Chapter 4
Trauma Response
Allie
“There’s a cistern nearby that handles the water needs for the bunker,” Allie said as she handed Cam a change of clean clothes.
“Towels are in the little cabinet above the toilet. And there’s shampoo and soap—nothing fancy.
I use a two-in-one shampoo and conditioner to save time and hot water.
It’s not scented. Well, you know, it’s shampoo scented. I hope that’s okay.”
He smiled and took the bundle of cloth. “It’ll be great. Thanks. Again.” He looked at the door to the bathroom then back at her.
Way to go, Al. You’ve babbled the guy into confusion. “So yeah,” she blurted, gesturing in the direction of the door. “Go ahead. Enjoy. Sorry I was... talking.”
Cam chuckled. “Don’t apologize. But I think I’ll make better company when I’m cleaner.” He made a rueful face. “And smell better.”
Multiple embarrassing ways to respond popped into her head.
You’re great company right now. A little grime never bothered me.
I don’t mind that you’re dirty. I like your smell.
She managed to suppress them all. Instead, she took a breath, pulled her shoulders back, and announced, “I hope you enjoy the shower,” in a tone that sounded like she’d just scanned his ticket at a theater. Oh, balls.
Fortunately, he only nodded, still with that trace of a smile on his face. She marched back toward the kitchen.
When she heard the bathroom door close, she slumped against the nearest wall. Breathe, Allie. You haven’t survived all this awful shit only to die of embarrassment because of some guy.
Some guy that Morrigan specifically sent her to save. Some guy with a sweet, crooked smile and a tough, competent, rangy body. And strong hands. Some guy who believed her when she’d told him about her dreams, unlike the last living person she’d been close to.
Allie clenched her fists, her short nails digging into her palms. When was the last time she’d thought about Brandon?
She swallowed the sudden bitter taste in her mouth but couldn’t block out the memory—Brandon, shaking his head regretfully, one hand stretched above him, holding the trunk of the abandoned Cadillac open while she wept, aching and terrified, arms and legs tied, inside the musty metal-and-dirt interior of the trunk.
“I can’t haul around deadweight forever,” he’d said. Then the trunk lid had come down. Click.
With a jolt, Allie’s chest reinflated, and she pulled herself upright again.
“Brandon was wrong,” she told herself, voice shaking, nearly soundless. Try again, Al. “Brandon. Was. Wrong.” Better.
She felt Morrigan humming in the back of her head, a not-unpleasant sensation. For the past year, it had meant she wasn’t alone. Not delusional.
“Brandon,” she said on a gusting sigh, “was fucking wrong.”
He’s likely dead by now, Morrigan purred.
Allie shivered. When Morrigan spoke directly to her, Allie often felt like a child being spoken to by a rather frightening but trusted authority figure, which was close enough to the truth.
Still, Morrigan didn’t usually weigh in on Allie’s emotional crises, unless those crises significantly impeded Her guidance. There were no casual chats or reassurances. She wasn’t exactly a “you can do it, kid!” type of goddess.
Allie sighed and went to the sink to give her face a quick scrub. She didn’t need a shower, but she wanted to wash the more stressful parts of the day away. The water revived her a bit, brought her back to herself, and she went to her bedroom to change into comfy clothes.
As she did so, she mulled over the thought of Brandon being dead.
Vindictive satisfaction settled into Allie’s stomach like a chunk of lead, heavy and poisonous.
If he’d stayed with her, if he’d believed her instead of siding with the others in their group, he could have found the bunker with her.
He would have been with her through this long, lonely year.
Only Brandon hadn’t believed her. So he was likely rotting, whether horizontally or vertically.
Did she really wish that on him? She had loved him once, maybe. He’d been a good boyfriend before... well, before he...
Shoved you in a trunk and left you for dead. Morrigan sounded impatient.
Ouch. But true.
Her pragmatic self, firmly Team Morrigan, rolled its eyes.
You don’t have to give Brandon the benefit of the doubt.
You don’t have to be fair. You don’t have to try to understand his side.
Brandon was wrong. And he did everything but directly try to kill you in some twisted bid to prove something.
If he’s dead, you don’t have to feel bad.
Allie’s conscience gritted its teeth and insisted, But I don’t have to feel good about it.
She burrowed her fingers into her hair, pulled out her hair tie, and rubbed her scalp. The mindless task soothed her frayed nerves somewhat.
Morrigan was no longer humming, but Allie could still feel Her in the back of her consciousness. Likely dead, She’d said.
“Wait. You don’t know that he’s dead?” Allie asked. She’d long since lost any compunctions about talking to Morrigan openly around the bunker.
Why expend energy on the useless?
A cheerful thought. “I guess I’ll be glad to be useful, then,” Allie muttered.
Morrigan’s humming faded until Allie was alone in her head again. But she wasn’t alone in the bunker anymore.
She looked back down the hallway, toward where Cam was hopefully enjoying his shower, as Momentarily All-Business Allie had bidden him.
Maybe he’d like something warm to drink afterward, if he didn’t want to immediately collapse.
She needed to check the second bedroom to make sure the sheets were still good.
There hadn’t been much reason to spend time in there before.
As she set off down the hall, Allie couldn’t help but wonder what “use” Morrigan had planned for Cam.
Cam
Heaven was warm, soapy water on aching, filthy skin. He’d always wondered, but now he knew for sure.
Bumping his elbows every time he raised his arms more than a few inches wasn’t ideal.
The bunker’s shower stall was built for efficiency, not luxury, and Cam was tall enough to feel cramped.
Even so, he lingered, despite having planned to clean himself quickly in order to get back out and start learning the bunker’s secrets.
If Allie was trying to keep any secrets about the bunker, she’d wind up blurting them out in under five minutes if he let her keep talking.
He grinned, not minding when mildly soapy water slid into his open mouth. He bet she talked to herself. A lot.
But then, she’d have had to. He sobered when he remembered the way her warm-chocolate eyes had gone distant when she’d confessed that it had been a year since she’d talked to anyone else.
What a mindfuck that must have been, especially with the dreams on top of it.
They were hard enough for Key to deal with, and she had Odette by her side twenty-four seven.
His angel had no one. He couldn’t imagine.
He’d been lucky, though. In the eighteen months since zombies had taken over the world, he’d always had his family. Until he’d left them on a fool’s errand.
They were living through an apocalypse, so Cam should have been used to people dying by now, but Laurel’s death still shocked him. Christ, she was supposed to have at least been safe in that bullshit settlement of cultists.
“It’s not a cult,” Laurel had insisted the last time he’d seen her alive, her normally expressive face still as stone. “It’s just a settlement like any other.”
Sure. A settlement with a name like Mother’s Hands, where no one but the leaders were allowed to interact with people from outside the compound, run by a woman who called herself Sister Pax and dressed like a nun.
He braced one hand against the slick plastic wall of the shower and took the St. Christopher medallion in the other.
He never took it off, not since he’d received it from the solemn-faced cultist in a black dress who’d brought it out to where he’d camped outside the walls of Mother’s Hands, waiting for Laurel to come to her senses and come back to him.
Instead, she had died. Badass, ever-vigilant Laurel was gone, the woman who’d loved nothing more than to fight or to fuck, preferably in that order and with about as much emotion involved in each.
Damn. That was a too-bitter thought. Laurel had made him no promises. It wasn’t her fault that he’d wanted to make promises to her or that he’d been more invested in their relationship. He’d loved Laurel, as much as she would let him. But the medallion around his neck was all that was left of her.
Aching with grief and regret, he’d left that place.
He’d tried to head back to his group’s territory, to what he supposed was his home.
But storms had hit, and he’d ended up so far off course that he still wasn’t entirely sure where he was.
Days ago—or maybe a week; the days all blurred together—he’d blundered into the tail end, or maybe the front end, of that goddamned horde.
It didn’t matter which because the whole thing had come for him the instant they’d realized he was there.
His newly cleaned muscles ached with the aftereffects of the constant movement of trying to get out of the horde’s path, even though he knew he was delaying the inevitable. The horde was so large, so wide-ranging, there was no way out of its path, not without a vehicle.
Or an angel.
Cam sighed and reluctantly turned off the water. It hadn’t yet begun to run cold, but he wasn’t going to use it all in case Allie wanted to shower too. As he stepped out, he imagined her naked in there, the same soap and water gliding over her skin.
Stop, dude.