The Awakened (20 page)

She shrugged, seeming unconcerned. “I went into the fridge to get some milk for my tea and must have left it in there by accident.”

“You need to keep it with you at all times, Mother,” I said, slowly, trying as hard as I could to keep a fair level of patience in my voice. “That’s what the holster is for.”

Her eyes flashed up at me, her tone was firm. “It’s excessive, Zoey. It’s unnecessary. We are safe. I can defend myself if need be, but there is no need for me to carry the gun with me at all times.”

I opened my mouth to protest but shook my head. “Just keep it with you.” I slid it across the table to her, where it bumped lightly with her cup of tea, some of it splashing onto the table. I felt a pair of eyes on me and looked up to the doorway. Ash stood there, watching our exchange. My eyes went to his waist, and I was relieved to see his gun was holstered there. Despite everything else, at least he had managed to do that.

“I’m going upstairs,” I said to no one in particular, stomping past Ash and making my way upstairs and into my bedroom. I closed the door quietly behind me. I crossed over to the bedside table and opened the tiny drawer that was there. I kept pictures in there of Bandit, Madison and my dad, pictures to tide me over when I spent random holidays with my mom and Caspar.

I climbed up onto my bed, folding my legs underneath me. I held the pictures in my lap and flipped through them slowly. Bandit and I when we first brought him home from the shelter. The red bow around his neck was larger than his head was as a small puppy. There was a picture of Madison and I at Coney Island, the pink stickiness of cotton candy on both of our cheeks. The picture had been taken just as Madison had burst out laughing, her small mouth open wide. There were several pictures of my dad and myself: at Katz Deli, at more than one Mets game, at my junior high school graduation, the two of us at Christmas.

I felt the tears prick at the corner of my eyes, but they didn’t fall. I was beginning to think that I was all dried up, incapable of crying anymore. I felt the emptiness deep in my heart, in my stomach, my whole body, but I couldn’t find it in myself to cry anymore.

I jumped when the door burst open. I was poised to yell at Ash for not knocking for the millionth time when I looked up and saw my mom. She closed the door behind her, crossed the room and took a seat at the chair set up in front of the small desk she had added in my room a couple years ago. She had a serious look on her face, and I wondered for a moment if I was going to be scolded for nagging. I set the pictures aside, laying them gently on the table beside the bed.

“We need to talk,” she said.

Yeah, I was definitely in trouble.

“About what?” I asked, avoiding eye contact with her, my fingers tracing the raised scar on my hand where Madison had bit me.

“About the fact that you act like every minute spent here is the worst, as if you’re in some sort of prison.”

I looked over my pillow, my headboard, out the window, anywhere but her eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I answered, my voice full of impatience. “I am grateful to have made it to Constance. I’m grateful that I’m relatively safe.”

She sighed, running her hands through her blonde hair, so unlike my own dark hair. Sometimes it amazed me how little I looked like my own mother. “I don’t disagree with you, Zoey. I believe you are happy that you are safe. I don’t think you’re happy that you’re safe here with me. Or Ash for that matter.”

I squirmed uncomfortably. “I brought Ash with me, all the way from New York. I kept him safe, and he kept me safe. You will never understand what we went through to get here.”

“I know I won’t, but…”

“Was there a purpose to you being here in my room?” I interrupted.

She drew herself up straight, all pretenses gone. “Zoey Elizabeth, I am so tired of this. I am so tired of your shit. I’ve been putting up with this nonstop attitude of yours for years now, and I’m so tired of it. I am your mother, whether you like it or not. I’ve apologized a million times, done a million things to get you to forgive me. You refuse to forgive me. And now, in the situation we are in, you can’t find it in yourself to forgive me now? Your dad is gone, and Caspar is probably gone too. We are all each other has left.”

She took a deep breath and continued. “Now can we do this, please? I will work harder to learn to defend myself, if that’s what you want. But only if you promise to try and give me a chance. Because I can’t be the only one who is trying. It’s not fair. Ash is changing, and I’m trying to change. It’s your turn.”

“You didn’t even know Ash,” I muttered, but I knew she was right. They both obviously were trying. They were still infuriating but they were trying. My mom gave me a look and I sighed, feeling frustrated. “It’s just not that easy. I’m asking you to defend yourself, to do something you should be doing anyway. You’re asking me to forgive you, like you forgot to pack my lunch for school or lied to me about Santa Claus. It’s not that easy. It’s not that simple.”

“I’m not saying anything about easy. I’m talking about necessary. This is not the time for us to be like this. It’s not the time for both of us to basically tiptoe around each other. What if I die? What if I die, what if you die, and this is how it is between us?”

I inhaled sharply, turning to glare at her. “Don’t say that. Don’t even say that.”

Her face softened at my words. “I still think we’re safe, but you’re right. We should do better to protect ourselves. I should take you more seriously.” She stood up and came to sit next to me on the bed, brushing a strand of hair out of my face. “I promise to try harder if you promise to try as well.”

A rush of sadness and affection burst through me at her touch. I wanted to lean into her, smell her scent (vanilla, always vanilla), and feel that safety that I had felt when I was a kid when she used to sooth away all the bad dreams. I was still wary, oh so wary, but she had a point. We couldn’t go on like this anymore, not with the world like it is. I knew, at the very least, my dad would want me to try. He sent me here for a reason, and it was to be with people who loved me.

“I can try,” I said finally.

Her face burst into a smile, and I had to hide one of my own. I don’t think she had ever expected me to agree. “Okay then.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

AS MUCH AS I WISHED
for things to magically be fixed as soon as we’d had that talk, it wasn’t that easy. You couldn’t just make six years of pent up anger, upset feelings and resentment go away overnight.

But things did get better.

We fell into a routine. We woke up in the morning, ate breakfast, and then spent most of the morning and early afternoon working on shooting and self-defense combat. We would break for lunch. After lunch, we’d work on plans, plans what we would do if Constance didn’t work out. We stocked up things in the barn, ready to grab at a moment’s notice if needed.

We also released the horses. We couldn’t afford to feed them, and we felt better knowing that they would have a chance on their own. If Awakened hit the farm…well, let’s just say they wouldn’t be on my list of things to protect.

After we worked on that, we would drift apart. We each made our own dinner whenever we felt hungry and disappeared to different parts of the house. I often took a plate up to my room, eating with a book in hand. Ash took to joining me in the room and perusing the books on my shelves.

“I can’t believe you’ve read all of these,” Ash said one evening, running his fingertips along the spines. “Some of these are thicker than my arm.”

I shrugged, my eyes darting quickly over the words on the page.

“I think you especially like this one,” he said, tugging at one of them and opening it in his lap. “It’s falling apart.”

I looked up from my book and smiled slightly at the huge tome in his lap. It really was falling apart. What was left of the cover was ripped off the back and the pages were brown and soft from so many readings. The cover had lost its bright color. It was beautiful. “It’s my favorite.”

“
Mists of Avalon,”
he read aloud. “What’s it about?”

I folded the page down of the book I was reading and set it aside. I brought my knees up to my chest, my chin resting on them. “It’s all about those King Arthur legends but told from a different point of view. It’s strong on the female characters, which is what I like. A lot of the female characters of the original stories are so…one-dimensional, so lacking. This story changes that. Besides, I just love the Arthurian legends anyway.”

He raised his eyebrow at me. “Interesting. I don’t know how you read so much.”

I thought about it for a moment. “There’s just something about reading a book that makes life so much better. No matter how bad the world is, you can always escape into a
different
world. It’s a beautiful feeling.”

Ash looked at me, nodding as he slid the book back onto the shelf and continued looking. “Ah, yes.
Goosebumps,
some good ol’ R.L. Stine. This is much more like it.”

I laughed and turned back to my book.

We had been in Constance for months. The days passed by and it started to seem surreal that the Awakened had even happened. Everything felt so…normal. Sure, we were practicing our gun skills every day, and Ash was getting better at trying to take me down. But it felt normal.

The weather was beginning to turn; the sun was out longer, the cold seeming to fade. Winter was finally breaking, and the beginnings of spring were finally beginning to show. I felt more confident in our abilities to survive in Constance, away from any Awakened, during mild temperatures of summer instead of the biting cold of winter.

We were spending an afternoon taking the winter things down from the house, opening the windows and doors to let some spring air in. I was taking the big blankets from all over the house, folding them and piling them up to be put in the barn.

I was eating lunch with Ash when my mother came in, a bandana tied around her long blonde hair.

“Can you run to the barn and grab the bins in there?” she asked. “All the blankets should fit in those. We’re going to have to start planning for summer.” Her hand was held to her forehead while she stopped to think. She began muttering other suggestions to herself and I resisted the urge to laugh.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, taking my dishes to the sink. Ash started to stand up, but I waved him aside. My hand went automatically to the gun, hanging in the holster at my hip, and I felt a sense of relief and comfort at having it there. I ran my hands under the cold faucet real quick and then headed outside toward the barn.

I immediately halted mid-step when I heard it: the loud breathing, raspy, rough and absolutely terrifying. My hand flew to my gun, but I hesitated, unsure if I was really seeing what was in front of me.

It was an Awakened, on its own. He was probably mid-forties, maybe early fifties, dressed in a tattered business suit, not unlike the men I was used to seeing all the time back home. He was staring at me blankly, and I felt frozen in his stare, unsure if he was going to say something, or whether he was even aware of me standing in front of him.

I shook my head, pulling myself out of the hesitation, and yanked my gun out of my holster and shot him. The first shot hit him in the shoulder and dark blood came pouring out of the wound.

He looked down at it unfazed and back up at me, his eyes making contact with me. “That hurt, you know,” he said, his voice causing me to shiver with disgust. I aimed again and this time I was much closer, the bullet sailing straight through his cheek. Before he could react, I’d shot one last time, and he went crashing to the ground. I lowered my arm, shaking, and crossed over to the body. I pulled out the knife that I tried to keep with me at all times and stabbed him in the face. Blood spurted up at me, covering my hands. I looked down at the body, feeling like I was about to lose my breakfast.

“Zoey?”

I looked up and back at the house. Both Ash and my mother were standing there, looking horrified.

“Is that…” my mom asked, lowering her hand from where it was covering her mouth.

“Yes,” I answered, looking over my shoulder at the body on the ground. I was shaking uncontrollably, and my eyes met Ash’s for a moment in solidarity. “I need to get rid of the body.”

“I’ll get it,” my mom said, though she looked absolutely sick at the idea.

“It’s fine,” I said, sliding my gun back in the holster. My shaking fingers caused me to miss a few times, and I almost threw it on the ground in frustration.

“Zoey.” I looked up at her, and saw that she had calmed herself and now looked determined. “I’ll clean up the body. Go inside. Clean yourself up.”

I climbed up the steps of the porch and made my way to the front door. I found my way blocked by Ash. “Move,” I said, sharply.

“I was coming outside to help you,” he said, “with the bins, I mean. I can’t believe there’s an Awakened here.”

“Was here,” I said, a flash of anger bursting through my veins. He had seen the Awakened, had seen me hesitate, and he hadn’t even moved. He hadn’t even thought to help me. The rational part of my brain was telling me that I was overreacting, that I wasn’t thinking logically. “Move,” I repeated. When he stayed there, in front of me, I pushed past him and made my way into the house and into the kitchen, ready to get the hot and sticky blood off my hands.

I leaned against the kitchen counter, letting the water run, focusing on the sound of the water hitting the stainless steel sink, anything to get my mind off the Awakened that I just killed in the front yard. I could hear my mother moving around in the shed outside, trying to find some way to dispose of it. I couldn’t think about it. Every time I fired a gun, every time I hit something, I couldn’t think about it. I was killing people, humans that had lives and families, until they got the stupid virus and had become these hungry, blue, terrifying monsters.

“Are you okay, Z?” Ash had followed behind me, and I felt my teeth start to grind.

“I’m fine, Ash,” I said tersely. “No thanks to you.”

He walked next to me and shut off the water. “Hey, I knew you had it. You’re like a little spitfire with that gun of yours.”

I shot him a scathing look over my shoulder, ignoring the heat I felt where our shoulders touched. He stepped even closer, the distance between us so small that I could feel the heat radiating off of him. I remembered the moment, at the side of the road, when he’d pressed himself on top of me, keeping me quiet while an Awakened ripped shreds out of my dad’s body before I woke up out of my stupor and shot him. My memory switched again, to when we were in the woods and the feeling of his lips on my neck and collarbone before he’d pulled away, or I had pushed him away. I felt a wave of hot lava sweep through me and felt ashamed.

“You know, shooting one of the Awakened? That was awesome. Like, freakin’ badass, Z. Every time you shoot one or take one down, it’s just the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.” 

“Yeah, thanks,” I said, avoiding looking at him in the eye or getting closer than necessary to him. Sharing a bed with him at night was rough enough as it was, even if I could admit to myself that I liked it. But now, when the nightmares seemed far away, in the light of day, I wanted him away from me.

Ash didn’t seem to feel the same. He stepped in front of me, forcing me to step away from him, my back crashing into the counter. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” he said, curiously. “Something I’ve wanted to do for weeks. Something I keep hoping you’ll let me do.” His hands came up to my waist, pulling me flush against him and I gasped quietly at the quick movement, my palms flat against his hard chest. “I feel like you want to, but I don’t know. I can’t seem to get a read on it.”

I didn’t answer and taking this as permission, he brought his mouth on mine. His tongue made a smooth movement of my bottom lip before sliding between them.

I wanted to push him away. I wanted to hate him, but it was the last thing I felt. It was
never
what I had ever felt about Ash Matthews. My hand reached up and grabbed a handful of his shirt, pulling him closer to me. I poured everything I had been feeling in the past few months into the kiss: the fear, the grief, the panic. I felt his hands move from my waist to grip my thighs as he lifted me onto the counter.

My fingers slipped into his belt loop. I pulled him closer to me, kissing him faster and more desperate than I had ever kissed anyone. I could feel him, every bit of him against me as we kissed. I wanted him more than anything; I couldn’t get enough of him. My hands fumbled at the hem of his shirt, and I started to tug it over his head before pulling him back to me. My hands were flat against his warm chest, and I wanted to rip my own shirt off. I wanted us to be bare, skin-to-skin.

Ash’s lips were on my jaw, my neck, dipping down to my collarbone and into the neckline of my shirt. I gasped as his hands lifted the shirt over my head, in one swift movement. He tossed it aside, before his fingers found their way up my waist, grazing my stomach, causing goose bumps to ripple across my body. His hands dipped underneath the fabric of my bra and cupped my breast; he pressed his lips tight against me again. I moaned, the sound loud in the echoing kitchen. My legs were wrapped around his waist, and he was moving against me, sending waves of pleasure through my body.

“Ash,” I panted, surprised at how desperate sounding his name was on my lips.

“Jesus, Zoey,” he breathed, his forehead pressed firmly against mine. “You are so goddamn beautiful.” I flushed at his words and kissed him harder.

His hands were at the button of my jeans, unsnapping them with ease. His fingers were sliding below the waistband on my pants to brush them lightly against them. A brand new feeling was shooting through my body. I heard myself moan again, my hands gripping his arms tightly, my knuckles white. His lips were back on mine, his tongue sweeping against my own, and I felt incredible; everything felt so incredible.

His hands came up to my breasts again, and I knew in a moment that my bra would be off, that more of my clothes would end up on the floor, and I registered vaguely that my mom was right outside. She could walk in any moment. I dismissed it as another wave crashed through me. My fingers fumbled, shaking, at the button to his jeans, pulling the zipper down. We were grabbing and pulling at each other, as if we could pull each other closer than we already were. Every move was desperate and hurried. I wanted to fall into him.

Who had I been kidding for so long? Why had I been denying it for so long? I was in love with Ash Matthews. I had been since his stupid bowl haircut and impossibly blue eyes had walked into my life in the third grade.