Thicker than Blood Read online

  The three of us stood by silently while the man brought out his daughter, wrapped tightly in a blood-soaked sheet, and laid her gently in the ground. Alongside her he laid a ragged-looking teddy bear and a folded piece of paper that looked to be a wrinkled photograph. After she was buried, the upturned dirt packed around and above her, the man walked back inside the cabin without a word to any of us, and closed the door behind him.

  No one spoke; there were no words. This shouldn’t have happened, this wasn’t fair, she’s gone to a better place, and she’s at peace now, blah-blah-fucking-blah. It all seemed pointless to voice.

  “Should we see if he has any weapons we can use?” I asked, rubbing my temples. “Or maybe ask him if he knows where we can get a vehicle?”

  “Let’s come back tomorrow,” Leisel suggested. “Give him time to grieve.”

  All of us agreeing on that being the best course of action, we headed back to our tree stand. It wasn’t yet dark out, the sun still hanging heavy in the sky, mirroring how heavy I felt.

  Children offered hope, and when a child was taken from this world, it made it seem a lot darker of a place to try to live within.

  I lay awake for hours that night, staring up into the treetops, exhausted but unable to sleep. I listened to Alex’s snoring, the branches blowing in the light breeze, until eventually I turned, finding Leisel wide awake and watching me.

  I offered her a small smile and she returned it, cuddling closer to me. I knew exactly what she was thinking—that days like today made it all seem so damn hopeless.

  • • •

  The sun woke us early the next morning. Quickly, we washed up in the creek and then headed back for the cabin, but when we arrived, we found it empty. Even the blood-soaked sheets on the small bed were gone.

  A small note was pinned to the open door, and on it two simple words had been penned:

  Thank you.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Leisel

  “Now what?” Evelyn asked, sounding irritated. “Now what the fuck are we supposed to do?”

  Neither of us had gotten much sleep the night before, but Evelyn looked worse than I did. Large dark circles ringed her bloodshot eyes, her shoulders slumped, and her hands trembled slightly.

  “He didn’t owe us anything,” I told her gently. “We just met him at a bad time.”

  “I know that!” she shouted, growing even more agitated. “But…but now what?” She gestured around the empty cabin, her eyes wide, her nostrils flaring. “We have nothing, Lei! Nothing!”

  “Not nothing.” Alex interrupted us, and we both glanced to where he was standing. There was a small chest at the end of the bed, and Alex was rifling through it, pulling out articles of clothing and tossing them onto the bed. Evelyn and I both stared at the varied shades of pinks and yellows, clothing that so obviously had belonged to the little girl we’d helped bury yesterday.

  I couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop the tears that formed. Memories of her dying breaths, her sweet little face contorted in pain, and her father’s grief-stricken wails filled my thoughts. Just yesterday they’d both been here, alive and surviving, and now the child was dead and her father was gone. Gritting my teeth, I pushed back my emotions. Now wasn’t the time for it, not when there were three of us right here, fighting through another day.

  “We can’t use those, Alex,” Evelyn said tersely. “They’re too small.”

  Alex didn’t pause in his digging. “We can use them as rags, as bandages, and a million other things, Eve. There’s more,” he continued, holding up a woman’s dress. “I’m guessing he had a wife at some point.”

  Alex tossed another pile of clothing onto the bed, and as I walked forward to inspect it, I noticed Evelyn had hesitated. I glanced back at her with a questioning look that seemed to jolt her into motion, and together we headed for the bed.

  Not many of the items Alex found were functional clothing, at least not in this new world. There were dresses, many of them sleeveless, and lightweight dressy tops that would have been perfect had I needed to go to a job interview, not dodge the living dead and half-crazed humans.

  More importantly, I didn’t want to wear someone else’s clothing. Clothing that belonged to a family now destroyed. But what choice did we have? The stench of decay and death, blood, sweat, and other foul smells wouldn’t leave our current clothing, no matter how many times we tried rinsing them clean.

  Eventually we managed to find a few things we could use. For a bra, I used one of the little girl’s tank tops. It was chest-compressing tight, only reaching to above my belly button, but was already doing a better job of supporting my breasts than the bra I’d been wearing since we’d escaped Fredericksville. Over that I slipped on a black loose-fitting, long-sleeved cotton shirt that had ridiculous lace insets in the back and belled sleeves. Thankfully there had been a pair of jeans inside that trunk as well. They were too big for Evelyn’s slim figure, and far too long for my short legs, but after rolling them a few times, they fit me comfortably.

  Evelyn was less fortunate, having to settle for a pair of gray dress pants, and a pale pink child’s long-sleeved nightgown to use as a shirt. Both of us looked utterly ridiculous in our ill-fitting, mismatched outfits, but anything was better than nothing. Or so I kept telling myself.

  Alex fared far worse than we did. The only men’s clothing to be found was a white button-down shirt, a long black tie, and a wrinkled pair of dress pants. He opted to keep his filthy BDUs on, but decided to exchange his ruined and blood-stained T-shirt for the button-down.

  I found myself watching him as he pulled the shirt over his head, mesmerized by the way the muscles in his back and arms would flex with even the simplest movement. Thomas had always been in great shape, but Alex—the breadth of him, his stature, and the size of his muscles—put Thomas to shame.

  I felt a chill then, not from the weather, but brought on by the direction of my thoughts. What was I doing staring at this man like this? And comparing him to my husband, my first husband, who I’d loved more than anything? What was wrong with me?

  I started to turn away, ashamed of myself, when Alex turned back around, fully dressed, and slipped quickly back into his military-issued jacket. Seeing the button-down beneath the dark and dirty canvas, I started to laugh.

  “You look handsome,” I blurted out.

  “Yeah?” He smiled at me. “Should I put the tie on too?”

  Before I could answer, Evelyn stepped between us. She looked from me to Alex and then back to me again. “What’s the plan?” she asked, her tone serious, instantly breaking the lighthearted moment.

  Not knowing, I looked again at Alex, whose smile was now gone. Sighing, he closed his eyes.

  “South,” he said, and when he opened his eyes, his usual grimace was back in place. “We head south like we’d planned.”

  • • •

  We spent the night in the cabin, searching every nook and cranny for anything the man might have left behind. In the end, when we gathered our finds, it didn’t amount to much. Other than a few articles of clothing, a tin mug, a rusty old hammer, and a plastic jug, there was nothing of worth left.

  While Alex went out in search of dinner, Evelyn and I busied ourselves tying together some of the little girl’s clothing to make a sling purse of sorts, and used that to store what we’d collected.

  By the time Alex returned it was dark out, and Evelyn had started a small fire in the pot-bellied stove for both light and warmth. Huddled together around the small stove, we ate our dinner, consisting of two chipmunks and some berries, mostly in silence.

  Evelyn, I noticed, was more withdrawn then I’d ever seen her before. She was moody, her highs and lows becoming more and more noticeable. She outright snapped at Alex, and avoided any sort of conversation at all with me. Although she stayed by my side, still seeking me as a source of comfort, I could tell something was definitely wrong. There was an inner turmoil I could see, anguish and anger written all over her face. I felt h
elpless, not knowing the right thing to do or say to ease any of it for her, so in the end I didn’t say anything at all.

  During the night, while Evelyn and I were occupying the small bed together, and Alex had lain on the floor in front of the door, the wind began to pick up, causing the temperature to drop drastically inside the cabin. Without blankets or the added body heat of Evelyn, who’d curled in on herself and was facing the wall, I woke to the sound of my own teeth chattering.

  Freezing, I sat up in bed, finding Alex wide awake and propped up against the wall beside the stove, a small fire still blazing within.

  “It-it’s c-c-cold,” I whispered, rubbing my hands up and down my arms.

  “Come over here,” he whispered. “The fire is warm.”

  Not wanting to wake Evelyn, I hesitated only a moment before I tiptoed toward him, crossing the creaking floorboards as quietly as possible. Holding up his arms in welcome, Alex spread his knees apart, indicating that I should take the space between them. Part of me balked at such an intimate embrace, but the other part of me, the part that was cold and feeling dejected about our current circumstances, wanted to readily accept the warmth he was offering.

  Still, I couldn’t bring myself to do it, to be that close to him, and took the empty space of floor beside him instead.

  “Lei…”

  I glanced up, meeting his gaze, finding his features twisted with some sort of internal pain.

  “I would never hurt you,” he said softly.

  Feeling my cheeks heat, I looked away and out across the cabin. I knew he wouldn’t hurt me, of course I knew that. But some part of me, even the part of me that knew I could trust him, still couldn’t fathom being that close to him, or being that close to anyone other than Evelyn.

  “I should have killed him,” he continued, his tone having drastically changed. Instead of soft, meant to be comforting, he sounded darker, angrier.

  Surprised, I glanced back up at him, finding him staring off much like I had been doing. Only he was rigid now, his body having gone taut, his jaw hard and starkly outlined, ticking ominously in the firelight.

  “It wasn’t your responsibility,” I said gently. “I wasn’t your responsibility, Alex.”

  His eyes slanted toward me, his expression impassioned and enraged. “You don’t get it,” he said through clenched teeth. “You don’t know how I—” He cut himself off abruptly, his eyes flashing angrily, and looked away again.

  I stared up at him, feeling both helpless and confused, not wanting him to lay blame of the outcome of my forced and abusive marriage at his feet, yet not knowing what to do or say to change how he felt. He was such a quiet man, usually only speaking when spoken to or when he believed it absolutely necessary, but I had to imagine that there was so much more going on inside him, far more than he ever let on.

  “You have no idea how grateful we are,” I said. “If it wasn’t for you, we would have never gotten out of there, Alex.”

  He didn’t respond, didn’t turn to look at me, or acknowledge in any way that he’d even heard me. He continued staring ahead, the hard lines of his body still unyielding, his expression still so furious. So I did the first thing that came to my mind, the first thing that I could think of doing to ease the sudden tension.

  Grabbing his arm, I moved to my knees in front of him, forcing him to look at me. “I’m still cold,” I said, sounding surprisingly forceful to my own ears. “I can’t get warm.”

  I don’t know why it mattered to me that he didn’t carry so much guilt, that he didn’t bear the weight of my world on his shoulders, but it did. For some reason, easing this man’s conscience suddenly mattered.

  His hard expression instantly softened, his legs falling open as he gestured for me to come closer. I did so, half crawling into the space he’d allotted me. His arms wrapped around me, pulling me closer to him, hugging my body tightly to his. Although, already feeling blessedly warmer, it was still an uncomfortable position for me. To be so intimately close to someone, to a man, no less. Yet I didn’t fear him; I could feel that truth ring loud and true within me that this man wasn’t a man to be feared, that he deserved as much comfort as I could provide him.

  I turned my head, tentatively pressing my cheek against his chest, hearing the sound of his strong heart beating a steady rhythm. How long had it been since I’d been held by a man without the heavy hand of fear pressing down on me, turning much-needed comfort into something else entirely, something dark and cruel?

  Too long. So long, in fact, that I hadn’t realized how much I missed it, not until this very moment, enfolded neatly within Alex’s arms.

  “Better?” he whispered. His chin tickled against the top of my head, his thick scruff catching like Velcro on my hair.

  I tilted my head up, meaning to answer him, not expecting his face to be so close to mine. Our noses nearly touching and our breathing momentarily intermingled, I stared up at him in the flickering firelight as shadows danced all around us.

  “I wanted to do this so many times,” he said, his warm breath fanning across my face. “Every time I heard you crying, it ate away at me. I wanted to hold you…or do something, anything to make it better.”

  Feeling exposed, I sucked in a sharp breath. Alex knew things about me—had seen and heard things—that not even Evelyn had known. In fact, Alex knew me almost as well as Evelyn did. While he might not have known of my life before the infection, he’d known of my life after, known all of my secret pain.

  “Not your fault,” I managed to whisper. Still staring at him, I was somewhat awestruck by how oddly right this felt, being in his arms, both our secret shames openly revealed. I was so used to hiding, hiding everything, every part of me from nearly everyone else that I couldn’t help but feel so…so…taken by this moment. This very freeing moment.

  Alex breathed harder, his chest rising and falling rapidly beneath me. His arms tightened around me, and yet I still felt no fear, no stifling sensation threatening to overwhelm my emotions. There was most definitely anxiety, an ugly burn in the pit of my stomach, but there was none of the familiar sense of fear and dread I’d felt when Lawrence had touched me.

  I continued watching him, staring up into his half-lidded eyes, desperately wondering what he was thinking. Was this pity he was feeling? Pity for the woman he’d had to watch be beaten down both emotionally and physically, day after day, year after year? Or was it his guilt for simply standing by while Lawrence did to me whatever he wanted?

  Or was it more than that? Did it go beyond Lawrence entirely? The thought that maybe whatever it was that was happening here had nothing to do with Lawrence Whitney was a joyous one. Yet at the same time, it was terrifying.

  I wasn’t like Evelyn, I wasn’t able to just lose myself in a moment, forgetting everything else but the here and now, nor had I ever allowed myself to become distracted by the opposite sex. That was Evelyn’s thing, her way of dealing with her emotions, how she made the days a little less long and our situation a little more bearable. Instead, I resigned myself to a lifetime of frigidity, the thought of being touched by any man leaving me queasy and uncomfortable.

  But out here, thrust into the middle of nowhere, our fate unknown, when any moment could be our last, I suddenly found myself feeling quite different in that regard.

  I wanted more and yet…I didn’t. Or I couldn’t; I wasn’t sure which.

  Looking up into Alex’s dark eyes, I found myself shivering again, only this time it wasn’t from the cold; I was anything but cold. An unexpected warmth invaded that forever chilled place inside of me, creeping in much like the morning sun. Tiny tendrils of light gently hit here and there, making it not quite so cold anymore. In fact, it was downright intoxicating.

  His hand moved slowly up my back, leaving ripples of gooseflesh and anxiety in its wake. Brushing my hair away from my face, his fingertips gently smoothed along my jawline until he’d taken my chin in his hand, tilting my face toward his.

  Was he going to kiss me? G
od, it had been so long since I’d been truly kissed, just for the sake of kissing. Even longer since I could remember wanting to return the gesture.

  Was it wrong to want to kiss him? It seemed wrong, and yet…I wanted this. I wanted this comfort and warmth, this intimacy. I wanted something to relieve the fear, the cold, the crippling guilt and regret. Just for a moment, for a single moment, I wanted to remember what it felt like to be alive.

  Of my own accord, I tilted my head even farther. My eyelids dropped, a single tear slipping down my cheek as I waited for him to kiss me. Instead, I felt his thumb wipe away my tears, and a moment later his lips pressed down softly against my damp cheek. A tremble rippled through me and my lips parted, sucking in a much-needed breath of air just as his mouth brushed lightly over my own.

  My eyes still closed, I both gasped and whimpered against his lips, feeling his warm breath mingling with mine.

  “Leisel…” So tightly pressed against each other, I could feel the rumble of my name vibrate within his chest. “Leisel, look at me.”

  I didn’t respond; I couldn’t open my eyes. I was frozen in place by the duality of my emotions, unable to make a decision one way or the other.

  “Please,” I whispered, not quite sure what I was begging for, not sure of anything at the moment. What did I want? What was I doing?

  He kissed me then, just another brush of his lips. Once, twice, and then he molded his mouth softly against mine. Of their own accord, my hands began to move, one finding its way up to his neck and then farther, into his hair. The other found his bicep, my fingers digging gently into the hard muscle there. His mouth grew hungrier, more demanding, and then, as his tongue touched mine, I was thrown for another loop, my growing fervor going into overdrive. I gripped him harder while turning in his arms to have better access to his mouth.

  Something was happening to me, something that made me feel both strong and weak. Weak for succumbing, for letting my body override what my brain and heart couldn’t rationalize, and yet strong for letting go, even if it was just for a moment, of the guilt and the regret that never seemed to leave me.