Surge (71 page)

And I’ll punch any mother fucker who dares disturb us.

<~~~<~~~
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>

Shaking wakes me up. At first, I think it’s a freaking earthquake because what the fuck else could it be? Then it takes me a minute to remember that not only do we not have ramped earthquakes in New England, but the shaking isn’t affecting anything else in the room; no rattling picture frames or furniture, just the bed. Looking down at Olivia, I see that she’s the cause of it. Freaking out for an entirely different reason, I sit up and tilt her head back thinking she can’t breathe and is seizing.

When I don’t see the drool that accompanies a seizure, I squint my eyes in the darkness to observe her closer. Her breathing is escalated, and then she starts thrashing her arms and shaking her head, mouthing
‘no’
over and over. That’s when my semi-asleep brain recognizes it as a nightmare. Tucking her now completely dry hair away from her face, I pull her onto my lap and rock her back and forth. Muttering soothing nonsense that I’ve heard Whitney use at one time or another, I run my fingers through her hair and feel her body start to relax. Even in the dark room, I can see her eyes open and stare up at me.

“You okay?” I ask and she gives me a slight nod. “Nightmare?” Another nod. “You wanna to talk about it?”

This time, she waves a hand to say
‘later
,’
and buries her face into my chest. Olivia doesn’t cry, or at least I don’t think she does this time, but she does wrap an arm around my waist and hold on tightly as if wanting to be grounded in reality and not in whatever past experience that plagued her sleeping state. Tightening my hold on her, I try to give her whatever strength she needs from me, relishing the fact that her comfort level with me is what enabled it so that I can comfort her at all. Just a couple of weeks ago, I would have had to sit by and tuck my hands under my legs to fight the urge to do this very thing; now, I can cuddle her close and try to keep her with me, as opposed to trapped somewhere in her head.

It’s a few minutes before Olivia’s tense arm loosens, and she sits up. I was right about her not crying, because there’s no evidence of tears, but there is sadness in their depths. I take a gamble guessing at the cause, because sadness means that it couldn’t have been during a time of her captivity; I would think those evoke feelings of anger or fear. From personal experience, I know that sadness could come from loss, so I throw out a possibility.

“Your mom?” When I receive a nod, I want to fist pump since I read her right, but I don’t; since she’s obviously still upset regardless of the cause. Olivia points to my head. “It’s your eyes, they told me you were sad, so I took a gamble.” She smiles at that, points at herself, and signals out her sign for money. “You gamble too?” A definite nod to that. “How about cards? You any good?” The look she gives me for questioning her skills, should have fried my brain. “Okay, prove it tomorrow. We’ll have a game, and maybe get the others involved.”

Olivia looks at the window, as if just seeing how dark it is, and nods at my proposition. I’m sure that it’ll be good to do something normal for once, and relax at the same time, so it’s doubly good. Turning back to me, she places a hand on her chest and rubs.

“You’re in pain?” I ask and she shakes her head. Again rubbing her chest, she points at me, and then my pillow. “Don’t you dare apologize, you couldn’t help that any more than I could stop being a sullen bastard.” She makes an angry face at me and shakes her head. “I’m not a sullen bastard?” She shakes her head, points to my mouth, and shrugs. “I’m just Mouth?”

Olivia holds up her thumb to say that I got it right. Cocking her head to the side, she holds up her finger for me to wait, and sits up straight. Lifting her hand to her trach tube, which I never replaced the bandage of because I’m a neglectful asshole, she places her thumb over the hole.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I ask making a move to remove her hand, and stop when I hear something. It’s faint and raspy, but it’s there. Knowing that she’s not trying to off herself, I sit back and motion for her to try again.

“Hel-lo,” she rasps out. After the word comes out in a husky whisper, she removes her thumb so she can breathe. She returns my smile at her cleverness, and motions for me to wait a second. “J-ar-ed.” It’s drawn out, and sounds a little funny, but I can recognize it.

“It’s strange hearing you call me
‘Jared,’
” I say as she moves her hand to breathe. “It’s always
‘Mouth,’
or
‘smartass,’
or
‘ugly mug.’
” She smiles at the first two, but scowls at the last. Covering the tube, she tries to verbally answer.

“I ne-ver ca-called y-you u-gly,” she says. When Olivia removes her hand, it takes a few minutes of deep breaths for her to stabilize.

“No more of that,” I say with a frown and she nods. “But you did too call me ugly. And then
‘fucking hideous,’
if I recall the wording correctly.”

She cracks a smile in remembrance of that. I smile too, because her sarcastic response proved that she is attracted to me regardless of her fear, and probably against her wishes. Sitting forward, she traces my face with her hands and doesn’t so much as grimace at the burns that have been uncovered somehow in the night. She runs her fingers under my eyes, her thumb across my lips, and ghosts them over my cheeks. She then meets my eyes with hers, shakes her head, and points at me.

“So, I’m not ugly?” I ask just to see her response in truth this time. Olivia gives me a strong headshake. I wipe my forehead of invisible sweat. “Thank god, I thought that I might have to run around with a bag over my head.” She shrugs and opens her arms with a smirk on her face, saying
‘that maybe I should.’
I give her a light shove and she starts laughing.

“Real funny, and you thought I was the smartass? Puh-lease.” She points at herself and shakes her head. “I think you are.” Again she shakes her head, this time she pulls her hair and holds it in a ponytail with one hand and mocks a gun with the other. “I know you’re a badass.” She waves that off and signs
‘L’
and
‘C.’
 “You could be her, or you could be someone from Resident Evil, since they actually kill zombies. Like you could be Jill, since you’ve got the same hair color.” She shakes her head and makes a move to say
‘the other one.’

“You prefer Claire?” She nods. “Me too.” Olivia looks doubtful. “No, really. Jill was alright, but Claire could kick ass.” She gives me an,
‘I know, right?’
gesture. “And you got a brother, so Cory can be Chris.” Olivia smiles at that and points to me. “You want me to tell him?” She nods. “Fine, I got no problem telling him. The asshole should be happy he gets to be someone awesome like Chris, but I like Betty Crocker better.”

She shakes her head rapidly at that. “Why can’t he be Betty Crocker?” Olivia motions putting a tray in an oven and crosses her arms to make an
‘X’
quite deliberately. “He can’t bake?” Her eyes widen to show me that she’s absolutely serious as she nods. “Remind me not to let him make any bread.” She nods to say she agrees. “Can he cook, or is he bad at that too?” Olivia holds her thumb to say that he can cook, then gets a sad smile as she points to her ring and shakes her head. “So, Cory could cook, but not Travis?” She nods at that. “Nothing? Not even a piece of toast?”

Olivia looks at me and emphatically shakes her head in the negative. “Then he was like John, he absolutely sucks at life when it comes to preparing a meal. If you aren’t holding his hand through the process, you wind up with something burnt, has too much seasoning, or the wrong flavoring. It’s best if he isn’t anywhere near the stove.”

Olivia taps her head to say she’ll remember that. Seeing that the room has lightened with the sun’s rays, I figure that the others should be getting up soon. I motion at her throat.

“Do you have anything to dress that?” Olivia nods and opens the nightstand drawer. “Let me see, it needs to be changed.” She obediently passes me gauze, gloves, medical tape and two different creams. “Why are there two different kinds?”

Turning the tubes over, she points at the uses. One’s an antibacterial cream and the other is for pain relief that describes it as a
‘cooling sensation.’
I nod and set them aside for now. After I slip the gloves on, she tilts her head back slightly so that I can get at the bandage. It’s pretty clean, meaning that she must have changed it after her bath yesterday, but it still needs to be changed twice a day. I’ll do better, I’m still learning and eventually I’ll be good at this medical stuff.

Folding the old bandage in half so that it doesn’t make a mess on the bed, I turn back to inspect the incision. It’s an angry red, but I think that’s just from irritation since it wasn’t hot to touch or swollen when I checked. Satisfied that there’s no infection going on, I apply a liberal amount of antibacterial first but not directly in the wound. Once that’s on, I do the same with the pain reliever. I’m glad that someone was able to find her something, since it must hurt like a mofo. After everything’s been applied, I lightly press a few sterile gauze pads around the tube and wrap it with medical tape the same way I saw Akio do.

“How’s it feel?” Olivia lowers her head and turns her neck slightly side to side, before holding up her thumb. “Then that makes you my first patient, Mrs. Prescott.” She looks a little startled by that, I’m guessing because no one’s ever called her it out loud, but then she smiles. Sliding out of the bed, I hold my hand out to her. She looks at it curiously, then meets my eyes. “Come on.”

Shrugging her shoulders, she accepts my hand and climbs off the bed. Olivia has to jump to reach the ground, but I restrain the urge to laugh; because she shot me a look of death when I snickered. Tugging her toward the door, I don’t even stop to put my boots back on, I just head toward the stairs. Reaching the first floor, I tow her to the kitchen counter where my bag still sits. Unzipping it, I pull out my gun, silencer and a clip of ammo. Making sure the safety’s on, I tuck it into the back of my pants and continue on to the basement door.

Olivia, obviously seeing where I’m going with this, shoves me out of the way and bounds down the stairs first. I smile at her excitement and follow after her. Before I even reach the bottom step, I see Olivia has found a target and set it at the other end of a table. This time, it’s a fake apple. Where the hell did she get that, and what does she have against that particular fruit? Spotting a fake fruit basket, I know where she found it, but why?

“Hey, Olivia?” I call out and she pauses mid step in adjusting her target, to look at me. “Why do use apple shampoo, if you despise apples?” When she just stares at me, I nod at the apple. “That’s twice I’ve seen you pick an apple as a target. You got something against them?” Olivia shakes her head, but I can see she’s lying. I give her my best
‘Dad’
look and she squirms. Giving up, she tosses her hands in the air. Pointing at her ring she shakes the apple, then she mocks a gunshot at it.

“Travis taught you to shoot apples?”

When she nods, I ask why. In answer, Olivia points at the apple again, sets it down and uses both of her hands to make circles, then arcs for a trunk of a tree. I guess that, and she nods before pointing around the house. Once I get that, she makes a hopping motion with one hand over the other.

“An apple tree next door,” I say and she nods to confirm it. “I haven’t had an apple in over a year, and you people were shooting them like they were going out of style.” Olivia laughs and mouths that she’ll find me one. “You better, because I won’t forget.” She holds up three fingers to say she promises. “Good, now before we get started, I need another promise from you.” Without waiting for her to ask, I explain.

“If I’m going to teach you how to shoot, now would be the best time. We’re going to be here for at least the next few days, so it’s a secure location, and you should feel more comfortable with using the same surroundings.” I wait for her nod before I continue. “With that being said, you still need rest or I won’t teach you a thing. That means if you feel tired, or in pain, we stop immediately and come back later. If your breathing sounds funny, we’re done. Got it?” Olivia nods again. “Daily checks with Akio so he can listen to your lungs and make sure that their functioning properly. Same goes for your trach. I want you laying down for at least four hours a day and to sleep as much as you can. If you can do all that, we have a deal. If not, then we won’t even start.”

Olivia walks over and sticks out her hand. I shake it and hand her my gun. It’s the same caliber as hers, so the weight and shape are basically the same. Once she has it in her hand, she checks the safety twice, and looks at me for further instruction.

“Show me your stance.” Olivia turns toward the table and raises the gun. Her shoulders are perfect, arms straight, legs shoulder length apart and her hands are gripping correctly. “Perfect, you’ve been practicing.” She gives me a nod to say that she has. “Good, wanna try a shot now?” Another nod. “Go on then, flick the safety off. We’ll do this one without the silencer and then we’ll try one with it.”