Chapter 6
Once it’s resolved in my mind that Micah isn’t going to leave right away, I feel better.
That tension inside me relaxes.
I tell him to lie back down, and he complies, groaning in relief when he stretches out again. “Shit,” he mutters. “This is ridiculous.”
“A bullet tore through your side. Why exactly do you find it ridiculous to feel that way?”
“I’m usually tougher than this.” His eyebrows twitch at me, despite his pallor.
“Uh-huh.” I shake my head at him and turn toward the door. “You lie there and be pitiful. I’m going to work in the garden.”
“Okay.”
I’m snickering as I step outside, but hopefully he doesn’t hear.
Molly is thrilled with this new development. She runs circles around the camper, darting inside to check to make sure Micah is indeed still there and then running over to where I’m crouched in the dirt to give my face a quick lick before she bounds off again.
Maybe Molly’s good mood is infectious because I’m oddly excited too. I actually hear myself hum as I work the dirt, getting it ready for the next round of planting next week.
After about an hour, I go inside to check on Micah, and he’s sound asleep on the bed. Worried, I press my palm against his forehead. He’s warm but not unusually hot. He doesn’t have another fever.
Sleeping is good. Probably what he needs. I’m about to turn away when he reaches up abruptly to grab my wrist the way he did the other night.
His body tenses and then relaxes. He doesn’t open his eyes. “Kat.” There’s recognition and something else in the tone.
I gulp and gently retrieve my wrist. “Go back to sleep. I was just checking on you.”
“What time’s’t?”
“It’s not even noon. I’ll wake you up if anything happens.”
“’Kay.”
He’s mostly asleep again. Already. Part of me wants to smile, but I don’t indulge that part of me anymore.
I can’t.
There’s no way to survive out here in the Wild if you’re soft.
I work in the garden until I get hungry. Then I eat some goat cheese on a piece of bread for lunch and decide I’ve done what I could with the garden. Micah is still sleeping, and it doesn’t seem worth waking him up just to eat.
I’m weirdly restless—almost lonely—in a way I never am anymore. I usually take it easy on afternoons like these. I stroll in the cool of the woods or lie around by the creek and read or doze. But I’m too antsy for any of that today, so I decide to wash my hair a day early.
I fill up a basin with rainwater and lean over to soak my hair in it.
Lather up with some scavenged shampoo—it has a mild, pleasant herbal scent to it—and then rinse it out.
I’ve got a tiny bit of conditioner left.
I get a little water in the bottle and shake it up to pull the residue off the sides.
Then I squirt out the liquid and rub it into my wet hair.
My hair is longer than it was before Impact, when I tended to keep it shoulder-length. It’s thick and mostly straight, and it hangs down now to the middle of my back. When I’m done rinsing out the conditioner, I squeeze as much of the water out of it as I can.
I like how clean and smooth it feels.
I only wash it once a week because my supply of shampoo is limited and no one sees me much anyway.
I’m sitting on an old cooler in the sun, combing out my hair and watching Molly chase a beetle, when a voice from the doorway of the camper surprises me. “You said you’d wake me up.”
“I said I’d wake you if anything was happening, and nothing happened.”
He’s got a laid-back, lazy manner, but it’s superficial. His eyes are sharp as they search the clearing and then run up and down my body.
I’m wearing my jeans with a tank top. Plenty of clothes. But it still feels like he sees everything there is to see about me. Not just my body. Me.
It’s very unnerving.
“Well, looks like somethin’ happened. You had lunch and you washed your hair.”
“You didn’t need to be awake for any of that.”
“Maybe I’m hungry.”
I chuckle at his teasingly aggrieved tone. “Fine. Get back in bed and I’ll get you something.”
He steps out of the way to let me into the camper, but he doesn’t head for the bed. He carefully descends the step outside.
I fix him bread and cheese like I ate—adding some ham since he needs to build up energy—and I can hear him talking outside.
He’s having a discussion with Molly about how she’s been keeping busy today. It makes me smile, which I decide is fine because he can’t see it.
I bring his lunch outside and find he’s made a seat out of an overturned wooden crate. Molly is sitting at his feet, gazing up at him adoringly.
“You gotta get a backbone, girl,” I tell her. “Throwing yourself at the first man who comes along never turns out well.”
“Thank you,” he says as he accepts the food I offer him. “Is that what you did?”
“Is what what I did?”
“Throw yourself at the first man who came along?”
“Oh. No. No way.” I think for a moment before I add, “Jesse was nice to me. I hadn’t had a lot of that in my life. But I never threw myself at him. He made all the moves.”
“Is that what you like?” There’s a particular nuance in his tone. In his eyes. “A man who makes the moves?”
“Not anymore. I thought I made it clear I don’t want a man at all now.”
“You did make it clear, but a guy’s gotta have a little hope.”
If his mood hadn’t shifted to teasing, I would have gotten defensive. But because he’s not being serious, I can shake my head at him with a mild eye roll. “A guy needs to use his energy getting better.”
“This guy is tryin’. Didn’t I just sleep the day away?”
“Not the whole day.” I pick up my wide-tooth comb and start pulling it through my hair again—more for something to do than because it’s still tangled.
He leans back against the side of the camper and watches me, evidently content to sit in silence for a while.
Eventually, his warm, admiring gaze starts making me self-conscious again. It seems like he might be pleased if he knew this, so I search for another distraction. “So where are you heading?”
“Where am I heading?”
“Yeah. I mean, I assume you were going somewhere when you ended up here. You said you were going farther in.” I nod toward the deep forest.
“Oh. Yeah, I am. Got some people that way.”
“What people?”
He just looks at me.
“Why won’t you tell me? I’m sure you don’t mean your parents.”
“No. Not them. They’re long gone anyway. But I know some folks. Got no one else now, and I’m not lookin’ to be alone.”
“Okay. Are they expecting you at a certain time? Should we try to send word?”
“Nah. They’re not expectin’ me.” He cocks his head to the side. “How would you send word?”
“Well, there’s no sure way. But I could pass the word on in Cleverly, and anyone traveling in that direction would take a message and pass it on to someone else if they could. I only did it once. To check to see if Jesse really joined up. When word came back that he did, I knew we were over.”
“Is that the only militia group in this area?”
“There used to be another one farther north, but they ran out of supplies and hit the road in a drove. That’s the one some of the others joined up with. Otherwise, there are no big groups around. There’s Logan, of course. But he’s farther in.”
He stares at me, which I take for a silent question.
“He’s organized a bunch of folks—but not into a community. He’s more like a…”
Micah lifts his eyebrows, watching me closely.
“Like a mob boss,” I finally conclude. “His men offer provisions and protection, but it’s not freely given. You take what he offers, and he can call on the debt anytime he wants.”
“So I take it you’ve never received provisions or protection from him?”
“Not a chance. He’s not ruthless like the militia. I’ve not seen him kill just to kill. But he can’t be trusted. And I’m never going to be indebted to anyone. Ever. For anything.”
“Must make it hard on you. Not able to rely on anyone.”
“No point in it. They’ll always let you down.”
“You’re so sure? Everyone?”
“Everyone.”
I have no doubts on this topic, and he must see it on my face. He nods like he understands. “I get it. Just sayin’ it must make it hard for you.”
“Not as hard as putting yourself in someone else’s hands only for them to yank them away.” Tired of exposing myself so completely without anything in return, I ask, “What about you? So you go around trusting everyone you meet?”
“No. I sure as hell don’t. But there are a few folks I’d trust to help if I needed it. And there’s been at least one person who never let me down.”
“Bunny?”
He jerks. “What do you know about her?”
“Nothing. All I know is that you’ve said her name a lot. Mostly when you were delirious. Is she your wife?”
“Nope. Never married.”
“Girlfriend?”
He meets my eyes evenly.
“So I’m supposed to tell you all kinds of stuff about me, and you won’t do the same?”
He sighs and relaxes back against the camper. Closes his eyes briefly. “Bunny was my sister.”
“Is her name really Bunny?”
“No. It’s Burgundy.”
“Burg—”
“I know. I didn’t name her. I was four when she was born, and I never got her name right. So she became Bunny to me, and that’s what she’ll always be.”
“You said she’s not around anymore.”
A chill settles on him, so cold and so sudden it’s unmistakable. “No. She’s gone.”
“I’m sorry.”
He opens his eyes to check my face and must see that I mean it. He softens. “Thanks.”
I want to ask more. It matters to me what happened to his sister—the only person he seems to have loved. But he’s a closed book now. For a generally good-natured person, he can shut down like a steel gate.
I don’t ask him anything else about his sister because I don’t want him to tell me no.