Chapter 4
There are three different housing complexes called the Oak Grove Condominiums, lining up on one side of Grove Avenue until it meets Oak Street.
Ours is the middle one, parked in the center of the street.
Even in the before days, you can get nearly anywhere if you follow Grove through Madison, and since we formed our community, there’s always someone out on the sidewalk.
Today is no different. For a second, I’m afraid that one of the other survivors will see me and tell me to go back home, but that was a pointless worry.
Multiple groups are traveling down Grove, heading toward Madison High.
Eddie was right. He had his guys round up the rest of the community, and now, more than ever, I’m pretty fucking sure this sudden meet has shit to do with border patrol.
It’s grown hotter out. Still not humid, but the sun’s a scorcher.
I’m already baking under Rory’s jacket, but I refuse to take it off.
Sure, it makes it easy for anyone to spot the scowling blonde in the crowd and know it’s Alexandra Holden, but between showing off my burn or feeling like I have my older brother with me, it’s a no-brainer.
Still, as I follow a trio of school-aged kids toward the intersection of Oak and Grove, I shove up the worn leather sleeves if only for a little bit of relief.
I recognize Mrs. Baker’s eldest child in front of me, a girl of about nine or ten named Annabelle.
It must be something really important, I think, if the call for this meeting includes even the youngest members of the Grave.
That makes my pulse pound a little, my head throbbing as a familiar stress headache starts brewing. What the fuck, Jack? Sure, he’s my dad, but he’s also in charge of the Grave. Excluding me is just wrong, and I’ll make sure he knows it after the meeting.
In order to get to the local high school, you can cross over Oak, continue down Grove, then turn into the school’s long driveway.
But if you’re walking—and we all walk in a bid to save the remaining gasoline lingering in the pumps of the only gas station in the Grave—you can take this hidden path that cuts nearly a quarter-mile off the trip.
Even if it wasn’t a shortcut, I’d still go that way because it means that I won’t have to pass the Knights family home—
“Hey! Hey, Ha—Xandra! Holden! Over here.”
Fuuuuuuck.
My heart skips a beat at the sudden sound of my name rising up above the hum of the other walkers the same time as my stomach drops. My name, and because of the familiar voice that called it.
I can’t help it. I glance up, tracking the echo, watching him come jogging out from the shortcut on this side of the path.
And there he is. Chase Knight.
There’s something about him that reminds me of the sun. Bright and warm, I’m drawn to him whenever he’s near, like a sunflower always tilting its face skyward. But I can’t stare at him for too long before my eyes start to tear and I’m burning up from the inside out.
Chase is more than a head taller than me so that it’s like I’m always looking up at him. Though he spends most of his time on patrol late at night and early in the morning, he’s still no stranger to the outdoors. His healthy, glowing tan is proof of that.
He wears his sandy-colored hair short on the sides, long in front, and it’s impossible not to see how vibrant and alive he is when you get a glimpse of his baby blue eyes and his dazzling white smile.
Though it’s been years since we graduated from Madison High, he hasn’t lost his lean, muscular quarterback build.
Constant boundary checks and lurker patrols have a way of keeping us all in excellent shape.
I never really thought of him as anything other than Hallie’s boyfriend for so damn long that it came as a huge shock to me when, two cups into that whiskey, it hit me just how attractive he is.
I blame my mistake on the booze, but I wouldn’t have slept with Chase if I didn’t feel some kind of pull toward him.
Sometimes, when he surprises me or when I least expect him, I still feel it.
I’m hot for my dead twin’s fiancé, and if that isn’t a reason to keep my distance, I don’t know what is.
It sucks. It really fucking sucks. Especially since there’s so much of the accident, plus its horrifying aftermath, that I don’t remember.
Like, how did I survive the blast? Who found me and pulled me from the flames?
How did I get to St. Matthew’s with scrapes on my skin, that fresh burn on my arm, and smoke in my lungs?
Was Hallie’s final word really my name before she died?
Chase, though… Chase always at my side in the church, Chase yelling at me, crying with me, begging me to give him his Hallie back… I can’t forget that.
Stupid, Xandra. Fucking stupid. I was so worried about going by his house and seeing him when, if he knew me at all, he’d have to guess I’d take this path to get to Madison High… and, whether Jack hid this meeting from me or not, Chase would bet on me showing up anyway.
He’s right.
I don’t want to be a coward. No way in hell can I pretend not to see him, and turning tail to head back to Oak Grove just means that Jack wins. I’ll miss the meeting.
Suck it up, buttercup. It’s just the last guy you had sex with.
If I avoided everyone that Alexandra Holden banged in town, there are at least three other survivors in the Grave I’d have to duck.
True, I haven’t seen any of them since the accident, but I’d smile and nod and pretend like I didn’t know what their dick size was.
Or that, when I try to remember what it was like fucking anyone but Chase, it’s as big a blank in my mind as the accident itself…
I shake my head, shoving my loose hair out of my face. “Chase. How are you?”
He’s there. Right there. Lost in my thoughts, he closed the gap between us, digging the tip of his shoe into the yellowed grass on the edge of the path when he stops short.
Aware he has my attention, he sticks his hands in the pockets of his jeans, casually leaning on his heels. The sun catches his hair, making the longish front strands seem blonder than usual.
As calm and casual as he appears, I notice a strange gleam in his pretty blue eyes. It’s a hunger, a desire, a need to look at me as though he’s trying to will Hallie into my place.
Everyone looks at Chase and sees a good guy.
Not me. Sometimes, when I can’t keep my eyes off of him, I catch a hint of darkness he refuses to hide from me.
It’s almost as obvious as his barely restrained need, as though I’m looking at a boyishly handsome man and seeing a feral dog trapped by a chain.
I swallow back the uneasy feeling—so different from the attraction—that being around Chase gives me. I’ve stopped wondering if it’s regret or remorse or something else entirely. I just know I don’t like it.
He gives his head a little shake of his own, like he’s realizing that he’s doing it again, watching me with that intense way he has.
A small chuckle escapes him, an attempt to diffuse the awkwardness and lull me into false sense of security instead of the wariness I feel when I’m around him. “Can’t complain. You?”
I shrug.
He leans forward, inching closer. “You know, it’s really good to see you.”
I take a step back. “Okay.”
Undeterred by my short answer, Chase tries again. “I’ve been stopping by after my patrols to say ‘hi’, but seems like my timing’s never right. Jack always tells me you’re sleeping.”
I don’t say anything to that. There’s no accusation in his tone, only earnestness; he seems to genuinely believe that it’s coincidence that he’s missed seeing me these last few weeks.
The truth is that I’m never sleeping when Chase knocks at the door, but when Jack cuts the power and I lie there with a blanket over my head until it comes back on, I can pretend.
A wrinkle creases his brow, his handsome features going taut.
The dog on a chain comparison is a good one.
I used to tease Hallie that Chase was like her very own puppy.
Eager to please and forever there, forever following her at her heels, there’s something very golden retriever about him when he’s covering up that dark edge that also made him a formidable wrestler during our high school days.
Now? Putting up a wall, shielding him from getting any closer to me… I get the impression he’s sitting there with his tail drooping in despair while his jaw works, not sure if he wants to whine or let out the beginning of a warning growl.
He watches me closely, gaze roving over my face. A muscle tics in his jaw as he leans forward, like he wants to touch me, but knows that he might lose a finger if he tries.
Instead, he falls back on his heels.
“Hey,” Chase says again. “Everything okay?”
Fuck me. I thought he got the hint, but I was way wrong. Before I can react, he reaches out, rubbing the edge of his thumb possessively along the height of my cheek.
Forget taking a step away from him. My skin scalding where his brushed mine, I shove his hand away and just about leap back.
Don’t touch me, Chase. Just don’t.
As though he heard the scream inside my head, he frowns, but he keeps his goddamn hands to himself as he grates out: “Xandra?”
You know what? I should be grateful he knows my name. Glad he uses it. Not my twin’s, not my childhood nickname, but the reminder of who I am… I need that.
Lately, he’s had this habit of calling me Holden as though he knows he won’t be able to fuck up and accidentally use my twin’s name. So when he does say Xandra… I do need that.
But I definitely don’t need the pleading… the hunger… in his pretty blue eyes as his lips part again.
I swallow roughly. “I’m fine,” I lie.