Twenty-Seven
Simone
“Ithink I inventoried everything from the storage area. I found an extra pack of honey buns. The men should be excited.”
Rubin crinkled his nose. “No, they won’t be, but it’s food.”
“The rest of it is not so useful. Toiletries. Things like that. Nothing like weapons.” I shivered. “And so much freaking rat poop.”
“There’s one more place we can look,” Rubin said.
“Where? I walked the perimeter of the pod and didn’t see anywhere else.”
“The electrical. Back there.”
“Okay,” I said, grabbing my clipboard. “I’ll get Besnik.”
Rubin had the Bowie knife and walkie-talkie in his belt loop. They hung awkwardly, but Rubin didn’t look any more awkward for it. I looked like Cinderella and somehow he was still pulling off Prince Charming.
Yeah. Life really wasn’t fair, even at the end of the world.
I followed Rubin and he gestured toward Besnik. “Grab a baton.”
Besnik nodded and returned a moment later, baton in hand. He smiled at me, curt, mostly polite, but there was a warmth in his eyes that I only saw from him. I returned the expression, knowing I didn’t need to do more.
“Dominoes after we finish this?” I asked when we were away from the others.
“Maybe later, Simone,” he said, his smile apologetic as he shifted his gaze toward Rubin.
“Maybe later,” I echoed.
And then I walked, safe, staying a few steps behind Rubin. The floors were still clean. Lucky for Rubin, there seemed to be a lifetime supply of bleach in this place. We’d run out of mops before we used it all.
And that was about the only good thing. The sounds of the dead seemed to get louder as more and more of them surrounded the prison. The shots became fewer and fewer, the last cries of a dying city. And Merrick—Merrick continued with his torment.
Not pleasant, but we could manage as long as the food supply could be maintained. I hadn’t broached the topic with Rubin, but I didn’t have to. He asked me for a count every day, and every day the numbers got smaller.
So as we approached the closet, passing through the areas I was familiar with and deeper into what felt like the bowels of the prison, I maintained hope. Food fairy, please deliver us a miracle.
Clipboard in hand, I stopped in front of the door. “Here,” I said, looking at Rubin. He nodded and I went to open it. But he lifted a finger. “Step back,” he said, not looking at me.
“Okay.” The door was heavy steel and I didn’t hear anything. Rubin turned the knob and pulled it open.
And I froze.
Those things poured out like clowns out of a clown car, one after the other after the other, each wounded in a way more grievous than the last, until the last emerged and he wasn’t wounded at all.
There had been maybe thirteen of them in a closet with four circuit breakers and a hot water heater.
“Besnik.” Rubin said it quickly, and Besnik moved into action. “Simone, back up.”
He shouldn’t have had to tell me that, but I had been stunned, and then moved, warring internally because I wanted to help—knowing that I couldn’t, that they didn’t need me—and soon the last one fell limp, finally fully dead.
The floors would have to get cleaned again. I glanced up at Rubin, who wiped his knife on one of the zombie’s pants.
“What is it?”
“The door. It was locked from the outside,” I whispered.
Rubin’s expression was grim. “Get Aaron and some of the others and clean this up.”
Besnik moved, and I stared at Rubin as he stared at the scene.
Aaron squeezed my shoulder but didn’t speak as he, Lorik, and Kane helped Arben and Besnik clean the bodies.
I tried to catch Aaron’s eye, needing the comfort of connecting with him.
He refused to look at me, and that familiar feeling started to creep over me.
I tried to force the thought away. Aaron loved me; he wasn’t rejecting me, he was just being smart.
I needed to be too. I also needed to take care of myself, and as they dragged the last body away, the depth of my inability to do so slapped me in the face.
I turned away from Aaron and met Rubin’s eyes, and felt the depth of his examination and how utterly wanting he found me.
I was so embarrassed, I couldn’t be angry at his terse, “Come, Simone.” Instead I followed, docile and weak as I’d proven myself to be.
When we reached the warden’s office, I kept my head down, eyes lasered on the bathroom door, hoping to make it before the tears fell.
Rubin grabbed my arm and held me in place, his cold eyes stripping every layer I so valiantly built.
I studied him back, hoping for just a glimpse of what he saw, wondering if I could stomach the truth of it.
He dropped my arm.
“Get some sleep, Simone.”
He turned away before I could speak, and he didn’t look back.
I told myself I was glad.