Page 55 of Obliterated
I nod, let out a shaky breath, and force myself to focus on those strong fingers, that steady gaze anchoring me.
“It’s normal to feel raw, to feel like the ground’s gone out from under you. The first one always cuts the deepest, or so they say.”
“You kill all the time,” I blurt before I mean to.
His lips press together for a beat. “Not entirely true. It’s Walkers. Mostly. And I lost my humanity a long time ago.”
I look into those dark depths and the wordliarhangs on my tongue, bitter and useless. I shake my head. I know how he thinks about himself, I just don’t believe it.
Because he cares. He might not say it, but he shows it. He shows it tome.
He can be a sociopath or whatever he calls himself for all I care. It’s not like it matters, anyway. In this world, we don’t have the luxury they had in the old. It doesn’t matter if you deviate from the norm. Because we all do. We all deviate. Normal doesn’t exist.
The only thing that matters in this fucked-up world is survival, and our therapy? Our therapy is violence.
And shit, part of my therapy is probably him, because when his lips find mine, soft and urgent, all the stress leaves my body, draining out like poison, becoming something else—something I can almost survive.
“Relax. Breathe.” He kisses me again, just a sweep of his lips. “It’s okay. You did nothing wrong.”
“Ikilledsomeone.”
“Someone who was meant to lose his life anyway.”
“How do you know he’ll be turned soon? He could be Touched for months, years.”
He strokes my cheek with the back of his hand, and with every slow pass my shoulders loosen a fraction. “I don’t. But I like to think someone as vile, as rotten as him is close to changing. Otherwise…” He exhales, eyes narrowing, steady. “It was defense. Nothing more. You survived. That’s all that matters.”
And I choose to believe him. I have to.
“We need to go. Now. Give me your clothes and get in the shower.”
I do as he says, still dazed, stripping bare, only now realizing my pants are still bunched halfway down my ass. Heat rushes to my face, and I blink, fumbling, but he says nothing about it as I head into my little bathroom.
I just kinda wish the first time I got naked in front of him had gone a bit differently.
When I come back out of the shower, skin rubbed raw, fresh clothes on, the body is gone. The bloody sheets are wrapped tight around it, my ruined clothes probably bundled inside.
In one swift move, too strong to be normal, he hoists the body over his shoulders in a brutal carry, strides to the balcony, and just… tosses it over the railing.
The dull thud below makes my stomach twist, but he doesn’t even flinch. He’s already hitching a leg over the edge.
“Come. I know where to go.”
“Where?” I slip into the flip-flops I rinsed and dried. His glare flicks down at them, a muscle ticking in his jaw.
“You know what? I don’t want you to survive that moron just to die falling off the damned balcony. Take the fucking stairs after you’ve locked your door, go round the block. I’ll meet you there.”
“Can you carry him alone?”
He scoffs like I just insulted him. “Not the entire way. But I have my methods. Keep to the shadows of the wall.”
So I do. I step outside, lock the door with shaking fingers, and hurry down the stairwell. By the time I round the corner, my pulse is pounding so loud it’s all I can hear. Then a three-tone whistle cuts through the night. Low. Precise. Him.
He’s already there, a dark shape in the alley. Doesn’t say a word, just jerks his chin for me to follow. The brute’s body hangs over his shoulder like it weighs nothing, and my stomach flips at the thought of how fucking strong you have to be to haul something like that. I stay close, my heart hammering every step.
We move fast, hugging the wall, and after five minutes, maybe less, we reach a gate tucked into the stone. Max stops and leans close, voice barely above a whisper. “Grab my radio, please?”
He’s so calm. Too calm. Like this is routine, like carrying a corpse through the city at night is just another Tuesday. I know he does it for my sake—the steady tone, the easy words—but it’s still surreal as hell.
