My whole world turned on its axis when Caden dragged me into this room. I discovered that I can’t run from emotions, from feelings. It’s like hiding from the sun. And Caden is the sun to me. Warm and bright, he seeps into every pore.
And since I can’t hide from the sun—or him—I might as well embrace it. I’ll hold him close for as long as I can. I may never get another chance. In this world, I may not even get another tomorrow.
“Davy.” Caden says my name, but I hardly hear him. I’m kissing his jaw, his neck, the smell and taste of him making my heart race faster. The good kind of adrenaline. Not like getting shot or choked, which is all the experience I’ve had lately.
“Davy,” he groans, his hands flexing on me. “Davy,” he repeats, his voice more insistent. He tries to sit up, but I push him back down.
I hold his face in both hands and kiss his mouth again, silencing him that way. Kissing him is addictive. Like a drug. When my hands drift lower and brush his waistband, he seizes my wrists.
“Davy.” He bites my name in a strangled voice, his chest quivering under me. “This isn’t a race. We have time.”
I shake my head. Time? That’s the last thing any of us have. “Nothing lasts, Caden.” Everything I’ve ever cared about leaves. And then I’m alone. If I have this time with him, this experience, at least it’s one good memory to take with me.
He brings my hands back up his chest. His heart thumps strong and steady beneath my palms. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Everyone thinks that.” I search the hard lines and shadowed hollows of his face. No one thinks they’re going to lose everything. That when they wake up they’ll learn that they have a genetic mutation and poof! Everything and everyone that matters will vanish.
He pulls me down and tucks me against him. “We’re going to take our time, because we have time.” His words gust against my ear, and it’s tempting to believe that deep, velvety voice. I know he means it. Somehow in the cesspit that’s become our world, he has clung to his optimism, his faith in mankind, in a world that’s good.
I know better.
Still, I cuddle against his chest and let his arms hold me close, listening to the thump of his heart and his warm exhales against my cheek.
“Tell me more about who you were,” I say.
“What do you mean?” His voice rumbles beneath my ear.
I grimace. I made it sound like I was asking who he was for Halloween or something. “Before this,” I qualify. He was someone else. Just like I was someone else. No one plans for this. This just falls on you. Like a ten-story building.
“I’m the same. Pretty much.”
I tense, thinking about this . . . that he could be the same, that he thinks he is.
“I mean, I guess I didn’t go to West Point like I probably would have. Assuming I got in, but I was a legacy. My dad and grandfather went there, so my chances were good.”
“What about music? Singing? You gave that up, right?”
“Nothing would have come of that anyway. I did it for me then, and I still do. No one stops me from singing or playing on my guitar when I want to.”
I tap my fingers lightly on his chest. “You have a unique sound. You would have changed your mind once you started performing.” Once he saw how he could reach people . . . at his first standing ovation.
He nods to his guitar in the corner. “It’s not anything I lost.”
Lucky him. I wish music still lived inside me. “Sing,” I whisper. “Sing to me.” Like before.
He’s silent for a long moment and I think he’s not going to, but then his chest purrs deeply beneath me as lyrics float over the air above my head. I press my lips to his skin, so grateful . . . even happy.
It’s been too long since I let music inside my soul. Not since the last time I heard him sing.
Caden is right about having time. A week passes while in lockdown, and it does seem like we have all the time in the world together. There was a brief hint of awkwardness the first morning we emerged from his room. Hand in hand we entered the main room. All noise died as everyone swung to stare at us.
I might have fled if Caden didn’t pull me forward, his hand wrapped snugly around mine, his thumb drawing soothing circles inside my palm. We stepped into the line for breakfast, and soon activity resumed.
For the first time people actually smiled at me. Maybe even better than that, Marcus didn’t look at me at all. No more threatening scowls from him or his goons.
The only thing marring the misleading haze of perfect coloring our world is the fact that a traitor lurks in the compound. The moment we leave the safety of Caden’s room each morning, the tension is there, lining Caden’s jaw, guarding his eyes. I notice it because I know what he’s like at night with the door shut. The gentle smiles, the teasing, the easy sighs between our touches and kisses.
He keeps me with him throughout the day. At first, I simply think this is because things have changed between us and he can’t get enough of me in the same way I can’t get enough of him. But it’s more than that, I soon realize.
One afternoon, as Caden, Junie, and Boyce pore over maps and discuss the next supply raid after the lockdown is lifted, Terrence waves for me to follow him. Stepping from the room, he offers to show me the inner workings of the controls room.
“Taking pity on me?” I ask.
“You look bored.”
In the controls room, Terrence gives a cursory nod to another carrier listening intently to whatever he’s hearing from his headphones while simultaneously scribbling on a notepad. Terrence gestures at the row of computers and equipment like a proud papa. “This is all military issue . . . we borrowed it when we first set up operation here. I’ve got it wired to connect to most of the US information networks,” Terrence explains.