Trust. I had to trust Tamson.

  “Or we can make a trade,” Tam continued. “I’m sure you have a bunch of supplies. Maybe even some weapons? I think we could come to an agreement.”

  My breathing was heavy, almost embarrassingly so. I told myself I had to trust Tamson, I had to believe in him, yet everything within me screamed at me to run. It was the fight or flight reaction I had perfected since I was young. Tamson couldn’t be serious. He had a plan. That was the only logical explanation.

  Yet, as his grip tightened on my ribcage to the point of bruising, I felt the beginnings of doubt leak through my calm demeanor. The man was smiling at me, a malevolent smile that made me want to shrink in on myself. And Tamson? He was smiling back.

  Chapter 12

  Addie

  The man led us to the same aisle way Tamson and I had initially camped out at. Our supplies, which we had organized, were now shoved into duffle bags the assholes had brought. Three other men stood in a haphazard semi-circle. When we appeared, their laughter cut off and six eyes burned a hole through my forehead. Tam’s arm tightened around my waist marginally.

  “Shawn,” the largest one demanded. “Who are they?”

  The man who had led us here, Shawn I presumed, gestured towards us vaguely.

  “Tamson and his bitch.”

  I gritted my teeth together in a conscious effort to keep from screaming as fury ignited in my chest. Or biting. Both options were appealing.

  The second man, this one with flaming red hair and dark eyes, appraised me calculatingly. The third glanced between the four of us warily. I couldn’t define the expression on his face.

  Shawn nudged Tamson forward, inadvertently dragging me along as well. I stumbled over my own two feet, only Tam’s arm keeping me upright.

  “Tell Greg what you told me,” Shawn said. The largest man, Greg, raised a brow. It was surprisingly thin and delicate on his face, a contrast to his scruffy beard and mane of black hair. If I was in any other circumstance, I would’ve laughed. As of now, I could only hope that my word vomit wouldn’t get me killed by unintentionally insulting the scary man’s eyebrows.

  “It’s simple.” Tam’s calm words pulled me out of my thoughts. His body was relaxed, the underlying tension I had seen only minutes earlier completely diminishing from his face. He looked as if he was in his element.

  For the umpteenth time, panic began to take root overwhelming even the anger. It was a diminutive seed, barely beginning to grow into a full-blown tree, but it was enough to make my body tremble. The knife in my waistband had never felt so heavy. So damning.

  “You have weapons. I need weapons.” He shrugged. “I want to make a trade.”

  Greg’s eyes moved slowly from Tam’s face to my own. His eyes lit up, and his gaze did a slow perusal of my body. I felt dirty under his stare, as if someone had thrown a bucket of mud over my head. I wanted nothing more than to shower and rid myself of the disgusting sensation his mere gaze evoked.

  “Would be hotter if she wasn’t in those man clothes,” he said after a moment of silence. “Why don’t we see what she looks like without them?”

  For the first time, I felt Tam tense underneath me. It was the merest flex of muscles, there and gone too quickly for me to be certain. His hand slowly moved up my ribs, to my neck, before roughly pulling my head to the side. Despite the initial sting, I didn’t whimper. I wouldn’t give any of them the satisfaction.

  “Now now. Don’t be hasty. She’s still mine as of now.” His nose brushed the sensitive skin of my neck, followed quickly by something wet. His tongue. It trailed down to my collarbone, alternating between tiny nips and kisses. My body instinctively leaned into his embrace. I told myself that I was acting, that I was playing a character, but I knew I was lying to myself.

  “See how willing she is?” Tamson whispered, his breathing stirring my hair. His hand slowly released me, one finger at a time, and a shuddering breath escaped me. He was magnetic. It was impossible for me not to gravitate towards him.

  The four men looked on with various expressions. Shawn and Greg regarded us - me - with lust, Ginger looked annoyed, and Guy 4 appeared positively horrified.

  Tam slid into a lawn chair that had been brought out and pulled me into his lap.

  “You know,” Greg began conversationally. He too moved towards a chair opposite us. “We could just kill you and keep the bitch for ourselves.”

  A pounding resonated in my ears. My fingernails dug into Tam’s legs. If he felt any pain from my grip, he didn’t show it. Instead, he flashed Greg a cold smile. Perhaps a smirk would be a better description. He looked positively devious and almost terrifying at that moment.

  “You could,” he agreed, and I mentally began berating him. You don’t just tell the bad guy that he could kill you. I wasn’t an expert or anything, but I was pretty sure that was a big no in the “How to Survive Psychos” handbook.

  “Or…” he continued on, oblivious to my thoughts. “I can tell you where I keep my other willing ladies at. Fair trade. You get some. I get some.” When the guys only looked at him, Tam nodded towards the glass door. Where Bikini’s body was still visible. The various cars still in the parking lot were beginning to corrode away. The paint chipped in irregular shapes, highlighting how sulfuric and acidic the rain actually was. How much longer until the rain broke through the roof of this store? How much longer until it made the cars unusable? I wasn’t an expert on acid rain, though now I wished I had studied it in extensive detail. That, and other natural disasters. From what I remembered during my brief course on environmental studies, acid rain impacted the immune system of an individual. It didn’t burn away flesh. What exactly were we dealing with? And how would we survive an enemy we didn’t understand?

  All of my studies involving taxes and business law really paid off (said no one ever).

  “She was one of my girls. I sent the others back a while ago, but I kept two with me for company,” Tam was saying dogmatically. His hand leisurely stroked circles into my stomach through my shirt, a clear indication what he meant by the term company.

  I couldn’t help but feel disgusted by the way he used that dead girl as a prop for his twisted story. But, at the same time, I couldn’t help but note that I was still unaware of her name. Lacey, perhaps. Or Missy. One of those two.

  The disgust turned inward, towards myself.

  “She didn’t make it,” Tam said with another shrug.

  Greg, surprisingly, turned towards Guy 4 for confirmation.

  “What do you say, Doc?”

  The man anxiously fiddled with his glasses, pushing it back up his nose only to have them sink back down.

  “Definitely died from the acid rain. Recently, too,” Doc said. His eyes, once again, rested on my face. Unlike the lust and desire I could see swimming in the other three faces, he only regarded me with something akin to guilt and regret.

  “So what do you say?” Tamson leaned back in the chair, his hand moving to my thigh. Even though the material of my pants, I could feel the heat his body emitted. His scent surrounded me.

  Greg also leaned back in his chair, kicking his legs up to rest on a cooler.

  “Let’s make a deal.”

  Fallon

  If there was one thing I had learned from my twenty-five years of existence, it was that I wasn’t allowed to kill people without a reason. Elena? She gave me a reason. The bitch had the audacity to look me in the eye and tell me that I would be better off without Adelaide. Honestly, if the others hadn’t been there, I might’ve snapped her neck. Female or male, no one was allowed to put my team into harm's way.

  No one.

  My hands were clenched over the steering wheel, knuckles white, as I maneuvered our van through the car-cluttered street. For the most part, the town was deserted besides the occasional Rager. It reminded me of one of those post-apocalyptic movies where everything was left behind on the state of an evacuation. Houses chipped away by vandalism and inconsistent weather. Bodies loitering the street. Cars with their doors still opened as people left in a haste. It was a gruesome sight, a sight that made my stomach drop and tighten. The dismal nature of the town was impossible to ignore.

  I had one thought and one thought only.

  Protect.

  Fight.

  Survive.

  Calax turned towards me from where he sat in the passenger seat. Asher and Declan sat in the back, identical scowls contorting their faces.

  “They’re fine,” Calax said. His low timber spoke the words with a sort of detached quality. He sounded as if he was merely reciting a fact, not assuring me that my family was safe. An involuntary snort escaped before I could stop it.

  The brooding, angry bastard was comforting me. What has the world come to?

  “She’s fine. I’m certain of it.” This was directed at himself as if he needed the reassurance more than I did. The man’s face was tight with an undefinable emotion, and his eyes had a feral glaze to them that hinted at an underlying tension. He was unhinged - a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode. We were similar in that respect.

  Tick. Tick.

  Boom.

  “Holy shit,” Asher muttered, pulling my attention back towards the matter at hand. I followed his finger and felt my eyes widen as well.

  Holy shit was right.

  There were Ragers everywhere. Walking. Attacking one another. Eating the remains of numerous dead bodies. I didn’t know where to look. Their skin was beginning to deteriorate in some places and melt from the bones in others. The acid rain, which had the capability to kill a grown man, did not seem to deter them. If anything, it only gave them renewed vigor. It reminded me vaguely of a cone of ice cream melting on a hot summer day. That was what their faces reminded me of...a fact that sent pinpricks of aversion and fear down my spine and to the soles of my feet. I would never be able to eat ice cream again.

  I had seen a lot of shit in my life. A lot of death. But this? This was something I couldn’t even begin to articulate into words. I only hoped that Tamson had shielded Adelaide from this sight the best he could. No person could face such senseless death and desolation and remain sane. My heart hammered through my ribcage as I watched a Rager - dark hair dripping down its back and black veins crawling beneath its pasty skin - bite at the neck of a different Rager. Monsters. The whole lot of them.

  I wondered if this was a sign from God. Had we really fucked up so badly that he resorted to making us mindless beasts? I thought of my own transgressions.

  Father forgive me for I have sinned.

  The list was endless. Murder. Theft.

  Adultery.

  My self-loathing reached a pinnacle. Wave after wave of despair threatened to consume me.

  I had never believed in karma before, but my perception on life and human nature was steadily changing. Bad things happened to monsters like me. It was a miracle that I was still alive and standing.

  It was a miracle that I had been able to fall in love, though what I felt did not classify as the traditional “love”. I was too battle-worn and hard to feel such a mushy emotion. What I felt didn’t have a name nor was it an exact science. It just was. A state of being some would say. A sensation. A need to protect.

  Shaking my head to clear my muddled thoughts, I moved further and further away from the assembled mass of Ragers, all clawing ineffectually at the retreating car. Even from this distance, I could hear their incoherent yells and pleas.

  Savages.

  Monsters.

  A physical representation of my inner self.

  Chapter 13

  Addie

  I had gotten very good at reading people. At understanding each minuscule tick in their facial features. At watching and categorizing the way they moved their hands. Bodies told a story, and a lifetime of avoiding and fearing them made me an avid reader.

  Lust. Anger. Fear. Sadness. Each emotion was carefully crafted on an individual no matter how hard they tried to hide it. The slightest tightening of eyes here. The smile brewing there. The hair flip. The clenched fist. The Adam’s apple bobbing. I sometimes wondered if it would be possible to decipher a person’s entire life story based solely on their expressions and gestures.

  Were they abused as children?

  Were they unloved?

  I prided myself in my ability, in my power to see past apathetic fronts.

  But Tamson? I couldn’t read him.

  His posture was noticeably relaxed, but at the same time, his hand was clenched into a fist. Not a tight fist, but a fist all the same. His eyes were wide and sincere, earnest, almost, but his lips were pulled down. His body was an epitome of contradictions, each one prohibiting me from getting an accurate read on him.

  All I could do was watch from my position in his lap as he joked and conversed with the men before us. Conversation steered from girls to sports and from sports to lives before and after. I listened with rapt interest as they divulged their life stories. Doc, no surprise, was an actual surgeon they picked up a few days ago. According to Shawn, they were on their way to Paradise.

  A place where the monsters and storms couldn’t reach those inside.

  A place where we no longer had to live in fear.

  A place where we could not only survive, but live.

  I could see curiosity pique in Tamson’s eyes as he listened to their rant of the supposed holy grounds. I, too, filed the information away for later.

  “So…” Greg took a long drag of his cigarette, eyes once again focusing on me. I fidgeted at the intrusiveness of his stare, and Tamson put his hands on my hips to steady me. For some undefinable reason, tiny licks of pleasure erupted where he touched me. I knew that he wasn’t entirely unaffected as well, if the hardness pressing into my back was any indication. “What are your specialities?”

  Specialities?

  “Well, Flower here-” Tamson began, but cut off when Greg raised a fist.

  “I think the girl can speak for herself.”

  I was suddenly aware that I had every eye on me. I met Tam’s impassive gaze, and the only indication he sensed my unease was the slightest nod of his head.

  Specialities.

  As a sex worker.

  So you see, this is where I ran into a problem. I was horrible under pressure and had a tendency to babble when at a loss for words. Verbal train wreck.

  “Wow. That’s a loaded question. Okay...um...I’m very good at DP. And I just learned that it’s not a fizzy drink. Imagine my surprise when I asked for a DP and I get freaking beads shoved up my hole - and not the good hole. Who needs to prepare anyways? And why do guys even like it? What if I were to take a shit or fart while the dick was in there? It would turn into a dip-shit. Oh and I’m also good at licking, apparently. Like if you have blue, icicle balls, I can lick them for you. And I’m-”

  Tamson, who had been pinching me to get me to shut up, finally put a hand over my mouth. I knew my face was as red as his hair.

  Damn it, Adelaide.

  Why do you have to go and open up your big mouth?

  “Well damn,” Greg huffed out in a laugh. Tamson indolently draped an arm over my shoulders. The other was still wrapped snugly around my waist.

  “This is why we don’t have the girls talk.”

  Though I knew his words were for Greg’s benefit, they settled in my stomach heavily. It was an equivalent statement to what my dad had always told me. Girls were made to be seen, not heard. I repeated to myself that Tamson didn’t actually feel that way, that he respected my opinions and enjoyed my sometimes crazy rants. He wasn’t my father. He was merely a character at this moment.

  My mind, unbidden, drifted to a day only a few weeks earlier.

  Ryder sprawled himself on my bed.

  “Stop moving,” I scolded, picking up his foot with one hand and steadily applying the nail polish with the other. I was sitting awkwardly near the edge of the bed, the immense cast over my leg prohibiting me from getting any more comfortable.

  “It tickles,” he said, jerking his body yet again. I wanted to retort that nails couldn’t be ticklish but held my tongue. It was a miracle he had allowed me to paint them in the first place.

  “I don’t want red nails.” Ronan was standing over my shoulder, watching me beautify his brother with undivided interest. I chuckled at the disgust in his voice, and my chuckling ascended into full belly laughter when he added, “I want green. Like my hair.”

  “Then you’ll really be a leprechaun,” I pointed out gleefully. It was a nickname I had given him when we had first met and one that he took to heart. The fact that he smiled almost reverently at the name now made my stomach soar.

  “What about you, Tam?” I asked. Tam sat on the leather chair in the corner of my room. His hands rapidly flew over the keys on his phone, whatever he was doing holding his entire attention. “Tam!” I repeated when he didn’t respond. He glanced up, startled, before setting his phone down beside him. I couldn’t help but wonder who he was talking to and if it was a girl. I didn’t know why jealousy bucked me like a bull at the mere thought. Pushing the feeling down, I flashed him a smile.

  “Sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair, the strands becoming even more bedraggled than before. He had deep bruises beneath his eyes as if he hadn’t slept in days. “I got distracted.”

  “Texting a girl?” I teased. Did he hear the note of jealousy in my voice? At my words, his face darkened, surprise giving way to unreadability. Just as quickly, he ducked his head, and his signature blush spread up his neck.

  “Tam doesn’t text girls,” Ryder said in a mock conspiratorial whisper. Tam’s blush deepened.

  “Doesn’t believe they’re worth his time besides a quick fuck,” Ronan added. I knew that the boys were only attempting to tease him, but their words made my stomach plummet even further until it practically fell through the floor. “He hasn’t texted a girl back yet.”

  Conversation veered to a storm that had hit the west coast and the cancellation of their favorite sporting game (I didn’t know the difference between balls and nets and sports names). Mercifully, they didn’t bring up Tamson’s strange behavior.

 

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