Page 49 of Chaos Destiny
A knock sounded.
The panic returned.
“Still not her, mate. You can come in, Corina.”
A young woman entered carrying a plastic bucket filled with water. She set the bucket down near the door, glanced at Gage, and bowed her head as she left the room.
“Are you a celebrity or something here?” I teased.
He tossed a shirt onto a cot that, right then, looked as comfortable as a six-thousand-dollar bed. “What can I say? I made an impression.”
“What’s the deal with the woman in the scrubs?”
“Tayler? What do you mean?”
“You want to fuck her.”
“And I plan to now that she knows.”
“Knows w?—”
A third flash of panic forced me down onto the thin mattress. If my body kept this up, I would die of a heart attack before I laid eyes on Ari.
“I get it that you don’t want Ari to see you like this,” Gage prefaced, “but I’m telling you…she won’t care.”
I nodded. “I know she won’t, but I want to look my best when I see her again and when I meet my daughter for the first time. I can’t explain it. I just…need to.”
A pair of pants followed the shirt. “Those should fit. I’ll have Corina bring up more stuff.”
It honestly was a nice setup. The only thing missing was the rest of the team, but knowing them, they were probably in charge of their own survivors’ camps somewhere.
Except for Giorgio.
Giorgiohadto be in prison.
“That Allen guy in charge?” I asked.
Gage shrugged. “Supposed to be.”
“Tayler’s his girl?”
“Was.”
I chuckled. “I missed you, man.”
“I missed you too, kid.”
It was Gage’s way, calling someone “kid,” even if they were only a few years younger than he was. To him, it was either a term of endearment or an insult. When Ari and I first started dating, he’d used them interchangeably, but over time, I’d garnered his respect.
Before he left, he showed me where to wash up.
Once I had removed months of grime from my skin, I returned to the room to find a pair of battery-operated hair clippers and an unopened package of underwear. Also in the package was a small slip of paper with the name “Corina” scribbled, a heart dotting the i.
Smiling, I set it aside, dressed, and returned to the washroom to trim my facial hair. The hair on my head, I would deal with later. Had it not been for a few camps Rashida and I had encountered along the way, where I had access to scissors, it probably would have been longer. But I never stopped anticipating running into Ari. It didn’t matter what state we found ourselves in; I searched for her face in every group we came across.
Satisfied that I no longer looked like acompleteneanderthal, I cleaned up and returned to the room. I planned to burn the clothes I’d had on, so I set them in a corner with plans to ask Gage later where I could do just that.
The door opened, and when I heard the voice, I went still.
