Apokalypsis Book One

by Kate Morris

  “Leaving? Why?” he asked as Jane tripped. Roman offered a hand at her elbow.

  “Thanks.” The path wasn’t as well-lit as it could’ve been and she was clumsy.

  “Why would it be hard to leave?” he repeated.

  She really didn’t want to discuss her personal life with him, or really anything. “I…I just have…obligations here.”

  “Your grandmother?”

  She looked swiftly up at him.

  “We buy apples from her. They’re really good. She’s cool, too. Funny.”

  “Yeah, my grandmother. She’s the reason,” Jane admitted since he’d guessed already.

  Roman sighed. “Yeah, I know what you mean. It’ll be hard for me to leave Connor behind when I go to college.”

  “Your little brother?”

  He nodded. “We’re alone a lot just the two of us, so I’m not sure what’s gonna happen if I go out of state to school. I don’t want to see him go down the wrong path.”

  She frowned. It was strange to hear him speak about his little brother like he was the kid’s father or something. It revealed an oddly mature for his age personality trait that she’d never seen or probably noticed before.

  “What about you? Where are you thinking about going to school?” he asked, picking up on their conversation from the car.

  “I don’t really want to go to college,” she said. Her grades weren’t that great anyway. She liked some subjects really well but others like math, not so much. She doubted scholarships were in her future, and she didn’t come from wealthy parents who would just pay for her to go wherever she wanted regardless of her grades. She carried a 3.6 GPA, but that wouldn’t cut it for scholarships.

  “Me neither,” he admitted. “There’s a lot I’d rather do with my life for four years other than sit in a classroom.”

  “Like what?” she asked, curious about this boy she’d spent the last four years with in school and knew hardly anything about.

  “It’ll sound stupid,” he confessed shyly, unusual for Roman. He was always very confident in school.

  “Who am I gonna tell?” she said with humor, to which he smiled.

  “I’d like to travel through the south and hit the old blues bars playing guitar,” he said after a long pause.

  “Really?” she said with open shock. “I didn’t even know you were into music.” She didn’t know anything about him actually.

  “Yeah, I’ve kind of always tinkered around, but I’d really like to get into it a lot deeper, explore the blues from its roots. Jimi Hendricks. Ray Charles. BB King. Those were the greats. I’d love to play in some of the same bars they did.”

  Jane strolled along beside him as he followed the black horse fence toward the barn.

  “I know,” he said with derision. “Stupid, right?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. If it’s what you like, then who am I to judge?”

  “My parents would flip if they heard me talking like this,” he said as he opened the man door to the big barn and let her pass through first.

  “Not supportive of the arts, huh?” she joked.

  “Not exactly,” Roman answered and flipped a switch on the wall, lighting the cemented aisle. There were horse stalls on either side, six of them. As she’d guessed, the rest of the barn held ATV’s, a long speed boat, and two jet skis.

  “If you don’t think they’d support that, what do you think they want you to do?” she paused to ask.

  Roman looked down at her and said, “Run for President?”

  Jane laughed. He was so glib and severe that it was funny.

  “No, they want me to take over my dad’s business. It’s not for me, though.”

  “Yeah,” she agreed with an understanding frown. Then she turned because she didn’t like looking him in the eye. She went down the aisle and looked at the horses instead. They were all expensive: a Dutch Warmblood, two Thoroughbreds, a Western show quarter horse, and a Holsteiner. Apparently, Terry’s sister was into show jumping and showing. They had quite a few of these high-strung breeds at the barn where Jane worked.

  “After a year, I’d really like to go into the Army,” he confessed more.

  “The military? That’s cool.”

  “Not to my folks. They want my resume to look like an ivy league college followed by an internship somewhere important. They’ve got it all planned out for me. As you can tell, I tend to zone out when they start talking about it.”

  “My dad was in the Army,” she told him, then wondered why she had. Stupid.

  “Yeah? So was my grandpa. We talk sometimes about it when I visit him in Florida. He’s cool. You’d like him.”

  “Why? ‘Cuz I like hanging out with the elderly?” she quipped.

  He chuckled, “No, you’re just different. You listen when people are talking. None of my friends would want to hear him telling his war stories. I’ve seen you with your grandmother. You don’t look like you’re trying to get away from her. You seem like you actually like spending time with her.”

  “She’s the only person I’ve got. She’s my grandmother. She’s my family.”

  “Yeah, but we’ve all got family. Most of us would rather hang out with our friends.”

  “That’s sad,” she commented honestly.

  “Do you think you’ll take that modeling contract Destiny was talking about?” he asked as she paused outside of a stall to look at a muscular quarter horse.

  Jane laughed once and said, “Yeah, right.”

  “What do you mean? Not something that would interest you? It might be fun,” he said and leaned his shoulder against the stall.

  “Hardly. I’m not like that,” she said quietly.

  “Tall?” he quipped.

  Jane sent him an impatient look. “No, not all…I don’t know. I don’t like being the center of attention is what I mean. I’m not some glamorous, beautiful model type anyway.”

  “I don’t agree,” he said calmly.

  Jane offered a frown of confusion and disbelief.

  “You’re not glamorous,” he corrected and plucked a piece of straw stuck between the wood and the steel of the door frame. “I’ll give you that. But there’s…I don’t know how to describe it. There’s something unique about you.”

  Jane rolled her eyes at this one. If he only knew. Her innocence about the real world and its harsher, darker side was lost the first time her mother got arrested years ago. The world stopped looking so optimistic and rosy way back then.

  “No,” he said, picking up on her mood, “I mean it. You aren’t like other girls.”

  “No kidding.”

  “It’s a good thing, Jane,” he said, using her name. “You’re different. You’re smart…”

  “Not really,” she corrected.

  “In your own way. I can tell,” he said with confidence. “You have this quality about you. It’s in your eyes.”

  Jane looked around. Surely any minute Stephanie or one of her minions would come out and reveal a hidden camera and laugh at her discomfort as they uploaded this to the internet.

  “No, it is. You have really pretty eyes, too,” he said quietly, almost nervously. “That agent chick or whoever Destiny was talking about, was right. Your eyes are…I don’t know. They’re…”

  He didn’t finish. She wasn’t sure what he was trying to say. He didn’t seem like he knew, either. Jane instantly looked at her feet. She jumped when she felt Roman’s fingertips under her chin. He gently prodded until she was looking up at him.

  “Your eyes are beautiful. When I actually get to see them,” he said with a lopsided smile.

  Jane pulled away and looked at the horse instead.

  “You’re so much prettier than any of the other girls in school, and you don’t need a bunch of makeup and stuff, either.”

  “Yeah, sure,” she said. “The only reason I don’t wear any makeup is because I just don’t know how to use any of it or have any extra money to buy it.”

  This made her feel pathetic,
and she blushed. Why had she admitted that?

  “You don’t need it. Girls like Steph and her gang do. They need more actually,” he said with a laugh.

  She looked at him again with an expression of distrust and uncertainty. “Why are you saying all this?”

  “It’s true. You needed to hear it from someone. I should’ve told you a long time ago. I think the other girls at the school are just jealous of you.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said and shook her head. Then she offered a sad little chuckle. One of her pet names from Steph was “plain Jane.”

  “I do.”

  “No, Roman, that’s not it. That’s not why they are the way they are with me, and you know it. It has nothing to do with my looks or being jealous of me.”

  “Your mom?” he asked, cutting straight to the chase and straight through Jane’s tough resolve. She felt sick a second later.

  “I should go,” she said and cleared her voice.

  Roman stepped in front of her and blocked her escape plan. “Wait, Jane. I don’t mean to pry. I just…I just want to know you better.”

  She dragged her eyes up to meet his for a fleeting moment before looking away again. “Why?”

  “I don’t know anything about you,” he said.

  “So?”

  “I want to.”

  Jane flinched as if burned. Nobody at their school with the exception of Destiny even wanted to be her friend. Now Roman Lockwood, arguably the most popular boy in school, wanted to know more about her. She was suspicious and wary of his motives.

  “Why?” she repeated defensively.

  Roman kicked the toe of his leather boot at a pebble and shrugged. “I just think you’re…interesting. You’re not like the other girls at our school, and that makes you interesting.”

  “No,” she said, pausing. “I’m not. At all.”

  “You live with your grandmother,” he stated, not dropping the issue. “Do you like that?”

  “Um, yeah, she’s great. Nana Peaches makes living here slightly more tolerable.”

  “Is she okay with you leaving after high school?”

  “She’s not thrilled about it. Her main concern is that I don’t turn out…” she said and paused. That was enough of a glimpse into her private life as he needed. “She wants me to go to nursing school.”

  “That’s a tough job,” he observed.

  “Yeah, and not for me,” she told him.

  “You said your dad was in the Army,” he said. “Is he still?”

  “No, he works on a fracking rig and is gone a lot,” she said, wishing she could sneak past him.

  “Do you get along?” he asked as Jane finally slid past him, wanting to get out of the barn. Roman cut the lights and followed her. “Do you?”

  The night air had become crisp while they were in the barn. The moon was in full orbit, lighting the earth. She could hear the people down by the fire, the fireworks having subsided.

  “Um, yes. We get along,” she finally answered. She was going to find Destiny with the hopes that her friend was ready to go, too.

  “How come you don’t live with him then?” Roman asked as they walked toward the house again.

  What was his deal? Why did he want to know all this about her? Was he going to tell everyone?

  “What about you?” she asked, turning the tables on him.

  “What about me? I’m pretty average. I live with my mom and dad. My dad was married before. Then he got divorced and met my mom and got married and had me and then Connor. My half-sisters are older than me and go to college. Well, the one does. The other is married to someone in the Air Force. They live in Japan.”

  “Oh, are you close with your parents?” she asked and bit her lip nervously. She was curious about Roman but still too leery of letting her guard down completely.

  “Sure. They’re okay. They’re not around much, so they don’t hover. They trust me not to make a major screw-up while they’re gone. My dad’s really into his investments and making money. Same for my mom.”

  He paused and looked up at the moon.

  “I worked last summer doing rehab homes with my mom’s brother in South Carolina. That was cool,” he told her out of the blue. “I really liked the work, getting my hands dirty, building something.”

  She squinted in the dark to see him more clearly. “I can’t picture that. You don’t seem like the blue-collar type.”

  “Now tell me something about you that nobody else knows.”

  This caught her off guard. “Um, Dez knows everything.”

  “Then tell me something that nobody else but Destiny knows.”

  “I-I don’t think so,” she stammered.

  “Come on,” he begged and even touched her elbow. Jane shivered. “Just…”

  “My life isn’t an open book, Roman,” she said testily. “I’m not…I’m not your social experiment or whatever this is.”

  “What do you mean? I just want to get to know you better,” he admitted.

  “There’s no point. I think we should find Destiny and leave,” she said.

  “I think there is a point. I like you. I want to know more about you. This is how people get to know one another.”

  “Roman, we don’t exactly run in the same groups in school. Your friends are…” she said and shivered again, this time not from the cold.

  “I know. I’m really sorry about them. Most of them aren’t that bad,” he apologized.

  “But some of them are, and you saw how Skylar was tonight. That’s how they are. We’re just never gonna be friends.”

  She walked away more quickly this time and made it to the house without having to talk to him again. She glanced over her shoulder and found him right on her heels. He was scowling as if upset about her comments.

  Everyone was gone. She looked in the den, the kitchen and the living room on the first floor. Some of the boys were still in the gaming room, but everyone had scattered. Some of her classmates were out by the bonfire drinking, so she went out through the French doors and found her friend talking to a group of people. Brian was standing right next to Destiny, so her friend was glowing and smiling ear to ear.

  “Jane!” she said and waved. “Where have you been?”

  “We went for a walk,” Roman explained for them, earning a few stares from some in the group. His phone rang, and he took the call and walked away.

  Dez took her hand in hers and meandered a few feet away from the group, too. “What the heck’s going on with you and Roman?”

  “What? I don’t know. Nothing,” Jane said in a staccato tone that belied her own perplexity at the situation.

  “Weird. He’s like so into you,” Dez observed with a sly grin.

  Jane wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “I don’t think so. He’s probably building an arsenal for Stephanie and her crew of psychos.”

  “No, he’s not,” Dez argued. “I think he likes you, Jane. Not as a friend, either. I’ve noticed him looking at you a lot lately.”

  “Don’t be a spaz, Dez,” she said dismissively as she kept her eyes on Roman who was rejoining the group.

  “Yeah!” a few of the boys yelled and took off. Terry came over to her and Destiny.

  “We’re going swimming. Come on, girls!” he said excitedly.

  “Isn’t it a little cold to go swimming?” Jane asked.

  “No, we’ve got an indoor pool. Come on!” he repeated.

  “We don’t have suits, Terry,” Dez answered thankfully.

  “Oh, no probs. We keep a box of suits in the changing room for people who forget theirs. Oh, and they’re new, so don’t worry. Nobody’s worn them before. Let’s go!”

  Terry tugged her shirt sleeve. Destiny looked at her with shining eyes. Her friend wanted to do this, although Jane would rather die than put on a swimsuit in front of these people.

  “Sure,” she finally relented and followed the rest of the crowd.

  “Cool,” Destiny whispered to her. “Thanks, Jane.”


  “This ought to be swell,” she mumbled.

  Terry and Roman walked ahead of them with Brian and a few other boys that were a part of the Science Club at school. They were pretty harmless, so she was thankful for that.

  They went back inside and past the gaming room down a long hall where bedrooms were located. At the end of the hall, they turned right and went out onto an open sitting area that overlooked a beautiful, L-shaped pool below.

  “Wow, Terry!” Destiny said. “This is great! I’m gonna be coming over like every day from now on.”

  He laughed, and Jane smiled. “Not a problem with me. The more, the merrier. Now that my dad’s running the R & D department up at Timken Steel, he’s gone a lot, overseas.”

  Others chimed in about their parents and also having absentee ones, as well. To Jane, most of these guys just seemed sad and lonely. She felt even more thankful for Nana Peaches. They only had each other, but at least she was there every day.

  “Hey, girls,” Terry said indicating the room to their right. “You guys can go in there and change. It locks. The basket full of suits is in the cupboard above the washer and dryer.”

  “Thanks, Terry,” Destiny said.

  They closed the door, and Jane felt a moment of hysterical panic set in.

  Chapter Four

  Roman borrowed a pair of trunks from Terry’s pile, which also didn’t appear to have been worn before since the tags were still on them. Then he walked out into the melee. Guys were doing backflips into the pool. Girls were jumping from the diving board and being thrown in by their boyfriends. It was loud, and the room echoed with the high ceilings. There had to be at least thirty people in the pool. The walls were covered in stone, the room built timber frame style with a cedar-covered ceiling, and Terry must’ve lit a fire in the fireplace at the end of the room. If it weren’t for the thirty or so people in the pool, it would be a relaxing place to unwind.

  He observed quietly from the shadows and turned down a beer that one of his friends offered and instead grabbed a soda from a cooler. Someone turned on the music system and started some tunes blasting. It wasn’t his style of music because it was modern, the stuff on the radio, techno and loud, thumping, mostly annoying.

  The second she came into the room, Roman spotted her. When she placed her towel on a poolside lounge chair, many other guys noticed her, too. She was wearing a dark blue bikini and looked very uncomfortable. Destiny on the other hand ran and jumped into the pool. Jane used the stairs and waded in after her friend. Some of the guys were throwing a football back and forth in the deep end, and she swam clear of them and went around toward the L-shaped end with her friend. Roman watched as some of the boys circled like sharks on the scent. He smirked at their childishness, which would never garner favor from a girl, especially not one like Jane. He dove in at the deep end and slowly made his way toward her.