Page 69 of Worth the Ruin
I lean back to look at him and slide one hand over his cheek, gently stroking my thumb over his cheekbone. I lean in and kiss him, slow and deep and saying all the rest of the things that I can’t say out loud right now. I shift on his lap and lose myself in him for a while.
“Thankyou for telling me all of this,” he says quietly, hours later as we’re finally drifting off to sleep in the middle of the afternoon. My head’s on his chest and I’m wrapped around him, pressing my body as close to his as I can. His fingers play in my hair and my eyelids droop.
“Thank you for…everything,” I whisper.
“Melody?”
“Hmm?” I murmur, sleep pulling me under like a riptide. I’m not even sure if what I hear next is real, but I fall asleep with a smile on my lips.
“I think I’ve gone and fallen in love with you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
MELODY
It’sweird being back at FOS. We just got back a few minutes ago, and while my heart actually leapt when we made our way over the now-familiar road through the woods thinking of seeing Renee and Abuela again and a sense of returning home settled over me, a part of me mourned the loss of the apartment. Being there with Austin was like some secret, perfect bubble where we could just be us. Where no one had any expectations of either of us, where there weren’t zombies trying to rip us to shreds, where he didn’t have to wear that mask and pretend to be a person he wasn’t—an act that I know is slowly starting to kill him.
It took a week for the snow to finally melt and Wynn and the others to make their way back to us, and it was one of the best weeks of my life. We talked, and laughed, and cried. We shared things that neither of us had ever shared with another person. We connected in a way that I thought was gone from my life forever. Anddear Godhad we done everything you can imagine in the physical department—and probably a handful that you really can’t. Mind-blowing. Life-altering. More pleasure than any single person should ever have.
We’d even cracked the code on the armory. We’d tried and failed to figure it out too many times to count and both of us were pretty much resigned to the fact that it was a lost cause. We’d searched every book in the place, thinking it had to be a cipher of some sort, the letters corresponding to ones within a text maybe, but had no luck. We’d been just lying on the mattress, watching another movie, when Austin had jolted upright, nearly spilling all the popcorn.
“What?? What’s wrong?” I’d asked, alarmed, looking around for some threat I’d managed to miss, half expecting to see a Bloody scaling the balcony or something.
“I got it,” he’d said with a grin, pointing at one of the frames on the wall and then snapping his fingers. It was a signed ticket stub of some sort, but I had no idea how in the hell that helped our cause. He’d run back into the bedroom like a little kid running downstairs on Christmas morning, and I’d rolled my eyes, pausing the movie and setting the popcorn bowl on the table before joining him.
He was staring at the wall, nodding to himself, lips moving as he said God knew what so quietly that only he could hear it. Then he grinned, clapping his hands and whooping.
“Yeah baby! I fucking got it!”
He kissed me hard and then he was gone again.
“Ok this getting left in the dust thing is getting old!” I’d called as he’d torn through the apartment and down the stairs. I followed and he was already working on the lock when I made my way into the workshop.
“MMBBKGJGMJRNR,” he said as I hopped up onto the workbench to watch. He was pretty cute when he was all giddy and excited, I had to admit.
“Try again, in English this time?”
“I can’t believe it took me so long to see it. They’re baseball players, arguably some of the best in history. I guess that’s whyUncle Charlie chose them. But anyway, the combination is their jersey numbers—well, I’m like ninety percent sure, anyway.” I saw the string of letters in my mind and he started to rattle them off. “Mickey Mantle, Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., Greg Maddox, Jackie Robinson, and Nolan Ryan.”
“Holy shit,” I breathed, knowing immediately that he had to be right. “But wait, how do you know MM isn’t Mark McGwire?” I didn’t know a ton about old baseball players, but my uncle owned a memorabilia store and had a bunch of stuff from that big home run race that happened way back in the late nineties.
He looks thoughtful and then shrugs. “I just think Uncle Charlie was a Mantle fan.” I get the feeling that he’s sayinghe’sa Mantle fan and hopes Charlie was too. He frowns. “Wait, shit, it’s not enough numbers.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re one off. 7-24-25-31-42-34. I need one more.”
“Try zero seven.”
He did and when the familiar click of the lock releasing echoed through the room, he met my gaze, smiling widely.
“Let’s see what’s in the treasure chest, shall we?”
I’d hopped off of the workbench and stood beside him as he pulled open the first cabinet andholy fucking shit.It was stocked to the brim with weapons—everything from guns to knifes to throwing stars for fuck’s sake—and enough ammo to start a small war.
“Yeah, baby!” Austin had cheered again, picking me up and twirling me around in triumph and excitement. And then we celebrated in a whole different way that involved me being bent over a workbench. All in all, it was a great fucking day.
I hadn’t been sure how to act when the rescue party arrived, but it had been such a whirlwind of Austin getting caught up on everything going on across Haven and making plans to start transporting supplies back, that I ended up not really having toworry about it much. He had to fall back into King of the World duties and I had to let him. I was plenty busy helping Wynn and Johnson on the supply side of things too, so it wasn’t like I was just sitting on the sidelines, pining and pouting or anything.
