Page 40 of Chaos Destiny
Tayler’s eyes met mine, and she raised a hand to her mouth. I held my breath, waiting to see whether she touched her lips,which I would take as evidence that she thought about our kiss as much as I did. But then she chewed on her thumbnail, which made me want to kiss her all over again.
“I’ll bring you your steer, love,” I teased.
She grinned. “You better.”
“Don’t cry too hard while I’m gone.”
“I’ll only cry if you don’t come back.”
I almost leaped from the truck.
The pickup started down the road, and something slammed in my chest as I watched the gates close. The very real possibility of never seeing the people I cared most about in the world was there. And, while I knew I had an obligation to pull my weight, the thought of being away from them made me borderline nauseous. They made me want to keep going, keep trying. That had been the case since the beginning, but Tayler added a new, refreshing layer.
I was keeping my distance out of respect for my fake marriage. Yet, what if I was bitten?
Shot?
What if I died?
As the first safe harbor I’d known in months dissolved into the landscape, it seemed ridiculous now to restrain myself. It felt foolish to hold myself back from something that, though wonderful, I might conceivably have for only a short while. I could already see how it would play out: me lying on my back in the dirt and looking up at the sky as death clawed its way through my system.
There would be regrets.
There would be a deep, resonating sadness.
As much as I wanted to see what the world could become for Ari and Thandie, I was beginning to realize that meeting Tayler made me curious about what it would look like forme.
Under these circumstances, not taking the chance to kiss a beautiful woman was short-sighted. If I didn’t, how would I ever know the joy of how it felt when that beautiful woman decided to kiss me back?
14
We’d coveredover an hour’s worth of ground, yet nature hadn’t tossed us a morsel. Omar kept to the river’s path as best as he could, narrowly avoiding abandoned cars and trucks, most of them graciously devoid of dead bodies. Every once in a while, we came across an Infected either too far away or far too slow to justify wasting time or ammunition to kill. And, each time the treeline broke and gifted us with a peek of the winding body of water, the waters were so still they looked as if the earth had stopped rotating.
“If there aren’t any birds, there might be fish,” I said, lifting my voice above the harsh rumble of the diesel engine.
“Good observation,” Omar called through the slider glass. “When the predators are away, the prey will play.”
“But we’re looking for something more substantial,” Allen cut in. “Pretty sure I already said that earlier. Try to keep up, new guy.”
I laughed quietly to myself.
The man was striking a hornet’s nest while wearing a blindfold.
“Don’t worry ‘bout him,” Memphis said. “Allen ain’t like us, Gage. He ain’t never been more than a few feet of the camp. Never had to take whatever food he ran up on. One night in the woods by himself, and I bet he’ll start begging the gray skins to take him in and feed him a little people-meat.”
Allen didn’t respond.
Over time, it was becoming increasingly apparent that while Allen was the proposed “leader” of the camp, he wasn’t a complete idiot. He didn’t mess with Omar, Dallas, or Memphis. Tasia and Phil, I’d seen him boss around, but he wasn’t a fool when it came to who truly could challenge him, especially not the two identical walking caution signs. He only pushed me because he didn’t know where to place me—yet.
Dallas, perched on the side edge of the truck bed, tilted his head, letting the wind pass over his ambiguous features. “Hey, I got a question,” he prefaced. “You know how, in all them old end-of-the-world TV shows, the survivors always wind up singing some old folk song that nobody ain’t never heard?”
“I assume copyrights have to do with that,” I said.
Memphis mimed playing guitar. “Still, it ain’t never no Led Zeppelin. No Guns n’ Roses. All them white people and notoneGuns n’ Roses?”
Chuckling, I shook my head.
I was both young and old enough for my life to have included everything from cassette tapes to CDs to music streaming services. The kid wasn’t wrong; Led Zeppelin and Guns n’ Roses had been part of my music rotation for years. I probably couldn’t name a folk song off the top of my head if I tried.
