Thicker Than Blood (Thicker Than Blood #1)(95)
Now the sun was setting, the bonfires had been lit, and an even larger crowd had gathered for Alex’s fight than had for Evelyn’s. Murmurs rippled among the bystanders about the wildcat who had taken down the most fearsome female fighter in Purgatory. If Alex’s pending fight wasn’t worrisome enough, the thought of Evelyn becoming this place’s new source of entertainment was even more so.
If Jeffers and Liv wanted her here to take Misty’s place as the reigning champion, then how would we ever leave? And we most definitely wanted to leave. After seeing what had been done to Evelyn, something she still refused to talk about, and after her fight today, no electrical fence, no amount of armed guards could ever convince me to stay here. It was no better than Fredericksville, and these brands on our wrists meant nothing. No one was safe anymore, anywhere. The best we could hope for was to continue heading south, and pray we found someplace safe enough, someplace isolated where we could finally live in peace.
Was I holding out hope that such a place existed? Not really. It seemed too fantastical, a ridiculous fairy tale, but at the very least I had to believe that something better than Purgatory, better than Covey, better than Fredericksville existed. There had to be others like us, people who just wished to live out the rest of their lives in some semblance of normalcy.
Or had everything and everyone actually died alongside the world? If that was the case, maybe this was actually Purgatory, where we were all just waiting to be judged. And if we were killed in the meantime, well then…no skin off God’s back if there was one less sinner in a long line of awaited judgments to be doled out.
I almost wished we’d never left the tree stand.
“I’ll be fine, Lei,” Alex said, sounding exasperated. “Look at them, one’s short and fat and the other one just barely hit puberty. He’s nothing but skin and bones.”
He was right, Mike was tall and skinny and Bryce was carrying around quite the paunch. But it wasn’t their sizes I was worried about, it was what weapons they might have concealed on them.
“He’ll be right as rain, my dear!” Grannie said, giving Alex a firm slap on his bicep. “And I’ll be here to see you through it.” She glanced at me, her round, wrinkled face lit up with excitement. “You look stunning, by the way. I knew that color would look wonderful with your fair skin.”
Glancing down at my latest Grannie ensemble, stunning wasn’t a word I would have used to describe myself. I was wearing a handmade pale pink, short-sleeved shift that barely reached mid-thigh, the material light and flimsy like a bed sheet, which was probably exactly what it had been made from. I’d paired it with a pair of black leggings with holes in the knees, so worn they appeared a faded charcoal gray. Also new were a pair of men’s military-issued army boots, a size and a half too big for me. Alex’s weapons belt was slung low on my hips, my blade seated firmly at my side.
I looked mismatched at best, like a young girl trying to rebel against societal norms while still attempting to appear cute and feminine. Worse were the looks I’d been getting from the men. Though they said nothing, their expressions suggested I looked like a pretty pink Popsicle they wanted a nice long lick from.
It was an awful feeling, a hundred pairs of eyes on you as if you were nothing more than prize to be won. Back in Fredericksville, no one had so much as glanced my way without purpose, and never to ogle me. But back in Fredericksville, women weren’t whores, at least not for the masses. We were simply the whores of the men who’d forced us into marriage.
I didn’t know which was worse.
“Stay with her,” Alex muttered in Grannie’s direction while prying my fingers from his arm. One of Grannie’s thick arms wrapped around my waist, a surprisingly strong grip for an older woman.
“I’ll be fine!” Alex shouted over the noisy din of the crowd.
Grabbing my face, he pulled me up on my tiptoes and pressed his mouth to mine. His tongue slid between my lips and mine between his, tangling together in a messy, desperate kiss that I didn’t want to end. I’d never been a proponent for public displays of affection, yet I couldn’t help but worry that Alex was going to fare even worse than Evelyn had. And if that were the case, I wanted him to know how much he meant to me. I wanted to show him.
Too soon, he broke away from me, Grannie still holding tight to my waist as I reached for him. He gave me one last look before shoving through the people in front of us and disappearing into the crowd.
“Let me go!” I shouted, twisting in earnest, trying to free myself. Eventually she did, but it was already too late. As I pushed and shoved through the crush of people who were shoving me right back, by the time I managed to reach the ring, Alex was already inside it, along with Mike and Bryce.
Misty’s body had been taken away but her blood still remained, wet and thick as it pooled on the smooth dirt, glinting an ominous red in the flickering firelight. The infected, trapped in their metal cages, were still going wild for the blood and flesh so close to them, yet so far out of their reach.
“Alex!” I shouted, gripping the rope as I was continuously shoved against it. “Alex!”
Either he didn’t hear me over the growing noise, or he was refusing to look at me in fear of distraction from the coming fight. Pulling his T-shirt off over his head, he gripped the collar and tore it down the center, continuing to rip the material until he had several strips of cloth that he began wrapping around his hands and knuckles. Neither Mike nor Bryce had done this; they were fully clothed and without protection for their hands, and both were glaring at Alex.