“People are bad. They hurt you,” I whispered, repeating my father’s words. “Don’t trust anyone. People are bad.”
Peoplewerebad, especially these people. That woman with the bright pink hair was the devil herself; I was certain of it. I could practically see the death lingering all around her like smog. She practically reeked of destruction and hatred, more so than anyone else I’d come across here.
Even more than Eagle.
“Eagle,” I whispered into the empty room.
I shook my head, still mumbling to myself as I moved away from the windows, needing some form of distraction, something for my hands to do to release all my nervous energy. I sat down on the couch, then instantly stood back up, shivering as I recalled what had happened this morning.
“They’re dangerous.”
No matter what, they were all dangerous.
“They scare me.”
But then why was I longing for him to come back? Why was his absence driving me crazy?
“Because I’m not alone anymore.” I practically wailed the words, and then once again started to pace.
I paced as I muttered to myself, whispering out loud the things that scared me most, the things that made me beg for something and nothing and everything and everyone all at once. Everything ached and hurt; my mind was a tumble of confusion. The sadness that had grown so long inside me was now suffocating me with its strangled vines of hope.
Silence had always made me feel at ease, and yet now, I found I needed the sound of his ragged breathing to fill the air, the deep rumble of his chest when he spoke. Somewhere, somehow, my need for companionship had been flipped back on. But at the same time I didn’t want to leave the safety of the darkness.
Shivers raked up my spine and I bit the inside of my cheek hard, crunching down with my back teeth until I felt them pierce the soft flesh and I tasted the tang of blood. I gasped and opened my mouth and I sucked in a ragged breath.
A thump sounded at the door, the sound making me jump, both in fear and delight. He was back, he’d returned, and as relief and panic simultaneously filled me, I dragged my hands down my face, attempting to control my emotions.
Standing there, barely breathing, I listened as he unlocked each padlock and bolt with a thoroughness and precision that I wouldn’t have expected from a man like him.
The door swung open and he stepped into the gloom—my gloom. When he closed the door behind him and shut the sunshine back outside where it belonged. Lifting his head, he paused and simply stared at me from the doorway, looking me over slowly and carefully.
My hands clenched into fists at my sides, my jagged nails digging into the palms of my hands. He had that look again, the one that both frightened and irritated me. Anger, an intense rage that burned deeper than the core of the earth and ran a river of lava right through his veins.
Then it dissipated, the heavy pall of violence hanging over him, and as he sighed and ran a hand across his beard, I sighed too.
“You need to get a job.” His voice carried across the room, grating and rough like gravel. He tossed a bundle of fabric forward that I hadn’t noticed him carrying, and it landed on the floor with a heavy thump. “Clean clothes,” he said.
Clothes? A job? My mouth fell open. I couldn’t get a job. You didn’t have a job when the world ended; you only had survival. That was your only job, to survive.
“You have to earn your keep here,” he continued. “You’re not a child. Everyone works, no one has a choice.” He paused, regarding me warily with narrowed, assessing eyes as if he expected me to fight him on the matter, to start yelling, screaming, kicking, and clawing at him.
And just like that I wanted him gone again, wanted my silence back. Annoyed, I turned away from him and slipped quickly into the other room. Sitting down cross-legged on the floor, I listened as his heavy footsteps followed after me until he stood in the doorway, his broad frame entirely filling the narrow space.
“Did you hear me, Squirrel?” His voice was louder now, angrier.
“Yes,” I whispered sullenly, not entirely sure why I felt this way.
The silence that followed was brooding, weighty, and full of displeasure.
I liked it here in his room where the sunlight couldn’t reach me, where the people beyond these four walls couldn’t see me, where nothing and no one could find me. Out there I would be even more vulnerable than I was in here, I would be a girl—no, wait, I wasn’t a girl anymore. I was a woman, Eagle had said. I was nineteen or twenty, a woman. I closed my eyes and sighed, feeling the weight of those words and of the responsibility that came with them.
He cursed softly, still watching me as if he was waiting for me to say something. I stared at him, at all of him—his messy hair, his deep-set dark eyes, his wide mouth and square jaw, his towering body, packed with an incredible amount of muscle and so much definition that it couldn’t be hidden away, not even under the several layers he was wearing. Everything about him was demanding and intense. So very intense.
“What will I do?” I whispered.
He came into the room slowly. Even in the dimness I could see the frown on his face, the prominent scowl lines made darker still by the lack of light.
“The garage, with me. Working on cars.”
