Thicker than Blood Read online

  Leisel stirred in her sleep, her lips parting as she sucked in a noisy breath, her hand clutching tighter to the grip she still had on Alex’s hair. Choking back a threatening sob, I turned away from her, unable to watch her cling to yet another thing she’d lost.

  Approaching the window, I touched my face, gently probing my stitches and the tender skin surrounding them. My face was hot, too hot, my cheek burning beneath my fingers. Closing my eyes against the sunlight, I wondered what on earth we were going to do if my wounds became infected. Yet, that was the least of our problems. Where were we going to go? Were we going to make it out there on our own? With no man to protect us?

  Did we go back to Purgatory?

  Despite my tears, I nearly laughed out loud. Go back to Purgatory? They’d kill us for sure, or worse, enslave us to a lifetime of prostitution. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the horrors E would have in store for me.

  Opening my eyes, I watched as the sun rose. Another day behind us and the next one beginning, each one worse than the last, becoming harder and harder to keep struggling, though.

  The soft humming in my ears and the deathly silence in my heart were all I had left, except for the bittersweet memories of a life I’d never have again. Exhaustion, downright heavy in its intensity, enveloped me. But I was more than just tired; I was excruciatingly exhausted. This world, this life—the misery of it was endless, the constant battle for survival and the hunger, the sadness, all tied up together with so very little happiness woven between. I didn’t know how much longer I could carry on like this; the burden of pretense was so thick, so all consuming.

  There was nothing left for me here, nothing left for Leisel. There was nowhere to go, nothing we could depend on but each other.

  I had failed them all—Shawn and Thomas, Jami and Alex, even Leisel. Their lives, all cut far too short, continually flashed through my mind like an endless fucked-up kaleidoscope of pain and sorrow, and I just wanted to forget it all, wanted to be absorbed by their memories, to be swallowed whole. I wanted to go back to a life I could count on, back to the people I’d loved, to a place where I’d been safe.

  A light touch on my arm caused me to jerk in surprise, my heartbeat slowing the moment I realized it was only Leisel. She was filthy, Alex’s dried blood covering her clothing and skin, and yet she was still beautiful. Seeing her familiar face, feeling her much-needed touch, reminded me that I still had something left here, something worth facing yet another day of this shit world.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered hoarsely, my face crumpling as I tried to stop the flow of tears. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” she said softly. Taking my hand, she brought it to her face, pressing a kiss on my knuckles.

  “But I don’t know what to do…” I choked on another sob as a fresh wave of tears spilled down my cheeks, stinging my wounds.

  “We don’t need to do anything,” she said, shaking her head.

  “But we do!” I protested, pulling away from her. Turning to face the room, I gestured wildly. “We can’t stay here! And yet, we have nowhere to go! I don’t know what to do, Lei! I don’t know!”

  Leisel appeared in front of me. Placing her hands on my shoulders, she looked into my eyes, her gaze hard. “We bury Alex,” she said firmly. “Then we drive. We don’t need to do anything more, except drive. We’ll keep driving until we’re out of gas, and then we’ll walk and we’ll keep walking until we can’t walk anymore. We’ll find another place, Eve, we’ll find something, and we’ll keep going. That’s all we need to do.”

  Her fingers touched the bottom of my chin. “I don’t need you to be strong for me; I need you to be strong for you. We’re alive today because of you, and I’m grateful for that—for you. There’s nothing else we need to be or do except to keep going.”

  She smiled then, her eyes going soft, shocking me that she had the will to smile after all that had happened.

  “Help me bury him, Eve,” she whispered. “It’s the least we can do after all he’s done.”

  Pressing my lips together, attempting to stop my tears, I nodded. She was right, God, she was right. Alex deserved so much more than anything we could do for him now. He deserved a full life, a family, to have been able to grow old in a world that still had a place for people like him. Good, strong people, people who’d persevered even in the face of adversity, people who were willing to sacrifice themselves for others.

  • • •

  Leisel laid Alex’s canvas jacket on top of the mound of dirt covering him and shakily got to her feet. Clasping her hands together, she pressed them against her belly and stared solemnly at the makeshift grave we’d dug. She still hadn’t cried.

  Together we’d dragged Alex’s body from the motel room, a painstaking and miserable task as he was nearly two hundred pounds of foul-smelling dead weight. Then, with only the use of rocks and our blades, and after several backbreaking hours under the sweltering sun, we’d barely managed to dig more than two feet into the earth before realizing it was the best we could do.

  Tired and hungry, we’d rolled him into the ground, using our bare hands to cover him with the grass and dirt we’d freed. It wasn’t deep enough, not secure enough a grave to keep the animals from getting to him, but at least it was something.

  “Should we say something?” I asked quietly. “Like a prayer?”

  In Fredericksville, we’d burned our dead. The entire town would gather while Lawrence presided over the service, always saying something kind about the deceased, someone he’d usually barely known. He’d invite others to talk afterward, allowing those who’d known the deceased a moment to reminisce. Yet, it had always felt like some kind of sideshow to me, no real feeling behind it, merely another way for Lawrence to further solidify his place as our leader.

  “No,” Leisel whispered, her eyes still downcast. “There’s nothing to say.” She glanced up at me. “But we could sing. He liked music, remember? He missed it.”

  “What kind of music did he like?”

  Leisel shook her head. “I don’t know, I never asked.” A sob erupted in her throat and she clapped a hand over her mouth, choking it back. “How awful is that?” she whispered, her eyes wide. “I don’t even know because I never asked.”

  Bending down, I placed my hand on top of the dirt and whispered a quick thank-you before rising and going to stand beside Leisel. Looping my arm through hers, I cuddled her close to me. “I don’t think it matters, Lei. He’ll like anything you sing.”

  Her bottom lip disappeared beneath her teeth, turning white from the pressure. After a moment she started humming, a familiar tune that made my eyes grow wet.

  Clutching her tighter, I hummed along with her; softly at first, until Leisel began singing. And then together we stood there, belting out the lyrics to “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan.” It had been her mother’s favorite song, a song the woman had played over and over again on her old record player, a glass of gin always in her hand.

  It hit me then, I could feel it deep down, the painful realization that this wasn’t just Leisel saying good-bye to Alex. This was Leisel saying good-bye to everyone she loved, to everything she’d ever known.

  And somehow, knowing that, it made everything seem that much worse.

  Chapter Forty-One

  Leisel

  “We could go back to the cabin,” I suggested, pulling another slice of peach free from the mason jar. I swallowed it whole, wiping the residual sticky liquid off on my dirty pants before passing the jar to Evelyn.

  Seated beside me on the back of the Jeep, Evelyn pulled her own slice free, popped it into her mouth, and began to chew. “At least he was good for something,” she muttered, staring down at the canned fruit. Whoever he’d been, that awful man who’d killed Alex, had at least made good on his word to provide us with supplies. There was fuel, weapons—guns and bullets—clothing, and enough food and water to last us for at least a few weeks.

  �
�Eve,” I said, turning to face her. “Who was he? Was he who hurt you?”

  She stopped chewing, and still staring down at the peaches, shrugged her shoulders. “Does it matter?”

  I didn’t respond. She was right; it didn’t matter. Not anymore.

  “If we head north,” she said, then swallowed, “it’ll be winter soon. Do you really want to deal with the cold and the snow? On our own? Neither of us knows how to hunt.”

  “Or chop wood,” I added, my shoulders sagging as I turned away. “Or anything at all, really. Never mind, it was a stupid idea.”

  “No, it wasn’t. It was the safest place we’ve come across so far. If we knew how, we could’ve fortified it, but I just don’t know how.”

  She sounded so despondent, so empty, so full of regret, that I didn’t know what I could say to her to make it better that I hadn’t already said. I knew where she was, lost, trapped in a place inside herself, unable to figure a way out, to see anything other than the cause of her pain. I’d been there many, many times before; I’d been ready to die in order to free myself from it. But Evelyn hadn’t let me, and I refused to let her fall victim either. I just didn’t know how to accomplish that.

  “Then we keep going,” I finally said. Noticing a shadow of movement, I squinted off into the distance. “Like we’d planned to.”

  “Maybe we could find a beach,” she said, sighing. “Learn how to fish—”

  “Eve,” I said, interrupting her as I slid off the back of the Jeep. “Over there.” I pointed to the road just beyond the gas station where a lone infected was making its slow, shambling way toward us.

  Swallowing another bite of peach, Evelyn raised her eyes toward the infected. “We should go,” she said, though she made no move to get up. “They’ll be more coming, what with all the blood everywhere…” Her eyes glazed over, filling with more tears.

  “Eve!” I shouted, slapping my hand against the Jeep. “I know everything sucks right now! Believe me, I know! But we can’t do this! We can’t fall apart now!”

  She looked at me through teary eyes, her lips and hands trembling, but said nothing, still not moving.

  Letting out a shuddering sigh of frustration, I reached for the gun that had been lying between us. Gripping it, I spun around and marched through the parking lot and toward the infected.

  It was an older one, not yet skin and bones but decayed enough that I couldn’t tell whether it had been male or female until I was within twenty feet of it. Like so many of the infected, its clothing had been ripped away, exposing its mutilated body. It had been a woman once, its right breast had been nearly chewed off, only dried and clumpy sinew remaining. What was left of her other breast was little more than blackened, sagging, and shriveled skin.

  I stopped in the center of the road and raised my gun, pulling the trigger and letting loose a bullet. It just barely grazed its shoulder, and the creature kept coming. I let another bullet fly, this one missing it entirely.

  “Dammit!” I shouted. Lifting the gun higher, I squinted as I aimed. A blur of motion to my right had me glancing up, startled, until I realized it was Evelyn running past me, a large serrated blade in her hand. Wide-eyed with shock, I watched as she barreled past me and directly into the infected, shoving it hard and off its feet. It landed on the pavement with a loud crack and then Evelyn jumped on it, straddling it, and sent the sharp tip of her blade into its face.

  Lowering my gun, I allowed my arms to fall limply to my side. She was screaming now, stabbing the infected over and over again, in its face, its neck, its chest. Just mindless stabbing accompanied by gut-wrenching screams that made my stomach start to ache.

  I’d never seen Evelyn lose control before, not like this, not so completely. It was so utterly heartbreaking it drained all my strength right from me, causing me to drop to my knees in the middle of the road. The gun fell from my weakened grip, clattering to the ground beside me. Tears filled my eyes; fat, sorrow-filled tears, tears I’d thought had all but dried up, but in the face of Evelyn’s pain had increased tenfold.

  Several long minutes passed during which she continued to scream, stabbing blindly, desperately, until her voice grew hoarse and her screams turned to sobs, the top half of the body beneath her now little more than a mass of unidentifiable gore.

  After rising to her feet, she made her way back to me, her entire body trembling violently, her clothing covered in the same blackened sludge all the infected were filled with.

  Tears clouding my vision, I blinked up at her, unable to speak, unable to do little more than cry. Awkwardly she reached into her pants pockets, pulling the key to the Jeep free, and with a quivering hand offered it to me.

  “You should drive,” she whispered.

  • • •

  Having never had a good sense of direction, I didn’t have a clue where I was headed or where the hell we even were, especially since all the road signs were either gone or destroyed beyond measure. Regardless, while Evelyn slept fitfully in the passenger seat beside me, I continued to drive aimlessly, through the night and until the sun was just starting to peek through the clouds.

  It was only when my eyes were starting to close, exhaustion pulling me under, that I pulled off to the side of the road we were on, just another desolate stretch of highway, empty and devoid of life.

  “Eve,” I said, rubbing her arm. “Eve…wake up.”

  Blinking sleepily, Evelyn groaned when the sun shone bright against her newly opened eyes. “Morning,” she said with a yawn. She surprised me with a smile, and even more so by how strong she sounded.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, brushing a lock of strawberry-blonde hair from her eyes. “Feel better?”

  Sitting up in her seat, she surveyed our surroundings with only mild interest before turning back to me. “Yeah,” she said, sighing. “I’m sorry about that.”

  I shook my head, a sad smile on my face. “Nothing to be sorry for,” I whispered.

  “Where are we?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve been looking for water, someplace for us to clean up a little.”

  “There’s mountains over there,” she said, shielding her eyes as she glanced off into the distance. “Probably water too.”

  I nodded. “Can you drive? I can’t keep my eyes open.”

  Turning back to me, she smiled again. “Yeah. And, Lei?”

  “Yeah?”

  Taking my hand in hers, she squeezed. “We’re going to be okay. I promise.”

  I didn’t know why, maybe it was the peaceful look on her face, or the familiar promise, one she’d made so many times before, or maybe it was the combination of the two. Whatever the reason, I wholly believed her.

  We were together, and as long as we had each other, I knew we would be okay.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Evelyn

  Looking up through the open roof of the Jeep, I watched as an eagle glided on the warm breeze above us. It had been following us for a while now, and I couldn’t help but think that it was some sort of sign, an auspicious symbol that all was going to be fine. This beautiful giant bird, flying high above us and looking down on the horror that had become of us all, still chose to follow us. Every now and then it emitted a low squawk, as if to announce it was still there, still with us.

  Leisel was fast asleep beside me, her face hidden from view beneath a threadbare blanket E had provided us. Though he’d made good on his word to provide us with supplies, my hatred for that man, raging in its intensity, flared to life once again at the thought of him and his vulgar hands. Even now, out in the wide open and far from Purgatory, I could still feel him pressing between my thighs, feel his body pressed against mine. And poor Alex, his entire life ended by one greedy thrust of E’s blade. So many evils he’d committed, and he’d never be punished for them. Not when men like him were the hierarchy in the world now.

  Shaking away my thoughts of E, I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and focused on only the task at hand. It would do me no goo
d to think of all that had gone wrong so far; my grief and regret had nearly crippled me already. Now I was determined to focus on one thing and one thing only—continued survival for Leisel and me.

  I had no idea where we were or where we were headed, only that mountains covered with lush, green forest were springing up all around us from beyond the dusty, unused highways. So far we’d passed several towns but I’d refused to stop, not trusting anything or anyone after so many bitter disappointments. The small groups of infected we passed only reinforced my decision to keep us moving.

  As we traveled on, the road grew worse, riddled with broken-down vehicles. The blacktop was ragged with large, vicious splits, nature once again reclaiming what was rightfully hers. Slowing the Jeep, I continued on, driving as carefully as possible over the fissures.

  The lack of momentum eventually woke Leisel. Groaning groggily, she lifted her head from beneath the blanket, her eyes finding mine.

  “Everything okay?” she asked, stretching.

  I nodded. “So far, so good. Still driving. The roads are a mess, though.”

  Shrugging out of the blanket, she sat up, letting it slide to her feet. “Where are we?”

  Laughing, I glanced sideways at her. “I have no idea, but it’s pretty, right? And look…” I pointed up through the open roof toward the eagle.

  “Oh my God,” she whispered, sitting up straighter. “That’s amazing.”

  “It’s been following us for about an hour.” I grinned at her. “I think it’s a good sign.”

  Leisel smiled, her brown eyes glowing a burnished gold beneath the sun. “I agree, it’s definitely a good sign. Although…” Turning back to me, she frowned.

  Glancing at her cautiously, I held my smile, refusing to let anything ruin this peaceful moment. “What?”

  “You kind of stink,” she whispered, wrinkling up her nose. “And I’m pretty sure that’s brain matter you have on your shirt.”

  Looking down on the dried gore encrusting nearly every inch of my clothing, I scowled. “I know,” I said with a sigh. “We need to find somewhere to clean up, but”—I glanced sideways at her—“I’m scared to stop.”