Page 9 of A Wilderness Within

It took her several moments to collect herself. “I haven’t…had real food in weeks. It’s all blurred together. Music…I never thought I’d hear songs again. It’s too much. I…” She wiped her eyes and looked out the window.

By the creek, three deer wandered along the grass, dodging patches of snow as they nibbled on bushes and trees. There were two does and one fawn, old enough that the white spots were starting to fade on its coat. She watched their stately, delicate prancing walks as they studied the branches in the garden for something to eat.

The man started to stand. “We could use some venison.”

Caroline caught his wrist, marveling at the strength she could feel in his arm.

“No. Please, just let them go.”

She couldn’t tell him, this stranger, what the sight of something so beautiful, still alive meant to her. With the harsh winter, she’d seen only a handful of crows, a few raccoons, and a couple of coyotes in the last few weeks. But those had been scavengers, signs of decay. Many of the bigger animals like horses had seemed to die along with the humans, according to the CDC. She had wondered if the Hydra-1 virus would make the jump to deer. There had been a lot of fevered panic talk in the final days about what the virus was capable of, but no one honestly knew. Seeing those deer still alive give her such hope she could barely speak.

The man shrugged off her hand. “You’ll be regretting that tonight when your stomach grumbles.” He handed her back the plate of food. “Now eat. You don’t want to waste the eggs, trust me.”

She ate the rest of the breakfast in silence and licked every bit of sugary juice off her fork from the peaches. This place was as close to heaven as she could have imagined, though her benefactor hardly seemed to be an angel. When he came to help collect her plate, their gazes locked.

“Thank you…” She struggled, hoping he would give her his name.

“Lincoln. Lincoln Atwood.”

“I’m Caroline Kelly.”

He nodded once, in a curt, military-like fashion.

“You live here?” She nodded at the house.

“For now.” He returned to the kitchen and rested his hands on a walnut chair at the kitchen table. Caroline couldn’t help but wonder why he had taken her from the store and why he was taking care of her now. It didn’t make sense. Maybe he still planned to use her in some way once she was feeling better. She pushed away the thought and the way it both frightened and excited her.

“Why did you grab me at the grocery store last night?”

Lincoln returned to the kitchen and began to clean the pot he had scrambled the eggs in. This place still had running water? That meant she could take a bath? Even a cold shower?

“I saw you and I wanted you. I also knew you wouldn’t get far on your own. In this case, it was worth the risk to double our numbers.”

“Youwantedme?” The word sent a flash of fresh fear through her.

“Yes,” he admitted readily. “But I won’t force you.”

She frowned. “You drugged me. What kind of asshole does that?”

He turned off the water and set the pot out to dry on a dishtowel. He was being so calm and domestic while he was talking about sex between two complete strangers. She could only stare at him. He was clearly insane. Lincoln came back over to the couch. Caroline wanted to shrink back, but she held her ground.

“I’m the kind of asshole who knew what pain you were in after you sprained your ankle and that shelf fell on you and wanted to help you. So I gave you the last shot I had of some of the best medicine this world will likely never see again. You’re welcome.”

“I didn’t need your help. I had a plan, and I was doing just fine,” she shot back.

“Fine? I checked your bag—you had no food, no first aid kit, and no weapons. You were helpless as a kitten out there.”

“I was robbed a few weeks ago. I had everything I could have needed, but then some asshole cornered me and grabbed my bag from behind. I had to leave it to escape. I was working my way through the stores to restock when you found me. The smaller cities had a better chance of not being looted, and I was doing my best to get what I could.”

“Yeah, well, your best wasn’t cutting it, sweetheart. You would have been dead within a week.”

At this she laughed bitterly. “Dead within a week? You have no fucking clue what I’ve been through. No clue at all. I survived the riots of Chicago. I walked out of there on my own, fully stocked and prepared for anything. I climbed the barricades with my bare hands, got through the barbed wire and all the bodies.” Those were memories she hadn’t wanted to relive, the smell of burning flesh, the bloody razor wire coiling in tendrils along the tops of the barricades, and the screams, so many screams, as people clawed their way up to escape. She’d helped as many over the wall as she could, at least thirty before she’d lost her footing and fallen twenty feet to the ground on the other side of the barricade. She’d looked at the other survivors around her, all standing helpless and unsure what to do next. Caroline had begged them to stick together, but they’d scattered like startled rabbits into the outskirts of the small cities surrounding Chicago.

Caroline stared hard at the man before her now, daring him to judge her weak.

“You escaped the barricades?” he asked quietly, his gaze intensifying.

She nodded once, meeting him with a stony glare.

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