Alive (The Crave) (12 page)

“That’s what it looks like to me.”

She jerked her arm from his tightened grip. “Think what you want.” She opened her bag.
I should have known that teaming up with Gage was a bad idea from the start.

“Just going to fucking steal from me and my family and leave,” Gage muttered as Eve bent down on one knee to drop the diamonds into her bag. His words had her jerking back into a standing position.

“What did you stay?” She heard him, but the word steal had come from his lips for the third time tonight. It shouldn’t have bothered her. She should have given him the middle finger and got the hell out of there, but she didn’t. Hearing that word from his tongue set a fire under her. Eve had been accused of many sins over her life by her family, so much that it should have desensitized her, but hearing Gage say something like that was different.

“I said—”

“I know what you said, asshole! You really think that any of that matters anymore?”

“Any of what?”

“Your family? The history of this house? It doesn’t fucking matter. What was yours isn’t yours anymore. Nothing belongs to no one and everything belongs everyone! Can’t you see it?”

Gage shook his head. “It matters to me. This house, my heritage. It all fucking matters, Eve. To me,” he said between gritted teeth. “You wouldn’t understand that though since your whole life was based out of some squalid little trailer. Believe me, you did the world a service when you burned that piece of shit to the ground!” Gage’s voice echoed all around her, bouncing off the walls of the dark house.

Eve clenched her fists, around the jewels in her pocket and the other over air, as pain ripped through her body. “Fine!” She jerked the diamonds from her pants and sent them flying at Gage who was only a few feet away. The candle was behind him, illuminating his silhouette. The diamonds smacked into his chest and fell to the floor, each with a quiet thud.

Tears threatened at the back of her eyelids.
Don’t fucking do this Eve. Don’t cry. Not because of him. Not again.
She bent and jerked at the zipper on her backpack to close it.

“What else did you steal from me?” Gage tore the bag from her hands.

“No!” Eve cried. She lunged for the bag, but he spun away from her.

“What the hell? Why is this thing so heavy?”

“Just give it back.” Her hands trembled and she hated that her voice mirrored the motion.

He said nothing as he unzipped the large back pocket and reached inside.

“Money?” Gage stared down at the green paper inside the bag. With only the light of the candle it was hard to see, but he knew what it was without a doubt. He reached in and pulled out a wad of cash. The money was wrinkled but looked as if someone had tried to smooth it. He ran his thumb across the bills fanning them out. More than twenty Benjamin Franklin’s stared back at him. “What the hell?”

“Give me my fucking bag back, Gage. I gave you your stupid family heirlooms. I didn’t take anything else and you have no right to go through my stuff!” Eve’s voice shook. He almost felt bad, but didn’t.

He’d awoken only minutes before from the best sleep he’d had in years. The satisfaction of having Eve there with him, especially after what they had shared sexually, gave him a feeling of contentment like he’d never known. Only, he’d woken up and she wasn’t there. He had been about to call out for her, fearful that it had all been a dream, to see the flickering light of the candle above him and Eve balancing on the bannister, yanking diamonds off the huge chandelier.

He couldn’t explain the rage that had gone through him at the sight of her up there. The knowledge of what she was doing ate at him. She was stealing.
Stealing from me!
The fact that she seemed shocked that he was the only descendent left of his line didn’t deter his anger in the least. If he was honest with himself, it fucking crushed his soul that she was stealing from him and more than that, she was trying to leave him. Her pack had been on her back, her sharpened pry bar in its place.
How could she do that after what we just shared?

“Why do you have all of this?”

“I said, it’s none of your fucking business.” She reached for her bag and he let her take it after dropping the wad of hundreds back in.

“It’s not like you can use money for anything.”

She didn’t say a word. She moved her bag several feet away from him and ran her hands over the old material, as if protecting it.

“So what was earlier then?” He gritted his teeth.

“What are you talking about?” She jerked the zippers shut and punched her arms through the straps. “Never mind. I don’t even want to know. I don’t give a shit. I’m out of here.” She grabbed her pry bar off the ground from where it had landed.

“You were just going to...what? Butter me up, distract me with sex so you could steal from me, and slip out?”

Eve had tried to walk around him again, but he stepped in front of her.

“Quit saying that word!” she shouted. Her gaze met his. In the dim candlelight he could barely see the blue-green color of her eyes, but he didn’t miss the jewel-like quality of them. She was on the verge of tears.

“What word?” He ran a hand over his short hair.

“You know what word.”

“What? Steal?”

“Yes! Just stop fucking saying it!” She tried to push past him again.

“You can’t just leave.”

“I can do whatever the hell I want.”

Gage put his hands on her shoulders. She jerked away from him like he was a diseased leper. She reached behind her head. His eyes lit on her hand closing around the red handle of her pry bar.

“We can do this two fucking ways, Gage. You move the hell out of my way
right now
. Or you can stay, and I will gut you and leave you for the jenks. And don’t you think I wouldn’t think twice about it. I guarantee that will be your last regret.” The words were lethal, her voice sounding like a low hiss. He knew what she was capable of and it ripped him apart to know that it would be that easy for her to end him and walk away.

“What about Olive?” The anger he’d had earlier evaporated like stagnate water. Leaving him feeling bereft, sad, and most of all, tired. He wished the anger would come back, but he knew it wouldn’t. Pissed off asshole was not his forte. There were some things that even an apocalypse couldn’t change, though he seemed to be the only who hadn’t lost all of his humanity. The woman before him had nothing left. Almost like a switch she could turn on and off—like something he saw in a bad TV show back in the before.

“What about her?”

“You need my help to find her.”

“Hah!” Her laugh was bitter, creasing around her eyes when she furrowed her brow. “I can find my way to downtown Fenton. I don’t need you. I never needed you. I just went along with your stupid idea for…I don’t even know why, but clearly it was a mistake.” She looked lost, her mind seeming to retreat somewhere else.

“They won’t let you in.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Maybe I forgot to mention that Noah Smith and I founded Eden.”

“What?” The shocked look on her face said it all. He hadn’t shared it with her because he didn’t know how she would react, had thought she would find it unbelievable that he would leave a place he had a hand in creating.

“If you leave right now, I will beat you there and I will make sure that you aren’t let in.” He was shocked at how hard he sounded.

“You wouldn’t.” The crack in her voice nearly had him caving, and admitting his bluff, but he didn’t.
I can’t lose her.

“I would.”

“Then it looks like your dead.” She yanked the pry bar from her back. Gage thoughtlessly left Hilda downstairs and his closest knife was in his boot. He couldn’t reach it before she gored him.

He held his hands up. “You promised, Eve. Yesterday, in front of the General Store, you promised that you would stay with me until we got to Eden.” The tip of the pry-bar pressed into his bare chest.

“Promise? That’s what you’re hinging this on? A promise?” Her eyes narrowed but she stopped her movement.

“Yes.”

“As if promises mean anything to you.”

The jab at the past wasn’t lost on him. “I was a kid. Eighteen years old, Eve. That was different than this. I want to help you to safety—for Olive.”

It seemed like they stood there forever in the darkness of the second floor, the tiny candle flickering at Gage’s back, before she lowered her pry bar. She thrust it over her shoulder, between her back and bag.

“I’ll go with you Gage, for Olive—and because I was stupid enough to make a promise. Maybe this will teach you how to keep one.

Chapter Thirteen

The Before

“I’m talking to you, weirdo!”

Eve jerked back from her locker and looked up at the person standing over her. She hadn’t noticed them before. Her mind was busy drowning in the never-ending pools of Gage’s beautiful eyes and the way he had smiled at her in first period.

“What?” She stood with her books and met the dark brown gaze of the one and only Sally McCallister. Her long brown hair was curled in perfect ringlets again, framing her tan face.

“I’ve heard about your little grade-school crush on Gage.”

Eve sucked in a breath and stepped back.
How does she know? I haven’t even told a soul.
“What I—”

“It’s obvious. Allison told me all about how you drool over him and force him to be your partner in AP Physics.” Sally brushed a hand through her hair, sweeping her side bangs out of her face. The move was so simple, but Eve envied it. She’d wanted bangs just like those so she would fit in with the latest trend, but no. Her mom had sent her to her room telling her to get on her knees and pray and ask for forgiveness for wanting to be a sinner.

How does a haircut make me a sinner?
She still didn’t have an answer for that.

“I—”

“Hey Sal, what’s up?” The voice that came from behind her, froze her body. It was Gage’s voice. So beautiful and lilting.

“Just telling this trailer trash to keep her paws off my man.”

Off her man?
The words bounced around in Eve’s head like a bottle rocket in a tiny room.

“Telling who?” He put his arm around Sally. His friend Noah, came to stand beside him. “Oh.”

She didn’t look in Gage’s eyes, nor did she respond to Sally’s rude comment. Instead she stared down at her white tennis shoes that were barely visible beneath her denim skirt.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, honey bun.”

Honey bun?
The words burned a vicious hole in Eve’s heart. She hadn’t known that they were a couple, though she wasn’t entirely sure how she had missed it. Sally had always had an older boyfriend who wasn’t from Sunder. Eve recalled that she’d overheard some of the girls saying they had broken up a few weeks ago, but hadn’t thought much of it.
I should have known.

Without looking at either of them, Eve turned around and walked away, fighting back the tears that threatened to burst from her eyes. She headed in the wrong direction. Her class was only two doors down from her locker, but she didn’t want to have to walk by them and risk having to see the two of them arm in arm, or worse, laughing at her.
I’ll just take the long way to class.

Eve had just made the right at the end of the hallway that would lead her to the only other hallway in Sunder high school when she heard quick footsteps behind her. She glanced over her shoulder, not wanting to get run over by whoever it was. She was shocked to see Gage—alone. She refused to notice how handsome he was in his T-shirt, jeans that fit just right, and cowboy boots.

“Eve!” She stopped as he approached her.
What is he doing?
He’d never done anything like this before.
Who cares? Just walk away, Eve. He let that girl call you trailer trash and comforted her!
Her rioting thoughts didn’t change anything. She stood there and waited for him.

He looked around when he stopped a few feet away from her. She mirrored him, wondering what he was looking for. They were near one of the two sets of bathrooms for students. The baby blue walls were covered with red and white homecoming posters. The bell was less than a minute away from ringing and there was no one around.

“Are you going to the homecoming game tonight?”

“What?”

Gage smiled down at her. “The football game. Are you going?”

Eve shook her head. Her parents never allowed things like that. Friday night was the one night they didn’t pray the full two hours before bed-time. It was their “day of rest” as her dad called it. So instead they would have a short bible study after dinner and then be in bed by seven.
Lame. So lame.

“Why not?” His forehead puckered ever so slightly, as if he was disappointed.

“I’m just…not.” She couldn’t explain why she wasn’t going. The whole school already thought she was a big enough freak as it was. The truth would only make it worse.

“Oh, well, uh…” He looked away from her and ran a hand over his head. “I wanted you to come... and watch me play.”

“What?” The word escaped her throat on an exhale of air and her heart rate kicked up.
Oh my gosh! Gage just asked me to go to homecoming with him!

“Yeah.” His cheeks reddened though it wasn’t too obvious with his dark skin, Eve could still see the subtle color change.

“But you and…” She gestured back to the way he came and disappointment settled in her gut. This was some sort of joke, it had to be. A prank and everyone, with Sally at the front, were about to jump out and laugh at her.

“It’s not what you think with her.”

Eve opened her mouth with the intent of asking what that even meant, but he cut her off. “I’ve got Mrs. Daniel right now and I gotta go, but please say you will be there and at the dance afterward.”

The dance? Oh my gosh!

As if her body was a puppet she had no control over, her head bobbed up and down in agreement. She even heard herself say, “I’ll be there.” And then he was gone, flashing her his most handsome smile before high-tailing it around the corner.