Sole Survivors: Crux Survivors, Book 2 (2 page)

Food and people. It was the reason he’d braved this trip with his brother. That and hoping a new place would snap Tripp out of his funk.

Chase had read handwritten notes left in several places about a new settlement in the south and he’d thought with the warmer climate, some farmers could have saved seeds, kept gardens going every year. He craved fresh food nearly as much as he craved a woman. Nearly.

He slowly pulled off his jacket and tossed it toward her.

Stunned didn’t come close to how Keera felt. All she’d wanted was a little wild ginseng root because she liked the kick it gave her tea. Clark Creek was a trek she’d made several times a month for years and this was the first time she’d encountered people. Her heart ached because she’d taken a life…but she hadn’t had a choice. She’d seen her fate in the skin-crawling grin on the hairy man’s face. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time she’d had to kill and each one felt like a permanent stain on her soul.

Her pulse raced as she held the jacket, which was still warm from this other man’s body. He’d stepped from the woods right after she’d realized she was in more trouble than she’d thought. He stared at her with an intensity that made her shiver in a way that had nothing to do with how damned cold she was. Thick scars twisted the right side of his face, making his cheek and part of his jaw a pattern of lines that looked like they still had to cause pain. She had a thick scar on her side and if she didn’t keep moving, the muscles around it would tighten up and ache for days.

His were worse.

Scars or not, he was still attractive, in a harsh, scruffy way. Standing over six feet with broad shoulders and slim hips, he towered over her. Blue eyes, bright and crystal sharp, stared at her without wavering. Sun-streaked light brown hair rested in a messy tangle around his head, some strands falling into his eyes. Slightly darker hair shadowed his lip, chin and jaw in a short beard that covered some of the scars, but didn’t grow around one of them.

Keera curled her toes inside her boots. She wanted to touch. So badly. Just the thought of skin—warm, masculine skin—and hard muscles tied her belly in knots. But she didn’t know him and the way he kept staring at her breasts unnerved her, so she slid his jacket on.

Something about the man made her believe he wouldn’t hurt her, though. And of course he’d be interested. She could have a unicorn horn, three breasts and blue skin and he’d probably still look at her like that. The world had a lot less of the feminine gender. It was why she barely took her car out and why she carried three knives whenever she hiked in the woods. But it had been so long since raiders had passed through here—she’d grown too confident.
Damn ginseng and its kick
. Of course, this man and his long, long legs gave her another kind of kick entirely. It had been six years since she’d felt that, six years since her Dax had died. She blocked that bad memory fast.

“Warmer?”

His deep voice made her jump. “Huh?” She blinked away the sudden naked fantasy she’d been having of him and hoped he hadn’t noticed that her gaze had been strolling along the muscles in his chest—which were better viewed without the thick, brown jacket. Though, like his ragged jeans, the black T-shirt had a few too many rips. “My name is Keera. Why don’t you tell me where your RV is parked? I have some clothes that will fit you. They’ve been in a storage bunker all these years, so they don’t have insect- or rodent-chewed holes. I also have canned food.”

He grimaced. “I’m Chase, and I don’t know of any canned goods that lasted this long.”

She smiled. “I’ve kept a garden going all these years. Got pretty good at growing food. Too good. I can a lot of it, so there’s plenty to share. I’ll bring some food to you two.”

“You aren’t worried we’ll try to keep you?”

“No. But I’ll come to you. Maybe stay awhile and talk. It’s been a long time since I had anyone to talk to.”

“You have no reason to trust me, but we’d welcome the company. And I’d kill for some fresh food.”

She gestured at the dead men. “You did,” she said softly. He was right, she had no reason to trust him, but something about him set her at ease even as he made her burn. Of course, she was twenty-nine and hadn’t been touched in six years. She still had all the right functioning and lonely parts. She forced herself to tear her gaze off Chase and glanced at the sky. She still had a few hours before dark. “Do you know where the plantation is then?”

He nodded. “Think so. Maps are a lot of guesswork these days. But I’m pretty sure I can find it. I still want to take my brother there. It’s hard to explain but I’m hoping it will cheer him up. We lost…we’ve been through a rough time. He’s not snapping back.” He broke off and a breeze lifted some of his hair, showing her that his scars went back to nearly cover his entire right ear.

Whatever had happened had been so very, very bad. Her heart ached. “I’m sorry you’ve been through a rough time.”

He met her gaze and whatever snapped between them made her heartbeat pick up again. He smiled, one corner of his lips not moving up because of the scars. “I’ve never known anyone who hasn’t been.”

Chapter Two

Watching Keera walk away was the hardest thing Chase had done since he’d had to bury his sister and leave her in that lonely backyard grave. As he walked, he glanced back to see that Keera had climbed the huge, jutting rock formations behind the waterfalls so she could watch him. Something in her stance told him she might be feeling a little of the same pull.

If he were any kind of brother, he’d set it up so Tripp got a chance with her. He couldn’t pinpoint the woman’s age, but he guessed she was in her twenties, like Tripp, and damn, would his little brother go nuts over her. Tripp watched an old movie called
The Mummy
constantly and Keera looked a lot like the actress in it. Same silky-looking black hair, same big, dark eyes and full, pouty lips. Yeah, she might be just the thing to keep Tripp from his scary silences of late.

A primitive anger suddenly burned in his gut and he stopped abruptly before forcing himself to continue moving. He felt possessive and she wasn’t his. Hell, he barely remembered what it was like to have a girlfriend. He’d had one once and at sixteen, they’d been hot and heavy, but then the Crux had taken her away. Along with his mom, his uncles, friends…and everyone else. It had just been him, Tripp and Maggie—the twins only six years old. He’d scouted out Oklahoma City for two years and in that time had only come upon Jeff and Mooch.

The grief he still carried for that sweet couple made his chest ache.

He stopped and looked back.

Keera was gone.

He stared at the place she’d been—standing like a small, perfect goddess on those rocks—and he felt the world crumble beneath his feet. He was a damned fool. She’d probably never show up at the RV. He’d never see her again.

He stepped over a moss-covered log, grimaced at a mass of black bugs crawling on the kudzu. Another random shot of green—like a lot of it he’d seen, while there were huge patches of dead, brown or gray vines in most places. He guessed the winter hadn’t been harsh enough to kill it all off, but the bugs were a surprise.

Chase picked up the pace, hoping to run off the fierce resentment boiling in his gut. When he walked out of the woods and up to the RV, he felt eyes on him and knew his brother kept watch. The gun coming out of the window stopped him for a second, and then he couldn’t help but grin when Tripp growled loud enough for the sound to trickle through the wall.

“I said I’d shoot you if you came back without some real food,” he yelled through the open window. “I don’t want freeze-dried spaghetti goo or beef stew-ish surprise tonight. Thought I got that across, Dimwit.”

“We’re going to be eating something better than gamey rabbit.”

The thin door to the RV creaked as Tripp pushed it open and leaned against the jamb. “I like gamey rabbit.” He rubbed his flat stomach and for the first time, Chase truly realized his little brother had lost that awkward late-teen gangly look and grown into a man. Keera would probably go crazy over his overgrown little brother. A little brother who’d topped him by at least two inches.

Chase scowled at the thought of Keera with his brother—even though he hoped she liked him.

“What?” Tripp grinned. “Thought you wanted gamey rabbit too. And what about fish? See any good ones in that creek?”

“I saw a good one, all right,” Chase murmured.

Tripp leaned right, then left as he peered with exaggeration around Chase. “Don’t see anything good.”

“I saw a woman.”

Tripp’s mouth fell open, his blue eyes flaring wide. He jumped to the ground, then promptly stumbled over his big feet. He was back on them within a second. “A woman? A real live breathing woman? With real live boobs?”

Chase rolled his eyes.
Real live boobs?
“Let me just say I’m glad she didn’t come back here with me to witness you stumbling over the thought of boobs. You don’t want to scare her off.”

“Was she pretty?”

He brushed past his brother to check on one of the windows that had rattled loose a few miles back. He set his rifle against one of the tires.

“Chase, come on. Tell me about the girl. Was she pretty or not?”

Chase straightened up. “Would it matter, Tripp? Would it really matter in this world whether she was pretty or not?” He spread his arms. “As far as I’m concerned, they’re all pretty.”

Tripp pushed his lips out, tilted his head, then nodded. “True, even Mooch was kind of pretty.”

Chuckling, Chase shook his head. “Bet you never told Jeff you thought his boyfriend was pretty.”

“Nah, he would have told Mooch and the guy was small but did you ever notice the size of his hands and feet? One boot to the head would have caved in my skull.” He watched Chase a moment, sad memories painting shadows on his expression, then released a low chuckle. “Oh yeah, she was pretty. I can tell. So what happened? Where’d she go?”

“Home, I guess.”

“Think there are more people there?”

“She said there weren’t.” He thought about telling Tripp about the raiders, but didn’t want to upset him. The journey here had been a lot more morbid than even Chase had expected. Tangled vines and weeds covered most everything, rats infested buildings and heavy layers of depressing decay darkened towns. The worst were the bones…bones in unexpected places. One town had been overrun with packs of wild dogs and they’d strewn human bones everywhere. Tripp had been quiet for a week after that.

“One woman means there are more people out there, Chase.”

“We know there are. We found Jeff and Mooch and we’ve run into others.”

“Raiders. Don’t consider them people, to tell you the truth.” Tripp shoved his hands into the pockets of his holey jeans. “I mean people who are trying to make it, you know? The smart ones who have started over, moved into safe places that aren’t on the main roads. If you can call anything a road these days. But people. People with gardens.”

Again, Chase bit his tongue. He’d started to tell Tripp about the promise of fresh food—well, fresher than the freeze-dried fare they’d been living on—but what if she didn’t show? And he refused to acknowledge the knot of regret that tightened his chest at the thought.

Tripp was twenty-three years old and though he still sometimes showed the energy and exuberance of youth, he’d grown up in survival mode just like every other person out there. He was probably strong enough to take the disappointment if she didn’t show. But protecting Tripp had been Chase’s life. He wasn’t sure he’d ever stop.

“So tomorrow, before we find the plantation, let’s go into town and see if we can salvage some clothes or material for some. I’m tired of looking at your raggedy clothes.”

“We could go home. We had all those things in storage. Maybe the raiders didn’t find them.”

“We’re never going home, Tripp. You know that. We have to find a new place—we need more people. I know you miss your sister—” Chase broke off when his brother’s expression flattened to the scary, distracted one he’d been seeing more and more.

Nodding, Tripp walked back to the RV. He didn’t say anything, just hopped inside and shut the door.

Chase strode into the woods and sat behind a tree. Burying his hands in his hair, he worked to still the racing emotions tearing him up. The loss of Maggie still ripped into his heart every single day. They couldn’t go home, couldn’t ever visit her grave. They had to find a new home with people who were trying to rebuild civilization. Their own lives depended on it. They could find more stored freeze-dried foods, they could survive off the land, and they could find clothes that had been packed away and were still usable…but loneliness could eventually cause them to do what countless other survivors had done.

Give up.

In one town, he’d seen one—a survivor dead from suicide—and the sight of that decomposed body in a patch of yellow wildflowers would haunt his dreams forever.

He was determined to find his brother a new life so that didn’t happen. These silences of Tripp’s, they terrified him.

Of course Keera followed Chase. She wasn’t letting him leave without knowing more. Nothing, absolutely nothing, had happened in her life in so long. She wanted to see where he stayed, watch him with his brother and try to get a feel for what kind of person he was.