Page 34 of Before Their After

“Hard to be lost when you got nowhere to go,” I said.

Evander scowled at me.Rule #1,I’d explained,never tell anyone who we are or where we’re going.But here I was, staring at a little girl with fairy wings and a man with honest eyes. I’d learned the difference years before this. Had to if my plans to ruin my father's plans were to go off without a hitch.

“Same,” he mused.

Not shit was funny about our situation. Not even remotely. At the same time, everything was funny because in a blink of an eye, the life we’d known before this had become pointless.

Huffing a laugh, I scanned the room. “Thanks for sharing,” I mumbled.

The pair had pitched together a fort out of pink blankets, what appeared to be every pillow in the house underneath it on the floor. Picture books sat atop their makeshift palette, graham crackers and a juice box tipped over on the side.

That wasn’t what caught my attention. The stack of canned goods forming a pyramid my height in the corner is what did it. That and the dozen jugs of water in front. They must have been camped up in this room, but to have this much food and water at once … he was either extremely prepared, or not as honest as he seemed.

“You welcome,” the man said, making his way across the room. “Hungry? We have food.”

He handed me what appeared to be some sort of jerky in a plastic bag. My nostrils pulled, lips grimacing.

Putting up a hand, I pushed it away. “No thanks, we’ve seen The Walking Dead.”

“Promise it’s store bought.” He smirked, walking to place a hand on the little girl’s shoulder. “The good kind.”

“Papi said I can’t watch that show with him till I’m older.” Her frizzy hair was wild around her face, the brown of her eyes the same as his.

I glanced down. “You make it a habit to talk to strangers?”

“Yes.”

Her toothless smile was wide. The sight of it triggering an emotion inside me that I’d fought to bury long before the end of the world. Hope glistened in her small little face, something I hadn’t expected to see ever again. I wondered if they’d made it through the last week unmarred, unknowing of what was left out there with the rest of humanity. The darkness that lingered around every corner.

“Well, you should stop,” I grumbled, cracking my neck.

It was the man who responded, no doubt trying to intervene before I shattered what normality remained in this child’s life. “Why?”

“Because things have changed,” I said, taking a step back to stand near my brother. “It’s not whatever the hell you thought it was when you holed yourself up in here.”

“Name’s Tiago, and this is Dahlia. See, now we aren’t strangers.”

“That’s not how that works.” I scoffed, an amused sneer replacing the neutral front I’d displayed.

He nodded toward the door in response. “Then get out.”

Evander’s hand tightened around the grip of his gun. I placed a hand out in front of him, diffusing the situation before his impulsivity put us in an unfavorable situation. While we needed what Tiago had to survive, he had his daughter to worry about. The fight would be a battle of will. I wasn’t in the mood to find out who’d come out victorious.

“Yeah, not happening.” Evander’s face reddened. I was losing control over the situation. On top of the already tiresome teenager hormones, I now had to deal with a second phase of puberty and it was kicking my ass.

“Okay then,” Tiago surmised, holstering his pistol and picking the girl up as if they were leaving a damn play date. “Settle in. We hit the road in the morning. You can either come with us, or we can hit the road and part ways. Or you can stay here and give survival your best shot. Either way, we can’t take all the food with us, so grab what you need. Leave the rest for whoever needs this place next.”

“Hit the road to where?” I asked.

If there was some place safe he knew about, I needed to know where. Maybe it would give Evander a chance. He needed security for when I was gone. And if I couldn’t make the trip, then maybe Tiago could get him there himself.

“Up north.” His voice was confident, though he didn’t grant us with an exact location. “If we hit the border, it’ll be better up there.”

“The fuck is up there?”

“With our luck,” Tiago and the little girl closed in on us, his eyes revealing the honest man beneath. “Everything we’ve been missing the last week.”

“My brother doesn’t believe in luck.” Evander laughed.

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