The tears in her eyes when we were done.
Those were admittedly confusing, and I still don’t understand why she got so emotional. She’d mentioned how she’d felt on Salem Street when I’d grabbed my clothes and then asked to cuddle, but no good can come from lying down, pressing our bodies against each other.
I’m sure that whatever bad feelings she felt afterward will subside once she sees the dinner I’ve made, and maybe she’ll feelmore secure when I tell her I plan on keeping her around. I may not be cut out to be a Keeper, but I see no problem with Fiona and me benefitting from each other’s company.
I set two places at the table and call for her to join me. She shuffles into the dining area in oversized sweats, her red hair looking remarkably tame compared to the nest it was when I found her on the dumpster.
In one of the lower apartments, there’s a closet full of clothes that I’m almost certain will fit her, and if I remember correctly, there are a few pairs of yoga pants, which the guys at the Keep were keen to see their Kept in. Maybe I’ll like that too.
Thankfully, Fiona is no longer crying and there’s no sign of her being upset, which is good because just seeing her makes my cock stir, which is unheard of.
Why I’m so attracted to her is still a mystery, because while Fiona is a work of art, with plump, pouty lips and green eyes that look like finely cut jewels, those qualities have never once attracted me to a woman.
She takes a seat, and I pour her a glass of wine. “Orange glazed pigeon with rooftop greens drizzled with a balsamic vinaigrette.”
“Wow, were you like a chef before the apocalypse? Did you cook people?”
Damn, she’s bold.
“The only time I cooked a person was to feed them a piece of themself,” I confess.
“Oh…”
“I did watch a lot of cooking shows, though.”
She grabs her fork and starts in on the pigeon first, giving a satisfied“ummm”with every bite.
After dabbing her lips with a napkin, she says, “I never thought I’d love eating the rat of the bird kingdom.”
“With their prevalence, you’ll be eating a lot. Occasionally, we’ll get to have chicken, but I have to take care not to thin their numbers too much.”
“So…the black uniform Caspian wore…the one I saw in your bathroom after you first took me. Were you, like, the civil police?”
I see no point in lying to her.
“For a time, yes.”
“What happened to the world? Did you guys know the dead were going to rise?”
I set down my fork and clear my throat. It’s not surprising that she would put two and two together, realizing the civil police and rising dead were correlated, and I suppose satisfying her curiosity might give her some peace of mind.
“About six months before the dead rose, I was recruited by a man who called himself Saber to join the civil police. I wasn’t in a position to turn down the job, and I was immediately assigned to this city to assist with civil unrest. We worked out of a place we now call the Keep, which is a big fallout shelter that was made to survive global catastrophes.”
“So you guys knew…”
“Not at first. Our superiors did, but they kept it from us. As time passed, we began puzzling together what was happening. We knew there were other Keeps around the world working together, but we’d thought it was to find a solution for whatever was going on. Boy, were we wrong.”
“How so?”
“We found out we weren’t saving the world from an apocalypse. We were causing it.”
The look in Fiona’s eyes tells me she will not be getting peace of mind from what I just told her.
“You…you caused this?”
“Not me. Scientists working in a lab did.”
“Why would they do that?” Tears spill down her cheeks. “Why would you work for them?”
