Page 20 of Dyana (Love in the Apocalypse #3)

Chapter seven

Bryce

I paced the tower anxiously. Jack had chased after Dyana, and then, after finishing his breakfast, Evan disappeared without a word.

Was I supposed to go after them? Stay here?

I had tried to stop Jack from following Dyana.

She wanted to escape from him so badly that she hadn’t eaten breakfast. That’s a clear sign to leave her be, but Jack wouldn’t listen.

The door slammed open behind me, and I spun around to see Dyana was back, and she looked pissed.

She went over to her space and started throwing things into a bag.

“What’s going on, Dyana?” She didn’t respond or indicate that she had heard me as she continued to pack a bag angrily.

A few minutes later, Jack flew through the door and made a beeline for Dyana.

He grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her to face him, shaking her slightly.

“Once again, you didn’t wait, Dyana!” he yelled.

“I needed a moment to fucking process what you told me, but no, it doesn’t change how I feel about you.

I don’t care if you fucked half the country.

I don’t care what you’ve had to do to survive.

I’m glad about it because that means you’re still here. That I didn’t lose you.”

Dyana pushed Jack away from her with a growl, but her words held no anger.

“That’s just it, Jack. You did lose me. I don’t know that Dyana anymore.

She died a long time ago.” Dyana gathered her bag and more weapons and pushed past him.

I held out my arm to stop her because running never solves anything, but her eyes made me pull it back.

Dyana was hurting so much, and the pain I saw there nearly sent me to my knees.

She paused when she got to the door. “Don’t fucking follow me,” she ordered without looking back.

I watched her leave and grabbed Jack as he tried to run past me.

“Get the fuck off of me,” Jack seethed.

“She needs some space, brother,” I replied without loosening my grip on him.

I might not be able to take away Dyana’s pain, but I could give her the opportunity for space.

“Let her go. She’ll be back when she’s ready.

” Jack continued to struggle against my hold.

“If you don’t, you could push her away forever, Jack.

Is that what you want? To lose her forever just as you found her?

” He didn’t respond, but he did stop struggling.

When I was sure he was thinking rationally again, I released him, and he fell to his knees in defeat.

“I didn’t expect it to go like this,” he admitted quietly.

“This life takes more than showing up to earn your white picket fence and happy ever after. You have to give her time,” I replied. The door opened, and we both looked up hopefully. Maybe Dyana had changed her mind and decided to stay and talk it over.

“What happened?” Evan asked as he stood in the doorway with an armful of tools. “I just saw Dyana, and she wouldn’t even look at me.”

“Her and Jack got into it,” I replied. “We’re giving her space.”

Evan sighed as he dropped the tools on the table. “You had to push, didn’t you?”

“What the fuck did you just say to me?” Jack asked. He jumped to his feet and got in Evan’s face.

Great. I knew my friends better than anyone on the planet. We didn’t fight often, but it was a nightmare when we did. And knowing how angry Jack already was, I knew this wouldn’t be good if I couldn’t shut it down fast.

I pushed between them before they could start swinging at each other. “Everyone calm the fuck down,” I yelled as I pushed them away from each other. “Fighting each other won’t accomplish a damn thing.”

“What happens between me and Dyana isn’t your business. Either of you,” Jack said. “Stay the fuck out of it.”

I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose before looking at Evan. It was truth time.

“You tell him, or I will,” Evan said.

“Right. Why don’t we address the elephant in the room?” I turned to look at Jack, praying this didn’t kill our friendship. “Jack, we’re attracted to Dyana, too. After all of your stories about her and finally meeting her, how could we not? We need to decide what we’re going to do about that.”

“What the fuck do you mean what we’re going to do about that?” Jack exploded. “Dyana is mine.”

I was worried he would be like this. I understood where he was coming from to a point. It’s always been Dyana for him, and to hear his two best friends also have feelings for her had to be difficult.

“You’re going to need to broaden your mind on that,” Evan replied.

“The hell I do.” Jack let out a humorless laugh. “Isn’t this rich? Here I thought you guys had my back and were helping me when really you were just helping me find Dyana for yourselves.”

“It’s not like that, Jack,” I said, “and you know it. How could we not fall in love with Dyana after over four years of listening to you talk about her? It’s like we know her, too. Besides, it just might take all three of us to convince her to give any of us a chance.”

“Face it, buddy,” Evan said with a grin, “you need us.”

“I need her,” Jack replied as all the anger drained from his body.

He lowered himself into a chair like an eighty-year-old man.

“Only, I don’t think Dyana wants me. I don’t know what happened to her, and she refuses to talk about it, but based on the little she did say, I don’t think any of it was good.

I don’t care if Dyana’s changed. Who hasn’t?

I just want to be with her.” He let out a labored sigh and then looked up at us.

“I’ll do whatever it takes, even if that means sharing her with my idiot best friends.

” He paused a few seconds before smirking.

“Though I don’t know what she’d see in you. ”

A wave of relief rushed through me. “Please,” I scoffed, “ladies love me.” I was grateful that the conversation went better than I expected, but I was eager to change the subject. I looked at Evan and the pile of tools on the table. “What’s all this?”

“Well, Bryce,” Evan replied, “this would be an assortment of tools.”

I rolled my eyes at his sarcasm. Asshole. Jack snickered, and I shot him a glare. “I meant, what are you doing with them?”

“I thought I’d fix some things around here.”

“Need help?” I offered.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“No.”

Evan sighed and punched me playfully in the shoulder. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

Going to college was the best thing I’d ever done because it brought me to Jack and Evan.

They gave me a rare taste of what family was supposed to feel like.

I came from a family of abusive addicts, and while I never got addicted to drugs or alcohol, I did get addicted to the feeling of being cared for.

My found family was my addiction, and I would do anything to keep them in my life forever.

Past

The closer we got to where I grew up, the more dread I felt.

I didn’t want to be here, but I couldn’t, in good conscience, not come back to check on my siblings.

I didn’t know what I would find, but if I could save them, I would.

It had killed me to leave my little brothers and sister when I went to college, but I couldn’t have helped them if I had stayed.

I had planned to stay in college long enough to make a name for myself in football and then go pro.

Once I did, I could get my siblings out of hell once and for all.

I could afford to care for them and give them the life they deserved.

On a good day, our parents were drugged out of their minds, sitting on the couch, drooling all over themselves.

On a bad day, they were angry drunks blaming us for their sorry lives.

I’ve put myself between them and my siblings to take a beating more times than I could count.

Neither of those days ever included much food.

I’ll never know why the school never stepped in and called Child Protective Services.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t gone to them and told them what was happening.

It wasn’t like there weren’t obvious signs of abuse and starvation.

The system failed us, but I was determined I wouldn’t fail them.

“Turn here,” I instructed Jack. “The trailer park is at the end of the road.”

When Jack stopped the car, nobody moved to get out. Zombies stumbled around the shitty trailers in various stages of decay. It looked like the apocalypse started here years ago, but I knew that was how it always looked.

“Come on, let’s go,” I said, grabbing the knife I had picked up on our way out here and leaving the car.

There weren’t enough zombies around to pose a considerable threat to us, so long as we kept quiet and took them out as we came across them, so they didn’t group up.

Zombies were at their most dangerous when they were in herds.

I led us through the park to my little slice of hell and went inside.

The inside looked like it always did. Liquor and vomit stains covered the mustard yellow carpet, accompanied by scorch marks from various runaway cigarettes and joints.

Bottles and dirty dishes littered every available surface, with plenty of drug paraphernalia littered among them.

All the state had to do was step inside our house to know it wasn’t a safe environment for a child, but they never bothered.