Thicker Than Blood (Thicker Than Blood #1)(21)
Evelyn’s mouth fell open, then closed, and then opened again as her eyes widened in shock at my sudden outburst. For the first time, my friend was at a loss for words. There were a lot of firsts happening lately, most of them at the most inopportune times. And all of them were my fault.
“You’re not weak.”
I was so busy glaring at Evelyn, and her gaping at me, that neither of us noticed for several moments that the truck had come to a stop. Blinking with confusion, I turned to find Alex staring straight ahead, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his tanned knuckles had turned white.
“You’re not weak,” he repeated, this time more forcefully.
Without another word, Alex roughly pulled the key from the ignition and exited the truck, slamming the door loud enough to make me wince. I watched him walk a few feet into the empty street before I looked back at Evelyn, an apology forming on my lips.
“No,” she said, flashing me a wicked smile. “Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. Not for that.”
Flabbergasted, I searched her face, confused by her smile, trying to discern the reason for it.
“Why the hell not?” was all I could say.
“Because,” she said pointedly. “It’s so f*cking good to finally see you stand up for yourself again.”
? ? ?
The first three stores we ventured inside had been picked clean of anything useful quite some time ago. All that remained were fragments of what these buildings had once held, an abundance of cobwebs and dust, and a few scattered human bones.
For the most part I stayed on lookout, remaining at the entrance. My sole job was to alert Alex and Evelyn of any threats, be they infected, animal, or another human, while the two of them searched for provisions.
By our fourth stop, at what looked to have once been a bank, I was more sure of myself than I had been in quite some time. The gun felt good in my grip, solid and heavy, and despite not having yet fired it, I was oddly reassured to have it there.
That wasn’t to say I was no longer scared, because I was. Actually, I was downright terrified. The sun was setting on the horizon, giving the entire town an overall gray and spooky appearance. Without electricity, the interiors of the buildings were already too dim to see clearly, even with the aid of Alex’s flashlight. Added to it was the unnatural silence and stillness in a place that I knew had once been full of footsteps, voices, even the buzz of the streetlamps. It was the perfect setting for a horror movie. And as the sun sank deeper on the horizon, my recently won smidgen of courage began to form into a hard lump of fear in my gut.
“We should get going,” I called out over my shoulder, my voice quivering with my growing anxiety.
“One minute!” Evelyn replied. “There’s something under this…goddamn it, this is heavy!”
“Leisel.”
Alex was suddenly beside me, so close I could feel the heat of his breath against my cheek. Squeaking in surprise, I jumped backward, out of the doorway and onto the sidewalk.
“You scared me,” I breathed out. Placing my hand over my pounding heart, I took in a much-needed gulp of fresh air.
“Sorry,” he said, not looking the least bit sorry. Much like Evelyn had earlier in response to Alex, I found myself wanting to roll my eyes. He was a strange man. Handsome and unreadable, and if the events of the last two days were anything to go on, entirely unpredictable.
“Why did you help me?” I blurted out, suddenly needing to know. “And don’t tell me you wanted out of there. Life was good for you and Jami in Fredericksville. Why would anyone trade that for…” I trailed off and gestured toward the empty, ruined street. “This,” I finished. What I really wanted to ask was, why would anyone trade a comfy and predictable life for what could end up being a very short life, one filled with unfathomable dangers.
As I already presumed, he didn’t answer me readily but instead just stared down at me, his dark eyes appearing black in the waning light.
“You think you’re weak,” he finally said, his voice unusually ragged and thick. “But you’re not. Weak people don’t live through the kind of shit you lived through. Weak people don’t drive a knife into someone’s heart, and weak people don’t just willingly accept the fact that they’ve been sentenced to death.”
Alex took a rather menacing step toward me, and I again found myself fighting to remain where I stood. I didn’t want to be the woman who was afraid of all men just because one man had hurt her. I didn’t want to be weak anymore. So I stood my ground and lifted my chin, though my knees began to tremble.
“I was weak,” he continued, twisting his lips into a snarl filled with self-hatred. “I stood outside your home, day after day, year after year, listening to what he did to you, and I never lifted a hand to stop it.” He swallowed hard and shook his head as his nostrils flared, his gaze unfocused. “Weak people do nothing. Weak people let life happen to them, and I was weak. I knew what it was like out here, knew the kind of shit people were doing just to live another day, and I didn’t want to come back to it, to this. So I let him hurt you, didn’t say a word, didn’t try to stop it, because I was goddamn weak.”
My lower lip began to quiver as my eyes filled with tears. One blink and they spilled over, running down my cheeks faster than I could catch the breath I needed to stop them. Who was this man? This wasn’t the Alex I knew, the silent, stone-faced, emotionless Alex who’d been by my side this entire time, and yet the same I’d thought had never really seen me before.