“I think these days, Andon would let me die.”
“No, he’d never be that obvious. Andon would push you off a cliff when no one looked.”
Hearing that was such a relief. Deacon didn’t react like I was crazy. “You agree with me?”
“Of course. Andon’s out to split the two of you up.” He shrugged, which I felt since I was pressed against his chest. “I would have liked the guy for it if I hadn’t worried he was going to get you killed in the process.”
The world spun around me. Either from blood loss or Deacon’s words. “Please don’t drop me.”
“Never.”
I’m not sure what happened over the rest of the trip. I could hear the crunching of twigs beneath his feet. I could feel the snow on my face. Then that stopped. Maybe Deacon covered me up. I think he did. I drifted in and out of the world but never back to the movie screening of my life. I’m not sure what had changed to keep me so grounded in this world. Deacon’s heartbeat through his soft shirt felt nice against my abused skin.
***
“Rachel, can you hear me?” Keith’s voice interrupted my dozing. I lay on a cot in the medic tent. I’d been there a while. Days?
“I don’t think the wolves tore off my ears.” I opened my eyes, wishing I hadn’t. I knew they’d been short on medication but they were certainly dosing me up on painkillers, enough to make me want to throw up every time I woke.
“You saved Tiffani and Levi.”
Keith looked ragged, as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. He had a large scratch down the side of his face.
“Saved Tiffani and Levi?” I tried to remember. “Did I?”
“You did.” He sat down next to me in a small chair for family members. My father had not, to my knowledge, used it. Even thinking about me in here, this injured, must have thrown him into drunk-ville. I had the impression someone spent a lot of time in that chair. Although I didn’t know who. Odd to be so drugged up.
“I also lost her machete.”
“That’s okay. She doesn’t use it anymore.” He leaned over me. “You also saved Micah Lyons.”
“I did?” I really couldn’t remember that at all.
He laughed. “You’re a big hero. Again.”
“I think you probably did a number of heroic things yourself.”
“None of them included saving my wife and child from certain death.”
“Okay. Please don’t thank me. Gratitude makes me totally uncomfortable.” I couldn’t believe I uttered that aloud. Sleep seemed better that talking.
“Why do you think that is?”
Really? Keith intended to quiz me while I lay in this bed nearly dead? “I can’t talk about this while I’m so injured. I don’t do self-examination very well on a good day. Can this wait until I’m better?”
“You’ve been in here a week. I’m forcing you back to the land of the living.”
“Then maybe they need to cut back my medication. “
He nodded. “They are.”
That meant I’d have pain again. Horrible, mind numbing pain.
I tried to sit up. If Keith wanted to talk, I didn’t want to be at a disadvantage. If I’d been there a week, then I had a question I needed answered.
“Has it been Jason sitting here with me?”
Keith shook his head, his strawberry blond locks looking disheveled. “Jason left, remember? How far back does your memory loss go?”
“He should be back.”
Keith shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
There were much more important things I should be wondering about. Why had the vampires overwhelmed us? How many wolves had hit us? How many injured were there total? Casualties? What had it done to our defenses?
All I could think was that it was a good thing I hadn’t sat out in the snow waiting, again.
Keith looked at me expectantly, and I felt as if I needed to speak. “So, my dad then? He’s actually been sitting here?”
“No.” Keith scratched his head. “As you can imagine, it did not go well when we told him how hurt you were. Patrick says he crumbled to the floor.”
“Then who has been sitting here with me? Or am I just imagining that someone’s been here?” The desperate imagination of a lonely girl.
“I can’t get Deacon to go home or to go out on patrol. We’re still taking hits from the wolves. I could use him. I had to practically threaten to evict him from Genesis—not that I could—to get him to do rounds today, and then he only came because I agreed to sit with you.”
Deacon. He’d rescued me and he’d sat here for a week. “Keith.” My mouth felt dry. “Why do you suppose he did that?”
“Because he’s in love with you.” Keith scratched at his chin absentmindedly, as if he hadn’t just delivered an announcement that was a huge deal as if it was nothing new.
“He wants me. He’s not in love with me.”
“Want you? As in wants your body?”
I nodded. “He’s also my friend.”
“If he wanted you, after all this time, he’d have found someone else to want. He loves you, kid. And I love you. And so does Tiffani. But not in the same way Deacon loves you.”
Deacon did. I couldn’t deny it anymore. Still, Jason and I had not broken up. I loved him even though I hated him. I loved Deacon—as my friend. The pain I’d dreaded creeped up my arm.
Chapter Nine
The light burned my eyes as I stepped out of the medical tent and back into the world. My arms hurt in such a way that I wondered if they would ever stop. Would there be a time in my life when I wouldn’t know this pain anymore?
The medic had ordered me off my feet and away from fighting for another week. Easier said than done. The wolves had wiped out ten of our Warriors and everyone was working double shifts to make sure we didn’t lose it all.
I would be lucky if they didn’t push me back into duty within forty-eight hours. Only the medic tent had spared me that for so long.
“You look a little worse for wear, Rachel.” Deacon ran from the woods behind the clearing. My back faced him, and I was grateful for that. My cheeks heated up at the sound of my name coming from his mouth.
He stepped forward until he stood next to me. “You okay? You’re all red. Are they sure they should have let you go? You have a fever?”
Deacon placed his cool hand on my forehead. I swallowed, and he narrowed his eyes. “You don’t feel hot.”
Finally, I pushed his hand away. This was Deacon. I had to find a way to deal with the fact that he loved me and still treat him like my friend. Nothing had changed. Except that it had because now I blushed when he spoke to me.
“I’m okay. Just tired, sore, and stiff. I feel like an old person.”
He put his arm around me. “Lean on me. We’ll get to your tent together.”
I nodded. If I had even a small amount of strength in me, I wouldn’t let him baby me.
“No word from wolf-boy yet?’
“I didn’t ask.” I’d spoken through clenched teeth, which made my mouth sore.
“But you’re wondering.”
I shook my head. “I’m not. I don’t want to talk about Jason. I’m sure he has a reason for not coming back yet. When he gets here, we’ll deal with it.”
It made my chest feel tight to talk to Deacon about Jason right now. It felt a little bit like I betrayed both of them, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. Yet.
We reached my tent and immediately I could see my home had changed. A new light radiated through the flap. I turned to look at Deacon, and he smirked.
I walked forward and entered my small home. Once inside, I covered my mouth with my hand. Everything seemed so…comfortable. My bed had new sheets. A gas lamp illuminated three chairs placed around the room. There were also “touches” everywhere, or at least that’s how I thought Tiffani would refer to them. A picture frame that held a shot of the Warriors the year before when we’d managed to stave off a flood that threatened the whole camp. We grinned like fools.
Candles and books nestled on a small table.
My knees went out from under me. Deacon, who I hadn’t heard come in, grabbed me from behind.
“Easy now. No one wants you fainting.”
I rolled my eyes. “This must have cost you a year’s worth of supply certificates.”
“I didn’t do this. Well, not alone.” He pointed at the frame. “That’s my role. But a lot of hands went into this.”
“Who?”
He sat me down in one of the chairs around the small table.
“I think you can guess who was involved. The Lyons orchestrated it. Tia and Carol came up with the idea. Tiffani helped. As I said, that frame, that’s me. The candle was Micah. He thought your tent felt dark. Glen built the chair you’re sitting in, so no certificates used on it. I think he really, really liked doing it. Took his mind off all the women bossing him around all the time.”
I laughed. Deacon said things no one else ever said. Between Tia and Carol, it was amazing Glen could speak without asking permission. Stranger even that he’d joined us to blow up the vamp lairs.
“Keith came in with the table, and I think that Sloane and Mary gave you the second chair.”
I nodded. Sloane and Mary. I needed to spend more time focused on the other Warriors. We’d been working so closely together, it was possible they’d become my friends without my even noticing it.
“I have to thank everyone.”
Deacon sat down across from me. “Okay. Do that. Although I think everyone did this to thank you.”
I didn’t know where to put my hands, and I hated feeling so uncomfortable around Deacon.
“I need to thank you.”
He nodded. “I kind of thought I was included in the ‘thank everyone’ part of the conversation we just had.” His eyes twinkled as he spoke and my mouth went dry.
Oh no. Deacon. Was. Cute. I’d always known it. I just hadn’t dwelled on his appearance because no one came close to Jason’s glowing presence. But now? With Jason so far away, more and more I seemed to look at Deacon differently.
His brown hair had always been a problem for him. He’d grown up underground in a vampire lair. They’d basically had to keep their hair shaved close to their heads all the time. His locks had practically covered his vision before any of us had realized he didn’t know how to go about either cutting it himself or asking one of us to do it for him. Now, I would describe it as shaggy.
He didn’t want it too short, said wearing it slightly long reminded him he’d escaped his captivity. His light brown eyes now regarded me curiously. But I knew his gaze could turn brutal any time he felt annoyed or threatened.
Although it hurt, I got off the chair and knelt in front of him.
“Rachel?” His question sounded serious and he leaned forward. “What are you doing?”
“You saved my life.”
He ran his hands through his hair and sat back. “I wasn’t sure you remembered. Why are you on the floor?”
I really didn’t know. I’d given in to the impulse to kneel in front of him. Maybe I’d thought it would be somehow more personal if I thanked him like this? Now I just felt foolish.
“Rachel?”
Deacon clearly wanted an answer from me about my behavior. “You saved my life, and I’m starting to remember things about that night.”
“If this is where you tell me you’re in love with the wolf and I had no business crying over your body, you can save yourself the trouble. I’ve tried to get over you. Can’t seem to manage the task.”
I pulled myself off my knees so I could stand in front of him. Leaning over, I caught a whiff of soap on Deacon’s skin. He bathed more than anyone I knew. We all got clean once a day but Deacon showered twice. Once, he’d told me that having the right to do that was a luxury he intended to take advantage of. I guess living in Genesis, we’d been spoiled.
Before I could stop myself, I kissed him on the cheek. He took a sharp breath, and I lowered myself back down onto my knees. “Thank you for saving me.”
“Sheesh, Clancy. I saved your life. What does a guy have to do to get one of those on the lips?”
His smile curved upward to the side as he spoke, and I chose to not be offended by his words. Deacon had every right to protect his emotions. I probably shouldn’t have kissed him, now that I knew for sure how he felt about me.
Truth was, I hadn’t given Jason one little bit of thought when I’d done it either. Maybe that made me a really bad person.
I stood up and grinned at Deacon. “You’re such a guy.”
“And proud of it.” He rose to his feet. Deacon stood much taller than me, which felt weird considering that I stood at five foot ten inches, amongst the tallest females in Genesis. We didn’t have great nutrition, and people had stopped growing as tall as they had been before Armageddon. Or, at least that’s what the medics thought had happened. Deacon had lived in a vampire lair with even worse conditions. It must have been really odd for him to have turned out as strong and healthy as he had.
“Do you need to lie down?”
“Um.” The answer was yes, but I was feeling really wired and not at all certain that I could manage to rest. “Maybe I’ll just sit down.”
He took my arm. “Let me help you.”
“I managed to move over to you. I can make to the chair.”
“Okay, you caught me.” He continued to hold my arm as I moved to the chair I’d vacated and sat back down. “I really want an excuse to touch you.”
“Deacon.” I closed my eyes. “You shouldn’t say things like that to me.”
“You just kissed me. Don’t expect me to pretend that didn’t happen.”
I opened my eyes. “I’m all mixed up right now.”
“I know that.” His voice sounded soft, very un-Deacon-like. Why wasn’t he making demands and pushing me so I could be mad at him? “Do you want to talk about other stuff?”
I nodded and sat back in my chair. “Yes.”
“The raids have been continuing since you’ve been hurt.”
This got my attention as all thoughts of kissing, boyfriends, and other nonsense fled my head. “Without me?”
He nodded and crossed his arms over his chest. “Without me as well, since I’ve been with you. Micah and the others have been plowing forward. They’re really mad about what happened. Every day they’re blowing up lairs. Sometimes they find people in them, sometimes they don’t.”
I shook my head as if I could make his words somehow untrue. “That’s not how this was supposed to go. We’re supposed to be smart about this, controlled.”
“I agree, but no one is listening to me. I don’t even know if they’ll listen to you anymore.”
I stood up even though my legs felt weak. “Has anyone been hurt?”
He shook his head. “No, no one. To make matters worse, there hasn’t been one wolf, not one, in any of the locations.”
I wanted to pull out my hair so I paced to the window. My arms throbbed and my shoulders hurt. By all rights, I should have been dead. I couldn’t possibly charge outside and find Micah. My mind felt willing but my body objected.
“Micah doesn’t find this even a little odd, Deacon? He doesn’t think we should stop and reassess what is going on here?”
Deacon moved until he stood behind me. “Micah is lost.”
“What?” I whirled around and found myself pressed up against him. “You said no one had been hurt?”
“He’s not hurt, not physically anyway.” He ran a hand through my hair. “He’s just lost his mind. I don’t know if it was nearly getting killed, nearly getting you killed, or Chad’s actual death finally catching up with him, but Micah is acting like a one-man raid machine. In and out, every day.”
I took a step to put distance between Deacon and myself. I didn’t want to be petted, not at that moment, and I seriously started to regret having given in to that strange moment and kissing him on the cheek. Not if he was now going to see it as an open invitation for touchy-feel
yness. If nothing else, I had a boyfriend. Even if he happened to be a wolf who I really wanted to knee in the balls.
“Without his partner? This was never how it was supposed to go.”
“I know.” He leaned against the side of the tent. “I’m conflicted. On one hand, I love that they are beating the hell out of the vamps during the daylight and rescuing lots of people. On the other….”
He didn’t finish his thought, instead turning his head to look outside the tent flap.
“On the other what?” My voice sounded scratchy. It had been a week since I’d spoken this much.
“On the other hand, we’re being attacked all day long by wolves we can’t find anywhere. In all of my years underground, I never saw a lair that didn’t at least have a few of them mulling around to keep the humans in line. It’s making me really worried that they are not there now. Where are they? What are they doing?”
I nodded. That had been my experience when I’d been held captive. “Yes. That’s true. How badly are we being hit during the day?”
No one had told me anything, and the alarms hadn’t been sounding.
He shrugged. “A moderate amount, which, again, makes me agitated because we all saw a week ago what they were capable of doing.”
“Yes.” My stomach turned with anxiety I couldn’t name. I had no idea what was happening around me. The world had kept moving without my consent.
“It’s like change started. A war. I don’t know.” His voice drifted off again.
“A war that we caused and the adults know nothing about.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Should I go to Keith? Tell him?”
The idea filled me with dread. I’d broken so many rules I didn’t know which part of what I’d done would bother him the most.
“Maybe you could reason with Micah. I’m not suggesting we stop what we’re doing. I want to get them. We still haven’t hit a really big space yet. The kind of place where I lived and where you were hidden.”
“This wasn’t how I planned things.”
“I know.” He shook his head. “Rachel, I’m afraid that even in a week, this thing has transformed from what you planned into a new entity all together.”