Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DEZ
Larke, stroking her chin, faced me on the passenger seat. “No, a booty call makes sense. I’ve met Edward. He has BDE.”
I frowned. “What’s BDE?”
“Big Dick—”
“Nope, never mind.”
She laughed.
And I was addicted to the sound.
The rest of our group, which had dwindled to me, Larke, Tamra, and Sabine, were asleep in the back of the van.
On the way, we came across another encampment in Richmond, Virginia.
There, we ran into a few people who’d escaped from Sanitation.
Because of the familiar faces, the rest of the group branched off, and I didn’t fault them for trusting a sure settlement over the uncertainty we were headed toward in South Carolina.
But it didn’t matter whether they trusted me.
It only mattered that Larke did.
“It’s nice to know Mae’s still getting some,” she went on. “Is she okay, though? Outside of the dick she’s getting on the regular.”
“Larke, please.”
She laughed again.
I took a moment to soak it in.
“Yes, I honestly believe she is. The breach that happened before we left, from what I saw when I was looking for you, looked worse than it was. Without Cerner and Neal, I think Totten might have a chance. Wade had talked about stepping up before, and I hope he does.”
Wade had only left his post because his wife had gone into labor. Even then, when he contacted me to let me know that he had to leave his “assignment,” he’d sounded apologetic. I’d reassured him that it was fine. I’d been hoping to find Neal attempting to confront Larke anyhow.
“It wasn’t the right place for us,” I added. “But with some reform, I could see it being a great place for Mae.”
Especially since she didn’t have many years left.
That part, I wouldn’t tell Larke. I didn’t want anything hampering the relief, calm, and ease that continued to bloom and blossom inside her since the day we drove away from Totten. If necessary, I’d shoulder the grief for us both.
“What about the broken gate?” she asked.
“That was part of Dr. Lin’s operation,” I explained.
“His people were using that gate to smuggle other people out of Totten. To be honest, I think that’s good information to share with Dr. Diaz.
The Infected are attracted to where humans are, possibly as a food source or as a remnant of their humanity—that human need to group up.
It might not mean there’s a cure, but if they retain humanlike patterns, it could benefit us somehow moving forward. ”
“As terrifying as this is, it’s interesting.”
“I agree.”
She quieted.
I glanced over. “You have that look on your face. You’re about to say something off the wall, and I can tell.”
“No, not really,” she said. “I was just thinking that not even a bad hip’s gonna stop me from riding your dick well into my nineties. I’ll just lean to the other side.”
I shook my head.
Then, I burst out laughing.
As I laughed, I felt her watching me, and I wondered whether it was the same for her—whether a laugh like mine, as regular and normal as laughs came, could be a sound she enjoyed the way I did hers.
She slid her fingers between mine. “I’m looking forward to this life with you.”
“Me too.” I raised our joined hands and gave each of her knuckles a kiss. “The world might have ended, but our world is just beginning.”
She laughed again, this one softer, lighter, and just as sweet. “That was corny,” she teased.
“I know. But you liked it.”
“I really did.”
I set our joined hands on the middle console.
“Maybe you should keep both hands on the steering wheel,” she suggested. “I-95 is not what it used to be.”
“First of all, I successfully navigated us around that mini horde. And you reached for my hand.”
“You could have denied me.”
“When have I ever denied you anything, Mrs. Harding?”
Sighing, she faced forward, settling into her seat.
We continued on in silence, Tamra’s light snores intermittently rising above the lull of the tires moving over the road and the whir of the van’s motor.
None of us knew where we were headed.
We had a map that Dr. Okoro gave me when I went to pick up the items, and we knew it led to somewhere in South Carolina, but we had no idea what we would find there.
For what it was worth, however, the drive was better than I’d assumed it would be.
The skies remained clear, and except for the mini horde, the only obstructions we came across were stalled vehicles, thankfully devoid of humans, dead or alive.
I had no intention of adding to our convoy.
In a world facing scarcity, trust would be even rarer than provisions.
Larke gently pulled her hand away to check the map. “This says we should be seeing the building soon.”
I nodded. “Good. Apparently, this camp was set up at an old agricultural college. According to Dr. Okoro, it was one of the first to be erected as a survivor’s base for people around the area seeking refuge.”
I didn’t add that it was sanctioned by the military. Totten hadn’t turned out to be the safe haven it claimed to be, and I didn’t want Larke to have doubts, especially since the closer we got, the more right this felt.
I still couldn’t explain it.
“Hopefully, they’re friendly,” she said. “Did Dr. Okoro tell you anything else about this Dr. Diaz?”
“No, but he’s only met her in passing. He said she’s brilliant, though, and she’s always come across as kind.”
“Brilliant and kind? Sounds like competition. Did he say if she was pretty? I might have to do my hair or something.”
“Babe, it doesn’t matter because…” I raised my voice to an objectively horrible falsetto and serenaded her with the hook from “I Only Have Eyes for You.”
She waved her hand like we were at a concert, holding up lights. “You better sing, baby.”
Smiling, I shook my head.
“Dez!” She tapped my forearm at least ten times in under a second. “Baby, I think I see a gate.”
I probably would have spotted it at the same time, but I’d been too busy watching her.
“Dez, I think that’s it! I think that’s it! What do you think? Does it look like there are people—”
A truck emerged from the clearing.
A man swung from the side of the truck bed. Another, who so closely resembled him that they had to be twins, rode on the roof. One swerve, and they both would go flying, though neither looked concerned about the possibility.
“Oh no, I think we’ve run into a den of crazies,” Larke whispered.
One of the twins, the one on top of the truck, waved. “Yoo-hoo! Howdy, there. You seem to be headed for our little setup. I’m Memphis, and that’s my brother, Dallas. We’re the sheriffs in this here town.”
“Dallas” made a siren noise.
We rolled to a stop in front of the gate.
Their truck stopped beside us.
Both men hopped down and walked over to the van, and I watched their approach closely. However, the moment the one who called himself Memphis noticed Larke, he changed course and headed for the passenger side.
I went on full alert.
We might have come in peace, but if he thought about putting a hand on my wife, I would be taking samples of twin human tissue for Dr. Diaz to study as well.
They were identical, but they wore their hair differently. Strangely, even the scars on their faces, necks, and shoulders were exactly the same.
Memphis didn’t break eye contact as he made his way to Larke’s lowered window. “My god, Dallas. You seein’ what I’m seein’?”
“I’m seein’ what you’re seein’, brother,” Dallas said.
Memphis clutched his chest. “Darlin’, point me to the lab where they made you because I want three of you. I’ll take you like medicine: one every four hours.”
“But, Memph, that’s only half a day.”
“I’ll rotate ‘em. That way, each one gets some rest before they have to put their pussy on my face again.”
“Hey,” I called.
I knew their kind of crazy.
I knew I didn’t have to say anything further.
Dallas snickered. “Told you it’s his girl, Memph. He’s looking at you like how the boss looks at me whenever I start messing with the doc. He’s going to fuck me up for real one of these days.”
“Naw, the boss knows we respect him. The doc’s just pretty, and you know how we get when we see a pretty face.” Memphis folded his arms and rested them on the top edge of the door panel. “So, where are you two coming from, what do you want, and how can we be of service?”
“We’re looking for Dr. Diaz,” Larke said, holding onto my wrist as if she expected me to pounce.
“A friend of ours, Dr. Tobe Okoro, said we could find Dr. Tayler Diaz here. We have lab notes, tissue samples—basically, all of his research. I’m sure she’ll know better what they are, but he wanted to make sure she got them. ”
Memphis studied her face while she spoke, smiling slightly, and I would have bet my left arm that he didn’t hear a word she said.
Dallas raised his nose in the air. “What else you got back there besides ‘research’? Because I smell a woman. No, women. Like…like two of ‘em. Any of ‘em like dick? Even if it’s only one, me and Memph can share her. She might be shy at first, but she’ll like it in the end.”
Memphis shook his head. “Count me outta this one, brother. I think I’m in love.”
“Memph, Mr. Driver here looks like he don’t play about her.”
“I don’t,” I said.
Larke tapped my hand as if to say it was all right.
She even had the nerve to look amused.
Undoubtedly, she’d picked up on the fact that I didn’t think they were a real threat on account of how close I’d allowed Memphis to get to her. Still, that didn’t mean I wouldn’t bring his infatuation to an end with a well-placed bullet.
“They’re kind of adorable,” she said.
Memphis’ eyes lit up. “Really? I ain’t never been called adorable. Crazy, yeah. I know I done heard ‘stalker’ a few times.”
“And Prisoner 340216,” Dallas tossed in.
“Oh, yeah. Forgot about that one.”