Page 11 of Dyana (Love in the Apocalypse #3)

I stretched out on my sleeping bag with a groan.

Dyana had let us eat the entire batch of biscuits.

I had mine with butter and honey. It was the best thing I had eaten in years.

I didn’t think I’d ever eat butter again.

After finding out that Cora was sitting on a gold mine of food storage, I was curious about what else she had that I didn’t think I’d eat again.

Jack was still sitting at the table watching Dyana, but Bryce lounged on the floor nearby like me.

The squawk of a radio in the corner of the room made us all jump, and Dyana’s small giggle at our response made me smile.

She walked to the radio and picked up the receiver. “What’s up?”

“How’s it going?” Cora asked.

“Fine. I finished the bread for the week. I can bring it down in a few minutes,” Dyana replied.

“Don’t come alone. It’s dark out,” Cora ordered. “Have one of the guys come with you.”

Dyana sighed. “Cora, I’ve been walking between our houses all by myself for a year. I don’t need a babysitter.”

“That’s because you didn’t have anyone to go with you. Now you do. Safety in numbers, Dy. I mean it.”

Dyana groaned. “This is fucking ridiculous,” she muttered to herself before raising the speaker to her mouth. “Fine.”

“Thank you, see you soon!” Cora chirped.

Dyana turned slowly but didn’t look at us as she fetched a basket and filled it with bread and biscuits.

“I’ll go with you,” Jack said. “It will give us a chance to talk.”

Her eyes lifted to his and then darted to me and Bryce. “Evan can come with me. He seems quiet.”

I jumped to my feet as my heart began to race.

Dyana picked me. “It would be my pleasure, Red.” Dyana narrowed her eyes at me but didn’t comment on the nickname.

Jack shot me a glare, but I shrugged at him.

What did he want me to do? We couldn’t force her to talk to him if she didn’t want to.

He needed to be patient. A headlamp hit me in the chest, and I caught it before it fell to the floor.

“Grab your weapons, and let’s go,” Dyana ordered.

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied. I grabbed my hatchet and a knife and followed Dyana through the door. Our walk down the mountain was quiet, and we had made it about halfway down when Dyana finally spoke.

“Why did you come here?”

“To find you,” I replied.

“Why?”

I contemplated how to explain it to her in a way that she wouldn’t immediately brush aside as bullshit.

It was clear she didn’t understand that Jack still loved her, and that he had never stopped.

I couldn’t tell her that Bryce and I had also fallen for her because that would freak her out.

It would freak anybody out. “Do you know what the first thing we did after the virus hit the school?”

“What?”

“We came after you. We made it back to our dorm and stood on the roof watching the end of the world unfold before our eyes, and Jack announced that he had to go make sure you were ok.” Dyana’s steps faltered briefly before she recovered from her shock.

She really had no idea how deep Jack’s feelings for her were.

“You had already escaped by then, so we assumed you were headed to the safety of your home and checked on our families. By the time we finally made it back to your hometown, it was evident that you hadn’t found safety there.

That’s when we began to wander from town to town, trying to find a place to settle.

But Jack never stopped looking for you in the new faces we met along the way.

Never stopped hoping we would find you. That’s why we were back in town today.

Jack wanted to come back and search your house for any clues of what direction you went.

We ran into the guys, and by some miracle, they knew you. And here we are.”

We reached Cora’s house and paused outside the door. “You still didn’t answer my question. Why did you want to find me?” Dyana asked.

I gave her a small, sad smile as I cautiously reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

“Because you’re the love of Jack’s life, Dyana.

You always have been; only death could have kept him from finding you.

Having finally met you, I can understand why.

” I let her marinate on that information and knocked on the door before letting myself in. “Special delivery!” I announced.

I awoke with a start and immediately grabbed my hatchet as I jumped to my feet to face whatever danger lurked nearby.

It took me a minute to remember where we were and another minute to realize that we weren’t under attack.

Dyana was having a nightmare. Her sounds had also woken Jack and Bryce, and once we realized there wasn’t any danger, we dropped our weapons and rushed to Dyana’s side.

“Do we wake her?” Jack whispered as she whimpered in her sleep. In the dim light, I could just make out her face, twisted and clenched with her mouth open in horror.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to wake someone up when they were having a nightmare,” Bryce replied.

“That’s sleepwalkers,” I responded.

“Kelly,” Dyana mumbled. A tear appeared from the corner of her eye, and the sight of it tore my heart in two.

“Her little sister,” Jack rasped. His hands twitched toward her and then stopped.

I understood the need to hold her in my arms and chase away the nightmares.

The desire to ensure she never goes through whatever pain she suffered to cause them in the first place.

The fear that if I did, she would reject me.

And I understood that Jack felt those same feelings ten times over.

We jumped as Dyana let out a tortured scream that was loud enough to pull her from the nightmare.

Her body stiffened and then relaxed as the horrors she relived faded from her mind.

That should have been when we quietly returned to our beds before Dyana realized we were there, but like moths to a flame, we couldn’t bring ourselves to leave her side, which was unfortunate when she opened her eyes and screamed.