Twelve
Liv
" D o you think we'll run into them again?" I asked Cruz.
The rain had stopped, the sun finally breaking through the heavy cloud cover as we rolled into the tiny town of Harriet. I gazed at our surroundings from the passenger seat, taking in the drenched streets and rundown buildings. Mass culling a group of the infected had sapped all my energy, and I desperately wanted to get changed; my blood-spattered clothes were plastered to me and stinking up the car.
“Depends how far they had to backtrack to lead the corpses away.” Cruz drove at a crawl down the main street, paying attention to each business as we passed.
I shoved my damp ponytail over my shoulder and searched for signs of the dead. The horde must have gathered all the strays on the way through town, because the previous population of five hundred looked like it had dropped to zero.
It took us almost an hour to get Dawn's car out of the mud using Cruz's idea of broken branches under the tyres for traction, then we used it to jumpstart ours. Luring the horde away meant the man and his companion would have needed to move on to the next exit if they wanted to circle back and catch up with us. I wasn't sure how off course a detour like that would take them, but I figured we should have seen them by now.
There used to be heroes and good Samaritans pre-pandemic—I remembered seeing plenty of them in action during the worst of the virus, too—but I'd always been certain those days were behind us. It made me feel hopeful seeing kindness again, and the thought that we might run into them kept my tiredness at bay.
I glanced in the side mirror to check on Dawn and Jonah, then shifted my attention to the ghost town. A dilapidated general store tripled as a post office and takeaway pizza place. There was a police station, an obligatory country pub on the corner, and a hair salon called Cheryl’s Cuts.
Cruz took a left onto a residential road, and we passed a tiny primary school before we reached the houses.
I shifted in my seat to ease the discomfort of my wet clothes and paid attention to every property. We drove by one unsuitable place after another. The houses on both sides of the street had the usual neglected gardens, some with shabby front fences, others with smashed windows or entry doors that had been kicked in. It took mere seconds to determine there was nothing for us here. Every place looked as if it had been abandoned right at the beginning of the pandemic, not one of them secure enough for us to stay the night.
"This isn't going as well as I hoped," I said, wondering how many streets we'd need to cruise down before we decided Harriet wasn’t going to work. "I've never seen an entire town look so lifeless."
"We might need to move on to the next stop. I'll try a couple more streets first." Cruz slowed the car as we came to a t-intersection. He flicked a glance at the rearview mirror as if to check on Dawn, then tension flooded the car, and his body switched to high-alert mode. “They’re here.”
Two words had my limbs tensing and my stomach filling with butterflies. “The people who helped?”
"Yeah." Cruz pulled over before he reached the intersection, and I swivelled around as far as my seatbelt would allow. Dawn came to a stop at the curb, and the red SUV eased in behind her, the bright, happy colour a stark contrast to the anxious thoughts suddenly swirling through my mind.
My heart jumped to my throat, and I swallowed, reminding myself not to assume the best just because they’d done one decent thing.
In the past twenty-four hours, people had tried to hurt us on three different occasions. The day before that, we were hunted and cornered in Melbourne. The memories were still so fresh, my aching muscles testament to the stress my body had been put through.
I didn't want to be too pessimistic about whoever occupied the vehicle. They’d saved us from a risky situation we'd still be dealing with now if they hadn't distracted the infected. It had to mean good things.
No one would go to the effort of helping us only to come back and harm us later.
Unless they were out gathering women.
As I unfastened the clip on my seatbelt, Cruz's hand engulfed mine and halted the movement. “Stay close to me, carino ," he said, looking into my eyes. "We don’t know how many of them are in the car or what their intentions are.”
The memories were still fresh for him, too. "I'll be careful."
We opened our doors and met up again on the footpath, standing outside a house with a broken window and a faded curtain flapping in the breeze. The wind against my damp clothes made me shiver, but I wouldn't wrap my arms around myself to show even a hint of weakness to strangers.
Dawn and Jonah joined us, and together we presented a united front.
“Strangers intimidate me,” she said, holding her hair back from her face.
"That's good." I gave her a quick smile as my heart raced. "It means you'll pay close attention to everything they say and do. Stay ready and don’t be afraid to use your knife."
As two men exited the SUV and came our way, a queasy feeling of anticipation filled my stomach. I wondered if the rear doors were going to open and more people would come tumbling out, but it remained just the two of them.
They were both lean with dark skin and black hair, aged somewhere in their late twenties if I had to guess. One of them had short dreads and wore camo pants with a charcoal tank. The other was dressed in a grey t-shirt with baggy cargo shorts, his hair cut close to the scalp. They both had graceful gaits, the smooth confidence of young men.
Neither of them shied away from eye contact as they approached, and their hands remained in full view. They carried weapons on their belts, but didn't feel the need to hold onto them. I waited for a vague sense of unease to come over me, for someone's gaze to linger a beat too long on certain parts of my body just as members of Jackson's crew had done, but nothing happened.No alarm bells went off, and although I'd never allow myself to relax completely, I was already less on edge than I had been when they first showed up.
Cruz stepped forward and positioned himself slightly in front of me, holding out his hand in greeting. "Appreciate the help back there," he said, his voice deep and direct. "You saved our asses."
The man in camo pants shook his hand first, and now I could get a closer look at them, I lowered my age estimation to early twenties at most, more like Jonah. “Not a problem," he said. "Glad we could help.”
“I’m Liv.” I smiled at the man in shorts. “Thanks for your help. I wasn't sure how much longer we could keep going there.”
“No worries. I’m Gabe.” He smiled. “This is my twin brother, Remy.”
As Cruz took over and made the remaining introductions, I eyed off their weapons. Gabe was equipped with a standard hammer and a knife so big it looked more like a small machete. Remy had a screwdriver with the longest handle I'd ever seen—perfect for piercing the brain—and a hatchet just like Cruz's tucked into the other side of his belt.
We'd only just met, but while Cruz asked some basic questions to get a feel for them, I couldn't stop picturing us as a group. Travelling together, protecting one another. Part of me was so desperate to belong to a community that I began mentally making that adjustment the second we met people who were nice to us.
I shook off the distracting thoughts and tuned into the conversation, so I wouldn’t miss anything.
"We left Adelaide about two months ago," Gabe said, in answer to a question I hadn't heard, “after our mum died.”
"There were seven in our family,” Remy added. “But it was down to just the three of us. We’re pretty sure she had a heart attack."
Dawn pressed her lips together and glanced away. Their mum would have died around the same time that Dawn lost her husband. More young people left behind without the people they needed the most—exactly what she feared happening to her son. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking from one to the other.
Gabe shrugged, but it was more a gesture of acceptance than one of not caring. "All you can do is deal with whatever shit comes at you, right?"
"Where were you going before you saw us?" Jonah asked.
"We’re low on fuel. We were stopping here to see what’s around.”
When it came to cars, Remy explained that they were using the same method as Cruz, switching vehicles every couple of days. The time would come when that wouldn’t be an option for any of us, and I hoped we could be settled in our permanent home before it happened.
“What about food?” I asked. “Do you have any supplies?”
“Not much.” Gabe glanced over his shoulder at the SUV."We usually just scavenge as we go."
They'd appreciate the fresh fruits and vegetables we were carrying, and it would be a practical way to thank them for luring the dead away and basically saving our lives. While I was stabbing the infected from my precarious position in the sunroof, there were several times I had to shut down thoughts that I might not survive. The smells, the sounds, the pounding rain… it was tough to keep a positive mindset until Remy and Gabe came along.
“Why don’t we find a place to stow our cars and stay out of sight while we chat?" Cruz suggested.
Remy took in the houses on both sides of the street, turning around to get the full experience.When he'd seen enough, he faced us again, and his expression told me he liked our options about as much as I did. "Sounds good, but not here."
Cruz gazed into the distance. We needed somewhere big enough to house six people and hide three cars, a place where we could spread out and not have to worry about being seen by anyone who happened to be passing through town.
Farmland made up the entire area surrounding Harriet, so our best bet would be to temporarily set up in a property far from the main street, one that could only be reached by car. If anyone showed up throughout the night, we’d see their headlights or hear their engines—and no one would attempt walking somewhere that isolated in the dark. “Should we go for a drive and see what we can find?”I asked.
Everyone was on board with the idea, but with no way of communicating between our vehicles once we were driving, we agreed to travel as a convoy rather than scouting separately. Cruz and I returned to our car while the others did the same.
I shivered as my damp clothes pressed against the leather seat.
"Are you doing okay?" he asked as we shut our doors.
"Just cold and wet." I fastened my seatbelt and tugged the neckline of my t-shirt to loosen its hold on me. "I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but I already feel comfortable around them. It has to be a good sign."
"Guess we'll know more soon enough." He pulled the keys from his pocket. "Let's see if this thing starts." After freeing Dawn's car from the mud, it had taken a while to get ours going again.
Cruz tried the ignition, and the engine turned over on the first go.
I smiled. “Woo.”
We circled a block of houses in the same condition as the street we originally came down, then travelled back to the main street with the others keeping close behind. As we led the convoy away from town, Cruz took the first right onto a straight gravel road that appeared to go on forever.
Paddocks and paddocks of brown grass stretched as far as the eye could see, with swaying eucalyptus trees lining the road. The rain had left puddles in the deep ruts along the edges of the gravel, and droplets fell from the overhead branches, dotting the windshield.
Our car was a mess after being slimed by the infected, and when Cruz turned the wipers on, dirt and grime spread across the glass. "Not my best idea," he said, squirting the window with wiper fluid to clear the view.
I smiled and half-turned in my seat to look behind me. Dawn and Jonah were next in line, with the twins bringing up the rear. My gaze lowered to the road between our cars, my brows pulling together as I took in the fresh tracks we were leaving in the gravel. I hoped that little detail wouldn’t come back to bite us. If anyone stumbled onto our tyre marks, being away from the main roads wouldn’t do a thing to keep us safe.
I faced the front again just in time to see an open farm gate on the left, partially hidden between a cluster of overgrown bushes.A rusty letterbox sat on top of a weathered post, and the fence at the entrance looked like it was one strong breeze away from falling to pieces.
"There," I said, hoping the house was in better condition. "If someone was living here, they would have closed the gate." Cruz swung into the driveway, dodging potholes as we approached a white farmhouse peeking through a thick cover of trees. I threw another look over my shoulder at the rest of the group to make sure they were following. “Or maybe they're still here and using a reverse psychology tactic to make us think there’s no one around,” I said, immediately contradicting myself.
Cruz smiled, holding my gaze just long enough to have my heart thumping faster.
“What?” I laughed, thrilled and uncomfortable at the same time.
“You’re cute.”
With my wet hair and the sludge from the infected seeping into my clothes, I didn't feel cute. I had a suspicion I could never scrub myself enough to smell clean again. It was so gross.
My face flamed with heat, and I looked out the side window while I tried to understand his effect on me. Whenever I sent flirty comments in Cruz’s direction, I was in control and borderline confident. If he used them on me —especially in that deep, gravelly voice of his—I reverted to an innocent teenager who could barely make herself talk to boys.
“We’re here,” he said, his tone laced with humour. “So, you’re off the hook.”
“Thank God.”
Cruz smiled and shifted his attention to our surroundings.
We pulled up in front of a rambling house that had seen better days, but its charming, worn-in appearance made me feel like I would have been welcome here back in the day. Massive sheds with open fronts were located off to one side, the smaller of the two stacked to the roof with dark, rotting hay bales, while the other housed several pieces of oversized farm machinery. The grass around the property was sparse and straw-like, with a carpet of dead leaves surrounding the trunks of gum trees that towered over the house—too close for my liking.
There were eight or so of the infected scattered across the entire area, an easy number for a group of our size to handle.
Cruz and I jumped out as the other vehicles pulled up, parking in a row beside us. As we drew our weapons and gathered near the open front door, Cruz scanned each face to make sure he had our attention. “Let's sweep the property in pairs and clear the corpses. If anything looks out of place, call for help. Dawn, stick close to Jonah while he checks the sheds. Remy and Gabe can take care of the house, and Liv and I will do a general walk around. All good?”
The twins merely nodded in agreement, making the situation straightforward and easier to manage.
We each took off to tackle our assigned tasks, and Cruz fell into step beside me. The ground was soft beneath our boots, and we maintained an easy pace as we kept watch on our surroundings. “So, one night here and we’re off in the morning?” I asked, making sure we were on the same page. I hoped to get moving early and close the remaining distance between us and what I’d come to romanticise as Utopia. If we were lucky, we could get there tomorrow.
After everything we’d been through, the thought blew my mind.
We stopped to use our weapons on two of the infected, then continued walking. He glanced over the top of my head toward a dense row of shrubs. “Providing we have an uneventful night, and our cars start in the morning.” He grabbed a dead man by the shirtfront and put his knife through its eye, releasing the body as it collapsed.
The reliability of our vehicles was always the biggest question mark. From what I'd seen in the town centre, there were no viable options for a replacement, so we'd have to wait until the next populated area to find something suitable.
Two of the dead were coming at us from different directions—a bulky man and a petite woman, both elderly and dressed in weathered clothing suited to outdoor work. “I’ll take the small one,” I said.
They weren't as decomposed as the majority of the infected I came across, and I wondered if they were the recently deceased owners of the house. With my fingers tightening around the handle of my sword, I strode over to the woman and took her out with a single blow to the head, uttering a silent apology as she dropped on the ground.
My arm still ached from the activity with the horde, and as I turned to face Cruz, I rolled my shoulder to loosen the muscles.
He’d already ended the man, and when he caught sight of me, his brow creased. “You’re injured.”
“I’m fine.” In the distance, Jonah wandered out from the smaller shed and headed for the remaining three infected that were loitering closer to his location than ours. Dawn trailed behind him a safe distance away, giving me a thumbs-up when she spotted me. I waved in return.
Cruz spared them a glance, apparently confident in Jonah’s ability to handle the group on his own. He came over to me, stowed his hatchet, and reached for my hand to tug me closer. When his warm fingers slid beneath the sleeve of my t-shirt, I shivered and kept my eyes on his chest. “You’re allowed to show that you’re hurt,” he said. "You don't need to pretend for my sake."
His hands worked my shoulder, manipulating my muscles until I wanted to moan and lean against him. Instead, I closed my eyes and focused on his touch. “I’m not hiding it for that reason. It’s a survival tactic. If I can trick myself into thinking I’m okay, I’ll be able to make it through the rest of the day without falling apart.”
Cruz pressed his thumb into a spot at the front of my shoulder, and I couldn’t keep my groan contained this time around. His hands were so strong, his fingers somehow finding every place that needed attention. When I opened my eyes, he gave me a small smile and held my gaze. “It’s all right to fall apart, too,” he said. “I’ll be there to catch you . Every time.”
His words had my heart wanting to burst free of its cage, and my pulse thrummed in my neck. Was it possible to love someone this soon—real, deep love, and not just surface infatuation or lust? The two of us were intertwined, and I'd never felt this close to a man. I wanted to be near him, always, and no amount of time could ever be too much.
"All clear over here!" Jonah yelled. “There’s a river over the fence if you want to clean up.”
Cruz gave me the ghost of a smile and lifted his hand in the air to indicate he'd heard Jonah. "Better regroup," he said to me.
There were more jobs to do. There was always work to do when you lived on the road and every stop you made was temporary, but before I lost myself in the next task, I planted my feet and lifted my chin. "Kiss me first."
Cruz didn't look around to see if we were being watched or hesitate to meet a request that had honestly come out sounding more like a demand. He just slipped his hands around the back of my neck and lowered his mouth to mine in one fluid move. I sighed as we connected, and my fingers curled over his belt buckle to keep him close. His lips were soft and warm, and he kissed me with the patience of a man who had all the time in the world to spend with me. Cherishing me. Holding me. My stomach fluttered as I kissed him back and melted against him.
A long minute later, he pulled away and clasped my face. "Happy?"
My first impulse was to grab his shirt and drag him straight back to me, but I somehow contained the urge. "One more, and I will be."
Cruz rubbed his thumb over my bottom lip and smiled. He planted a smacking kiss on my mouth, walking me backward in the direction of the house. "Come on. Let's go get cleaned up. You smell like death."
And so our tender moment came to an end. With a smile, I turned and strolled beside him, happier than I’d been in a long time. “Just so you know, that’s not the best way to woo a lady.”
He threw an arm around my shoulder and pulled me close, more playful than I’d seen him. “I know all the ways to woo. I could speak to you in Spanish, and you wouldn’t understand a single word, but I’d still woo the hell out of you.”
I believed him.
If being around others helped Cruz let his guard down and show this fun side that usually stayed hidden out of necessity, I couldn’t wait to see what other aspects of his personality made an appearance over the coming days and weeks.
We headed for the pile of backpacks that someone had stacked beside the rear door. I grabbed mine and slung it over my good shoulder, ready to change out of my horrendous clothes.
Once I was smelling and feeling more like myself again, I hoped it would leave me better equipped to tackle the remainder of the day… and this fast-growing, out of control attraction to a man who'd taken over my entire world.