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  What I'd said made her smile, and she even appeared to flush a little. "Well, thanks. Let's hope the men of Helena like my smile and eyes, too. I already kind of have my eyes on two of the men in the group here, though. Which...well, I haven't even told you the craziest and possibly-best part of everything Kathy told me yet. See, since women have become so ultra-rare and hard to find, and since most of the men in Helena are just really eager to get married, because a lot of them just want to move on with starting families to help repopulate the world...well, in Helena, most people are into what Kathy calls 'plural marriages.'

  “Which, before the apocalypse, she said usually meant multiple wives with one husband, but now it means multiple husbands with only one wife. Like, for example, Kathy is married to those two buff men across from us. She told me that these two men were two of the rare ones in Helena not particularly interested in becoming fathers, and since Kathy is past the age of being able to make them fathers, a marriage with the three of them seemed like a good fit.

  “Elise's husband is the blond guy to their left, but she also has another husband in Helena. It's all perfectly normal to them. Some women even have three husbands...and all the arrangements are permanent, just like regular marriages.

  “No matter how many new women come to live in Helena, even though that number will probably never be very many, the existing marriages will never add new members. The new women will just be married to all the new men who periodically join the community."

  During my travels, I'd heard about and had witnessed "plural" relationships, though never formal, permanent marriages. Once I'd run into a group that had struck me as bizarrely boisterous and friendly for the post-apocalyptic times we were living in, and this group had consisted of one middle-aged woman and no fewer than five muscular young men, all appearing to be in their early-to-mid twenties.

  The woman had invited me to come travel along with her and her "boyfriends," saying "the more the merrier, as long as you're not too greedy," but I'd declined, not least of all because I'd needed to keep heading south, and the group had been continuing west, having come from some decimated city of very few survivors in the east.

  In response to all Tracy had said, I just gave her the tiniest of polite smiles. "I see."

  "So, the two men that I have my eyes on are Trent and Donovan, those two very attractive guys to the right of Kathy's husbands. She told me that they're both single, and I think they both already have their eyes on me, too, because after we all left the farmhouse, they both offered to carry my couple bags of things, and they both kept saying how I was safe, and how neither of them were going to let anything happen to me.

  “Which...I'll just say that I had a few little moments where my heart went pitter-patter with each of them. Then Trent let me wear his jacket for a while when I got cold, and he put it around my shoulders in a way that made me feel warm in and of itself. The three of us are not sitting together because Elisa and I were having a little girl talk while we ate dinner, and then you soon showed up, and...I guess I'm just telling you all this so that you know that I've kind of already taken dibs on Trent and Donovan, at least dibs on getting to know the both of them a little better."

  Pausing briefly, Tracy glanced over at Blaine and Nick before returning her gaze to my face. "Maybe you've already taken dibs of your own, though...or other people have already taken dibs on you."

  I hoped to God this wasn't the case. If Blaine and Nick had already gotten it into their heads that they wanted to make me their wife, and something told me that they already might have, I figured it would make it a lot more difficult for me to plan and execute an escape once we all got to Helena. I guessed that they'd want me to live in a house with them or something, which I knew would make it a lot more difficult for me to fly under their radar and be miles away before anyone ever realized I was gone.

  Tracy continued chattering on, saying different things about Trent and Donovan, including the fact that they were both shifters, as were all men in Helena. Soon after saying this, Tracy abruptly stopped short in saying something else, then apologized for being so chatty. "It's just that I'm kind of a people-person, and I haven't talked to other people in so, so long. I almost felt like I was starting to go crazy in that farmhouse. I was actually making friends with mice and talking to them like they were people."

  Soon switching gears, she asked me to tell her about myself, saying that I somehow looked familiar. "You wouldn't happen to be that girl who won 'America's Next New Actress' right before the apocalypse, would you? I could never remember her name, but you look so-"

  "No, she's not the girl who won the acting show."

  It had been Kathy who'd spoken. Though I hadn't heard so much as the snap of a twig, she'd apparently emerged from the woods behind Tracy and me, and she now made her way across the circle to sit between her two husbands. Conversation around the fire had hushed now, and she spoke again once she was seated.

  "She's not the actress. She's the little girl who won the Olympic bronze medal in ice skating."

  What was strange to me about Kathy right then wasn't the fact that she'd recognized me or my name. It was that even in the firelight, I could clearly see that her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, as if she'd spent her time in the woods crying.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As curious as I was about why Kathy might have been crying, and as bad as I felt for her that something had obviously recently upset or saddened her, the last comment she'd made had upset me a little, just plain rubbing me the wrong way.

  After setting my nearly-empty mug of tea aside, I looked at her across the campfire circle. "You're right, that was me who won the Olympic bronze medal. But I wasn't a 'little girl' then."

  She lifted her slender shoulders in a shrug. "Well, you looked like a little girl."

  Truthfully, I was sure that I had. At the time of my bronze medal Olympics, I'd had a physique similar to a very slender pre-teen girl, with what I'd thought of as "bug bites" on my chest instead of breasts. I'd also been a few inches shorter than I was currently, having had a post-Olympic growth spurt when I'd begun allowing myself to eat a bit more.

  The fact that all of this was true didn't make me bristle any less about Kathy's second "little girl" comment.

  Again, I looked her right in the eyes, fighting to keep a clear note of hostility out of my voice. "I was actually seventeen at those Olympics...with the responsibilities and pressures of some people twice my age. No matter how I may have looked, I definitely wasn't a 'little girl.'"

  Before Kathy could respond, Tracy piped up beside me. "Oh my gosh...I can't believe that was you! That's why you looked so familiar to me. You were the little girl who battled her way to win the bronze even with that horrible, horrible injury...and after you'd just lost your parents the year before, which I'm so, so sorry about. You sure did them proud, though. You just didn't quit. How many stitches did you even get before you went out on the ice anyway? Please tell us all the details if you don't mind, because I'm sure we all want to know. I know I do."

  For some reason I didn't mind that Tracy had joined Kathy in referring to me as a "little girl," and I started briefly explaining to a now-rapt audience around the campfire what had happened at those Olympics.

  In short, during the long program warm-up on the ice with the last group of skaters of the evening, I'd had a collision with a Canadian skater named Kayla. Later, endlessly replaying the collision in slow motion, most commentators came to the conclusion that it had been her fault. I was never quite sure whose fault it had been, but I never cared. Sometimes collisions just happened, and because Kayla was a very sweet girl and a friend, I had zero suspicions that she'd in any way crashed into me on purpose.

  When we'd both tumbled to the ice, one of Kayla's freshly-sharpened skate blades had somehow slashed me across my left thigh, immediately opening a wound that had poured blood. The packed stadium had issued a collective gasp, followed by some sort of collective ooh sound that I'd always distinctly re
membered, which had alerted me to the fact that someone had been seriously injured even a second before I felt pain and saw my freely-bleeding leg.

  Medics had rushed onto the ice and had whisked me away to some medical facility room right in the stadium. There, with Sandor pacing and Marta bawling her eyes out, I'd received eighteen stitches to close the deep gash in my thigh. I'd also passed out, having made the huge mistake of glancing down while the doctor was doing the stitching. Being exceptionally squeamish, I should have known better, particularly since I'd already been nauseated just from seeing all my own blood on the ice.

  Sandor and Marta left it completely up to me whether I would go back out and skate, but I didn't even have to think about it. As the reigning United States senior national champion, and having placed second at Worlds the year before, with a Russian skater who had since retired taking first, I was predicted to win the Olympic gold, and I wasn't about to let it slip through my fingers. Also, I was currently tied for first place after the previous evening's short program.

  So, within ten minutes of having my leg stitched up and coming out of my faint, I took to the ice to near-deafening applause, despite the fact that my injured leg was still partially numb from the shot the doctor had given me before stitching me up, and despite the fact that I felt so lightheaded and shaky that even walking to the edge of the rink with my skate guards on had been a challenge.

  Everything had happened so fast that I hadn't even had time to possibly find an alternate costume. The one I was wearing, which was pale pink with pearly beads on the bodice, had smudges of blood all over it, as did the bandage around my thigh, though I'd hardly even noticed, far too focused on my long program and what I needed to do, which was skate the best I ever had in my life.

  Not having a single fall, I skated reasonably well considering the circumstances, especially compared to Kayla, who, before me, had finished her program with no fewer than five complete wipe-outs, bursting into tears the moment the music ended.

  However, I certainly didn't skate the best I ever had in my life. A fairly large stumble, a tiny stumble, a clear wobble, and a pair of two-footed landings made it so that the gold wasn't to be mine that night.

  Four years later, I'd went back to get it, but still recovering from flu and pneumonia that had recently put me in the hospital for three days, I'd only placed fourth. Before the Bloodsucker apocalypse had hit, I'd been thinking that my third Olympics was going to be the charm in my quest for gold.

  Telling just the very brief gist of my saga around the campfire, I really didn't go into too many details, feeling slightly self-conscious and strangely embarrassed for some reason.

  I supposed that in light of everything in the world having gone to hell, and with millions of people having lost their lives by way of becoming Huskers, and with us survivors having to struggle just to stay alive, the idea of someone striving so hard for an Olympic medal almost seemed silly to me in the present.

  Tracy didn't seem to think so, hanging on my every word with her chin propped on her fist, and several other people around the fire asked questions and expressed admiration here and there. Kathy, who was sitting with her husbands' arms around her shoulders, was not one of them.

  When I'd finished speaking, Nick commented that I was obviously "a very brave and tenacious woman," which made my face burst into flames for some reason. I murmured my thanks and then effectively changed the subject by asking Elisa if she'd mind if I had another cup of the tea she'd made, to which she said of course she wouldn't mind at all, before getting up to pour it for me with a smile.

  A while later, after numerous small tents had been pitched, Tracy and I went right to sleep in one together. Or at least, she went right to sleep, with a little smile on her face, too, I saw by the light of a flashlight while I was rifling around for a lip balm in my backpack. I took a little longer to fall into slumber, though.

  Thoroughly irritating me, I kept seeing images of Nick and Blaine in my mind, their faces, their very well-developed muscles, and how they'd both looked fighting the Huskers in their respective animal forms. I kept recalling some of the things they'd said to me, too, things like what Nick had said in response to my brief Olympic story, and what Blaine had said to me earlier in the truck, after appraising my body with a clearly admiring once-over.

  Feeling like I should be focused on my sisters and a possible escape-from-Helena plan, I just did not want to be having these thoughts about Nick and Blaine, and I didn't even know why I was, except that a few things that Tracy had said had possibly gotten my mental wheels turning somewhere in the very back of my mind.

  Truthfully, even though I wasn't very sexually experienced at all, I'd always fantasized about sharing a bed with not just one, but two men. I didn't know why the mere idea had always turned me on, but it always had and still definitely did, and more than a little bit.

  From inside the tent, I could hear Nick and Blaine's deep voices somewhere nearby as they pitched additional tents, and just hearing them talk pushed me from irritated to angry for some reason. Pretty much just because it was hard not to stop thinking about them while having to listen to their voices, Nick's so rich and clear, and Blaine's gravelly in some oddly appealing sort of way.

  Once all tents were pitched and all had fallen silent, except for the occasional footfalls of whoever had taken the night's first guard patrol shift, I was finally able to quiet my mind, at least somewhat. However, it was probably an hour before I was finally able to fall into any kind of a real deep sleep.

  The following morning, I shared some of my grooming items with Tracy so that she could get washed up, too. Then once we were both dressed, the two of us had a seat on one of the logs around the fire pit, where everyone else had already gathered with mugs of coffee that Kathy had made.

  She handed me my mug with a cheerless good morning. Since she possibly seemed to have some sort of a problem with me, I figured I was probably lucky that she'd said good morning to me at all, cheerlessly or not.

  Tracy and I asked Elisa if we could give her a hand with the kettle of oatmeal she was stirring above the fire, but when she smilingly said she had it all under control and just wanted us to enjoy our coffee, we set about doing just that while everyone else continued on with their various conversations around us.

  After telling me that she'd slept like a baby and asking me how I'd slept, Tracy lowered her voice a notch. "I just wanted to say sorry if I made you feel in any way weird last night when I was so on cloud nine about having been rescued, and you seemed to be still trying to adjust. I didn't mean to make it seem like I thought you were odd for not being happy or something.

  “I tend to adjust to new situations really quickly, but I know not everyone does. If you were feeling overwhelmed or something, I didn't mean to add to that, if I did, with being so wound-up how I sometimes get when I'm really happy."

  Giving Tracy a little smile, I thought what a sweet friend I'd found in her. "Don't feel sorry about anything. If I was seeming troubled last night, it had nothing to do with you. See, I just don't consider myself to have been 'rescued' like you do."

  "Well, what do you mean?"

  "Well, I see myself as having been abducted at worst, and temporarily thrown way, way off course, at best."

  Blowing on the surface of her coffee, Tracy frowned. "Well, what do you mean?"

  I sighed quietly, taking a quick look around to make sure everyone else was still engrossed in their own conversations, which they seemed to be. "See...I don't want to be trapped in Helena. I'm trying to get somewhere, and have been for almost two years. Please don't tell anyone this, but I have two sisters who survived the virus, too, and I need to get to them. They're down in Nashville, which was where I was headed before...well, before a couple of really crazy things happened yesterday."

  Wearing a look of dawning understanding, Tracy moved her head in a single slow nod. "Oh...now I understand why you don't really seem thrilled last night. And don't worry...your secret's safe wi
th...." She suddenly paused, frowning. "Wait...Nashville?"

  Horrifying me, because I still didn't want Nick and Blaine to know exactly where I was headed, Tracy had said Nashville fairly loudly, causing everyone to suddenly stop their conversations and look at us. And before I could think of some story or cover for why Nashville had come up in Tracy's and my conversation, she looked at me, frowning hard, and spoke again.

  "But Kathy told me yesterday that Nashville was...." With her pale skin inexplicably turning bright red, Tracy suddenly swallowed and shifted her gaze from my face to Kathy's across the log circle. "What you told me about Nashville, Kathy...that was right...right?"

  "Yes, it was. Why?"

  "Well, because Eva just said...well...." With her face reddening even further, Tracy swallowed again and returned her gaze to my face. "I'm sorry. I'm just being weird. There's nothing wrong with Nashville. Well, something might be wrong with it, but it may be best to just kind of ease you-"