“But this could buy you some time. You don’t have to leave so soon.”

“I have to leave when you leave.”

He shakes his head and runs his hand over his hair again, clearly frustrated. “Let’s just do this, let’s take care of this problem and we can sort any others out later.”

“Fine, okay.” I agree, stowing my ASP and pushing my wet mass of hair out of my face. “Let’s pull them inside and get out of this rain. As much as I want a shower, I’m getting cold.”

Chapter Four

“You’re not in a gang but you’re trading with someone.” Ryan comments, munching on a carrot.

We’re working through a bag of vegetables I’ve pulled out that I got from Crazy Crenshaw in exchange for meat. He’s not a hunter, not even close. He’s a gardener. Of all kinds of things. All kinds of plants, if you get my meaning. He’s always trying to trade me certain herbs for the meat I bring him, but I stick to veggies. Ryan was surprised at how large the vegetables are. Apparently Lost Boys are poor gardeners as well and I wonder if it’s not a skill possessed solely by the older generation.

“Why do you say that?” I ask, averting his eyes.

I don’t want to talk about Crenshaw. He trades with Lost Boys but I don’t know which ones exactly. I’m not about to go talking about him to someone he might want to avoid.

He waves his carrot at me, getting my attention. “No way you grew this somewhere in here. Not unless you have a garden on the roof?”

I shake my head. “There’s nothing on this roof.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“So what are you getting at?”

He shrugs and takes a bite of the carrot. “Nothing. Just making an observation.”

“It feels more like an invasion.”

“Or a conversation.” he says with a grin.

I roll my eyes and take a sip of water from my canister, washing down the dry, cold broccoli I’ve been working on. And it is work. Unfulfilling yet nourishing work.

“Does your gang trade in the markets?” I ask, changing the subject and offering him the canister.

He takes a sip from it as well, his mouth on the cool metal almost exactly where mine was, and I blush yet again. I’m setting a record or making up for lost time. It’s embarrassing either way. I don’t like things I can’t control.

“You’ve been to the markets?” he asks, sounding surprised.

I shake my head firmly, chuckling slightly at the idea of me showing up there. “No, never. But I’ve seen them happening. They’re hard to miss.”

“Seeing all of us rounded up like that, it must be your worst nightmare.”

“Crawlers.”

“What about crawlers?”

“Crawlers are my worst nightmare.”

He nods his head, thinking about that. “That’s a legitimate fear.”

“What’s yours?”

“What’s my worst fear?”

“Yeah. You know mine. Now you owe me yours.”

He laughs and leans back on his palms, looking relaxed. “No way.”

“It’s part of the deal. Spill it.”

“I made no such deal. You really haven’t been to the markets. You would know that you don’t give up anything without knowing exactly what you’re going to get in return.” He grins at me crookedly. “And you’re gettin’ nothin’.”

I shake my head in disgust. “I hate people.”

“I hear ya.”

I study him for a moment, unsure if I want to tread on sacred ground. In the end, curiosity wins out over etiquette.

“Do you like the people in your gang?” I ask quietly.

He stares at me for a long time and I worry I shouldn’t have asked. It’s a delicate thing to talk about. I don’t want to know the name of his gang or their location, basically any identifying information whatsoever. He owes it to his crew to keep them and their location a secret and it’s important to me that he never think of me as a liability. As a mouth that needs silencing. I’m just about to tell him to forget it when he shrugs.

“I guess. Not all of them all of the time, but for the most part, yeah. I wouldn’t stick with them if I didn’t like them.” He sits forward again and studies the pattern on the now empty veggie bag. It has a pink Hello Kitty on it. Don’t judge, I have my reasons for keeping it. “I think I stayed with them for as long as I did because of my brother. He likes… liked this group of guys. I got offers to join larger gangs. To live bigger and better, but I always stayed because of Kev.”

I don’t want to talk about his brother. I know that sounds calloused and that’s because I am; I’m calloused. I have a hard exterior and none of the soft, nougaty center to balance it out. I’ve worked hard to sink the callouses down deep, layer after layer until I’m more Jawbreaker than anything else.

“Was it The Hive?”

He looks at me silently with guarded eyes.

“I only ask because you said ‘live bigger and better’ and from what I’ve seen, no one but the Colonies lives bigger and better than The Hive.” I explain. “I’m not… I know you’re not one of them because of your neck. I don’t want to know what gang you’re in.”

He lifts his hand to touch the clean skin of his neck. If he were a member of The Hive, the largest gang in the area shamelessly living completely unhidden in the aquarium down at the wharf, he would have a hornet tattooed there. The Hive is huge by normal standards, easily 70 people strong. Probably more. Everyone knows where they are but no one would dare attack them. Not even the Colonies, it seems. There are two in the CenturyLink and Safeco stadiums just a couple miles from the aquarium but as far as I know, they’ve never clashed with The Hive. I find that both amazing and suspicious.

“You’re not even a little curious?”

I look at him hard. “Don’t tell me.”

“I wasn’t going to.” he says, chuckling. “I was only asking if you were curious.”

“I’m not.”

“Okay.”

A silence falls between us and I struggle for something to talk about. Hunting? No. Animal pelts? No. Jerky crafting? Ugh, no. Chit chat is not my strong suit.

“How’d you end up alone like this?” he eventually asks.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

He nods in understanding. “Alright. How about this? What’s your worst memory of the early days?”

I scowl at him. “You mean aside from everybody dying?”

He waves the question away. “Everybody’s messed up from that. What else have you got? What’s on your apocalypse highlight reel?”

“This is a really dark question.”

“You strike me as a really dark girl.”

I hesitate. Am I flattered by that? No, that makes no sense. Still, though....

“You tell me yours first.”

“Nope, not a chance.” he says with a shake of his head. “But we’ll make a deal. Marketplace 101. If you tell me your most messed up moment from the beginning, I’ll tell you mine.”

I think about my answer but I try not to go too deep. I don’t want to dig too far and pull out something dark. A lot of this stuff from the early days is buried and gone as far as I’m concerned and I’m not about to go grave robbing to entertain him.

“I wore boy’s clothes for the first year.”

“That’s it?” he asks me, sounding annoyed. “That’s your worst?”

“No, not by a long shot, but you asked what was on my highlight reel and that is. I had to wear boy’s clothes for the first year because the people who took me in were afraid to travel with a young girl. They hacked my hair off and made me wear baseball hats and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shirts.”

“You should have been wearing those anyway. They were awesome.”

“I’m not arguing that. Now what’s yours?”

He chuckles. “You think you get my worst in trade for that?”

“No, but I get something off your list. Something scarring.” I point my finger at his face. “Your rules, remember?”

“Alright, alright.” he laughs, surrendering. He thinks for a bit before saying, “We made the mistake of going to the zoo a couple months after it happened. My parents wanted to look for food, bottled water, a place to hide. They figured with it being fenced in that maybe the virus hadn’t had much room to spread there, if at all.”