Chapter 13
KNOX
I 'm in a lot of fucking pain, but I refuse to let Beth know how bad it hurts. And it hurts like a son of a bitch. The guilt I saw in her eyes when she was packing the wound was enough to almost break me. "This isn't your fault," I say, my voice gruff and rough.
She’s got her fingers tight around the wheel, almost as if she thinks the harder she grips the wheel the easier the drive will be for me.
"I shouldn't have gone as far as I did from camp," she argues. "I had a lot on my mind, and I let it distract me. That was lesson number one when Eruption happened and I stupidly let my guard down."
"We all do it from time to time."
"You don't." She looks over at me from behind the steering wheel.
"I do," I correct her. "I just didn't do it this morning because I was focused on you." The admission costs me a lot, but she deserves the honesty.
She glances over at me again, quick, before her eyes go back to the road.
Neither of us picks at that thread though.
No sense in getting into an argument when we can't walk away if we need to.
A few miles pass in silence, and I can feel my body getting heavier, the pain dulling my focus in a way that makes me uneasy. I need to stay sharp.
"Talk to me," she says suddenly, like she can sense me slipping away. "About anything. Just keep talking."
I shift in the seat, trying to find a position that doesn't pull at the wound, and fail. "What do you want me to talk about?" My voice is broken, and my breathing is anything but even.
"Anything." Her voice is soft but firm, and encouraging. "Whatever comes to mind."
I let out a slow breath, staring out at the road ahead of us, and what comes to mind surprises even me.
"First time I ever really saw you was your freshman year of high school," I say, thinking back to that day.
"You'd always been there. I mean you grew up in Bishop's Landing same as me, but I'd never paid attention the way I did that day.
You were walking down the main hallway, and you had this laugh, it was loud and you didn't care what anyone else thought.
Every single person in that hallway turned to look at you, and you didn't care even a little bit.
" I hear her breath catch. "I remember thinking I'd never seen anyone so comfortable just being exactly who they were.
That wasn't anything like I was. Although I played football and people loved me, I never felt like I could be who I was. I envied you then."
The silence that follows isn't tense. It's a realization that maybe our pasts are more connected than we thought.
"You never said anything," she finally says quietly. “It wasn’t like we spoke a lot, but we talked a few times.”
"I was a teenager," I remind her. "You were younger than me. And you were so far out of my league I didn't even know where to start. So much smarter than I ever hoped to be, and it intimidated me."
"I probably would've given you a shot, had I known."
A chuckle works it's way out of my chest. "Believe it or not, that scared me more than you never giving me one at all."
She glances over at me, laughing loudly. "Knox, that makes absolutely no goddamn sense."
Shaking my head, I lick my dry lips. "The mind of a teenager. It's a crazy place to be."
We fall into a comfortable silence after that. We don't have to chatter about shit that doesn't matter just to fill the silence. It's one of the things that let me know it was the end of my marriage with Maple. We couldn't sit in silence anymore.
I can with Beth, though, and that means more than I want to give it credit for.
Beth keeps her eyes on the road and I keep myself awake by watching the landscape change around us.
The further south we get, the more destruction I'm starting to see.
Nashville was damaged badly in the aftermath of Eruption.
We pass strip malls with blown-out windows and parking lots full of abandoned cars left wherever their drivers stopped caring.
A gas station with a hand-painted warning on the brick in red letters that scares me with what it warns about end times.
An overpass where someone has strung up a line of wind chimes made from old silverware and broken glass, turning slowly in the morning breeze, the sound of it trailing behind us.
Downtown proper is even worse. The skyline I've seen pictures of from before Eruption is still recognizable, but just barely.
Several buildings have taken damage. It looks like fire, mostly, judging by the scorched upper floors.
The streets around us are a far cry from the Formula One races that used to be run here.
Now it's a graveyard of vehicles and debris that Beth has to navigate around carefully.
Vines have started taking over the lower floors of the taller buildings, nature already moving to reclaim what people abandoned.
A flock of birds scatters from a rooftop as we pass, the sound of their wings loud in the silence.
Whatever Nashville was, it's something completely different now.
Something hollowed out and waiting to be filled back up by whoever is brave enough to try.
This is the perfect place to try and habitat again.
It just depends on the people who are willing to give it a shot.
"There," Beth says softly, pointing in front of us.
I follow her line of sight as we approach the famous Korean War Veterans Memorial Bridge, and that's when I see it. On the far bank of the Cumberland, tucked in along the riverfront near where the Ascend Amphitheater was, something is being built.
Real structures too, not just a cluster of tents or a temporary camp.
They are rough but they're taking shape, and what looks like a perimeter wall in progress.
Smoke rises from at least two different points inside it steadily.
Like they're a couple of cooking fires rather than ones that will cause destruction.
Even from here I can see movement, people who seem to be performing jobs.
My chest tightens with an emotion I haven't let myself feel in a long time.
Hope is an uncomfortable thing when you've gone without it long enough.
Beth eases the Jeep across the bridge slowly, and I straighten in my seat despite the protest from my side.
The bridge holds, solid beneath us, and as we reach the far end I can see that someone has built a gate across the road.
This isn't crude. It's made of solid timber and salvaged chain link.
Meant to keep people out that they don't want in.
Four people stand at it. Two women and two men, all of them armed, all of them watching our approach with the careful eyes of people who've learned not to assume the best of fellow man any longer.
One of the men raises a hand, signaling us to stop.
Beth brings the Jeep to a smooth halt, and we sit there for a moment, the engine idling, the gate between us and what our life could be like if they let us in.
"Let me do the talking," I tell her.
She cuts her eyes at me. "You've been stabbed."
"I'm aware. Let me do the talking anyway."