Page 66 of Dealing With Drak

“Well, that’s how you know he’s not going to hurt us. It’s glowing for me. His people—they’re called Aprixians—have soul seeds that light up for their mates. I’m his and he’s mine. But even before that light appeared, he was out here helping me look for you. He’s good, okay? I don’t expect you to get used to him in the span of minutes. It took me a while, too.”

Reluctantly, he nods. “Okay.”

I blow out a relieved breath. “Trust me, once you see his tech, you’ll warm up to him pretty quickly. Once we get everyone on the ship and back to the sorority house, you can ask whatever you want, but?—”

Caleb shifts on his feet and shakes his head. But he isn’t saying no about leaving, rather the words I chose. My heart fumbles around in my chest, denial itching up my throat.

“Where’s Landon and Da—” I stop speaking, noticing the new wince on Caleb’s face. “They didn’t make it, did they?”

He lets out a trembling breath and shakes his head again.

Drak sets a comforting hand on my back, understanding our exchange.

“When?” I croak.

“They only made it a few months in,” he admits.

Our brother and father have been dead for close to a year, then.

My knees threaten to give out, but Drak keeps me steady on my feet.

Lips wobbling, I ask, “You’ve been on your own for months, and you didn’t come to me?”

“I had no way to get back to you, Anna,” Caleb defends immediately. “There was no way around or past the hordes to get there. I could see from the mountains that the house looked untouched. I tried, but I couldn’t.”

Without dying, too, he means. He couldn’t come to me, so he’s been out here, surviving and suffering on his own. I had food and running water—company, too, even before the Aprixians landed here. I had so much, and Caleb hardly had anything.

Tears well up in my eyes as Drak soothingly rubs my back. “He is okay, An-nana. You have found him just as you have set out to. You can not change the past, but he is okay now. We have him.”

“I didn’t want to leave you there,” Caleb says softly. “Dad?—”

“Wouldn’t let you stay,” I finish. “I know.”

Which is partly why I’m not currently mourning him. I’m too full of bitterness and anger that he let this happen. But Landon, our brother, he’s dead because of our father. He was too much like him and too proud to pull away from him.

“I tried to save them,” he tells me like I don’t already know. Of course, he would have tried everything to keep our family alive. Caleb is too big-hearted to hold grudges. He’s selfless, almost to a fault.

“They kept going out to hunt on their own, taking bigger risks and getting hurt. When Landon got bit, and Dad saw it, he just let the zombies have himself, too. He didn’t care that I was still alive and watching, he gave up anyway.”

He abandoned him.

God, I just want to scream.

“So fucking stupid,” I spit, shaking my head.

Caleb half-heartedly laughs. “Yeah.”

“Have you been eating okay?”

My brother snorts at the mothering question.

“Not the best, but I’m not withering away either. I’m guessing with the plants and stuff, you girls have been good for food?”

“The plants?” Drak asks curiously.

I’m too tired and too relieved to see Caleb to scowl. Thinking about that goddamn garden always puts me in a mood, but not today.

Sighing, I nod. “Yes, Drak. The garden Stevie took care of? My family brought most of those from our garden at home for us to replant to give us more food. About thirty minutes before, they abandoned me there and told me I wasn’t allowed to go with them.”

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