Chapter 15
15
JULIEN
I would have preferred to be traveling alone.
Even in this chaos, I preferred to be alone.
I managed to get back to Virginia from Atlanta, hoping to enter my house and have my wife run into my arms. I didn’t care what condition I’d found her in; all I’d wanted was to know she was safe and alive, even if alive had meant one of those things.
Instead, what I’d found was rubble.
Shortly after the pandemic began, the U.S. capital was targeted. At the time, every country believed that the pathogen was a result of a foreign enemy’s biological warfare. Bombs and missiles followed, and when the dust cleared, our foolishness came to light—we’d wasted time fighting over resources. We’d wasted time entrenched in tariff wars and conflicts that amounted to no more than back-and-forth eye-rolling on a global scale. We’d positioned ourselves as our own worst enemies, forgetting that there could ever be a common enemy among us.
Ego was our downfall.
Ego was always going to be our downfall.
Yet, what irritated me most was that my family, the people I loved, had to breathe the same air as those I didn’t give two shits about. They had to share the same space, often forced to have their opinions measured on the same scale as those who licked boots while raising one hand in dictatorial salute.
Since walking up to the pile of debris that used to be the home I shared with Ari, I’d found myself wavering between an ignorant, tenuous sort of hope and staring into dead eyes, seeing a soul that lost its way with every sunset.
Today, all that changed.
Today, I learned that I owed Gage more than my life, and it was a debt that I would never be able to repay.
“How far is this camp, you think, Julien?” Rashida asked.
I didn’t answer.
Before Ari, I’d cared about this woman. We’d run in the same circles, which was why people with Top Secret security clearance pulled our names from a hat, hoping our expertise helped to curb an infection no one understood. When I first entered a room filled with enough MDs and PhDs to staff a university, it didn’t surprise me to find Rashida sitting in a corner, alone, tapping away on a laptop.
At first, it was unclear why they wanted people with a tech background. But we soon learned that the government had been essentially tossing spaghetti at a wall, praying something would stick.
“Julien?” she called.
Still, I said nothing.
All I wanted was Ari and to meet my baby girl. I wanted to see that they were alive, for myself, and hold them against me until the end of time. They were all that had kept me going; that and the fact that they’d faced the end of the world with Gage Wolfe made their chances of survival greater than mine.
Rashida lowered her voice, but we were in the back of a truck full of more people than we’d encountered in a while. Then, the engine rumbled loudly enough to cast an echo. It was pointless to whisper, especially since I didn’t want to hear anything she had to say.
“I’m sorry,” she went on. “But let’s be real…statistically, I was right.”
Gage glanced at us.
Hopefully, my expression gave away nothing. As close as I was to Gage, and as close as I was with our team, no one knew much about my life before we served together. Therefore, no one knew who Rashida was, where she came from, and the circumstances surrounding our relationship. Again, before Ari, I’d assumed I loved her. Before Ari, I’d assumed a lot of stupid shit.
“I thought they were dead, Julien. Didn’t D.C. get nuked?”
I sighed, knowing she wouldn’t stop talking until I answered her. “There were no nukes,” I said. “Turns out that no one saw the benefit in pushing the button. The days of riding into war alongside the soldiers have been long gone for a while in government. Ultimately, there was a new, implicit law of the land: every man for himself. Plus, it doesn’t matter. It never mattered. I’ll walk until I’m down to nothing but bones to find my wife.”
And my daughter.
I still couldn’t believe I was a father.
“And you don’t think that’s reckless?”
“I’m entitled to recklessness, Rashida.” I motioned to the passing landscape. “Look around. Something is left. There are trees and a sky. There’s wind and rain. There’s you. You survived.” I smacked myself in the chest. “I survived. That was more than enough reason for me to keep going, even when you kept trying to force your complacency on me because you have nothing to live for.”
“Nothing to live for?” Her mouth wrinkled, and her eyes blazed with fury. “I watched my brother die to this...this curse. I watched my mother, my father—all gone. Strong people, mind you. Determined people. All of them? Dead. I was only trying to help you prepare for the inevitable.”
“You watched them die. That’s called closure.”
To get to Ari, I would have killed any and everyone who tried to stop me.
I love my wife.
I wasn’t one of those fucks who got married to try to rectify their Oedipus-like issues. I left my mother behind in the DMV to attempt to get a college degree in California. There, I met a girl in a network security class. A brilliant, beautiful girl. Before I had a chance to do anything about how I felt about this girl, I answered the call to service and went on to provide military intelligence on a multinational scale. In the process, I met Gage, and it turned out that Gage was like a brother to that very same girl. Fate saved me once before, and here it was, saving me once again.
In the distance, a black sky loomed.
“That doesn’t look good,” Rashida said. “Hey, Julien, what do you think? Does that look like a regular storm?”
“No, it doesn’t,” I answered.
“What kind of storm does it look like?”
“A bad one.”
“Don’t be a dick. It was just a question.”
“Use your critical thinking skills. I mean,” I gestured, “look at it. Thing looks like Galactus.”
“That was dumb.”
Ari would have loved that joke, although it wasn’t much of one. Then, we would have had a debate about Galactus, a comic book character whose claim to fame was eating planets, and the character’s parallels with and implications for manifest destiny.
If we got that far.
Some of my cruelest nights were those when I dreamed about her—the weight of her breasts in my mouth, her nipples pebbling on my tongue, the slick, warm heat as I held her steady, sinking inside her, and the raspy, desperate way she called my name when pleasure blacked out everything around us.
The first thing that drew me to her was how lovely she was. If there was a word that comprised cute, stunning, and gorgeous, I’d yet to discover it, and I had the inkling it still wouldn’t do her justice.
Then, it was how she made me feel.
For much of my life, I’d felt like I was dropped onto earth out of thin air. My birth parents, whoever they were, abandoned me in a hotel room when I was an infant. One of the housekeepers at the hotel found me, and when I couldn’t be located in any child welfare or hospital system, the housekeeper was allowed to take me home. Eventually, she went from foster mother to adoptive mother, and she raised me in an environment where curiosity was not only welcomed but encouraged.
Nearly everything excited me, and the more I learned, the more I wanted to share. But not everyone was receptive to a kid who would virtually fall out of his seat to talk about the inner workings of the universe in hopes that it would help him find his place in it. Even when people were willing to give me an audience, that excitement would eventually overwhelm them.
Not Ari.
Initially, I sat beside her in class because she was the prettiest girl I’d ever shared a space with. At the time, I hadn’t formulated a game plan for asking her out; however, when I sat next to her, she didn’t get up and switch seats. A few weeks later, some guy tried to take my spot. So, I collected her things and took them to the other side of the auditorium.
Although appalled, she joined me.
Eventually, she invited me to study with her at the library, and I fell for her so fast, Cupid’s head snapped around in disbelief. It was why asking me to give up on her was like asking me to live with a torn-open chest, my heart beating on my palm.
One of the twins waved a hand. “Psst. Hey, it’s Shida, right? Shida, ain’t nobody in this truck a farmer.”
Rashida frowned. “And that means?”
“You sound like you’re wanting Julien to pick you, like an apple or something, but girlie, it don’t matter. You could’ve fucked him this morning—his wife and baby, they alive. That means you fall back. If you’re desperate, me and my brother can fuck you.”
The second twin nodded. “My brother’ll hold your legs. I got your arms. Wait…you choke easy or naw? ‘Cause I got a big?—”
“Memph!” The first twin smacked his brother’s shoulder. “Don’t go tellin’ her all our secrets, now. Women like a man with a little mystery.”
Rashida studied them as if contemplating their offer, and it would do us both a world of good if she did. The quicker I could peel her away from my side, the easier it would be to explain this shit to Ari once I saw her.
Holy fuck.
I really was about to see my wife again.
Gage eyed me. “So what’s the story?”
“It’s not what you think,” I said.
“Later, enlighten me.”
When the camp gates opened, I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. I felt like the school’s weirdest student contemplating asking the school’s most popular girl for her hand in marriage despite never saying “hi” to her.
The truck barely stopped before I hopped off, and my legs buckled when I hit the ground. Rashida and I had been tracking the deer for days, and my body had been showing signs of starvation for a while. The deer would have satisfied my hunger, but my brain craved glucose.
A woman wearing scrubs hurried over to us, but then she slowed as if there was something wrong with hurrying. I noticed Gage start to smile, but then he wiped it away with a swipe of his hand as if there was something wrong with smiling.
He motioned to the deer. “Look what we got you, madame. It’s not a steer, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t come home empty-handed. Wouldn’t want my girl,” he pretended to clear his throat, “excuse me, my friend to be disappointed.”
The woman’s smile lit up the entire camp. “I’m glad you’re back,” she said.
“I’m glad to be back.”
“I didn’t miss you, just so you know. Maybe give me something to miss next time?”
“Oh, I can give you a few things.”
She pointed behind her. “By the way, I’ll need your help later. I’ve got some things I need assistance with in the supply room.”
Gage scratched the side of his neck, holding back another smile. “How bad do you need my help?”
The rise and fall of her chest grew visible. “Bad. It’s important. I tried, but I can’t put it off anymore.”
“I can help,” the man I’d heard called “Allen” said.
The woman didn’t look away from Gage.
Gage slapped Allen’s shoulder. “It’s all right, mate. I’ve got it. I’m the right size for the help the doc needs. No hard feelings, yeah?”
I watched Gage and the “doc,” wondering whether she knew that Gage had gone full predator with her set in his sights. No one on our team had ever seen an infatuated Gage, but his desire, at least, for this woman was as plain as saltine crackers.
A dark-haired woman crossing the middle of the camp stole my attention, a baby tucked against her hip. As far as I knew, the only baby at the camp was the one who carried half of my DNA. I’d planned to clean up and eat something—I didn’t want Ari to see me like this—but even if I didn’t already know, I felt a strange pull. Somehow, I knew this was my daughter.
“Is that…” I raised a limp finger. “Is that her?”
Gage nodded. “Yeah, mate. Ready to meet her?”
I backed away, head shaking, and passed my dirty fingers through my dirty hair. The last time Ari saw me, it was with thirty more pounds on my frame, most of it muscle, and I wasn’t covered in blood and animal guts. I’d looked like the man she fell for, and not even our worst team assignments had resulted in an image as bad as this.
“Julien, it’s all right, mate.”
The woman wearing the scrubs turned to me, and her eyes opened wide. “Julien? This is Julien? You found him?”
“Ari told you?” Gage asked. “Actually, let’s circle back to this discussion later, love.”
Gage leaned down as if to kiss her, but then he stopped midway, squeezed her hand, and told me to follow him into a large building.
Compared to what Rashida and I had stumbled upon since leaving Atlanta, this place was essentially five-star luxury. The corridors were clean, and there were only a few flights of stairs to contend with before I followed Gage into a room. The minute I entered, I sensed Ari’s presence and internally panicked.
“She’s not here,” he said. “She’s helping out at the school.”
I looked around the room. “There’s a school here?”
“Yep. This place is pretty sophisticated.”
He grabbed a towel and washcloth from a laundry basket and tossed them at me. Then, he rifled through a metal rack, scanning different articles of clothing that probably would have fit me a year ago.
A knock sounded.
The panic returned.
“Still not her, mate. You can come in, Corina.”
A young woman entered carrying a plastic bucket filled with water. She set the bucket down near the door, glanced at Gage, and bowed her head as she left the room.
“Are you a celebrity or something here?” I teased.
He tossed a shirt onto a cot that, right then, looked as comfortable as a six-thousand-dollar bed. “What can I say? I made an impression.”
“What’s the deal with the woman in the scrubs?”
“Tayler? What do you mean?”
“You want to fuck her.”
“And I plan to now that she knows.”
“Knows w?—”
A third flash of panic forced me down onto the thin mattress. If my body kept this up, I would die of a heart attack before I laid eyes on Ari.
“I get it that you don’t want Ari to see you like this,” Gage prefaced, “but I’m telling you…she won’t care.”
I nodded. “I know she won’t, but I want to look my best when I see her again and when I meet my daughter for the first time. I can’t explain it. I just…need to.”
A pair of pants followed the shirt. “Those should fit. I’ll have Corina bring up more stuff.”
It honestly was a nice setup. The only thing missing was the rest of the team, but knowing them, they were probably in charge of their own survivors’ camps somewhere.
Except for Giorgio.
Giorgio had to be in prison.
“That Allen guy in charge?” I asked.
Gage shrugged. “Supposed to be.”
“Tayler’s his girl?”
“Was.”
I chuckled. “I missed you, man.”
“I missed you too, kid.”
It was Gage’s way, calling someone “kid,” even if they were only a few years younger than he was. To him, it was either a term of endearment or an insult. When Ari and I first started dating, he’d used them interchangeably, but over time, I’d garnered his respect.
Before he left, he showed me where to wash up.
Once I had removed months of grime from my skin, I returned to the room to find a pair of battery-operated hair clippers and an unopened package of underwear. Also in the package was a small slip of paper with the name “Corina” scribbled, a heart dotting the i.
Smiling, I set it aside, dressed, and returned to the washroom to trim my facial hair. The hair on my head, I would deal with later. Had it not been for a few camps Rashida and I had encountered along the way, where I had access to scissors, it probably would have been longer. But I never stopped anticipating running into Ari. It didn’t matter what state we found ourselves in; I searched for her face in every group we came across.
Satisfied that I no longer looked like a complete neanderthal, I cleaned up and returned to the room. I planned to burn the clothes I’d had on, so I set them in a corner with plans to ask Gage later where I could do just that.
The door opened, and when I heard the voice, I went still.
“Okay, Thandie, Mommy needs you to keep a secret. Uncle Gage said not to come up to the room, but I need to change you, milady. I can’t have you—oh, I’m so,” she paused, “so sorry. Wait…Julien?”