Page 2

TWO

KITTEN

“It might be something we could use, like batteries or medicine,” I said to the guys as we debated what to do with the soldiers’ “gift.”

“I don’t trust it. What if they’re waiting for us to open the gate so they can ambush us?” Cipher said.

“Or posted up just down the road.” Macon nodded toward the houses farther down the street.

“You really think they’d do that?” I asked, disbelieving.

If it were up to me, I probably would have let the soldiers inside. Cipher didn’t trust the military, for good reason, but I’d had a different experience. When we were struggling to survive in the first few years of the plague, convoys of military would often come by and drop off supplies–food, water, and medicine. Their doctors gave us shots and medical care too. Even the soldiers who’d come later and confiscated our guns were respectful. They could have just searched our home and seized them, but they’d offered us several months worth of food in trade.

Jeremiah had been a soldier.

I shuddered at the thought of him. Maybe he was lying about ever being in the military, and even if he wasn’t, he was a bad soldier, a power-hungry betrayer of his own squad members and our country. I refused to use him as an example of what a good soldier could be.

“Could be a bomb,” Cipher offered.

“Or some sort of spyware,” Macon said.

“If it’s spyware, Gizmo and Wylie can hack it and make it our own,” I reminded them. There was nothing those two couldn’t fix or repurpose.

“What if it’s set to detonate if we mess with it?” Macon asked.

“Why’d they want inside so bad?” Cipher asked.

“To take our guns?” Macon suggested. “She was interested in that.”

“Maybe they want to make sure we’re not slavers.” I gestured to the very well-constructed but also intimidating wall that surrounded us. “I mean, what would you think?”

“Fair point,” Cipher said.

“I’m going to see what’s in it, and if there’s nothing dangerous, I’m bringing it inside,” I said with as much authority as I could muster.

I expected Cipher to argue or tell me it was a bad idea, but he only frowned a little and said, “I’ll go with you.”

“I’ll cover you both,” Macon said.

Satisfied with the plan, we climbed down from the watchtower and headed over to the front entrance. Wylie had welded together whatever heavy-duty metal we could find to make a gate, and the two sides of it were chained together with a bunch of keyed and combination locks. Cipher had gotten it down to less than thirty seconds to open the gate, having spent three days practicing to get that time. Speed was necessary in an emergency situation, he’d told us, which was why he’d made everyone else practice it too. He was always three steps ahead, the reason why we’d elected him as our leader.

“Hold up, babe,” Cipher said. He grabbed two pieces of rebar from where they were leaning against the barricade and handed one to me. He’d stashed all sorts of objects around the compound that could be used as weapons in an emergency situation. He signaled up to the watchtower, and Macon gave us the all-clear.

Cipher pulled the key ring from his belt and deftly disabled the various locks while I scanned our surroundings outside the gate. He’d taught me how to act as a lookout, even with my hearing impairment, how to shoot a gun, and how to get myself and an injured person to safety. He’d performed those drills with all of us so that we could move about freely outside the compound during daylight hours when the Rabids were dormant. We still had to worry about other humans though, a threat that I took more seriously than ever.

Cipher swung open the gate and we both passed through, each of us checking our surroundings and then the duffle bag in question. It was about two feet long, a faded olive green color that was the United Forces standard, made of heavy canvas with a zipper down the center. A good bag, useful too. Jeremiah had owned something similar. It was where he’d stored the rope.

Get out of my head.

I shook out my limbs, trying to loosen the phantom feeling of being tied to that stake when he’d used me as live bait for Rabids. The ropes had been so tight I couldn’t move an inch, could barely breathe or even turn my head. Like a mummy, he’d trapped me. I reached for the inhaler in my pocket and squeezed it tightly. The thing wouldn’t do me much good anyway. I was only getting propellant out of it now, but having it with me still soothed me.

“You good?” Cipher inspected me from head to toe.

“Yeah, I’m good.” He stared at me a moment longer, questioning me with his eyes. “I’m fine,” I assured him.

He turned his attention back to the bag, poking it with the rebar. “I’m going to unzip it. Why don’t you take a couple steps back, just in case?”

I seriously doubted they’d put a bomb inside the bag–the military wasn’t in the habit of blowing up civilians as far as I knew–but I did as he asked.

“Dumping it out now,” Cipher said to me as well as Macon via radio. Using the rebar he flipped over the bag and shook out its contents. Orange pill bottles came tumbling out along with cloth pads, rolls of bandages, a couple bars of soap, and a bottle of clear liquid that I hoped was rubbing alcohol. There were also several blue plastic tubes that I didn’t recognize.

“What are those? Some kind of straw?” I asked Cipher.

“Water filters,” Cipher said.

“Handy.”

“Looks like they packed us an epi-pen too. No inhalers though.” He poked at the stuff with the metal rod. I hadn’t told Cipher that mine was empty. I didn’t want him to worry or risk his life trying to find me a new one. I’d just deal with the occasional asthma attack.

“Can you see what’s in the pill bottles?” he asked, since kneeling and crouching were difficult for him.

I squatted down to read their labels. “Pretty sure this one’s an antibiotic, and this one I read about in my medical book, it’s to stop diarrhea. Ibuprofen, an antihistamine, oxy…” I trailed off, recognizing the name as a type of painkiller. I glanced up at him.

“Hide that one from me,” he said, and I tucked it into my pocket. I had a special place for pain meds that Cipher didn’t know about. He was doing so good at quitting the drugs. I didn’t want anything to cause him to relapse.

“Everything here looks safe to me,” I said as I rifled through the rest of the supplies. “No bombs, no booby traps, no hidden cameras.”

“Check the lining of the bag,” Cipher said.

Inside the canvas bag was an inner pocket that contained a length of paracord and some carabiners. There was also a pen flashlight with working batteries that I clicked on and off. I showed it to Cipher.

“Useful,” he said begrudgingly.

“Maybe they were telling the truth, and they want to be our friends.”

He gave me a dark look. “The military doesn’t have friends, Kitten, they have fodder.”

Fodder for the war against the Rabids, a war we were still losing. But there were worse things than becoming a soldier, weren’t there? Dying of starvation or from an operable condition like appendicitis, as my friend Lucas had. But maybe I was just being too hopeful.

Cipher surveyed the empty street as if expecting an ambush still. I followed his gaze, remembering a time when the neighborhood was filled with the sounds of children playing, neighbors mowing their lawns, kids riding their bikes up and down the street, parents calling out to their children to come inside for supper, like my own mother called for us. The Before.

But I couldn’t focus too much on the way things used to be. Like Artemis once said, we had to leave the past behind us and make new memories. Make do with what we have and keep moving forward.

“Can we bring it inside now?” I asked Cipher.

“Fine,” he said with reluctance, “but don’t get used to their bribes, Kitten. Nothing good can come of it.”

I knew how awful humans could be–I’d experienced cruelty firsthand with Jeremiah–but I had to hold out hope that not everyone in this world was out to get us. People could still do nice things for each other without expecting anything in return, couldn’t they?

“Maybe it’s not a bribe. Maybe it’s just people helping each other out,” I said to him.

He looked at me then with something like tenderness, his mouth curving into a sad, rueful smile. “You might be right, Kitten. I hope you’re right.”

Later that afternoon, when we were all gathered around the dining room table for our afternoon meal which doubled as our daily meeting, the subject of the military’s visit came up. The contents of the duffle bag were now piled high like pirate’s treasure in the center of the table as Cipher recounted our run-in with the United Forces.

I glanced over to my brother’s spot where Teresa was now sitting. I hadn’t heard from Santiago since Cipher had found him for me in Atlanta, didn’t know if he’d survived the vaccine trials, whether he’d decided to stay in the city or come find me in Promised Land. But I prayed that wherever he was, he was safe and like me, surrounded by people who loved him.

“Nice haul,” Artemis said, scanning the objects in front of us. “You said their captain was a woman?”

“Yeah, middle aged, prosthetic right leg, scar down the side of her face. Why?” Cipher asked.

“She packed us pads.” Artemis lifted up the cloth napkins and passed some over to Teresa who made a face but tucked them away nonetheless.

“These are pretty handy too.” Cipher held up one of the blue tubes, water filters. “New rule. Whenever you leave the compound, take one of these with you in case you run out of water in the field.”

“Can we have these?” Wylie asked on behalf of him and Gizmo, regarding the paracord and carabiners. “We’re working on a pulley system to get supplies to the watchtower and act as a quick dismount in case there’s trouble.”

“Yep.” Cipher pushed them their way. “Anyone mind if I take the flashlight? Batteries on mine are dead.”

“Mine too,” Macon said, “but you need it more than me since you take more night shifts.”

“We can trade off. How are we doing on batteries, Teresa?” Cipher asked. We each had our areas of expertise around the compound. Teresa was in charge of organizing and keeping inventory of our supplies.

“We’re all out of double A’s and nearly out of triple A’s. C’s, and D’s are running low too,” she said.

Double-A batteries were a rarity these days, more valuable than diamonds because they powered most of our hand-held devices. We’d exhausted all of Shady Brook Acres already.

“We could find that military base and make a trade,” I suggested to the group. “Offer them fresh eggs and produce in exchange for batteries and whatever else we might need.”

I expected Cipher to veto the idea immediately, but he remained silent on the subject, even as everyone looked to him for guidance.

“You all know how I feel,” he said at last. “I’d rather them not know we exist, but they already do. I don’t trust them, and we have secrets that could get us in big trouble if they got out. But I’m only one person. We should take a vote on this. Who wants to initiate a trade with the United Forces?”

I raised my hand, glanced around the table, and saw that I was the only one. I shouldn’t be so surprised. Artemis and Gizmo were in that same fire as Cipher, and Teresa didn’t trust anyone but us. I didn’t know of Wylie’s experience with the military, but based on his vote, I had to guess it wasn’t very good. “Not even you, Macon?” I asked.

“Sorry, short stack, but I agree with Cipher on this one. I don’t want any of us getting in trouble. I think it’d be best if we leave it alone.”

I lowered my hand, feeling a little defeated, but it was the will of the group, so I had to accept it. Cipher reached across the table to give my hand a squeeze.

“It’s not a bad idea, Kitten. But it’s important that we keep a low profile after what happened in Promised Land.”

“I know.” I tried not to let my disappointment show. I’d murdered a man, one who deserved it, but it made me a criminal nonetheless. And Brother Larry wasn’t just some random raider we’d met out in Rabid Country but the leader of a prominent community, a man with connections to the government and military too. Cipher was right to be cautious.

“For now, same rule applies,” Cipher said. “No outsiders, no exceptions. We get what we need by scavenging and possibly trading with other civilians, but we keep the United Forces out of it.” He pulled out the little notebook that he carried around with him and retrieved a nub of pencil that he used to mark wood for sawing. The carpentry skills he’d learned in Promised Land had really come in handy when it came to repairing rooftops and replacing rotted wood on the houses in our compound. He’d even helped Macon and I build a chicken coop. “It’s time for a scavenging mission. What’s everyone need?” he asked.

“More fishing line,” Artemis said.

“Hard liquor,” Macon said, which was really more of a want, but we indulged him.

“Electronics?” Gizmo asked.

“Be more specific,” Cipher said.

“Anything with a circuit board,” Wylie said, “and lead solder if you happen to come across any.”

“Candy?” Teresa asked, batting her big blue eyes at Cipher.

“Have you been brushing your teeth?” he asked, revealing his alter ego, House Dad.

“Twice a day,” she said with a big toothy grin.

Cipher added “candy” to his list along with everything else, even though he could probably remember it all on his own. “How about you, Kitten?”

“I’m good,” I said, ducking my head so he wouldn’t see my face. Teresa shot me a look.

“Are you sure there isn’t something important you need?” she asked me in an exaggerated way.

“Yes, I’m sure.” I shot her a warning look which she completely ignored.

“Kitten needs a new inhaler. His ran out weeks ago,” she said.

Traitor.

“What? Is that true?” Cipher turned to me, not exactly glaring, but his expression was deliberately blank and his mouth was pinched at the corners, holding back his temper. Faced with his intense scrutiny, I could only shrug in response. “Then what have you been sucking on this whole time?” he asked.

“I can still get a little bit out of it, if I hold it just right,” I told him, but he wasn’t buying it, not even a little bit. “I was going to tell you,” I insisted and then turned to Teresa, “You didn’t have to say anything.”

She responded by sticking her tongue out at me, the brat.

“ When were you going to tell me?” Cipher asked. “When we were being chased down by Rabids?”

I didn’t have an answer to that, so Teresa stepped in again. “He had an asthma attack the other day in the basement–”

“Teresa, it was nothing ,” I snapped. She was only making it worse.

“It was something ,” she argued, her own temper flaring. “And it was really scary, Kitten. For me too.”

It was a little surprising. One minute I was leaning over, hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath, and the next I was on the ground staring up at a tearful Teresa. I may have hit my head too.

“And no one felt the need to tell me about this?” Cipher asked in that low, dangerous tone that always gave me a little thrill. His elegant fingers were spread on the edge of the table like he was one wrong word away from flipping it over. He was definitely mad at me, but it was still kind of hot.

“I’m telling you now,” Teresa said, trying to get back on his good side.

Macon held up both hands. “I didn’t know.”

The rest of the Assholes looked to me, waiting for me to defend myself, but I didn’t have a good reason, so I slumped back in my chair and crossed my arms, trying not to pout while definitely pouting. I hated my asthma, hated that I couldn’t hear as well as the rest of them, and I hated being called out in front of everyone else.

“There’s nothing you could do about it anyway,” I said.

“I could have found you an inhaler,” Cipher said as he wrote in his notebook, INHALER in neat and precise capital letters. He underlined it twice, two dramatic slashes, nearly tearing the paper with the blunted edge of his pencil. Yeah, he was pissed.

“Where would we even get one?” I asked because it wasn’t as if we hadn’t tried.

“All the houses around here are bone dry. We’ve scavenged anything we could possibly use already,” Macon said.

“We’ll have to get creative then, scavenge new territory,” Cipher answered.

“Humvee’s nearly out of gas, but we do have some in reserve we’ve been using for the generator,” Wylie said.

“It’s too risky to take out the Humvee,” Cipher said. “We don’t want to attract unwanted attention from the military or raiders. They’d see it as a prize, and I don’t feel like killing anyone to keep it. We need something less showy with better mileage.”

There were a lot of abandoned cars and downed trees on the roads, not to mention the way nature had taken over every crack and pothole in the asphalt. It would be difficult to navigate all that with the Humvee and if we went off-road, it would leave a trail directly to our compound.

“How’s that dirt bike coming along?” Cipher asked Gizmo. Gizmo and Wylie had been working on a dirt bike with a battery-powered engine. We’d seen them testing it out the other day, doing donuts in the cul-de-sac and making adjustments.

“It’s ready, but there are limitations,” Gizmo said.

“Such as?”

“The battery will only get you about forty miles before it needs to be charged.”

“Forty miles is pretty far. How fast can it go?”

“Cruising speed is twenty miles per hour with a top speed of thirty but that’s pushing it.”

“I’ll take it out tomorrow morning and be back before sunset,” Cipher said.

“I’ll go with you,” I said.

Cipher glanced at me briefly, giving nothing away, and asked Gizmo, “Is there room for two?”

“Might slow you down a little, but yeah.”

“Perfect. It’s a date. Any more business to discuss?” Cipher’s dark eyes swept the group. No one spoke up, so he rapped the table once, signalling our business was completed, then stood and cleared his plate. Before leaving, he laid a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll be upstairs when you’re finished with your chores. We need to talk.”

“All right,” I said with a knot of unease in the pit in my stomach. How long could I draw out after-dinner cleanup? Maybe by the time I got upstairs, Cipher would already be asleep. By tomorrow morning, he’ll have forgotten completely that I lied to him about my empty inhaler, and we can both pretend it never happened.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Teresa told me as we were stacking dishes in our wash basin. “You should have told him yourself,” she added, unnecessarily. Her way of apologizing, I supposed.

“Yeah, I know.” I hated being told what I already knew to be true. I didn’t need her reminding me of my mistakes. I wasn’t great at apologizing either. I was definitely a work in progress, as my mother would say.

“He never stays mad at you for long,” she said, trying again to be helpful.

“Probably because I give excellent blowjobs.”

“Ew, Kitten, gross,” she said with a laugh and shoved me.

But it was one way to get back on his good side without having to talk about it. If we could not talk about it, that would be great. I was still counting on him falling asleep and forgetting all about it, though that was a long shot. Cipher had the memory of an elephant.

When I couldn’t draw out my chores any longer, I trudged up the stairs, expecting to find my boyfriend already in bed, but he was in the adjoining bathroom, taking a bucket bath. The door was part way open, and he was sitting on the side of the tub, his broad shoulders slick with water, his black hair sleek and wet. Droplets of water beaded on his shoulders where a few dark freckles dotted his otherwise unmarked skin. I didn’t want to fight with him, and I didn’t want to discuss it. All I wanted was to hold him as tight as I possibly could and never let go.

“Want me to wash your back?” I asked, coming nearer. I couldn’t resist him, even when we were at odds. There was an invisible tether always drawing us back together, tugging at my heart like a rubber band.

“This doesn’t get you out of trouble,” he said.

“Couldn’t hurt though.”

He handed me the wash rag and bar of soap. I lathered it up, then scrubbed his shoulders and the back of his neck. Artemis had recently cut his hair with clippers. I admired the edges of his haircut, thinking how handsome he was–even his hairline—while attempting to control the jumble of emotions swirling inside me.

He leaned forward, and I noticed the tan line of his collar, where his tawny skin turned the color of buttermilk. I was probably the only one who ever saw his bare back and torso, since he didn’t make a habit of walking around shirtless like Macon and myself. Cipher was modest, in most ways. He didn’t boast or make big proclamations. He did his work quietly and efficiently, always the last to call it quits for the day. He led by example and taught the rest of us the skills we needed to survive because he loved us all. We’d made him our leader because he was fair and just and because we trusted him to do what was right for the group, not just himself.

All of those things I admired about him, but my love for him was something greater still. He was a part of me, part of who I’d become. I looked to him for advice and for comfort. I understood myself better through loving him. He was the person attached to the other side of my heartstring. My forever favorite song.

I felt pretty bad then; my lying had only caused him to worry and mistrust me. I was a shitty boyfriend, I realized. I set the washrag aside and massaged the knots in his shoulders and in the bands of muscle along his spine. He was wound so tightly, a coiled viper ready to spring into action to defend any one of us.

“I could have heated up some water,” I said to him.

“I didn’t want you to go to all the trouble.”

“I would have liked to have done it. Turn around so I can rinse you.”

Carefully, he swiveled on the side of the tub so that his front was facing me. I dipped the cup into his bucket of cold water and rinsed his back, watching the water cascade down his smooth skin and pool in the bottom of the tub. His spine arched from the cold as chill bumps raised along his shoulder, the fine hair standing on end. Cipher gazed up at me, watching me from under half-lidded eyes. He rarely closed his eyes all the way, even when we kissed, always on the lookout for danger. He’d removed his leg already and it was lying across the closed lid of the toilet, within reach. His pale thighs were pink from the cold water. A line of silky dark hair started at his navel and trailed downward to where his half-hard cock was resting on his bulging sac. I dropped a folded towel on the floor and went down on my knees. I may have been a shitty boyfriend, but I could give him this at least.

“Nice try,” Cipher said as he grabbed my chin and directed my face upward.

“What?” I asked innocently.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Kitten?”

I swallowed around the lump forming in my throat and sat back on my heels. “Because I didn’t want you to worry.”

“I always worry.”

“I didn’t want you to do something dangerous to get one. We’re safe for now, and I needed a little bit more of that before I put any of our lives at risk again.” That was the truth of the matter. We all made sacrifices, and I didn’t want my needs to put anyone else in danger.

He stared at me, considering my words, then asked, “Is this about what happened in Promised Land?”

“You shouldn’t have gone to his house alone. You shouldn’t have gone at all,” I said with a rush of anger. I blinked, shocked at the sudden passion behind my words.

Cipher nodded and smoothed his calloused thumb along my jaw. “You’re right. I was selfish. I put us all at risk. I put you at risk. I’m trying to do better.”

I grabbed his wrist and tucked my cheek into his palm. “You are doing better. You’re giving me more freedom and responsibility. You’re trusting me with important jobs. You didn’t even put up a fight about me going to scavenge with you tomorrow.”

“I’d rather you stay here where I know you’d be safe, but I know it’d be harder for you. And it’s safer out there in pairs. You’ve saved my life twice now. You’re my lucky charm.”

“You saved me too,” I whispered, my mind flashing back to when I’d come to consciousness to find Jeremiah dead with a bullet in his head and Cipher untying me from that stake. He’d come for me. He’d saved me from that terrible, terrible man.

“Trust goes both ways. You can’t lie to me about something as important as your inhaler,” Cipher said.

“I know.” Feeling absolutely wretched, I dropped my gaze, too ashamed to even look at him. A few tears slipped out. No surprise there. I’d been holding them in since dinner.

“Hey, now, it’s okay. Come here.” He pulled me to him, and I immediately crawled into his lap. Nevermind that I probably weighed more than him and he was balancing with only one leg on the side of the tub, slippery from bathing. All I wanted right then was to be held in his strong arms.

“I’m not crying so you’ll forgive me,” I said.

“I know,” he soothed with a hand in my hair.

“But I am sorry,” I said, and I meant it.

“I know you are. No more secrets though, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.” I buried my face in his neck and hid away until my emotions settled and my breathing returned to normal. I hadn’t needed my inhaler that time, just a good cry. Eventually, a sense of calm descended, quieting the chaos and confusion in my mind. “Can I blow you now?” I whispered in his ear.

He chuckled and said in his deep, sexy voice, “Yeah, cutie, you can blow me.”

“Will you top me too?”

“We gotta ride a dirt bike all day tomorrow. You don’t want to be sore.”

“I don’t care. I need it.”

Cipher exhaled against my neck, a whoosh of warm air that tickled my throat. I held my breath, waiting for him to answer.

“Yeah, baby, I need it too.”