“Whatever. Anyway, I was thinking about going to the library today. Maybe I can grab a snack for lunch, then I can walk with you over to the school.”
I know in a second that I’ve got him. Jack has this habit of fiddling with his wedding ring whenever he’s feeling super anxious. And now? He’s turning it and turning it until it slips off his finger, landing on the floor with a softclink. He picks it up and jams it back on again.
“You don’t have to do that,” he tells me while I inwardly smirk. “In fact, it would probably be better if you stayed home. Put a bandage on your finger and get back to prepping your bottles. You might need them soon.”
Oh, youdick.I love my dad, but when Jack goes “leader of the Grave” mode, he can be a real dick.
Distract me with the prospect of returning to the hunt? Why not?
I decide to go along with it.
“Really? You mean it? You’re going to let me back on patrol?”
“Well, you heard Eddie and me talking about it, Allie. If the Grave decides to double up on the protections we already have, it would be selfish of me to keep you home when the threat out there is only growing. At the end of the day, it’s all about keeping our people safe.”
All of them, not just his sole surviving family member.
“In that case,” I reply, “I should probably get some of my rigs together.”
“I— yes. That’s a good idea, honey.”
He edges closer, squeezing my shoulder in a wordless gesture before he absently pats my bicep.
It was hot in the condo. I shrugged off Rory’s jacket while working on my bottles, and the tank top I have on does nothing to hide the large scar on my upper left arm. Surprisingly, the apple-sized second-degree burn was the only visible injury I suffered in the explosion that didn’t completely go away. As it was, it took three weeks for it to heal enough that I could call it a scar, but while it stopped peeling, the raw pink skin is a reminder of what one stupid fucking mistake cost me.
Jack’s breath catches in his throat, a sure sign he’s thinking the same damn thing that I am.
I answer his suffocating grief with a fleeting smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes. As Jack adjusts his wedding ring again, I go back upstairs—but I leave the glass bottles right where they are. Instead, I hurry over to the open window just in time to see Jack slipping through the front door beneath me.
Using my phone as a clock again, I wait until Jack’s been gone for five minutes before I grab Rory’s jacket from the back of my door, run down the stairs, and stroll after him.
CHAPTER 4
There are three different housing complexes called the Oak Grove Condominiums, lining up on one side of Grove Avenue until it meets Oak Street. Ours is the middle one, parked in the center of the street. Even in the before days, you can get nearly anywhere if you follow Grove through Madison, and since we formed our community, there’s always someone out on the sidewalk.
Today is no different. For a second, I’m afraid that one of the other survivors will see me and tell me to go back home, but that was a pointless worry. Multiple groups are traveling down Grove, heading toward Madison High. Eddie was right. He had his guys round up the rest of the community, and now, more than ever, I’m pretty fucking sure this sudden meet has shit to do with border patrol.
It’s grown hotter out. Still not humid, but the sun’s a scorcher. I’m already baking under Rory’s jacket, but I refuse to take it off. Sure, it makes it easy for anyone to spot the scowling blonde in the crowd and know it’s Alexandra Holden, but between showing off my burn or feeling like I have my older brother with me, it’s a no-brainer.
Still, as I follow a trio of school-aged kids toward the intersection of Oak and Grove, I shove up the worn leather sleeves if only for a little bit of relief. I recognize Mrs. Baker’s eldest child in front of me, a girl of about nine or ten named Annabelle. It must be something really important, I think, if the call for this meeting includes even the youngest members of the Grave.
That makes my pulse pound a little, my head throbbing as a familiar stress headache starts brewing. What the fuck, Jack? Sure, he’s my dad, but he’s also in charge of the Grave. Excluding me is just wrong, and I’ll make sure he knows it after the meeting.
In order to get to the local high school, you can cross over Oak, continue down Grove, then turn into the school’s long driveway. But if you’re walking—and we all walk in a bid to save the remaining gasoline lingering in the pumps of the only gas station in the Grave—you can take this hidden path that cuts nearly a quarter-mile off the trip.
Even if it wasn’t a shortcut, I’d still go that way because it means that I won’t have to pass the Knights family home?—
“Hey! Hey, Ha—Xandra! Holden! Over here.”
Fuuuuuuck.
My heart skips a beat at the sudden sound of my name rising up above the hum of the other walkers the same time as my stomach drops. My name, and because of the familiar voice that called it.
I can’t help it. I glance up, tracking the echo, watching him come jogging out from the shortcut on this side of the path.
And there he is. Chase Knight.
There’s something about him that reminds me of the sun. Bright and warm, I’m drawn to him whenever he’s near, like a sunflower always tilting its face skyward. But I can’t stare at himfor too long before my eyes start to tear and I’m burning up from the inside out.
