Rubbing at his face, he took Graves' temperature again, hoping it would be different.
“You look pretty tired,” Graves slurred from around the thermometer under his tongue.
“I was born tired.”
“Where’s your man?”
Blake pulled out the thermometer and barely cast a glance at it before setting it aside. Same reading. “He’s on a mission.”
Graves yawned. “You must be worried about him.”
Blake righted his bandages and blankets. “And you say I look tired.” He tucked Graves in and stood. “I’m going to get some food. Tommy is just outside, so holler if you need something.”
The room was cold, and it was always a surprise to step outside to be hit with a wall offreezingair. Tucking his nose into his jacket, he took a moment to get used to the gray afternoon light.
The conference room opened up to the pool deck, and then the parking lot beyond a feeble wrought iron fence. Blake couldn’t look at the stacked lounge chairs without remembering their first day here.
After setting sail onThe Judge,they’d traveled north until they found a refugee camp in Bethesda. In theory, it had been everything they wanted. Red Cross tents pitched in neat, orderlyrows. Military vehicles parked outside a temporary fence. Not an alien in sight.
Unfortunately, that’s where the good ended.
Without any form of government, it didn’t take long for the chain of command to unravel. Soldiers left their posts. People began looting. Violence broke out in pockets, and then gangs formed. They spent two nights there, just long enough for Judd to get a little more stable and for Gabriel to find Irving.
At the time, the man had rolled up, his posture rigid in his wheelchair, clothes pristine, and still he somehow managed to look down his nose at them. Irving looked like he’d come straight from a board meeting, and with the same bored effect as one might have ordering lunch, he told them he’d found a better place.
Blake immediately disliked him. He also trusted him.
He brought them to the Potomac View Motel and wasted no time categorizing them like assets. Blake might have had a problem with that if his orders didn’t make so much sense. Grumbling, he went about establishing a Med Bay, helping to scavenge the local homes and businesses, to try to make this place a ‘forward operating base’.
It had no defenses—not that anything could really stop an alien—but it was far enough from the city that they’d been left alone. For now. It was only a matter of time before victory was ripped from a bleeding maw, and the winners began spreading out over the country to do whatever it was they’d come to Earth for.
After a few weeks, they started attracting stragglers. Some people just stopped by while they figured out where they wanted to go; others stayed.
Blake glanced over toward the motel lobby, where Irving had ensconced himself in the motel office, turnedhisoffice. Sometimes he deigned to call Blake over. His dark eyes alwaysassessing, lips pursed as he listened and judged with the openness of someone who knew they were necessary. Blake could admit that Irving probably saved their lives—just not out loud.
Glancing around the pool deck, he caught sight of Tommy sitting cross-legged by the pool house he converted into a chicken coop. Several fluffed-up chickens were scattered around; their faces tucked into feathers against the chill. Tommy didn’t look any better in his oversized coat and scarf. His chestnut hair caught in the wind as he delicately set a splint around one of his bumble-footed chickens. The bird was putty in Tommy's hands, looking up at him with what Blake could only assume was the chicken equivalent of adoration.
Several dogs and even a cat had clustered around them. It was like every animal in the area had homing senses for the vegan who would absolutely share his food and bed with them. They congregated around him like a cult leader, with the same unflinching loyalty that Tommy deserved.
Blake scrutinized him. Even under all his coats, he looked thin. Even at the end of the world, Tommy refused to give up his veganism. The rest of them had gotten by on what they could scavenge and what they hunted. The deciduous forests around them were rife with wildlife, and as much as Blake found the idea ofkillinghis food distasteful, he didn’t mind eating what was already brought back dead.
Tommy did. The ground was too frozen to even attempt a garden, and their stores were hit or miss with what they could scavenge. He wouldn’t even concede to eating the eggs his chickens produced. Blake didn’t even know where the damn things came from. He assumed from some farm or backyard coop, drawn to Tommy like some kind of savior who wouldn’t eat their butt offspring.
And maybe he was. Tommy’s adherence to non-violence did not extend toward humans. He still remembered the first time Irving suggested eating one of his chickens. Tommy had grabbed a hammer and told them that ifanyonecame near his animals, he’d kill them. As far as threats went, it wasn’t creative, but it was effective.
Not because of Tommy or the hammer, but because Phin had stood behind him, biceps bulging as he glared anyone down who so much as dared to make eye contact with any of the fluffy feathered fuckers. Phin didn’t even like them, but he’d helped Tommy build their coop.
Gabriel told Blake not to mention it. Phin was like a skittish animal, and if he thought he’d been perceived, he’d panic. But it was still funny to see him hovering around Tommy like he didn’t know how to exist in his world.
As if sensing his thoughts, Tommy looked up. “Hey,” he called from across the pool. “How’s Graves?”
Blake walked closer, stepping over a sleeping dog. “Infection’s set in.”
Tommy pressed his lips together. “You thought it might.”
I knew it would,Blake wanted to say, but didn’t. Tommy wasn’t stupid or naïve, but he was hopeful. And that hope was a delicate spark that Blake would be damned if he let it go out.
They’d been partners long enough that Tommy took Blake’s silence for what it was. “Maybe the guys will bring more meds back?” he smiled wistfully. “I miss them.”
