Haven: Love After the Apocalypse (After the Plague Book 5) by Imogen Keeper

Author:Imogen Keeper [Keeper, Imogen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mindless Muse Publishing, LLC
Published: 2023-02-23T18:30:00+00:00

17| You look just a little bit stupid

YORKE

THE SECOND I OPEN THE DOOR to the suite, voices hit me.

“Here are the scissors,” Auden chirps, voice spiking with excitement.

“Perfect,” Frankie says back.

“I’m hungry,” Auden says.

Beast lets out a long-beleaguered moan.

“I know. I know, guys. Just give us a few minutes.”

They’re in the bedroom she shares with Auden.

Beast sticks his nose out of the door and happy-sneezes at me before spinning a circle and heading back into the action. I can’t see them yet.

I stow my gun in the armoire, strip off my jacket, and hang it on one of the wall hooks we added over the summer.

Frankie put throw blankets on every sofa, and we added a pair of bookshelves to the wall flanking the French doors. They’re stuffed with books about gardening and military history and kids’ stories.

It feels like home. Like inside the doorstep. Closer. Not farther. Not the street.

But that was before.

Now, the question is, what happens next?

Her desk sits against the wall on the right, the box of Jimmy’s photos is still there. Found or unfound?

I tow off my boots and stow them beside hers and Auden’s and Shane’s. The sight of his shoes has me wincing.

“There!” Frankie says triumphantly. “Auden, you were absolutely right. Cutting off the arm was the perfect solution. Pearl’s sweater will work great.”

I pad in my socks across the entryway, into the sitting room, and stand awkwardly in the doorway to the bedroom. Shane’s sitting on the edge of the bed, bare-chested, a tattered t-shirt on the floor next to him.

He glances up at me, and we both flinch.

My throat goes tight, the sound of Ben’s voice as clear as if he were right beside me.

Your choice.

I chose his hand over her arm.

I just have to learn to live with that.

“Now, don’t move.” Frankie’s back is to me, still unaware of my presence.

Beast pants at me, wagging his tail.

“Don’t move at all,” Auden says, voice thick with authority. “Not one single muscle!”

“I won’t.” Shane’s voice is raw and raspy.

Prickles ride my spine on a fresh wave of memories of his screams as they held him down over the truck. That hammer lifting high.

Frankie lifts the cut-off edge of a t-shirt between her hands, stretching the neck opening wide like she’s going to try to fish the end of Shane’s cast through it, then stops abruptly. “This won’t work.”

“Okay,” Shane says.

“We need pins,” she declares.

“Pins!” Auden lifts up a finger like a professor in a movie standing at a lectern. “I know where pins are!”

“Can you grab some?” Frankie lifts the scissors and the shirt.

“I can!” Auden careens away from the bed and nearly bowls into me. “Yorke! Shirts don’t go over Shane’s cast.” He blasts into the sitting area and over to the small kitchenette in the corner, where he tugs open a drawer and digs around. “Frankie’s cutting up his clothes.”

Frankie spins around to stare at me, her brows lifting high, her hair falling messily out of her bun.

“Hey,” I say, remembering her words in the night, the thought of a baby… the stove.

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