Page 36 of Waves of Fury

“Tic-tac-toe.” I grin at him as I draw an O in the center of the grid. “When me and Jesse were younger, we went to a lot of court hearings where Aaron was trying to get custody of us after our parents died. They were boring as hell. We’d play tic-tac-toe on our arms to pass the time.”

Kellen takes the pen from me and leans in closer. “You’re always the Os?”

“Always.”

His hand curls around my forearm, holding it in place as he slowly draws an X in the top left of the grid. Electric pulses dance across my skin from his touch.

“I didn’t know your parents were dead,” Kellen says, waiting for me to place my O somewhere. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I say with a scoff. “They were moon maniacs. Dad literally shot Mom and then offed himself because of it.” Anger blossoms in my chest at the thought of them. “He wasn’t brave enough to take us out too.”

“Fuck,” Kellen utters, shaking his head. “That sucks.”

I shrug my shoulders. “Life’s better with just me and my brothers.” A bitter laugh escapes me. “Well, it was.”

He doesn’t offer any more condolences, which I’m grateful for. Losing my brothers is too hard of a topic to think about right now. We take turns until I beat him. Then I lick my thumb before rubbing off all the ink. Again, we play another round. Over and over, we play, our moves pretty evenly matched, neither of us carrying a big winning lead over the other. It reminds me of my brothers in a good way rather than a depressing one and passes the time, which I’m okay with.

The dog starts yapping again in the distance. I break from our game to glance at Kellen.

“Jesse always wanted a dog, but the landlord where we live won’t allow one.” I crane my neck to listen for the sounds of where the dog might be. “Hey, I think it stopped raining.”

“Should we go onto the roof and take a look around?” Kellen asks. “See if we can survey the damages without the storm trying to take us out?”

Despite him being the boss of all these people, I like how he consults me. Like we’re apocalypse partners.

“Are you up to it?” I ask, dipping my head to indicate his wound.

His half grin is sexy and makes my stomach flutter. “Thanks to you, I’ll manage. Feeling lots better.”

I rise to my feet and then help him to his. He picks up his jacket and gingerly puts it back on. It’s torn all to hell and bloodstained.

“Better take the ax with us,” I say, smirking at him as I pull on my backpack. “People might think you’re an actual zombie and not just a corporate one.”

He flips me off but dutifully hands off the ax. The others look at us expectantly.

“Sit tight,” Kellen instructs. “We’ll assess the situation and be back to make a plan.”

Kellen opens the door and steps through it. The wind is blowing and it’s still sprinkling a bit, but the worst of it is hopefully gone. Seawater swells and splashes against the side of our building, however not as intensely as it was when the cruise ship blasted through here.

“Holy shit.”

Kellen’s barely uttered words have me coming to stand beside him. The scene before me is hard to comprehend. It’s like something out of one of Jesse’s video games.

This can’t be real.

There’s water everywhere. Almost like I’m on one of Aaron’s charter fishing trips in the deep sea, except instead of standing on the Angler-traz, we’re perched on some random building in the financial district. I don’t know what I expected when I got to see what was left of our city, but it wasn’t this.

The number of buildings sticking out of the water I can count on two hands. Everything else is just…gone.

We’re never getting out of here. No one is coming to save us. Miles of ocean as far as the eye can see completely surround us. We are so fucked.

Despair claws its way up inside me.

What’s the damn point? Kellen should have let me drown rather than revive me. This is all too much to take.

The dog starts yapping again, snapping me out of my rapid crash into hopelessness. I scan the few buildings around us, trying to pinpoint where it’s coming from. About a hundred yards away, I see movement on a fire escape landing.

Squinting, I notice it’s the same Chihuahua I saw on the elevator what feels like a lifetime ago. Its elderly owner is nowhere to be found. How the poor pup made it from this building to that one is unknown to me, but I’m sure it was extremely terrifying. He’s lucky to have survived.

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