by Easton, BB
“Stay with me,” I beg, my eyes darting back and forth between his. I hope he hears me. I hope he feels all the ways that I mean those words.
Hooking my thigh over his hip, Wes presses the tip of himself against the core of me. He blinks, but he doesn’t look away as he fills me slowly. His pale green eyes are a tortured mix of agony and ecstasy as they bore into mine, but they’re honest, and they’re open, and for once, they do as I say.
They stay.
Wes’s jaw muscles flex beneath my fingertips as we click into place, and for a moment, we’re as close as two people can be. The intensity of that stare is paralyzing. The feeling of his bare skin against mine, intoxicating. The heat of his breath and the thump of his heart and the pulsing need where we’re joined are overwhelming.
Then, he closes his eyes.
He withdraws.
And when he thrusts forward again, it’s not sweet and slow.
It’s hard and cold.
Wes’s fingertips bite into my thigh, holding me in place as his hips surge forward in deep, punctuated, violent motions. He’s fucking me like he’s stabbing me. Like he’s trying to rid himself of his pain by burying it in my flesh.
So, I cling to the wooden rung above my head and take it. All of it.
Because Wes’s pain still feels better than mine.
His eyebrows crease, and his lips part. And all I want to do is make whatever he’s feeling go away. So, I lean forward and do the only thing there is left to do. I press a kiss to his perfect lips.
Wes stills for a moment. Then, he wraps his arms around my body so tight that I can hardly breathe. He devours my mouth, taking everything I have to give as he fills me to my limit.
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I coil my right leg around his waist for support as he grinds against my over-sensitized flesh. I was wrong before. This is as close as two people can get.
Wes isn’t showing me his brave face or his guarded face. He isn’t showing me his face at all.
He’s showing me his fear.
The moment I feel him swell and jerk inside of me, my body detonates, contracting around him suddenly and violently. I whimper into his mouth with every surge of pleasure and swallow his quiet moans of pain.
He doesn’t pull out, doesn’t break our connection. He holds me and kisses me until he’s making love to me again, and I’m hit with a sickening sense of déjà vu.
This is exactly how he made love to me yesterday up in my tree house—passionately, endlessly—as if it were our last night on earth.
I didn’t think this was a goodbye kiss, but maybe I was wrong.
Because the last time Wes tried to tell me goodbye, it felt exactly like this.
Wes
It’s dark as night up in the tree house, but I don’t need light to see Rain. She fucking glows. The blunt edge of her black hair, the straight line of her nose, the curves of her body, and the overlap of her arms across her chest. I can see every swoop and bend of her in perfect detail.
I’m fucking obsessed.
Which is why I need to go right the fuck now.
I drape Rain’s clothes over her naked, napping body, tuck her hoodie under her head, and place my pocketknife in her tiny fist. She grips it and pulls it close as I kiss her on the forehead one last time. I let my lips linger, inhaling the fading scent of vanilla on her skin just to torture myself. Then, I climb out of the tree house with a noose of emotion wrapped around my neck.
Leave before you get left has never fucking hurt like this.
I have to get out of here before I do something stupid, like change my mind. I won’t be able to breathe again until this place is a blip in my rearview—along with the girl who almost got me. Fool me once, shame on you. Do that shit thirteen more times, and guess what. I’m motherfucking foolproof.
I throw my clothes back on, check to make sure I still have the key to the Ninja in my pocket, and look around for the backpack.
Goddamn it.
I stomp out of the bookstore and try to focus on how disgusting this place is instead of the growing black hole in my chest. The floor is covered in trash and dust and cracked tiles with weeds growing in between them. The walls are covered with graffiti and shittily drawn dicks. And I can hear fucking frogs croaking somewhere in the atrium.
Frogs.
I turn left at the petri dish of a fountain and head straight to the tuxedo shop.
Rain’s backpack is sitting on the counter, right where she left it, so I unzip it and dig around for what I need. I’m only going to take my antibiotics, a few bandages, maybe a protein bar or two, and a bottle of water. I can find the rest when I get back to town. I pocket the pills and shove a beige brick of food into my mouth, not even bothering to taste it as I hunt for the water bottles. When I find them, they’re both empty.
Whatever. I’ll just find a house with a garden hose on my—
The sound of moaning and coughing behind the counter scatters my thoughts.
Don’t look. He’s not your problem. This is the same guy who pulled a rifle on you in the hardware store, remember? Fuck him.
I look anyway.
Fuck me.
Quint’s dark eyes are wide open, and his chest is heaving like he just ran a marathon. He tries to sit up, winces, and falls back to the ground as his hand flies up to touch his neck.
“No!” I leap over the counter and grab his wrist before he does any damage.
His brother is sitting next to him, passed out cold with his head against the checkout stand cabinets.
Quint’s wild eyes lock on to mine.
“You’re okay, man,” I say, placing his hand on his chest, but from this close, I can see that he is definitely not fucking okay.
His skin is hot to the touch and covered in beads of sweat. His lips are chapped and pale. His shirt is soaked. And a trickle of blood is seeping from the bandage with every panicked pulse of his jugular.
Quint opens his mouth to try to ask me something but winces again as the glass shifts from the motion.
I glance at Lamar and debate whether or not to wake him up, but the kid has been on twenty-four-hour watch since we got here and could use the fucking shut-eye.
“Don’t try to talk, okay? You were in an accident. We couldn’t get you back to Franklin Springs, so we brought you to Pritchard Park Mall. You’re in the old Savvi Formalwear right now. That’s pretty boss, right?”
Quint tries to smile but cringes and bites his bottom lip from the pain.
Shit.
“You took some glass to the neck, man, but Rain’s got you patched up. She’ll be by to check on you in a few, okay?”
Quint grabs my wrist and looks at me with eyes the color of my cold, dead heart.
“Am I …” he whispers, pausing to suck in a breath and grimace from the pain.
“Hell no,” I lie. “Don’t even say it. You’re gonna be fine.”
Quint squeezes his eyes shut and grits his teeth as his face crumples. A high-pitched keening sound comes from somewhere deep inside his body, and I can’t fucking take it anymore.
“You’re gonna be okay,” I say more forcefully, but I don’t know who I’m trying to convince—myself or Quint. “You want some water? I’m gonna get you some water.”
I stand up and grab the empty bottles on my way out the door.
Fuck.
This.
Place.
I have to concentrate on not crushing the plastic bottles in my fists as I stomp toward the food court.
Fuck.
These.
People.
A fat-ass toad jumps from the edge of the fountain into the murky, mucous-like water inside as I pass.
Supplies.
Shelter.
Self-defense.
I kick a broken tile.
I’m getting this motherfucker some water.
Then, I’m getting the fuck out of here.
The second I walk into the food court, I set my sights on the bitch at the back table. Q
. She and the rest of her minions are still celebrating the end of civilization. A few tattooed misfits with random parts of their heads shaved are playing cards and taking shots from a bottle of bottom-shelf tequila. A beanpole in a jean jacket with the sleeves cut off is playing a goddamn accordion while a burly, bearded guy in a pair of unwashed overalls strums along on the banjo. A few crusty teens are gathered around a cell phone, elbowing each other like they’re watching porn, and Q is kicked back in a plastic chair, smoking a joint, with a busted pair of black motorcycle boots propped up on the table and her black men’s pants cut off at the knees.
Fucking gutter punks.
“Well, well, well.” Q coughs, holding the smoke in her lungs. “If it ain’t our new roomie, Hawaii Five-0. Everybody say, ‘Hi, Hawaii Five-0.’”
“Hi, Hawaii Five-0,” the clan drawls without looking up.
“Where’s the luau?” Q exhales and passes the joint to her right.
I want to bark at her that I don’t have time for her bullshit, but I smirk through my rage and hold up the empty water bottles. “Know where I can fill these?”
Q gets an evil glimmer in her gangrene-colored eyes and sits forward. She drops her feet to the floor and sits with her legs spread wide apart, like a dude.
“Water’s for employees only, Surfer Boy.” Q eyes me up and down. Her eyebrows and eyelashes are thick and dark. Her brownish-greenish-yellowish dreadlocks are flipped over the top of her head, spilling over one shoulder and ending somewhere below the full tits she’s hiding underneath that baggy T-shirt. And the gold hoop in her nose glints in the light as she grins, deciding she likes what she sees.
I don’t need this shit.
“You know what? I’ll find it somewhere else. Thanks.”
I turn to leave, but the sound of Q’s plastic chair scraping the ground stops me in my tracks.
“Hold up.”
I look at her over my shoulder with my not interested in your bullshit face firmly in place.
“Let’s take a little field trip. I wanna show you somethin’.”
“I don’t have time for—”
“Listen, muhfucka. I let you stay in my castle last night. I gave you my protection from the Bonys. I fuckin’ fed yo’ ass. You can give me five minutes.”
She’s right. I might not like this bitch, but right now, she’s the best resource I’ve got.
“Fine. Five.”
“I’m sorry. I think what you meant to say is, Thank you, Yo Majesty.” Q stands and brushes her dreads over her shoulder with a dramatic sweep of her hand.
“Thanks,” I mutter as Q turns and walks away from the table, gesturing for me to follow her with a flick of her long-ass fingernails.
“We gon’ have to work on that last part.” She cackles over her shoulder.
I feel the eyes of everyone in the food court on my back as we walk across the room and through a swinging half-door next to one of the fast-food counters.
“You ever see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Surfer Boy?”
“Uh, yeah. Why?” I mutter as we turn down a series of skinny, unlit hallways behind the restaurant kitchens.
Q pulls the latch on a heavy metal door and yanks it open, revealing a set of metal stairs. “Because I’m about to show you the April 23 version.” Q grins and gestures for me to go up the stairs first.
Fuck it. Here we go, down the rabbit hole.
I can’t see shit in the stairwell, but after what I found at the top of the last dark staircase I climbed, I’m pretty sure whatever I’m about to see couldn’t possibly be worse. When I get to the landing at the top, I reach my hands out in front of me and feel the smooth surface of a metal door.
“Open it,” Q says behind me, so I find the handle and give it a shove.
When the door swings open, the sun slaps me in the face so hard that it damn near blinds me. I lift my forearm to shield my eyes, and Q chuckles behind me.
“Go on.”
I step out onto the roof, and the first thing I notice is the sound of birds clucking … just before something huge goes flapping past my face.
“The fuck?” I drop my hand and squint in the direction that it traveled, finding a flying fucking hen landing on the roof of a plastic playhouse surrounded by chicken wire.
At least six more fat-ass chickens are inside the makeshift coop, staring at me with shifty orange eyes.
“That one’s Asshole.” Q nods toward the ball of feathers that almost took my head off. “We let her out during the day because … well, she’s a fuckin’ asshole if we don’t.”
I look around in disbelief. Q was right. This place is insane. They have rows and rows of blue plastic rain barrels, dozens of containers—everything from old washing machines to tires—spilling over with fruits and vegetables, some of the biggest pot plants I’ve ever seen, and beyond the junk yard of a garden is a giant inflatable pool surrounded by mismatched patio furniture.
“You did all this?” I ask, trying to ignore the chicken staring at me in my peripheral vision.
“Hell nah.” Q snorts, wrinkling up her nose. “I told you, I’m the queen up in here. I don’t do shit. My people did all this.” Q sweeps her hand out over her dominion as she turns and walks down the path separating the water collection area from the garden.
“Where did you guys get all this stuff?” I ask, following a few feet behind her.
Q shrugs. “Walmart.”
I snort out a laugh as she comes to a stop next to a propane camping stove by the water barrels.
“Lysol used to sneak over there with a pair of bolt cutters every few days to steal shit outta the lawn and garden section. Opie used to swipe chickens and tools and shit from a farm somewhere around here. And Pizza Face yanked that pool right outta some kid’s backyard.”
“Those your scouts?”
“Were. Until the Bonys showed up.” Something flashes across Q’s face before she flicks her fingers at the teakettle sitting on top of the single-burner stove. “You gotta boil that shit before you drink it …”
“I thought you said water was for employees.”
“That’s why I brought you up here, Surfer Boy.” Q points off into the distance. “You see that pharmacy, ’bout two blocks down? Now, Bonys already done broke into it, but I know there’s gotta be some good shit left. You scope it out for me; I’ll give you all the water you can drink. Bring me back some tampons and toilet paper …” Q’s catlike eyes drift south as the corner of one angled eyebrow crawls north. “I’ll be ya best muhfuckin’ friend.”
I open my mouth to tell her I’m not staying, but something she said makes me bite my tongue.
There’s a pharmacy.
Right across the fucking street.
I sigh and scrub a hand down my face. “Fine. But I’m gonna need that water up front.”
Wes
Two blocks.
I sling Rain’s empty backpack over my good shoulder and push open the exit door. I might be an asshole, but even I can’t let a guy die on the floor of an abandoned mall without at least checking the pharmacy down the street for meds first.
God, you better be watching. I deserve some serious extra credit for this shit.
The sun is already beginning to slide behind the pines next to the exit ramp, so I pick up the pace as I walk across the parking lot. I listen for the sound of motorcycles, gunshots, dogs barking, anything, but it’s eerily quiet. The road in front of the mall has a few vehicles on it, but they’re still and silent. Instead of engines and car horns, all I hear are birds and broken glass under my feet.
It looks like an urban wasteland out here. It sounds like a goddamn nature preserve. And, for a moment, it feels like I really am the last asshole on earth.
This is exactly how I pictured April 24. No people. No rent. No debate about whether to stay or leave anybody or anyplace. Just me and the shit of the earth.
Only in my head, it felt a hell of a lot better than this.
I step over a section of flattened ch
ain-link fence and look down the street in both directions. The pharmacy is so close that I could be there in about two minutes if I stuck to the road, but considering that the last bastard I saw walk down this highway is still lying on it about fifty yards away, I decide to cross the street and walk behind a strip shopping center instead.
I draw my gun as I slide along the side of the brick building, taking care not to let the gravel crunch too loudly under my boots. The farther away I get from the street, the worse the smell. I dismiss it as just another overflowing dumpster—until I recognize it.
It’s the same way Rain’s house smelled when I found her parents.
My stomach twists and my heart pounds as I take a breath and glance around the corner of the building.
Yep.
There’s a dead body back there all right.
A dead body being chewed on by a pack of fucking dogs.
I stifle a gag, but the noise in the back of my throat doesn’t go unnoticed. One head pops up from the pack. Then, another. And another. By the time the first bark sounds, I’m in a full sprint and already halfway to the dumpster behind the building. I grab the top edge and swing myself up as a dozen mangy dogs descend upon me. Thank fuck the lid was closed. The dogs bark and snarl and rake their claws down the sides of the metal box I’m standing on while I catch my breath and try not to look at the carcass on the ground a few feet away.
Think, motherfucker.
I glance to the right. The pharmacy is next to the shopping center, separated by a parking lot, but it’s too damn far to make a run for it. I have no food—I emptied the backpack before I left so that I could fit more supplies inside of it—and I am not shooting a bunch of golden retrievers and Labradoodles.
One of the dogs yelps and bucks a smaller dog off its back.
Fuck, they’re trying to climb each other now.
Climb …
I hold my breath as I look down the length of the building. Then, I exhale when I spot what I’m looking for.
A fire escape.
The ladder is about forty feet away though.