22. Max

22

MAX

T he horde of rotters follows behind me, drawn by the chaos I’m creating. They follow as though they’ve latched onto me like a pack of rabid dogs. What good dogs they are. Well, not nearly as good as Buddy, who tears through the rotters straggling along at the edges. He reduces the numbers, but it still seems like each one we kill only draws another in from the shadows. We’ve taken down a lot, but it doesn’t look like we’ve even made a dent.

It’s almost like they’re multiplying. What the…

I keep spinning and changing direction, each pivot dispatching another rotter or sidestepping a dead hand clawing at me, but they keep coming. Flooding from alleys, from behind overturned cars, drawn to the noise I’m making. Well, that’s fantastic.

A dead hand lands on my shoulder, and I greet it with a knife through the eye. Damn it, we can’t keep up with them. I move in an arc due to all the new rotters joining in on the dance party they were never invited to. How inconsiderate. I’m supposed to crash their parties, not the other way around. The guest list was already full.

I glimpse William fighting his own small horde. He falls back to avoid gnashing teeth, and then lunges forward and takes care of them. Rinse and repeat. The thing that really catches my attention, though, is that Emily’s not with him. I scan around, but she’s nowhere in sight. All I can do is hope she’s found the kid and is getting him—and herself—to safety.

The dead keep coming. I dodge and weave, but my stamina is waning. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten all those candy bars from the vending machine after all. At least Emily convinced me to eat some protein, or else I’d be going through a sugar crash right now. Maybe I could start an apocalyptic diet program. Sell it to people in exchange for weapons, or something. Sweet. I’ve got an entire business to start up. Now I’m going to have to survive this.

I leap to the side when a rotter tries to sink its yellowing teeth into my arm. Despite my silence and lack of movement, they remain fixated on me like a beacon. I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this right now, but I’ll figure something out. I always do. Life is funny like that; it tends to keep me alive long enough to suffer more, because there’s never enough suffering in this world for dear ‘ole Max.

Right when I’m about to get boxed in, my back collides with another rotter. These fuckers are everywhere, I swear.

I whirl around, knife ready to stab through its head, but my hand stops mid-air. Emily. She’s right there, battling another rotter beside me, oblivious to my near attack. My heart pounds like crazy at what I almost did.

She glances at me, eyes flashing with worry. “I don’t know where they all keep coming from,” she says, voice ragged while she plunges her knife into a rotter’s eye socket, then yanking it free in a quick, brutal motion.

Looking over her head, I realize she’s been backing away from a horde of her own. The only way out now is to head back toward the colony. I would be fine with sending them after Richard, but not when Emily is on the front line. Which means there’s only one thing to do.

More rotters close in, surrounding us, and I know we’re out of options. I grab her shoulder, pulling her around to face me, and she stops fighting. She senses the desperation in my eyes.

“Please don’t tell me you were bit.” Her hands move over my arms, my neck, my face, searching for wounds. Her fingertips brush across my lips, and I pull her to the side so I can stab a rotter that almost got to her, then turn back around to face her.

“No, pet, it’s not that.” I brush her hair back with a tenderness that surprises even me. It’s such a mess since she gave her only hair tie to me. She looks over her shoulder at the path leading back to the safety of the colony’s walls.

“We can make a break for it.” She nods toward the road, then takes down another rotter that reaches us. “We’ll get close enough that they’ll see us. They’ll help.”

“Then what?” I shake my head. “Emily. If you show up there with an army of rotters behind you, they’ll turn those guns on your first for bringing them to their front door.” I glance back at the advancing horde and pull out my gun, taking out several more of them to buy us a few extra seconds of time. “I’m not going to make it, but you can.”

Her face twists in disbelief. “Max don’t do this,” she pleads, her voice thick with emotion and her words cracking.

She’s so beautiful when she’s worried about me. I can’t help but grin at her. “It’s okay, pet. I understand now that you didn’t leave me the same way Nathan did. Right now, though, I’m going to need you to leave. I need you to leave, to run away as far, and as fast, as you can, without looking back.” Shoving the gun back into my holster, I reach out to hold her face in my hands and pull her close. She looks up at me, her eyes brimming with the tears she tries to hold back. “I wish I’d been a better man for you.”

Without giving her a chance to respond, I close the gap between us and press my lips against hers. She tastes like warmth and fire. My fingers tangle in her wild hair. I like her hair like this so much, I’m glad I’ll never give her back the hair tie. She can have untamed hair for the rest of her life.

I devour her mouth. She tastes even more delicious than she did every other time I kissed her. This kiss is the best, because I know it’ll be the last. The world fades for only a second, all but her.

She’s breathless when I pull back; her lips parted as she stares at me. I give her a final push toward the road.

“Go, now,” I order.

I watch her vanish down the road before I’m swallowed up by the horde. I don’t know where anyone else is, but I don’t care. All I know is she’s going to be safe, and that’s something I can die with.

With her taken care of, I empty both clips into the advancing rotters. The sound fills the air like thunder, but it doesn’t matter. Every rotter in the vicinity is already coming here, anyway.

When my bullets run dry, I pull out Debbie, my best partner in crime. The only lady I’ll take down with me. She hums in my hand as I swing, a thrill of adrenaline coursing through me.

Laughter fills the wide-open town, and it takes a moment before I realize it’s my own. It sounds odd at a time like this. A normal person would be screaming, crying, or wailing into the sky to be spared. Not me. I laugh, wild and free, facing down the horde.

“Come at me, you filthy monstrosities.” My shout carries through the streets.

The rotters close in, too many to fight off, but I stand my ground. The more I can take out for Emily, the better .

This is it, I think, as they bear down on me. I swing my arms around, slicing the air with my blade, and slamming Debbie into rotter skulls. My arms grow tired, but I don’t give up, even though I know I’m done for.

My mouth opens wide with my screams to draw every single rotter toward me. I hope I bought her enough of a head start, because I can’t keep fighting them off any longer. If I’m lucky, these monsters will tear me apart enough so I can’t come after her in my rotter form.

The snarls coming from the horde are deafening, and drown out my screams. I always thought I would go out in a bloodbath, so I can’t say I’m disappointed.

I hold out my arms, close my eyes, and grin while I lift my face to the sky, with my pet’s face dancing in my vision like the first time I saw her. “Come and get me,” I whisper, accepting the end.

A sound cuts through the chaos—a heavy beat, loud and unmistakable, pulsing through the air.

That’s funny. I never expected heaven or hell to greet me with rock music. The beat is a good one, too. One that I can dance to through the pearly gates or the fiery pits. Wherever I’ve ended up, I like the welcome party.

I open my eyes to see which one meets my fate. The sun shines in the sky, the wide-open small town I’ve died in is still here, and the dead corpses slither away from me.

Wait…is this not the afterlife?

A battered red sedan comes tearing through the horde, plowing into the rotters like a battering ram. It screeches to a stop ahead of me, and my jaw drops when Emily jumps out.

She’s ethereal. Moving like a whirlwind, spinning and slashing through the rotters in time to the beat, her movements graceful and deadly, while killing every single rotter she encounters.

I’m so stunned by this that I remain standing in place, staring at the marvelous beauty of a woman .

She looks like a warrior goddess, bathed in the afternoon light, cutting down rotters with every step, every swing of her weapon. All I can do is watch, dumbfounded, as she works her way toward me.

With each rotter that falls, she draws closer, her face fierce and beautiful.

The music blares on, and Emily reaches into the car, pulling out a machine gun. A fucking machine gun, this woman.

She lifts it, firing at the horde. The recoil shakes her frame, but she doesn’t falter. She mows them down until there’s nothing left but silence, and the stench of rotting corpses around us.

Then she drops the machine gun—a fucking machine gun—and sprints over to me.

“Emily…” My voice catches as she closes the distance, her expression unreadable. I reach out my arms for her, but instead of running into my arms like I hoped, she shoves me hard in the chest. I stumble back.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” she snaps, her voice breaking. “Don’t ever sacrifice yourself for me like that again, or I’ll kill you myself, and you’ll wish you’d been devoured by rotters instead.”

There are tears in her eyes. Are they for me?

I try to speak, but the words won’t come. All I can do is stare at her, stunned and speechless. “Emily…”

Her eyes flash, her gaze pinning me in place with their intensity.

I can’t help the smile tugging at my lips. She’s pissed, but she’s here. “Pet…you came back for me.”

“Of course I came back, you dumbass. I’m still pissed as hell with you, though.” She practically growls out her words, her face flushed with anger. It’s a beautiful flush. I like the color on her. Blends well with her ferocity.

I step closer and reach my arms out. When she doesn’t push me away again, I grab her and pull her to me. I cradle her face, drinking in every detail. The fierceness in her eyes, the lines of her jaw, the flush in her cheeks. Her hands reach up, and I think she’s going to push me back. Instead, she clutches at my shirt, her fingers wrapping around the dirty old fabric like I’m her lifeline.

“You came back,” I say again, still in disbelief, and then crash my mouth against hers.

I kiss her. Like I did when I sent her away, but this is different. I can’t get enough of her. I can’t hold her close enough. If I held her any tighter, I would crush her. The sheer restraint is going to kill me, but it’ll be a joyful death this time.

“You came back,” I murmur in between breaths, each kiss interrupted when she needs to gasp for air. Then I dive back in again before she can respond.

My hands slide down her back, to her ass. I give her cheeks one smack before gripping them tight and lifting her into the air. Her legs wrap around my waist, and I walk us over to the car. The same car she drove through an entire massive horde of rotters.

The same car she came back to me in.

Griffin and William shout out to us, but I refuse to pull away from Emily’s mouth long enough to tell them to get lost. I’m glad they’re still alive and weren’t killed by rotters, or the fucking machine gun our girl whipped out, but I’ll pay attention to them later. I have something far more important to attend to right now.

Emily bites my bottom lip, and I growl before nipping at hers and sucking it between my teeth. Her thighs squeeze around my waist and my dick throbs painfully against my jeans. Why do I even wear jeans? These are awful. I’m going to be free balling it from now on.

Griffin and William shout out to us again, and still, I ignore them. If they want a front-row seat to the show, then they’ve got it. It’s not like we’ll need any privacy between the four of us. We’re stuck with each other forever now. We’re never separating again.

The guys must realize what’s about to go down, because when I lean Emily back across the hood of the car and step in between her legs, I hear them say something to each other and then walk away in opposite directions. I don’t care what they’re up to. My full attention is on my girl right now.

“Max,” Emily breathes out when I kiss down her throat, nipping at the sensitive skin there before licking away the sting.

“Don’t worry, pet. I’ve got you.” My dick throbs, straining against my jeans, but it’s not time yet. Almost.

My fingers wrap around the waistband of her shorts, and I slide them down her long, slim legs. It takes everything within me to not tear them straight from her body like a rabid animal. If I did, then she’ll have to go back into the colony naked, and like hell I’ll let anyone else see her like that.

I slide to my knees, kneeling in the dirt, until I’m eye-level with the most beautifully delicious scenery I’ve ever laid eyes on. My mouth covers her glorious mound, and I feast on her body. She moans and her legs twitch. Fuck, she’s going to make it difficult to hold out for her. She has no idea the effect she has on me. So, I should show her.

Her hands land in my hair and her body arches when I bring her to the brink. She cries out in ecstasy, and I let her. There aren’t any rotters around to hear her cries of pleasure. “Scream for me,” I say, my words muffled by her pussy.

It’s not enough. She deserves more. I want more.

Pulling back, I get to my feet and smirk down at her when she whimpers. She’s so fucking beautiful, spread out like this on the hood of a car, her body starving for me. Finally, I rid myself of these pesky pants and then crawl on top of her .

“You want this, pet?”

“I want you, all of you, Max.”

“Your wish is my command.” I slide right into her. She’s so wet. My body presses against hers, and nothing in my life has ever felt so right as it does now.

She moans in my ear, and I could damn well come right here and now, but I force myself to hold out. My girl deserves the full experience.

I begin with slow, deliberate movements, letting the moment linger and savoring every second. It doesn’t take long before I change that. This isn’t the time for slow and sensual; passion and need take over, pushing me to quicken the pace. Her fingers tugging at my hair, her thighs squeezing my hips.

Her hands fall from my hair until her fingernails are digging into my back with pleasure, and I quicken my thrusts. After what we just went through, she’s getting it hard and fast. Rough and wild. Just like us.

My mouth lands on hers again, and I swallow her moans. It’s a shame we took out all the rotters. I would love it if she was so loud that she drew in every rotter on the planet toward us. That would be a hell of a way to go. My girl screaming my name with my dick deep inside of her while she comes around it.

Maybe next time.

Instead, I kiss her hard. Not to silence her, but because I need to keep tasting her. I have a feeling I’m never going to be able to get enough of her. I thought I’d fallen for her that night she dislocated her own wrist to escape Griffin, but that was nothing like this.

“Max,” she breathes out heavily, her mouth going slack.

“That’s right, pet. Scream my name,” I coax.

My arms tighten around her, and my thrusts turn frantic.

Her back arches off the hood, and I pulse, spilling inside of her .

We never had that kind of talk, but whatever happens, happens. Because I’m going to do it again and again and again.

My name tears from her pretty pink lips and I slow my pulse, milking her orgasm, getting every last drop out of her that I can. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” I whisper in her ear before licking along the outer shell.

“Does this mean you forgive me?” She asks.

I lean down and kiss her softly. Gently. Slowly. “You never did anything wrong, pet. I’d cut out my own heart if it kept you safe.”