Justice (22 page)

She made me forget the world outside.
 
There was nothing but Hannah. Her skin was so smooth. How did she get her skin so smooth? She should have been disgusting, sweaty and a little bit rank in this world without showers and toilet paper. Instead she smelled of lavender, her skin felt like velvet and her hair like silk.
 

She was turning me into a poet.
 

I wanted to take it to the next level. I wanted to strip down, bare her to the world and recreate every last fantasy I’ve had since puberty. She slid her hands under the hem of my shirt and her soft fingertips trailed over my chest. She yanked at the material, then pulled the shirt over my head. Those same delicate hands kept busy as they moved to my waist, pulled at my pants and popped the button of my fly open. She pulled the material aside and my whole body froze in anticipation.
 

She murmured her wants. They were the same as mine.
 

“I need you, Rebel,” she moaned as I dropped down in front of her and tugged on her pants, pulling them lower, over her knees, exposing flesh and that warm apex where her legs met that I wanted to touch so badly. I pulled her forward on the table, sucking on her bare thigh, licking and tasting the wonderful flavor of her skin.
 

“Fuck,” she screamed as I couldn’t wait anymore and I pushed forward, licking down and across her labia. I spread them with my fingers, pushing her open as far as I could in this awkward position, with her pants still stuck at her ankles because we had forgotten her boots.
 

I couldn’t get a good angle to pleasure her, so I stood and slipped my fingers across that tight nerve bundle at the top of her pussy. She reacted immediately, pushing forward against my hand and crying out my name again and again. I slipped a finger inside of her and pushed it in and out. My dick throbbed against my jeans jealous of a finger.
 

I needed to get her somewhere better than this hallway. Somewhere I could spread her out and lick her from top to bottom. Taste her as she came all over my face.
 

I stepped back, my reserve was at an all-time low. I was about to spin her around and take her right here, pants around her ankles, ass in the air. But she didn’t deserve that. She deserved to be treated like the hero she was. I didn’t want to screw her in a funeral home in the hallway because we wanted to forget that we had lost two people.
 

Stop
.

I pushed back and away from her. The look of confusion in her eyes, the hurt and the rejection, almost stopped me right there. I didn’t want to see that. I almost went back to her. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t do this to her.
 

I heard a noise and my head jerked in reaction. They stood at the window leering at us, their jaws hanging open in abject hunger. Their fists beat feebly at the window, their legs almost bent forward from the pressure of the ones behind them.
 

“I didn’t even hear them,” she said as she jumped off the hallway table and pulled her pants up. She buckled her belt and then grabbed her bra and shirt off the floor, putting them on quickly. I did the same and looked at the biters congregating in the front of our building. They would draw more.
 

This could have been bad.
 

“I guess that’s our cue,” I said resigned and she looked at me, now fully dressed again. She walked over and patted my now bare cheek. She got on her tip toes and kissed me lightly on the lips.
 

“Thank you,” she said and I didn’t know if it was to signify that things were now over between us, like this was a one-time thing that would never happen again, or if it was a random ‘thanks for the almost orgasm.’

Again, I nodded and took it. I guess I would find out later.
If there was a later.

FORTY-FOUR | Itchy

My skin was flushed and I was itchy, not with an actual irritation, but something underneath that made me want to run a few laps and do a hundred push-ups. I wanted to grab Rebel and throw him on the floor and ride him like the slut I had deep inside of me. It was a fairly rational thought, considering I was still burning everywhere he had touched me. It played in contrast to the other thoughts screaming in my mind for attention. The ones that made me want to collapse to the floor and sob like the baby I was. Give up and let the world take me. It was a hell of a combination of reactions. I was an emotional wreck, something I was not used to.
 

I needed to be back in control.
 

I didn’t think I would ever be able to feel like this. Five parts grief, three parts anger and two parts horny.
Okay, maybe four parts horny.
 
I was a mess. I had regarded Alexis, Blake and Zach as possessing something I couldn’t understand. They must have different priorities than me, a different perspective that allowed them to be so distracted in a world like this, to engage in such sexual behaviors while mourning loved ones. It was something I couldn’t understand.
Until now.
 

I had joked about it, I had mocked it, but I had never understood it. There was so much darkness, how could anyone let sex take priority? How could anyone look for love in a world like this?
 

Yet, with that tiny touch of sexual awareness Rebel had awakened in me, I understood. With that brush with bliss, I craved it more than anything I had ever craved before. I wanted it. I wanted more. If I couldn’t have it in a world like this, I might as well give up. I might as well sit down, let Murphey’s death break me and let the world eat me.
 

I didn’t want the world to break me. I wanted to break the world. And I wanted to do it with Rebel.
 

I looked at the zombies pressed against the glass. One day that might be me. It might be sooner, rather than later. Why did I have to sit and focus on that and only that? Why couldn’t I feel bliss?

I needed to find him. I wanted to run him down and rip his clothes off and say, “Let’s do this shit.”
 
He had gone somewhere. He was disturbed by the peeping zombies. I could see that all over his face. He felt like he was putting me in danger. Again, that weird feeling of being taken care of. It was a hard thing to get used to.

I found him in the director’s office, a distracted look on his face.
 

“Hey,” I said quietly so I wouldn’t startle him. He knew I was there, though. He looked up and smiled, holding up keys.
 

“A hearse, it’ll be in the back. Hopefully gassed up.”
 

“I hope they don’t have someone in there,” I laughed and walked to him.
 

“Doubt it,” he said and followed me as I tugged on his hand.
 

“So, where do we go? Back to base and abandon this mission? Or press on?” I asked.
 

“Press on. I’m not going back to that base with two dead and nothing to show for it.” I frowned as his words hit.
 

“You’re afraid of what will happen?”
 

“No, I don’t want Pratt and Heather to have died for nothing,” he said and I could have kissed him. I wanted to. But something in his tone and face had me holding back. It wasn’t the right moment.

“They won’t. We’ll get the equipment and get Lakeview back up and running.”
 

“Works for me,” he said as he casually rubbed my back as if he had been touching me like this for years, instead of a few hours. His touch again ignited a fire underneath my skin and my thoughts dipped back between my legs.
 

There would be plenty time for that.
We had things to do.
 

FORTY-FIVE | Go Solar

The hearse was gassed up and ready for us, no coffin in the back. There were two of them in a hidden garage behind the funeral home. We chose the black one. We only had two packs between us, so it wasn’t like we were hauling a lot of gear.
 
This would work.
 

The solar energy warehouse was only a few miles from our location. We could get on the interstate and be there in five minutes if there were no obstacles.
 

The hearse started up with only a little resistance. I let it run for a few minutes to get the engine used to running again.
 

It was a newer model, so it shouldn’t give us any trouble. I let it run as Baby opened the garage doors manually. There was nothing waiting for us, so I took my time as I rounded the corner, not wanting to run over anything and derail us again.
 

When I passed the front, the biters at the window turned and began to follow us, but we were on wheels and they were on foot. There was no contest. I pulled onto Canal Boulevard, and made a right, heading toward downtown.

We reached our first obstacle at the overpass at Metairie Road. The area underneath the pass was flooded. It was submerged under what looked like four feet of water. This was a common thing in the area and the reason for the big pumping systems at the foot of Pontchartrain Boulevard. Those pumps ran on electricity, though and with any heavy rain these low areas flooded.
 

Some genius of a city official put in a measuring stick on the columns at the lowest part so commuters could know how much water was in the pit. They would know it was four feet deep and they wouldn’t take a chance and try to drive through it. That was how I knew I wasn’t going to make it through.
 

There was an easy way to solve this. I went up the down ramp on this side. It’s not like I would be driving into oncoming traffic and it would also place me on the same side as the solar energy warehouse.
 

There were more cars on this side, since this headed out of the city. They were stopped randomly and thick, but I drove on the shoulder of the road until it opened up and I could get a good speed and head into the city. The cemeteries faded to houses and then to warehouses. The warehouses led to the jail and my mind focused on the possible state of that building.
 
Was the jail full of zombie inmates? The ones locked in cells, did they turn, or just slowly die of dehydration, forgotten?

I shuddered at the thought and Baby looked over at me curiously.
 

“You think they evacuated the jail?” She looked at the brand new complex that sat close to the interstate. The large wall that surrounded the imposing building was spiced up with the city’s team logos painted over the cement facade by inmates.
 

“Probably not, they didn’t during Katrina, not until after. I heard a bunch of them drowned in the lower floors, it was bad.”
 

“That’s sick.” I shuddered again and she grabbed my hand. It was such an innocent gesture but it meant so much. Again, that flicker of hope.
 

I thought about my brothers being held at the base. I hadn’t given them much thought, but thinking about those inmates drowning in their cells brought them to mind. Poche had mentioned they would be tried,
I would be tried
, but what did that mean? Was it to be a court like before? Would there be a jury? And what happened if they were found guilty? Would
they
be put in a jail for life, or something else?
 

I was thinking of it separate from myself, but chances were I would be tried the same way. It was only fair. I was a Southern Clansmen, by birth, by right and by association. I had never embraced that lifestyle, but I had imitated it. I had faked it for my father. For his approval and his acceptance. Which, even with all the faking, had never been achieved. When the Army found me, I was boldly showing my association by wearing their patches. I had the tattoos on my body, not yet covered up, not yet eradicated. Even though I had planned on doing it,
one day.
The story of my life.