Thicker Than Blood (Thicker Than Blood #1)(74)

My lips flattened, my nostrils flared, and I swallowed back any last shred of pain I was feeling for the caged infected. “I am from the wild,” I said thickly. “I’m just not an animal.”

Mattie clucked her tongue at me. “Now that’s where you’re wrong,” she said, her tone as smooth as melted butter. “We’re all animals. Always were. The only difference is we’re no longer caged.”

A vision of Lawrence, snoring peacefully in our bed, danced behind my eyes. And then of me, holding that blade over his body, my eyes wide, my hands shaking, my heart bursting…

Folding my arms across my chest, I cleared my throat and glanced around. “Which cage is mine?”

Mattie smiled. “Atta girl.”

? ? ?

It was an eerie thing, an odd conglomeration of past and present—residents of this new world, dancing and drinking, laughing and shouting to the rhythms of the old world. It was a head-on collision of what was and what would never be again, much like the famous paintings lining the walls marred by graffiti.

It felt wrong, it looked wrong, like a dream you couldn’t seem to shake. You woke up again and again, only to fall asleep and pick back up right where you’d left off. The moment the doors had opened and the crowd noisily poured inside, an odd sort of haze quickly enveloped me, leaving me feeling surreal, as if I were floating along a breeze, an incorporeal essence, and everything around me…only a mirage.

Still, I danced. I danced and I danced and I danced to the beats of yesteryear. To rap music, to hip-hop, to show tunes, and to the oddly thrown-in recordings of car commercials and the closing credits of television sitcoms. Every so often a wild-looking man would jump on top of the bar, yelling obscene things into a microphone, further winding the crowd up to the point where, even as barbaric as it was, I was glad to be locked in a cage and hanging high out of reach.

All around me, both men and women were crowded together, some half-naked, others entirely nude, their hair plastered against their faces, their sweaty bodies straining. They danced and they sang as they guzzled drink after drink, groping one another. Some even decided to have sex right then and there—on the floor, up against the wall, bent over a table or the bar—their shame left at the door.

Even stone-cold sober, I felt drugged by it all…the atmosphere, the barely restrained violence, the fervent sexuality oozing from every pore of every person.

Somewhere in this room full of bodies were Alex and Evelyn, since both of them insisted that they’d be present despite my protests. I’d thought, at first, that their presence would make the whole awful situation that much worse for me, like having an audience to your shame. Only now, unable to pinpoint anyone’s face or even distinguish between the sexes, I no longer cared. In fact, I was glad for it. Glad that somewhere among all this insanity was a tether to what remained of my sanity.

And so I danced. I danced slowly, I danced wildly, I danced sexually. I raised my arms above my head and danced to the beat of my own drum. I sent my hands skimming down my body, feeling my way through the music and the wants of the screaming crowd.

I danced and danced, and I ignored them all. They shouted requests for me to take off my clothes, to pull my underwear to the side, to flash them my breasts. I ignored the glasses and lit cigarettes thrown at my cage, much as I ignored my dance partner, the infected hanging no more than three feet from me, bumbling around to a hungry beat only it could hear.

I ignored and ignored and I just danced, losing myself to it all, and yet strangely felt as if I’d found some long-lost piece of myself in the midst of it all.

When the sun finally rose, the bar emptied except for a few straggling employees. My cage was lowered, and Alex was there waiting for me.

“Hi,” I whispered as I stumbled forward.

Alex’s dark eyes burned. He seemed so incredibly alive in that moment, as if he were actually lit from within, his fire radiating from the inside out.

“Say something,” I said softly, placing my hand on his chest. Beneath my palm, I could feel his heart racing.

“I wanted to hate it,” he said slowly through gritted teeth. “You up there locked inside a cage looking…like that.” His feverish gaze dropped down, taking in every exposed inch of me. My stomach flip-flopped, and I nearly found myself preening in the face of his admiration, even as lust-fueled as it was.

“And these sick shits watching you,” he continued as his eyes glazed over. “Wanting to touch you, and…” He swallowed hard, his eyes never leaving me.

“But you didn’t hate it,” I finished gently for him.

His teeth clenched, and he shook his head slowly. “I didn’t hate it.”

“And?” I prompted him, wanting—no, needing—to hear what he couldn’t seem to bring himself to say.

“I’m not like them, Leisel,” he ground out, his eyes flashing angrily as they refocused on me. “I know I’m not like them.”

My hand fisted in his shirt, and I tugged him down until our faces were nearly touching. “I know,” I whispered. “But you can tell me. You can tell me you liked it, and it won’t change anything.” I needed to hear it from him, felt it desperately in the pit of my stomach.

He stared into my eyes, his heart pounding a furious beat beneath my fist. Then his hand slid from my back to my backside where he grabbed hold of me, bringing me flush against his body, his hand squeezing possessively. I could feel him, all of him, hard and eager, his body tense, yet trembling just beneath the surface. I knew we were being watched, could hear the whispered giggles from some of the other girls, but I didn’t care. Nothing else mattered in this one moment.