16. The Forever
SIXTEEN
THE UNION FOREVER
HARKINS
“Get this fucking mask off my face,” I grunt, desperate to kiss her, to feel her. “And undo these straps so I can wrap my arms around you.”
She lifts her head off my chest, a soft smile on her face when she nods, reaching into the pocket of my sweatpants. Mila lifts the ring of keys, jingling them in front of my face before she scrunches her nose. “Which one is it?”
I sigh. “Don’t know.”
“Sit up,” she demands, not lifting herself off my cock but readjusting so she’s still seated on me when she pulls me up, wrapping her thighs over my hips.
Camila’s breath is soft in my ear while she fumbles with the keys, her arms around my neck while trying each one in the lock. She takes a deep inhale, like she’s taking in my scent, resting her head on my shoulder and softening her body into me.
I let out a hum, appreciating her closeness and letting her work, my dick still buried inside her warmth, her wetness dripping onto my lap. She hums back like an acknowledgement. Everything that needs to be said is captured in that one sound, and it feels like closure.
Like the entire story of our lives told in a single second.
There’s a click when the key engages and she turns it in the lock, her hands moving quickly to work the leather straps and pull the mask from my face.
“You may kiss the bride,” she whispers.
Then my mouth is on hers, and hers is on mine.
She devours me in a fiery kiss that consumes us both, no space to define where she becomes a part of me and I her.
My cock throbs, as if it doesn’t know whether it should play dead or come back to life, the blood refusing to recirculate through the rest of my body.
Our tongues clash, the taste of her slipping into my mouth, my favorite flavor finally returned. She moans, grinding down again, her hips swaying against me as if she can’t control herself.
I barely pull away, my words hushed as I speak into her lips. “The straitjacket.”
She curves a smile against my lips, moving her hands down as she undoes the strapping of the restraints until I’m finally free. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her closer somehow and burying my face into the crook of her neck.
We stay like that for a few moments, the noise outside her doors becoming louder and more unsettling. Then, the door swings open, and my vision goes red.
Fucking Fred stands there, in his blue scrubs with his bandage-wrapped hand.
“Well, well, what do have we here?” He laughs, his entire appearance like a small rodent man.
I gently push Camila off of me, and before I can blink twice, I’m in his face, using my weaker arm to push him against the wall and sending the other straight into his nose.
He cries out in pain, but I don’t give him time to recover.
I throw my fist again, again, feeling his nose crunch against my knuckles until all I feel is the searing pain of jagged bones cutting into flesh.
He falls to the ground, but I follow, still hitting, not letting it stop me.
Instead, I hit harder, his breaths turning into gargled choking as blood fills his throat, his face becoming chunks of meat beneath me.
All I can hear is his warning about paying my girl a visit, and all I can think is that this was his attempt at it.
Slimy rat piece of shit taking advantage of the disarray to do fuck knows what with her and any other patient.
Mila cheers, clapping her hands beside me and urging me to hit him harder.
He’s minced meat, face unrecognizable, a pile of blood and flesh at my fist. It’s only when his face completely cracks open, his breathing gone, that I actually stop.
I pant, sweating profusely as I wind down from the momentum, adrenaline coursing through my body at the overwhelming need to protect her, avenge her, punish him.
“That was hot, Dr. Bitey.” She licks her lips in praise, kneeling to my level and bringing my bloody fist to her face.
She flattens her tongue to lick it clean, swiping it over my knuckles to reveal the gashes tearing my own skin. “There’s probably bandages in the nurse’s station. I can wrap it up for you.”
I shake my head, my hand trembling and my knuckles cut open. “I’m ready to get the fuck out of this place. I don’t want to spend a single second more here.”
She nods, coming to a stand and bringing me with her. I take the bag with her things and toss it over my shoulder, slipping the mask inside and wrapping my other arm around her.
It’s absolute madness in the hallways, but it isn’t what I’m expecting to find.
There are no police, no other doctors or orderlies or any type of staff attempting to reign in the havoc.
No order.
Just bedlam.
I squeeze her closer as we walk through the hall, stepping over bodies and dodging other patients who run free. The front doors are broken glass, blood sprayed over the shards on the floor, and where I expect paramedics and ambulances or siren lights outside, there is only the quiet dead of night.
Camila steps over the threshold, staring back into the hospital with a look on her face that worries me.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Mmm,” is the only response she gives, but her gaze doesn’t break.
I frown. “What is it?”
Camila swallows hard, a nervous movement that’s nothing like her. “Naya.”
“Do you see her?” I ask, looking back at the hospital in search of a ghost.
She shakes her head, squeezing my hand. “Not anymore.”
“Where are we going?” she asks when I open the car door for her.
We’re both well aware home is likely not an option, not when we’ve been declared dead and there’s a trail of corpses behind us.
“Starting over, I think.” I have an inkling of where to go, where we’ll be safe, where those who look for us can become entertainment to satiate our needs.
Camila reaches over me in the car, grabbing the seatbelt and strapping it over my chest to buckle me in.
She does the same for herself, and when I start the car, it’s a shrill siren that blasts through the speakers.
Mila covers her ears while I turn the volume down, putting the car in drive and steering out into the street.
The sun comes up over the horizon, a beautiful orange hue that feels like a sign of hope and all the good things still coming for us. Mila toys with the radio, flipping through the stations but finding only the same, high-pitched wailing on all transmissions.
I pass a car in a ditch, the windows broken and a body half hanging from the window.
“What the—”
There’s a pile up of cop cars formed into a barricade less than a mile ahead. Camila squeezes my hand tightly, her worry seeping straight into me. I pretend to be strong, squeezing back but driving on. I slow the car down to a crawl, readying myself for what might be our end.
Are they here for us?
The closer we get, the louder the sirens are, but there is no one. No cops in the cars, no bodies on the street. Mila’s hand stays gripping my wrist, her fingers softly threading over the scab and stitching.
“Oh, my God,” Camila gasps, pointing ahead to a line of buildings on fire.
Every storefront has their windows smashed to bits, every car on the road abandoned, and I cannot make sense of the fuck is going on.
“Turn the radio back on,” I tell her.
She flips the stations again, moving the dial until finally, we get something other than the high-pitched noise.
A robotic warning plays:
“ALL CITIZENS ARE REQUIRED TO SUBMIT TO THE NEW CHURCH ORDER. FEMALES BETWEEN THE AGES OF THIRTEEN AND FORTY ARE TO APPEAR AT THEIR LOCAL MAGISTRATE FOR REGISTRATION. MEN OF ALL AGES MUST REPORT TO THE NILE WAREHOUSES FOR WORK. ANY CHILDREN LEFT IN THEIR HOMES WILL BE COLLECTED AND SENT TO THE NILE PROCESSING CENTER. ALL CITIZENS ARE REQUIRED TO SUBMIT TO THE ARCHBISHOP’S NEW CHURCH ORDER. ”
The noise blasts through the radio again, but we don’t turn it down. We drive slowly, our mouths agape as we attempt to take in this information.
A week.
A week.
All of this happened in a week?
The wreckage is massive, the city wiped clean. The people are gone.
The message plays again: all citizens are required to submit to the new church order.
We were heading toward the end, yet, somehow, it feels like a new beginning.