Darkest Before Dawn (A Guardian's Diary Book 1) (4 page)

I wasn’t even sure we still had a CDC anymore. If we did, they’d gone to ground. I peeked around the corner and eyed the hospital, which looked exactly the same as it had before. The cars were in the same places, as well as the few items I’d placed to be able to tell if it had been disturbed. When I was sure it was safe, I started forward.

At the doors, I paused and listened again. Silence. I hated silence. Once, I used to want it. I had a younger brother who was both annoying and loud, and I could remember thinking how blissful it would be if I could only have silence. Well folks, it isn’t golden…it sucks.

I stepped through the broken glass doors, and tried to avoid the crunching of glass my boots made as I stepped on the unavoidable remains of the windows. It was darker inside, but luckily it was early enough that the sun was working with me. I passed the emergency room, and made my way toward the pharmacy.

I stepped over the dead body that was leaned against the doorframe and pulled out the key I had from my clinical here. I’d been so close to getting my degree, and Mr. Kenan had agreed to hire me. He had even given me keys to the locked areas the day before the world had gone to hell. He was here, in his chair, with his body decomposing. He’d worked until he hadn’t been able to from the looks of it. I slid the key in, and turned it until the door to the drug room slid open.

I added a few bottles of this and that which would be needed. I grabbed Phenergan for nausea, along with pain killers just in case we ever had need for them. I grabbed the pregnancy test as I sent a silent prayer to heaven that God wouldn’t be so cruel as to do that to Cathleen. I also grabbed a few bottles of prenatal vitamins just in case God wasn’t listening to me.

I was almost out when I heard a strange noise, which sounded almost like an animal. It wouldn’t be unlike animals to come and feed off the dead; I’d seen it a lot actually. It was a danger I was also trying to prevent. Birds like crows and vultures couldn’t get in here, but bobcats, coyotes and foxes sure could. I peered out of the room and started toward the main doors, but as I moved closer a growl sounded from entirely too close to where I stood.

There in the middle of the hospital was a huge red timbre wolf, his fangs huge and pristine as they dropped saliva. He hadn’t seen me yet, but I was willing to bet he’d smell me before he saw me. I stepped back, and winced as my foot crunched on something littered in the hall. Friggin’ hell! I turned and ran, but the moment I did, the beast let out a haunting howl, and gave chase.

I was just passing the elevator and moving further into the darkening hospital and the patient rooms when an arm yanked me sideways, into one of the many rooms. The door slammed shut, and I stepped away from my savior. I could hear the beast outside, its nose blowing hot hair under the thin door.

“That was stupid, kid.” It was the mystery man again.

I eyed the window and noted that it was broken. My pack was secured to my back and not too full yet; if I was fast enough, I could get out of it before he even noticed I’d left. Instead, when he turned and looked me over, I was stunned. Last night he had been hot, but today? Today he was friggin’ gorgeous.

I met and held his turquoise eyes. Eyes that made the air expel from my lungs as they searched my face intently. He was covered in shadows, but his eyes were in just the right amount of light that they looked positively stunning. They reminded me of gentle swaying of waves as they crashed against sandy beaches. They were the most beautiful swirls of tropical greens and blues that created the perfect shade of turquoise. Those eyes of his sent butterflies into my lady parts, and I wasn’t sure why it felt like there was a party in my pants; I only knew there was one.

“You really don’t talk, do you?” he asked as scraping and snarling sounded from the other side of the door. I tore my eyes from his to where the sound was getting worse. “Shame, I’m betting you could tell me a little about this town.”

Yup, I could. I just wasn’t going to. I watched as he stepped more into the light, and wondered if I should be making an exit soon, but when the sun fully exposed his body, my mind went to hussy town, and I followed it.

My brain turned over and I changed my mind from my earlier assessment. His eyes were the shade of a Caribbean ocean in full summer with the most beautiful mix of blue and greens, and his hair wasn’t as dark as I had first thought it to be. Instead, it was a dark blond color that reminded me of the wheat fields in Washington State, and it fell to just above his wide shoulders. He towered above me by a foot at least and looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties. He looked like he belonged to another age in time, as if he’d stepped out of a Viking movie and right into my path. This guy could give Thor a run for his money, and Thor was a serious hottie in my book.

He wore a white T-shirt and loose-fitting jeans with black biker boots. He had guns strapped across his chest, and another tucked into his belt which was held together in the front with a silver skull.

“Do you sign?” he asked as he turned back to face me, which put his features back in the shade, and gave my hussy-fried mind a break. I shook my head, but his lips tipped up in the corner, as if I’d just given something away.

Crap!

Chapter 4

“Funny, most mutes can sign.”

I pointed to my throat, and shook my head. His eyes however, slid down my body slowly making my libido kick into drive, and that stupid heartbeat was back, and throbbing between my legs. He smiled, and bit softly into his full bottom lip.

“As a matter of fact, you don’t smell like a boy, either,” he continued casually, reiterating the statement he’d made the day before.

I didn’t smell like a boy?
Note to self, roll in dirt next time.

“Remove the mask,” he said, and I shook my head slowly as I stepped back. He followed. “Scared I won’t like what I see, boy?”

Oh friggin’ hell bells! He was gay, and I was playing a boy! It friggin’ figured that I’d find the only hot gay guy left on planet earth and it seemed only fitting that said gay guy thought I was a boy! Someone in hell was laughing pretty damn hard at my misfortune, I was sure of it.

I shook my head and took a step closer to the window. The door was being chewed open, and I made a mental note to put an ASAP order on removing the dead, because we had enough crap to worry about. Wild animals putting us below them on the food chain was just not one of them.

“I’m guessing you do speak, but for some reason, you won’t,” he tipped his head, and his blond hair met the sunrays. I tried to keep my eyes locked to his, I really did. However, they went to the golden strands, and it took effort not to remove my gloves and test their silkiness. “I don’t bite too hard.” He grinned as he moved closer to me.

I tore my eyes from his hair and palmed the knife in my holster at my hip.

“I wouldn’t try that,” he warned, but I was being backed into a corner, and I wanted out. “If you pull that, I will kill you.”

Between the door being attacked by a hungry wolf, and him warning me about my impending doom, I was freaking out. He stepped closer, and I at the pulled the knife, only to find myself slammed against the wall. I cried out, and he stopped. His eyes widened as his hands made contact with my chest.

“Fucking hell, if I didn’t know better, boy, I’d say you have a perfect set of breasts,” he grinned. He palmed them as his hands slid beneath the vest I wore. I growled, and took advantage of his brief distraction, pulling the knife. I held it against his throat, and then pressed harder when he just continued to grin at me.

“Back up,” I said and continued to hold it against his flesh. “I said back up!”

He did as I asked, but only a step or two.

“You’re female, so why hide it? Why not use it to your advantage?” he asked without blinking.

“And what? Become someone’s whore? Or be raped by some loser until nothing of me is left but some mindless, sobbing mess? No, I don’t think so,” I replied. It was sounding like the Cujo that was growling, slobbering, and clawing at the door had a few friends join him and they were trying to eat it now.

“Remove the mask,” he purred.

“Hey buddy, notice the knife?” I warned. Man, he was so not gay! I was trying to remember how to breathe while working my way to the window inconspicuously.

“Yeah, I see the knife. Not worried about that. I’m more curious to see why you wear the mask? I’m thinking it’s because you’re scarred, or hideous?” His head shifted from side to side with curiosity trying to get a look behind the mask.

I snorted. Seriously snorted and shook my head in disgust. Did he think he could goad me into removing it with that?

“Hands up, or I’ll shoot!” Greta’s voice said from outside the window.

The man slowly placed his hands on his head, but it looked like a sexy relaxed pose instead of a worried one. “That’s my cue,” I said, and smiled beneath the mask.

“More of you masked ladies? I think I might like this town,” he grinned as he stepped back and I replaced the knife in the holster.

“I wouldn’t stay here,” I warned, feeling cocky again.

“You planning on kicking me out?” he asked, and for a brief moment, I caught a warning in his tone.

I turned and looked at Greta, who had been stripped of her gun and was now between two beefy men. I went to reach for my knife, but I was pressed up against the wall, and my mask was lifted, baring only my lips. One moment I was about to scream, and the next, I was being kissed. By kissed, I mean it was curling my toes, and the moment his tongue pushed past my lips, I moaned. Hello Hussyland! I am your new leader. Follow me!

His mouth was clean and tasted of mint. His kiss was soft and yet hard as he demanded I open my jaw wider to accept his kiss. I was lost in it, as if the world had been sucked down a black hole, and only he and I remained. When he finally pulled away, his eyes were wide as if he was as shocked as me by the electrical sizzle that had shot through my entire body.

“You kissed me,” I said in puzzlement. He hadn’t even removed the mask fully, and yet he’d kissed me! “You kissed me!” I said with more anger. How dare he think it was okay to just go around kissing women!

“I did,” he replied mockingly. He smiled, and I narrowed my eyes behind the mask. “And I’m already making plans to do it again.”

“You wouldn’t,” I said indignity rampant in my tone.

“Oh, I would. In fact, watch this,” he replied huskily before he pushed the mask up and kissed me again. This one was in no way soft. This one was fierce and his teeth scraped across mine as he held my face immobile. He growled from deep in his chest, or hell, maybe it had been me. His tongue captured mine and they danced, as if there was a musical beat only they could hear. His hands lowered and cupped my face even with the mask in the way. When he pulled away, I didn’t need to see his lips to know he was smiling. Nope, they were still against my skin, and I felt them move into a smile. “You kissed me back,” he whispered and pulled away from me. “Bjorn, Sven, let the girls go,” he said to the men outside.

“The guns?” one of the two beefcakes asked.

“They’re only women and they need them for protection. They won’t use them against us, will you…?”

I considered saying yes, but ammo was hard to find, and guns was nearly impossible. “I can only promise that if you promise not to kiss me again.”

“Why would I stop kissing you, when you respond like that?” he asked incredulously as he folded his tattooed arms over his wide chest.

“Because I told you to, and I wasn’t kissing you back. I was just planning on how best to gut you.”

“You can lie to yourself, sweet one, but I know when someone is kissing me back and when they’re planning to kill me.”

“Get that often do ya?” I smiled as I said it.

“The kissing part? All the time,” he replied casually and I felt something furl in the pit of my stomach at the thought of him kissing someone else as he had just done to me. The door chose that moment to splinter open, and wood shot through the air. I was taken to the floor hard, and the wind was knocked out of me painfully. “Kill!” he shouted, and bullets exploded from guns from outside, as the sound of shells hitting the ground echoed in my ears.

“Stay still,” he warned, as I looked to the right where a pile of wolves now lay. “It’s almost over,” he assured as his thumb rubbed the soft tissue of my cheek. “I should have known this skin was too pretty to belong to a boy.”

“Is that so?” I said without lifting my eyes. The wolves were huge, and didn’t look right. I wiggled my hips against the pressure of his body and the hard floor. And froze. “Please tell me you have a banana in your pants?” Because it was large, favored left, and holy friggin’ cat snouts! He was hard and on top of me! I pushed against him struggling to get out from underneath him.

“A banana? No sweet girl, that’s a cock,” he mused.

“Get off me!” I shouted and hit panic mode. With the last of the shots fired, he allowed it. He was huge, and I felt seriously uncomfortable with Mr. Happy poking my ass!

“Hey, it’s okay. I was serious; we don’t mean you any harm,” he cautioned with his hands held up in mock surrender. “For now, anyway.”

“Is that a threat?” I asked, and then wondered why I was wasting time. There were dead wolves in a pile, my girls were outside with men who looked like they’d been models for muscle magazines…Okay, that part wasn’t that bad, but still, I needed to get out of there. “Don’t answer that,” I supplied and moved to the window. When I got through it, I looked back at him to find him watching me openly.

“See you around, Sweet Lips,” he taunted and grinned at me.

Sweet Lips?
Next time, I’d bite him! It would stop that name from ever leaving his mouth again.

“Doubt it,” I replied and looked at Greta who was currently eye-banging one of the men. “Let’s go.”

We headed away from the men, but as we entered the parking lot of the hospital, it was to find about twenty more men, and a couple of scantily dressed women watching us curiously. I didn’t blame them, or the men who watched us with caution. We walked past them without any problems, and the moment our feet hit the blacktop, we bolted as if the hounds of hell were chasing us.

We made it to my motorcycle without any problems and took off in the direction of the girls. “You came for me, why?” I yelled over the motorcycle and then resented my tone.

“You took too long, and you’re never late,” she shouted back. “I worry about you, ya know? You hold us together and I know you have to do certain things which are going to leave their mark on you.”

“Thank you,” I whispered and wondered if she had heard it over the quiet purr of the bike.

She held on as we rounded the corner and found the others slowly piling the bodies of the town’s less fortunate into a pile. I waited for Greta to climb off before I joined her. My lips still burned from his kiss, and the tingling in the pit of my stomach hadn’t stopped yet. The cold reminder of why we were here did little to cool the ardor in my system.

We walked in silence, absently slipping back into our roles as we moved to help the others with the bodies. I wasn’t paying attention, because if I had been, I would have heard the music from the car that was sending dirt up in the air. I raised my hand, pointing it straight in the air. It was the signal for the women to hide. Nope, I had been contemplating that kiss, and its electrical pulse which had managed to slip into my panties and stay there.

When they had slipped into the shadows, I followed them. I was between a building and a house when the Jeep slowed and then stopped by the pile of bodies. Had I been paying attention, we’d all be close together instead of scattered. The occupant of the Jeep got out and pulled on a thin length of leather. I had to swallow the bile that tried to come up as a small, thin girl who could be no more than thirteen climbed out and went to her knees in front of him.

The guy looked methed-out, and his words were slurred as he smiled cruelly at the girl. They seemed to be alone, which worked out well, considering I was out of range for hand signals.

“This looks like a good enough place to pass the night, whore,” he sneered and held out his boot which she then lowered her face to—and licked. Oh my God, he was so going to die for that. He kicked her and told her to clean it better, and I couldn’t stop myself from lunging and walking out to meet him.

“What the fuck is this?” he asked. “You want some of my cock too, boy? I really couldn’t give a fuck less as long as it’s tight. Right, whore?” He didn’t even look shocked that I was wearing a mask, or that I was dressed in all black. Most people who saw us had the instinct to run, or try to kill us. Him? Not so much; his reaction was to abuse me. Yup, he was either on drugs, drunk, or both. I was going with both.

I narrowed my eyes and pointed at myself. This guy had to be on something, because he couldn’t keep his attention on me or the poor girl for more than a few seconds. Drugs are bad, m’kay?

Yep, it was official. Only the scum had been spared from the flu, and lived. He kicked her in the face and she cried out as she fell back. “I’ll do better, master, I promise. Please don’t do what you did to Diana to me, I’m a better whore!”

“Nasty little bitch, you’d do anything for me, wouldn’t you?”

I gagged. She nodded, and from the crazed look in her eyes, I believed she would do anything he asked her. She probably had done unspeakable things just to stay alive.

“Go suck that boy off, while I fuck his ass,” he smiled coldly revealing blackened teeth.

I pointed at myself again and tilted my head; he was serious!

Yup, time to die. I pulled my crossbow from the cord and nocked an arrow before he could blink.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, you weak little piece of shit!” he screamed as spittle ran down his face. I knew the moment the others stepped out from their hiding places, because he turned white. “You won’t get away with this! My friends are coming! They will kill you
all
, but not before they make you feel pain.” I pulled the trigger, releasing the arrow, and watched as he fell to the cold ground with the other dead people.

I wasn’t ready for the girl when she attacked me, and Greta had to pull her off of me. “You killed him! You killed him you fucking punk!” she screamed and clawed at Greta as she tried to get at me. Ok, up close and personal with crazy, I now saw that she was closer to seventeen or eighteen.

“I did you a favor. He can’t hurt you anymore!”

“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill all of you! I’ll sell you to Ted and I’ll become his main whore! I’ll never want for anything again!”

I shook my head, and then looked at Greta.

“Can you change?
Will
you change?” I asked with desperation in my voice.

“I’ll kill you!” she screamed and the moment she lunged, I pulled the knife and slipped it between us. Tears left my eyes to stream down my cheeks as she cried against my chest. “Kill…you.” My stomach clenched and rebelled against me.

She gurgled, and when I could no longer feel her breathing, I picked her up and carried her to the pile. Mercy killing, but it left a mark on my soul, one I’m sure I’d remember forever.

“You couldn’t bring her home with us, and you couldn’t chance letting her go to bring men back here to us,” Greta said softly and the others agreed. This was why she was worried, and I understood it. This poor girl wasn’t my first mercy kill, and unfortunately, she wouldn’t be my last.