Chapter 10
For our first couple of days at camp, eyes are on us everywhere we go.
I get it. Camp Sunnyside has survived this long enough because Veronica doesn’t invite every random survivor she finds on the road to come home with her. We only got a golden ticket because Maverick knew her through Delilah, Delilah vouched for us, and Veronica thinks we can be useful.
So, once we establish that we’re staying, we’re given jobs.
During the day, everyone does whatever needs doing; it’s just like the Grave in that way.
There are repairs necessary. Laundry, of course.
Food prep. Constant border checks, though the daylight hours means we’re keeping watch for rogues and the Men in Black.
At night, the hunters go out looking for lurkers.
Chase is assigned to a hunting team almost immediately.
No surprise there. He was the most decorated hunter at the Grave and when David hears about the number of lurkers Chase has flamed even before we made it to the outside, I swear the retired Marine looks at him with something close to respect.
Me, though? I’m told that I’m too valuable to be put on a hunting team straight out.
I have no doubt in my mind that Chase had something to do with that assessment.
The one bonus to joining Camp Sunnyside in his mind is that there are sixty-plus people here to help him keep me safe and protected.
No way in hell he’s going to sit there and watch as I go after lurkers if I don’t have to.
Still, my sensing ability can’t be denied. Somehow, behind the scenes, a compromise is made. So long as I’m willing to be a sensor when the hunters need me, I don’t have to go out for nightly hunts.
I wish I had been consulted on that, but despite how much I want to see the zombie monsters pay for what happened to my twin, I’d be lying if I was in the best spot mentally to focus on hunting right now.
However, in order to be designated the settlement sensor, I needed to prove I could do what I say I can.
They warned me that David would want to test my abilities. I don’t know if Veronica put him up to it or not, but as the lead for the hunting team, he’s the one who knocked on our cabin door about a week after our arrival and insisted that I join him, Aaron, and Kira at the edge of camp’s borders.
Chase nearly challenged David. Looking back on it, that should’ve been my first clue that Chase…
my beautiful, sweet, generous Chase was about to lose control.
He stood between me and the retired Marine, refusing to let me go until I placed my hand on his back to calm him enough that I could agree…
so long as he got to tag along, that is.
Aaron is a tall, quiet man in his early thirties.
He has shaggy dark blond hair that falls forward into his eyes, and a build that makes me think he did construction in the before times.
He’s not afraid of getting his hands dirty, though there’s something of a gentle giant to him.
When he’s not patrolling, I usually see him sitting at the pavilion, alongside Fatima, a sweet woman who turns into a bit of a tyrant if you don’t fold the laundry to her exact specifications.
I swear, I’ve never seen a man look so focused when it comes to folding a t-shirt, but that’s Aaron.
Kira is an older Black woman, about twenty years older than me.
Like Delilah, she keeps his dark hair yanked back, with a few grey hairs threading through it.
She likes to tease that she didn’t have any before the Turning, but as she stand next to David, there’s no sign of a smile on her face.
Like everyone else gathered, she’s watching to see if I’ll be able to sense lurkers.
Last night, there was a sighting close enough to the camp to put the hunting teams on high alert. Simon and Bea killed it, but we all know from experience that, where there’s one, there’s more; plus, a fresh pile of lurker ash usually attracts more of their kind.
The test itself is almost disappointingly simple. David had led the five of us past the southern border. We head into the trees, and within five minutes of walking out of the camp, the cramps start.
I grab my stomach. “Stop.”
They all do.
I close my eyes, trusting that they’ll watching for lurkers. I don’t know David, Kira, or Aaron well enough to be this vulnerable, but Chase is there.
I trust Chase implicity.
Focus, Holden… “Two. Maybe three,” I amend. I open my eyes and point. “They’re coming from that way.”
Aaron looks at David. David nods, and Aaron disappears into the trees with Kira, both of them carrying a torch that’s basically a foot-long stick with a dancing flame on the end. Ten minutes later, they return.
“Three,” Kira confirms. “We got them all.”
David nods once, a satisfied expression on his hard face.
Look at that. Test passed.
It’s so easy to fall into a routine.
Every morning, we eat at the pavilion. Veronica hands out jobs, David handles patrols, and everyone scatters once breakfast is over.
I spend one day helping the camp cooks prep for lunch in one of the kitchens, another pulling weeds from the vegetable beds, another hauling sheets to the laundry line…
it’s good to be busy, and I find excuses to help out at camp because then I’m not left all alone with my thoughts and Chase’s expectations.
Chase is a hunter. So is Maverick. The former cop usually goes out with either Chase or Veronica because the other survivors aren’t exactly lining up to partner with the guy whose eyes still have enough black in them to remind the survivors that he took the tainted batch of the Injection and somehow survived it.
Mav pretends like he’s not an outcast. He’s used to being alone—especially since I’m the first idiot who joined up on his crusade after he visited the Grave—and he’s made it clear that he’s just sticking around because he’s waiting for another chance to go after Project Phoenix.
That, and because Veronica wants him here.
He’s already collecting supplies to rebuild his IEDS, and though finding Gwen is the priority now, no one has forgotten what comes after.
We’re going to blow up the fucking NRI if it kills us.
For now, we’re doing what we do best: surviving.
And if that also includes me navigating this new relationship I have with Chase…
yeah. I’m trying my best. So is he. But while I sometimes forget that I need to keep my distance so that I don’t lead him on, letting him think that we have anything now like what we had before the Turning, it hasn’t been easy.
I need time. I need space. And because he’s doing whatever he can to give me both, Chase throws all of his effort into hunting and protecting Sunnyside.
He usually leaves after dark. The first couple of nights for our new routine, I lie awake waiting for him. Then I realize what I’m doing.
Waiting for him in bed.
Alone.
After spending all day thinking about him…
Yeah. That’s just asking for trouble, isn’t it?
So I start forcing myself to fall asleep before he returns from his leg of the hunt. That way we both get some space. And if I’m unconscious when Chase climbs naked into bed beside me, I can’t make another terrible decision involving his dick.
Fingers crossed.
It’s not just me and Chase and (hopefully) Maverick who are getting used to living in Sunnyside. It’s been about two weeks or so since we said we would stay that the handyman, Nicky, starts finding reasons to search me out and talk to me.
At first, I don’t think anything of it. Ring or no ring, I’m pretty sure that Chase and I made it clear that we’re a couple.
Everyone at camp is under the impression that we’re married, and though Chase begrudgingly accepts that we’re not—and I let the concept of us still being engaged sit on the backburner for now—I’m okay with presenting ourselves as a unit to the rest of the settlement.
So Nicky knows I’m not available. He doesn’t hit on me again like he did when we first met, and I eventually let my guard down.
I mean, he’s friendly enough. He’s also the camp handyman which means he’s everywhere.
When a bunch of us get assigned to repair one of the older cabins, Nicky runs the entire project.
We spend most of the afternoon replacing warped boards and patching a section of roof that’s been leaking lately.
He’s funny and helpful, and when I have no idea what I’m doing, he gives instructions that make me feel like I actually know one tool from another instead of guessing.
By the end of that work day, I’ve decided that I might’ve judged him too harshly for the way he used a few cheesy lines on me when we first met.
That’s why, when he finds me a couple of days later and asks if we can talk privately, the serious expression on his face makes me nervous enough to follow him back to his cabin.
I’m not stupid enough to join him inside when he asks, though I do stand with the sleeves of Rory’ jacket hanging over my hands as I ask, “Okay. What’s up? ”
“Maybe it’s nothing. Could be.” Nicky reaches up, rubbing the back of his neck with a slightly sheepish expression. “I just wanted to ask you something without Knight around.”
That doesn’t sound good. “Why?”
Instead of answering me, Nicky has a question of his own. “Where does he got at night?”
Duh. Everyone knows that. “Hunting. David put him on a hunting team with Maverick.”
Nicky grimaces when I mention my former travel partner’s name. At least, I thought that was why he made that face… but then he says, “Every night?”
I nod. “Pretty much. So? Is that a problem or something?”
“It’s just… you know hunters don’t go out every night, right?”
Um. No.
“We rotate,” he explains. “David insists on it. Two nights on, one night off. It keeps everyone fresh. Nobody should be out there looking for lurkers if they’re exhausted.
At first, I thought that Knight was just being a bit of an eager beaver.
I see him passing by my cabin every night by himself, and I figured he was showing off.
But then…” His voice trails to a close. “Maybe it’s nothing. ”
Maybe it is.
Maybe it isn’t.
“What?”
“I saw him talking to Tamera outside of my cabin last night. You know Tamera?”
Of course I do.
The first time I met Tamera, she seemed so nervous as she came over to the dinner table where I was sitting with Veronica, Maverick, and Chase.
I thought it was because she had to talk to the camp’s de facto leader.
Despite Veronica being very approachable, there’s no denying she’s in charge.
And though she’s not the sort of leader that will toss you to the lurkers to munch on if you piss her off, we’re only allowed to stay at Sunnyside with her permission.
But lately… shit. If Nicky had mentioned anyone but Tamera, I wouldn’t think twice about what Nicky is implying.
Chase is fucking gorgeous. I know that. There are always women of all ages—and some men, too, I’m sure—who think they can sway him away from me.
He’s always being flirted with, but he’s often so oblivious, he thinks they’re just being sweet and friendly and nice to him.
Lately, Tamera is one of them. What started out as the pretty brunette being a little nervous to talk to him has turned into her asking Chase for help for every little thing she can think of.
He’s a good man. He tries, and if he can’t, he’ll gently tell her that there might be someone else at camp who will do a better job than him.
So, yeah. Tamera was already on my radar, but I trust Chase.
I trust him.
So why is my gut suddenly squirming as Nicky tells me, “They had their heads bowed together, talking for a few minutes before she took his hand and led him into her cabin.” He pauses for a moment, and with an apologetic wince, he drops the bomb: “I saw them go in. I’m a nosy fuck, Holden.
I watched from my window for a while until it got a little weird, but they never came back out again. ”
Fuck.
And Chase told me he spent a four-hour block patrolling the west side of camp…
“I’m probably wrong,” Nicky hurriedly adds. He steps closer to me, and I’m too messed-up in the head at the moment to pay attention to just how close he is. He lays his hand on the shoulder of Rory’s jacket. “But if I’m not… you deserve better.”
I blink. What the—
His voice had dropped. That catches my attention first. I peek up at him only to discover that only a few inches separate his mouth from mine. His eyes rove over my face, his fingers digging into my skin as if he’s warning me to stay in place.
And then, before I can react, he fucking kisses me.
It’s not a real kiss. Why he thought that he could shatter my world by insinuating that my fiancé—or my husband, as far as he knows—is cheating on me with a fresh-faced, younger woman who has basically been throwing herself at him and then kiss me, I have no clue.
But his mouth barely brushes mine before I jerk away in horror. “What the fuck?”
He inches closer. “Holden—”
Oh, hell no. I throw out my hands, shoving him in the chest. He wasn’t expecting it, and he stumbles back a few steps as I snarl, “Get away from me.”
“I just—”
Nope. “I don’t know what kind of shit you think you’re starting, but if you try to pull that kind of stunt again, I’m gonna borrow a knife from the kitchen and cut your lips off. You got that, Nicky?”
“But—”
Not buts, either. “I’m with Chase.” It may not be for better or for worse just yet, but he’s still mine.
The idiot handyman insists on digging his own grave. “You don’t have to be if he’s fucking around on you.”
True, but that’s not Nicky’s problem. It’s mine, and even if Chase is going out at night and screwing every woman in Sunnyside—which he’s not, he can’t be, he would never… and Holden Knight will kill him if he is—there’s no way in hell I’ll ever be interested in Nicky.
And, just in case he needs something to send that message home, I kick him in the goddamn nuts.
He goes down with a high-pitched squeal before curling up into the fetal position in the dirt. I huff, and turn away.
I have to go find Chase.