100 Days in Deadland (Deadland Saga, #1)(76)

At the next farm, the only sign of the outbreak were two graves with blades of grass just starting to break through the dirt. Hope pinged at my heart for the survivor who’d dug these graves. We’d spent several minutes calling out and searching, but no one answered.

Inside, we found the cabinets empty and little else in the house. Though, I discovered that the clothes in a teenager’s room were a near perfect fit, even though they were boy’s clothes. When I stripped out of my jeans, I paused in front of the mirror on the back of the door.

I had a solid farmer’s tan from spending nearly every day in the sun without sunscreen. Messy dark spikes did nothing to soften my blunt features. My curves had disappeared, leaving behind straight, hard lines. No wonder I could wear a boy’s clothes. Sure, Clutch had become leaner, too, but he’d been in good shape before so the change didn’t seem so severe. Me? Even my parents wouldn’t recognize me.

Mia Ryan truly was gone.

In a daze, I emptied the pockets of my old jeans, grabbed an armful of new clothes, and headed outside.

Frowning, I scanned the open area. “Clutch?”

He poked around the corner of a tin building, and he was grinning like a schoolboy. “There’s a fuel farm here. They’ve got an entire tank of gasoline. You won’t have to suck gas for a while.”

I couldn’t help but return his smile. Another backup plan to our backup plans. “I’ll mark it on the map. But you’re sucking gas next time.”

By the time we had everything unpacked at the park, it was time to cook my morning catch: two trout, one bass, and a small rabbit. It was a typical meal. Most days we burned more calories than we took in.

Every day, I’d wait until twilight to start a fire, when the darkness smothered the smoke, though I couldn’t do anything about the smell of fire attracting notice downwind. After a couple dismal failures in the first days at the park, I had finally gotten the hang of cooking meats so that they’d last through the next evening.

It was the first night in a long time we had seasonings for our meat. I closed my eyes. “Mm, I never knew salt could be so decadent.”

Clutch leaned back, rubbed his shoulder, and took a long swig of amber whiskey.

“Oh. I almost forgot…” I reached in my pocket and threw the can at Clutch. “Happy birthday.”

He frowned. “My birthday’s in December.”

I shrugged. “I had no idea when it was, so I took a guess.”

He looked at the can of chewing tobacco and smiled. “My brand, even.”

I smiled. “I know.”

He tucked it into his pocket.

“You’re not going to open it?” I asked.

“Nope,” he replied with a smile. “I’m saving it.”

After a moment, he came to his feet and stared out the window. The park office had no generator. The two-story A-line window of the cabin faced the west, so we had plenty of light up until sunset. After the sun went down, we either had to use precious batteries (we had even fewer candles) or get by in the dark. Fortunately, the days were getting longer, so sunset meant bedtime, or as Clutch called it, rack time.

Clutch turned. “I’m going to lock up.”

I wiped off the tin dishes we used, and arranged our weapons near the two twin-sized mattresses Clutch had taken from one of the cabins. I made sure the shotguns were loaded and looked over our bleak inventory. An AR-15 with three clips, the two shotguns along with an extra shotgun we’d found in a locked cabinet in the office, a box of shotgun shells, a baseball bat, a camping axe I’d found in one of the lost-and-found boxes, and a few knives. We’d also found a tranq gun in the same cabinet as the shotgun, but we figured we’d have to be pretty desperate to try that on a zed.

Darkness had taken over the world by the time Clutch came upstairs. With only the two of us and few zeds in the park, we no longer did patrols like we had at the farm. Since the office sat on a ridge, it was the safest lodging in the park, but it didn’t yet have a fraction of the security features we’d built around Clutch’s house. If someone managed to break through the door or windows we’d yet to board up, we were f*cked.

He lay down without a word, and I watched the stars wink peacefully back at me until I drifted off.

I awoke to the sounds of Clutch’s nightmares, just like I did every night. He mumbled and tossed and turned. Like every night, I crawled over to him and wrapped an arm around him. He rarely woke, but when he did, he’d roll over and pull me to him like I was his anchor.

His muscles tensed and he shot awake.

“Shh,” I murmured. “It’s just a bad dream.” I pressed him back down and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead.

He looked up at me. In the moonlight, his gaze moved to my lips.

I ran a hand over his short hair and gave him a soft smile.

He cupped my neck and pulled me to where his lips met mine. It was just a brush, but then I deepened it, pressing my lips against his. For a long second, he didn’t move. Then he grabbed me and rolled, pinning me beneath him. He took over. He came crashing down to me, kissing me hard and deep, with take-no-prisoners intensity, and a moan escaped from my lips and into his mouth.

My thighs spread to cradle him, and he shifted, lodging him tight against me. I’d been careful never to cross the line into intimacy, but now that we had, I’d rather give up breathing than his kiss. After seconds—or minutes—of kissing me senseless, he pulled back, leaving me gasping for air.