The Age of Defiance: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller (The Age of Embers Book 5) by Ryan Schow

Author:Ryan Schow [Schow, Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: River City Publishing
Published: 2019-10-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Carver helped get everyone situated in the third floor rooms, as Maria instructed. As he did, he looked each of these monkeys in the face and knew that every mark on his body, every violent beating, was these guys’ doing.

They apologized half-heartedly to him in passing, but his reply was the same for all of them: F off.

He was tired of excusing Maria’s bad behavior. Tired of being told he had to have sex with her, even if he happened to want it, which was less than he imagined. And he was tired of feeling like she was using him only to have her human experience, something he was barely even part of anymore.

Now, looking at Ruby, seeing a real live female again, he tried to get a sense of her. She was a curious thing. So curious, in fact, that when Maria went to bed, he snuck down to her room, knocked lightly, then went inside when she said it was alright.

“What do you want?” she asked, laying in bed. It was hot in the room, but not stuffy. The window was open to let in the cool air, and from what little starlight came in from outside, he could see only a shadow of her body. She wore a bra, but little else. Her hair was loose, the ponytail gone.

“If I’m intruding…”

“You are,” she said quietly. “But it’s alright.”

“Are you okay here?” he asked.

“I…I lost everyone, Carver,” she said, her voice cold, like she was biting back on the emotions so hard she went to the other side of the spectrum.

“I heard,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Do you want to sleep with me tonight?” she asked. “Not sex, just…proximity?”

“You’re into girls, right?” he asked.

“More than I am guys,” she said. “But who knows. Right now I’m into survival, and that trumps everything else. If I ever start thinking about sex again—and that will probably be never—if you’re still alive, maybe we can form an arrangement.”

“I already have an arrangement with someone prettier.”

“Yes, and scarier,” she said. She pulled back the blankets as an invitation. The bed was large, a queen-sized bed. Room enough for two without the incidental touching.

“Clothes on or off?” he said.

“You freeballin’ it?”

“No.”

“Pants and shirt off, giblets strapped and wrapped.”

He took off his pants and shirt and slid in next to her. They laid there for awhile, talking to each other, telling each other about their lives before all this. It was refreshing to talk to a real woman about real things that didn’t involve strategy and warfare.

Then, when she told him about her family (three brothers and her parents) and how they all died in a plane crash when the power went out, he felt a deep and profound sadness for her. It wasn’t just her words, the story…it was the tone in her voice, how the hurt broke through the tough exterior, revealing more of a scared little girl than a hardened young woman.

It turned out she wasn’t all that hardened after all.

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