“Tor.” He wheezed, coughing again, and it sounded like his lungs were filled with liquid as he spoke. “You were never as affectionate with me like you are with them. Maybe it did make me jealous. Daisy thought so… I’m sorry, but I loved Daisy… Glad you found something too.” He fell face first into his blood and convulsed violently before his eyes shot back open.
Unlike Daisy’s milky look in her eyes, Jay’s were filled with blood. It struck fear into my chest, and I readied my golf club as he pushed off the floor and came at me. I swung the golf club, and his head snapped to the side with a crack before he fell to the ground, but his hands twitched.
I stumbled back into strong arms, and a bullet shot through Jay’s head the next second.
“I got you, darlin’.”
“You did great,” Nathan assured me, tucking his gun away.
“Let’s go home.” Calix grabbed one of the wagons as Nathan grabbed the other, and my mind was jumbled as we left the warehouse and my two ex-somethings behind.
The restof the day was a blur, and we made it to the river before the sun set. The sky was a dark, menacing gray, and the air was still. The river flowed with small ripples, unlike the rushing it had done just a couple of days ago after the rain.
As Micah and Nathan set up the tent and Calix helped the fire roar to life, a gust of cold, bitter wind blew through, and the first snowflakes of winter danced and twirled down from the dark sky. The snowfall was light as we sat down around the fire and filled our stomachs with canned soups, but as we entered the tent for the night, the flakes got heavier and heavier.
I curled up between my men, soaking up their body heat. “Thanks for being here,” I murmured.
Calix’s lips pressed against my temple. “Wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, honey.”
Micah’s beard scratched my cheek as he leaned over Nathan and kissed my lips. “Always here for you, darlin’.”
Nathan buried his face in my neck and kissed it gently. “Always.”
“Get some sleep. I’m taking first watch, but we may have to travel in the dark if the snow starts to pile up more,” Micah rasped, but I had already started to drift asleep.
Nathan wokeme up early in the morning before the sun rose. The snow had created a thin blanket over the landscape, and the temperature was well below freezing.
We bundled up with the new coats that Jay had found at the warehouse and Calix had remembered to pack and headed back to the Oasis with the two wagons filled in tow.
Snow crunched underfoot, and the sun had finally started to peek over the horizon.
“Are you okay, honey?” Calix’s voice was soft and concerned, and I lifted my shoulders in a shrug.
“Daisy and Jay used to be the most important people in my life, but then they betrayed my trust and ruined my perception of them.” I blew out audible breaths. “I’d mourned who they were to me after that. Their deaths were nothing I had wanted to happen, but it doesn’t hurt anymore than it did when I lost them in the past.”
“You still put down people you knew in life,” Micah rasped. “Even if you held contempt for them, it’s hard. It’s okay to let yourself process and feel it.”
“But if you have nothing to process about it, that’s okay too. Just because they’re dead doesn’t mean they didn’t suck,” Nathan added helpfully, but Micah elbowed him in the arm.
“I’ve fallen so hard for you guys.” My stomach fluttered with a sense of belonging. They all stopped walking and stared at me, and I paused before tugging the cotton hat over my ears. “What?”
“Is that your love confession?” Nathan dropped the wagon handle and moved forward. “Because now it’s not life or death. You can’t take it back if you say it.”
Heat flushed my cheeks as I nodded. “Yeah. I guess it is. I mean, Idolove you. All of you. I can’t imagine life without you.”
Nathan swooped forward, smashing his lips to mine before pulling back. “I love you too.”
Micah caught my wrist and tugged me into his chest. “I love you, darlin’. Figured it was obvious by now.”
“I love you too, honey,” Calix murmured sweetly, and his eyes were glossy as he cleared his throat as we started our journey home.
We reached the Oasis when oranges and pinks blazed through the horizon, casting a warm glow over the heavily blanketed snow on the ground. The air was bitingly colder than it was when we started, and large flakes continued to fall from the sky, whipping back and forth from the gusts of wind.
Nathan and Micah pulled the wagons through the couple of inches of snow with little problem, but when the treehouses came into sight and Bane started growling, my heart filled with relief.
Bane snarled and dug his bony paws into the snow, trying his damnedest to infect us, and Micah let out a rough sigh.
“Sometimes I wish I could pet him, but that’s not Bane anymore. It’s just another rotten corpse.”
