No Shelter (#1) A Post-Apocalyptic Love Story

CHAPTER 7

  “Isaac sent me to get you,” she says as I approach her. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t spying on you.”

  “You don’t have to be sorry. You didn’t see anything.”

  I continue walking back to the cave, trying to ignore the confused expression on Eve’s face. Though she’s extremely anxious and a bit too polite sometimes, Eve is not stupid. I don’t worry she’ll tell Isaac. I worry she’ll stop trusting me.

  “You were looking for me?” I say as I enter the cave and kick off my boots.

  I sit down in the corner of the cave opposite Isaac and pick up a book to pretend to read.

  I can feel Isaac staring at me. “I need you to help me with my bandage.”

  I throw the book down and crawl to him. “Sorry. I totally forgot.”

  I begin peeling off the old bandages and he winces. The bandage is stuck to the outer edge of the wound. I didn’t apply enough cream last night.

  “Sorry,” I say. It’s all I can say.

  “What were you doing out there?” he asks as I flush the wound with more iodine. “Be careful with that!”

  I’ve accidentally poured iodine all over his crotch.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, trying to soak it up with the used bandage.

  He laughs and grabs my hand. “Hey! Don’t do that. You’re making it worse.”

  The sly grin on his face makes me want to throw up. I set the ointment and the clean bandages on the ground and stand.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, you’ve said that a million times. What’s going on?”

  I glance at Daedric. He’s leaning against the mouth of the cave with his eyes closed.

  “I’m fine,” I say as I sit back down and finish bandaging his thigh. “I’m just a little freaked out about this whole thing.”

  I pull the blanket over Isaac as he lies down. “Come here,” he says, beckoning me to his side.

  Isaac and I used to sleep like this every night. It was one of the things I missed the most after Mary arrived. So why do I suddenly feel as if I’m being forced to lay with him?

  “I’m going to read a little first,” I say, as I move toward the other corner of the cave.

  His face is chockfull of rejection, but I pretend not to notice as I open the book and commence staring at the words on the page.

  I wake hours before sunrise shivering and curled up around my book. I can barely make out the outline of Isaac’s face through the darkness. Is that sweat glistening on his brow?

  I crawl quietly to his side and place my hand on his forehead. He’s burning up. I pull the blanket off his torso and pull up his shirt to cool him down.

  “Hey, you didn’t have to wait for me to fall asleep,” he mutters, half-asleep and still able to make me blush.

  He grabs my hand off his chest and pulls me toward him. His lips are dry with dehydration, but his kiss is gentle; first on the top of my cheek then he moves his way down to my jaw.

  Isaac and I have only kissed twice, and the second time we swore it would never happen again.

  His breath is hot as he kisses the corner of my lips. He doesn’t taste like charred meat. This thought makes my stomach swell with nausea and I pull away in time to throw up on the dirt floor next to him.

  I taste the charred rabbit meat mingled with sour bile on my tongue as one more heaving wave of vomit streams from my mouth. Isaac doesn’t even attempt to scoot away. He sits up and pulls my hair back as the puddle of vomit seeps into his blanket.

  I’m shaking and sweaty as I sit back and wipe my mouth. Everybody’s awake now and though I can’t see their faces through the darkness I can feel their eyes on me.

  I grab Isaac’s soiled blanket to mop up the mess then I throw him my clean blanket as I scramble to my feet. “Don’t cover your whole body. You have a fever.”

  I watch the sunrise from the roof of the cave while my stomach gurgles and clenches. I don’t know if it’s nerves, hunger, or food poisoning from the meat, but it’s probably a combination of all three. Mostly nerves.

  Isaac’s head peeks out from the mouth of the cave and I almost blurt another apology, but I stop myself.

  “What are you doing out here?” I say, sounding more annoyed than concerned.

  He turns around and grins at me. “Hey, Mount Vesuvius.”

  “You should be lying down.”

  “That makes two of us,” he says. “Can you please come down? I feel like I’m at a bit of a disadvantage here.”

  That makes two of us.

  I jump down and immediately try to usher him back into the cave. He resists and ends up falling on his butt.

  “What are you doing?” I yell at him.

  He grits his teeth against the pain. “Just help me up.”

  I pull him upright and he hobbles away toward the forest. I follow him because I know there’s nothing I can do to stop him.

  “Where are you going, gimpy?” I shout.

  He chuckles as he takes a seat on a fallen pine tree. “I had to get out of there. It wreaks of dead rabbit, and it’s even worse now.”

  I ignore the jab and take a seat next to him. “Did you take your medicine?”

  “Can we please stop focusing on me for one damn second?” he replies.

  I don’t say anything. My face is expressionless. This is a look I’ve perfected: calm and completely unfazed by the madness surrounding me.

  “Don’t start that, Nada.”

  I had a crush on a boy in seventh grade. Chad Robinson. I overheard him make a joke about my slanted eyes during gym class. I never spoke to him again during art class. A couple of months later, I found out the silent treatment had worked. Chad asked me to the Winter Formal. It never felt so good to reject someone.

  “Fine. Don’t say anything. Just listen,” Isaac continues. “I should be well enough to leave this hell hole in about three days. I want you to come with me.”

  I shake my head. “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I say. “We’re going to help Daedric find his sister. We can’t stay here and keep fighting off mountain lions and bears for the rest of our lives.”

  He leans in and whispers in my ear. “You won’t even consider it?”

  “No.”

  He traces the edge of my face with his fingertips and plants a soft kiss on my chin. I turn my head away.

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask. “Are you trying to manipulate me?”

  He sits back on the log and gazes out across the small clearing at a squirrel flitting about another log.

  “I don’t have much time left.”

  “Your leg is healing fine.”

  “I’m not talking about my leg.”

  Isaac’s face takes on the same flat expression I’ve mastered.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I did something bad,” he says. “I… I can’t tell you what I did, but you need to believe me when I say we have to get out of this area—soon.”

  “Is it Vic?”

  He nods and I realize our little trip to the Salton Sea just got even more dangerous. Suddenly Isaac’s proposal doesn’t sound so rash.

  “Come with me?” he whispers.

  I search his eyes for a trace of untruth. Isaac’s left eyebrow almost always twitches when he’s lying. Almost always. At the moment, it’s as steady as the despair surrounding us.

  “I will,” I say, and his face lights up. “But only if this shelter thing doesn’t work out.”

  He sighs. “Alright. I’ll take that.”

  This time I lean in and kiss him on the cheek. He has patches of hair growth on his cheeks since he hasn’t shaved in a week.

  He takes my hand and places it on his chest. “You feel that?”

  His heart thumps against my fingertips.

  “It’s yours. Be careful with it.”

  I laugh out loud. “You are so corny it’s disgusting.”

  “Are you laughing at me, Mt. Vesuvius?” he says as he pulls me into a playful headlock.

&nb
sp; “Everything okay?” Daedric’s voice calls from across the clearing.

  Isaac lets me go and I smooth my hair as I sit up straight. Mary stands next to Daedric glaring at me. No, it’s not my imagination. If looks could kill, I’d be gutted and skewered by now.