10. Maria
Chapter ten
Maria
How can I trust this monster with my baby girl? Anxiety tears my chest apart.
Zinnia returns from the bathroom, eyes us, then walks right up to me.
I kneel and wrap my arms around her tiny waist.
I can feel the tension bleeding off Chris. He’s vibrating with it, restraining himself, giving me this moment with Zinnia.
“Don’t worry, Mommy,” she whispers, hugging my neck tightly. “He took real good care of us while you were sick.” She glances up at Chris, then back at me. “Can I go with him? I promise to be good.”
“Oh, baby girl. I woke up feeling fine now. So you can stay here with me. I’m not sick anymore.”
“You look better, Mommy. But when you’re sick, you need rest.”
I cringe at the way my daughter parrots my own words back at me from when she had a fever. “Then stay here and keep me company.”
“But we’re gonna get the rabbits. And I forgot Sage.”
Her favorite stuffed toy. Her only one.
I hug her tighter. “I could go instead. I’ll bring back Sage.”
She squeals. “Mommy, that hurts.”
“Maria, stop.” Chris tugs Zinnia from my arms. “You’re only a few hours old. You don’t know your strength yet.”
“I’m sorry, baby.”
She rubs her ribcage. “It’s okay, Mommy.”
“Maybe she should stay here alone?” I don’t like that idea any better. But I know the monsters that lurk out in the desert wilderness. I can’t let her go back out there.
“Maria, she’s not safe here alone until I childproof the living area.” Chris guides Zinnia to the hallway. “Get to the truck, kiddo,” he says before I can argue further.
Zinnia waits a beat, eyes on me. I still can’t believe I squeezed her too tight. When I offer no further objections, she races down the hallway toward what must be the garage.
“I love you, baby!” I call out after her, then stand up to face Chris once more, angry over his decision and my loss of control.
“Look.” He takes my hands in his. “I realize this is difficult. All Zinnia’s life you’ve had to be strong for her.
And you are strong. You’re smart. You’re brave.
You’re a damn fine shot with a bow and arrow.
” He releases a hand to rub the shoulder where my arrow hit.
“But you don’t have to be strong all the time now.
I’ve got your back. I’ve got hers. I have access to resources you can’t begin to imagine.
And as a treaty vampire, you have access to those resources, too. ”
My stomach grabs and tears well in my eyes. “I don’t want you to take her away.”
“I won’t, not permanently. Just for the evening. We badly need more blood. Then I’ll return with her, and you and I will work something out.” He jets across the room to his desk. “Here. A radio. Press this key—”
“I know how to use one. We had them at the compound.”
“Good.” He sets the device on the table. “I’ll call you after we leave the silo, okay? You’ll know we’re okay.”
“Please—”
“Uh, I better catch up with Zinnia.”
I rub at my breastbone, eyeing him. “You both better come back alive.”
“Don’t worry.” He takes my hand and strokes his fingers over mine.
“I know saying not to worry doesn’t help.
Especially because you’re a brand-new vampire.
What you’re feeling—your emotions may swing volatilely for a while.
Drink more blood. Grab a book off the shelf and read.
Try to relax. We’ll be back before you know it. ”
He pulls me into his arms for a hug, holding me, and a tear rolls down my face.
How can I take comfort from the monster putting my daughter at risk? So I push him away, and this time, he lets me.
With a nod, he turns and lopes down the same hallway where Zinnia disappeared.
Darn him! How dare he trap me here and take my daughter? I don’t need a nightcrawler to tell me how to protect Zinnia. I’d never hurt her.
Except I squeezed her too hard. I didn’t mean to.
But it won’t happen again. I won’t let it.
After they leave, I sit fuming and staring at all the wealth accumulated in this small space, sipping on the glass of blood Chris left me with.
He has electronic devices and enough electricity to power them.
Shelves of books. A soft couch covered in smooth fabric.
Picture perfect—like magazine photos Nana would show me but wouldn’t let me touch as a child.
And everything is clean in a way we could never get the compound.
The Collapse was harder on my grandparents than on me, and I can see why. They lost all of this when the Lux erected domes and cut off my family’s access to the big cities.
The Lux. Now I have a name for them.
Rage flows through me. I want to rip that picture-perfect couch apart. Toss the books off their shelves. Tip the dining table over.
I can’t sit still any longer, so I pace in the too-perfect room, impatient for Zinnia to return.
I don’t like her being out there alone with that…
that vampire. But I’m powerless to do anything about it.
Clenching my fists, I refrain from destroying the perfect room, no matter how much I want to punish him.
We live here now. This is Zinnia’s home, and I want her to enjoy the best he can offer.
When my hunger returns, I open the refrigerator door. Roasted meats fill the shelves. I have no desire to try the succulent fare. A day ago, I would have devoured it.
I slam the door shut, then grab a blood pouch from the box, pour it into the empty glass, and return to the dining table.
After setting it down, I fold my arms and rest my head.
The quiet is unnerving. I’ve never been alone in a space this big where I could just relax.
The Titan complex was crowded with adults and playmates when I was a child.
After the others passed away, and it was just Zinnia and me, we had so much space to ourselves, and I never let her out of my sight. I had to keep moving to keep us alive. I worried about starvation and what lurked outside the silo at night. Never had time to sit and just…feel.
Lehm is dead.
Gabriel is dead.
I’m a nightcrawler.
Grief burbles up my throat, a sob forcing its way past the tightness.
I sit up and open my eyes to quit seeing Gabriel’s gray face in my mind.
To stop hearing the sound of his last, wheezing breath.
To no longer feel his cold skin under my fingertips as I strip off his clothes, clean him one last time, and carry him to the compost bin on the same level as the bunnies.
He’d lost so much weight from the sickness that I lifted him from the wheelbarrow without much effort, lowered him into the airtight bin, added organic plant material and water, and closed the lid.
We wasted nothing in the Titan Community, including human bodies. My husbands performed the duty when my mother died. She was the last of our parents’ generation.
This was the first time I performed the ritual. I was emotionally drained when I completed the prep and sealed him inside. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t grieve.
So why am I crying now?
Once Gabriel finished decomposing sixty days later, I mixed his compost with desert soil to nourish the wall-mounted garden in the silo.
And Lehm—I didn’t get to do the ritual for him. I waited…and waited…and waited for Lehm to return. He never did.
More tears flow.
I glance at a clock on the wall. It’s only been twenty minutes. How the hell am I going to make it until Zinnia returns?
I sigh, propping my forehead on my arms.
Sitting still and experiencing my feelings is overrated.