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If this isn’t going to be easy for me, it won’t be easy for Evander, either.
PART TWO
11
“Your job is just as important as the ones your future husbands will be doing. When he returns home after a long day protecting all of us from outside threats, you should welcome him with a smile. Stay fit, dress well, and make yourself up. Don’t burden him with the trivial issues of your day. Your role is to make him want to have babies with you.” – Sutton Barnes, headmaster at The Academy of Eve
Amira
One Week Later
My teeth rattle as the motorcycle jolts over holes in the field we’re riding through, mud splattering from the tires.
I cling to Evander, my modesty long forgotten. Motorcycles scared me when the world still had smooth roads and stoplights; the past few days have made fighting mutant mantises on the island look appealing.
When we’re on roads, Evander has to maneuver around stalled cars, giant holes, and weeds that are winning their battles with the pavement. Some of the weeds are taller than me.
I spent the first few days of the trip holding on to the back of the bike with both hands for dear life, but when he jerked us to the side to avoid a rusty microwave sitting in the road and I fell off, I changed my mind.
Now I’m on him like a sloth to a tree. If he hadn’t been going so slowly when I fell off, I could have been seriously hurt.
Why didn’t I stay at the base? I could be showering daily and sleeping in a bed every night. Instead, I’ve had one quick shower in the past week and last night I slept in a soggy ditch. My butt isn’t the only part of me that’s covered in bug bites.
The ILF has safe houses, but not enough for us to stay at one every night. It only worked out for us the one time, and that was four days into our journey. We started the trip in a reinforced all-terrain vehicle, but it ran out of fuel about ten miles away from the safe house, so we had to ditch it.
So far, the ILF’s fuel caches have been hit and miss. Evander has a carefully planned route with fuel stops figured in, and when the fuel caches have been raided, he has to change the plan.
My bow bounces against my back when the motorcycle hits another rough patch on the shoulder of the road. Other than the night we spent at the safe house, I’ve had a bow and quiver strapped on since we left the base, but it’s useless while I’m superglued to Evander’s back.
There’s a strip mall on one side of the road, the parking lot sunken and overgrown with vegetation. All that’s left of the windows are a few jagged shards around the frames. Trash is piled up in front of a storefront, a mannequin’s leg sticking out from one side.
Movement in the parking lot catches my eye, and when I focus on it, I find three cows standing together, one of them chewing vegetation. The swishing of one cow’s tail was what got my attention.
It’s not the weirdest thing we’ve seen so far. There was a sailboat in what used to be a school’s playground a few days ago, just sitting near a mangled slide and rusted swings like it belonged there. We’ve also seen a small herd of zebras and an ostrich.
I lived in this deteriorating, postvirus world for years. Forests are the only places without visible rot. We haven’t seen any in what used to be Texas, though. Overgrowth, neglect, and silt are everywhere. There have been floods, and we’re fortunate to be on dry land right now.
Evander takes an exit, weaving the bike onto a slender stretch of usable road. The temperature has dropped in the past hour, the horizon murky gray.
Once we’re off the exit, the road ahead of us is fairly clear, which isn’t good. It probably means we’re close to a large group of people.
A flash of lightning makes my heart gallop nervously.
“I’m not riding through the rain again!” I say, tightening my hold around Evander’s midsection.
He turns his head, slows the bike, and brings it to a stop. Then he pulls the helmet off his head and looks at me over his shoulder.
“What is it?” he asks.
I pull my own helmet off, welcoming the fresh air on my face. “I said I’m not riding through the rain again.”
He pinches his brows together. “Dammit, I told you no stopping unless it’s an emergency.”
“And I told you I’m not pissing my pants. Also, this is an emergency. You almost killed us riding through the rain yesterday. I’m not doing that again.”
He scoffs. “I know what I’m doing. All you have to do is not fall off the damn bike again.”
I swing my leg over the edge of the motorcycle and get off, staggering. Every muscle between my waist and knees hurts.
