Alive (The Crave) (26 page)

“You did this for me?” She tore her eyes away and looked at Gage.

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re beautiful.”

Eve’s jaw would have hit the smooth leather of her seat if it could have.

“Don’t act so surprised.” He gave her that half-smile she adored and started driving again.

She wanted to say something, anything, but she couldn’t find the words. Her heart was swimming in an ocean of happiness. To the point, where she wasn’t at all perturbed when he pulled off the road and parked at a gas well. She’d always wondered about sex, and she decided right then and there that she wanted to have it with Gage, especially after the bridge.
He likes me! He really likes me!

It didn’t take long before he was kissing her, his hands roaming in places no one else had ever touched, leaving her breathless with awe. And then they were in the backseat, at some point her skirt had been taken off and his pants were gone. He fumbled with a foil packet and put a condom over the hardness between his legs.

“Are you sure?” The words were strained coming from his lips as his big body loomed over her.

Everything had moved so fast, but there wasn’t a chance in the world she would tell him no. She was hot all over, her body quaking with a need she was unfamiliar with. “I’m sure.”

And then he was moving inside of her a sharp pain bringing her back to the present and what was really happening. “You okay?” His voice was deeper and thicker, with a look of wonder in his eyes. She wanted him to stop, but she couldn’t tell him that, not when he was looking at her like that. So she nodded her head and let him go. The pain eased up as he continued to move, but she had lost the good feeling that had swam through her only moments before.

“You’re mine, Eve. Mine!” He shouted the words a little later, before jerking out of her. She watched as he fisted himself between her legs a few times before moaning, his whole body convulsing.

His assertion confused her, but made butterflies swim in her stomach.
He still wants me?
She was afraid she’d made the sex bad for him since she didn’t really enjoy it, at least not in the way that he had. She’d liked being able to touch him freely, having his body close, hers for the taking.

They didn’t say anything while they righted their clothes, though as each second passed she felt more and more lost. As if she’d truly lost a part of herself. He still didn’t say anything, even as they got back into the front seat of the car. The dash clock read 2:50AM. She couldn’t believe that she’d been with Gage less than an hour.

He started the car and plugged in his phone. The song that they’d listened to the first day he’d given her a ride home started playing. She didn’t know much about music, but she would recognize that song anywhere.

It’s written all over your face

Such a painful thing to waste

Tell me now where do we go?

The tears started falling, the true meaning of the lyrics sinking in like they hadn’t the time before. Gage was driving back in the direction of her house. He’d brought her out there to have sex with her and that was it. He hadn’t talked to her, he hadn’t confessed his undying love. He’d used her.

“Eve, what’s the matter?”

They were at the end of her street pulled over on the shoulder.

Where’s the world that doesn’t care?

How quickly they had reached her house. As if it only took seconds to whisk her back home and out of his sight.

Maybe I can meet you there.

Only unlike the words of the song, she knew that there would be no meeting Gage anywhere. They had nowhere to go. There wasn’t a different world out there waiting for them to find each other. A place like that didn’t exist. She would always be trailer trash and he would always be the popular guy.

“Nothing.” She grabbed the door handle. A hot hand touched her thigh, stilling her movement.

“Things are going to change, Eve. I promise.” Gage intertwined his fingers with hers. The look on his face told her that he meant it. His handsome features seemed to shout all the words he wasn’t saying. Eve’s pulse surged to a new height when he reached up and brushed a strand of her long blond hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind one of her ears. “I promise, Eve. I promise.” Her body melted under his touch and tingles of pleasure scattered across her skin. She wanted to say something, but didn’t. Frozen in place like an icicle.

“I’ll see you on Monday, okay Eve?” Gage flashed her his million-dollar smile, as if he knew just the effect he had on her. Her heart was still swimming when he drove away, though the shore seemed much too far away.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Olive should have been used to running for her life. It was what she had been doing for the last four years. She wasn’t though, not without someone to protect her. Rose limped at her side, moaning desperately with each step in the rising sunlight.

They’d had a close call. A nauseous feeling yanked at her insides just thinking about how the legless jenk had almost made a meal out of her, snapping its black decaying teeth at her feet with ravenous hunger. Rose was the only reason she’d survived. At the last second, she had managed to untie her hands before stomping on each of the jenk’s heads, and by that time, Reno was long gone. Now they were staggering through vaguely familiar wilderness, with Rose’s moans becoming even louder.

“Why did you save me?” This question had puzzled Olive the entire time they’d been on the move. Rose didn’t say anything, or even look her way. Just kept walking with pain plastered across her exotic features.

“I don’t get it. I wouldn’t have saved you.” Olive glanced at the woman, hoping the jab would make her talk. It didn’t. And Olive wondered if anything would. She’d been around Rose for nearly a year and she never volunteered any information.

As if on cue, Rose let out a bark of pain and fell to her knees in the dirt. Annoyance gouged at Olive like a lance.
Why does Rose have to complicate my life so much?

“Get up, Rose. We can’t stop here. We need to get farther away from Reno.” They’d headed out on a different path than him, but she wanted to make sure they were well ahead of him, in case he discovered that they had escaped and tried to come after them.

“Come on!” Olive tried to hoist Rose off the ground, but she wouldn’t budge.

“Baby coming.” The woman uttered in her heavily accented voice.

“Great, just great!” Olive bent down and grabbed both of Rose’s arms.

“No. Just leave me.” Rose jerked her arms away and let out another moan. The sky painted her body in hues of pink and yellow, making her look majestic lying there on the ground.

“Leave you? Why would you even suggest that?” Though Olive found herself asking why she was even bothering to stay with Rose at all. Why hadn’t she just abandoned the woman a few hours ago, instead of sticking around?

Rose shook her head and closed her eyes, her breathing labored.

“You’re really going to have your baby?”

Rose didn’t answer and a wave of panic slammed into Olive. Rose was about to give birth.
I can’t stay around for this.
Olive jerked the pack off of her back. She felt a fraction lucky that Reno had left the pack with all of the blankets behind, granted it didn’t have any food in it. Blankets were still something.

“Here.” She sat the pack next Rose’s body. She would leave, but she would let Rose keep the blankets, for herself and the baby. Olive didn’t wait for a reaction, just turned on her heel and started walking away, which was easier than she thought it would be. The dirt beneath her old tennis shoes felt like any other dirt she’d ever walked on, carrying her toward the rest of her life.

“He was my husband, Olive.” Olive stopped walking at the sound of Rose’s voice. “Is my husband, I guess you could say.”

“What?” Olive turned around. “You mean—”

“Reno? Yes. Ohhhh!” She let out another wail.

Olive found her feet moving back to her side. “But that can’t be.”

“It is,” Rose said through clenched teeth.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Olive couldn’t keep the disbelief out of her voice.

“You didn’t need to know.
Joder!
” Rose took several fast paced deep breaths. “The baby is coming now. Help get me up and get a blanket.”

“What?”

“Just do it, Olive!
Por favor!
”

Olive helped Rose into a squatting position after taking the woman’s skirt off.

“How could you not tell me that he was your husband?” Olive didn’t get it. Why would she keep that a secret? “Did Laney know about this?” How could Reno not tell her?

“Si!”
she grunted and clung Olive’s shoulders.

“So, everyone knew except me.” The pain that clenched her felt like a thousand knives ramming into her all at once.
How could Reno do this?
Another of Rose’s screams rent the air and Olive’s gaze was drawn to the rush of blood that splattered on the blanket she’d positioned beneath her.

“Is that normal?” The blood was so red, even against the dirty old blanket, it stood out, stark against the fabric. Olive hadn’t seen human blood in a long time. She stared at the red puddle in a daze.

“No!” Rose called out, followed by a stream of Spanish words that Olive didn’t understand.

That’s when Olive saw something emerge from between Rose’s legs. At first the thing looked like Rose’s vagina extroverting into something large and nasty, but then it wasn’t. The large and nasty thing had a face. Before Olive knew what she was doing, she was reaching forward and tugging on the little head that emerged. Rose groaned, her hands digging into Olive’s shoulders painfully.

The head was quickly followed by a torso with arms, and then legs. After that the child was free. Its body covered with a sheen of red grime. A cord connected to Rose still, but that was the only thing.

Rose toppled back onto her butt. “What is it?” The words came from the woman’s mouth in a breathless huff. Olive started giggling. She stared down at the little body that—seconds later—started wailing in mindless abandon. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s a baby!” She said between bouts of laughter, which only seemed to make the child cry harder.

“I know it’s a baby, but is it a boy or a girl?”

Olive hadn’t even thought to look. She had been giggling and staring at the little face that resembled an old man’s, only cuter, with dark eyes like a murky sky.
So innocent.

Her gaze met Rose’s and sombered at the smile on the woman’s face. She had never seen Rose smile before, though instantly she knew why Reno had married her. The woman was beautiful when she smiled. Her whole face seemed to light up.

“A girl. It’s a girl.” Olive returned her smile.

Eve stood before the towering wall of metal before her and could have sworn it was a dream. She pinched her arm just in case and was rewarded with a stinging sensation that didn’t awaken her. She was really standing there in the middle of Fenton, Texas, staring at a wall that shielded her from the salvation she had been seeking for four years.

Gage sighed next to her, drawing her attention away from the wall. He was still dirty, his body caked with the grime of their escape from the night before. His broad chest covered with dried mud, and blood from the cuts etched into his skin. Even though it had been more than thirty hours since she’d gotten any sleep, her body reacted to the sight of him with a bloom of heat between her thighs. Neither of them had spoken to the other after the sex in the barn. They’d lain there panting, mud clinging to their naked bodies, for how long, Eve wasn’t sure. The spell had worn off quickly, or at least that’s what Eve equated it to. He’d pulled himself out of her, leaving her body feeling bereft at the loss. Everything inside of her screamed that she pull him back down so they could do it again. She hadn’t known that sex could be like that. Even her wildest fantasies, the ones where Gage was the star, didn’t even begin to compare.

He pulled his clothes on and she mirrored him. A million emotions tugged at her brain. A hundred thousand questions flitted behind her eyes at a speed she couldn’t comprehend and in the end when he offered her his hand she took it, and together they walked into the rising sun. A certain feeling of lightness had taken over Eve’s body as they walked across the countryside that slowly but surely became more populated with broken down homes and businesses. She kept her head on a swivel in search of the jenks that she had no way of protecting herself from. They saw none, and for that, she was grateful.
Maybe God really was listening.

“Look at that. They reinforced the metal.” Gage’s gaze stayed focused on the wall before them. “It used to be all half-botched with broken hunks of wrecked cars pieced together. Looks like they got some sort of sheet metal.”

“Who’s out there?”

Eve jumped at the sound of the new voice. She reached behind her to grab her Craftsman, before remembering she didn’t have it. Panic seized her heart.

“Ricky? Is that you? It’s me, Gage!” he called up to the man she now noticed stood on top of the wall before them.

“Well, fuck me running!” The man disappeared on the other side of the wall. She could hear him shouting, but couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“You know him?” The whole concept of knowing someone completely blew Eve’s mind. In the vast world, she knew no one, save for her sister and Gage. She couldn’t just go to the grocery store and run into people that she used to know, at least not unless they had died and come back to life, a greasy, flesh eating version of themselves.

“I do.” He squeezed her hand and smiled. “You’ll like everyone. I know you will.” The enthusiasm in his voice was contagious and she nearly smiled.
Nearly.
The knowledge that she was about to be greeted by uninfected humans sent prickles of alarm scattering across her skin. In the new world no one could be trusted. It was survival of the fittest, and she’d spent the last four years doing just that, no matter who got in her way. The idea of acting like a normal person—not that she had ever felt normal—seemed surreal and terrifying all at once.