Page 4

When dinner is over, I volunteer to help clean the dishes because it’s one task I’m capable of contributing.

Everyone is claiming beds in the showroom for the night.

As with the chairs, I wait until everyone else picks what they want before I choose the bottom of a child’s bunk bed.

It was originally displayed next to another set of bunks that have now collapsed, so the bed I choose is mostly blocked from the rest of the room.

There’s enough space for me to slip into it, and it feels as closed off as my old den.

Before I lie down, I head outside to go to the bathroom and use some rainwater collected in an empty planter to wash up with.

I have to move farther away from the group than I’d prefer to get some privacy.

A lot of the men don’t care if they pee in sight of each other, but I’m not about to do that .

It’s getting dark by the time I return inside and climb into my bunk.

Because I’m not exposed there, I change out of my jeans and into a pair of tissue-thin leggings and one of Hal’s big T-shirts. It’s more comfortable. I hate sleeping in my jeans.

I’m curling up on my side and trying to relax when the bed shifts. Someone has climbed onto the top bunk.

I stick out my head to see that it’s Deck.

He eyes me as he unhooks his belt and holsters.

“I’m sure Logan didn’t mean you have to attach yourself to me every single minute,” I tell him. “It will be fine for you to sleep over there somewhere.” I gesture toward the other side of the showroom where more of the men are settled.

Deck doesn’t answer. He also doesn’t move.

With a loud sigh, I pull myself back into my bunk.

It doesn’t matter. He can sleep up there if he wants. Even if he snores, I’m so tired it probably won’t bother me. Logan told him to look out for me, and that’s what he’s doing.

He doesn’t care that I don’t really want him to.

I wake up in the middle of the night.

Hal and I figured out how to tell the general time by the night sky, but I have no view of it when I open my eyes. It takes me longer than it should to remember where I am and what I’m doing in a real bed with real covers .

By the time I figure it out, I’m also conscious of one other thing.

I really need to pee.

Getting up at this time of night wouldn’t be my first option. I don’t want to wake anyone else. I don’t want to go outside alone. I don’t want anyone to notice me. Maybe I won’t have to. After all, it might be close to morning, in which case I’d only have a little while to wait.

So I lie in place for several minutes until I can’t think of anything except peeing. Then I finally crawl out of my bed, careful not to make any noise.

Deck is asleep in the top bunk. I know because I squint through the dark to see. His big body is stretched out on top of the covers. He’s still wearing all his clothes except his shoes and his belt. And his breathing is slow and even.

I turn away, tiptoeing through the closely positioned furniture and avoiding the area where the others are sleeping.

I go out one of the exits—it used to be a door but is now just an opening—and duck behind an overturned van to crouch and pee.

It only takes a minute.

Toilet paper is a luxury I’ve long since lost, so I do my normal shake-off before I pull up my leggings.

I step out from around the van and run smack into Pete.

I know it’s Pete because of the smell, even before I jerk backward. I did bring my pistol with me—I’m not entirely without sense—but I’m so surprised it takes me too long to move it into position.

He’s on me before I can react at all. He obviously followed me because he’s not surprised like I am. He was lying in wait.

He takes the pistol from my hand and tosses it aside, and then he grabs me and turns me around, pushing my face against the back hatch of the van.

I’m too shocked to scream. To do anything. He yanks the waistband of my leggings and pulls so hard he rips them. He holds me in place by one hand on the back of my neck as he mutters, “Time for you to learn what a real man feels like.”

It’s sickening. Horrifying. Everything inside me is screaming to fight—lash out, get away—but I’m trapped in a weird, terrified trance. And I can’t do anything.

Except wonder if this is really happening because it’s all so sudden and surreal.

I know—I know, I know —what to expect now. But what happens next isn’t that.

I sense a rush of motion. Maybe running feet on pavement. Then Pete is suddenly jerked away from me. When I whirl around, I see why.

It’s Deck. He’s pulled Pete off me and thrown him several feet away. Thrown him. The greasy man has landed in a messy heap on the cracked pavement of the old parking lot.

I have the sense to make a dash for my gun as Deck goes after Pete again, hauling him up by the front of his shirt only so he can land a powerful punch .

Down Pete goes again, moaning and crying as he collapses.

It’s hard to watch what follows. It’s hardly a fight. Deck has complete control of the situation, and he’s showing Pete no mercy.

He’s making no sound. He doesn’t even appear particularly angry. Just fierce. Primal.

“Deck!” The one word sounds clear and sharp from the direction of the furniture store.

What happens next is also astonishing.

Breathtaking.

Deck stops mid-punch. Then he steps back, shaking out his hands at his sides like someone might do to restore feeling into them.

I’ve seen men do all kinds of things since Impact that would have been unbelievable to the person I was before.

Men who might have appeared and acted basically decent in the old world of social and legal restraints on behavior have turned into near animals now that nothing is holding them back from taking what they want.

In the ugly reality remaining, never would I have believed a man in Deck’s fierce state was capable of controlling himself so instantly. So completely.

Deck turns toward Logan with a scowl and gestures toward me.

“I can see what he was trying to do,” Logan says crisply, approaching with his smooth, efficient stride. He’s replying as if Deck spoke aloud. “I know he deserves it. But he’s one of us.” He pauses, holding Deck’s eyes. “You don’t carry that. I do. ”

More of the group have come outside to see what’s happening. It must be close to dawn anyway. There’s a faint light at the horizon in the distance.

Without another word, Logan reaches down and lifts Pete to his feet, forcing him to stumble back behind the van where I peed earlier.

In only a few seconds, a loud gunshot sounds through the crumbling shopping center and night air.

Logan returns from behind the van alone. He glances around at the men who’ve gathered. “We don’t do that. Ever . We’re humans. Not animals.” He meets my eyes and speaks in a lower voice. “It won’t happen again.”

I nod to show I understand. I’m completely incapable of speaking. I’ve started to shake. Too much has happened in only a few minutes of time. The queasiness that has been bothering me on and off for hours now returns with full force.

Logan has a light spatter of blood on his face. He wipes it off with the back of his forearm as he turns and walks into the building.

The others follow him. All of them except Deck.

I try to make myself move but can’t. After a minute. I collapse like a dropped marionette and vomit onto the broken pavement.

Deck stands there, watching.

After I finish, I sit for a minute and breathe deeply to compose myself. Then I get up, pulling down my long T-shirt to make sure it covers my butt.

My leggings are hopelessly ripped .

Deck doesn’t speak and doesn’t gesture. He just waits until I start walking and follows me back inside.

We start off an hour later just as the sun is edging above the horizon.

The morning goes a lot like the previous afternoon. I’m in the back of the truck with Deck, Burgundy, and Micah, and we stop a couple of times when we see an abandoned home or building to search.

Right around noon, we halt for a light lunch of tuna on a weird kind of brown bread.

When the group scatters after eating, I look to Burgundy for an explanation.

“We always get an hour or so to rest after lunch unless we’re on guard duty.

I’m on guard today. Logan doesn’t ask the women to take the guard positions at night.

He’s never said why, but I assume it’s so no one is tempted to do what Pete tried to do last night.

He has us take the lunchtime shifts. I’m sure he’ll assign you similarly once you get used to things. I better get going.”

“Oh. Okay.” I watch her walk to her position at the perimeter of our camp. Then I look around to see what I should do now.

Everyone is minding their own business except Deck, who is predictably minding mine. He’s standing nearby. Obviously waiting to see what I’ll do.

I give him a shrug.

He makes a summoning gesture with his hand and then turns, assuming I’ll follow him. A little part of me wants to rebel, but I’m still worried about getting on the wrong side of these people and Deck helped me out big-time last night. I go with him to a quiet spot blocked by trees.

He holds up a finger—not like he’s shushing me but like he’s indicating the number one—and then he carefully moves my body so I’m facing a tree.

I’m more confused than scared, so I look back at him.

He makes that gesture with his finger again. Then reaches down to lift one of my feet, angling it so the flat of my foot is near his crotch.

I understand.

He’s showing me one thing I can do if a man grabs me like Pete did last night.

I don’t ever want to feel like that again. Like I’m completely at the mercy of anyone who grabs me. For no other reason than I’m small and too stunned to react or fight back. So when Deck taps my thigh, I kick back the way he showed me.

He nods his approval. Then lifts two fingers to signal he’s showing me a second possible move.

He’s got six moves to teach me. We spend the rest of our lunch break practicing them.