| |
JESSICA
Shortly after Rosario’s takeover, our entire group is locked inside one of the original Fort Ross structures. It’s a single-story home known as the Rotchev House. We’ve been in here for hours.
The Rotchev House isn’t large by any stretch of the imagination. It was never designed for fifty-five people. The rooms of the house bleed into each other without any modern sense of organization.
I’ve taken up position beside one of the windows at the back of the house. The glass is old, the world beyond wavering and uneven when seen through it.
Around me are whispers and murmurs. People have broken up into clumps. Some huddle together on the floor, consoling one another. Others pace, talking in low voices. Planning.
Alvarez has a plan. Apparently, he had people stash weapons all over the fort. There are even a few screwdrivers under loose planks in the kids’ room of this house. He left out a big box of booze for Rosario’s people to find. When they celebrate their takeover of the fort, we’ll strike back.
It’s a shaky plan at best. Rosario’s people have firepower. A lot of firepower. And it’s not just fuckheads with guns we have to worry about. They’ve brought a dozen zombies into the fort, all of them leashed like the one that bit Shaun. What sort of deranged idiot brings zombies inside her home? No matter what, we’re going to lose people.
I watch Rosario’s people scuttle through the grounds, ransacking the buildings, tents, and motorhomes. Two women enter an RV, shrieking with triumph as they deck themselves out in new clothes. They toss things out onto the scrub grass that grows in patches around the fort. An old shoe box spills a dozen books across the ground.
I shift my gaze past the desecration of our home. It cuts to the bleeding figure tied to the laundry pole near the well. The worst part is that Shaun is still alive, suffering and dying slowly. My eyes ache as though I’ve spent hours sobbing, though in truth I haven’t cried since the day my daughters died.
“I’m sorry about Shaun.” A teenage girl leans up against the other side of the window across from me, watching the pillaging. She sniffles, scrubbing at the tears that leak down her cheek. “I know you guys aren’t married anymore, but still—I’m sorry.” She swallows, throat convulsing as she suppresses a sob.
Sometimes it’s hard to look at the teenager with dirty blond hair. Stephany is her name. Steph.
She looks nothing like either of my girls. I don’t see an older version of Claire and May when I look at her.
It doesn’t matter. I still see a girl who survived. It’s impossible not to think of Claire and May when I’m around her.
I should respond to Steph, but I don’t know how. Bitter words curl on the end of my tongue. I refrain from dumping them on an innocent teenager. I’m not that messed up. Yet.
Steph was in the original group who’d come here with Alvarez in the beginning. I’d heard snippets of the story, of how Alvarez rescued her family from a van stuck on a freeway and surrounded by zombies. It wasn’t so different from the story of how Alvarez rescued me and Shaun from an abandoned station wagon north of Fort Ross.
Except both my girls were already dead when he found us. Alvarez never had a chance to save them.
“Hey, guys.”
My eyes flick to Bella, who joins me and Steph at the window. She’s the only other teenage girl in Fort Ross.
Bella and Steph are bound through age and gender, though as far as I can tell that’s the most they have in common. Bella was one of those popular kids when there were still high schools. She reeks of confidence. It’s no stretch of the imagination to see her dating the high school quarterback, getting straight As, and running for student body president.
Steph, on the other hand, is more of the shy, study-bug type. She follows Bella around like a puppy. Even more so since the day she’d been kidnapped by one of Rosario’s men.
At the time, we hadn’t known about Rosario. Two of her scouts had stumbled onto our community and snatched Steph and another woman named Kris from the gardens.
Kris never made it back. She’d been raped and later shot when she tried to escape. Alvarez got there before the men could start in on Steph. Another ten minutes and it might have been too late for her. The experience had tethered Steph even more tightly to Bella. She puts on a good fake smile and pretends everything is okay, but it’s all bullshit. That girl isn’t okay by a long shot.
Tears trickle down Steph’s cheeks as she takes in Shaun’s slack, bleeding form on the laundry pole. “I’m so sorry, Jessica.” She chokes on a sob as she speaks.
I want to walk away from the girls, but there aren’t a lot of other places for me to squeeze into. And as much as I want to scream and beat my fists on Shaun’s chest, the idea of not being able to see him makes my heart cramp.
“Are you okay?” Bella asks.
I look away without answering. No, I am not okay. I haven’t been okay for a long time.
“He’s such a good person,” Steph whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
Their sympathy makes me want to break something.
I feel Alvarez enter the room before I see him. I can tell by the rustle of activity near the doorway when he’s near. I switch my attention to him, glad for the distraction.
I watch him move through the room. His shoulders bend as he pauses to speak and offer words of comfort to each and every person. The people love him. They sit up a little straighter when he’s near. I see the way his words transform people. They don’t strip away fear, but they do leave everyone with a sliver of hope in their eyes.
I look away when he drifts in my direction. I don’t want his comfort.
“You girls doing okay?” Alvarez has a warm smile for Bella and Steph.
“What are we going to do?” Steph asks. She, in particular, idolizes Alvarez for saving her family and getting them to Fort Ross.
“I know things are scary right now, Steph, but I promise you we’re going to get through this.” The words roll off his tongue like honey, a balm to her fear. “Jessie?” He turns his attention to me.
Besides Shaun, Alvarez is one of the few people who calls me Jessie. It stirs something inside me every time he does it.
I ignore the feeling, giving him a flat stare. I don’t need this man to sugar coat anything for me. I know how fucked up our situation is.
“Jessie ...” His voice trails off as he stares out the window at Shaun. “Jessie, I—”
I hold up a hand to silence him, shaking my head. I know where the blame for this situation lies. It was all Shaun’s doing. Besides, rehashing it isn’t going to make Shaun any less dead.
How long is Rosario going to leave him strung up on the laundry pole? Until he turns?
The idea makes my stomach hurt. The time it takes an infected person to turn varies. I’ve seen it happen in several hours, like it did with my daughters. I’ve seen it take three to four days on adults.
Shaun could be out there for days.
I fist my hands, wishing I could smash them through the glass.
Alvarez’s smile stiffens. I admire him for even trying with me. I’m not the nice housewife I used to be, once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away.
“Shaun asked me to look after you,” Alvarez murmurs. “I intend to do that.”
I don’t laugh in his face, though I want to. His words confirm my suspicion that Shaun knew he was sacrificing himself. He wouldn’t have extracted that promise otherwise.
“You don’t have to look after me. You have all these other people to look after.” I don’t bother telling him I don’t care if I live or die anyway.
Alvarez refuses to be rebuffed by my coldness. His hand comes up to rest on the side of my cheek. The unexpected tenderness freezes me in place.
“I know you’re hurting, Jessie. We’re going to get through this.”
For the barest second, I dare to look at his face. Into his eyes. A woman less fucked up than me could lose herself in those soft black eyes. Is it any wonder half the women in the fort are infatuated with him?
He gives me a gentle smile before moving on.
Steph and Bella fold together, huddling on the ground with their arms around one another.
I stay where I am.
I don’t know how long I stand at the window watching the blood drip out of Shaun’s body. There will always be a part of me that hates every fiber of him for breaking my heart. The fact that he’s leaving me a second time—in a more permanent fashion this time—makes me hate him all the more.
Even so, I’d trade places with him in a heartbeat.