Shattered World (Broken World Book 2) (14 page)

16

WHEN I WAKE, I’M CURLED UP in my bed all snuggled up against Axl. He’s wide awake, staring up into the darkness. He seems to sleep so little.

According to the clock on the bedside table, it’s almost midnight. It was late afternoon by the time I drifted off. After a shower and sex—safe sex, thanks to the condoms Axl swiped from his brother—I was more than ready for some real sleep. A lounge chair on the roof of a casino is not good rest.

My stomach growls so loudly Axl can hear it. He raises his eyebrows, and the corner of his mouth twitches, making the scar on his chin dance. “Hungry?”

I roll onto my back and stretch my legs, flexing my tired muscles. They’re sore from all the physical exertion. “Of course. We’ve barely eaten a thing in the last twenty-four hours.” The words are muffled by a yawn, but he gets the point. “I’m actually surprised it didn’t occur to me earlier how hungry I was.”

He smiles again, and there’s a teasing glint in his eyes. It makes him look younger. “I think you had other things on your mind.”

I try to smile because I know he’s referring to the sex, but it isn’t easy. Yes, that was on my mind, and it was good. It wasn’t what had distracted me from my hunger, though. The appearance of my mother, unloading the supplies and killing the undead, the situation with James…

“I need some food.”

I climb out of the bed and rummage around in the dresser for some clothes. This friend of Hadley’s brought such impractical stuff that it takes me a while to find anything. She must have had something against clothes. I need to do some laundry today so I don’t have to keep walking around in skimpy dresses. “Do you know where they put the food they brought down?” I ask once I’m wearing a very short cotton dress.

“Probably up by the control room.” He’s still lying in bed.

“Well, come on! You have to be hungry too.”

He gives me a half-smile. “I got no clean clothes here.” He motions toward his naked body, and I chew on my lip. Seeing him lying in my bed with nothing on is surreal. In a very good way.

But I’m hungry and I need to eat and he’s just lying there…Why doesn’t he have anything to wear in this condo?

“You didn’t grab some clothes when you went to get condoms last night?”

“Wasn’t really high on my list of priorities at the time.”

I snort. “You mean you didn’t have enough blood left in your brain to think about grabbing them.”

He chuckles and shakes his head. “Somethin’ like that.” He starts to sit up, and I’m momentarily distracted from my hunger by his muscled chest. There’s something so mesmerizing about him. “I can just put my dirty clothes back on.”

I put my hand on his shoulders to stop him from standing. “Those are covered in sweat, dirt, and black goo. You’re not putting those back on. I’ll go get some for you.”

“You gonna brave Angus after I swiped his condoms?”

There’s a smirk on his face, but the worry in his eyes is unmistakable. How is Angus going to react to us sleeping together? When we first met, he would have thrown a fit. He was so determined to make sure a woman didn’t come between him and his little brother. But we’ve almost become friends since then. It didn’t really occur to me that it would be a huge deal at this point. Judging by the look on Axl’s face, I’m not sure now.

“I can handle Angus,” I say with more certainty than I actually feel. How chummy he and Darla were earlier flashes through my mind. The last time we saw them, they were drinking together. I cringe and say, “Darla’s probably there with him, anyway. I bet those two jumped right in bed together.”

Axl’s gray eyes search mine, and he raises an eyebrow slightly. “You gonna tell me ‘bout it?”

I don’t want to say it out loud. Don’t want to admit to anyone who she is. But he’s looking at me so intently that the words come out before I can stop them. “Darla’s my mom.”

There’s no shock or disbelief in his eyes. He already knew. Of course he did. Axl can read me like a book. Even if he couldn’t, he’s smart enough to see the resemblance. I hate that we look so much alike, but we do.

His expression may not change, but he does pull me down next to him and wrap his arms around me. “I’m sorry.”

“You knew.” He doesn’t argue, so I take it as a yes. “When did you figure it out?”

“Didn’t take long. I knew right off that somethin’ wasn’t right. How you almost ran off an’ left her. Wasn’t like you. Then when she started talkin’ in the car, you were so tense. Wasn’t ‘til I looked at her real close that I knew why. You got her smile.”

I cringe and have to bite down hard on my lip to stop the tears from coming. A part of me wishes we had just left her so I didn’t have to deal with all this. I never wanted to see her again. Never thought I would once the world collapsed. To have her here now is so unbelievable.

“Did you know she was in Vegas?”

“There were rumors. She ran off about the same time as a man in the trailer park. He left behind a wife and three kids. About a year later he came crawling back to his wife, saying that he’d left my mom in Vegas. My dad swore up and down she’d never run off with that ‘piece of shit.’ Of course, he and I both knew it wasn’t about who she was running off with, but who she was running from.” I have to pause before I say the next word because it hurts too much. “Me.”

“She didn’t run from you. She ran from your dad.”

“She ran from me a little bit, otherwise she would have taken me with her. Would have at least checked on me. But she didn’t. She ran off and never looked back.” A tear forces its way from my eye and trickles down my cheek, leaving a hot trail behind.

“You gonna tell her?”

I shake my head and stand up, wiping my face with the back of my hand. “No. I’m not telling anyone. I don’t want people thinking that trash is in any way a part of me.”

Axl flinches just a bit. “You think she’s trash? What ‘bout me? She and I, we ain’t that different.”

I step closer and tilt his face up so he’s looking me in the eye. “You are nothing like her. You are nothing like Angus or my father or your mother. Axl, you are so much more than you give yourself credit for.”

He doesn’t look convinced, but when I kiss him, he kisses me back. It’s half-hearted, though. I want to say more, but he acts uncomfortable, so I let it go and step back. I know Axl has a tough time believing he’s more than what he used to be, but I want him to. Angus has kept him down, intentionally or not, I have no idea. But that needs to change. Axl is better than any man I’ve ever known. It doesn’t matter where he lived before all this. What matters is who he is on the inside.

He stands up and looks away from me like it hurts to see admiration the in my eyes. “I gotta pee.”

He walks toward the door, but he’s not wearing a stitch of clothing.

“You’re naked. What if you run into Hadley?”

He doesn’t turn to look at me, but the corner of his mouth twitches. “Then I guess she’ll get a good show.”

I laugh. “You’re mean. Here she is at the end of the world, stuck underground. Who knows when she’ll get laid next?”

He turns around to face me and leans up against the wall. Completely naked and so sexy. A little smile lights up his face and turns my insides into Jell-O.

“She thinks you’re hot.”

He purses his lips. “No, she don’t.”

I climb to my feet and walk over, stopping in front of him. My hands run up his stomach and over his chest to his shoulders. “She told me. Before she knew I liked you.” God, I feel like I’m twelve saying it that way.

He lifts an eyebrow and puts his hands on my hips. He pulls me close and presses his lips against mine. I wrap my arms around him, then run my fingers through his dirty blond hair. My heart pounds when his mouth moves faster, and for a moment I consider forgetting my growling stomach and going back to bed.

He pulls back, and his gray eyes study me. All teasing gone. “I’ll try not to let her see me,” he whispers.

He opens the bedroom door and heads to the bathroom. My eyes follow his every move, and I bite down on my bottom lip. Why did I have to wait until the world ended and everything had gone to shit to find the one person who might actually make me happy? It seems unfair.

As if life for me has ever been fair.

My stomach growls again. Right. There was a reason I got up at midnight. I need to get clothes for Axl, then food.

There’s no sign of Hadley in the condo when I head out, but the door to her room is shut, and it’s late. She’s probably asleep, but I can’t help laughing as I wait for the elevator. She’s going to lose her shit if she bumps into Axl naked. Or maybe she’ll be sorry she missed it.

The elevator door opens, and I almost jump out of my skin. I didn’t expect anyone to be standing there, and Joshua is so tall and gangly he had my mind playing all kinds of terrifying tricks on me. A shudder runs down my spine when I step in next to him.

“You okay?” he asks.

I nod and put my hand to my heart, trying to calm the pounding in my chest. “You surprised me. Why are you up so late?”

He sighs and rubs the back of his neck. “Sophia wasn’t feeling well, so we went up to the clinic to make sure everything was okay. Then I checked on James.”

Guilt and worry twist inside me. I need to be more involved. To worry less about getting laid and focus more on making sure everyone else is doing alright. “Is everything okay with the baby?”

“Yeah. Thankfully, they didn’t sell off the ultrasound equipment, so I was able to get a good look at things. I think she just needs to eat more, to be honest. We’ll have to work on getting that food down here tomorrow so everyone has some in their condos.” He looks tired. His eyes are red and bloodshot, and there are bags under them.

“Are you okay? You look like you could use a week’s worth of sleep.”

He nods, but his mouth tenses and his eyes flit away. “Haven’t been sleeping really well. Dreams and stuff like that. Plus, I’m worried about the medical supplies.”

The doors open on the ninth floor and I step out with Joshua so we can finish our conversation. I can walk down the two flights of stairs to get to Axl’s condo.

“What are you worried about? We have all that stuff we took from Walmart. What more do we need?”
              He leans against the wall, but even then I have to look up. He’s so tall. “We have the meds we took, but they won’t last forever. And we have nothing for emergencies. No suture kits, no way to transfuse blood, nothing that will help me out if I need to do surgery. We’re going to need to get to a hospital so we can collect supplies.”

“Shit,” I mutter.

I was never a huge fan of zombie movies, but even I know a hospital is the last place you want to go in a time like this. It will be overrun.

“Yeah,” he says. It’s almost a whisper, and it’s full of dread. Like he knows sending people there will be a death sentence. “I’ll really need to go too. So I can get the right stuff.”

“No,” I say firmly. “We need a doctor here. We can’t risk something like that.”

“There’s another doctor,” he argues.

“Really? Have you seen him? Because I haven’t. Not even once.”

Joshua runs his hand through his hair and nods. “I’ve seen him a few times when he came out for food. He looked severely depressed. Hadley said he lost his wife.”

“Who hasn’t lost someone,” I mutter. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who can’t get their shit together. Everyone’s hurting, everyone had their lives destroyed.

“Whatever.” Joshua stands up. “I need to get some sleep. We’ll talk about it later.”

“Wait!” I say, stopping him as he opens the door to the condo he’s sharing with Jhett. “How’s James?”

Joshua shrugs. “Dying. Getting ready to turn.” He pushes the door open and steps in, calling over his shoulder, “No different than we expected.”

My body jerks when he shuts the door in my face, but I shake it off and head for the stairs. My legs are heavy again, and even the two floors I have to go down are suddenly daunting. We have to go back to Vegas. It’s not a surprise—even if we didn’t need medical supplies, we’d still have to get fuel—but it sends a jolt through my body that makes every inch of me tingle with fear and dread. And going to a hospital? There’s got to be another way to get medical supplies.

The condo Angus and Axl are sharing is unlocked. I crack the door and peek inside before entering. The living room is empty, and I have a clear view of the kitchen. Also empty. Taking a deep breath, I race through the living room and back to the bedroom, letting out a sigh of relief when I make it without running into Angus.

Or Darla…

When the door’s shut, I flip on the light. Axl’s stuff is thrown around the room, but most of it is on the floor around his duffel bag. Not folded and most likely not clean. I sigh and start shoving it into the bag. Might as well do his laundry while I’m doing mine.

I’ve just about gotten it all when a purple backpack catches my eye. I freeze, and my heart constricts. It’s Emily’s. I didn’t know he took it with him when we left the gun store. That’s where she died. Where we went after she was bitten and where she turned. I woke up in the middle of night and saw that she wasn’t in her sleeping bag. Axl and I searched the dark store for her. I thought she’d just gotten up to use the bathroom and gotten lost. I never dreamed she’d turned into one of them.