What Survives of Us (Colorado Chapters Book 1) (30 page)

“It was a nightmare.  I’m sorry.”

She couldn’t figure out why he looked so miserable.  “It’s okay.  It happens.”

“No.  You don’t understand.”  He sat with his arms looped around his legs, and wouldn’t lift his eyes from his knees.  “It’s the same dream.  The same one I had the night before you were taken.  I have it over and over.”

She remembered suddenly, the nightmare that had sent him lunging from his sleeping bag, and her irritation, from what seemed like a thousand years ago.  “What are you saying?  That you had a premonition or something?”

“Yes.  I dreamed it, just like it happened.  Exactly.”

Grace frowned.  “Do you do that often?  Dream something that happens?”

“No.  Never before that, anyway.”

“Then how could you know that time was different?  Quinn, it wasn’t your fault-”

“Don’t say that!”  He bellowed the words at her. 

Grace started back, filled with sudden terror.  He was looking at her, finally, and she wished he’d look away.  His eyes were agonized.  Something inside him was broken. 

“I should have warned you, and stopped it from happening!  Why else would I dream th
at?  I failed you, and they-” He broke off, staring at her, chest heaving.  Then he reached for the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it off.

Dozens and dozens of tiny cuts marched up and down his ribs, some healed to pink lines, some scabbed over, some still oozing and angry.  “Every time they touched you,” he whispered, “I made a cut.  It was the only way I could stand it.  I was given a warning, and I ignored it.  I watched, every night, every single night I watched, so I’d be ready to help you.  I knew you’d find a way out, and you did.”

Grace shut her eyes.  She would never stop seeing those cuts.  So many.  She swallowed hard, feeling bile push its way up her throat.  “You watched?”  Her voice was a feeble trickle of sound.  “You saw?”

She heard the rustle as he pulled his t-shirt back on, but kept her eyes closed.  In that place of filth and pain, she’d felt no shame.  Survival was everything, survival was all.  Here, in this sweet, old-fashioned bedroom, shame closed over her head, a flood that would never recede.  How could she ever look into his eyes again, knowing what they’d seen?

She heard him scoot closer, felt his warm hands close over her knotted fists.  “Grace, open your eyes.  Look at me.”

She shook her head, but her closed lids couldn’t hold back the rush of tears.  “No,” she choked.  “You shouldn’t have watched.  I can’t stand it.”

“I had to,” he said, and she could tell by his voice he was crying, too.  “Gracie, I know you’ll never be able to forgive me.  We were a team, and I failed.  I didn’t show you those cuts to make you feel bad.  I showed you so you would know you were never alone, not ever.  I stayed with you the whole time.  I couldn’t help you, but I didn’t leave you.  I never will.”

Grace took a huge breath and opened her eyes.  “If you pity me, I’ll kill you.”

Quinn barked out a laughing sob, swiping at his tears and runny nose with the back of his hand.  “I don’t pity you, Gracie.  You were so brave.”

Her eyes slammed shut again.  “I wasn’t brave.  I didn’t fight them, not even once.”

His fingers landed on her cheek, soft as down.  “Fighting would have been stupid.  It just would have gotten you hurt.  I could see you thinking the whole time, working out a plan, like you do.”  Grace’s eyes cracked open, and Quinn smiled crookedly.  “I pitied them.  I knew you’d make fools of them, eventually.”

His words made alarm dance down her spine.  She
had
made fools of them, and they wouldn’t forget it.  She stared into Quinn’s eyes, knowing she should share her concern, knowing they should talk about leaving as soon as possible, knowing she should tell him about everything she’d heard, but she couldn’t make her lips form the words.

Was it so selfish, to want some time to heal?  Wasn’t she entitled to some safety and some peace?  This place was magical, and she didn’t want to leave.

Grace closed her eyes, and leaned to rest her head on Quinn’s shoulder, comforted by his warmth and closeness.  During the long hours with nothing to do but think, she’d realized that she might never want to be close to another person again, especially a man.  But this was Quinn.  He was, simply, her home.

“It’s over,” she said sleepily.  “It’s over, and we both survived, and we never have to think about it or talk about it again.”

She felt Quinn stiffen, and stopped him before his protest could begin.  “There’s no reason to.  It happened.  It’s done.  That’s all.”

He pushed her back so he could look at her face, his eyes troubled.  “If that’s what you want, Gracie.”

“It is.”  She curled back up on her side, burrowing under the covers.  The storm had subsided to an occasional rumble of thunder and a steady patter of rain.  “Will you hold my hand, while I sleep?  It’s so good to not be alone…”

Quinn blew out the lamp, then stretched out on his pallet and reached up to twine his fingers with hers.  Their hands were still joined when she woke up the next morning to bright sunshine and birdsong.

For a few days, she was content just to eat and sleep.  Quinn left her only for brief forays into the adjoining neighborhood in search of supplies, and to care for the animals he’d adopted.  Two sheep were left, and half a dozen chickens, along with the two horses.  As her strength returned, Grace began to join Quinn as he worked, weeding in the garden and exploring the other buildings on the grounds.  Anything they could use, they brought back to the ranch house – books, games, cooking utensils.  Slowly, they stopped feeling like they were living in a museum that needed to be preserved, and adapted the house to suit their needs.

Grace drifted along, quietly content, a state she could never remember inhabiting before.  She thought about the task that was under her hands, nothing more.  There was so much to learn, and so much work to be done, there wasn’t time to remember lost families or nights of horror.  No time to worry about the future, about violent men with expansion plans.  On those rare occasions when dark thoughts snapped at her heels, she would close her eyes and recite something – the periodic table of elements, a poem she’d learned for a long-ago English class, anything.  Memorizing had always come easily to her.  Now, she learned it was just as easy to forget.

Occasionally, they spoke of the extraordinary changes it appeared people were going through; Quinn’s gift with plants had grown to a whole new level.  All he had to do was touch a plant, and somehow, he
knew
what its medicinal qualities were, how it was best used, how to propagate it and so on.

“It doesn’t feel like a new thing, though,” he explained as he hoed swiftly down a row of carrots.  “More like something that’s always been in me that I’ve grown into.”  He snickered, and for a moment, sounded like the teenage boy he was.  “Kinda like puberty.  Before that, you think girls are pretty, but then puberty hits and you
feel
how pretty they are.  Know what I mean?”

Grace gave him her best eye roll.  She listened when he talked about this, but didn’t share what she’d overheard the men in the gang discuss.  She didn’t speak of her time with the men, not ever.  Nor did she offer her own thoughts or comments.  Though she sensed in herself a growing potential, for her it remained a step yet to be taken. 

Days slid quietly into weeks.  The valley vibrated with the life of high summer, and they were starting to have trouble keeping up with the bounty of their garden.  Grace had found a book on canning and preserving, and they’d scraped together supplies from every kitchen they had access to. 

Quinn sat at the table shelling peas one hot, close afternoon, while Grace washed canning jars.  She had about ten seconds to register that she wasn’t feeling all that well before she hit the floor.  She came back to herself a few moments later, took one look at Quinn’s frantic face hovering over her, then promptly rolled over and vomited her lunch onto the kitchen floor.

She was fine half an hour later, and they brushed it off as a touch of summer ‘flu, or maybe something she’d eaten that was off.  Until it happened the next afternoon.  And again the next. 

Quinn was wild with worry.  He disappeared the next morning, returning a few hours later with his arms full of medical books.  “I saw these in one of the houses up on the ridge,” he explained as he piled them on the table in the dining area.  “I think the guy must have been a doctor.  They’re all pretty old, but maybe…”

He trailed off, running his fingers down the spine of one book, then another, frowning.  He darted a look at her from under his eyebrows.  “I’m not much good with books, but I can try to help.  You know.  I can try to help find out what’s…”  Again, his voice stuttered to a halt.  Then, he burst out.  “What if it’s the plague?  What if you’ve finally caught it?”

“I don’t think so.  The symptoms are different.”  Grace frowned in concentration, processing all the information she had stored on the plague.  “Do you know what the date is?”

“June something, towards the middle.”

“Based on the course they thought it would follow, the plague should burn itself out by the end of June.  Why would I catch it now?  We’ve only seen each other – who would I have caught it from?  No, it’s not the plague.”  She patted the medical
books.  “I’ll take a look at them later, when I have time.  I feel fine now, so I’ll see what I can find for our lunch.”

The next afternoon, she didn’t have time to read because she was teaching herself to use the treadle sewing machine they’d found.  And the next afternoon, she couldn’t put off weeding the green beans one more day.  And the next afternoon, it was something else.  Quinn was perplexed, then exasperated with her.  In desperation, he cracked the books open himself, nagging at her to describe her symptoms in greater detail so he could play medical detective.

“I’m tired!” she snapped at him.  “All the time.  This is dumb, Quinn.  There’s nothing to worry about.”

He ignored her, and continued doggedly turning pages.  “What else?”

Grace started huffing around the kitchen, putting away the dishes she’d washed earlier that day.  “This is embarrassing,” she groused.  “I think I might have a urinary tract infection.”  She felt her face heat.  “It burns when I go.  And I have to go a lot.”

Quinn flipped to the index, found the section he was looking for, then painstakingly read for a while, his lips moving with the effort.  He sighed.  “That wouldn’t explain the fainting.  Or the vomiting.  Are you running a fever?  Waking up at night in a sweat?”

“No.”

“It’s probably not an infection, then.  What else?”

Grace crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.  “My boobs are killing me.”

She saw Quinn’s Adams apple bob as he gulped.  “Okay,” he said in a strangled voice.  “We’ll add that to the list.  Can you think of anything else?”

“No.”  She returned to putting dishes away.  “I told you, it’s just a passing bug.  I got run down.  Maybe I’m missing a vitamin or mineral or something.  I’ll get some extra rest, and I’ll be fine.”

She looked up, and Quinn was just staring at her.  His face had blanched to a ghastly milky shade.  “What?” she said, alarmed.  “Are you feeling sick, too?  What’s wrong?”

“Sit down, Grace.” 

When she hesitated, he stood up and took her arm, steering her into the other chair.  He sat down as well, and scooted close to her.  He gripped her hands so hard it hurt, his eyes sharp and intense as they roved over her face.

“When was the last time you had a period?”

She slapped his arm reflexively.  “Ugh, Quinn!  Guys don’t ask that stuff!”

“When, Grace?”

Her heart started to pound.  No.  No.  She had gotten so good at burying it deep, at pushing it away, she could go days without remembering.  “I had some cramping not long after you brought me here, and I thought it would start.  But I didn’t…  There wasn’t any…”  She started to pant.  “There was no blood.  Just the cramping.  No, Quinn.  No.”

“Grace.  Gracie, it’ll be okay.  I’ll take care of you.”

She exploded out of the chair, ripping her hands away from his.  “No.  No!”  She screamed the word at him.  “I won’t do it!  I won’t go through with it!  There has to be a way to get rid of it!  It’ll be a monster, Quinn!  They were monsters, killers, all of them!  You saw!  You saw what they did, what they were!”

“I don’t know anything about that, Gracie.  About how to get rid of a baby safely.  You could die, if we do something wrong.”

“I’d rather die than…”  She gulped back tears, too angry to give in to them.  “Fucking hell, Quinn!  Why?  Why?  I was a
virgin!  I never did anything bad, not even with William, and I loved him!”

Quinn was crying now, tears tracking steadily down his face.  “Tell me what to do.  I’ll do anything.  But I won’t agree if it means you’ll be in danger.  You’ve made it through so much, I’ve been so proud of you.”  He sobbed, once, then fought himself back under control.  “You’re all I’ve got, Gracie.  All I’ve got in the world.  I can’t lose you.”

“Then help me get rid of this.”  She was thinking furiously, picking through the puzzle pieces and discarding them when they wouldn’t form the picture she wanted.  Quinn was right about one thing; she would be good and god-damned if she’d survived this much, only to die trying to kill the horror growing inside her.