Thicker than Blood (9 page)

Pressing my lips together, I shrugged my
shoulders again. “We don’t even know if anyone is there, Lei. And
we need supplies. We’re not going to make it much farther with what
we have.”

“We’re going to need gas,” Alex said,
glancing toward the fuel gauge. “Soon.”

“
Eve!” Leisel whispered harshly, grabbing
for my hand and squeezing it hard.

I knew what she was afraid of; I was afraid
of the same thing. Running into people much like the ones in
Fredericksville, who thought themselves entitled to whatever the
infection had left behind.

Or worse. And when it came to worse, the
possibilities were endless.

“It could be abandoned,” I continued. “Maybe
some infected roaming around, but nothing we won’t be able to take
care of.”

At least, I was hoping that was all we would
run into. A few infected would be easy enough to get rid of. Unless
the town was overrun.

“There’s too many possibilities,” she said,
homing in on my thoughts.

“We need to make a decision.” Alex pointed
toward the sky. “We’re running out of daylight.”

Scowling at him, I turned back to Leisel. For
someone who’d been so uncommonly helpful, he was largely
insensitive to Leisel’s fears.

“Let’s check it out,” I said, not entirely
sure of my decision, but needing to make one regardless. And Alex
was right, night was coming and we needed somewhere to spend it.
Somewhere safe, and a car with no gas was not a safe place to
be.

“
Please, no! Eve, please.”

Leisel was crying again, and I felt like shit
that I was the one who had caused her tears. But I was doing this
to protect her, to get us somewhere safe. Pulling her into a hug, I
planted a kiss on the top of her head.

“We’ll be fine. I promise,” I said, with far
more reassurance than I should have been allowed to dole out.

Nodding against me, she attempted to stop her
tears, but I was still left feeling awful. Leisel had known nothing
but fear for the past four years, and I would do anything to ensure
she’d never have to feel unsafe again.

Alex drove on. As we drew closer and the
small town came into view, the niggle of worry already fluttering
inside my stomach only worsened. There was no movement, nothing
alive or dead that I could see, but looks were always
deceiving.

Take Lawrence Whitney, for example. The
threat that lay behind closed doors, lurking in the shadows, was
always far more deadly than the danger in plain sight.

Leisel

The town of Covey was small, even smaller than
Fredericksville, and it appeared to be utterly abandoned. As Alex
turned slowly down what was probably once the main drag, I stared
out the window in shock at what I was sure was once a quaint little
village. Mom-and-Pop-type shops lined the street, a wooden sign
boasting an apothecary hung haphazardly from a broken post, and
there was an honest-to-God barber shop, complete with a
candy-cane-striped pole.

I continued staring, trying to imagine
what this place had looked like back before the infection,
picturing happy people strolling the sidewalks. It was a place I
would have gladly visited. I would have forced Evelyn to come along
with me, dragging her into shop after shop, smiling as she laughed
at my purchases and good-naturedly teased me for being so easily
amused by simple things.

But that was then and this was now. And
the now was a cracked and overgrown street, the earth beneath the
pavement reclaiming the land and everything man had built on it.
The stores were mere shells of their former selves with broken
windows, missing doors, faded and cracked paint, and the
ever-present aura of death.

It was a ghost town, a graveyard without
headstones, a forgotten and decaying museum of what life used to
be. And if life went on this way, if the infection continued to
rage, eventually there would be no one left, the human race would
soon be gone. In time, so would all of our towns and with them, any
last shred of proof that we ever existed at all.

“Looks clear,” Evelyn mused, though her body
stayed tense and alert.

Alex let out a small snort. “Looks can be
deceiving.”

Her expression pinched with irritation,
Evelyn slanted her eyes in my direction, rolling them ever so
slightly.

I attempted to give her a smile in return,
but didn’t quite manage one. My stomach churned with fear, my head
pounded from anxiety, and with every mile we traveled, my fear of
the unknown only continued to grow, increasing my discomfort.

“Lei?” she whispered, cocking her head in
question. “You okay?”

“
F-fine,” I stuttered hoarsely, but I was
anything but fine. I tried to envision myself searching out these
buildings for food or clothing, things that had once belonged to
others—others who hadn’t been as fortunate as me—and my
apprehension only grew. I felt like an interloper in this new and
foreign world, and worse than that, like a burden on Evelyn and
Alex.

What good would I be if we were attacked
by an infected, or even by another person? What good was I even if
we weren’t?

Closing my eyes, I inhaled slowly and deeply,
the stale air of the truck smelling strongly of unwashed bodies. I
let out my breath, wishing I could have a private moment alone,
somewhere behind closed doors so I could block out the world. Just
a minute was all I needed to regain my composure.

I took another breath and let it out, another
fruitless attempt at calming my nerves. It was hot in the truck,
the three of us pressed up against one another, Alex on my left,
his right leg situated firmly up alongside my left, and on my right
was Evelyn, her entire left side pressed uncomfortably against me.
We were touching from our shoulders to our knees, unable to move
even a fraction of an inch without the other being entirely
aware.

When I cracked open an eyelid, the truck’s
dashboard loomed in front of me, and beyond that abandoned cars
blurred in and out of focus as we passed them, Alex swerving every
so often to avoid garbage strewn in the road. His elbow would press
into my bicep and every time, I cringed and closed my eyes, my
breath lodging in my throat.

I needed out of this truck; it was too
small and stifling. I needed fresh air and a moment alone. I needed
a bath to wash away the blood, the sweat, and the stench of fear. I
needed—

“
Don’t worry, Lei,” Evelyn said gently,
interrupting my panicked thoughts. “It’s going to be fine. I’m
going to protect you.”

My eyes flew open just in time to see her
reaching for me, more than likely to give me a reassuring pat or a
comforting squeeze. The thought of it, of being treated or thought
of like a useless child again, sent my emotions into overdrive, and
I did something I’d never done before, never thought of doing
before.

I slapped Evelyn’s arm away.

“Stop it!” I cried. “I’m not a child. It’s
not my fault I don’t know how to use a gun. It’s not my fault I
don’t know the first thing about surviving out here. It’s not my
fault that I’m not as strong as you, or as brave. And it’s not my
fault that I’m weak!”

Evelyn’s mouth fell open, then closed, and
then opened again as her eyes widened in shock at my sudden
outburst. For the first time, my friend was at a loss for words.
There were a lot of firsts happening lately, most of them at the
most inopportune times. And all of them were my fault.

“You’re not weak.”

I was so busy glaring at Evelyn, and her
gaping at me, that neither of us noticed for several moments that
the truck had come to a stop. Blinking with confusion, I turned to
find Alex staring straight ahead, his hands gripping the steering
wheel so tightly that his tanned knuckles had turned
white.

“You’re not weak,” he repeated, this time
more forcefully.

Without another word, Alex roughly pulled the
key from the ignition and exited the truck, slamming the door loud
enough to make me wince. I watched him walk a few feet into the
empty street before I looked back at Evelyn, an apology forming on
my lips.

“No,” she said, flashing me a wicked smile.
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. Not for that.”

Flabbergasted, I searched her face, confused
by her smile, trying to discern the reason for it.

“Why the hell not?” was all I could say.

“Because,” she said pointedly. “It’s so
fucking good to finally see you stand up for yourself again.”

• • •

The first three stores we ventured inside had been
picked clean of anything useful quite some time ago. All that
remained were fragments of what these buildings had once held, an
abundance of cobwebs and dust, and a few scattered human bones.

For the most part I stayed on lookout,
remaining at the entrance. My sole job was to alert Alex and Evelyn
of any threats, be they infected, animal, or another human, while
the two of them searched for provisions.

By our fourth stop, at what looked to have
once been a bank, I was more sure of myself than I had been in
quite some time. The gun felt good in my grip, solid and heavy, and
despite not having yet fired it, I was oddly reassured to have it
there.

That wasn’t to say I was no longer scared,
because I was. Actually, I was downright terrified. The sun was
setting on the horizon, giving the entire town an overall gray and
spooky appearance. Without electricity, the interiors of the
buildings were already too dim to see clearly, even with the aid of
Alex’s flashlight. Added to it was the unnatural silence and
stillness in a place that I knew had once been full of footsteps,
voices, even the buzz of the streetlamps. It was the perfect
setting for a horror movie. And as the sun sank deeper on the
horizon, my recently won smidgen of courage began to form into a
hard lump of fear in my gut.

“We should get going,” I called out over my
shoulder, my voice quivering with my growing anxiety.

“One minute!” Evelyn replied. “There’s
something under this…goddamn it, this is heavy!”

“Leisel.”

Alex was suddenly beside me, so close I could
feel the heat of his breath against my cheek. Squeaking in
surprise, I jumped backward, out of the doorway and onto the
sidewalk.

“You scared me,” I breathed out. Placing my
hand over my pounding heart, I took in a much-needed gulp of fresh
air.

“Sorry,” he said, not looking the least bit
sorry. Much like Evelyn had earlier in response to Alex, I found
myself wanting to roll my eyes. He was a strange man. Handsome and
unreadable, and if the events of the last two days were anything to
go on, entirely unpredictable.

“Why did you help me?” I blurted out,
suddenly needing to know. “And don’t tell me you wanted out of
there. Life was good for you and Jami in Fredericksville. Why would
anyone trade that for…” I trailed off and gestured toward the
empty, ruined street. “This,” I finished. What I really wanted to
ask was, why would anyone trade a comfy and predictable life for
what could end up being a very short life, one filled with
unfathomable dangers.

As I already presumed, he didn’t answer me
readily but instead just stared down at me, his dark eyes appearing
black in the waning light.

“You think you’re weak,” he finally said, his
voice unusually ragged and thick. “But you’re not. Weak people
don’t live through the kind of shit you lived through. Weak people
don’t drive a knife into someone’s heart, and weak people don’t
just willingly accept the fact that they’ve been sentenced to
death.”

Alex took a rather menacing step toward me,
and I again found myself fighting to remain where I stood. I didn’t
want to be the woman who was afraid of all men just because one man
had hurt her. I didn’t want to be weak anymore. So I stood my
ground and lifted my chin, though my knees began to tremble.

“I was weak,” he continued, twisting his lips
into a snarl filled with self-hatred. “I stood outside your home,
day after day, year after year, listening to what he did to you,
and I never lifted a hand to stop it.” He swallowed hard and shook
his head as his nostrils flared, his gaze unfocused. “Weak people
do nothing. Weak people let life happen to them, and I was weak. I
knew what it was like out here, knew the kind of shit people were
doing just to live another day, and I didn’t want to come back to
it, to this. So I let him hurt you, didn’t say a word, didn’t try
to stop it, because I was goddamn weak.”

My lower lip began to quiver as my eyes
filled with tears. One blink and they spilled over, running down my
cheeks faster than I could catch the breath I needed to stop them.
Who was this man? This wasn’t the Alex I knew, the silent,
stone-faced, emotionless Alex who’d been by my side this entire
time, and yet the same I’d thought had never really seen me
before.

I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Whereas
Lawrence had appeared easygoing, always had a smile on his face,
was well spoken, and moved in a way that wasn’t at all threatening,
he’d actually been the very opposite.

People, I’d come to learn, were rarely
congruent to the face they put on. Lawrence certainly hadn’t been,
and Alex wasn’t either. Evelyn, however, Evelyn was always herself.
The one person I could always count on for honesty, the one person
I could always trust. She was my constant, my rock, my heart, and I
loved her for that.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” I
whispered tearfully. “I don’t blame you for taking care of
yourself. You didn’t owe me anything.”

“But I did—I do,” he said, his jaw clenched
tight, his eyes flashing fire.

I watched him internally battle his anger,
and yet I was strangely not afraid of him. It was the smiles that
now worried me, the gentle touches and the softly spoken words that
turned into something much more horrifying. Thanks to
Lawrence
—who had been at
his most calm and his happiest when hurting me—Alex’s sharper, much
harsher demeanor was almost comforting.