Thicker than Blood (15 page)

Unfazed by my tactless comment, Leisel edged
closer to me, taking my hand in hers. “Remember when I told you how
much I hated fruitcake, that all I’d ever wanted as a kid was a
damn chocolate cake at Christmas, but my mom continued making
fruitcake? Remember, Eve? We were drinking tequila in your
backyard, and for some reason I told you my Christmas cake sob
story, and then six months later you made me that chocolate
cake—albeit a shitty one—and gave it to me for Christmas.”

My chin trembled, my heart stuttering in my
chest. “Don’t,” I pleaded, more tears building in my eyes and
threatening to break free. Tears that I’d long refused. Tears that
I’d always been able to resist in the past. “Please don’t do this,
Lei.”

Raising our joined hands, Leisel pressed a
kiss to my knuckles. “When you gave me that awful cake, I knew what
I meant to you, how much you cared for me. I knew from that day on
that I would always be able to depend on you.” Leisel stared into
my face, her eyes glistening with love. “And in return, I swore to
myself that you would always be able to depend on me.”

I swallowed and looked away, choking back my
tears. Her hand found the bottom of my chin, and she tilted my face
back to hers.

“You made me so happy that day, Eve, and
every day since. I love you, and I am grateful every single day
that you married my husband’s best friend, that you became my best
friend. You make the days worthwhile. You make everything
worthwhile.”

My first sob broke free. It was loud and
tragic, and made my gut twist painfully. Fat, salty tears trailed
down my cheeks as I continued to shake my head, wishing she would
stop. But I couldn’t find my voice, couldn’t tell her to hush
because my throat felt too tight, and I was too busy sucking down
air, trying desperately to breathe.

As I sobbed again, louder this time, Leisel
tried to pull me into her arms. I resisted at first, pushing back
against her, but she refused to let me go, refused to loosen her
grip on me. Eventually my dam broke, my barriers came crashing
down, and I found myself clinging to her as I sobbed, my pain
finally finding purchase in the world. Memories flooded in; there
was no hiding from them any longer.

The tears were never ending, a tsunami of
emotion that threatened to swallow me whole, over and over again
dragging me into the abyss of pain that I’d been hiding from for
years. And all the while, Leisel held me tightly, humming softly
and sweetly, keeping me tethered to her and refusing to allow my
pain to consume me.

• • •

I must have dozed off, because when I woke my face
was dry of tears, but I was still in Leisel’s arms.

“I still remember how you looked when Thomas
introduced us,” I said, my voice hoarse and my throat sore from
crying. “You were scared shitless.”

“You were intimidating, Eve!” she said with a
laugh.

Sitting up, I wiped the remaining tears still
clinging to my lashes. “I overheard you talking to Tom that day,
you know?”

Leisel’s brow furrowed with confusion.

“At the table,” I explained. “I think a
waiter had just brought you a fresh drink. You were never much of a
drinker, so in your defense you were probably a little drunk when
you said it…”

Leisel shook her head. “Said what?”

“That you hoped you weren’t going to have to
spend too much time with me. That I’d been a whore in high school,
and you hoped I was just another one of Shawn’s flings, and that we
wouldn’t last. That he could do a lot better than me.”

Her eyes wide, Leisel reached for me. “I’m so
sorry, Eve, I didn’t mean it!”

“Yes, you did,” I said, and grinned. “And you
were right. Shawn did deserve better than me, so I set out to be
better for him and to prove you wrong. To show you I wasn’t a total
loser.”

“I don’t even remember that,” she said,
sounding guilty.

“I told you, you can’t drink for shit. But it
doesn’t matter. All I wanted you to know was that you’d been right.
Hearing you say that, it made me want to be better for him, and
what started out as me trying to prove you wrong, turned into me
falling in love with Shawn. You didn’t know it, but you saved me. I
was heading down a path that eventually there was going to be no
coming back from. You saved me from that, you and Shawn.”

“But you only had two years together.”
Leisel’s face crumpled. “You both deserved more.”

“Two years with a man I loved,” I said,
nudging her. “And you gave me that. No one could have known what
was going to happen, Lei. And having two years with a man like
Shawn was worth it. It’s better to have loved and lost than to have
never loved at all, right?” Turning toward her, I tossed my arms
around her neck and squeezed her to me. “Thank you for giving me
those two years with him.”

We were both crying now, crying and hugging
each other, but beneath the tears I was smiling. “Do you remember
when you crashed Tom’s car into the back of Mr. Reilly’s
truck?”

“And you flashed your boobs at him so he
didn’t report the accident!” Leisel added, laughing.

“And we told Tom that he didn’t call the
police because he was just being a good neighbor!”

We were both hysterical now, laughing so hard
that we were crying again. I couldn’t say that it had been better
to remember, to let it all out. The pent-up emotions were still
there, and there were a million more memories that were yet to be
freed, a million more tears yet to be shed, but it had been good to
let some of it go, to not have to be the resilient one for just a
little while. The air smelled cleaner than it did before, my head
seemed a little less crowded, and my body a bit more
rejuvenated.

A noise in the forest drew our attention to
where Alex was standing beside a large oak tree, holding two dead
rabbits in his hand. “Is it safe?” he asked, raising his brow.

Nodding at him, I rolled my eyes as Leisel
beckoned him forward.

“I found a small cabin about a mile north,”
he said, stepping forward. “I staked the place out, waited for
about an hour to see if anyone showed up, but no one did. We need
to scout out the area first, but I think we should check it
out.”

He paused, his gaze landing on Leisel. He
looked concerned for her, but more than that there was a
possessiveness in his expression that I’d never noticed before.
He’d always stared at her, but never with such intensity. I
supposed that now we were all finally free of Fredericksville, none
of us felt compelled to hide our true feelings any longer. We were
all finally free.

“Let’s eat first,” I said, “and then go check
it out.”

Leisel

The cabin was just as Alex had said, not too far off
and yes, very small. But it didn’t look abandoned, not in the way
everything else seemed to look. It was run-down, the burnished red
paint in need of a touch-up, and the windows were boarded up. Yet,
from our vantage point hidden amongst the trees—and everything else
considered—the tiny cabin looked pretty good.

“I don’t know about this,” I whispered. The
town of Covey had looked even worse than this lone cabin, and after
what had happened there… Well, I didn’t want to put anything to
chance.

“We need clean clothes, Lei,” Evelyn
whispered back. “At the very least, something to bandage your
wrists.”

“I’ll go first,” Alex said. “If it’s safe,
I’ll whistle once. If not, twice, and you two…run.”

“We’re not leaving you,” I blurted out,
instantly feeling ridiculous. Who was I kidding? It had been Alex
who’d saved me, twice now. If anyone was going to be doing any
saving, it certainly wouldn’t be me. Still, I meant what I’d said.
I wouldn’t leave him, not for anything. I owed him; Evelyn and I
both did.

“We’re not leaving you,” Evelyn agreed, then
smirked. “Who will catch our dinner?”

Alex grunted. “Good to know what I’m
worth.”

Despite myself, I smiled. The past few days
of peace and quiet had been a soothing balm to my aching heart. The
time that Evelyn and I had spent talking about life before the
infection had been the most freeing moment I’d experienced in quite
some time. Of course, it had helped that that we were now actually
free.

Be careful
, I mouthed to Alex.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw his arm
move, his hand lift, and even though I was still staring up at his
face, in my peripheral vision I watched as his hand continued to
rise toward its destination. My cheek.

Unlike last time, back in Covey when he’d
nearly touched me yet didn’t, this time his large, warm hand made
contact, gently cupping my cheek. The unexpected intimate touch
sent a shiver of something foreign slithering through me. Not good,
not bad…just odd.

And there was something else, something in
his eyes not unlike the way he’d been looking at me back at the
creek. It was every bit as intense, but even more so. Stronger, and
infinitely more private.

Suddenly nothing made sense, the shared looks
and the hand holding, all seemingly simple gestures and usually
meaningless, but they no longer seemed simple or meaningless
anymore. I didn’t know what this new revelation meant, or if it
meant anything at all. All I did know was that it frightened me,
curdled my insides like old milk, and sent my heart aflutter in a
fitful cadence of beats that pounded their way up to my throat.

“Listen for my whistle,” Alex said as he
dropped his hand, breaking our connection and scattering my
thoughts. Slightly dazed, I watched as he crossed the small
distance of forest and stepped out into the clearing.

His body taut with aggression, one hand
gripping his handgun, the other a blade, he walked slowly yet with
purpose toward the cabin. I studied him intently, something I’d
never bothered doing until this very moment. I took in the pride in
his stance, the predatory way he walked, and his overall
masculinity, and I felt a swell of appreciation burst to life deep
down within my belly. Even though he was five years younger than my
twenty-nine years, he both looked and acted much older. Maybe that
was due to his life before the infection, or maybe it stemmed from
whatever horrors he’d endured after. Or maybe he’d just always been
an old soul.

I continued to watch him, thinking that
maybe his dark, fierce features weren’t quite so intimidating
anymore; that maybe, just maybe, they were part of his charm. For
several seconds my thoughts continued to wage a war with one
another in relation to Alex, agreeing and then disagreeing,
finding
plausible
reasons for my strange line of thinking, and then more excuses for
why I should put a stop to it. It wasn’t until he turned the
corner, out of sight, that my mind finally freed me from its
babbling.

“I don’t like this,” I whispered nervously,
sensing my anxiety rising. Several more seconds had passed
silently, and yet no whistle had sounded. What-ifs began racing
through my thoughts, the endless possibilities of what awful things
could be happening behind that cabin, and me unable to help.

The sound of crunching leaves echoed in the
stillness as Evelyn inched her way closer to me. Her hand slipped
into mine and together, like we always had, we gripped each other
tightly.

“You know how he saved you, don’t you?” she
whispered. “Back in Covey, from those freaks?”

Turning to look at her, I shook my head
slowly. “No,” I said. “I didn’t really think about it.” I paused as
a memory struck me. Alex and the dead man he’d been dragging into
the room, the one with the human bone jutting from his eye
socket.

“I asked him,” Evelyn said. “He was locked in
a room just like you were, chained up and given to an infected. He
used his chains to strangle the thing, and ripped its head clear
off. Then he tore open the body, dug out a leg bone, snapped it
off, and waited until someone came looking.”

I gasped at the image that intruded on my
thoughts, the ugly memory of that moment pushing forward.

“Are you listening to me, Lei?” she
continued. “That man took the head off an infected and used its
bones to kill an armed guard. And he did this all while still
chained up.”

I stared at her, not blinking, a little
light-headed at the thought of it all.

“My point is, Lei, you don’t need to worry
about him,” she said matter-of-factly.

Feeling both bewildered and proud, I turned
away from her and back to the cabin. No, I really didn’t have to
worry about him, did I? At least, not when it came to protecting
himself.

In the distance, a low piercing whistle
sounded and my breath caught. I waited to hear another, two
whistles to signify that danger was afoot and it was time to flee
or fight. But it never came. Instead, I watched as Alex appeared
from around the side of the cabin, looking entirely well.

With a sigh of relief, I dropped Evelyn’s
hand, got to my feet, and together we started for the clearing.

• • •

According to Alex, all the windows were still
intact, yet had been boarded over on the outside as well as the
inside, something that would require making a mess and a whole lot
of noise if we tried to enter that way. In the end, it was the
front door that seemed to be the safest and most logical way
inside, but first we’d have to get past the two large padlocks
sealing us out.

“This is a good thing,” Alex murmured, using
his knife to fiddle with the top lock. “Means ten to one there’s
something useful inside, and most likely no nasty surprises.”

I still wasn’t convinced that we were safe
here. Something about this place felt off to me. Unlike everywhere
else we’d seen, it didn’t seem dead; in fact, it was teeming with
life. Of course, that could have been all the burgeoning forest
surrounding me, the animals and insects within, all who’d been
untouched by the infection. Still, my worry didn’t lessen, and I
found myself constantly scanning the tree line for any sign of
movement.