Page 29 of Brood (After the End #5)

Four months later, it’s Bun’s first birthday. I wake up to discover that Will has rolled on top of me.

He’s still asleep, his body heavy and his head tucked into the crook of my neck. His warm breath blows against my skin. I’m cozy and way too hot and affectionate and claustrophobic all at the exact same time.

I give him a little push to get him off.

He harrumphs as he jerks, grabbing for the gun he keeps on the nightstand. He’s always slightly on edge here on the surface. Everything is so vast and unknown, and people aren’t nearly as subdued and predictable as they were in the Refuge.

“It’s fine,” I murmur, drawing his hand back down and kissing his palm. “Sorry. Everything’s all right. You were on top of me.”

“Okay.” He gives his head a shake and then settles back onto the bed, smiling at me in the very dim light of the early morning through the window of our room. “Sorry about that.”

“I don’t care that much.” I lift my head to check on Bun, who is tucked into a rustic crib in the corner. When he appears to be sound asleep, I stretch out and take several deep breaths.

The air still feels different. Sometimes it smells dirty.

Sometimes it smells grassy. Sometimes it smells like water, and sometimes it smells like warm sun.

Acclimating to the world outside the bunker hasn’t been easy these past months.

We’ve both had a lot of sinus problems, and I continue to occasionally be kind of dizzy.

But we’re getting used to it, and despite the learning curve, life here has been better and fuller and happier than we could have dreamed.

“How do you feel this morning?” Will asks, extending an arm to pull me over to his side.

“Not too bad. Just a little queasy. That ginger remedy the women gave me works really well.”

I’m pregnant again. I’m pretty sure I got pregnant the morning we made our escape, so I’m already into my second trimester. I had a few months of being quite sick, but even the worst of it wasn’t as bad as the first half of my pregnancy with Bun.

We’re excited about having a second baby.

Today Will is going with some of the others here at the Mill to trade for provisions with the Refuge, so we’ll finally get some real news on how things are going down there after our escape and Brody’s death.

We’re excited about that too.

I’m smiling as I rub my cheek against Will’s bare chest. He smells strong. He has to work hard out here—hunting and working on construction projects—so he gets dirtier than he ever did underground. I don’t care. I have to work hard too.

“What are you smiling about?” Will asks, tilting his head down so he can kiss my messy hair.

“I don’t know. Life. Us. Bun’s birthday.” I kiss his chest. “Life up here. Life with you. I guess I’m just happy.”

“Me too.” Then he adds, in a murmur like he’s talking to himself, “I still can’t believe we did it.”

* * *

There’s always a lot of activity at the Mill.

For a surface community, it’s large, safe, and stable, led by a strong, competent woman and managed by its own council.

It’s been the center of trade in the region since they got the old mill up and running.

The courtyards are always filled with farmers and scavengers coming to trade or lone men looking for women.

It’s fortified and well protected, so I feel safe, even with Bun, within the guarded perimeter, but I’ve learned I can never walk outside on my own.

Most of the time, I don’t even want to. The rolling hills and vast meadows and sprawling forests that surround this place still feel like an alien world.

There’s always so much sky.

I walk down from our quarters with Will as he leaves since I have a shift in the kitchen. Bun can kind of walk now, but I carry him because there’s far too much activity in the mornings to risk losing sight of him.

“Okay,” Will says, glancing over to where some others are gathering with the supplies designated for trade with the Refuge. “Don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone.”

I laugh at this, stretching up to give him a brief kiss and ruffle his beard. “I won’t. I promise. And be sure to ask about Bella and Trevor and Danny if you can.”

“I will.”

He looks like he’s going to kiss me again, but Bun stretches out his arms with a loud demand for “Dada!” So Will pivots to grab and hug Bun fiercely before handing him back to me.

Then he meets my eyes, everything he feels for me right there on his face.

I smile. Nod. “I love you too. Now you better get going.”

Bun and I watch as Will strides toward the trading group. Bun whimpers the way he always does when his daddy leaves, but then he snuggles into me and mumbles, “Momma.”

“That’s right. I’m your momma. And your daddy will be back soon. No one is ever going to take you away from us again.”

The last sentence is more a comfort to me than to Bun, who has recovered from his disappointment already and is happily babbling and playing with my hair.

“That kid is always in a good mood,” someone says. A woman approaches to stand beside me. She’s short with cropped blond hair and a smart, friendly manner.

I smile at Gloria, who arrived with her man at the Mill around the same time as we did. “Not always. But, overall, he’s really good-natured.”

“He must take after you rather than your man because Will is as approachable as a brick wall.”

I laugh, since her tone is teasing. “He’s not quite that bad. He just takes things seriously, and we’re still not used to living up here, so he’s…protective.”

“I get that.” Gloria knows what she’s talking about. She was born and raised in a bunker too. One of things we’ve learned in the past months is that there are multiple bunkers—even in this one region—and some of them opened to the surface world long ago. “But it’s better up here. Isn’t it?”

My eyes find Will across the courtyard. He’s talking to someone else, but he glances over as if he feels my eyes on him.

He smiles, and I smile back.

“Yeah,” I say, breathing in warm, grassy air and squeezing Bun gently. “It’s better.”

* * *