Remi’s arm tightens for a quick second, and then she lets go and steps back a few feet. The bear drops back down to all fours, and I feel the vibration of it when its mass connects with the ground. It licks its fishy chops and sniffs around, making sure it got all the fish.
“Don’t be greedy,” Remi chuckles. “That’s all you get.”
Without a fucking care in the world, or any acknowledgement of the trauma it just inflicted, the bear turns and saunters back into the trees and just like that, disappears into the star-cloaked early morning.
Remi smiles contentedly, her eyes following the bear until it’s swallowed up by the dark, and I suddenly realize I can hear my fucking pulse throbbing throughout my whole body. I’m swimming in adrenaline, and I run a shaky hand down my face in an effort to show my brain that we’re okay and it can stop pumping me full offight or flightresponse.
“What the fuck?” Theo pants out, his eyes still locked on the spot where the bear just disappeared.
“Jim Bob,” she shrugs, as if somehow that explains it all. She seems to just now recognize the looks of shock that we’re all wearing. “Don’t worry guys, he seemed to like you. Even though youdidfuck with his breakfast, which even Jim Bob knows is the most important meal of the day.”
I release a mortifying snort, which normally, I would spend a moment being self-conscious about, but her explanation is just so fucking insane, that I have no choice but to laugh. A frantic, slap-happy, girly giggle that I have no control over pours out of me, and the next thing I know, I’m bent over at the waist, laughing my ass off. Whatever kind of mental breakdown I’m having must be fucking contagious, because it doesn’t seem to take long for Madix and Theo to drop into hysterics too.
“You guys are so weird,” Remi admonishes perfectly seriously. It just makes us laugh harder.
Every time we start to wind down and get a grip, one of us simply says,bearhug,and we’re right back to square one, laughing our guts up and trying to figure out how the hell we ended up out in the middle of nowhere, as the country goes to shit, with the craziest person any of us has ever met.
11
Theo
Ipull my shoes off at the back door and stomp into the house, the thump of Puddles’s tail greeting me as I walk into the kitchen. Remi and the guys are behind me, and each of them takes off their shoes and follows me into the house. None of us have said more than a handful of words since the bear incident and the subsequent crack up, but the silence isn’t laced with tension or unease like it was before. Oddly enough, I feel light—lighter than I can remember feeling in years. Which makes no sense, given what’s happening around us with the Handshake Plague.
We’re losing things in life that none of us ever thought we’d have to live without, but maybe this group was made to handle exactly that. Each of us have lost pieces of ourselves, figuratively and literally, over the past years. Maybe this change in the world and our environment doesn’t seem so impossible to manage given what we’ve already been juggling.
I rub at my thigh, even though the ache I want to rub from my leg is further down. The IED, that robbed us each of something, cost me my left leg from just below the knee all the way down. My prosthetic is top of the line and fits perfectly, but I’ve been pushing things to the extreme, and my residual limb is crying out for a break. I sit heavily on the kitchen chair and immediately want to pull my prosthetic off to let my leg breathe and take a break, but I don’t, because I don’t want to bring attention to it.
With everything that’s been going on and how we’ve handled it like the team we are, I’ve been feeling like I’m getting pieces of the old me back, but I convince myself that it can all disappear if I show weakness. The others join me at the table, and Puddles shoves her blocky head into Brant’s lap as soon as he sits, demanding some love.
I watch him as the weight of the impending conversation starts to press in on the content silence that currently surrounds us. He’s been handling his anxiety like a fucking champ, but I know some of this shit has got to be triggering for him. Not that I’d say that aloud, because he’d shut down as soon as the words started to come out of my mouth. I don’t like to talk about the pain in my half-missing leg, and Brant doesn’t like to talk about his PTSD.
“As soon as it’s light outside and we’re showered and packed up, we’re going to leave and head back to Endstone. You’ve heard what we’ve had to say. Now it’s time to decide what you’re going to do.”
I’m surprised that it’s Brant who delivers theshit or get off the potspeech, and not Madix like I assumed it would be. I run my gaze over to Madix and find that he’s watching Remi like he’s trying to figure her out. I don’t blame him. She thoroughly fucked up what he was sure he knew about the situation when she shoved her tongue into his mouth.
The image of the globes of her ass peeking out from her cutoff shorts, and of her tongue teasing Madix’s lips is burned into the forefront of my mind. I bite at the inside of my cheek and shake away the look of her hard nipples pushing for attention through her sweatshirt when Madix moved her away from him like an idiot. If it had been me, I would have grabbed that delicious ass and lifted her up to straddle me, while I explored that naughty little mouth of hers. But it wasn’t me she was kissing, and I was surprised by the pang of disappointment that shot through me as I watched her try to coax Madix into a response. I’m trying not to read into it too much, but she kissed Brant too, so maybe at some point, I’ll get my turn.
I frown at the thought ofmy turn.I’m not sure why I’m okay with her messing around with the others as long as I’m not excluded. This end of the world shit is clearly fucking with my normally good sense. Remi leans back in her chair and looks at each of us in turn.
“I know you three are eager to hightail it out of here, but…” she pauses, and I can practically feel the mental eyeroll that Madix is giving her at whatever excuse she’s about to make, even though he watches her with quiet intensity. “If you can give me the day, I can get my animals sorted for a while and pack up the ones I need to take with me.”
None of us respond, shocked silent that she’s actually agreeing to come with us. I expected her to argue that we’re wrong, or that she’ll be fine out here on her own, but she doesn’t.
“What’s with the change of heart?” I ask curiously.
She turns her attention on me. For once, her blue eyes are shaded with sadness, and it makes my throat tighten. “I haven’t seen my dad in years. We had a really bad argument and...well, it’s stubbornness more than anything. I told him I wouldn’t go back to Endstone unless it was the last place on earth.” She gives an incredulous snort and shakes her head as she messes with the frayed threads of her jean shorts. “I guess it’s time to face the music and try to reconcile. The fact that he sent you three Joe’s up here to get me just shows how serious he is.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
She stands, moving to start getting her house ready. “He knows I’m a sucker for soldiers,” she says, her flirtatiousness sneaking through once again as she smirks over at us.
Madix continues to watch her, like he has no idea what to do with her. “So you’ll come? Just like that?” he asks, his tone laced with doubt.
Her smirk morphs into a grin. “Well, notjust like that.Every woman needs some warming up, Mady.”
“Don’t call me that.”
She shrugs, unconcerned. At this point, I’m fairly certain that she does everything just to see what kind of reaction she’ll get from him, or any of us for that matter. If our situation weren’t so stressful, it would be downright hilarious.
