Page 43

His eyes flutter shut, and he focuses on the softness of her skin, on the way her exhales flutter his collarbone, and the weight of her in his lap.

On anything and everything that isn’t a fractured memory trying to break out of his head and risk exposing their hiding spot.

She hadn’t been thrilled about her last experience in a tiny space either, when she was trapped in that pantry, yet she seems far more relaxed now.

He wonders if it’s only because they’re together.

It takes an hour before loud snoring tells them it’s safe to make a break for it. Once those fuckers wake up, someone might come searching for things in the pantry, then they’ll be extra screwed.

The door creaks slightly as he opens it and he winces, knuckles whitening as they curl around his knife, but no one stirs. Then Kara jerks with a hiss, cutting herself on a nail sticking out from the wall and they both wait for the shit to hit the fan.

It doesn’t. The snoring never quits.

He can’t ask her if she’s okay or check for himself.

Has no choice but to put one foot in front of the other toward the front door.

It’s easy enough to slip out and once they’re free, they waste no time in running, going in the opposite direction of the river they came from, and landing smack in front of another field of cars twice as big.

The bike rests just inside a makeshift wire fence.

“Are you good?” he asks, gesturing to the hand she’s pressed to her stomach.

“Yeah, it’s not that bad.”

He hesitates, needing to address the obvious before it’s too late to do anything about it. “If we leave them alive, they’ll kill again.”

“Probably.”

“I don’t know what to do here.”

“We don’t know for sure what’s happening. If they found their…victims already dead, or close to it. If they collected these cars after they were abandoned.”

“Kara, there’s a fucking jar full of eyeballs in the fridge.”

“I know,” she sighs. “But I can’t be the judge and jury anymore. If someone was in there being held against their will, we’d help them. Of course we would, but I can’t go back now and kill three people in their beds. I can’t.”

It seems pretty obvious to him that those men back there were already the worst kind of feral before this apocalypse ever happened.

Then the freedom of it left them to their own devices.

Someone doesn’t collect body parts or have half a torso on the kitchen table if they had rational sense to start with.

It’ll nag at him forever to walk away from this, knowing they could put anyone else in danger.

But…everyone else isn’t his responsibility. Kara is. The very idea of dealing with this seems to eat away at her already, and that’s a new development that he isn’t tempted to test.

“Okay.” He could try to do it alone, but she’d never agree to that, so he doesn’t bother offering. “Let’s get outta here.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe you’re right and we should—”

“Don’t be sorry. Now come on, or we’ll be those idiots that stand around talking for an hour just waiting for the enemy to creep up.”

They hop on the bike and peel down a worn path. The revving engine wakes the others, who fly out of the house as they pass it, giving chase.

Once the dirt turns to paved road, Wade kicks it up, leaving anything behind them in their dust. They put at least fifty miles and a dozen turns between them and that mess before pulling into a secluded house overgrown with ivy.

Luckily, there’s no one to fight or put down this time. The first order of business is checking her injury, and he urges Kara into a bathroom, opening the first aid kit he grabbed from the bike.

“Can I see?” He gestures to her red soaked stomach, the sight of all that blood momentarily shocking him.

She lets him pull away the fabric to reveal a scrape that decided to bleed like a puncture.

She was right, it’s not that bad, but tetanus still happens, so they ain’t taking any chances.

He cleans it, something she could do herself, but he wants to take care of her for once and she seems to want to let him.

It’s not the cut that’s got his attention now. It’s the other long-healed wound beside it. She is full of secrets every time he pulls back a new layer.

“How’d you get this?” he whispers, one finger gently tracing the long scar below her ribs.

He hasn’t been given the privilege of knowing everything etched into her skin. This could have been earned long before the turn, but something tells him that’s not the case.

“I got stabbed.”

His brows shoot up, his tone angry. “What the hell? When?”

“It doesn’t matter. Really. It was so long ago, there’s nothing to be done about it now. There are endless ways to suffer the wrong end of a knife in this world. I’m quite sure they’re already dead.”

She’s right, of course. Whatever revenge he wants on her behalf was likely already delivered before he even knew, but that doesn’t stop his rage at the thought of anyone hurting her.

Her hands move to her belt buckle, unfastening it before dragging down the zipper. “I wanna tell you everything, though.”

Wade watches dumbfounded as she shoves her jeans down to her knees, revealing a pair of black underwear and a very distinct bullet mark on her thigh.

All his emotions tangle and twirl together in a thick cluster that has him reeling, uncertain which direction to go in, until she gently takes his hand and places it over that wound he’s just learned existed.

“I got this a few months after I lost you.”

“Shoulda been there to keep you safe.” His fingers fan out, and his thumb brushes softly against the evidence of what’s been done to her.

“That’s not why I’m showing you now. I just don’t want there to be any secrets between us. Not that this was even a secret, it wasn’t.”

They’re standing in a tiny bathroom with his hand on her naked thigh and her pants half off. Maybe that catches up to her because her palm holding him there drops away and she tugs them back up, the clink of the buckle echoing obscenely.

“I’m sorry this happened to you, and I’m still sorry I wasn’t there.”

She smiles in a self-deprecating sort of way, raising her brows like he’s delusional for saying such a thing. “All this time, that’s all I’ve been thinking about you. That I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“Kara…”

The two of them are experts at claiming blame they haven’t earned. It would almost be comical if it wasn’t so damn sad.

“There’s, um…there is something else, though,” she continues.

“Like this? Someone else hurt you?”

“No. I hurt them. I hurt a lot of people. I hurt one person specifically in the worst way.”

He doesn’t understand.

“I thought time might make it feel less heavy, but turns out it doesn’t always work like that. I promise I’ll tell you everything eventually. I just need to work up to it.”

What could she possibly be keeping in that she can’t say after so many years?

Hearing all these disclaimers without knowing the answer is letting his imagination run wild, especially when the type of guilt so clearly woven into the stress lines on her face has never been Kara’s default emotion.

His girl is a wild wrecking ball, but what she went through while he was gone chipped away at her soul.

One thing he knows for sure is the depth of her heart. If she hurt someone, it was only because she had no choice. Because she was defending herself or trying to find him.

“I can wait. Take your time.”

Instantly, tears well at the corners of her eyes. “Did I make it weird? I did, didn’t I?”

“Nah. If droppin’ your pants didn’t make it weird, nothing will.” He earns a sad half smile in return that leaves him feeling accomplished. “Come here.”

He opens his arms, and she leans into him quickly, pressing her cheek to his shoulder and inhaling deeply as he wraps her up.

“I’m so glad we’re out here together,” she says. “This is all I’ve ever wanted. I need you to know that.”

Hearing those words has him wanting to tilt her head up and kiss her breathless because it sounds and feels a lot like she just said he is all she’s ever wanted.

Instead, he opts for a cover. “Even considering the cannibal situation back there?”

“Even with all that.”

“Where do you wanna go next?”

“Anywhere, but first I’m hungry. My stomach hurts, and I just want to rest a while.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”