom.”
“You did?” James swallowed hard, tears forming in his eyes.
“I did.”
“I waited…” James choked on his words. I rubbed his back. Ryan looked like he wanted to comfort James, but with me next him, he kept his distance. “I waited at the house for you, but you never came.”
“I’m sorry. I left college and tried to get home to you and Mom as fast as I could, but everywhere I turned, things kept holding me back. After finding Mom in the car and you gone, I went home to find you, but you weren’t there either. By the way the house looked, I didn’t know if you had become Infected or not, but I looked for you. I looked anywhere that I thought you may have gone, but you were nowhere. I took Uncle Dane and Aunt Rosie to meet back up with Mason and Michael. I gave them directions here, deciding to go my own way, to search for you. For a long time I wandered around looking for you, finding myself with terrible people, trying to survive. After about a year of searching for you, I met the worst kind of group. People who took whatever and whoever they wanted. They didn’t care if they killed people, even tortured them. One day, while I was with this group, I did something I never thought myself capable of doing. I knew then that I had to get away.” Ryan looked directly at me. “There is nothing I can do now to erase what I’ve done. I have to live with my decision every day. It was then that I decided to come here. I was hoping you’d remember how to get here. ” Ryan stopped talking as another young man, one of the blonds, brought us some food.
“Hey, everyone. It’s nice to meet you. Ian has told us all so much about you, James. It’s good to know you made it, kid.” Mason paused to look over at me. “It’s nice to meet you too, Lillie, Azami.” His smile grew as his eyes connected with mine.
“Thank you. It’s nice to meet you, too.”
Ryan cleared his throat, annoyance clearly sketched on his face. “Where’s your brother?”
“Michael will be here in a just a few.” I thought that they looked too much alike to not be related. Soon after, Michael entered the kitchen and stood behind his brother.
“Hey, everyone,” Michael said.
“Hey,” we all say in unison.
“So how are you enjoying your food?” he asks.
“Haven’t tried it yet,” I told him. I scooted James’s food in front of him and began cutting Azami’s into small bites.
“Thanks,” James mumbled, beginning to stuff his face.
Our plates were full, and there were no canned beans or vegetables in sight. There was actually some sort of steak, potatoes, and carrots, and they were all fresh. I started by cutting up all my steak, pushing some of my food onto Azami’s plate. She stared at the food, unsure of what to do. She’s never eaten anything that wasn’t taken out of a can first.
“Go ahead, baby. It’s good, see?” I take a bite and my taste buds explode, coming back to life as the food melts in my mouth.
She smiles and reaches for a cooked carrot. She pops it into her mouth and makes a face. After a moment though, she finally smiles, deciding she likes carrots and devours another one.
Ryan chuckles at her expressions. I send him a sharp look, one to tell him not to get comfortable with her. The smile on his face disappears before he asks, “You guys been eating alright?”
James finishes chewing before me and answers, “We mostly eat canned food. It’s not the greatest tasting things you can eat, but it’s all we’ve had.”
“It’s all we can find out there now.” I add, feeling like I had to defend what we had to do and what we had to eat.
Ryan nods, understanding my hostility over the question. He continues to sit at the table with us, staring at Azami. As soon as we take our last bite, he jumps up, “Are you ready for the tour?” I can see that he’s a nervous wreck, being in such close proximity to us.
“Yes.” James says with excitement. I stood and gathered up our plates.
“Oh, just leave those. I’ll have someone else pick them up.” Ryan informs me, catching my glance.
“Alright,” I said, placing the dishes back onto the table, not liking that someone else was picking up after us. “Come on, baby. You wanna go see this big place?”
“Yaaaaaay!” She squeals. “Dames! Dames! Wait feeer me.” She ran to him and had a hold of his hand in five seconds flat.
James smiled down at her as they moved to the head of the group. Ryan chuckled next to me until he realized that we were being left behind. He seemed no more eager than I to be stuck together, alone, so we hurried off to catch up with the group without a word to one another.
Chapter 6
I speed walk a little too fast to catch up to James and Azami that I stumble over the rocky terrain. Ryan reached out and steadied me before he realized what he was doing. With panic clear on his face, he jerked his hand back. I moved away just as fast, keeping my eyes on my feet this time, and finish making my way to James and Azami.
“We’ll start from here.” Ryan began the tour, voice uneven.
I keep seeing him glance at me when he thinks I’m not paying attention. Is he afraid that I will out him to everyone? Maybe I should make it clear to him that that is not my intention, and I refuse to share that information, knowing how it will hurt James.
I remember after what happened, I found myself imaging that he would come back to look for me, to make sure that I was ok. Even after I found myself pregnant, I still thought of him as attractive, and if I’m being honest with myself, I still do. My lip curls, disgusted with myself for being attracted to my abuser. Ryan’s deep voice drags my attention back to the tour and away from his body.
“This is the main cavern. It gets the most light so we use it to plant the gardens. We have four large gardens. We grow things like potatoes, carrots, peppers, cucumbers, corn. Anything we can get our hands on. We all do our part to keep things going. Some people plant, others water and seed, and some make bread. We switch it around so you don’t get bored.” Ryan glanced toward a tunnel and spoke to someone walking in our direction. “Uncle Dane, it’s about time. We started without you.”
How did he know he was coming? I shrugged it off as I watched their Uncl
e approach us from the tunnel.
“Where do you want to show them next?” Ryan asks.
“Probably the bathroom, in case they need to use it.” He smiled, his face expressing no worries.
“Alright,” Ryan turned and started down another tunnel, “This tunnel leads outside to the pool, hot tub, and bathroom. About halfway down this tunnel, there’s another one off to the left that goes to another cavern, but we don’t usually use it ‘cause there’s little natural light. We keep wood, canned food and anything else we use sparingly down there.”
All you could see was a round black hole, causing me to shiver. “I’m actually going to show you the pool and hot tub area first. The outside tunnel for these are right before the bathroom on the right. The bathroom is the tunnel immediately after, but on the left.” Learning the layout of the tunnels was going to take some getting used to. “And here it is,” he said as the rock walls open up to a beautiful forest.
Three different streams of water ran off the side of the leafy mountain wall. The pool area was huge, looking more like a pond. The hot tub sat off to the right, steam billowing up into the sky like mist. My entire being ached to climb in right now. I haven’t had a bath in so long, and Azami has never had one before. She was going to love this. How funny it seemed they would have these luxuries in such a horrible world. It just shows that people make the best out of what they have.
“Each one of these streams are hotter than the other. One goes into the swimming area. Most of this was already here, but we dug some of the swimming hole and the hot tub. The temperature is like warm bath water.” He pointed to the smaller pool, “This one goes into the hot tub. It’s pretty warm, like, well… like a hot tub. That one over there leads into the bathroom through the cave wall. Let’s head back in and I’ll show how to get around in the restroom.”
“Mamma, I want to pway in the wader.” Azami clapped her hands while heading toward the edge at record speed. There was no way I would catch her in time.
“No!” I yelled, trying to get her to stop.
Before I could move, Ryan stepped in and wrapped his arm around her waist, swinging her around while making a vrooming noise. Azami giggled while flying through the air.
I stormed across the mossy grass and snagged Azami from Ryan, pulling her away as if he’d lit her on fire. “What do you think you’re doing?” I asked her sternly. I have never been so scared in my life. She’s never swam before so she would have drowned. She doesn’t know any better so what if it happens and no one is around to save her? I couldn’t help but question part of my fear. Was it all to do with her falling in? I forced my thoughts to cooperate and reject the idea that I just wanted her out of his hands. She was mine.
Ryan looked at me sharply, as if he were about to correct my parenting, and then realized who he was talking to. He had no right to tell me anything. Everyone else in the group was oblivious to the silent exchange. He took out a small handheld solar Flashlight and walked over to the hole. “Alright, let’s finish this up, then we’ll talk about sleeping arrangements.” We all walked in silence while Azami, sniffled holding my hand. Ryan cast sidelong glances at her the entire way to the bathroom and my heart ached. He actually looked like he cared that she was upset.
We enter another open area through the tunnel off to the left. “Why don’t you three come with me to take a look? It’s a smaller room and there’s no reason we all need to go in. We don’t normally use lights; it gets easier when you learn the layout, but you are welcome to them if you need them.”
We walked into the hole and it immediately opened up into a small cavern, a stream running under the wall and along the floor. Ryan moved to the stream and then turned to us.
“This is the toilet. For guys, we go in the stream. The water is constantly moving, so everything gets washed out. For girls,” He paused and glanced over at me. The small cave was dark, but it looked like his cheeks flushed while he spoke, “You can sit on this.” He pointed to a rock with a hole dug through its thin layers.
“That shouldn’t be hard.” James said.
“Nope. Not hard at all.” Ryan rubbed the top of his brother’s head.
As we exited the lavatory, I noticed there were a few more people in the tour group now. There was an older women standing next to their Uncle, his arm lightly draped over her shoulder. She stood about five foot four and had brown hair with grey streaks. She was slender, as was every person in the cave, and she was smiling at us when we came out.
Taking a step back from everyone, I looked to see who else joined our group. Standing next to the two brothers, Mason and Michael, was the black haired man I’d seen with them earlier. Next to him stood two girls who looked about the same age as me. One had dark brown hair, and the other was blond. The blonde was hanging onto Michael’s arm.
“There you are.” The brown haired girl said, starting toward Ryan while glaring daggers at me. I knew that look. I’d seen it plenty of times growing up in foster care. It was the look of jealousy and hatred. She walked past us, shoving her way to Ryan. Once she was there, she put her arms around his waist, but Ryan didn’t move, or return the gesture.
“Just giving the tour,” He told her flatly, looking at me then down to Azami. Several emotions played across his face, ones I was sure I was reading too much into.
“You must be James.” She said like he was a five year old and not a teenage boy.
“Yep. Hi.” James responded, still trying to be polite.
I tried to suppress the giggle that was threatening to come out, but it didn’t work and the small noise drew everyone’s attention to me. Azami giggled once she saw the look on my face.
“And you are?” The girl asked me rather rudely.
Ryan watched me with an apologetic expression. I didn’t want his apologies, nor his sympathy. I’ve been in worse scenarios than this. He was the main cause of one of them.
“My name is Lillian, but people call me Lillie. This is Azami.” She glanced down at Azami, glaring at her too, causing the hairs on my arms to stand. She had less than a second to stop eyeballing my daughter like that, or I was going to go all Mamma Bear on her ass.
“Well then, Lillian,” she continued snottily, snapping her eyes back to me. “I’m Becky.” I couldn’t understand why this girl, whom I have never met before, was being so rude to me.
“Shall we?” Ryan coughed, wiggling out of Becky’s hold and continued the tour.
I watched their body language as Becky tried to keep pace with Ryan, but he was doing his best to avoid her by walking fast, putting James and others between them. I didn’t understand the reason for it, but what did I know? I have no idea how a healthy relationship works, if this is what you would call healthy.
“Well, that’s about it. You’ve seen the kitchen already, where there’s fresh bread all the time so help yourselves if you get hungry. We covered the bathroom and the outside pool areas,” He paused to think as he was running his hand through his hair, spiking it into a wild, crazy bedhead look, “Sleeping.” He said, and then looked around the room, resting his eyes on his Uncle. “What are we going to do about sleeping?
“We don’t have any more rooms left, so we’ll have to dig one or two out,” his Uncle announces.
“We have a mattress.” James volunteered. “We can just camp out wherever.” He said and smiled at me.
I nodded to agree with him. “We don’t want to impose on anyone.”
“Nonsense,” Ryan began without looking at me. “I haven’t seen my brother for years. You can sleep in my room.” He finished, putting his brother in a chokehold.
My heart fell to my stomach. It was like being in foster care again, everyone around you being wanted, everyone but you. I tried to hide my dejection and it worked for the most part until James took one look at my face. James, Azami and I were now a family too. I didn’t like the idea of him being away from us.
“What about Lillie? She has to stay with me too.” James said, slipping out of his
brother’s hold and walking to my side, picking up Azami’s hand.
Ryan’s face crumpled a little, hurt. “She can stay with us too, if that’s alright with her.” My attention jerked back to him, my eyes wild with panic. Everyone in the cavern stared at me, waiting for my answer. No one understood how loaded that question was, or how hard this whole situation had become for me. No one could but Ryan, whose face carried a look of embarrassment and shame. Wearing their feelings on their faces is something that I found Ryan and James both did without even knowing it.
“Sure.” I choke out. “If that’s what you want, James,” I knew Azami would want to sleep with James and I could never let on that there was history between James’s brother and I.
James opened his mouth to respond, but it wasn’t his voice that came out.
“There is no way in hell she’s sleeping in your room!” Becky screeched at Ryan.
“It’s really none of your business, Becky,” he responded.
“I don’t care. You’re not having that tramp in your room!”
“Tramp? Who the hell are you calling a tramp?” I said, passing Azami to James and dropping my backpack to the floor. If I learned anything being in foster care, it was how to fight and defend myself, even if I wasn’t able to against Ryan and his group. I was done having people judge and insult me, and I wasn’t going to let her do it in front of my daughter.
“Chick fight. I got dibs on the hot new one.” Mason said quietly, eliciting a glare from Ryan. The brothers came forward slightly, anticipating a fight. I didn’t know if they wanted a closer view, or if they were preparing to pull us apart.
“Wait a second, Lillie.” Ryan said, stepping between Becky and I. “There’s no reason this needs to get out of hand.”
“Bring it on, Lillie!” Becky spat out over Ryan’s shoulder.
I took another step forward as Ryan turned to face me, he was close, but careful not to touch me. “Please,” He asked, his voice soft.
Flash Series (Book 1): Infected Page 6