I look around the room and try to still the runaway beating of my heart. Tears are stinging my eyes, and I try not to give into them. Surely he wouldn’t leave me here? He killed a man because of his wife and baby. Right? Someone like that he doesn’t have it in him to hurt a woman. I try to justify all these things over and over in my head.
I know so much more about Max Kincaid than I should. I’ve spent months reading his file and being fascinated by the man. I’ve read everything I could get on him. He owns a tattoo shop on the outskirts of Ormond that caters to bikers, truckers and is known for being a no-nonsense shop. He spent years in the army and even had a purple heart for saving his platoon in an attack somewhere in Syria. Everything about him screams that he is a good man. All reports indicated that his estranged wife fell in with the wrong crowd and hooked herself up with a drug dealer who got his kicks out of beating women and selling them for money. Max found her lying in a pool of blood. She was six months pregnant at the time. Max hunted the man down that killed her and returned the favor. I can’t find what he did horrible, and I don’t know what that says about me. When I read in detail the state of his wife’s body, I even cheered for Max. I think my heart broke for him. Can you fall in love with someone from reading a file about his life? I think I kind of did, and maybe that explains my reaction to him and why I let him touch me. Why I wanted it. Yet, everything I have read didn’t prepare me for a man who would leave me to die in the bottom of an abandoned bunker. So he’ll come back, right? He has to.
8
Max
I’m a bastard for letting Tess think I’m leaving her to die. I’m so mad right now. I’m mad at her, and I’m mad at myself. Why did she let me touch her? Why did she let me make her come? God, why did she have to call out my name when she orgasmed? Before the woman was getting under my skin, and now; fuck, now she’s imbedded so deep I have a feeling I’ll never be free of her and if I’m honest that is what is bothering me the most.
I had an uncle that I unaffectionately referred to as Crazy Uncle Raymond. He is the one that had that old bomb shelter installed underground. He believed the Zombie Apocalypse was close and wanted to hide out safely while the government developed a cure. Too bad the old bastard didn’t put all that energy into giving up the bottle instead. He died driving home from a local tavern in Ormond when he wrapped his old El Camino around a tree.
Raymond also had an old hunting cabin about a mile away from here. I want to hit it before the law starts searching for me. I’ve been lucky; it’s been quiet so far. I figure they are still collating information and trying to contain the damage from the prison break. I think I got a good head start, but that’s going to disappear fast.
My legs are getting damn tired, but I’m afraid to rest. There’s no telling what kind of mess Tess will get into even if she is handcuffed. A steady jog gets me to the cabin a little quicker. It feels good to breathe in the fresh air and stretch my legs. Freedom. It is something that I took for granted before I went inside and shouldn’t have. I don’t know how long I’ll stay out. Chances are I will be killed by a cop before I even get the chance to turn myself back in. Isn’t that how most prison-breaks end? With what seems to be happening with Tess, I think it might be worth it. One taste of life’s sweetness before I die. There are worse ways to go and it’s probably better than I deserve.
The old hunting cabin hasn’t changed a bit. Somehow I think I can still smell Uncle Raymond’s horrible old aftershave. When I decided to kill the bastard who robbed me of my child, I stored away certain things here. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Part of me wanted to leave the country, run away from everything and try to feel alive again. A larger part acknowledged I was already dead inside, and there was no reason to live. I prepared for both choices, hoping against hope that killing the bastard would free me from the darkness that had overtaken me. It didn’t.
My first stop in the cabin is the floor directly in front of the old ceramic sink. I get down on my hands and knees and pull the small handmade curtain that’s been hung around the sink in place of cabinet doors. I smile when I see Uncle Raymond’s old tool bag. Finding a screwdriver, I go to the fake plank that Raymond fixed. I pry the board back. Underneath is a false bottom my Uncle used to stash his money in. His reasoning was that, as sneaky as the government was, you would have to be rich to afford a cure during the apocalypse. I never tried to talk him out of it, because hell, if that’s what the old man believed, who was I to argue?