Surge (37 page)

“I don’t want to be an expert,” she snaps. “I want to be able to kill those things.”

“That’s not what she’s teaching.”

“Then what is she teaching?” Sarah asks.

“How to defend yourself.”

“Yeah,” she agrees like I’m simple. “By teaching us how to kill the monsters that ate Mom and Dad.”

I glance around to make sure Olivia didn’t hear her before lowering my voice. It’s times like these that I realize just how young my sister is. And how completely unprepared she was to leave the safety net that was our childhood home. I’m hoping to rectify that by sharing a smidge of Olivia’s past, and I’m praying that it won’t come back to bite me in the ass.

“Olivia’s mom was a volunteer, and I don’t think that she’d appreciate you insulting her.” Sarah’s eyes widen, but I shush her and continue. “She doesn’t like killing anything, it’s for her own protection and she’s teaching you for yours. Not vengeance. It doesn’t matter what killed Mom and Dad. The wheezers were sick and couldn’t help it, so running around angry at the world isn’t going to bring them back. It’ll just get you killed.” I give her a quick hug. “I need my PITA of a little sister around, so please take your training seriously, and remember that the best offense is a good defense.”

“You did not just use a football reference,” Sarah says and I nod but give her a stern look. “Fine, I’ll take it seriously, alright?”

“Alright, now go shower,” I order and point to the door. The guys are coming back, so some of them must be open now. “Because you stink.”

“You shouldn’t talk,” she counters with a wrinkled nose. “You smell like a men’s bathroom at a sold out concert.”

Sarah runs away before I can ask my sixteen year old sister what the hell she was doing in a men’s bathroom, never mind a concert, when she would have been two years younger at the time. Sarah’s followed by Chelsea and Marissa who sprint after her calling out dibs before Tommy, Leonard or Carlos can do the honors.

Tommy and Leonard shrug like they couldn’t care less when they go in, they’re used to cold rain water, so any chance for a warm shower is worth the wait. Carlos is still buzzing wood and could not possibly care less about what’s going on in the room. John plops down beside me and picks up the book that Sarah was looking through. Glancing over his shoulder, I see that isn’t a book at all, but a photo album.

“You want to get stabbed?” I hiss. “Olivia will be pissed if you touch her shit.”

“I won’t stab you,” says the devil herself. “After all, it would be rather hypocritical of me to do so, when you said you would show me yours.”

Olivia waves my album in her hand at me, before plopping down onto the floor in front of us. Cory takes the other side of John and leans back against the cushion with damp hair. I guess he doesn’t care about ruining the furniture, so I peak at Olivia to see how she’s taking it, but she just looks at me expectantly.

“Well, go on,” Olivia orders and motions at the album. “Check out embarrassing photos, so that I can laugh at yours.”

“I want to see the gummy smile that knocked Cory on his ass,” John says and Cory laughs. Olivia flashes the adult version of said smile that punches me in the lungs. Is it any wonder I like her? She’s sweet and spice all wrapped in one delicious package.

John opens the album, so I turn my focus from Olivia’s present form to that of the girl buried underneath. Turns out, Olivia did not rock the leathers since the cradle. She wore tiny conservative dresses with huge matching bows in her short black hair. Even when there were only a few needles on top, there was a bow somehow miraculously held in place.

Most pictures are of Olivia’s toothless smile by herself, but there are others sprinkled in. Some of a short Italian woman that looks identical to Olivia with the exception of blue eyes, so it’s obvious that she’s Olivia’s mom. Others have a tall man, who must be her dad, holding an even tinier Olivia. He has brown hair, a friendly crooked smile and Olivia’s grey eyes. There are several pages of Olivia from infancy and up, all singles of her or with her parents, so she must have been an only child.

And that’s when two new faces start making repeat appearances. A blonde haired boy with brown eyes is holding baby Olivia as they smile at each other. One with jack o’ lantern teeth; which has to be a six-ish Cory, and one toothless terror, which is self-explanatory. Another has Olivia sitting next to a boy with blonde hair and the biggest blue eyes I’ve ever seen on a guy. He’s probably only a year or two older than Olivia, so this must be Travis. They’re both in diapers, shirtless and sitting on the sand with sun hats strapped to their heads. The next page has Olivia pulling a wagon full of dolls, just like Cory said she did. Then there’s a picture of Cory trailing after a tiny raven-haired girl with her finger pointed at a tree. The following shows the same raven-haired girl kissing the cast of his broken arm.

“What happened here, tough guy?” John elbows Cory. “Did you get a boo boo and make Olivia kiss it better?”

“Actually, asshole,” Cory counters. “I climbed a tree to rescue Liv’s kite, but the branch broke and I got a nice compound fracture for my troubles.”

“But he made sure to grab the kite on the way down,” Olivia says as she smiles and points at the kite behind Cory in the picture. “You always were a softie, Cory Benjamin Prescott.” She goes up on her knees and kisses his cheek.

“Yeah, yeah,” Cory says and waves her off, but he’s smiling. “Turn to the next one, it’s my favorite.”

John dutifully turns to the next page and waits for Cory to point out the one he was referring to. As soon as I see it, I burst out laughing. It’s Olivia with pigtails, holding an electric guitar and wearing a leather jacket that is much too big for her. She’s probably ten at most, but you could see she was extremely serious in that get up.

“Look at you rocking the leathers even back then,” John says.

“I was a fan of Joan Jett,” she says with a shrug. “She was the ultimate badass.”

“Coming from the girl who sang Lady Gaga’s ‘Poker face’ to me when I turned twenty-three,” Cory mutters and Olivia laughs.

“You loved it and you know it,” she replies with a grin.

“So didn’t the guys watching you on the big screen,” Cory counters.

“You were in the middle of your second tour, and every time you talked to us, you looked miserable,” Olivia says with what appears to be an innocent look, but her eyes are filled with mischief. “I was just trying to make you smile.”

“Believe me, they were all smiling after that.”

“Do you have a picture of this?” John asks with a hopeful expression. “I wanna smile.”

“Turn another page and you’ll see exactly what they were smiling it,” Cory replies with a scowl marring his features.

Flipping the page so fast it almost tears from the book, John searches with frantic eyes. I know he’s found it when his eyes widen, and he gulps. Snatching the album from his hands, John’s dazed expression becomes my own. Olivia is wearing her hair pin straight and down past her shoulders, a skin tight leather dress with spikes on the shoulders and reaches to mid-thigh. She paired it with stiletto heeled, thigh-high leather boots that separate from the bottom of the dress by mere inches to flash a peek at the creamy skin of her thigh. Her overly generous breasts are nearly spilling from the top, so obviously she now hides her natural assets instead of showcasing them. I don’t notice the guy holding her, until I see his arms wrapped around her tiny waist.

When I do, I nearly growl. I follow the offending appendages to find the owner’s chin resting on top of her head. His blonde hair, straight white teeth and huge blue eyes identify him as Travis. The deceased fiancé that had the great pleasure of calling Olivia his. The same one that has her heart. The same one who gave his life selflessly in hopes of saving hers. And he was one handsome bastard.

I might as well throw in the towel, because you can read their obvious love for each other in their eyes. It was the kind that lasts a lifetime, and not one that I could ever hope of competing with. But I’m no quitter, and I’m a gambling man no matter the odds, so I refuse to give in to a ghost. So, sorry Travis, I respect the hell out of you, but I’m going to have to make a play for your girl.

She’s much too sad down here and I plan on making the radiant girl in the picture come back to life.

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“So, do you still have the outfit?” John asks. “‘Cuz my birthday’s in a few weeks, and I happen to love Gaga.” I punch him in the shoulder, making him grin at me, the fucker.

“Sorry, John,” Olivia replies. “But that was a one time performance.”

“Bull,” Cory counters. “I recall you jumping out of a cake for Grandpa Ben.”

“That was fun,” she says with a crooked smile.

“Picture?” John asks and they shake their heads in unison.

“It was only a few weeks before the outbreak, so they weren’t developed,” Olivia answers.

“I just got back on leave, and the three of us flew down to the ranch with my parents,” Cory says. “Grandpa Ben was turning 75, so we wanted to do something special. He was complaining about being too old to do anything.”

“So Travis suggested we take him casket shopping,” Olivia adds. John and I laugh.

“But Olivia, being the gambling woman she is, decides to make a friendly wager,” Cory continues. “If Grandpa Ben could outrun her in a 100yd race, she’ll pop out of his birthday cake, wearing a Marilyn Monroe outfit; complete with wig, and sing to him at his party.”

“I’m guessing he won, since you said she popped out a cake,” John points out.

“I
let
him win,” Olivia revises. “He needed a little push to show that he still had some gumption left, so long as he chose to use it.”

“And what better way to motivate him, than to use his favorite pin-up model against him,” Cory says with a smile. “Livs was always good at getting what she wanted.” She sticks her tongue out at him.

“So, that’s how I ended up in a cake, wearing Marilyn’s iconic white dress and a blonde wig,” Olivia finishes.

“And almost gave the senior male guests heart attacks,” Cory adds as he smirks. They both laugh at the memory, when something starts beeping in the kitchen and Olivia pops onto her feet.

“Come on, lazy bones,” she orders and pulls Cory to his feet. “You can help serve dinner.” Cory dutifully rises and allows the pint-sized sergeant to drag him toward the kitchen.

“He looks just like him,” John comments from my left.

I glance at what he’s referring to and see a picture of Cory, Travis and Olivia. Cory’s in his fatigues with an arm wrapped around Olivia’s shoulders, while Travis is on her right with an arm around her waist. The resemblance is uncanny. Both have strong jaws, dark blonde hair, straight noses and perfect white teeth with a dimple on the left side. The only difference is in the eyes. Where Cory’s are brown and have a hardness that comes with life experience, Travis’s are a clear blue that screams friendliness.

“I don’t know how she can look at him,” I reply. “I mean, if I had to look at a near replica of a passed loved one every day, I’d probably go nuts.”

“Or, maybe it’s a comfort,” he counters. “She’s known Cory just as long, and loves him just as much. All you have to do is look at them together. Sure, it’s a different kind of love, but it surrounds them in a bubble where Olivia can be the girl she hides beneath all that armor.”

“Listen to you, all wise and shit,” I say and he grins. “But I know what you mean. Ever since she saw Cory, I’ve seen more emotions out of her then I thought her capable of.”

“That just begs the question, what else is she hiding, and can it come out again with the right push?” John asks.

I contemplate that as we walk into the dining room. Olivia is obviously a complicated woman. She was a bubbly, easygoing girl who loved effortlessly. Now, she’s a hardass who doesn’t smile unless she wants to, doesn’t like physical contact unless she initiates it, and has avoided people for months; but she took a chance on John and me. That chance reconnected her to Cory. What else could she reconnect with if she let her guard down a little more? I’d say the opportunities are endless. Now, I just have to convince her that it’s alright to let a few more into her circle.

Even if I have to use a crowbar, torch and chainsaw to get there.

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