Chapter 11
Depending on how long Chase is on the hunt after dark, sometimes he joins me for breakfast, then returns to the cabin for a nap so that he can be fully rested for another night in the woods.
Shorter shifts include border patrol and only going about a “click” out.
Longer runs include heading past the trees and into nearby neighborhoods to do some scavenging.
Veronica splits those sort of trips into daytime and nighttime journeys. During the day, lurkers are only a threat when you find them lurking in the shadows in an attic or a basement or hiding in a shed somewhere. Rogues looking for supplies of their own… they’re a much bigger problem.
But at night? Lurkers leave their nests so that they can feed. That means abandoned houses are empty as the carnivorous zombies go on their own hunt. They need meat. They need us.
No one knows what exactly a lurker does when it can’t find human prey.
Only those half-lurkers—the Men in Black—can talk, and I’d rather face an entire horde than one of those sunglasses-wearing assholes.
There’s no proof that they self-cannibalize, though I feel like they have to, right?
They’re forever hungry, and they’ll start feeding as soon as they get their claws on a survivor, but what if they can’t?
I don’t know. But even for a camp the size of ours, we need supplies. Clothes and canned food that haven’t expired yet are priorities since we go through them so quickly, but there are scavenging teams that go out and come back with whatever they think we could use.
That’s what Chase does during the day while I’m stuck at Sunnyside.
At breakfast, he told me he was only out for a couple of hours last night, and he planned on being gone for most of the afternoon with a team made up of Kira, Raul, and Hannah, who is the most petite member of the hunting teams and can slip inside narrow spaces better than anyone else.
He’s usually back before dinner after these treks. I’m hoping today is an early day, and I go back to our cabin to wait for him. If anyone wonders why I’m not cutting veggies like I’m supposed to be today? Well… they can ask Nicky.
When he can talk again, that is.
About two hours after I left the handyman writhing on the grass, I’m sitting on the floor of the cabin, surrounded by ten glass bottles.
The threat I made toward Nicky gave me an idea.
Wearing my best “aren’t I innocent” expression, acting as though I would never, ever kick someone in the junk, I asked Annie at the trading post if there was a penknife I could borrow.
When she gave me a Swiss army knife that’d do the job nicely, I pushed my luck and requested as many empty glass bottles as she could give me.
Molotov cocktails—or firebombs, as she called them—were Xandra’s weapon of choice.
She would busy herself, scraping off the labels of our old lives with her penknife, so that she had empty containers to use to build her firebombs.
It was one of them that hit the gas leak and blew back, killing her instantly, but the entire time I thought I was Xandra, I found peace in the scrape, scrape, scrape.
That’s what I spend the time doing while I’m waiting for Chase.
As soon as I hear the doorknob to our cabin opening, I fold the penknife and shove it in the pocket of Rory’s jacket.
I have faith in Chase. I know he’s not cheating on me.
But just in case… maybe it’s a good idea to put the weapon away.
He steps inside as I’m pulling myself up to a standing position.
His eyebrows shoot sky high when he sees the pile of bottles that I’m working on, and I know that’s already trying to figure out how to convince me to stay at the cabin instead of creating firebombs and tossing them outside of the camp.
He should be more worried that I’m going to bash him over the head with one.
No. No. I’m not worried. There’s no way that he told me again and again that he loves me, that he’s going to wait for me, and then sneak off with Tamera.
No way—
Shit.
“Are you fucking Tamera?”
Okay. I’ll admit, I could’ve approached the subject with a lot more tact than I did.
You can’t blame me, though. From the time he asked me to be his girlfriend in freshman year of high school, I had nothing to be jealous of.
I won. Chase was mine. It was only when I was confused about who I was and I believed that Chase was betraying the memory of Hallie by going after Audrey back at the Grave that I realized what a bitch it is to experience jealousy.
I shouldn’t be jealous of Tamera.
I shouldn’t.
But until I hear it from Chase himself that I have nothing to worry about , there’s that tiny niggle of “what-if” that won’t stop poking away at my already broken psyche.
Chase’s mouth falls open. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me.”
“Tamera? Cabin sixteen, Tamera?”
I fist my hands so that I don’t grab for the penknife. “Don’t know, Chase. I have no idea which cabin is Tamera’s. Though I have to ask… how the hell do you?”
“Because she asked me in last night. Said her light went out, but Nicky wasn’t around to help her change it. I was tall enough with a stepstool… I said I would try, but then—”
“So you did follow her to her cabin?” I accuse.
“Well, yeah, but—wait… how did you know?”
“The better question is why didn’t you tell me? Is that where you go at night? Someone told me that hunters only go two days in a row, then they have a break. But you still leave every night.”
I know Chase. I know every inch of his body, and every twist of his features. He doesn’t lie to me. There’s no reason for him to. Even if I don’t want to hear it, everything he says is the truth.
I brace myself for it.
He sees my defensive position and, suddenly, his bewildered expression becomes one that comforts.
“Holden,” he begins, his voice low. “I leave because I’m trying my best to give you the space you need.
And you’re right. David runs the hunting teams like he’s still in the military.
There are nights he doesn’t put me Outside, but I still need to let you fall asleep without pressuring you into sleeping with me…
you want to know where I go? I hang out with Maverick and help him with his explosives. That’s all.”
I believe him. I’m not sure if it’s because I want to, or because there’s not reason not to, but I believe him.
“Oh. I… yeah. I guess that makes sense.”
I’m ready to drop the subject then and there. I asked him about Tamera, he gave me an answer, and I’m ready to move on.
Not Chase.
“Baby, don’t tell me you thought I was cheating on you… I would never.”
I sigh. “I know. Trust me, I know.”
“But someone made you think otherwise,” he guesses correctly. His jaw tightens and a shadow falls over his face. “Was it Tamera? Because I told her to put her shirt back on and got the hell out of there. Nothing happened. I promise you that. Nothing would ever—”
Hang on. It takes me a second to react.
“Shirt? Her shirt was off? Why was her shirt off?”
Chase scowls. “I was just putting the bulb in and turned around to see her sitting there with her tits out. She said something about wanting to thank me for helping her. I shut that shit down. And I didn’t tell you because I heard you weeping in the bathroom this morning and, damn it, but I didn’t want to upset you even more. ”
I suck in a breath.
Shit. He’s not wrong. I have my good days and I have my bad days.
For the most part, I like to pretend that things are getting better.
But there are mornings I remember that Mom is gone, Rory is gone, Xandra is one…
I’ve always been the more sensitive twin.
Without relying on Xandra’s brash personality to hide that side of me, I break down sometimes.
I thought I was hiding my weak moments from Chase. Guess not.
“Next time,” I say, my voice wavering slightly, “please don’t. If someone is making a move on you, I’d like to know it.”
“Same,” Chase says. “So… are we good? You know I’m not interested in any other girls. It’s just you for me, and if you need me to remind you, I’m more than happy to do so.”
My gaze drops to his groin. On the one hand, I kind of want to say screw it and, well, screw him.
I’d regret it tomorrow—just like I’ll regret showing off my jealous side when I can’t promise Chase any more than I’m already giving him—but thinking about Tamera flashing Chase like that…
I want nothing more than to climb on top of him and let him play with my tits.
But as I think about his dick, it makes me think about what I did to Nicky’s dick. Then that makes me think about how Chase just said he’d want to know if someone is making a move on me and, before I know it, I blurt out, “Nicky kissed me.”
He goes impossibly still. “You want to run that by me again?”
Uh-oh. “Well, he tried. He… uh. He was the one he told me about seeing you with Tamera. And the hunter schedules… he thought you were cheating on me, and he told me, and then he tried to kiss me.”
Chase works his jaw for a moment before he asks in an almost pleasant voice, “And what did you do?”
I wince. “Kicked him in the nuts?”
It comes out like a question, but that’s because I’m seriously reconsidering telling Chase. And, sure, I’m a huge hypocrite. I’m still peeved that—no matter the reason—he didn’t tell me about Tamera. Of course I had to tell Chase about Nicky.
“He won’t try that again,” I add.
“No,” Chase agrees. “He won’t.”
“So… are you mad at me?”
“Because some other guy thinks you’re amazing and wants to kiss you? Not all. I understand it. Don’t like it. But you know I understand it. Half the time I’m looking at you, I’m wishing I could kiss you.”
And the other half, he’s imagining me bent over the counter so he can pound into me from behind…
Since one can very easily lead to the other, I know I’m playing with fire, but that doesn’t stop me from saying, “You can kiss me now, if you want.”