12. Maria
Chapter twelve
Maria
The Preservation Ark—A short time later
Down the hallway, a door opens. “Mommy! Mommy!”
Zinnia.
When I see her, I drop to my knees in the hallway, and she runs into my arms. “Baby girl, how’re doing? Why, you’re covered in sand!”
“Uh, you shouldn’t be holding her,” Chris says.
“I’m her mother.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Mommy, Mommy—we beat the bad guys! And I have more bunnies.”
Bad guys?
I look up at Chris and bite out my next words. “What is she talking about?”
He grips my arm and pulls me to my feet, then looks at Zinnia. “Hey, munchkin, why don’t you see how Carrot and Cabbage are doing while your mother and I bring in the other rabbits?”
“Uh huh.”
Chris gives a jerk of his head and, with a growl, I follow him.
When we arrive in a large room where he parked his truck, Chris faces me.
“We got the rabbits out, but we can’t go back anytime soon for the chickens.
The renegades found us about a mile from the silo complex.
I suspect they’ll follow the highway and find it. ”
“You said she wouldn’t be in danger!”
“No, I promised I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. And nothing did.”
“You’re twisting your own words.”
“Look, they never got near us.”
“Yeah, right.” I perch my hands on my hips, glowering at him. So that’s why he’s late returning. After thirty minutes I started pacing and was about to radio him when I heard Zinnia in the hallway. “Why is my baby girl covered in sand, then?”
He cringes. “I had to use a grenade to convince the renegades to leave us alone. A sandstorm was blowing hard, and when I opened the moonroof to throw it, we both got drenched in sand.”
“A grenade? I told you it wasn’t safe to take her out there.
” I cross my arms to keep from strangling him.
I’ve seen pictures of what a grenade can do from studying pre-Collapse history books we scavenged.
The Titan Community compiled an extensive library of reference books on gardening, animal husbandry, medicine, and how to fix mechanical things.
But there were history books, too. I read them all.
He shrugs. “Maybe I misjudged the risk. But don’t worry. She’s fine now.”
“That’s not good enough.” I pause, gritting my teeth. “You don’t get to separate us. She’s safer with me.”
Chris scoffs at that. “No, she isn’t.”
I step into his space, fisting my hands. “Yes, she is.”
We stare at one another in a standoff. I see his frustration bleed into something else, a different kind of heat.
A tingle starts under my skin and my cheeks grow hotter in response.
Chris clears his throat suddenly. “We’ll figure it out. Zinnia is safe now.”
I say nothing, my emotions all a jumble. I hate that I find him attractive, that I feel desire when I’m angrier than I’ve ever been.
He rubs a hand over his eyes. “Look, let’s get the rabbits settled. I want them isolated to make sure they don’t carry any sickness to my other breeds. Then you can give Zinnia a bath.”
“Bath?”
“We have enough water and the ability to recycle it—she can take a bath, and you can take a shower. I know I need one.” He turns to the truck and lifts out a cage of ten rabbits. “Unload them first.”
Not knowing what else to do, I follow his instructions.
We take two hours to decon the rabbits. He jury-rigs fences to keep the breeds apart because he doesn’t want the new ones mixing with his rexes who roam freely in a grassy lot.
Each time we pass through the living area to carry more cages out to the rabbit dome, I check on Zinnia, who’s fallen asleep holding her toy bunny.
Chris ran the stuffed animal through something he called an autocleaner, and when the cycle completed, he gave it to Zinnia, who was thrilled and hasn’t stopped hugging the green stuffy.
He seems just as excited about having different rabbit breeds as Zinnia is to have her toy back.
And he moves fast. He shows me how to move fast, too, as we unload the rabbits. Something to do with being a vampire.
When we finish shuttling the rabbits around, Zinnia is still asleep on the couch. A cat he calls Wolfie follows us into the living area, and Chris feeds it the same meat he feeds Zinnia. Why does that irritate me? Shouldn’t that food be reserved for my daughter?
Chris insists I drink some more dark wine and demonstrates how to warm a refrigerated bag. “We’ll save the clone blood pouches for the morning. Right now, you’re having donor blood. Be prepared—the flavor isn’t quite as good.” He pours the warmed bag into a glass.
I take a sip and gag on the bitter aftertaste. At least it satisfies my stomach. “This is awful.”
“True that.” He gestures for me to follow. “Zinnia won’t be able to bathe herself alone if she’s never had a bath before. I don’t want her drowning herself or leaving the water running. Let me show you.”
I carry my glass with me, sipping at it, as he leads the way into the bathroom. We had an outhouse over a septic tank back at the compound, nothing this fancy.
“The bathwater will drain into the graywater system for recycling.” He puts a plug in the bathtub’s drain and turns on the faucet, testing the temperature with his fingers.
“Because we’re vampire, we’ll like water hotter than is good for a child.
I’ll run the tub cooler than I like it, and if it’s too cool for Zinnia, you can add some hot. ”
I nod. “You’re gonna leave me here alone with her?” After all the warnings he’s given, it seems strange.
“I’ll stand by. But I have no experience bathing a child. Better if you do it.”
I laugh. “We never had enough water for showers, let alone for baths.”
“It’s not a problem here as long as we don’t overdo it. The blue bottle has a mild shampoo and is good for creating a bubble bath.” He picks up the bottle and squeezes some into the water, and bubbles start forming. “The pink bottle contains hair conditioner. I make both myself.”
Zinnia isn’t interested in waking up. She whines a bit when I get her off the couch and into the bathroom, but I manage to get her undressed. “What should I do with her clothes?”
Chris gives a lopsided grin. “Burn them?”
He’s right. They are pretty disgusting, ripped in places and covered in food, dirt, and straw from the bunnies, along with a fine layer of sand.
He returns to the bedroom and opens a drawer. “She can use one of my plain t-shirts to sleep in for now. I need to set her up with pajamas and multiple sets of clothes tomorrow.”
Despite Zinnia’s grumbling, I get her into the bath.
She wakes up enough to enjoy the experience, picking up water, trying to hold it in her hands only to see it run off, then blows at the bubbles.
While she plays, I soap her all over. I undo her braids and wash the sand out of her hair, then rinse her with the marvelous shower handle.
“Hey, I have an idea.” Chris hands me the half-finished glass of blood. “Keep sipping. I’ll be right back.”
He still doesn’t understand that I love Zinnia too much to harm her, no matter how hungry I get.
He whooshes back into the bathroom with a bucket of toys. “A bubble bath isn’t a bubble bath without a rubber duck.” He drops the yellow toy into the bathwater, and it floats.
Zinnia squeals with delight. She catches the duck and squeezes it, and it quacks.
“Where did you find that?” I ask.
“One of the many homes I’ve scavenged for trade goods. Some I put into storage for trading with the mixed domes. Plastics are used less nowadays.”
Zinnia squeezes the duck over and over, fascinated by its high-pitched sound.
Chris leans over near my ear. “That noise is getting on my nerves.”
“Come on, sweetie.” I rub Zinnia’s back. “Give your duck a rest—let it float.”
She returns the duck to the water and, using the flat of her hand, pushes it in circles through the bubbles.
When she looks as if she’s about to nod off, I give her a final rinse and lift her out of the water to dry her off with a big, fluffy towel.
Such luxury. Chris even has a hairdryer.
They draw too much current for the compound’s solar generator, so I’ve never used one before.
With a towel wrapped around Zinnia, he provides a comb and shows me how to dry her hair.
“With her curls, use the warm setting and the diffuser.” He attaches a round disk to the nozzle. “Keep six inches away, and dry from root to ends.”
“How do you know this? You don’t have hair like hers.”
He averts his gaze and blushes. “I, uh, I had a girlfriend once who did.”
Why do I suddenly feel very possessive? I push the feeling aside. “Do you have any oil to treat her hair? We grew some beans we mashed to make hair oil for her and Lehm.”
“Um, let me see what I have in my trade goods.” He whooshes from the bathroom and returns with a bottle. “Argan oil. Use only a little each time. The stuff is expensive—I get twenty bloo…”—he stops, his gaze traveling to Zinnia—“I mean, twenty dark wine bags for each bottle.”
Zinnia sniffs the tiny dot of oil I pump onto my hand. “Ooh. Smells good.”
I work the oil through her curls, starting at the mid-lengths and working my way to the ends of her hair.
When I finish treating her hair, I section and braid the strands, then pull the t-shirt over her head and realize I’ll have to carry her to the couch.
If she walks, she’ll trip over the long hem.
“Can Daddy Christopher put me to bed?” Zinnia asks.
Chris steps back, horror on his face and his hands raised in innocence. “She just started calling me that. I told her to call me Chris or Christopher.”
I scowl at him. “Just started? For no reason?”
“Um, she said it when she realized you and I were sharing a bed last night. I told her not to call me Papa. Then she switched to Daddy. Said something about reading it in a picture book.”
“We—” I stop. I don’t want to discuss last night’s sleeping arrangement in front of Zinnia.
“Mommy? Can he? Please? He reads good stories.”
“Uh, we started on Alice in Wonderland last night.”