Willow
Itossed and turned that evening, sleeping only in short, fitful bursts, fraught with unwelcome dreams. It was this house, and those horrible Christmas decorations, reminding me of things I didn’t want to be reminded of. And it was this room, too hot and dusty, making my skin itch, and smelling like the stale remnants of a life we’d never live again.
At first, I’d hated sleeping outside. I’d spent countless nights too afraid to close my eyes, terrified of the darkness and all the noises hidden in its inky depths. Nowadays, I enjoyed the open air; I no longer lay awake in fear or had trouble finding comfort on rocky terrain. It was the indoors that had become burdensome—rickety shelters that often smelled as bad as they looked and were filled with far more creepy-crawlies than underneath a tree.
We’d endured the unendurable; we’d become experts of the unfathomable; we knew how to stay warm in the winter and how to stay dry in the rain… staying cool during a heatwave, however, was one of the few things we hadn’t quite mastered.
Wiping the sheen of sweat from my face, I rolled over and reached for my canteen. Nearby, Lucas was sleeping soundly, softly snoring. I sent him a narrowed-eyed stare, jealous of his ability to sleep through literally anything, including this hellfire heatwave.
“Make sure you ration that.”
Whipping around, I found Logan straddling the windowsill, the backdrop of the full moon illuminating the dark shape of him, though his face remained eclipsed in shadows. Sending a scowl in his direction, I proceeded to guzzle everything in my canteen.
Logan made a noise of disbelief. “Are you fucking kidding me? Don’t expect to have any of mine tomorrow.”
“Sir, no sir,” I said, giving him a mock salute with my middle finger.
“You’re so fucking funny,” he muttered.
“Thank you—I try.”
Neither of us said anything more; an uncomfortable silence settled in the room, the tension between us growing as thick as the humidity. Something had to give—one of us had to give—and it definitely wasn’t going to be Logan.
I reluctantly rose to my feet and crossed the room. Climbing up onto the window ledge, I mirrored Logan’s position—one leg in, one leg out, the warm evening air on my toes. Staring into the blackness, there was very little to see other than the starlit sky, nothing to be heard but the chirping of crickets. In the dead of night, when I couldn’t see the death and destruction that always surrounded us, I could almost pretend that the world hadn’t gone to hell. That someday I’d get to see all the places I used to dream about. That someday, I’d get to grow up and become somebody.
Glancing at Logan, he remained as he’d been—staring stoically across the yard, undoubtedly considering what sort of fresh hell tomorrow would bring, how it would somehow be all my fault, and how he would single-handedly fix it all. In our story, I was always the villain and Logan was always the hero. Lucas mostly played peacekeeper.
“You know,” I said lightly. “You haven’t slept in days. Maybe you would feel better if you—”
“In case you hadn’t noticed,” he growled, cutting me off. “You’re not sleeping either.”
“I would be if it wasn’t so hot,” I snapped, working hard not to glare at him. “Anyway, it’s not the same. At least I tried to sleep.”
“You think I don’t want to sleep?” He scoffed. “Did you forget that we don’t have enough supplies to set up a perimeter alarm here? We’re smack dab in the middle of the wide open,andwe have a window open. You do the fucking math, Willow. Or is that out of your realm of comprehension?”
My upper lip curled. God, I hated him. And lately, he couldn’t even pretend to like me. If that was how he was going to be then I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep pretending either.
“What is your actual problem? I was just going to offer to keep watch so you could get some sleep. You know you don’t always have to be a dick, right?”
“You want to keep watch?” Logan mocked. “While I go to sleep?You? Keep watch?”
I briefly contemplated choking him, or at the very least, shoving him out the window in hopes that a Creeper lay in wait beneath. Instead, I squeezed my eyes shut, reminding myself that once again I would have to be the bigger person, since Logan was clearly content with being a jackass.
“Yeah,” I bit out. “I’m not completely incapable.”
“And if something or someone finds this place, are you planning on fighting them off barefoot and in your underwear?” He looked me up and down with a snort.
“I am a person of many talents,” I replied tightly. “Look, if you don’t trust me to keep watch, fine—whatever—but you still need sleep. Maybe we should stay here for a few days and you could sleep during the day?”
“It’s not safe here. Too open.”
“It’s not safe anywhere. But at least here we have shelter—defendable and escapable.And we could set up several smaller perimeter alarms—I mean, there’s more than enough garbage lying around this place to put an alarm outside of every door if we wanted. And all those grapes… Logan, we could live off those grapes for a month.”
His widening gaze careened toward me. “We can’t stay here for a month!”
Scowling, I tightly replied, “Yeah, I know that—I only meantwe could, not thatwe should. And before you even mention water, it’s going to rain soon—maybe tomorrow or the next day. I bet your knees are killing you. Your back, too, right?”
Logan always insisted on carrying the most, making his pack the heaviest by far. Despite his young age, the constant extra weight had quickly taken its toll on his back and knees, causing him pain whenever the weather shifted.
