Page 29 of Claimed By Ruin

How fucked up was that? I grappled with that question for hundreds of miles on the trek back.

Maybe it didn’t matter at all.

Because Evan was gone to me, and now she was, too.

NINE

Jack

“They’re coming!”

I barely had time to register the sound of Elliot’s voice before Asia pushed out of her chair.

She swept her gaze across the table, pointedly ignoring me. “You all know what to do.”

She moved around the kitchen methodically, opening cabinets and depositing canned goods into a bag, but I saw the slight tremble in her fingers. I moved to stand next to her and gripped her wrist. She cut her eyes at me, but didn’t immediately pull away.

Progress?

I wasn’t sure. She stared at me, her gaze distant and unreadable in a way that made me want to claw out of my skin.

I stared down at her, her wrist still in my hand. “What’s going on?”

She finally pulled away. “No time. Grab that,” she said, gesturing towards the large canvas bag on the counter as she tightened her grip on the other, the metal cans clinking against each other.

“What is this?” I asked as I picked it up.

She refused to meet my gaze. “Flour. Take it out on the porch.”

I wanted to press the issue, but decided not to when I saw just how frantic everyone else was.

“Miles, go sit with Tío Levi,” Lourdes said.

Caitlin rummaged through the cabinets Asia had just gone through, while Elliot looked around nervously.

I grabbed the bag and guessed it weighed about ten pounds. At least a week’s worth of the knockoff spoon bread Lourdes told me Asia liked to make, even though she wished she had corn meal instead. I put the flour on the porch, then looked out towards the horizon and saw plumes of red dust rising in the distance as a vehicle sped towards us.

I didn’t have to think too hard to figure out who it was. “Fucking Hayes,” I muttered.

Asia cut her eyes at me, but didn’t say anything else. She just stood up ramrod straight, centered at the middle of the porch stairs, watching as the truck approached.

I clenched my teeth and stepped two steps closer to Asia. She didn’t acknowledge my presence, but I saw her back stiffen ever so slightly. I hoped that it was because of Hayes, though I didn’t know that to be true.

It reminded me of the first time I’d been here, the caravan pulling up to the rescue. But as I let my gaze sweep Asia and the others who gathered out front, this certainly didn’t feel like a rescue.

I focused on the two girls, Ellie and Evie, who stood right out front. Neither of them would even look in my direction. They hadn’t since Travis.

I probably should have cared.

But if this world taught them nothing, I hoped they learned that swift retribution for wrongdoing was the only option. A tough lesson for everyone, especially a couple of traumatized tweens, but the world being what it was, coddling wasn’t an option.

“What’s going on, Asia?”

“Not now.” Something in her tone shook me. It took everything I had, but, at least for now, I’d let it lie.

I looked at the others who had gathered, and my gaze stuck on Ellie and Evie’s mother.

It would be easy to mistake her for one of the zombies, her frame impossibly thin, her dark blonde hair matted and dirty. But even she had managed to pull herself out of whatever place she let her mind go to for this occasion.