Say We’ve Found Forever (Flowers From Ashes #4)

Chapter 1

It’s been two and a half months since the news started reporting on a rabies-like virus in humans.

Sixty days since rabies turned into something unknown and rage morphed into cannibalism.

Forty days since the power went out.

Thirty days since they fled the compound for safer grounds.

Two days since Addison last saw her husband.

They weren’t supposed to leave the community at all.

The world outside had always been spoken of as wicked and doomed.

But when the sickness started spreading through nearby towns and then too close to home, even the elders abandoned their posts.

The gates were opened in the middle of the night.

Everyone for themselves, just like that.

It’s not like Vincent to be gone this long, if only because he doesn’t trust her not to run off, as if she has anywhere to go. The dead walk the earth now, and her husband still thinks she’s capable of defiance if left unsupervised too long.

When he left to find supplies, she enjoyed the quiet, but now she’s starting to worry.

There’s not enough food for her and Emma to last more than a day before starvation sets in.

There are old packets of seeds in the shed right next to the moonshine, but she isn’t a farmer.

At the compound, she cooked, cleaned, mended clothes, and did what she was told.

Even with a green thumb, it would take forever to see anything sprout.

They found a diamond in the rough in this run-down farm, but she can’t tend to it alone. She paces the living room from one corner to the next, rustling cobwebs. It’s not pretty here, though it’s safer than being outside.

For the first time in a long time, she wants to see her husband. Addison peers through the curtains, hoping he’ll emerge from the tree line with his bag full, knowing he’ll bring his rigid silence with him.

Something happened out there, and when he gets back, he’ll speak to her like she’s a burden to feed. He’ll remind her that survival requires obedience. He’ll withdraw into himself, making the air in the house feel too thin to breathe.

If he’s injured, then she’s really in for it. He’ll make sure she understands how much she cost him by staying behind instead of going along and pulling her weight. Never mind that he wouldn’t allow them to come, even if she begged. There is no winning.

At the moment, she looks a mess, and she might look worse when he finally shows up.

This new reality has sharpened his already hard edges.

He believes this is the world he prepared for.

She can’t decide if it’s better to have him here and stern, but her child fed, or to have him gone but both of them hungry.

Not that she could keep them alive alone.

“Momma. Do you hear that? Is it Dad?” Emma tucks into her side, where Addison wraps an arm around her.

“I don’t think so,” she’s careful not to pull the curtain back too far in case anyone might be lurking. “Sounds more like foxes fighting in the woods. There are all sorts of animals out here we never saw behind the fences.”

“Bears?”

“No, not until you get further up in the mountains.”

They’re hidden away in the grasslands of Kansas.

Only found this place after wandering down a dirt road when their truck ran out of gas.

It’s so overgrown that they almost missed the mailbox and driveway altogether.

When she first saw the house, with a hole in the roof and shutters hanging off the windows, she nearly suggested they keep going.

Someone had been trying to bring it back to life, though.

That much she can tell by the new trim on the windows and the tractor stalled in the yard after plowing half the grain.

That effort died right along with whatever happened to the owner at the start of this apocalypse.

She didn’t suggest they keep going, of course. Questioning Vincent never ends well. Maybe he was right to bring them here. The distant gunfire they heard in nearby towns is proof that there are plenty of others fighting outside this tiny pocket of quiet, willing to do worse.

Emma’s stomach growls, reminding her that seclusion doesn’t equal survival.

“Come on. Let’s get something to eat.” She leads her daughter into the kitchen and pulls out the only thing they have left, a single jar of peanut butter.

“Maybe he won’t come back.” Emma grimaces when she licks her spoon. She’s always hated peanut butter.

“He will. He always does.”

“He’ll be mad, though.”

“You stay in one of the bedrooms, okay? I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”

“We could keep the doors locked. Then he can’t come in.”

Addison sighs, shoving her own spoon into the jar to stand upright.

Her daughter often moves from missing her father to wishing they’d never see him again.

It’s a by-product of the harsh upbringing she’s tried and failed to shield her from, all wrapped up in biology that insists she retain an ounce of love for him simply because they share blood.

“We need the food, sweetheart. Soon we’ll need even more of it.”

“I know.”

“Hey.” She brushes a lock of blonde hair off her daughter’s face. “I don’t want you to worry about this. All you need to know is that I’ll make sure you eat and that you’re safe.”

Those words sound smaller every time she says them. At the compound, there were other women. Other walls. Structure. Now there’s nothing between her and Emma, and whatever mood Vincent walks through the door with.

Addison’s never felt like more of a failure.

“Come here,” she whispers, opening her arms until Emma leans into them. “We’re gonna be okay, me and you.”

She murmurs soft reassurances, knowing she can’t keep them safe alone.

It’s why she hasn’t poisoned Vincent already. Found a whole can of rat poison in the shed that she could slip into his meals. Consequences are different now, but starvation isn’t. She balances that option with the new life growing inside her and wonders what she’s doing.

He could cast them out if he decides they’re more of a liability than a help. And out there, being alone is a death sentence.

Maybe she’ll use the poison when he comes back and see what happens.

They could make it, she tells herself. She could learn to be brave and keep them fed… and then she remembers how easily she panicked the first time she saw one of the dead.

One of the elders turned in the night. Addison had been sent to fetch water from the storage shed when he stumbled toward her, jaw working open wide, eyes empty.

Locking herself inside while he threw himself against the door until others came running is the only reason she made it out of that alive.

She hid. She didn’t fight. She didn’t warn anyone fast enough. She shook and prayed while he beat his fists bloody against the wood.

How would she make it out there on a supply run? She’d get herself killed, and then Emma would be alone. No, she can’t kill her husband. Not yet. They need him, and they’ll keep needing him until she figures out how to stop being so useless. Or until he decides they’re no longer worth the burden.

Which might be right now, if the fact that he hasn’t shown up in forty-eight hours has anything to say about it.

The room gets darker with every passing second. Wind whistles outside and blows through hairline cracks in the walls while those foxes fight in the distance.

Foxes. Possums. Squirrels. She isn’t sure what, but then one of them squeals like it lost the scuffle, then there’s nothing but silence until the telltale sound of sticks crunching under heavy boots fills the air.

Emma rushes to the window, but Addison grabs her, backing away from the glass as they stare at the door. It could be Vincent, but he moves with a familiar lightness. These steps are heavier and far more intentional.

There’s a shotgun on the wall with no bullets. That’s the only reason she has access to it. Still, she yanks it down while her heart races and urges Emma into the back bedroom. She shoves them both into the corner and aims the gun at the door like she has any idea what to do next.

All it’s good for is tossing at an enemy, but she’s a decent liar. Maybe she can bluff their way out of this.

“It’s okay,” she whispers. “It’s probably your father, then we’ll feel silly, won’t we?”

Emma only squeezes further into the corner behind Addison and grabs the back of her shirt in her small fist.

When the front door is kicked open, they both jump, and she loses all ability to have a coherent thought. Her hands shake as they hold the rifle and her pulse pounds hard enough to give them away clear across the house.

Someone is here.

It can’t be one of the dead, and it can’t be Vincent.

Whoever is creeping around the halls could murder them both, or worse. Each door hits the wall one by one until the knob in front of them jiggles against its screws. She might blackout on the spot.

A firm kick splinters the wood across, and then she’s face-to-face with the end of a revolver.

She isn’t sure when she stood up and aimed her empty shotgun at the man threatening to shoot her, but somehow, Addison is in a stand-off she’s about to lose.

“This place doesn’t belong to you,” the stranger says, his tone gruff and gun steady compared to her trembling one.

Is she expected to reply? Can’t be sure, so she stays silent.

“It belongs to me. Came a long way to get here and I ain’t leaving. Anyone else with you?”

“No,” she says quickly, manufacturing a lie she hopes might save them. “But my husband will be back soon. He’s not far.”

He’s unimpressed. “Mhmm. Who’s that behind you?”

“Don’t worry about her. Don’t even look at her,” Addison spits back.

“Momma-”

“Quiet!” she hisses, hushing Emma and pointing her shotgun higher, steadying her sandpaper-rough voice. “Don’t look at her or I swear I’ll shoot you.”