“You’re so jumpy,” Miller pointed out.
“And you’re not jumpy enough,” I ground out.
Tyler sauntered up behind Miller, looking entirely too-casual, as well. They were both like this, neither of them really all that frightened of the Zombies lurking around every single, f-ing corner. They were desensitized because they’d never lived on the streets, never had to spend a night looking over their shoulder or been forced to kill over and over to stay alive. They had enjoyed completely cush lives until four days ago.
Even their fear of Zombies was mild. The Feeders they were used to were locked up in steel cages, weak with hunger and teetering on the brink of death. I’d like to think the last few days had opened their eyes to the reality of this world, but they seemed slow to get motivated.
I couldn’t tell yet if it was denial or stupidity.
I was inclined to believe it was stupidity, but that had more to do with a certain girl around my age that was very difficult to get along with- and I was in no way talking about Haley.
“What’s the matter?” Tyler asked in that bored tone she was famous for.
“Your brother just almost lost his head,” I ground out.
“You wouldn’t have really shot me, right, Reagan?” Miller asked with that adorable, thick southern accent he had. His bruises were healing but his face was still a bizarre mixture of purple and yellow. He was clearly a bit traumatized from his time with his family and we were working to normalize life for him- as easy as that was when we were constantly moving around and shooting at things most of the day.
I gave King a desperate look and he stifled a laugh. “Dude, she kills everything. I’d watch out.”
“How…. barbaric,” Tyler drawled.
She was next. In that moment, I decided she was next. I was going to kill her next.
“Reagan,” from behind me. He was angry. And shouting. And…. Hendrix.
So obviously, the store was officially cleared.
I spun around, already bristling at the lecture to come. So I decided to strike first, “If you want me to stay next to you Hendrix, then you shouldn’t just walk away from me. You shouldn’t just abandon me and then make me come find you later. Maybe you should stay next to me!”
“Oh, boy,” King groaned.
“This again?” Tyler asked incredulously and then sashayed off, ready to eviscerate someone else with her biting southern charm.
“I looked for popcorn,” Miller announced to King. “But I couldn’t find any.”
“That’s too bad,” King muttered. “Maybe we should go look again.” And then he led the boy away from what was sure to be an epic fight.
Hendrix was standing in front of me by now, towering over me. His body was coiled tight with tension, each muscle in his lean arms bulging and rippling as he struggled to control his temper. His long neck corded tightly as he worked to swallow and those bright blue eyes pinned me in place even while I couldn’t make out their exact color in the poor lighting from the dirty windows at the front of the store.
“I didn’t leave you,” he growled. “I did what was necessary for the group as a whole.”
“I understand that.” I gave him the best of my sarcastic benevolence even while I tucked my gun away and folded my arms across my chest so he could feel the full force of my attitude. “My point is that maybe you shouldn’t get so angry with me, when clearly you are the one that left me! I did my part-“
“Don’t start with me,” he cut me off. “You have one mission in this life and it’s to stay next to me! You can’t just suddenly go rogue and go off with another guy! I’m the one that’s supposed to protect you!”
Ok, so it didn’t take a genius to figure out that we were arguing about something completely different than what was on the surface. We had a few unresolved issues, to put it lightly. But even though I knew we both had deeper disputes than this grocery store, it didn’t seem like either of us was capable of getting over them. We’d been bickering almost constantly since we got out of that stupid town.
And it all started because he asked me why I’d gone off with Kane!
Like I had some kind of choice about it!
“Is that what I did?” I asked dryly. “I went off with another guy- who also happens to be you’re fifteen year old brother! I was protecting King!”
He took a step toward me. Suddenly his entire aura changed. Gone was the angry, irrational Hendrix and in his place was a smoldering, protective, magnetic man that was absorbing me into his gravitational pull before I had a chance to think about it. I shivered at the change in the atmosphere around us as fury turned to sparking electricity. My breaths were heavy and uneven, my hands slightly trembling. Our bodies were just breaths apart, his chest brushing against mine with every inhale of his lungs.