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  I smile at the warm glint in his eye.

  His eyes move lower down my body, and he hefts himself to his feet and pulls on his underwear. “Lemme get a towel. Made a mess on you.”

  He did make a mess on me. His come is spattered all over my belly. I’m not exactly sure what to do with it, so I just wait until he brings a towel over—we hung it up earlier, but it’s still slightly damp—and wipes my stomach.

  His hand slows but doesn’t pull away. He’s not meeting my eyes. “Can I ask you somethin’?”

  “Of course.” I have no idea what to expect, but my heartbeat accelerates.

  “Was this... just now... Was it your first time?”

  I tense up and push away the towel. I check between my legs, but it doesn’t look like I bled. I sit up and pull the sheet to cover myself with. “You could... you could tell?”

  He doesn’t answer. He’s still not looking at me.

  “Was I... was I that bad?”

  His eyes fly up. “No! Course not. You were... great. I’s just... wonderin’.” His accent is thick, and his words stumble.

  I relax and try to smile. “Can you hand me that blue T-shirt?”

  He gets up to grab it as I slide my panties back on. When I’ve got the shirt on, I make room for him on the edge of the bed.

  “Should I not have asked?” He’s looking at me now, so that’s something.

  “It’s fine to ask. I just didn’t want to... to be bad at it.”

  “You weren’t bad at it. It was good.”

  “I thought so too.” I gnaw on my lower lip for a few seconds. “It was my first time.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t know. I was kind of embarrassed. And I didn’t want you to... to treat me differently.”

  “I woulda been gentler with you. Treated you more careful. If I’d known.”

  “I know you would. That’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t want you to be only careful and gentle. I wanted... to feel it.”

  “And did you?” He’s holding my eyes with a slanting look.

  “Yeah. I did.” I pick at the sheet. “Did you?”

  “Yeah. I did too.”

  Things feel settled now, so we get ready for bed. I straighten the covers while Travis checks to make sure the two windows and the barricaded door are secure. It’s almost completely dark outside and in the room when Travis climbs into the bed beside me.

  We lay about a foot apart, both of us on our backs. I feel him shifting occasionally.

  I’m not sure how long it’s been when he says, “I thought women bleed the first time.”

  Maybe the words should surprise me, but they don’t. “I don’t know. Some do. Some don’t.”

  “You never went all the way with Peter?”

  I jerk and roll over to face his direction. I can’t see him in the dark, but it doesn’t matter. “You knew about Peter?”

  “Sure. Peter Shepherd. Pat and Rose’s boy. You were goin’ with him for a while, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. When I was seventeen. I’m just surprised you knew that. We didn’t even know each other back then.”

  “Yeah, we did. I fixed your car.” He says the words simply, as if they’re articulating an obvious truth.

  Maybe they are.

  “I know. But we never really... It just never occurred to me you would notice who I went out with.”

  “It wasn’t some creepy thing. I wasn’t pervin’ on you or nothin’. I just noticed. I thought Peter was a nice boy.”

  “He was.” I swallow over a familiar ache. It’s years old now. It doesn’t hurt me like it used to. “We never got all the way to sex. We would have. I’m sure we would have. But we didn’t have the chance.”

  He reaches over to touch my forearm for just a few seconds before he pulls back. There’s a minute or two of silence before he says, “I was with the group that found his body.”

  “You were?”

  “Yeah. If it... helps at all, looked like he went quick.”

  Peter went hunting one day and never came back. Some of the other hunters found his body and said it looked like he’d been shot. No one ever found out what happened.

  “I’m glad he didn’t suffer. He was really sweet.” I take a shaky breath. “Maybe too sweet for the world as it is now.”

  “Yeah. Maybe there’s no room for sweetness no more.”

  The words linger in the silent room.

  I touch Travis’s hand to let him know I appreciate what he’s telling me, and then I roll over and try to sleep.

  I think about what we said.

  I’m not sweet. Not anymore. Maybe I would have been if the world had stayed the same, but I haven’t had the luxury. I’ve been too busy staying alive.

  Travis isn’t sweet either. He’s rough and raw and coarse and strong.

  He’s not sweet.

  But he’s good.

  I know he’s good.

  And the fact of his existence in the battered world we’re left with makes me believe that maybe I can be good too.

  I SLEEP WELL AND WAKE up feeling pretty good. Travis looks a little more relaxed too as we wake up quietly and get ready to leave.

  It makes me weirdly fluttery. That Travis is more relaxed now. That the sex helped him channel some of his tension. That he’s feeling better because we had it.

  I kind of like the pang of soreness between my legs, the reminder of what we did last night.

  The roads are quiet as we start off. This whole area has been completely deserted. From the earthquakes, I assume. But I try not to let down my guard—we still might run into trouble.

  I relaxed before, and it didn’t turn out well.

  We make the same slow progress as we have the past few days, trying to find routes around the worst of the earthquake damage and searching for gas. We stop in the middle of the day to stretch our legs and eat something.

  Travis pulls pretty far off the road so the Jeep isn’t in sight of anyone who might pass by. There’s dead pastureland to one side of the road, but there’s woods to the other, and he’s able to hide the vehicle behind a few half-dead trees. We eat protein bars and walk into the woods for a bit since walking in the trees is safer than walking on the road.

  After a few minutes, I spot something and grab his arm. “Travis, look!”

  His eyes follow where I’m pointing.

  It’s a cardinal. A male. Bright red and perched on a branch.

  “Oh my God, Travis!” I’m whispering now and still clutching his arm. I don’t want to scare the bird away.

  It’s been so long since I’ve seen one.

  I glance over at Travis and see an excitement underlying his watchfulness.

  He’s glad to see the bird too.

  When the bird flies down to perch on a different, lower branch, I move to follow it, dragging Travis with me.

  “Oh look.” I’ve got a better view now. “He’s eating those berries.”

  “Elderberries. Can’t believe there’s any for him to eat.”

  Wild plants haven’t been healthy enough to produce fruit for the past few years. But we’ve heard insects in the evenings. And there’s a cardinal now. Berries on the branches.

  My eyes burn as I watch the small bird cautiously grab a few berries and dart up to a higher branch to eat them.

  My hand is wrapped around Travis’s forearm tightly. He stands just as motionless as I do.

  The bird eats a few more berries but then catches sight of us and flies away.

  “We can eat elderberries,” Travis says in a normal voice now that the bird is already frightened away.

  “Are they any good?”

  “Not bad. Kind of tangy. They’re better sweetened in preserves or pies. But we can try ’em.”

  We walk over, pick a few berries from the branches, and pop them in our mouth.

  “Mmm. Not bad.”

  Travis takes a few more and hands half to me.

  Fresh fruit is an indulgence that’s not
part of our lives anymore.

  “Let’s not eat them all,” I say after a minute. “We should leave some for the birds. I hope there’s more than just the one cardinal.”

  “Probably is. We’ll save the rest for them.” He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and then puts his palm between my shoulder blades. “We should get back.”

  “Yeah. I’m ready. I’m glad we saw the bird.”

  “Me too.”

  WE’RE CLEARING THE woods when we realize we’re not alone.

  We should have heard the sound of an engine. Or voices talking. We weren’t that far away from our vehicle, and Travis’s ears in particular are really sharp.

  But there weren’t any engines. Weren’t any voices.

  They moved on foot. Silently. Purposefully. Like SEALs or trained assassins.

  As soon as we step out of the woods, they’re surrounding us.

  I have my gun out of its holster immediately, and Travis has his shotgun against his shoulder and aimed.

  But there are far too many of them for us to cover.

  I see at least two dozen from where we’re standing, and there are likely to be even more.

  They’re all armed. Their faces are tense and guarded. At least ten guns are pointed at us right now.

  They’re all women.

  That fact registers beneath the surge of panic.

  It doesn’t matter how strong and skilled Travis is. There are way too many guns surrounding us for him to fight.

  One woman steps forward from the half circle that moved smoothly to surround us. She’s tall and strong with dark hair, dark eyes, and tanned skin. “We’ll kill you before you pull that trigger.” She doesn’t sound angry.

  She’s completely in control.

  Travis has pushed me behind him, so I’m trapped between his body and a tree. “I’ll kill a few of you before you can.”

  I clutch his shirt with my free hand, although I’m still leveling my gun on one of the women in my range. Travis is so tense I can feel it shuddering through him. I can’t see his face, but I don’t need to.

  He’s scared.

  Like me, he knows we have no hope of fighting our way out of this.

  “You’ll only get off one shot. It better be true.” The same woman is speaking. She’s wearing a pair of tight jeans and a sleeveless top, and her hair’s in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. She’s got three knives on her that I can see.

  “We’ve got a vehicle,” Travis says, hoarse and urgent. “Down the way a bit. It’s got gas. Food. Supplies. Take it. Take it all. We don’t want any trouble.”

  The woman frowns. “We saw it. We don’t need handouts from a man. I want to speak to her.”

  She’s talking about me, I suddenly realize.

  Travis moves so his body is shielding me completely from the speaker.

  “I’m talking to you, sister.” The woman’s voice is loud and clear and confident. “We’ll kill this man if you want us to. You don’t have to stay with him. We’ll keep you safe if you want to come with us.”

  My hand flattens on Travis’s back in surprise. “I don’t want you to kill him. Please don’t.”

  “Then we can tie him up. Keep him from following you. You can be free of him. Just say the word.”

  I suddenly understand what’s happening here, what these women are offering me.

  I attempt to ease Travis out of the way.

  “Layne, don’t—” He tries to keep me in place behind him with one arm.

  “No, it’s fine. They’re not going to hurt me.” I come out from behind him and face the woman who’s been speaking. “Are you?”

  “No. We won’t hurt you. But we’ll hurt him if you want us to.” Her dark eyes hold mine, and the message is unmistakable.

  “I don’t want you to hurt him. He’s been good to me.”

  “We’ll be good to you without any strings.”

  “He never demanded anything from me. He never even asked. I promise he didn’t. He’s a good man.”

  The woman looks between Travis and me. Her jaw relaxes just slightly. “Not sure there are any good men left.”

  “There are. At least this one.”

  I glance over, and Travis is watching me. His eyes are deep with something I don’t understand.

  “Okay.” The woman gestures at the women with her, and they all lower their weapons.

  There are a lot of them. Female. Strong. Competent. Fierce.

  I want to be that way too.

  “I’m Maria,” the woman says. “You can still come with us. We won’t hurt your man. You’ll be a lot safer with us than with him.”

  I can see quite clearly that it’s true. No matter how strong Travis is, he’s one man. There are nearly forty women here—I can see now that I have a better vantage point. All of them armed. All of them working together as a unit. “We can come with you?”

  Maria shakes her head. “You can. He can’t.”

  “Oh.”

  I turn to Travis. He’s lowered his shotgun, and his face is strangely closed off. He takes a step closer to me and murmurs, “You can go with ’em if you wanna, Layne. You’ll be safer with ’em than with me.”

  I grab for his arm. “But I can’t leave—”

  “Don’t matter. I’ll be fine. You go on with ’em if you want.”

  I look back to Maria. She’s tall. Beautiful. A warrior. Completely in control.

  No one is going to touch her unless she wants them to.

  “Your man will be all right,” she says. “He looks like he can take care of himself.”

  I know he’ll be all right.

  But I don’t want to leave him, not even for the chance of being safer.

  “No,” I say at last. “Thank you. I really... appreciate you. All of you.” I look around at the others, all of whom are watching. “But I’ll stick with him. We’re from the same town. We’ve been doing all right so far.”

  I like Maria even more when she accepts my decision without challenge. “All right then. Good luck to you. Where are you heading?”

  “Fort Knox. Have you heard anything about it?”

  “They say the military still has control of it, so it might be worth trying if you’re looking for sanctuary.” She frowns thoughtfully. “But you’re going to have to avoid the roads that way.”

  “We’ve been staying away from the interstates and highways.” I’m still speaking. Travis hasn’t moved or said a word since I made my decision. “We know those are dangerous.”

  “Not just the main routes. There are a few nasty groups between here and Fort Knox.”

  “Droves?”

  “Not big enough to call a drove. But big enough. Nasty.”

  I glance at Travis, giving him a silent question. When he nods in wordless response, I pull out the piece of bloodied paper with the message on it and hand it to her.

  She reads it, and I see her body go still as the words process. “Where did you get this?”

  “Off a man who was almost dead. Shot. Back a long ways.”

  “Fort Bragg falling is news to me. Bad news. You taking this to Fort Knox?”

  “Yes. If we can.”

  “I’ve heard of the wolf drove. They’re particularly bad. But they haven’t passed through this way yet, although they might take a more direct route since they follow the interstates.”

  “We’re hoping we can beat them to Fort Knox.”

  “I know some people who like to help. I’ll see if we can get some more people going with the message so it doesn’t all rest with you.” She doesn’t have to say it, but I know she’s calculating the chances of Travis and me making it there alive.

  She nods in the direction we’ve been traveling. “You’ll be fine until you get to the next town that way. But after that, stay off the road. Ditch your vehicle if you have to. Just the two of you... No, you better stay off the roads.”

  “Okay. Thanks. We will.” I look over at Travis, but he’s as frozen as ever. I hook my hand in his
arm and move closer to him. “Thank you again.”

  Maria nods and makes another gesture to the women. They all move to the road and start walking in the opposite direction as we’re traveling. Quickly. Silently.

  Maria turns to look at me one more time before she leaves. “I hope your man is as good as you think.”

  Travis and I stand where we are until all the women have disappeared.

  Then I turn him to face me, fisting the gray fabric of his shirt in my hands. “Are you okay?”

  “Y-yeah. Sure.”

  “You look strange.”

  He shakes his head like he’s dispelling a fog. “No. I’m fine. Just surprised. Why didn’t you go with ’em?”

  “I didn’t want to.”

  “Yes, you did. I saw your face. Part of you did.”

  “But the rest of me didn’t. I’m going to stay with you.”

  “Why?” The word is spoken in the same hoarse astonishment he used when he asked why I wanted to have sex with him.

  I shrug, oddly self-conscious. “I don’t know. We’ve stuck it out so far, so it didn’t feel right to leave you now.”

  “She was right. You’d be safer with them.”

  “I don’t care. I’m safe enough with you. I want to go to Fort Knox. I want to find the rest of Meadows. They’re in danger. That’s what we planned, and I want to keep doing it. Why shouldn’t I?” I suddenly think of something that makes my stomach clench. “Did you want me to go with them?”

  “What? Why would I?”

  “I don’t know. Because you wouldn’t have to... to keep dealing with me. The burden would be off you.”

  He scowls at me fiercely. “You’re not a burden. Told you. I wouldn’t’ve got this far without you.”

  “Oh.”

  We stare at each other.

  “So you didn’t want me to go with them?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “Okay. Good. I didn’t want to go. So we’re fine.”

  He doesn’t say anything. Just breathes heavily.

  “We’re fine, right?”

  He gives a jerky nod. “Yeah. We’re fine.”

  I’m not sure why my stomach is all flutters as we walk back to where we left our Jeep.

  Maria and the women could have taken it. Stripped it clean.

  They didn’t. They left it for us. It gives me a strange sort of reassurance, knowing that they are who they are in this world. Even if I didn’t join them, I still know they’re there.