I smiled. The thought made me want to break down in tears, but instead it only wet my eyes. “It’d be an honor,” I told her.
The vibe I felt off of Brass he felt so sure he’s going to win. Suddenly, I’m afraid. I’m going to lose, I thought.
Brawl
The day of the brawl was finally here. Josh begged me from the moment I awoke to back down while I had the chance. Feeling annoyed as he followed me around, I turned to him, and demanded, “No! Damn it Josh, I’m not only doing it for me. I’m doing it for all of us.”
“Lily, let’s just pack, take your car, and drive off to New York. Let’s do it while we have a chance. Please.” He knelt down on his knees, and begged as he placed his hands on my hips. “Please baby. I don’t want to see you fucked up.”
I sighed. “Josh, stand up.” I pulled him up and I’m happy he obliged.
“I’ll do anything, anything to make you back down,” he plead. His eyes on the verge of tears. He cupped my cheeks in his hands, and wiped invisible tears off of them with his thumbs.
“I have to do this,” I told him softly while he blinked away the tears, and I helped him wipe away some from his cheeks.
Deeply he sighed in frustration, and a deep sadness came over him. I touched his hands with mines, and lowered them from my face as I made my way to the arena where Josh first met Brass and I when I first came here. Everyone was already there. The room fogged up and smelled heavily of nicotine. The tweeners and mean girls were smoking, even Brass.
Once I came into view they made way, and let me enter the middle. I’ve been training non-stop for this, and this morning I was punching the hell out of the bag. Brass was already shirtless and flexing his arms giving his muscles a nice reflex and stretch.
Wearing a sport bra, I popped my joints in my fingers. Bloody raw knuckles are what he wants, and it’s what he’ll get. I raised my fists in front of my face, one hand back and one hand in front of it as I bended a little bit of my knees. Nothing personal, but the attitude Brass has pisses the hell out of me lately. He’s a living man with no remorse. And I’m going to give him all I’ve got even when I feel I’m going to lose. At least it’ll be worth my while.
He raised his fists and everyone began to do a loud commotion shouting, “Get her! Get him! Come on!” I heard Salvatore’s voice go, “Fuck up the bitch!” Jeez, the language. I’d like to punch him too.
We rounded each other in our spacious circle, and he made the first move as I swerved my face to the side, and dodged his hit. He must’ve put a lot of force into his fist since he went head-on forward into the crowd. They pushed him back in, and he came at me full on as I moved again out of his way. But he got me this time as he did a round punch at my lower back side and it hurt like hell, it slowed me down.
He didn’t stop though. He round kicked my stomach, and gave me an uppercut from underneath my chin. I tasted blood in my mouth, and I spit it out and wiped it away. I did my stance again. I’m already breathing hard and feeling pain. He came at me again, and went for a straight punch. I bended down on my knees and jabbed him on the stomach with so much force. I swung my good leg, and made him fall to the ground. Going on top of him I began to punch his face while he blocked my attacks. Damn bastard started to laugh. And that only pissed me off more.
He jabbed my back with his knee, kicking me off of him. Rolling over, I stayed down on one knee. He got up on his feet, and I did too. He raised his good leg to kick me from up top, but I blocked his attack by crossing my arms like an X in front and on top of my head. I took my chance by lowering myself and giving him a straight punch right between his private part and thigh. He backed away moaning in pain. He regained composure and I saw his face become so red, I knew I pissed him off.
He came at me fast, and punched me straight making me lose focus. He kept punching both sides of my face one by one, fist by fist. I began to get dizzy and couldn’t feel any part of my face. “Stop! Stop it damn it!” Josh plead trying to get to me. But those who hated me blocked him coming to me.
“Stay out of it Josh,” Brass ordered. I’m not sure if I want him to save me or not at this point. I was as good as dead once I crumbled to the floor, landing on my hands and knees. He spits blood right beside where I was on the floor with my head down.
I shook the dizziness away and the pain that came with it. “Get up,” he ordered as he grabbed me forcefully by my tied up hair, I could feel my hair roots about to tear off!
Wincing in pain, I tried prying his hand off with mine. He forcefully made me face him by lifting my head up, and he had his fist raising ready to finish me off with one last punch. But that didn’t stop me there - even when my body was majorly aching.
I stopped his hand in my fist, and began to pressure it, cracking his bones. When he tried pulling his hand away, I punched his groin hard with my free hand, and he let go of my hair, and I let go of his trapped hand in mine as he attended to his pained groin.
He laid on the floor in extreme pain. I raised my bloodied fist, and with so much force, brought it down to his face, and he knocked out cold.
Bastard deserved it.
Old John, who watched over the game, came to me, helped me up, and raised my arm up in the air, mentioning to everyone I was the winner. The ones who loved me cheered for me and that’s all I needed. It made me painfully smile at them in a sign of thanks. The arm that Old John held up in sign of victory, after he let go it fell lazily back to my side, and my body crashed down to the floor. I don’t know who let Josh through as my vision was becoming a bit blurry. “Baby,” he whispered. “I’m here. You’re okay.”
“Josh,” I let out hoarsely. My feelings suddenly changed as I didn’t want him to look at how I looked right now. My whole face stung and felt swollen.
He sniffled, and I saw the tears fall down his cheeks, his face blotched red. How long has he been crying? I wondered. He picked me up in his arms, held me against him tight, and I placed my head against his warm, beating chest. Last thing I hear and feel before losing consciousness is Josh’s painful crying and heaving chest, and him repeating, “My Lily…”.
Breathing, it was all I could do even when it hurt to breathe. Moving, I barely could move, and talking I was afraid my voice would betray me on how tired I would sound. My eyes, I fluttered open, but even that was painful for both sides of my swollen-felt face. I groaned, and wish I hadn’t.
Josh stirred awake, and rose his head up from my bed. “Crap,” he whispered waking up, and rubbing his face awake with both of his hands.
Seeing me awake, he couldn’t look any less stressed. “Hey baby,” he whispered grabbing my hand gently in his.
“Hey,” my voice replied, but I didn’t recognize it. “Water,” I told him parched.
“Of course.” He retrieved a glass from the floor, and helped me drink the whole thing. “More?” he asked.
I shook my head. “How’s Gwen?”
“She’s good. Everyone’s good.”
“Good.” I closed my eyes to rest them as they felt tired to be open. “Brass?”
He began to mutter incoherent things, but in the end said, “He’s great. Not where I’d like him to be right now, but great.”
I moved my body a little to get comfortable, and ended up wincing, and hissing through my teeth from the pain throughout my body. “Easy,” he said gently and helping me. “Old John said you might have some bone fractures and torn muscles. He’s not sure how badly your body is since we don’t have an x-ray machine.” I hear the worry behind his voice.
“I’ll be fine,” I croaked, coughing the built up bile.
Then, while he sat down, he didn’t look at my face, instead played with my fingers, and suddenly began to cry. “Hey, hey, hey.” My hand reaches up to touch his face and wipe his tears away, but he didn’t let me. “Don’t cry Josh. I’m okay.” But my words failed to comfort him.
I’ve never seen him cry like this before. “Oh Lily,” he let out in a voice I barely could hear. “You do
n’t know what went on through my head while I watched you fighting and watched you in your bed. I didn’t know what was going to happen to you. I was afraid you wouldn’t wake up.”
“I’m awake now, and I’m talking. Don’t worry too much. I don’t like to see you that way. I don’t like to see you sad.”
“You’re a crazy girl. Do you have any idea what you put me through? Have you ever thought about the fact that I’m in love with you?”
In fact, I didn’t think of it that way. I knew his feelings for me were deep from the way he touched me, kissed me, brought me flowers, helped in the kitchen, wants to take it extremely slow with me and our relationship, understanding me...I should’ve known. And yet here I lie, feeling like shit, in my bed where I could die, and he doesn’t know how I feel about him. Now I’m the one who began to cry, and the tears stung my face.
“Shh.” He got up, moved up my bed cover, and laid down beside me as I agonizingly made room for him. He wrapped me in his arms, kissing my face gently, kissing everywhere it hurt. “Shhh,” he whispered again.
I let him hold me, cradle me like a baby in pain as I continued to cry against his chest. No one’s ever held me the same way he does, and it was nothing but love in his heart for me, deep affections I began to understand now after us being together for four months. Can someone even fall in love that fast? My feelings were scaring me. I look up at him with what’s left of my eyes to look at, and he gently, softly wipes my tears away with his thumbs. “I love you,” he whispered reasonably. “I fucking love you,” he admitted again. “You selfish, stupid, yet beautiful, brave girl. My girl. I love you.”
Turmoil
Later, as the weeks progressed, my body had completely healed, but my face still had some bruising, and my lower back side too. We were becoming short on supplies. Some of us needed to get out there and get a lot of things. We coordinated on who should go: Josh, Old John, Brass, Julian, Alex, Rachel, and Laura. I wanted to go because I didn’t want Josh out of my sight and let him get hurt. I worried about him, but he didn’t let me go because he didn’t want to see me get hurt as well, and I’ve already done a fair amount of hurting. He’d prefer me to stay inside where it was safer. So, it was mutual, and it bugged the hell out of me.
Here we were fussing, and he was going to leave tomorrow morning. Yeah, remarkable me. “Look, I’m going, and that’s final!” I ordered.
“Look, you’re not going, and that’s final!” he threw my words at me adding a not in the sentence.
“You really want to do this right now?” I squinted my eyes at him.
“Last time I checked, you’re not fully recovered to do a job, much less a lookout.”
“You can’t make me stay here without you!”
“Oh yes I can,” he said in a calming voice.
“I’ll follow,” I said pushing his buttons.
“Brian has a deep inclination in his mind that when somebody orders him to do something without failing the person, he does his mighty best, and succeeds.”
“Oh so we’re going that far, huh?!” He was seriously pushing my buttons.
He gave me a big grin on his face. “Baby, my word, you’re staying. Gwen, Naomi and Anna are even on my side with this one.”
I scowled in fury and disappointment. “Fine. Have it your way then.” I made my way down to the training room to let off steam by just working out, and over exerting myself. It’s becoming a habit…
He knocked against the door, and barged in without waiting for my words to not let him come in. I turned around to face him, not yet had set up the music, but have already placed my mat. “What?!” I barked.
“You don’t want to tell me goodbye for tomorrow morning?”
“Goodbye!” I snapped at him without looking at him and continuing what I was doing.
“I’ll stay here with you,” he said after a moment.
“No. You should go with them. I just wish to go with you to look over you,” I replied my back still to him.
Oh what in hell was I doing to us?! Here he is going to leave, risk his life to get supplies to keep us going, and I’m here just fussing like a whiny child about going. I stopped what I was doing feeling utterly disappointed in myself. Since he was leaving I should be loving him. Not fighting with him. And some people here needed me. I shouldn’t think about myself...Why is it that now I think everyone is my responsibility? I don’t want to know how I’ll feel if I ever failed them.
I sighed deeply at the growing knot forming deep in my belly. Could I do it? At this point I fully trusted him. But don’t trust myself. Does it even work that way? We’ve only been together for four months so far. How long does it take a person to...move on to step three? “Fuck it,” I whispered to myself. It was really the end of the world, no time for second thinking.
“Lily, I’ll stay if it keeps you here. Seriously...”
Walking towards him quickly feeling nervous and never leaving my eyes off him, I jumped on him making him fall to the ground as I mashed my lips against his. Kissing him so hot and heavy, I’m showing that I want him. Bad.
I took off my sneakers, and unzipped his jacket, opening it wide. I marveled the structure of his toned body, and raised up his shirt, baring his hairless chest, to under his chin, and began kissing him gently everywhere. His breathing had hitched as he savored every moment. Reaching down just to the top of his jeans, my eyes looked at him to see what his reaction would be. He was stupefied as well as wondered curiously what’s going on. I unbuttoned his jeans, and he grabbed my hands from going to his zipper. “Wait, Lily, are you sure?” he asked worried and unsure because of me.
I took a moment, unable to think - I don’t want to think anymore - and nodded my head at him. He pulled on my arms, and I went back on top of him. He placed my hands against his chest, under his throat, and just looked at me. “Really sure?” he asked again for confirmation as he placed his free hand against my cheek. I laid the whole side of my face against it, leaning into his hand. I nodded again with a deep lust growing in me.
I crossed my arms, and grabbed at my shirt tail, and slowly pulled it up, and threw it on the ground beside us. I was left in my bra and sweats. My saliva gulped down on its own will. And I feel I could never be more afraid than anything in my life.
He switched us and he was now on top of me, skimming my side. His eyes not leaving my face, he said, all serious, “I promise to go slow, okay.” Even the fear was evident in his eyes. I don’t think he’s ever handled a virgin before?
“I trust you. And I want you to know that I love you Josh. No matter what happens after tonight...after this.”
He smiled wide like a kid. “Wait. First, I want to give you something.”
He dug in his pocket and took out a small silver box beautifully wrapped with a bow on top. Suddenly, my heart began to feel as if running a marathon. He undid the well-made bow, and showed me a beautiful, sparkling diamond ring that wasn’t too big for the eye, and wasn’t too small. In fact, it was the perfect size. My eyes began to form tears, and I could feel my heart about to explode from happiness. “Uhm, the jewelry store next door had a lot of free, uh, jewelry just going to waste, so, I saw this, and just, uh picked it up. I mean, I’m not even sure if you’ll like it. We can always go trade it in for a different one since zombies could care less about the law and order…”
….Was this Josh’s way of proposing? I smiled for his continuing rant as I gushed red, and said, “Yes.”
He stopped and looked at me in shock. “Yes?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Then he smiled, and I felt the tension in him lessen. He kissed me hard, and put the ring on my finger. It fit snuggly and perfect. He bent down and kissed me again, this time with a deep hunger and desire. He took off his jacket swiftly, and took off his shirt after. Skimming my body with his hands, our breathing began to get hot and heavy while I kept my arms wrapped around his neck to keep him close.
Deep down under I began to feel an unknown feeling
that’s been denied so many times because of my self-control. Feeling beautiful lust and love for this man, I succumbed to him letting him have me, letting him be the first and last man on earth to ever have me, want me, need me, and love me.
Forever you are with me.
I’m looking forward to the many days and nights to come with you.
Love Josh.
That’s what the little note read after picking it up from beside my head when I woke up. I didn’t find Josh beside me when his place felt empty, and a gnawing emotion ate at me, tugging my heart at his leave. I pray he has a safe trip, and comes back to me in one piece.
I began to laugh at myself while getting dressed. Last night sure was scary, but wow, it was...amazing. Exhilarating. Letting myself go, surrendering myself to him seemed to be the best thing I’ve ever done in my life - and yes it was a bit painful when taking in his size. I just regret I didn’t do it sooner. And the ring...I marveled looking at the ring on my finger where it fit. It was promising for good things to come. I was sure. Maybe I shouldn’t regret about doing it sooner. Maybe last night was the perfect time? I just hope he left full and happy and will come home to me as I wait for him. Cleaning up the training room, I went upstairs to take a nice long shower. For once in a long time I felt really happy.
“What’s taking them so long?!” Salvatore complained. “I’m so bored and hungry!”
It had been only three and a half days since they’d left, and someone was already complaining about their stomach. “Eat some Pop Tarts!” Naomi told him with an attitude.
Everyone was hanging around in the huge living room that was by the front entrance - one and only exit. Knowing this is a club, you’d think they’d have more than one, but nope.
Well, almost everyone was hanging around the living area.
Brian and Martin were in their ‘data’ lab. Christopher and Gwen were cuddling alone in a room together, perhaps crooning to their baby bump that’s beginning to show. Me, I was in the girls’ room cleaning my handy gun and shotgun – I haven’t used them for a while. The rest were Julie, Naomi, Rave, Darcy, Marcy, Anna, Johnny, Ricky, and of course, Salvatore, who were all hanging around in the living room.
The World At End (Book 1) (Left Alive for the Dead Series) Page 10