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  Seeming to interpret my cry as an encouraging signal, he'd immediately set about basically jack-hammering me, causing me more pain, until I finally managed to croak out the word stop. Frowning, Jason did stop, looking thoroughly confused.

  "What? You don't like that?"

  "Take yourself out of me and get off me right this second."

  He had, asking what he'd done wrong. "Didn't you like that?"

  "No. I told you to wait until I was ready."

  "Well, I just thought you meant you wanted to kiss more...and we did."

  Already picking my clothes up off the floor, I glanced over at him. "I'm taking a cab home. Don't ever contact me again."

  He hadn't, seemingly knowing what was good for him.

  I'd bled and cramped for hours after the horrible experience, which I knew was normal to an extent, but my level of bleeding and cramping seemed maybe a bit excessive. I'd almost called my doctor's emergency line before it all had finally stopped.

  Afterward, I'd just wanted to put the whole unpleasant ordeal behind me. Jessica and Ebony had wanted me to tell the police what had happened, to see if Jason had committed any crime, but I declined, really not thinking that he had. I thought he was guilty of being a horrible listener and communicator and absolute scumbag, but I knew those obviously weren't crimes that could be prosecuted in a court of law. And truly, I just wanted to move on.

  For the two years after that, I didn't date much, being so busy with the rink and training for my next Olympic bid. The few men I did date just didn't strike my fancy very much. Then, the virus had hit, and I certainly hadn't found any romance out on the road.

  So, that was how I'd come to Helena at age twenty-five, having no further sexual experience than having lost my virginity to a man who'd went on to jackhammer me for ten seconds or so until I'd ordered him off.

  I felt like I'd have no clue what I was doing in the bedroom. Would Nick and Blaine think I was odd? Would they become frustrated by my lack of experience and my just plain not knowing how to do some things? These were questions that had begun to float around in my mind. Part of me intuitively felt like they'd both be understanding, no matter what, but I just wasn't sure. And I knew I needed to be in order to green light the three of us becoming closer in the bedroom department.

  After Tracy left that day, I busied myself working at the community chicken coop, collecting eggs and distributing them to all the houses who liked egg delivery rather than picking up their own eggs. Next, I did some work in the community garden, then joined an all-female crew who were repairing one section of the village walls. Made from strong timber, this section had nonetheless become cracked, and I asked Kathy how it had happened.

  She said that it had been caused by Borderliners attacking the day Nick and Blaine had left on their supply run and had found me as well.

  "The Borderliners had probably been watching...then had seen them leave. So, they thought they'd send a message by trying to knock down part of our walls.

  “There were only five or six of them...all wolves...so they didn't have the numbers to do any real damage, and the folks that were here were able to run them off easily enough...but I do know that incident has caused Nick, Blaine, and the others to be on extra high alert lately. We've worked too hard to build this place to see it all come crashing down now."

  "What do you mean? How many Borderliner shifters are there all together?"

  Sifting through a can of nails, Kathy made a faint scoffing noise. "Too many. Hundreds. Maybe three hundred."

  "And why do they want to attack us here?"

  Kathy lined up a nail and pounded it in with a large hammer before going back to sifting through the nail bucket again, answering my question while she did so. "To make a long story short, Wesley Archer is the leader of the Borderliners. He's also an asshole. He's basically got all the survivor communities in Tennessee working for him now, using violence to keep them all in line.

  “Basically, any time a new community is formed, he approaches them and gives them a choice. Give him half their goods and assets...clothing, women, building materials, food, livestock, you name it...right then, and then continue to give him 'tributes' of fifty percent of their food yield monthly, or else he will send his army in to kill everyone in their community.

  “And being that Wesley Archer has the largest shifter army in the area, most communities obey him, not wanting to be slaughtered. Some don't obey him, and they do get slaughtered. In this way, his community has not only been able to survive the apocalypse, but thrive in it."

  With a light sheen of perspiration breaking out on her forehead in the late day sun, Kathy paused again to hammer another nail, then went back to rifling through the bucket.

  "Anyway...these days, Wes Archer is wanting to expand his reach a bit, into Kentucky as well. He gave Nick the choice to have this community obey him or not, and Nick said not, knowing that we'd all probably half-starve to death handing over a monthly fifty percent of our agricultural yield.

  “That would include the garden, our chickens, our cows in the dairy barn outside the walls, the fenced-in orchard just to the west of the village, and all the grain silos the community has claimed as well. Almost needless to say, Nick was obviously not about to just hand over half of us women, either."

  "So, Wesley Archer's attempt at 'slaughtering' us was just to have a half-dozen wolves head-butt a section of our walls?"

  Setting five long nails in an empty paint tray, Kathy stifled a laugh. "Oh, no. This recent thing was just Wesley letting us know that he's still thinking about us. The 'slaughter' attack was several months ago."

  "And what happened? I mean, other than the fact that everyone was not slaughtered."

  "Well, some were. No women or children, thank God, but Nick lost five of his best men, and one of our expectant mothers lost one of her husbands. Wesley's side lost more, though. Nick and the others made fourteen kills, I believe. In the end, Wesley pulled his men back. Good thing, too. I still had some bullets for my gun at the time, and I was about to hop right on out the gate and put them to good use."

  "So, women here don't fight?"

  For the second time, Kathy stifled a laugh, then banged in another nail before responding. "Good Lord, no. Not in shifter fights. When we have Husker hordes pushing against the walls, threatening to make them fall, us women who are very experienced in fighting Huskers are allowed to fight, yes.

  “But shifter fights...absolutely not. And why would we? There's nothing regular humans, whether women or men, can do against shifters. It might be different if we still had ammo, but we don't. No one really does anymore, not even Wesley, with all his other wealth."

  "But us regular humans could still fight shifters with other weapons...like arrows, and knives, and even screwdrivers, if need be."

  After wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, Kathy went back to rifling through the nail bucket. "Eva, please think about what you just said. Please just really think about it. While keeping in mind that shifter lions and tigers not only weigh several hundred pounds each, but they're also stronger than regular wild animals. And you would actually try to go after one with a screwdriver. They're not Huskers. They're faster and stronger...much faster and stronger."

  I did think about what I'd said, and I did suppose that it had sounded pretty stupid. Yet, I hadn't really appreciated the tone Kathy had taken when responding to me.

  With a sigh, she suddenly tossed a handful of tiny nails back into the can and slumped against the finished portion of wall, mirroring my pose. "You really don't need to be worrying about all this Wesley stuff. He may try a 'slaughter' attack again at some point in the future, or he may not. He may decide that trying to expand into Kentucky was a bad idea, as was messing with us Helenians.

  “If he does attack again, he'll probably at least give Nick one last chance to 'pay him tribute,' so at least because of that, we'll probably have a heads-up if another large-scale attack is likely to be coming. And if one ever do
es come again, Nick, Blaine, and the other men will handle it. Do you understand?"

  I understood that I just really, really didn't like the tone that Kathy took with me sometimes. Especially when I'd done nothing to deserve it. And especially when I'd never heard her take this particular tone with anyone else but me.

  Before I could respond to her question asking if I understood her, she abruptly pushed off the wall, yanked off her work gloves, and put them in the nail can. "Mind finishing up my section? I'm just too hot out here. Need to go lie down."

  I said sure, and she began walking away, but turned after a several paces and began slowly walking backward.

  "Oh, by the way...when I saw Nick near the orchard today, he asked me to give you a message. He said that he and Blaine will pick you up for dinner at seven tonight. My advice is that if you have a dress, you should probably wear one. Make yourself look presentable."

  "Now, Kathy, what the...what the hell."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  My what the hell, which I'd said a bit louder than I'd intended to, had made two women sorting through a tool box maybe ten feet away whip their faces up.

  Slightly embarrassed, I walked over to Kathy to get out of their earshot, folding my arms across my chest.

  "Don't 'I beg your pardon' me. What the hell is up with all your little comments to me...all the comments about 'little girl,' and 'do you understand me,' and 'make yourself look presentable.' You're so rude to me sometimes, or maybe patronizing is an even better word, and I want to know why. And you're going to tell me right now."

  CHAPTER 12

  To my great surprise, Kathy backed down right away. "I'm sorry, Eva. I don't mean to be so snappy with you sometimes. It's nothing personal."

  Not having expected her to apologize, I was rendered speechless for a second or two. "Well, I appreciate your apology, but it feels pretty personal sometimes. I'm pretty sure I saw you glare at me yesterday, and I even thought I saw you glare at me the first night I came into camp with Nick and Blaine."

  It was at that moment that something clicked into place in my mind, or at least, I thought it did.

  "Oh my gosh...you want Nick and Blaine, and you hate me because of it."

  I'd thought Kathy would do one of two things, either lash out at me verbally or stomp off. I thought there was possibly a very outside chance of her laughing, trying to prove to me just how ridiculous she thought my accusation was.

  However, she didn't do any of these things. With her softly-lined face not even registering any surprise at my accusation, she just sighed. "Rest assured, I don't want Nick or Blaine. I think they're both fine men and excellent fighters, but I don't want them. I'll spare you the details, but Mike and Sam make me a very happy woman, and I am very in love with them, and they with me."

  This wasn't at all the response I'd been expecting, and now I didn't know what to say.

  Kathy spared me from having to say anything, though, by starting to walk away, raking a hand through her short salt-and-pepper hair. "I'm sorry. Just know it's not you."

  I wanted to say, "Well, then who the hell is it that's making you be rude to me sometimes?" But I didn't, knowing that that would probably be rude, and I probably wouldn't get a straight answer anyway.

  While back to work repairing the wall again, I supposed that I just had to take Kathy at her word, that whatever animosity she had toward me wasn't anything personal. That almost seemed to defy sense, though. Unless she just had a problem with all blondes or something. Or all former figure skaters. I knew that was a bit ridiculous, but who knew.

  At any rate, I didn't often have to see Kathy, so I figured I'd just let the whole thing go. Besides, it wasn't like she'd ever been cruel or downright vicious to me. She was just borderline snappy and rude. Or, she usually was, with a few notable exceptions, one of them being the time she'd joined in the collective female comforting of me when I'd cried. I wondered if I should cry around her more often.

  Late that afternoon, after finishing the wall repair with the other women, I went home, showered, and then realized that I didn't have a dress. When I told Chris what Kathy had said to me about "looking presentable," though, he just scoffed.

  "You always look more than 'presentable'...every single day. I like Kathy, but if you ask me, she obviously must have just had a bee in her bonnet about something today."

  "Well...yeah. Only around me, it's today and every day."

  I soon forgot all about Kathy while Chris helped me select an outfit that I thought was appropriate for dinner, or at least "apocalypse appropriate." In these times, even a clean pair of pants could be considered "semi-dressy," but I wanted to look a little more special than that.

  After rifling through some clothes that Tracy had brought over from the "community clothes bank," I ultimately settled on dark wash jeans and an A-line, hip-skimming fuchsia top with halter collar. I even found a pair of wedge-heeled tan sandals to wear with the outfit, which were going to be a real treat to wear. For the previous two years, I'd worn nothing but tennis shoes.

  At the bottom of the bag of clothes, I even found a pair of gold hoop earrings to complete my look, though I felt odd once I had them in my ears. Like heeled sandals, I simply wasn't used to wearing earrings, or any kind of jewelry at all. I also wasn't used to being able to blow-dry my hair, either, which I did while working a round brush through it at the same time to give it a little extra volume. Honestly, I was still just plain getting used to electricity again.

  When the doorbell rang at seven on the dot, I looked at Chris with butterflies in my stomach. "Why do I feel so nervous all of a sudden? You wouldn't happen to have any more four-leaf clovers on you, would you?"

  Smiling and giving me a jaunty little wave, Chris began sauntering out of the living room and down the hallway, telling me to have a nice night.

  When I opened the front door and saw Nick and Blaine standing on the front porch, the first word that popped into my mind was wow. Immediately followed by the words holy and sexy. Which together didn't exactly make a common phrase, I realized, though at the moment, I wasn't really too concerned with the momentary odd functioning of my brain.

  Dressed in jeans the same dark wash as my own and a pale blue Oxford shirt rolled up at the sleeves and open at the collar, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of his bare, hard chest, Nick looked just about good enough to eat with a spoon. Up to this point, I'd only ever seen him in very battered jeans and t-shirts before.

  Blaine had also spruced himself up a bit for dinner, wearing jeans and a clean white t-shirt. Up to to this point, I'd never seen him in a t-shirt that wasn't smeared with dirt, stained with motor oil, or otherwise decidedly not in a pristine state of cleanliness. He also appeared to have possibly showered very recently, with his hair seeming to be still slightly damp and his face completely devoid of any dirt smudges, maybe the first time I'd ever seen it so.

  He and Nick were each holding a bouquet of wildflowers, and the sight of two very muscular, masculine shifters holding flowers was such a sweet one that I suddenly wished for a camera. Especially since Blaine looked so distinctly uncomfortable holding a bouquet of flowers, which I found charming. However, a mental picture would have to do. They each handed me their bouquets, and I combined them, smiling, then inhaled the sweet scent.

  "Thank you. They're beautiful."

  The three of us soon walked five houses down to the house, which I just kind of thought of as the house, since I wasn't quite sure if it should be described as Nick's house, or now Nick and Blaine's house, or our house. I supposed I would probably find out soon enough, depending on whether or not I was asked to move in during dinner or not.

  Earlier, they'd both already made dinner, which they'd kept warm in the oven. Smelling a heavenly, familiar scent from the past in the kitchen, I hoped they'd made what I guessed they'd made, and when Nick lifted a rectangular pan out of the oven and set it on the stove, I almost swooned, glad I was leaning back against the counter.

  "Oh,
you guys didn't. I can't believe this is happening to me right now."

  Clearly pleased by my reaction, Blaine cracked a smile.

  Also clearly pleased, Nick laughed. "You know...chicken-and-rice casserole made with condensed soup didn't seem like a fancy enough dinner for a date night. But Tracy said, 'Just make it. She's been fantasizing about it for two years.' So, we did, following the soup can directions, but adding carrots, peas, green beans, and a little sprinkle of cheese on top, just how Tracy said you like it."

  Tracy and I had a lengthy "most loved foods" and "most missed foods" discussion one day, and I'd told her that the pre-apocalypse food I missed the most was chicken-and-rice casserole made with condensed soup. In all my travels, and all my pillaging of farmhouses, I'd found canned chicken, and I'd found rice, but never a single can of condensed cream of chicken soup. I found that weird, because it had always seemed to me like such a pantry staple.