“I’m only a doctor if I have to perform surgery,” I said drolly. What if Cipher’s arm didn’t heal right? If I thought I’d get awaywith it, I’d drug him and take him to the military base for an X-ray myself, but I couldn’t pull that off without help. If he showed any signs of infection, that’s exactly what we’d be doing. But to argue with him now would just make him more stubborn about it. We were similar in that way.
“Beautiful sunset.” Cipher motioned with the bottle to the display in front of us, softserve swirls of pink and purple amongst the cotton candy clouds. You could always count on Mother Nature to do her thing, even while the rest of the world was falling apart. It was comforting, in a way.
“How are Daisy, Maisy, Pudding, Delilah, and Rose?” Cipher asked, referring to our little flock of fowl, two hens and three ducks. I was pleased that he’d remembered all of their names.
“They’re going to start laying any day now, now that it’s getting warmer outside.” We’d managed to trap the birds in the woods and bring them home. Macon and I had built a chicken coop with Cipher’s help and dug a shallow pond lined with plastic for the ducks to splash around in. We’d been searching for a rooster or a drake to grow our flock, but still no luck.
“Omelets for everyone,” Cipher said, offering the bottle back to me.
“Keep it. You need it more than me.” One of us needed to be on watch tonight, and even though I wasn’t a night owl by nature, I’d determined that it would be me.
Cipher took another long pull. The adrenaline from our fight with the Rabids was starting to wane and his eyelids were drooping. The best thing for him right now would be to rest.
“Come here,” I told him. I sat with my back against the AC unit and motioned him to sit between my legs. There he could lie back against my chest and use my leg as a prop for his arm. “Better?” I asked.
“Yeah, babe. You’re the best.”
“I might try to make some cookies,” I said, picking up on our earlier thread. Dried beans were still in abundance when we scavenged, and I’d read in one of my mother’s cookbooks that some kinds could be ground up to make flour.
“You miss baked goods?” Cipher asked.
“Yeah, I do,” I admitted with some guilt. I’d let food and comfort cloud my vision in Promised Land. We all did.
“We haven’t had bread since Promised Land,” Cipher said, reading my mind.
“Remember when it was still warm and fresh from the oven, and the butter just melted on top of it?” I said as my mouth watered. “And those homemade biscuits?”
“The chicken pot pie was something else,” Cipher agreed. “Too bad their leader was a phony piece of shit.”
Too bad he was dead now, thanks to me. I said a prayer to God, begging for His forgiveness. I could remember the squelching noise of the blade entering Brother Larry’s body. Three times I stabbed him, just like Cipher taught me. What had happened to the rest of Promised Land once their leader had fallen? Despite his ill treatment and the corruption of the Council, I hoped the people living there were okay–Salome, Jason and their baby daughter Rosemary…
“I wonder how Marion’s doing, and the mothers,” I mused. My one regret in leaving Promised Land was having to part ways with her.
Cipher’s face softened at the mention of Marion. “I’d like to say we could ask about her, but I don’t exactly want to advertise that we’ve been to Promised Land, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.” It was a precaution meant to protect me, the same reason Cipher didn’t want the military to question us. He didn’t think I could stick to the story. I wasn’t sure I could either.
“This stuff is pretty awful.” Cipher glanced at the bottle before taking another drink.
“You’re doing Macon a favor.”
“Yeah, I don’t think this is what he had in mind when he said hard liquor.”
“He’s already started making his own anyway. But don’t tell him I told you. He wants it to be a surprise.”
“We can try scavenging another store tomorrow. See if we can find any more stuff on our list,” Cipher said.
“Are you kidding me right now?” I snapped at him. “We are going straight home and fixing your arm.”
He chuckled. “I love it when you get bossy.”
I huffed and squeezed him tighter to me. Idiot.
“You were right,” I said, thinking back to our fight with the Rabids.
“Bout what?” he asked, looking drowsy.
“It’s us versus them.” I’d shot three of them in the head, point-blank, and I’d wanted to kill more. When that Rabid pounced on top of Cipher, I nearly lost my mind.
