Chapter 4
The Grave never sleeps, and neither does Camp Sunnyside.
Caroline might’ve waited up for us because she’s the self-proclaimed registrar for this settlement, but all throughout the camp, survivors are awake.
They’re not just patrolling, either, though David assures us that there are eyes watching the camp’s borders around the clock.
Thanks to the large lake to the east side of the settlement, a good chunk of the camp is safe from a lurker attack coming from that direction, but the settlement itself is alive.
As we walk, I notice two women are sitting at a picnic table, folding laundry beneath a hanging flame-filled lantern.
Someone is chopping wood; I hear the swing of the ax, the thud, the crack in the wood.
A couple of men are playing cards outside one of the cabins, and there’s a bonfire in the distance that is built on the shore of the nearby lake.
And that’s not all. Behind the final row of cabins, we learn, is a plot of land that’s cordoned off by six-feet-high fencing, complete with barbed wire.
It’s the camp’s old community garden, protected from thieving beasties and starving zombies.
Here, they grow all kinds of food: tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, peppers, and corn.
They have non-perishables, too, and food that’s both scavenged from nearby stores and abandoned neighborhoods, and just like at the Grave, there are communal meals hosted at a rectangle-shaped pavilion covered in even more weathered picnic tables.
Meals are served constantly throughout daylight hours, but each cabin has emergency stores, including canned goods, boxes of granola bars and saltines, and cups for tap water.
If we’d like to add to our stash, the large, cockeyed cabin near the front of the camp is known as the trading post, and we can find almost everything we need there.
The best part is that there’s no trading necessary.
As long as Veronica allows us at her camp—and it is her camp, according to David who describes himself as both her lieutenant and righthand man—and we do our part to help the rest of the settlement survive, we can just ask and the woman running the trading post will give it to us.
Within reason, I’m sure, but still. After seeing how Darryl ran East Jersey, I’m much more impressed with Veronica’s camp.
It reminds me of the Grave, and now that David isn’t treating us as though we cost him a tank of gas for nothing, he reminds me a bit of Eddie, my dad’s trusted second back home.
Eddie always gets shit done, helping Dad out when he needs it.
Seems like David does the same, but he’s also observant himself.
I’ll have to remember that, but when he says we’re making a quick pitstop to bother another one of the locals before he brings us to our cabins, I admit I have no fucking idea what he’s doing.
Until he pauses beneath one of the countless flickering torches and taps the silver handcuff still hanging off of Chase’s wrist.
I almost forgot about it. Even the creeps back at the NRI didn’t bother with the shiny metal bracelet, and for a heartbeat, I expect David to get a stick up his ass and accuse us of being crooks.
Surprisingly, he doesn’t.
“Where’s the other half?” he asks instead.
In answer, I shove up the sleeve of Rory’s jacket.
David nods. “Thought as much. I heard about what went down at the prison town and it took me a minute to figure it was you three.
Vee wants to liberate some of the survivors there, but she knows that we have to focus on Sunnyside first. Still.
Shame what that fuck put you through. If you want those cuffs gone, I can get ‘em off.”
We tried. When Chase and I first escaped Darryl’s room after Maverick shot him, the handcuffs were still attached.
It took a couple of houses before we scavenged up a pair of wire cutters that snapped the chain, leaving the cuffs themselves still in place.
We finally admitted it would take a stronger tool—like bolt cutters—to get them off of us, and it wasn’t worth wasting the time looking for those when I at least could walk away from Chase without yanking his arm with me.
He must be remembering the same time as I am because he asks, “You have bolt cutters here?”
David jerks his head. A nod. “We’ve been prepping for something like this for a long time.
We have most everything you can think of.
Nicky is our handyman. Anything breaks at camp, he fixes it.
Vee lets him keep the tools in his cabin with him.
One snip and those cuffs are gone. You want me to go get him? ”
I rub my wrist, deciding at that moment that, if David pulls this off, I’ll take back every nasty thought I had about him on the ride out of Manhattan. “Yes, please.”
Less than forty minutes later, the goddamn handcuff is finally off my wrist, and I’m standing in the middle of “our” cabin, thinking about how different this room is from the sterile cell I was tossed into back at the NRI.
I don’t know if this sort of cabin always existed at Camp Sunnyside.
If it belonged to camp counselors or someone high-up in charge.
Regardless, while I was expecting that I’d have to share a cabin with Chase after his “my wife” stunt, I figured there would at least be a couple of bunks to choose from. That we wouldn’t have to share a bed.
Fuck me, but there’s only one bed in here. Larger than the twin bed I slept in back at the Grave, but no matter how wide the mattress is, there’s no denying the fact that this space was either meant for one person or a couple who shares a bed and doesn’t mind a bit of a squeeze.
Even the cell had two cots. Here? I see the quilt stretched across the top, the pair of soft yellow pillows, and as much as I want to hop into the bed and go to sleep, hoping that the whole world makes a lot more sense in the morning, I’m standing in the “kitchen” part of the room, glaring sullenly at the bed.
The entire cabin is one main room with two doors; one leads to the outdoors, the other to an attached bathroom that came with a toilet and a shower stall.
The kitchen area really is just a pair of cabinets with our few stores, a counter, a sink, and an empty box that Chase says is meant to be an icebox.
There’s a closet, but that was empty, too, before I hung Rory’s jacket up inside of it.
A shag rug in a darker shade of yellow than the pillows is shaped in an oval and placed next to one side of the bed.
The other is pushed up against the dark wood paneling that makes the whole space seem homey and cozy.
It has a fireplace, and while I used the excuse of having my first fresh shower since East Jersey to claim the stall so that I could avoid facing Chase alone once David and Mav left, Chase got the fire going by the time I dragged myself out of the shower.
It made going from the lukewarm shower spray to the very warm cabin more relaxing than I would’ve guessed.
The fact that Chase rubbed my upper arm—the one without the burn scar on it—and murmured that he was heading to the shower next only added to the feeling of relief that rushed through me.
The shower turned off two minutes ago. While most of my attention was on my new surroundings, I’d be lying if I said that my heart didn’t thrum away in my chest when the sound of the spray stopped. Any minute now, Chase will walk out here, and I have no idea what’s going to happen.
I should get dressed, I think all of a sudden.
I found a stack of towels in the bathroom.
I used one to somewhat dry my tangled hair.
Snooping before I got under the shower spray meant I also discovered a half-used bottle of shampoo and a hairbrush.
It was a bitch to get out the snarls without any conditioner to soften the strands, but my hair is as clean as the rest of me, and it was a small price to pay to feel fucking human.
The other towel I wore draped around my body as it hit me that I had two choices: put on the dirty clothes I’ve been traveling in or go naked.
That second one wasn’t an option at all.
Not when Chase is so close. But the thought of purposely putting on the same panties, bra, tank top, and filthy jeans…
In the end, I couldn’t do it. Because I wear Rory’s jacket so often, the white tank top I scavenged not too long ago is in okay condition.
Same with my bra. Sure, there’s plenty of sweat stains, but having Chase come out and play peekaboo with my nips?
Not gonna happen. The bra went on, and for obvious reasons, so did my panties.
I couldn’t bring myself to shrug on my jeans. They’re coated in dirt and mud, ash and some blood. The bed looks too welcoming to destroy it, and I’ve been standing here in my tank top and my panties while Chase showers.
But the doorknob is turning, and here he comes, and, shit, why didn’t I grab the quilt and wrap it around my lower half before he came out here?
I didn’t, and it’s too late. Chase steps into the cabin, eyes narrowing to slits as he finds me standing in the middle of the room, half-fucking-naked.
It doesn’t help that he is naked. Oh, he’s wearing one of the towels from the bathroom, slung low on his hips, but the rest of him…
I swallow the lump in my throat. His sculpted chest is on display, rivulets of water tracking their way down the barely there paths between his muscles.
His hair is damp, styled carelessly as though he just ran his fingers through the length.
His eyes are watching me closely, and as though he likes what he sees, there’s a twitch beneath the front of his towel before it slowly, slowly starts to tent just enough to be noticeable.