Chapter 2
TWO
Asia
Jack circled the trucks and looked at the grass where corpses were strewn.
Then he locked his eyes with mine.
Looked at me like I was the next zombie to annihilate.
I took a step back.
Breathed squeezed from my lungs on a strangled exhale, and I swiped my hands down my thighs, needing to channel the trepidation—
Who was I trying to kid?
It wasn’t trepidation.
It was fear.
Jack’s gaze didn’t waver as he marched toward me, more terrifying than all of the zombies we just killed.
Terrifying and enraged.
My instincts told me to try to placate him, soothe that undeniable rage.
Fear kept me in place.
And with each of his steps, everything faded.
The sound of my uncle and the men.
The livestock.
Everything.
The world, as insane and tumultuous as it was, had been reduced to one single thing.
One person.
“Jack,” I said, my voice low.
He walked so fast, he may as well have been running, but he stopped in front of me.
He was close enough that I had no doubt that he heard me, but he didn’t respond.
Didn’t even speak to me.
He dropped his weapon and reached up, his hands trembling.
He quickly brushed them against his pants, to wipe away the blood, or to steady himself. I wasn’t sure which.
Then he grabbed my chin, locking his gaze with mine for one long, breath-stealing moment.
I was struck again by what this man did to me.
Because the fear was still there, chased by something else.
Something addictive, dangerous, like Jack.
I hadn’t been blessed with the kind of parents who warned me away from playing with fire, but I understood that warning now.
Knew that I wouldn’t heed it.
So I stood, looking at Jack as he looked at me.
His gaze, sharp, intense, all-seeing, assessed me from head to toe.
Then he grabbed my shoulders and turned me, and even though I wasn’t facing him, I felt the piercing weight of his gaze.
He turned me back.
Met my eyes again.
Grabbed my chin again.
The tremble in his hands was gone, but he still looked at me with ferocious intensity.
“Do you want to fucking die?” he gritted out through clenched teeth.
He waited like he expected me to answer the question.
And knowing Jack, he did expect me to.
“Who are you?”
I was so distracted that it took me a moment to recognize it was Uncle Levi talking.
Jack ignored him, and I did the same.
My voice light, I answered his question with one of my own. “What kind of question is that, Jack?”
He still gripped my chin, his hold increasing ever so slightly.
I couldn’t help but think back to the courthouse.
I hadn’t been sure I wasn’t in a nightmare.
Hadn’t been sure that he wasn’t a monster, too.
Still wasn’t, but I continued to hold his gaze.
“I told you to go in the house, Asia.” His voice was quiet and all the more terrifying for it.
“And leave you out there alone?”
His nostrils flared, his dark eyes sparking with intensity.
He shook his head. “You’re so fucking stupid.”
“That doesn’t carry much weight coming from you,” I countered.
He curled his lips, his gaze searching mine. Then he slid his hand from my chin to the back of my neck and held me in place like I might run, his eyes daring me to try.
The next moment, he kissed me.
There was no tenderness in the press of his lips against mine.
It was rough, aggressive, punishing.
Claiming.
He nipped my bottom lip, and I tasted copper.
Jack didn’t pull back.
Didn’t apologize.
He kissed me like I was his.
Like he’d burn the world down—burn me down with it—if I ever did something like that again.
I huffed out a breath as I fought not to lose myself in Jack’s kiss, desperate to process what I saw in his eyes.
When Jack thrust his tongue between my lips and into my mouth, the shocking intimacy of this kiss came with a realization.
It was so uncommon from him that I didn’t even have a frame of reference for it.
I had only seen it once.
Fear.
Jack was afraid.
For me.
He broke the kiss, resting his forehead against mine.
“I told you not to do something that stupid again,” he whispered, his voice raw.
“I—”
My words were lost on the sound of a rifle cracking.
I flinched, forgetting we had an audience.
Jack didn’t.
I could tell by the way his grip tightened at the back of my neck. By the way he stepped even closer when the kiss ended.
Couldn’t shake the feeling that he wanted them to see.
I turned around and looked at my uncle, but he wasn’t holding the gun.
“Looks like you got a mess to clean up, Levi.” I cringed, the reaction automatic at the sound of that voice. “But lucky for you, it seems you have some help.”
Before I could even speak to my uncle, Brewster Madison Hayes, sheriff of the town and my very first archnemesis, approached me.
He tilted his head.
Smiled.
“Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes, Asia,” he said.
I said nothing.
Jack stepped even closer, angling his body slightly in front of mine.
A shield.
Or a warning.
He reached back, his hand possessively splayed on my hip, his message clear, even though he didn’t say a word.
Mine.
Not that it deterred Sheriff Hayes.
He put his hands on his thin hips, and angled his wiry body in a stiff pantomime of ease.
“I don’t think he would ever admit it, but old Levi here was sure you were dead and gone.”
“Most people are,” Jack interjected.
Hayes didn’t even spare him a glance, just waved him off in that dismissive way that simultaneously made me feel like a teenager again and had me tightening my grip on the wrench.
Don’t have to look at Jack to know he had a similar reaction. Sheriff Hayes, who was a particular kind of cunning, but no one’s definition of a genius, either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“You buying that propaganda shit about the end of the world? This is just a little blip,” Hayes said.
If this was a blip, I’d hate to see a real problem. At this point, the archangel Michael could appear and Hayes would probably just chalk it up to God being real.
I clenched my fists, but then forced my hands to relax.
Not my problem.
I smiled, though I knew the expression was brittle.
Hayes, who was a master of silence, just stood there.
He’d had decades to build that skill, letting the silence grow until the accused could do nothing but confess in a desperate attempt to fill the void.
God, he had apprehended so many people who littered, throwing their trash out along the highway, and I remembered when he had gotten old man Larry Cutter to admit to stealing a lawnmower. Real CIA level interrogation techniques in action.
But I learned a thing or two over the years, and also knew the value of an oppressive silence and the value of not being the one to break it.
Finally, after what felt like 11,000 hours, but it was really only a minute, maybe less, Hayes nodded.
“Like I said, glad to see you, Asia. Levi, we’ll continue this discussion at a later date.
You folks take care, and don’t go thinking that because things are a little unsteady right now, you can act a fool.
I won’t stand for that. Not in my town.”
Hayes was looking at Jack, but shifted his gaze to me. “Isn’t that right, Asia? You know how we treat lawbreakers and the disorderly here. Or have you forgotten?”
Jack’s grip tightened, his fingers curling into my pants and bunching the fabric in his fist. I knew this Jack. Coiled. Dangerous. He didn’t speak, but the air around us changed.
If Sheriff Hayes took one step closer, I knew what Jack would do.
“Oh, I remember, Sheriff Hayes,” I said quickly, trying to keep things from getting out of hand.
My voice was quiet, something I hoped could be chalked up to what just happened.
Still, there was a pit in my stomach that had nothing to do with the adrenaline that quickly oozed out of my body.
Without thinking, I glanced over Jack, trying to read his expression.
Failing, like always.
It was actually kind of impressive.
All the things that I had seen.
All the things that I had done.
And Hayes could still get to me.
I told myself I was just tired. That his crap didn’t matter.
I’d gotten us to safety.
That was what mattered. Hayes would be gone soon.
I stayed silent, waiting until Hayes finally got enough of his power play.
“You folks take care,” he said.
He punctuated his words with a tip of his hat that made me want to punch his teeth out.
And then he and his trucks and his men were gone.
Jack’s hand was still on me, possessive, impossible to ignore. I should have stepped away, but I didn’t. And this time when I glanced at him, I saw that same consuming look that reminded me he wasn’t done with yet.
I looked away and watched as the trucks rolled down the dirt and gravel driveway kicking up clouds of dust until they were completely gone.
I was glad Hayes was gone, but I didn’t feel the relief I hoped for.
Not when Uncle Levi had yet to speak.
I couldn’t put this off forever, so I shifted and looked at my uncle, who stared back at me intently, though I couldn’t read his expression.
Then, he finally spoke.
“Been a long time, girl. What do you have to say for yourself?”