“Seems like you’re a good guy so tell me, you come across a man with two girls he had no relation to, tell me you wouldn’t think the same.”
He blinked a couple times, the tension in his jaw easing as he considered her words, fingers flexing around the steering wheel.
“That don’t mean I gotta like bein’ accused of that,” he replied. “People like that are the scum of the earth and I don’t like bein’ grouped in with their kind.”
“I’m sorry if you’re insulted but I don’t regret asking, even if you put me back out on the street.”
“Ain’t gonna put you out on the street,” he grumbled as he hit the accelerator and they started moving again. “Could use an extra hand gettin’ gas anyway.”
It wasn’t exactly a warm welcome but she’d take it. At least she wasn’t alone anymore.
Subject File # 742
Subject - I feel guilty because there are times I’m thankful that the world ended.
Administrator - Why are you thankful?
Subject - If it didn’t end I don’t know if I’d have her.
Malcolm found Kim standing at the rear of the truck, staring at the blue tarps she held in her hands, lost in thought.
“Hey.”
She jumped at his greeting, and for a moment, he saw fear in her eyes but it was quickly replaced with relief when she realized it was him.
“You okay?”
She nodded, swallowing a couple time before speaking, her voice raspy.
“I was somewhere else for a second. We’re going to use the tarps for…Ana and Jose.”
He followed her gaze as it drifted to the closed up station. “They were good people.”
“They were the first ones to introduce themselves to me and Trey when we moved onto the street. They were so friendly and they adored Trey. They made me feel like we finally had a real home.”
The plastic tarp crinkled as she tightened her arms, pressing the material into her chest. “They loved each other so much and he tore her throat out before she could even scream. They didn’t deserve to die that way.”
Her eyes reflected the despair that slumped her shoulders. He reached up to cup the back of her head and pulled her to his chest with a gruff “C’mere.” She buried her face in his chest, a hand fisting his shirt as she clung to him. He ran a soothing hand up and down her back, her body trembling beneath his fingers as she began to cry.
“They didn’t deserve to die, no matter how it went down. None of us deserve any of this. Life is just a damn bitch sometimes.”
She turned her head, resting her cheek against his chest as she sniffled back her tears.
“It really is,” she whispered, lifting her chin to look up and meet his eyes. “I screwed up.”
His eyebrows came together as he tried to figure out what she was talking about. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before she spoke.
“When I went into the station and saw Jose and Ana, I was so scared. I tried to go for my gun but I fumbled it and couldn’t get it out in time. If Claudia hadn’t been there, he would have got the children. I screwed up and it could have cost those kids their lives.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that. No one expects you to keep a cool head in that kind of situation.”
“Just because someone doesn’t expect me to do it, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t do it.”
“You were a teacher before this, not a soldier.”
She pulled back to glare up at him. “What does that matter? Are you saying because I was a teacher, I’m soft?”
“Nothing like that,” he replied and her fiery glare dimmed and he had to smile. He liked that she was more than willing to speak up if she felt slighted. “What I meant was your life before this wasn’t the kind that would prepare you for what we’re going through. That doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of doing it now.”
“Would you teach me? I know we’ve been working on shooting but what if you taught us more than that? We weren’t soldiers before but you can make us into them now.”
He hadn’t considered the idea of expanding beyond the basic weapons handling and manoeuvres with the group. If the supply run had taught him anything it was that they were poorly prepared for any type of ambush. They had worked on how to clear a building but not what to do if they came under attack.
Kim was right. They could be made into soldiers, all of them. He could train them, pass along his own experience to increase their chances of survival. Not only would they benefit individually, it would make the group as a whole stronger.
“I’m willing to try. I can’t promise I’ll be the best teacher,” he told her and she smiled slyly.
“Lucky you’ve got a great one right here who can give you pointers.”
She was so beautiful in that moment that without thinking, he captured her lips with his own. It had been a sudden impulse to kiss her and had he taken a moment to consider it, he would have immediately seen his mistake. He was incapable of leaving it at just one kiss, not when it came to this woman and her sweet mouth.
He had to deepen the kiss, stroking the tip of his tongue along her full bottom lip, begging silently for her to open for him. He groaned in the back of his throat when she obliged, thrusting his tongue into her warm depths, the taste of her flooding his senses.
Her hands snaked up to grip his shoulders, clinging to him, as if she was afraid he would pull away from her at any moment. Like that was going to happen. It had been a long time since he had felt even half as much want for a woman as he did for her.
She pressed herself up against him, a tiny whimper coming from her when his growing erection pressed into her soft stomach.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
He and Kim jumped apart and he turned to see Quinton a few feet away, arms crossed over his chest as he glared at them.
“My sister is still out there and you’re here making out like a goddamn teenager,” he said with blatant disgust. Malcolm knew he should at least make an attempt to look ashamed but he couldn’t arrange his features to fit it. His head was still filled with Kim; her soft body pressed against him, the sweet scent of her skin, the taste of her still on his lips.
“Tamp down your damn boner so we can get this thing going.”
Quinton’s order finally cleared the last of the swirling haze of desire that lingered around him. Annoyance replaced it and he stepped around Kim to face off with Quinton.
“Hey man, give me a fucking break,” Malcolm said. “You aren’t the only one with people you care about. In case you missed it, we lost two of our people here last night. Don’t I get a chance to let my woman know that I’m glad she’s okay?”
His woman.
Well, what do you know. He hadn’t meant to say it, it had just come out. They hadn’t really talked about what was going on between them or what it meant and he wondered if he had overstepped his bounds with her. He glanced back to find her staring at him, lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. Okay, so it had been as unexpected for her as it was for him. He hoped he hadn’t completely fucked this up.
The fire in Quinton’s eyes ebbed but didn’t disappear altogether. “My sister has been out there alone for twenty four hours. I need us to get on the road as soon as possible. Can we get going, please and thank you.”
Though he had said it through gritted teeth, Malcolm was willing to accept the roundabout apology and he nodded. Quinton turned on his heel and stalked away, leaving Malcolm alone with Kim, who stared at him with a single eyebrow raised.
“Your woman, huh?”
Malcolm felt his cheeks heat up and he couldn’t believe he was blushing like a teenager. “Sorry, I didn’t think before I said it. It just came out and I didn’t mean it the way I said it.”
“Oh so I’m not good enough to be your woman then?” she said, fists dropping to rest on her hips as she faced off with him.
Shit
. He was fucking this up even more than it already was.
“No, that’s not what I meant. I meant that you’re your own woman and you make your own decisions. I shouldn’t be telling people you belong to me, you belong to yourself.”
“Oh your mama raised you good.” He felt very confused when she broke out in a wide grin. “Relax, I don’t mind you saying I’m your woman. It means I get to call you my man.”
She slipped her hand into his and gave it a tug, indicating that they start the walk back to the main camp.
“That seems like a fair trade to me,” he responded, threading his fingers through hers and letting her lead the way back.
“Good to hear that,” she replied, before biting her bottom lip coyly. “But just so you know, you
do
belong to me.”
Dark arousal sparked in her eyes and he wanted to kiss her again but he knew that he couldn’t control himself. Instead he reminded himself that the sooner he got on the road and found Travis and Quinton’s sister, the sooner he’d be back here with her.
“I’ll make sure what’s yours gets returned to you in perfect condition.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
Subject File # 745
Administrator - I’ve seen the two of you. You work well together.
Subject - We had lotta time to practice is all. Out there, on the road, ya learn real fast to trust the person watchin’ your back.
“Looks like we might be in luck.”
Veronica was right. The auto shop was just up on the right and had several vehicles parked around the one storey building. Still, Jackson held off on celebrating their luck just yet. That would come if they found the tanks weren’t empty.
They pulled into the lot and he killed the engine, leaving the keys in the ignition. He turned to the girls and gave them a stern look. “You two stay here while we go get some gas. You see anything, you honk the horn, got it?”
“Ya mind if I take one of those shotguns?” he asked, nodding at the snub nosed revolver that was in the centre console. “Feel better with somethin’ stronger than a peashooter.”
“Of course,” she replied, pulling her handgun out of her holster as they climbed out of the van. “Grab mine too, please.”
She kept watch over the lot as he went to the back and pulled out two of the shotguns, making sure they were both loaded before he shut up the van.
“We should sweep the lot, make sure nobody is hiding then check inside.”
He let her take the lead, figuring she’d spent the last day surviving on her own and seemed to know what she was doing. Besides, it meant she had her back to him instead of the other way around. Far as he was concerned, she was still a stranger and he didn’t trust her a hundred percent.
And he might still be a little pissed at her. She held a gun to his head, and when he’d been nice enough to forgive her for that, she went and called him a child molester. She might’ve been right to worry about it, for the girls’ sake, but it didn’t make him want to puke any less. Those kind of monsters were the lowest of the low, walking scum.
As they went up to the shop, he had to admit she knew what she was doing. Watching her move through the lot, gun up and her head moving around to scan the area, it reminded him of watching the SWAT team on the news. He wondered what she did for a living. He would’ve thought she was a cop, except she had no finesse when she was interrogating the girls. Maybe she’d been in the military, joined up to get a college education on Uncle Sam’s dime. But she’d have been called into service when all this shit started if that was true.
“Looks clear out here,” she called out. “Let’s check inside.”
The shop itself was a squat brick building with two glass paned garage doors and a smaller door that led into the shop’s office. The sun glinted off the garage doors, making it hard to see into the bay area without pressing your face right up to the glass. Veronica walked over to the office door, testing the doorknob which turned without resistance. She moved to one side and silently nodded for Jackson to stand on the other side.
When they were in place, Veronica looked at him and then down at the door handle before nodding at him. Yeah, she had to be military of some kind. He did as she asked, reaching for the handle and threw the door open, hissing when a bell attached to the door jingled their entrance.
Veronica didn’t hesitate though, moving inside and he followed behind her. Dust motes floated in the stale air of the office and a thin layer coated the desk and chairs. Several sets of keys hung on a peg board by the entrance to the bay, clipboards holding work orders below the keys.
He glanced at the dates on the work orders, noting the newest one was dated three weeks earlier, a coupe coming in for a tire rotation. A large window next to the bay area door gave them a view of the two hydraulic lifts, one of them still holding up a two door coupe. Looked like the owner had been shit out of luck on that one.
Veronica was quick to move to the bay area door, doing the same silent gestures to get him to open the door for her. He did as she asked and followed her into the bay, keeping his eyes peeled for threats and anything useful. He spotted a manual pump on one of the work benches and sent up a silent thanks to anyone that was listening. He hadn’t been looking forward to having to suck gas out of a hose. Shit tasted nasty as hell and gave him one hell of a headache.
“All clear,” Veronica said, finally lowering her gun, her tense shoulders relaxing.