Abandon The Night (8 page)

Remy had a moment of triumph that she’d shocked this rude, abrasive woman, but then she looked down at her wound and realized how serious it was.
Good God.
That wasn’t
bone
showing through there, was it? She felt a little faint.

“You’ve got to get to someone who can help you,” Zoë said, her dark eyes serious and—
Whoa! Was that compassion there?
“We can leave just before dawn. Three hours at the most, if I can catch a horse. Will you trust me?”

An interesting question. Hadn’t she already done so? But, yes, she would. She had to.

Because if something happened to her, all would be lost.

She nodded.

Zoë looked up and down the corridor.

Empty. Silent.

She slipped her keycard into the slot of Quent’s door, listened for the soft click, and then withdrew it just as silently. Breaking into the room where they programmed the keycards and making her own had been one of the smartest things she’d ever done. He’d never asked how she’d gotten into his room—she wondered if he even wanted to know.

The slender knob went down without a sound, and she pushed the door open. Her heart was pounding and her mouth had gone dry…just as it always did.

But this time, it was for a different reason.

It was daylight.
Exposure
.

She didn’t think he was inside…but what if he was? Her belly flipped.

But the room was empty and she slipped in. The space smelled like him and she closed her eyes for a moment, leaning against the door. And just breathed.

Then she shook it off and walked briskly over to the window. She meant to yank the curtains closed, but she paused for a moment to look down onto the ravages of 2010 Las Vegas, awash in a blaze of sunlight. Those same rooftops and high window ledges, balconies, and even wall-less rooms that she frequented under cover of night and shadow appeared fragile and forlorn in the day.

Overgrown with whatever tenacious greenery could find root and spread up, down, or across, the buildings looked as if they needed to be trimmed. Irregular holes dotted the walls where windows or doors had been. The city’s silhouette was one of jagged walls and rooflines, where the force of earthquakes, torrential storms, and battering tornados had torn away all but the skeleton of the buildings. And even then…steel beams curled and rusted and were eaten away by Mother Nature.

Zoë pulled the curtains closed, leaving only a three-finger-wide strip of sunlight to play over the bed.

The bed. A wave of anticipation and warmth shot through her. The covers were straight and unwrinkled, the pillows neat against the headboard. She reached across the sunbeam and brought a pillow to her nose, breathed in, and smelled him.

And then, as if realizing what she was doing—how ridiculous she must look—she shoved it back into place.

The rest of the space was just as neat as it had been the other times. Shadowy and darker now that the curtains were closed, but clear of clutter. Very impersonal. Much more impersonal than her own home—the one she always returned to after a hunting trip.

Or a visit to Envy.

Zoë tightened her lips. She was wasting too damn much time here.
I should get the hell out of this place.

If it weren’t for Remy, by now Zoë would have tracked down Raul Marck and shoved an arrow into his cold stone heart. Then she would have been back at her own little home, a cozy space where she made her arrows and still cooked some of Naanaa’s recipes. And where she kept the few things she’d salvaged from her family’s belongings.

But, despite her annoyance with the whole damn situation, she couldn’t leave Remy, especially if she was somehow really connected to the infamous Remington Truth.

So Zoë had caught a mustang—rather easily today, perhaps because it was just after dawn, and the horses were still sleepy. She’d ridden as hard as possible with a feverish and injured woman clinging to her. By midday, they’d approached Envy. The city was enclosed by massive walls of old vehicles, debris, and even things called billboards that protected it from
gangas
and other predators—wolves, lions, tigers, and so on.

Entering the city through its gates was never a problem for her—the gates and walls were meant to protect those within, not to keep people out. Although she was usually asked for her name and plans (whether she was planning to stay on or travel through), this time the sight of Remy’s gray face and the bandage made from Zoë’s blanket precluded any delay.

So Zoë’d attended to her…well,
friend
was too damn strong of a word for the bitch who’d nuked up her chance to skewer Raul. Whatever. Zoë’d gotten Remy through the gates of Envy and, with the help of the guards, to a place called Flo’s.

Once the man who was Quent’s friend, the doctor named Elliott, had arrived to attend to Remy, Zoë slipped away. She sure as hell saw no reason to stay, and she didn’t want to draw any attention to herself.

She’d check back later and figure out what to do then.

Last night, Zoë had removed her hunting shirt and tied it up in an old plastic bag so that the stench wouldn’t dissipate…and so that Remy’s precious nose didn’t have to smell it.

But if she had to be honest with herself, Zoë figured some of the stink still clung to her. She eyed the door to Quent’s bathroom.

It had been a long time since she’d had a hot shower.

ca. 11 June 2010

Time uncertain

I write “circa” because I am not certain if a full 24 hours have passed or if it is still the same day of the events. Everything has become a very dark and ugly blur. I am paralyzed and terrified and I cannot sort it out.

For the first time, I realize why I write in longhand in a paper journal. So that when all of Nature has taken over, and the machinations of man—the very ones which I have helped to create and improve and that now seem so inconsequential—have been destroyed, there is still this, my private diary.

Perhaps I sound calm in my written words, but I am not. Perhaps writing is the only way in which I can keep from screaming in terror and disbelief. At times, I can barely keep my hand steady to write.

Devi is here with me, thank God.

I cannot describe what is happening. It’s simply too terrifying. But I believe the world has ended.

Or if it has not, it has knocked upon the door of its demise.

—from the diary of Mangala Kapoor

Quent opened the door to his room and rushed in.
Where the hell did I pu—

He stilled, and, the hair lifting on the back of his arms, his belly tightening…he closed the door deliberately.

But, no. She’d only just left yesterday morning, and her presence simply lingered. Wishful thinking.

But now he recognized the soft
shhhhh
of spraying water from beyond the bathroom door. And filtering through, along with the faint warmth of shower humidity, he smelled…orange. And spice. Female spice. Cardamom, cinnamon, whatever it was…

When he saw the bow and quiver, her shoes, and a small pack settled on the floor, his belly pitched and dropped with a heavy thud. And then he let that smile come. And the heat blossomed through him.

Thank God I hadn’t left for Redlow.

He owed Theo Waxnicki a big, bloody thank you, too, for insisting they wait one more day to leave, so he could prepare a device for them to take and expand the communications network they were building.

Quent started for the door of the bathroom, kicking off his sandals and already starting to unbutton his shirt. A nice burst of heat and steam got him in the face, and he stepped in quickly and shut the door. Orange and spice filled the air, not cloying, but subtle.

He caught a glimpse of her behind the translucent shower door—long, curvy, shadowy—and he swallowed hard. His heart was simply pounding, and he couldn’t move.

At that moment, one of the double shower doors opened a crack, and she poked her head out. Ink-black hair slicked back from her breathtaking features, droplets of water glistening on her skin, her mouth curved in a very welcoming smile.

“Well, what the fuck are you waiting for?” she said, her eyes hot. She stepped one long leg out, putting a slender foot on a thin white towel and grabbed him by the arm. And tugged.

He went.

The next thing he knew, Quent was in the steamy shower, his hands full of warm, sleek woman, his clothes plastered to him in places—and stone dry in others—as the shower beat on them. She was tall and warm and strong, pulling him up against her, twining a leg between his, and he let himself go.

Hot, wet mouths, tongues dancing and tangling—there was nothing of the coy here, nothing of the restrained. They starved, they wanted and took from each other, hands battling to have the right of way, hers tearing at the buttons of his shirt then sliding under it, over his chest…his filling with her breasts, her ass, her hips and the low, sweet curve of her back, all so hot and sleek against him.

Zoë felt the cool tile against her skin, the strength of Quent as he pushed her up against it, his mouth taking…and taking…from hers. She settled her hands over the smooth, muscular plains of his chest, her fingers dipping into the spread of hair that grew there, golden and brown, and tight, and she tipped her head back against the wall as he moved to maul sensuously the strong cord of her neck, the sensitive skin beneath her ear and along her throat.

She shivered beneath his hands and mouth, and felt her body gather up tighter, her nipples hard and ready, the warm rush of pleasure superseding the blast of water in her face and over her shoulders. He groaned something into her neck, and the low, guttural sound almost like desperation sent a sharp pleasure-pain shooting down low, deep and hard and promising.

“Oh, yes,” she whispered against his hair, thick and dripping and warm against her face.

“Zoë,” he muttered. “I…”

“Don’t talk,” she ordered, busy at his waist, pulling at the soaking denim taut around the top button.

He laughed against her shoulder, husky and warm, then surged forward to capture her mouth with a long, deep, probing kiss that had her hands dropping away and clutching his shoulders to keep herself upright.
Oh God.
She couldn’t breathe, she didn’t
want
to breathe…she wanted this to never stop. Never end.

His broad, square shoulders, strong and solid, moved fluidly under her fingers as he fumbled with the fly of his jeans down between them. Muscles shifted, flexing beneath her fingers, and at last Zoë had to pull her mouth away to gasp in a breath. Then she went back to taste him, his jaw and cheek, wet and lightly stubbled, then his full, hungry lips again.

He shifted against her, and suddenly he was there, hands on her hips, lifting her, mouth crushed to hers, breaths mingling with the steady beat of rain…he settled her against the tile wall, spine flat and stable, and then…
oh
.

Zoë cried out against his mouth just as he groaned.
Yes, yes, oh, Quent.
He filled her, perfectly, fully, and then, hands on her hips, her legs around his shower-slicked body, he moved. He didn’t wait, he went on. Hard, fast, desperately.

One hand curled into his thick hair, her head tipped back again so she could breathe, could cry out and pant with the coming, Zoë closed her eyes for the gathering of pleasure. Her body tightened around him, she felt his heart pounding beneath her other palm, she levered her body, shifting crazily against him,
with
him, battling in that timeless rhythm…reaching for what she needed. She felt him readying, tensing…and her own peak just…there. Just…
there.

She might have screamed his name as she caught it, she might have cried out, but she didn’t care because the world burst, hot and strong, and she was with him, against that warm, solid body, shuddering and groaning against hers. Sagging with her, bracing them both up with one powerful hand and the opposite knee against the slick wall.

After a moment of pounding satiation deep within, and water over and around, she dragged open her eyes to find his staring down at her. The first time she’d really seen them, in full light. Blue-flecked brown, glazed with heat, laced with what could only be called chagrin. His lashes spiked together from the water, and his jaw shifted as if he struggled with speech.

“Ah, Quent,” she managed to breathe.
Oh God. Oh my God.
They were still joined, and she looked up and gave him the smile…the smile that told him how she felt, how deep and lovely and
finished
she felt.

“Zoë,” he whispered, the water pounding down over the back of his shoulders and neck. “My God…I’m…sorry.” He looked stricken.

“Sorry?” she repeated, although she suspected she knew what he meant. “How could you be sorry for
that
?”

His lips moved in what might have become a smile—a very satisfied one, she suspected—if he hadn’t caught himself first. “Zoë, I lost it. I—”

“You lost what? Your mind? That’s a fucking compliment, in case you didn’t know,” she said tartly, but she tried a slanted look along with it as he helped her disengage and her feet slide to the floor. “Don’t apologize, or you’re going to piss me off.”

“Zoë,” he said, his voice stronger. “We can’t just igno—”

She stood away from him, her hand once again flat against his chest, but this time, the heat had ebbed. “Just forget about it, all right? Now you’re just damned ruining the moment.”

His face tightened. “Right, then, you think I’m just going to blow this off? The chance that you might get pregnant? Are you out of your bloody fucking mind?”

Zoë drew in a deep breath, fear trammeling through her. How had such a lush, lovely feeling changed into panic so quickly? She gathered her composure, stepping back, fighting to appear cool and removed instead of terrified that she was going to…lose…
this
.

This
too
.

Hot tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. She hoped like hell he thought it was remnants of the shower. For a moment, they were at a stalemate. The water blasted around them, and she reached over to whip the knob off, her movement sharp and jerky.