22. Emily

22

The flowers that Griffin and I dug up and planted look like they’re thriving, and I can’t wait to see the lavender roses at their fullest. They’re already beautiful, but they’re going to be stunning.

“Everything still good?” Griffin asks from behind me, and I stand up and face him with a smile.

“Everything is perfect. Though I’m wondering if we should bring them inside for a little while.”

“Why would we do that when we’re getting ready to leave soon?”

My eyes widen. “What do you mean?”

A radiant grin lights up his face, his normally empty eyes sparkling. I don’t know why he’s so smiley lately, but I like it. I enjoy seeing him happy. “First thing in the morning. I found a map and there are some nearby places we can check out for your friend’s insulin.”

“Your stitches?—”

“Are fine. I’m doing better than you give me credit for, princess. The rotter herd should be long gone by now so we can clear out any car out there that we want to take. You’re no longer putting your mission on hold because of me. We’re doing this.”

“We’re really doing it? Leaving in the morning?” It almost sounds too good to be true. If we would have wound up here the first day I’d met them, I would have left in a heartbeat. But after getting to know them, and then everything they’ve done for me, there was no way I could leave when one of them was so hurt. Seeing him lying there unconscious and so helpless was harder than I thought it could be. And I hate his stupid face for making me care about his life like that.

“As soon as the sun rises. You need to get back to help your friend. I don’t want to keep you from that. I’ll drive you as far as you’ll let me, and I won’t force myself past that.” His short, dark brown, disheveled hair falls into his eyes when he tilts his head forward, following my movements.

I do a slow walk toward him, grinning from ear to ear. “You really know how to make a hostage happy.”

Something flashes in his eyes. They’re no longer empty. Instead, they’re full of…I can’t tell what, but they’re full of something. And they’re locked on me. “You’re not a hostage, Emily. You haven’t been for quite some time. I want you to stay, more than anything.” His voice cracks and he wets his lips. “But more importantly, I want you to want to stay. Do you want to be here with me? With us?”

My heart elates and pangs at the same time. This is something I’ve thought about so much. It’s all I’ve been able to think about the last few days. They’ve made me feel more safe and cared for than I’ve felt in two hundred and seventy-five days. I don’t want to leave something like that.

My voice drops to a whisper. “Right now, I can’t imagine wanting to be anywhere else.”

I’m close to him. Close enough for him to reach out and grab, and he realizes it, too, because his hands touch behind my elbows and pull me closer to him, his touch gentle but urgent. His warmth surrounds me in the cool evening air and I’m enveloped in a sense of safety. My mind is at war with my heart and I know it won’t end well, but I can’t seem to pull myself away. I’m magnetized to him. And to Max, and to William. I’ve made quite the mess here and I have no clue how to fix it, or if I even want to fix it. I’m tired of always doing what I feel like I have to do. It’s exhausting. I want him, all of them, and I don’t want to hide that.

My hands press along his abdomen, feeling the taut muscles beneath the shirt. I’m careful of the wound on his side, but I want to touch him, to feel him. My hands slide up his torso, to his chest, where his heart beats erratically beneath my palm, almost matching my own.

He leans down, tilting his head. His finger moves beneath my chin, lifting it up. My eyes flutter closed when I lean in, too, my heart beating so hard that it’ll hurt if we don’t. My lips barely brush his when gravel crunches beneath heavy footsteps, shattering the bubble we’ve built around ourselves in the moment. “Well, I’ll be damned, they’re alive.”

I pull back and spin around in Griffin’s arms. He grabs hold of me, his body going rigid when we face the men who snuck up on us. I practically spit out my question. “Who are you?”

The one on the right grins while still chewing gum. I can see it pressed between his teeth at the side of his mouth. “Sorry to frighten you little missy, but we’re looking for our friends.”

On instinct, I look around, expecting more people to be surrounding us. It takes a minute for my brain to catch up and realize who he’s talking about. “Who?”

“They headed this way a couple of days ago and never came back. Three guys who can be assholes on occasion, but are mostly harmless. You didn’t happen to see them now, did you?”

Oh shit.

Griffin’s fingertips dig into my hip above my waistband, holding me close to him as if to tell me it’s going to be alright. I look around and spot Max watching us from where he’s crouched behind a tree with a knife in one hand and his morning star in the other. William is watching from around the corner of another building, a gun in hand and ready to fire.

“You know what, I think we saw them in passing, if they were your friends we saw. They were on their way out, though. I’m sorry we can’t be of more help,” I lie.

The one chewing the gum frowns. “Interesting. I didn’t tell you anything about them and you immediately knew who I was talking about.”

“Three assholes is the only descriptor you need,” I say, my words flat.

He grins. Not a cheery grin, but one that sends a chill down my spine. “Are you alone here in this town? Seems like a nice place.”

Griffin’s grip tightens on me and I can feel him practically vibrating, struggling with the restraint to throw me behind him. I place my hand over his hand that’s on my hip in reassurance.

“There are others. Our friends are also around here somewhere. Where did you travel from?” I try to change the subject.

“A nearby school we came across not too long ago. Decent setup.”

Hope blooms in my chest, and I can’t help how it bleeds into my words. “Do you have food? Supplies? Medication?”

The man laughs. “There’s all sorts of stuff there. We were only passing through, using it to rest up for a few days, so I don’t exactly have a full spiel for you. Was waiting on our friends to get back first before moving on, but we got impatient. There’s already a large group there. It’s not our vibe. They’ve got rules and all.” He rolls his eyes as though following rules is the most tiresome thing imaginable. “But they seem to be loaded with all kinda of shit. You’re welcome to come check it out. We’ll even escort you.”

Griffin’s chest vibrates against my back when he speaks. “We might take you up on that. The high school?”

The man grins, showing off his gum again and looking at the man behind me for the first time. “You know it?”

“That was a place I was going to check out soon,” Griffin admits.

“Imagine that. It’s a small world, after all. So will it be just the two of you, then? Are you an item or something?”

Griffin’s grip on my hip turns painful, but I ignore the sting. “Yes.”

The man’s grin widens. “I see. So are you also with the other two men hiding almost out of sight with their weapons drawn? One behind the tree to my left, and the other beside the building to my right.”

I’ve never heard a man growl before, but it’s the only way I can describe the sound that comes out of Griffin. Even his body vibrates.

“Relax, man, we mean no harm. I have no interest in any of you. Your men can come out now. You clearly have us outnumbered.”

Max is the first to reach us, swinging his morning star around with his maniacal grin. William has his gun lowered by his thigh, but I know he can take them both out in a blink if needed. These two strangers don’t scare me because I’m surrounded by the three most fearsome men I know. If anything, I feel sorry for the two newcomers. I relax against Griffin and he squeezes my hip in response.

“What type of supplies are up there at the school?” I ask. If we’re going into a building full of possibly dangerous people, I need to make sure it’s worth it first. Find out how much this guy knows. I learned my lesson at the last dreg hideout about rushing into these things.

The man with the gum tilts his head to the side. “Is there something specific you’re looking for?”

“Insulin.”

“Yeah, I believe there might be some newly acquired insulin. I haven’t laid eyes on it myself, only heard about it, but we’ll have to ask the guy who brought it in. He’s protective of his things, but it’s worth a shot.”

Hope rises within me. Finally, the answer I’ve been looking for. The insulin for Zoey is practically within my grasp. “Take me there.”

Griffin growls out his words. “We’ll all go.”

The man grins. “Of course. And maybe you four could keep an eye out for our missing buddies along the way. Remember, three assholes. Hard to miss.”

“Three assholes. Got it.” I keep my face passive and swallow hard. They seem like decent enough guys. I don’t enjoy lying to them in order to get something out of them, but I don’t have much of a choice. Having humanity at the end of the world is a real inconvenience. “We’ll help where we can.”

It doesn’t take long to pack up our things, considering that we really didn’t have that much. Most of our belongings are still in the car…at least, I think they are. As long as no one else came along and scavenged it. At that thought, I reach up and grasp the compass that’s resting beneath my shirt, grateful that William got it back for me. I can’t imagine if I would have lost it forever. It’s my last link to my family.

“Should we put out the fires? Rotters might come in if we do,” William asks.

Griffin makes sure the two men are out of earshot before answering. “We’ll be back. They’re already low. They might burn out while we’re gone, anyway. The school is only a few miles’ walk.”

“We’re really going to trust these guys?” Max asks, watching the two men in question like a hawk.

“Of course not,” Griffin says. “But they can lead us to what we need and get us inside without a fight. We’ll figure out the rest along the way, but right now, they’re our best bet. Doesn’t mean we should let down our guard.”

William checks to make sure the magazine is full before loading it back into his gun. “Absolutely not.”

“Please don’t kill them until we at least get inside,” I plead.

Max kisses my cheek and then walks away without a word.

“Max?”

He checks on his myriad of weapons.

“Damnit Max, promise me.”

He turns around with a grin. “Nah.”

“Hey, isn’t that Garret’s boot?” The man who isn’t chewing gum walks over to a dark object on the ground and picks it up. “Yeah, that’s the burn mark on the toe from when you pushed him into the fire.”

Max glances at me before gripping his morning star and facing the two men. “Yeah, that’s not a promise I can make, pet. Ever.”

The man chewing the gum turns an angry look on us. “Thought you only saw our friends on the way out.”

“We did. On their way out of life, that is. Guess one of them lost a shoe when I was dragging their bodies out to deal with them.”

“Max,” I say through gritted teeth, but it’s too late. He’s made it so much worse.

The man pulls out a gun and Griffin pushes me back behind him.

“They attacked first,” I call out.

“And let me guess, you finished it?” The man spits out his gum and lifts the gun. A shot fires and I grip the back of Griffin’s shirt as panic surges through me. Seconds bleed into an eternity. No one moves. I peer around Griffin’s large frame to look around at my men, terror freezing me in place until I see the man drop his gun to the ground, a bright red liquid coating his white shirt in the dim evening light before he, too, falls to the ground, his gum falling out of his mouth and rolling across the dirt.

“What did you do?” The second man barely reaches for his own gun before Max is on him with a knife to his throat. William keeps his gun raised.

“Unless you want to join your friends in their crowding grave, you’ll get us into that school,” Max demands, his voice threatening. He presses the knife against his throat until a small bead of blood slides down his throat and he whimpers.

“Fine, whatever you want, please don’t kill me. I didn’t even know those guys all that well. Seriously. I only met them a few days ago. The only reason I stuck with them was to survive.” A wet spot appears on the front of his pants and I feel like this one won’t be too much of a threat.

Max grins.