Page 11 of Outbreak (Revolution X #1)

CHAPTER 10

Rue

“ W hat the fuck is this?” I ask, holding up the bag of sour candy like it’s poison in front of me.

“Your favorite snack, Rue. What does it look like?” His sarcasm doesn’t do anything to quell the anger and anxiety infiltrating in my whole body.

How does he know what my favorite snack is?

“I told you. I know everything about you,” he answers my unspoken question as if I shouldn’t be concerned by anything that comes out of his mouth.

Who does this fucker think he is?

The rage building inside of me could blow this big ass truck to smithereens. I’m about to fucking combust! Without thought, I rip into the bag of candy and sit back to give him the same silent treatment he’s given me. The first bite into the gritty, sour goodness is tart and just what I need to calm myself down. He might know these are my favorites, but I doubt he knows these are my comfort food. They’ve always been my go-to when I feel out of control. So fuck him, but also… Well, I’ll keep my appreciation to myself.

My anxiety levels are already lowering, and while I still want to throttle this asshole, I can feel my immediate anger simmering down. I still have so many questions he refuses to answer, but I ask another one that he might be willing to explain.

“What did you mean when you said ‘that wasn’t a man’ back there?”

He doesn’t look at me or even acknowledge me for a long minute as I mindlessly watch the trees pass and eat my gummies.

“Haven’t you been watching the news about the virus going around? Social media?” I didn’t think he was going to answer, so his response startles me from my haze.

Not wanting to scare him away now that he actually might tell me something important, I don’t look away from the window as I answer him.

“No. I just know the school said there was a virus and they closed our classes this week. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Something is weird about this virus. I didn’t want to believe internet rumors, but that guy back there…”

“What about him?” I ask, finally sitting up and looking at him. He turns his masked face to me.

“I killed him every which way from Sunday, stabbed him in the heart, slashed his throat… and he just kept getting back up. It wasn’t normal. He had the same symptoms I’ve seen from people who got the virus and died. I think… he was already dead.”

“You’re fucking with me,” I say, rolling my eyes and sitting back. He’s crazy. I’ve been kidnapped by a certifiable crazy person. “Nice try. Dead people don’t just get up.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” he relents.

My arm catches in the cuff as I try to put it by my side.

I’m going to stab him in the fucking eye if he doesn’t lose the cuffs!

I’ll just have to make him believe I’m not going to run again. I can do that. I hate people, but I can play nice if it means he lets his guard down long enough for me to kill him or run. Probably both.

Getting as comfortable as I can, I try my best to figure out where we are. I look for street signs, landmarks, anything really that can clue me in on how far we are from the college. The problem is, I’m not from Louisiana. I moved here for college after I fled Arizona. I’ve stuck to the school and surrounding town since I’ve been here. I don’t even know if we’re still in the state. I don’t think I could have been out that long from the asshole drugging me. It’s still dark out, with no sign of the sun rising anytime soon, so it’s maybe been a couple hours at most. We left for the party before midnight, and we weren't there very long. Long enough to find my boyfriend fucking a dead girl?—

Wait… “Did you kill Josh, too?”

I haven’t even had time to process all the fucked-up shit that happened before this asshole took me. He doesn't answer me—of fucking course he doesn’t. I know he did. What the fuck is happening? Images of Josh’s bloody eyes and the dead blonde come rushing back to the surface.

“I’m going to be sick,” I say, tossing the bag of gummies on the dash and rolling the window down. I’ve got to get out of this truck. I can’t get my head close enough to the suck in the fresh air.

I can’t breathe.

Bile pushes up the back of my throat as panic grips tightly to my lungs. I’m going to die in this truck with this masked fucker. He’s going to dump my body off the side of a random highway in bum fuck nowhere, and no one is ever going to find me. The buzzards will pick the skin from my bones until nothing is left.

Cold air hits me, and I feel hands on my body, but I can’t pry my eyes open. I’m stuck inside my head, fighting for control over something as simple as air.

“Breathe,” a deep growl demands, penetrating the fog of my panic. “In and out. Just like that. You can breathe. It’s as simple as pulling air into your lungs and pushing it back out.”

His deep cadence settles something within me, clearing the haziness from my senses and bringing me back to the present. Two panic attacks in one night. It’s been so long since I’ve had one; I wasn’t expecting it. They stopped happening a few months after I got settled into school, and I finally stopped looking over my shoulder for my past to catch up to me. If they were coming after me, they would have already shown up.

“You’re okay,” he reassures me, his fingers gently flexing on my throat and his hard body pinning me to the side of the truck.

I know he’s just trying to help, but I don’t understand why. I don’t get it. Why drug me, kidnap me, chase me through the woods, and bring me back when I escape, just to turn around and buy my favorite snacks and soothe me when I panic? The whiplash this motherfucker is giving me is laughable. I feel like I’m stuck in a dream, going around in circles on a never-ending loop of what the fuck is happening right now?

I want to pinch myself, hard enough to bruise because I need to wake the fuck up. This can’t be real. I’m not here, stuck on the side of the road with a kind of nice psychotic kidnapper who feels really good pressed against me and smells entirely too fuckable.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

The rest of the world falls away when I crane my neck to look into his shadowed eyes. He’s so tall—more than a foot taller than me. The way he towers over me makes me feel protected. The only other person to make me feel that way— nope. Not going there.

I can’t think of him with the remnants of my panic attack still lingering in the air.

“Who are you?” My question comes out as a breathless whisper, almost carried away by the wind. I don’t expect him to answer me. He hasn’t any other time I ask. But he shocks me when his fingers tighten on my throat, not cutting off my air but letting me feel the darkness that swirls beneath the surface and brings his masked lips to mine and whispers.

“Ghost.”