8. An Uneasy Peace #3
Her hands shook slightly as she rinsed out her bowl, the metal clattering a little too loudly in the washbasin.
She closed her eyes for a second, willing herself to get it together, to be the pragmatic survivor she was supposed to be.
This wasn’t a movie or a daydream, and there would be no dramatic confessions, no lingering embraces before the camera cut to black.
If she screwed this up, if she misread the current between them, she’d not only lose the uneasy peace of their partnership, she’d lose the one person in this wasteland who could protect her.
She wiped her hands dry, squared her shoulders, and forced her thoughts back to business. If she didn’t trust herself to keep a lid on her feelings, she’d at least keep her mouth busy with something other than words she’d regret.
* * *
Sawyer sat down at the table, his movements deliberate but heavy with fatigue. The map he’d brought from the truck had been spread across the rough wood, edges curling from age and damp. He gestured to Addy with a small motion of his hand.
“Come sit,” he said. “We need to go through what we got from town, figure out what we can stretch, what needs to go first, and what the next move is.”
Addy set aside the rag she’d been using to dry dishes and slid into the chair opposite him. The fire behind them had burned down to a steady glow, its warmth pressing softly against the back of her neck.
Sawyer leaned over the map, tracing a finger down a faded highway line that cut through the nearest county.
“We’ve got enough food for about six weeks if we ration it right,” he said.
“Possibly seven if we go light and start supplementing with hunting or traps. Water’s fine for now, but we’ll need to filter the lake stuff soon if it doesn’t rain. ”
Addy nodded slowly, her eyes flicking over the map. “And after that?”
He hesitated, then looked up. “That’s what we need to decide. We can stay here, ride it out, and see what happens. Or we can keep looking, try to find that safe zone they mentioned on the radio.”
“Do you think it’s still there?” she asked quietly.
He didn’t answer right away. His gaze drifted back to the map, jaw tightening. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Could be, or just as easily be gone like everything else.”
Addy frowned. “So what do we do, then? Flip a coin?”
That earned a faint grin, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Not exactly. If we stay, we’ve got security. Shelter, wood, a solid, defensible spot. But if this virus spreads or the sick start moving out this way…” he trailed off, tapping the table. “We could get trapped.”
She traced the map’s edge with her fingertip, her mind racing. “And if we leave?”
“Then we’re exposed,” he said. “But maybe we find somewhere people are rebuilding. Somewhere safer than hiding in a cabin in the woods.”
The fire popped, the sound loud in the still air. Addy watched the flame’s reflection dance over his face. His expression was calm, but she could see the fatigue in his eyes, the kind of exhaustion that went deeper than lack of sleep.
“What would you do?” she asked.
He looked at her, really looked at her, his eyes sharp and assessing as if weighing not just the question, but her place in the answer. “If it were just me,” he said slowly, “I’d probably keep moving. I don’t like waiting for trouble to find me.”
“And since it’s not just you?” she pressed.
He leaned back, folding his arms. “Then I listen to reason. And you strike me as someone with a pretty good sense of that.”
The compliment caught her off guard. She sensed her face warm, and not from the fire. “I think…” she hesitated, choosing her words carefully. “I think if we stay too long, we’ll get comfortable. And comfort isn’t safe anymore. We can’t build a life here if everything around us keeps falling apart.”
Sawyer nodded once, his expression unreadable. “Then we prepare to move. Give it two days, enough time to rest, organize. We’ll take what we have and head west at first light after that.”
Addy exhaled slowly, relief and fear twisting together in her chest. “West,” she repeated softly, as if saying it made it real.
He studied her for a long moment, the corner of his mouth twitching in something like respect. “You’re tougher than you look, Addy.”
“Don’t let the teacher vibe fool you,” she said with a faint smile. “I’ve been through enough parent-teacher conferences to survive this.”
That earned a quiet laugh, the sound low and genuine. It loosened something between them, something that had been wound too tight since the day they met.
They both leaned over the map again, the space between them small, their voices hushed as they began marking routes and listing supplies. The firelight flickered against the worn paper, casting their shadows together on the cabin wall.
* * *
That night, as Sawyer drifted from window to window, checking the makeshift barricades, sealing the wood shutters, double-checking the gun by the stove, Addy tracked his every movement from her seat by the fire.
In the days before everything went to hell, she’d prided herself on keeping a kind of clinical distance, never seeing herself as the sort of person who let desire steer the wheel.
But here, now, in a half-rotted world where the only things beyond their cabin were cold wind and the dead, every footstep he took seemed to heat the very air between them.
She’d gotten used to watching him in a way that wasn’t obvious: the way his hands moved, efficient, never wasted; the way his voice, flat and matter-of-fact, sometimes cracked at the edges after a long day.
The way he would sometimes stand in the doorway, backlit, and just look out into the woods while his jaw set tight against some memory she’d never see.
Tonight, the tense choreography of his movements was a kind of language, and she felt her body tuning into it instinctively, as if it were a code written in the muscles along her spine and the softest parts of her thighs.
Addy let herself go further than she ever had, letting herself study the way Sawyer’s shirt clung to his back, sweat mapping the ridges of his shoulders.
She imagined, for the first time without shame or filter, what it would feel like to run her hands over that heat, to press her lips against the nape of his neck and taste the salt and smoke that clung there.
She wondered if he’d shiver or tense, if he’d even let her get that close before spinning on her and taking control.
That thought alone sent a bolt through her, sharp and low.
She drew a breath, surprised at the flush that was already spreading up her chest. She’d never admitted it to herself, but even in her old life, in the quiet, safe monotony of lesson plans and lunch duty, she’d never really let anyone see her.
She’d never had a lover who made her feel like she might unravel if she let go, never once come with another person except by mechanical accident or her own determination.
Now, under the thin blanket of survival, her body was waking up in ways she’d thought belonged to other women, women in movies, women who didn’t know what it was like to risk loss.
She closed her eyes, picturing Sawyer’s hands on her, the rough catch of his thumb against her breast, the careful grip of his fingers lacing over her hip.
She imagined the sound of his breath against her ear, the heat of it, the way her name would sound, Addy, that clipped, low syllable, when he was no longer thinking about tomorrow or the next threat, but only about the shape of her under him.
The current running through her veins doubled, pooled, then broke in tiny, urgent spasms that made her press her thighs together and shiver.
It was almost humiliating how quickly her body responded, how badly it wanted to be claimed, marked, known.
She let herself fantasize a little further: Sawyer pinning her wrists above her head, his mouth hard and searching, the unexpected tenderness of his hand tracing the hair at her temple.
She was aware of the pressure building in her chest, a tingling rush that feathered out through her nipples, so sharp she had to rub her arms to make it go away.
She’d never told anyone, never even written it in her journals, but she’d always wondered what it would be like to lose control, to let someone else drive her to that edge and over.
Sawyer finished his last round, shut the door, and caught her staring.
He didn’t say anything, but she saw a flicker of something in his eye: an acknowledgment, a dare, or just possibly a warning.
The fire hissed and popped behind her, and she curled tighter into herself, afraid that if he looked too closely, he’d see exactly what she’d been thinking.
But she didn’t look away. Not this time.
She held his gaze until he turned, silent, toward table the corner.
Only then did she let herself exhale, her pulse galloping wildly in her wrists and throat.
If there ever was a night to do something reckless, it was this one, with the dead howling somewhere out in the dark and only hunger and hope left inside the walls.
She stood, walked to the narrow window, and watched Sawyer’s shadow as he settled in, chest rising and falling with each measured breath.
If she could just work up the nerve.
If she could just cross the few feet between them and touch him, just rest her hand against his shoulder, feel the steady heat of his skin, maybe she could remember what it felt like to be alive.
Addy sat there for a long time, staring at him as the firelight softened around them.
Sawyer was still at the table, leaning over the map they’d spent hours studying, one hand absently tracing the edge of it.
The tired slump of his shoulders told her how much he carried, more than supplies and plans.
He carried the weight of keeping them both alive.