Pretty Much Dead Already, page 15
He barks a laugh, low and real, and offers me his flask. It tastes like turpentine and hope.
We sit like that until the sun edges up behind the cloud cover, the world below us gray and smoking but still there.
In the end, someone always survives.
I’m not sure what kind of person I’ll be if I do.
But I promise myself I won’t let anyone else decide.
Not ever again.
Cass grins, reads my mind, and together we watch the sky turn gold, waiting to see if there’s another disaster left in it.
I think the crisis is over. But the survivors don’t move. We spend hours on that roof, breathing in sunrise and sharing what’s left of the flask. By the time someone comes—a trio of nurses in splattered scrubs—the others have formed a camp of sorts, curled into each other for warmth.
Dr. Mare is the first to stand when help arrives. He walks to the nurses, hand out—not authority, just camaraderie. They accept it with the exhausted, punch-drunk grace of nurses everywhere.
A Beta in a green vest points up, waving his rifle in a lazy, almost apologetic arc. “Perimeter’s clear,” he calls. “You’re wanted for debrief.”
Cass wipes his hands on his pants and helps me up. Jace stands, modest as ever, and together we walk the catwalk back to the main stairs. Rhett leads; I follow. Behind, Cass and Jace flank me, a wedge formation built less for battle than for comfort.
We take the stairs slow, every step deliberate. The air inside is better—warmer, the stink of death replaced by dry-erase marker and lemon polish. Someone’s even swept the halls, leaving a clean stripe through the carnage.
It’s almost funny.
We reach the bottom of the stairs, and for a second, nobody moves. The world feels held in place, like the compound is collectively holding its breath. A nurse gestures toward the infirmary—makeshift beds already waiting, IV bags swaying like tired flags.
But no one rushes us. No barking orders. No questions. Just quiet.
It’s the kind of silence I’ve never trusted. Too clean. Too rehearsed.
Cass nudges my shoulder. “You ready?”
“No,” I say, honest. “But I’m going anyway.”
Rhett looks back at me, eyes steady. “Then that’s all that matters.” The gaze feels far to intimate and I look away with a flush on my cheeks.
We pass broken windows patched with duct tape, walls scabbed with bullet marks. Every inch of this place is stitched together with desperation and second chances.
And maybe… so am I.
At the end of the hall, a door waits. Behind it, a future I haven’t decided on yet. One I finally get to choose.
I square my shoulders.
Then I open it.
Chapter Fourteen: The Sound of Plastic and Promises
Lira
Daylight, when it comes, is weaker than it should be—filtered through the haze of burning and the grimy off white sheets tacked over the worst of the broken windows. The Fort is quieter, the air thick with aftermath. I can feel the change in the rhythm of the place, the way people move: more deliberate, less desperate, but still never slow.
I slip away. Not because I want to be alone, but because everyone else wants to talk, to debrief, to swap war stories and count their scars. I’m not ready for that. The urge to run is still there, a low-grade fizz in my veins.
No one stops me. The halls are empty, except for two guards at the main quad who nod but don’t bother with questions. My feet know where I’m going before I do.
The greenhouse used to be a joke. The old community college’s attempt at a sustainability initiative, forgotten and overgrown before the world even ended. Now, it’s the closest thing the Fort has to a church.
The door sticks, but I muscle it open, the aluminum frame warped from last nights attacks, from the living and the undead. The inside is a riot of heat and chlorophyll. Rows of salvaged planting trays, cinderblock benches, and the smell—wet soil, green and sharp, with an undernote of ammonia from the homemade fertilizer. Someone’s jerry-rigged grow lights to the battered metal roof, casting the whole place in an alien white shimmer.
I sit on a wooden crate between two rows of tomato plants. They’re staked up with twine, some heavy with tiny green fruit, others just bristling with yellow blossoms. I run my fingers along the leaves, the surface rough and sticky, the smell bitter and nostalgic.
I try to replay the night in my head—every gunshot, every scream, every time I thought this is it, I’m dead, I’m gone. Instead, I end up thinking about Cass’s stupid smile, the way Jace’s hand trembled in mine, the careful way Dr. Mare peeled back my bandage. The things that shouldn’t matter, but do.
A patch in the glass above me is missing, replaced by a swatch of clear tarp stapled around the edges. The wind outside picks up, and the plastic shudders, making the light flicker. The sound is weirdly soothing—a heartbeat for the room.
It takes me a minute to realize I’m not alone. There’s a shadow in the door, broad-shouldered and motionless.
Rhett.
He stands there for a long time, just watching. Not in a threatening way. More like he’s sizing up the greenhouse, or me, or maybe the possibility of a conversation that won’t end in a mess of blood.
He steps inside, closing the door with a soft click. I can see the damage on him now—shirt untucked, streaks of brown along his forearms, a cut along the ridge of his jaw. He smells like gun oil and the burned sugar of ration bars. He sits on the crate next to mine, knees wide, hands loose between them.
We say nothing for a while. He leans forward, elbows on his thighs, the pose open but guarded. I keep my eyes on the tomato plant, pretending the new growth matters more than the silence.
“I used to hate places like this,” he says at last, voice low. “Too quiet. Smelled like rot.”
I nod, not trusting my own voice.
He looks over, just once, then back at the dirt. “I’m not good with aftermath,” he says. “Never was.”
There’s a bandage on his wrist, brown from old blood. His fingers are streaked with green and black, probably from patching the wall or moving bodies. I wonder if he even notices the pain, or if it’s just another item on his checklist.
“I thought you’d be with your team,” I say, finally.
“They’re debriefing,” he says. “I’m not needed for that.”
I almost laugh. “You’re the reason any of us are still breathing.”
He shrugs, and for the first time, the gesture feels honest. “Someone has to be.”
I let the silence have us again. The plastic in the roof flutters, the tomato plants nod in agreement. Rhett’s presence is a strange comfort—dangerous, but reliable, like an old dog with a bite scarred over and mostly forgotten.
“Are you okay?” He asks, after a while.
I want to say yes, or something clever. Instead, I say: “I don’t know what I am.”
He doesn’t move, but I feel his attention sharpen. “You don’t have to figure it out now.”
I think about all the times I’ve been told what to feel, how to act, what’s expected. This—sitting here, dirty and alive, with the world stripped down to basics—is the first time in forever I don’t have a script.
I look at him.
Really look.
His eyes are dark, but not hard. The line of his jaw is set, but there’s a tremor in the muscle, a twitch that betrays the exhaustion underneath. He’s barely holding it together, too.
I want to say something—anything—to fill the space between us. Instead, I inhale the scent of him, breathing it in deeply as we settle into comfortable silence.
We sit like that, surrounded by the smell of growth neither of us says another word.
The plastic on the roof keeps fluttering. I decide it sounds like hope.
The greenhouse is quieter now, the buzz of insects and hydroponic pumps lulling me into a kind of serenity. My eyes are closed, my cheek pressed to my knee, but I’m hyperaware of the man beside me—of every shift in his weight, every time he drums his fingers on the crate as if he’s wrestling an invisible demon. Rhett’s presence is its own weather: a low, constant pressure, suffocating and comforting at once.
I think we could sit like this for hours, maybe even until the world ends for real. I’m not in a hurry to break the spell.
But Rhett moves first. Always the tactician, never content with a draw.
He clears his throat—a tiny sound, but in this glass-walled hush it echoes. I look up, expecting him to launch into a status update, a list of survivors, a plan for re-securing the perimeter. Instead, he’s watching the way sunlight fractures across the rippled glass, the way it splinters the green into a million little shards.
“I lied, earlier,” he says. His voice is quiet, but there’s a charge in it that makes my heart lurch.
I try to keep my face neutral. “About what?”
He shakes his head, not looking at me. “I said I hated places like this. The quiet. The rot.” His jaw works, a muscle clenching and unclenching. “Truth is, I can’t stand how much I want it.”
He turns, finally, and the look in his eyes is like a punch. Raw. Unfiltered. I have no defense for it.
“It’s stupid,” he says. “This whole place is held together with tape and hope, and we’re probably all dead by winter. But I keep thinking…” He trails off, as if the words betray him.
He opens his mouth, then closes it. Takes a breath. “I keep thinking,” he says, “what if we actually get to have a future?”
The question is so honest it makes me dizzy.
I shift on the crate, facing him fully. My knee knocks against his thigh, the contact sending a spark all the way up my side. He’s close enough that I can see the new scrapes on his cheek, the red flush at the base of his throat.
“I don’t know what that looks like anymore,” I say. “A future, I mean.”
He laughs, but it’s all nerves. “Neither do I.”
We sit like that, orbiting the thing we can’t say, until he breaks the silence again.
“There’s something I want to show you.” His hand goes to his jacket—black, patched with army-green duct tape over a tear at the shoulder. He digs in the inside pocket and pulls out a tiny object, wrapped in a triangle of cloth.
He offers it to me, palm up.
I hesitate, then take it. The cloth is rough, the color faded to a brown-pink. I unwrap it.
Inside is a bracelet. Simple, but not ugly—three strands of copper wire, braided tight, the ends finished with a twist of blue and orange beads and leather ties. The wire is scuffed in places, but the beads catch the light like tiny flames.
I look at him, then back at the bracelet.
“It’s not much,” he says, already sheepish. “But I thought… If you ever have to run again, you should have something to remind you where you came from. Or where you want to end up.” His hands are clenched between his knees. He’s not looking at me anymore.
The world narrows to a pinpoint, right at the hollow of my chest.
“It’s beautiful,” I say. My voice cracks, embarrassingly.
He shrugs, but I can see the flush in his ears. “Didn’t have a ring. Thought that would be—” He catches himself, then grins. “—weird, I guess. For now.”
I laugh, the sound weak but real. “You made this?” I run my finger along the braid, amazed by the delicacy of it. The wire is warm from his body heat, as if it’s still alive.
He nods, then finally looks me in the eye. “Not like I had anything better to do, waiting for the world to burn.”
My fingers shake as I slide the bracelet onto my wrist. It’s a perfect fit. I glance up, half-embarrassed by the tears pooling at my lashes. “Thank you,” I say. “For this. For everything.”
Rhett’s smile is hesitant, shy in a way that doesn’t match the rest of him. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“I know,” I say, and mean it. “But I'm still greatful.”
The greenhouse grows hot around us, the air thickening with humidity and the smell of wet leaves. I breathe it in, let it settle on my skin.
“I used to think my life had a shape,” I say, surprising myself. “Like a blueprint, or a recipe. I followed every step, made myself into exactly what I was supposed to be, and none of it mattered in the end.” I tap the bracelet, the metal cool against my skin. “But this—” I meet his gaze, trying not to look away. “This is the first thing in months that feels real. Like maybe I could belong somewhere again.”
Rhett’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t break. “You already do.”
We fall into silence, but it’s a new kind—warm, unhurried, heavy with everything we can’t name.
I want to touch him. Not out of obligation or instinct, but because it feels necessary. Like a step in the right direction.
I put my hand on his, the contact deliberate. His skin is rough, the knuckles scarred, but he curls his fingers around mine with such gentleness it nearly undoes me.
“Is this okay?” I ask, suddenly anxious.
He nods, and I see his throat work as he swallows. “Yeah. More than okay.”
We’re close enough now that I can see the flecks of gold in his irises, the faint white line of an old cut along his eyebrow. He doesn’t move, not until I do, and then it’s all at once.
I lean in, just a little. He meets me halfway. Our lips touch, tentative and feather-light, the barest brush. For a second, I forget how to breathe.
He tastes like rain and adrenaline and the bitter tang of fresh basil. His hand comes up, slow and careful, to cradle the back of my head. I melt into it, into him, the feeling of safety so foreign I want to cry all over again.
The kiss is short, more promise than possession. When we break, I rest my forehead against his, eyes squeezed shut.
“Still scared?” he asks, voice low.
“Always,” I say. “But less than before.”
He smiles, just for me, and I realize that the world could fall apart a hundred more times and I’d still want this—this greenhouse, this moment, this bruised and beautiful new reality.
I sit back, letting my fingers tangle with his. The bracelet glows on my wrist, copper bright against the dirt and sweat of the last twenty-four hours.
We don’t say another word. There’s no need.
Outside, the wind picks up, rattling the plastic in the roof. For the first time, it sounds like a lullaby.
I lean into Rhett, the future a blank page, and let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, we’ll get to fill it together.
I press my palm to his chest, right over his heart. It’s beating hard, wild and alive.
For the first time, I match it with my own.
Chapter Fifteen: Passion's Ember
Lira
Istart the day in the medical wing, where nothing smells like hope and everything’s sticky with the residue of last night’s adrenaline. Dr. Mare has me stacking gauze rolls and pill bottles, cross-referencing the chicken-scratch inventory log against what’s left in the scavenged bins. We work in companionable silence, interrupted only by his low, absentminded muttering as he double-counts or corrects a label. The generator’s hum is less a sound than a bodily function—irritating but vital. Somewhere above us, someone is hammering, patching up the latest hole in a wall that’s more hole than structure.
Dr. Mare checks his clipboard, rubs at the bridge of his nose, and then glances over the tops of his glasses at me. “That’s not quite right,” He says, but instead of pointing it out, he waits for me to notice. I scan the tray—IV kits, two vials of Narcan, a half-used bottle of iodine. The bandage rolls are stacked by size, not type. I redo the order, embarrassed, but Dr. Mare just offers a dry half-smile, like this is his favorite part of the job.
I want to ask him if he slept, but judging by the shadows under his eyes, I already know.
“Is it always like this?” I ask, setting the tray down. “The day after something big?”
He doesn’t look up. “It’s worse after something small. Then people start remembering how little they matter.”
“Cheery.” I wrinkle my nose at him, eyes playful.
“I’m not paid to be cheery,” Dr. Mare says, and this time he actually looks at me, the faintest glimmer of humor in his eyes.
The door to the med wing bangs open, an echoing metallic clang that’s half warning, half declaration of war. Cass stalks in like he owns the place, a bundle of rolled papers clutched under one arm and a fresh cut glistening red along the back of his hand. He smells like the outside, which is to say he smells like dirt, sweat, and the trace ozone of spent ammunition and motor oil.
He surveys the room, gives Dr. Mare the world’s shortest nod, and then zeroes in on me.
“Birdie,” he says, like it’s a challenge. “You got a minute?”
“Depends,” I say, looking him up and down like a slab of meat. “You bleeding out?”
“Not unless it’s an emergency,” Dr. Mare interjects, but Cass waves him off, grinning.
He tosses the bundle onto a gurney and leans over it, inviting me in with a crook of his finger. “Got a little project. It’s hands-on.” He grins as he wiggles his eyebrows at me.
I take the invitation, ignoring the look Dr. Mare shoots me, the one that says “Don’t let the wolves eat you before the next census.” I sidle up to Cass, who’s already unrolling his loot. The papers are scavenged: a torn topographic map, hand-drawn overlays, a strip of notebook with a list in Cass’s neat, all-caps script. It smells faintly of smoke and ink.
“Herb run,” Cass whispers, close enough that I feel it in my ear. “Real stuff. Not the hydroponic garbage from the quad.”
I glance at the list. YARROW. FEVERFEW. COMFREY. Half of it is medicinal, the rest looks like it could poison a man if you’re creative.
“Why me?” I ask, lowering my voice to match his.
He snorts, then makes a show of looking me up and down. “You’re the only one here who doesn’t think every leaf is a salad.”
