Break Free The Night (Book 1) (3 page)

             
“
See
!”
Emma triumphed, nodding towards Andrew
.“
He knows what I mean
!
”

             
“
I hate you both
,”
Kaylee huffed. Emma snorted back a laugh as she flew down the stairs and Andrew just chuckled.

             
“
You do
n’
t really. You love us
,”
he said, his hands faltering as he now clumsily folded one of her shirts. Kaylee hummed in doubt and he just chuckled again. They lapsed into a friendly, warm silence, only the sounds of their folding interrupting the peace.

              The silence on the rooftop at night was incredible. It had all been so loud at first, when the disease had spread and populations were scrambling to escape. The daytime was filled with moans and screeching and the screams of people being caught by the massing numbers of infected for meals. It was so loud that no building or closed windows could keep out the cries of terror. And at nighttime, it was the uninfected swarming the streets, stealing cars, overthrowing buses and trains, using any method to escape the cities while those who never could slowly chased after them. Kaylee had longed desperately to be with them, but she knew soon how unsafe those crowds could be. The mornings that followed would offer evidence, bodies trampled in the streets, children separated and left by their parents crying and calling out, only to be found by those who only the most forgiving were still calling human. There were fires and overturned cars and smashed out windows and Kaylee knew their parents were right to keep her and her sister hidden in the high-rise.

              But there was no such noise anymore. Once the infected were asleep, there was no noise at all. Kaylee had remembered once, years ago, watching a special on the Discovery Channel about a man who climbed to the top of some mountain she could
n’
t even name now. The end of the footage had shown him standing alone at the top, the entire world laid out at his feet, and Kaylee remembered imagining how funny it would be to see so much of the world set out before you and yet not be able to hear a single bit of it.

              Standing on the rooftop was a sort of like that. Kaylee could see her entire world, the only world she had ever known, laid out before her. She could see the high-rise she had grown up in, see the stoplight where she once had to wait for the bus, see the cars that had once honked and revved their engines all night long, lulling her to sleep. The park was across the way and children used to play and laugh, the fountain would bubble over, the street vendors would haggle and bargain. There would be car radios and arguing, laughing and cursing, sneezing, eating, scuffing of shoes along the pavement.

              And now there was nothing. The blackness of the night pressed in on them and the silence became an entity all in itself. It whispered and taunted, filled their eardrums and mocked their need for something more, something filling and different and yet familiar. There was
n’
t even the high pitch buzz or the low whine of electricity and machinery, there was nothing. Stillness completely surrounded them, oppressive in i
t’
s very nature.

             
“
You okay, Kaylee
?”
Andrew asked, his voice a soft breath of air that pushed through the night to her ears. She started and turned.

             
“
Yeah, sorry
,”
she murmured, realizing her hands were wrapped around a sweater of his, her knuckles white. She shifted her gaze from the edge of the world to his poorly lit face and smiled
.“
Just distracted, tha
t’
s all
.
”

             
“S’
okay
,”
he mumbled, looking back down to his hands.

             
“
How was the raid
?”
she asked, a nervous feeling fluttering inside at how awkward the mood had turned. Things had once been so normal between Andrew and she.

             
“
Oh, it was fine
,”
he answered, perking up
.“
Someone had dropped a backpack. It was kicked to a corner in the pharmacy and I picked it up. Tha
t’
s where we found the candy, inside it. Not a bad find
.
”

             
“
Mhmm
,”
Kaylee agreed, nodding
.“
What did Anna have to get
?
”

             
“
A few things of some kind of medicine,
I’
m not sure. But she made us stop at the library too
.”
Andrew stretched his arms over his head and grinned
.“
She got some new research books and a couple of those stupid romances for Emma
.
”

              Kaylee rolled her eyes. Emma might pretend to be all tough and tomboyish, but she loved those teen romance novels.

             
“I’
d prefer a good movie right about now
,”
Kaylee sighed
.“
I
t’
s been so long since
I’
ve seen
The Princess Bride
o
r
—”

             
“
I thought you said a good movie
?”
Andrew interrupted, grinning at her. Kaylee scowled and threw a sock at him.

             
“
You love it too
,”
she argued, frowning as he ducked her terrible throw.

             
“
I do
n’
t, I just watched i
t‘
cause you wanted to
,”
he retorted smugly
.“I’
m a gentleman
,”
he added, thrusting his chest out and jabbing it with his thumb like a two-year-old.

             
“
Right
,”
Kaylee snorted, bending over to pick up the sock and put it back in the basket. Andrew took the basket from her when she had finished and began his walk to the door.

             
“
Now,
Alien
, that would be great
!”
he continued, his eyes far-away looking as though he was remembering his first glimpse of Sigourney Weaver in her underwear. Kaylee did
n’
t get it; she just could not understand what men found so attractive about that movie. Though by
Aliens
, the arsenal did get pretty impressive
.“
And it might not be impossible, you know. Even if w
e’
re all tha
t’
s left, electricity is still an option
.
”

             
“
Not in the summer
,”
Kaylee murmured, following in Andre
w’
s wake towards the stairs
.“
At least not here
.
”

             
“
Yeah, right
,”
he answered, looking back at her over his shoulder
.“
Not here
.
”

              Kaylee had heard this before. It was one of the reasons she thought leaving the city would
n’
t be so bad, if she was
n’
t so terrified of the actual journey. There were ways, out of the city, to generate electricity. They had a generator here, but it required gasoline and could
n’
t handle very much and so was only used on the coldest days in the middle of the winter to keep them all from freezing. It broke down all the time and Bill was constantly swearing at it while he hovered over it with his set of tools. In the country there would be streams, running water, homes already equipped with large generators for when the snow and bad weather knocked their power out. If they got really lucky they could even stumble into a hydroelectric plant. Andrew had been studying every book he could find about them.

             
“
Yo
u’
re starting to sound so much like your dad
,”
Kaylee muttered, hanging her head and bumping into him when he stopped walking. Andrew turned and put the laundry down.

             
“
It would
n’
t be such a bad thing Kay
,”
he murmured, grasping her by the upper arms and looking down at her
.“
We ca
n’
t stay here forever, things just wo
n’
t last the way they are. They ca
n’
t
.”
Kaylee looked up at him and noticed how he eyes had gone soft and serious; how his lips had moistened, as though he had just licked them; how his head was lowering towards her. He was
n’
t just talking about the food supplies or the need for electricity now. What he was talking about was so much more complicated than all of those mundane things.

              But it should
n’
t be
, a voice whispered in her mind.

             
“
Andrew
,”
she murmured, her voice low and hushed yet infused with hesitancy. It was not the tone he wanted, not the tone he hoped for and she knew that. His eyes closed and he held still, exhaling slowly.

             
“
Right
,”
he said, his voice was slightly strangled as his hands slipped from her arms. He bent to pick up the laundry basket but before he could Kaylee stepped into his embrace. She hugged him tightly and felt him hunch into her, exhaling again.

             
“I’
m sorry Drew, I jus
t
—”

             
“
Do
n’
t
,”
he muttered, squeezing her once before letting her go
.“C’
mon, le
t’
s go put this away and then catch Emma reading trashy novels and pick on her for it
.”
Kaylee smiled as she followed him down the stairs.

             
“
To your room first then
?”
she asked. Andrew looked back at her, eyebrow quirked.

             
“
Your roo
m’
s closer
.
”

             
“
Right, but yo
u’
re such a slob yo
u’
ll probably need help putting this all away and then cleaning up. Emma wants to know where yo
u’
ve been hiding the mustard stash, by the way, says it was terrible to clean it out of your shirts
.
”

             
“
Tell her sh
e’
s a little brat
,”
Andrew retorted, the tips of his ears turning a dusky pink.

             
“
Tell her yourself
,”
came Emm
a’
s voice from the first landing
.“
And it
was
a bitch to get it all out
.
”

              Andrew snorted
.“
Complain, complain. Try going on some raids and see how you like it
.
”