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BEAU RUBBED HIS NOSE, spreading the dirty smudge up the bridge and down the side by his eye. “Aunt Brenda, how come we can’t go back home? What’s going on?”
How did someone explain the end of the world to a four-year-old? Brenda’s mouth fell slack as she took in the expectant face of her nephew. She had nothing, and she knew it.
He ducked his tow-head an inch, lifting his blonde eyebrows. “Aunt Brenda? If you don’t know, that’s okay.” But still he watched her.
A bit of paranoia crept up to itch the brand on her neck like a flea. The pain was receding but in its wake the discomfort of healing was nearly unbearable.
Kayli walked up behind her brother and nudged his shoulder. “Leave Aunt Brenda alone. Mom said she’s dramatized.”
Dramatized? “You mean traumatized?” Brenda yawned. The six hours of sleep she’d scraped together after Rachel and Josh had left hadn’t even scratched the surface. The kids would head to bed as soon as the sun sent shadows across the clearing.
Her six-year-old niece nodded her head. “Before she left, Mom said you got hurt and we’re supposed to take care of you.” Kayli patted Beau’s back, sounding more like a twelve-year-old. “Are you ready to eat dinner? Mom left us some anti-chili and for dessert, her special trail mix.”
Beau’s somber expression split into a smile. “Yeah.” He abandoned his question about what was going on out in the real world and ran to the kitchen in the bunker-style house his dad had built into the mountain.
Oh, it’d be awesome to be child again. “That’s a great idea, Kayli, thank you.” Brenda left the couch and angled around the chair and small table against the wall. She peeked out the door since the windows were covered in tin foil.
Twenty-four hours before, the clearing had been masked with a random pattern of “mole hills” acting as raised gardens. The area had been clean and relatively empty. Now, a thick layer of dirt and rocks covered the grass. Large boulders rested against damaged trees across from the dwelling.
Rachel, Brenda’s sister, had put the dirt bike Brenda had escaped on into the lean-to style garage tucked beside the house. Where Brenda had propped the bike against a tree stump, a pile of rock and debris held together a stack of crushed tree limbs and brush.
The bombs hadn’t fallen in the clearing or on the hillside harboring Rachel’s house, but had terminated the mountainside north of there, where the plane had crashed – according to Rachel and Josh. Josh had hinted at erasing evidence of something, but Brenda hadn’t caught what.
Kayli handed Brenda the dish of anti-chili – which just meant it had a whole lot more than just beans in it – from the cooler, a cave-like room cooled by an underwater spring in the rock. Beau reached for bowls and spoons, while Brenda rummaged in the cupboards for a pan. Even in a survival aspect, her super-organized sister annoyed Brenda... even when she wasn’t around.
And Josh. Josh had fallen through the front door, his shoulder lacerated by thrown rock, while the bombs crashed outside. He’d saved her from the captives in town, well kind of. Brenda had orchestrated a mass escape but at the end, things had fallen apart and Josh had been there to help out.
But he’d left Rachel’s husband – his best-friend – Andy, somewhere in the forest with an infected wound and lost Cole, Rachel’s oldest son, to the militia. His résumé wasn’t looking too good for “knight in shining armor”.
Brenda’s attraction to Josh had nothing to do with his broad shoulders or blue eyes. She just had a thing for the wrong-type of man. Look at the sick attraction she’d had for Daniel, her captor. And the most infuriating part about the illogical attraction was that she couldn’t control it. Damn men. And damn her insecurities.
Soup sloshed into the pan. Tomato chunks and ground meat blended with green peppers, dark red kidney beans, and onions. The red color reminded her of the blood in the gym, when they’d shot people. In front of her. She winced and looked away. A wave of nausea rolled over her.
Dinner was going to be a long ordeal, if she couldn’t get past the memories of the last few days. Rachel and Josh had more on their plates than she did. Brenda just had to focus on the kids and figure out the best way to help Andy, if Josh got him to her before he died.
All of it was going to be a long ordeal.