100 Days in Deadland (Deadland Saga, #1)(37)

Clutch grunted before disappearing again, and the next thing I knew he was nudging me awake. I grumbled as he lifted my head up and held a glass of water to my lips. My hands wrapped around his fingers on the glass while I clumsily slurped at the contents. The cool water drenched the dust and debris lodged in my raw throat and I coughed. Once I could breathe again, I gulped down the rest. He wiped water from my chin before he lowered my head back to the pillow and stepped away.

At the door he paused. “I never should’ve left you behind,” he said, his voice a rough whisper.

I shook my head. “I made you go.”

“No. You didn’t.” Then he walked away, closing the door behind him, leaving behind only silence.

“Clutch,” I called out with a cough, but he never returned. At first I fought to stay awake so I could talk some sense into him, but all too quickly I surrendered to a dreamless sleep.

I slept through most of the next day, though I remember Clutch checking on me several times. Each time, his calloused hand brushed across my forehead and he made me drink water before letting me doze off again. One time, he wouldn’t leave until I’d eaten a protein bar. I grumbled, he grumbled, and I ate it. Then I fell back asleep.

Nightmares of children that were no longer children yanked me back to consciousness. Luckily, instead of the moans of zeds, I came awake to the sound of stacking plates and the smell of warm food.

Every muscle in my body griped when I climbed out of bed. After a full-body stretch, I forced myself through fifty sit-ups and fifty pushups to get my blood pumping. My body hated me for it, but I pushed through it. Finished, I headed across the hall to the bedroom I’d given up to Jase when he moved in, and grabbed fresh clothes from a drawer I’d kept in the dresser.

Without power, we had no water pressure for a shower the three of us shared. I sighed in relief when I found four buckets of clean water waiting next to the tub. I poured them into the tub, stripped, and settled into the biting cold water, trying to scrub away the memories from yesterday, with little success.

Not having warm water tended to speed up the cleaning process. Shivering, I jogged down the steps to find Clutch cooking dinner on the tabletop propane grill we’d moved into the kitchen after the power went out. He gave me a small nod before turning his attention back to the food. I grabbed a spoon and reached into the pot, but he grabbed my wrist. “Nuh-uh. You have to wait like the rest of us.”

I pouted and then smirked. “Hurry up. I’m starving,” I ordered and headed into the living room, the only light from a small lantern.

“Hey, Cash,” Jase called from the sofa.

I nodded toward his left foot propped up on a chair, a thick wrapping around his ankle. “How’s the leg?”

He rubbed his ankle. “It’s just a sprain. Clutch says the swelling will be down enough in another day or two that I can start putting some weight on it again.” He looked up. “Wow, you slept for like twenty-four hours straight.”

“She needed it,” Clutch said before handing Jase and me each a bowl.

I grabbed a seat next to Jase and dug into tonight’s specialty—a steaming mix of mystery meat, beans, and rice.

Clutch returned with his own bowl and a warm beer.

“So tell me about the school. Were there more zeds inside?” Jase asked.

I paused before taking a bite. “Yeah.”

“What was it like? I bet it was scary,” he continued.

I kept chewing. The memories were bad enough for me. No one else needed to have them haunting their conscience.

Clutch gave me a knowing look but said nothing. He finished his dinner and beer before I was even halfway through mine. He came to his feet. “I should get back outside.”

I looked up. “Have you been covering both Jase’s and my shifts?”

He didn’t reply, but the dark circles under his eyes told me enough. He looked beat, and I’d bet he hadn’t slept once in the past two days.

“I’ll cover all of tonight,” I said. “You’re on bed rest, effective immediately.”

He raised a brow. “You’re ordering me around now?”

I smiled. Then nodded.

A smirk tugged at his lips before he relented. “Wake me when you need a break. Don’t overdo it because, at sunrise, we need to start hitting the farms around here hard and fast. A vehicle drove by slow yesterday, which I’d bet are looters scanning this area.”

“Shit,” I muttered. While I’d expected looters to sniff around this area sometime, I’d also hoped that they’d take their own sweet time before doing so. There were literally hundreds of miles of roads in the area. Why couldn’t they leave our four-mile stretch alone?

“We need everything we can get and fast,” Clutch added. “And, I’m out of beer and almost out of whiskey.”

I grimaced. “I can’t believe you’d drink warm beer.”

“Warm beer is better than no beer.”

“Point taken.” I shooed him away. “Now go. Hit the sack. You’re even grumpier when you’re tired.”

He grunted and cracked his neck. “Be careful out there. I saw a group of zeds pass through the field yesterday. We’ve been lucky they’ve mostly avoided the woods so far.”

“I wonder why they haven’t hit the woods more,” I said. After all, if I was a predator, they’d be a prime spot.