PODs (36 page)

I didn’t have time to think. Behind my attacker was another infected just as eager as the first to reach me. I was unarmed. I looked around frantically, searching for something I could use as a weapon. I grabbed the dead man’s club and swung it at the infected’s head, screaming with the effort. The club connected with her head with a sickening crunch. She crumpled to the ground. I stared at her for a beat, praying she was dead. I didn’t have time to defend myself from her again. There was already another taking her place.

He advanced slowly toward me with a guttural scream. I raised my club and readied myself. He lurched and I swung… missing him. I stumbled and fell. On my hands and knees in the cold mud, I looked to David. He was fighting off a group of infected behind us. The bulky man lurch toward me again. I screamed and braced myself for the impact of the tree branch he carried.

His body jerked and fell in front of me, spraying mud across my face. I raised my arm and wiped it over my eyes. I looked across the group and saw Devlin, his gun aimed in my direction. I nodded my thanks. He swung the tip of his shotgun toward the center of the group, where the unarmed group members huddled together. I scrambled off the muddy ground and grabbed the bat, making my way to the center of the circle.

Jessica ran to me. I held her close. I couldn’t hear her over the rain and vicious fight, but I felt her body shake with sobs. We huddled together until the fight was over.

I screamed when I felt big hands grab my arms. Someone swung me around and crushed me against him. “You scared the crap outta me!”

“David.” I fisted my hand in the front of his jacket.

“What the hell were you thinking, swinging a bat around like a lunatic?” He pulled back and looked at me.

“That I’d better do something before one of them got me,” I snapped.

I heard a chuckle and looked to my side. Devlin was checking the fallen infected, making sure there were no survivors. I smiled at him as he passed by. “Thank you.”

“Anytime.”

“No, not anytime. No time. Because she’s not going to do that again. From now on, you stay inside the circle where it’s safe.”

“David, you are blowing—”

“You could’ve been killed!”

“You could’ve been, too,” I answered calmly.

“Inside the circle.”

“No.”

“Eva, so help me…”

“The inside of that circle isn’t safe. Their numbers are growing and ours are weakening. The only way for us to be safe is to teach each other how to fight, and then watch each other’s backs.”

“She’s right.” I jumped at the loud blast that followed Devlin’s words. He’d found a survivor and put a bullet through its head.
We don’t leave survivors
.

“Don’t encourage her.”

Devlin chuckled before he fired another shot. “I gotta say, Eva. You don’t fight like a girl. I saw you take one out with that club. Very badass.”

“What a sexist comment.” I grinned. “But I’m going to overlook it since you saved my life today.”

“Gee, thanks.” He laughed. I watched over my shoulder as he walked away.

“Evangelina…”

I turned to David. He fisted his hand in my wet hair and pulled my head to his, kissing me hard. His mouth moved over mine, claiming it as his own. His warm tongue darted between my cold lips and I shivered at the sensation. He felt so good. So vital, alive.

His kiss eased into a slow caress. His hand dropped from my hair. He pushed my pack off my back. It splashed mud and water over our legs when it hit the ground. David ripped the zipper down on my hoodie and put his hands inside. They roamed over me, leaving trails of fire everywhere he touched.

He lifted his head and his gray eyes bored into mine. “Are you hurt?” His hands still moved over me.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Why? Are you asking because you’re worried about me or because you’re worried I might turn into one of them?”

And he was off. “How could you even say that? I’m worried about you…only you…I can’t believe you would even think that I wasn’t…”

I laughed, picking up my pack and slipping into it.

“Stop joking around, Eva. This is serious.”

Laughing harder, I turned and walked toward the group. David stalked at my heels, stopping only to shoot a surviving infected Devlin had missed.

We stopped for the night early. The rain hadn’t let up and everyone was tired from fighting not once, but twice, in twenty-four hours. After a quick dinner, we pitched our tents and realized our problem. A lot of our tents had been destroyed in the fight the night before. We had twice as many people as we had tents. So we did what we did with everything else. We shared.

“Jessica and Eva can share—”

“No,” David interrupted.

I looked at David, and then at Devlin. He raised one eyebrow at David and smiled. “Okay, new plan. Jessica and I’ll share a tent and you and Eva can share. Good?”

“Yeah.”

I snuggled close to David that night, listening to the raindrops hit the tent. I was cold and he felt warm. “Do you feel better?” I whispered.

“Better than what?”

“You were all wound up earlier. You seemed irritated at me.”

“I feel better. It’s just that…you scared me and, well, it didn’t seem to sink into your thick skull how close you were to dying today.”

“It sunk in.”

“Don’t do it again, Evangelina. Just stay inside the circle and be safe—”

“I told you, inside the circle isn’t safe. It just gives an illusion of safety. I’m gonna do what I need to. You and Devlin can’t keep everyone safe, David. We all have to learn to fight together. Or…”

“Or what?”

“We fight together or we die together.”

David pulled me gently to my back. He leaned over me, looking at me with his silvery eyes. “You’re so pig-headed.”

“I know.”

He dipped his head and kissed me gently, rubbing the fingers of one hand up and down my arm. I framed his face with my hands and lifted my head to deepen his kiss. Our tongues glided together, and our hands roamed over each other, pushing clothing and blankets out of our way.

My lips made their way down the column of his neck and across his shoulder. I inhaled his scent and smiled. It was heaven in David’s arms. Even in that godforsaken place, hunted by monsters, I found heaven in David. Peace. Happiness. Love. That’s what David gave me and I took it all greedily.

When more clothes were pooling around us than covering us, when the blankets had long been cast aside, when our kisses had moved from mouths to other areas and our hands had roamed over each other’s bodies, hesitating at secret places, David stopped.

“Not here, Eva.”

“I know.”

“I want to be with you somewhere nice. Somewhere clean and safe. Somewhere I can see all of you.”

I smiled and slipped into his sweatshirt. It draped around me like a blanket and smelled of him. Scooting down, I snuggled against him. He wrapped his arms around me and I felt myself being pulled toward the peaceful cocoon of sleep.

Maybe they won’t attack again
.

I was wrong.

W
e walked four days before we came to another town, where we scavenged the stores to replace our desperately low supplies. The infected had attacked our camp every night. They followed us from camp to camp, and we were exhausted from the constant battles. With every attack, our energy and supplies dwindled. Our tents were ruined, and our water supply was depleted, as the infected destroyed many of the containers in the commotion of the fight.

“This is a quick stop.” Devlin scanned the buildings for motion as we drew closer. “Restock our supplies and find vehicles, so we can put as much distance between us and the infected as possible. We’ll split up to get everything before nightfall. David, take a group for equipment. Juan, find food. I’ll go for the vehicles.”

We found a sporting goods store that hadn’t been looted—the first we’d come across in weeks. David wrapped a sweatshirt around his arm and jammed it against the glass. Nothing.

He laughed. “They made this stuff seem so easy on television.”

He pulled back his elbow and jammed it against the glass a second time. It shattered and pieces of glass bounced on the ground with a clang, shards flying around our feet.

“Damn, that hurt.”

“Did you cut yourself?” I unwound the shirt from his arm, searching for blood.

He winced. “No, I hit my funny bone.” He reached through and unlocked the door. The glass crunched under our feet as our group entered. “Tents, sleeping bags, snake bite kits, matches, water purification tablets, canteens, and ammo.”

“Let’s get the stuff and get out of here. It’s starting to get dark and I don’t want to be hanging around,” I said.

We grabbed what we needed and carried it to the vans Devlin had found.

We were in and out of town in less than an hour. Driving down the road, I blew out a breath of relief. Maybe, just maybe, we’d get a full night’s rest without another attack.

We drove three hours before the first van ran out of gas. The people from that vehicle climbed into one of the remaining two. Between supplies and people, we were wedged in, every inch of space taken.

I sat on David’s lap, my back against the wall of the van, his arm around my waist. His thumb moved back and forth over my side under my t-shirt. That was the only body part he could move. People were crammed everywhere. The armrest jammed painfully into my back, and Juan sat on my feet. Every part of my body hurt, but there were two reasons I didn’t mind. First, David was touching me. Every spare inch of space he could, he pressed against me. And second, we were driving away from the group of infected that had been hunting us. Every mile we drove crammed into that van, smelling each other’s body odor and rancid breath, we got farther away from them. And that made the trip almost blissful.

I turned my head and looked at David. His silver-gray eyes twinkled in the waning sunlight streaming through the windshield. He smiled at me and tapped my side with his thumb. I moved slightly, painfully toward him. I was able to move just far enough before something stopped me. But it was all right, because what stopped me were David’s lips.

I kissed him slowly, my tongue parting his lips and gliding inside. He moaned and strained his head forward to deepen the kiss, his thumb pushing into my side to bring me closer.

“Get a room,” Juan said.

I pulled back, a red-hot blush creeping across my face. I’d been lost in David, and how his lips felt against mine, so I’d forgotten we had an audience.

“Man, if you had someone like her sitting on your lap, you wouldn’t care if you were at the Waldorf or in a van that smelled like a locker room. You’d kiss her whenever and wherever you had the chance.” David smirked.

“Yeah, yeah,” Juan muttered.

Two hours after the first van ran out of gas, the second ran out. The third and final van had less than a quarter tank. Our ride was over. We couldn’t all fit in one van; even if we could, there wasn’t enough gas to get us very far.

We fell out of the van when the doors opened, the fresh air hitting us in the face. I inhaled deeply, stretching to soothe my aching muscles. David ran his fingers across my belly where my t-shirt rode up. It tickled in a way I’d only read about.

“Come here.” He pulled me to him. “We have some unfinished business,” he whispered against my lips. His eyes found mine before he started kissing me slowly, deeply. One hand cupped the back of my neck and he trailed his fingers down the length of my spine. His touch made my head spin and the feel of his lips sliding over mine, of his hands on me, made my knees weak. I leaned further into him.

His hand traveled up my back, underneath my shirt, and I sighed with pleasure. The kiss deepened as his mouth moved over mine, his tongue dipping between my lips…

“Aw, c’mon you two. We’ve got work to do,” Devlin complained. “Eva, leave him alone so we can get these tents out of the van and set up.”

I laughed and let my arms drop from around David’s neck.

“I’ll be back,” David promised.

David set up our tent like he did every night. We curled together while we slept. Well, while he slept. I couldn’t. I tried, telling myself we were far enough away. The infected weren’t anywhere near us. But my brain wouldn’t stop whirring. What if there was another group in the area? What if the sentry dozed off again and they were able to sneak up on us? What if…? A million scenarios ran through my mind. I spent the night listening for any sound, anything that seemed out of place.