Page 13 of Bait (After the End #2)

Chapter Seven

The rest of the afternoon passed pretty smoothly and despite the hit of adrenaline the kiss had provided, the day began to catch up with me.

We made our way through what Torch and Candela called the “expanse.” We managed to emerge out of the area of the bunker without much incident and soon we were ascending the old mountain road that led to our destination.

As we drove, Candela pointed out a valley she said had been filled with volcanic ash.

Now it was a forest with pines so enormous they seemed to reach the sky.

“There are quite a lot of people living in there,” she told me as I looked in awe at the trees that resembled the photos I’d seen of the California redwoods. “Sunlight is an issue, but they are pretty concealed.”

“I haven’t seen any lava.” I hadn’t expected to be close to the bunker, I knew they’d built far from the projected eruption areas, but I’d imagined the spill would be everywhere.

“The lava was worse on the West Coast. It didn’t reach here so much.

” My dad had made a few predictions of how the eruptions would happen, but once they began it was hard to know where they occurred.

“We heard there were towns that were swallowed whole.” I tried not to read too much into the fact that Torch was actually responding to my questions.

Or into the fact that he didn’t seem fazed by what he’d walked in on earlier.

Like half my boob hadn’t been in Candela’s mouth.

It was certainly not behavior that was acceptable in the bunker.

Sex was only to be bred. But if he was taking it in stride, I would too.

I focused on what I could see outside. We passed a few areas that looked populated.

None of them close to the road, but in the distance.

We also saw a few vehicles that had solar panels, but none stopped.

They didn’t look like any of the cars you’d see on magazines or movies.

These were more like a bunch of different things cobbled together to make one working vehicle.

One had a front half that looked like an ambulance, it even had the AMBU on the side, but the rear half was the bed of a pick-up truck.

It was reassuring in a way to see that people had found a way to carry on.

To work with what was left to build a future.

I also noticed Torch would do a complicated code with his lights as they approached.

When I asked he told me it was a signal they’d developed to identify themselves as safe people in transit.

I kept busy with a notepad and pencil I got from Candela and listed everything I saw.

As I processed the reality that life had gone on without us, Leo came to mind.

I couldn’t help wondering what he'd make of this place. If he would be sad or happy to be outside. He was the kind of guy to always look at the positive, so I didn’t think he’d focus on what he’d lost, but what was still left.

Although it would probably crush him to know the lies we’d been fed.

I didn’t know if even Leo could forgive Becker for his deception. I never would.

“What are you thinking so hard about, Brains?” There were many things I could say. I wanted to ask how they could be so nonchalant while the bunker, while our friends, were down there with Becker being manipulated and deceived. But I knew there was a lot I didn’t know. Still, I couldn’t resist.

“Did you ever hear anything about my mom?” My mom had fallen ill.

It had been quick. One minute she’d been fine and the next she’d been began to spiral, her behavior erratic, until she crashed to the ground and was taken to the clinic without a heartbeat.

I got to see her once in the bunker hospital before her cremains were delivered to us personally by Becker.

Knowing what we knew now, I wondered if she’d truly died.

Before she could catch herself, Candela went very still, alarm flickering in her eyes. But it was gone so fast I wondered if I’d imagined it. Torch gripped the steering wheel hard, but he didn’t respond.

“Not anything you didn’t already know.” I waited for him to say more.

To tell me that he missed her too. But all the kindness from earlier was replaced by the icy tone he’d had before.

“We’ll be at our stop for the night in an hour.

” I knew there was something they weren’t saying.

It could be a kindness. Maybe they knew something that could pain me and were trying to spare me.

The thought that my father could’ve somehow hurt her had crossed my mind.

He’d been so enthralled by Becker. I set aside Torch’s cryptic answer and my speculation for later because just then, we began to descend down a smaller road.

The rig bumped and jolted so much that I had to close my eyes to keep from getting sick.

By the time we hit smoother paths we were driving in a thick forest.

Soon the evidence of people living there became evident.

The trees were very tall and large, but there was a road cleared for vehicles in between their massive trunks.

The scale was them was such that it felt like we were in a giant’s wooded home.

And there was evidence of a community all around us, which thrilled me.

I noticed some signs indicating the direction of the township.

There were a few people swimming in a small pond and one of them was fishing.

Eventually we came to a small bridge which didn’t look like it would hold the rig to me.

I braced myself as Torch carefully drove on to the wooden planks, but to my surprise, we made it through without issue.

When we arrived at the gate, a woman and man with guns came out.

“This settlement is called Esperanza,” Candela told me as we came to a stop.

“We have friends here.” The two people seemed to know the rig.

Both waved at us and a third man moved to unlatch the gate.

It was so strange to think that people had just been building communities up here.

“These two are Bianca and Samuel,” she said as she pointed to the approaching figures.

I noticed Candela was all smiles as she lowered her window.

The woman, Bianca, was a pretty, curvy type with two long braids and lovely mahogany skin, approached Candela’s side.

“Hey, you.” Bianca’s greeting and the hungry way she looked at Candela made my stomach twist. And also confused me, because Torch was completely oblivious to their flirting.

He’d been all scowly when he walked in on us, but now he was totally oblivious.

“Did you bring me anything?” she asked, all flirty, and Candela only grinned harder.

“You know I did.” That was delivered with a wink and a licking of the lips. Candela had always been a tease. There was a reason I’d given her the nickname Candela, she was hot as fuck, hot as ball of flames. I didn’t like this though. It made my skin itch to see her all into that girl.

“Hey,” I yelled, snapping them both out of their little chat. Didn’t they care that I’d been through a harrowing ordeal. That I was not in a well state? “Don’t they need to inspect the truck to make sure we’re safe to enter or something?”

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at the ceiling of the rig. Torch was the first one to turn around and whatever he saw on my face made him do a double take. “You okay?” No, I was not freaking okay. Why was that girl’s hand still on Candela’s forearm?

“Fine,” I snapped, making Candela turn in my direction too. “Just wondering if we’re going to stay here all day. I’m tired.”

Torch and Candela exchanged a look, I glared.

Bianca seemed to get the hint, and the gate was opened a moment later and we entered the settlement.

It was in the shape of a circle. In the middle there was a long wood lodge.

There were stores, or at least I thought they were stores, lined up along the main road and behind them were houses.

Most looked like wooden cabins, but there were a few other designs.

“That’s the main hall. It’s where everyone eats and where they meet to talk over town affairs,” Candela told me as we drove through.

There were people going in and out. Some carrying platters of food or jugs.

There were a lot of kids too. We hadn’t had many children in the bunker in the past year, barely any births at all.

But I saw multiple families holding babies or carrying them swaddled on their chests.

Toddlers running around. It was something I had never seen.

Births were so rare in the bunker they kept the children in protected areas so they wouldn’t get sick or hurt.

But these were playing freely with each other like they didn’t have a care in the world.

“Kids.” Both Torch and Candela nodded at that as if they instantly understood the meaning in my one word.

“There weren’t many births for a long time after The Burst. But in the beginning people were just surviving and there were worries the effects of the air and rains, but in the past five or six years, people just started getting pregnant.”

“It helps that there isn’t anything to do at night other than play cards.

” Torch making jokes, who knew? “School,” he announced as we passed a two-floor concrete building—the only one I could see—before I even asked.

The bunker was bigger than this. There couldn’t be more than a few hundred people living here.

We’d had almost two thousand in the early days.