Page 33 of Outbreak

After a few minutes, Ghost walks back over to me, his eyes hard and unreadable. I worry that we’re about to be kicked outbefore we’ve even made it inside, and the thought of leaving without getting cleaned up and eating that delicious-smelling food makes me want to cry.

This friend appears behind him, stepping out of the shadows like a demon. “Get cleaned up and come eat. I’ll get my wife to set you a place. You can use the guest room. There’s a bathroom inside. It’s up the stairs on the left.”

Ghost grabs my hand and leads me up the stairs, and I hear Mav telling his wife what to do. When I glance back towards the table, I see him towering over her as she stares at the floor. Alarm bells go off, triggering my spidey senses to be on high alert. Maybe I should heed Ghost's warning and keep my mouth shut around him. I don’t get good vibes from him at all.

Who the fuck is this man? And why did Ghost think it was a good idea to come here? We might be better off with the dead fucks outside.

Thank fuck for running water.It might have been cold as shit, but at least I don’t smell like week-old ass and dead people anymore. Ghost let me shower first, and I was half expecting him to get in with me. If I’m being honest, I was kind of hoping he would. But he waited outside the shower, laid our clothes out, and helped me dry off, checking me over for any bites or scratches. I was hoping he’d take the mask off and let me see his face, but he sent me to the bedroom and instructed me to brush out my hair and get dressed while he showered. And since I don’t know and definitely don’t trust his friend, I listened. I don’t know why he insists on keeping the mask on. I think I proved I’mnot going anywhere when I risked my life to find him in a forest filled with fucking zombies.

I hear the water shut off in the attached bathroom as I sit on the bed brushing my hair out. I still don’t feel clean. I don’t know how I was able to sleep in the truck with chunks of our ‘car–neighbors’ just hanging out in my hair and all over my body, but I guess emotional drainage and trauma have a way of shutting off the brain when it’s had enough. And I’ve had plenty enough.

“I hope you weren’t attached to those clothes,” Ghosts says as he exits the bathroom in just a towel and his mask. “They’ll need to be burned.”

At the present moment in time, he could burn the clothes I’m wearing with me still in them, and I don’t think I’d mind.Goddamn, he’s fine.Tattoos twist and swirl all over him, not completely covered, but more than enough to know my big captor might like pain. He’s fucking beautiful, sculpted, and molded from a rare clay I usually only read about in my raunchy books.

“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, we’re not going to make it down for dinner,” he says, turning around and dropping the towel to step into his black sweats. His ass is utter perfection, sculpted by an elite artist with bitches like me in mind.

“I-uh…” I stutter, trying to find words as I trip over my tongue. When I finally drag my eyes back up his body, he’s slipping a white t-shirt over his head, his back muscles flexing deliciously. My brain decides to short-circuit, and by the time he turns around, I’m pretty sure the drool has dribbled down my chin. Clearing my throat and shaking off the momentary lapse in judgment and common sense, I finally finish my sentence. “I wasn’t looking.”

Well, that was about the dumbest and most obvious lie to ever leave my lips, but thankfully, he doesn't call me out on it.He just chuckles and shakes his head as he brings my collar over, now clean and dry. He must have washed it in the shower.

“Come here,” he says, his deep command doing things to my body that it shouldn’t and making me comply without protest. I lay the brush down on the bed and stand, padding slowly across the hardwood to him with my eyes glued to the floor. I stop in front of him before I raise my eyes to meet his intense gaze. It’s almost too much. I’m a mess of emotion and desire right now. This is a dangerous place to be because if he picked me up and shoved me against the wall, I would let him. I’d let him do unspeakable, despicable things to me right now.

He slips the collar around my neck, buckling and locking it before gently running his fingers over the buttery leather. It feels… good. Right. I don’t want to admit to myself that I felt more naked when he took it off before my shower than I did when I undressed out of my clothes.

“There. Much better now,” he says, leaning down and kissing my forehead. I want to feel his bare lips on my skin probably more than I want to go downstairs and stuff my face into that delicious-smelling meal. But he doesn’t give me a chance to say that before he grabs my hand and leads us out of the room and down the stairs.

The candlelit dining room is like the rest of the house, looking like something out of aBetter Homes & Gardenmagazine. “Have a seat,” Mav says, gesturing to the two fresh place settings. His wife comes out of the kitchen, holding two glasses in her hands, and sits them down in front of us. Those alarm bells are ringing again when I get a good look at her. She’s bone thin, almost frail in her modest, long-sleeve black dress that’s well below her knees and goes all the way up her neck. She doesn’t look at us directly, keeping her eyes trained on the polished hardwood floor as she meekly backs away from us a step, as if waiting for her next instruction.

“Serve them, Aspen,” he orders, his harsh tone causing her to startle, but she quickly fixes herself and begins moving around the table with grace, dishing out food onto our plates. I’m about to speak up and tell the asshole we can fix our own plates when Ghost’s hand slides onto my thigh and squeezes. It must have been on my face because when I look up at him, he subtly shakes his head ‘no’. He stops squeezing but doesn’t remove his hand as Aspen finishes serving our plates. That’s when I notice something strange. There’s only three place settings. Ours and Mav’s. She didn’t serve herself. The alarm bells are more like tornado sirens going off inside me when I figure out why. Once she’s completed her task, she moves next to her husband and kneels on the floor at his feet. Her hands are folded neatly in her lap, and she keeps her head bowed in submission.

Okay. Maybe this motherfucker really has a cage, and Ghost wasn’t just blowing smoke up my ass!

No one at the table moves, and I can feel Mav’s eyes burning into me as I look away from his wife and whatever they have going on there and glue them to my plate. I don’t dare look up. Not my circus, not my monkeys. I’ll just sit here and mind my own damn business like Ghost told me to. No way I’m sleeping in a cage tonight.Fuck that.

“Dig in,” Mav finally says, and it feels like the two-ton weight on my body disappears as his eyes finally leave me. I feel like I can breathe again. I think I was holding my breath. I’m not sure. I just know I don’t like him looking at me. And judging by the way Ghost has tensed beside me, squeezing my leg again, I don’t think he liked it either.

Ghost keeps his hand on my thigh as he finally picks up his fork and digs in. I do the same and gather the courage to lift my eyes from my plate again to see Mav take a bite of his food, then scoop some more onto his fork and feed his wife. It’s such an odd thing to see, but she doesn’t appear to be a battered woman, andwho am I to judge how they choose to live their lives? Whatever floats your fucking boat.

I try to ignore the odd situation and focus on the hot meal in front of me. I can’t remember the last one I had, and I might not get another one for God knows how long. I’m going to savor every bite. I was so shocked by the scene playing out in here that I didn’t even notice what the food actually was. My plate is filled with pot roast, mashed potatoes, carrots, and sweet peas. It’s a classic southern staple meal. And when I put the first bite in my mouth, I moan at how delicious it is.

“Oh my God. This is amazing.”

Ghost growls beside me, his fork stalled halfway to his mouth and his grip tightening on my thigh hard enough to leave bruises behind. “What,” I whisper to him, side-eyeing him with my mouth still full.

“It’s okay. Thank you. My wife is an amazing cook.” Mav says coldly, no emotion behind his praise. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”

“Rue,” I say once I swallow the mouthful of food.

His eyes dart to Ghost as a smirk plays on his face. “Rue, huh?”

“So, what have you been doing out here in the middle of nowhere, Maverick?” Ghosts says, changing the subject. “Doesn’t look like there’s much to get up to out here.”

“Just living the dream, man.” Maverick replies, looking at his wife as he feeds her another bite from his plate. She hasn’t looked at us once, and since I don’t want to draw anymore attention to myself, I look back down at my plate and try to disappear in my seat. Ghost and Maverick shoot the shit, so to speak, exchanging meaningless conversation that almost feels as if they’re speaking in code, and I don’t have the energy to try and decode it. I just want to eat my food and go back to the room with Ghost, away from this stranger and his weird juju.

I find it strange that neither one brings up the elephant in the room. Neither of them talk about what’s going on right now with the virus or the dead. But I push it to the back of my mind as we finish eating. Once our plates are clear and I can't eat another bite, I wipe my mouth and put my hands in my lap. I feel like a child waiting to be excused from the dinner table. My legs start bouncing with the need to escape this room and its suffocating atmosphere. Ghost grabs my hand, intertwining our fingers, and rubs his thumb over my knuckle, soothing away the anxious energy. His skin on mine, as PG as it is, still feels like electrical currents shooting through me.

“The meal was wonderful. May I thank your wife?” Ghost asks, shocking me yet again. Why is he acting so fucking weird around this man?

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