The Blood That Binds by Madeline Sheehan
Logan
Grumbling curses beneath my breath, I looked away from Willow. If the house hadn’t already implied wealth, the extensive walls of tools before me, most of them were unused and still in their packaging, would have clued me in. Back when the world had still made sense, I’d known the type—rich people who’d had to have at least one of everything, even if they never used it. I would have wagered good money that this particular house had been a vacation spot—a grand country home that had been a wealthy family’s means of escape from their busy city lives… or an escape from the end of the world.
After swapping some of my own tools for much-needed replacements, I moved on to the vehicle closest to me—a large black SUV with old bloody handprints smeared across its windows. Its tan interior was also liberally covered in blood, long ago dried and flaking off.
The second vehicle—another SUV, silver in color—still had its keys in the ignition. Pocketing them, I began searching through a handbag lying on the driver’s seat, most of its contents spilled onto the floor. Finding nothing of use, I reached across the dash and popped open the glove box finding a small silver pistol glinting atop a pile of aging papers.
“Jackpot,” I breathed.
With the collapse of society, guns and ammunition had been among the first wave of things to disappear. We’d had a few early on, but without bullets, they had very quickly become deadweight.
Examining the pistol, I found it fully loaded and the safety off, something I rectified before removing the clip and stuffing both pieces into my pockets. Making a mental note to check the house for more ammo, I continued searching the vehicle.
“Holy shit! Holyshitholyshitholyshit!”
Willow’s shouting had me bashing my head on the roof of the car in a race to exit it. Rushing around the front of the vehicle, pulling out my crowbar as I ran, I found her surrounded by open storage bins, their contents littering the floor around her.
“Logan, look!” she squealed. “Look at this!”
She was brandishing a box in each hand, shaking them excitedly. I couldn’t tell exactly what they were as I was momentarily distracted by her ridiculous getup—a large feather boa, with feathers in every color of the rainbow, and a pair of green googly eyed antennae. She continued to jump around, the googly eyes on top of her head bouncing in tandem with her breasts.
“There’s rice and pasta and fucking chocolate!”
Declaration delivered, Willow dropped to her knees, tearing open one box while the others tumbled away. At least a dozen individually wrapped cake rolls spilled onto her lap. Scooping up several packages, she tore one open with her teeth and ate the entire thing in three succinct bites, discarding the wrapper without care.
“Mmmahhaddd,” she moaned around a mouthful of chocolate and cream. “It’s horrible and stale and ah-mazing.”
Putting my crowbar away, I approached the mess Willow had made. Out of the half dozen containers she’d pulled from the shelves, two of them were full of food. Not all of it had survived, as was usually the case in regions that experienced a wide range of weather conditions. Oftentimes when canned food froze, the food inside expanded, causing the can to burst. Thankfully, among the rotten canned goods, there were plenty of bagged and boxed items that remained in visibly good condition. A little water, a little heat, and we’d have ourselves a goddamn feast.
“Hey, what are you guys yelling about—wait, is that chocolate?” Lucas raced through the garage, dropping down beside Willow. Tearing open a cake roll, he shoved the entire thing into his mouth.
“It’s disgusting,” he mumbled, bits of chocolate spraying from his lips. Grabbing another, he ate it twice as fast.
“Slow down,” I said, frowning at them. “You’re going to make yourselves sick.”
“Logan, shut up and eat something!” Willow tossed a cake roll at me; it hit me in the chest before falling to the floor.
“We need to secure the house first,” I ground out through gritted teeth. “Luke, did you finish searching upstairs?”
They both ignored me, content to continue stuffing their faces and making a mess of themselves. Content to continue teasing each other and laughing as if they didn’t have a care in the world. Watching them, every muscle in my body began to tense. They really didn’t have a care in the world—not when I was the one always taking care of everything. Lucas and Willow would have been dead years ago if it wasn’t for me, and yet here they were, acting like spoiled children—impulsive and obnoxious, forever forgetting that there was important shit to do, always oblivious to the infinite number of dangers lurking around every corner. Acting like it was just the two of them.
Acting like I wasn’t even here.
“Make sure you finish searching upstairs,” I growled, spinning away, the fallen cake roll exploding beneath my boot, forcing me to stop and scrape my heel against the floor. Growing angrier with each swipe, I stormed from the garage, my fists clenched.
Resuming my search of the first floor, I found myself growing angrier still. This farmhouse, as grand as it had seemed at first glance, was little more than a garbage heap, each room looking worse than the last. The collapsed roof had caused an infestation, not just of wildlife, but of mold. And once mold took root, it was only a matter of time before the entire house was compromised.
With only one room left to search, I opened the door, startled to find its contents dry and free of mold. It had once been an office, accommodating an ornate desk and an equally elaborate chair. A bay window stretched across one side of the room, framed by bookshelves filled with hardbound books and expensive-looking knickknacks. Everything was covered in dust.
Dropping my pack by the door, I opened one of the windows. Removing its screen, I stuck my head out into the sweltering heat, happy to find that the window was set low enough to the ground to be utilized as a second entrance or an emergency exit.
Next, I rearranged the furniture, moving the bulk toward the door to serve as a barricade come nightfall. Using the window curtains, I wiped down the dusty contents until I was satisfied with the state of the room. Climbing out the window, I surveyed the vast property, thick with trees and so overgrown we’d nearly missed it.
I had a vague idea of where we were. Having passed through little more than farmland and wooded areas, I figured we had to be approaching a town or possibly even a small city. Usually, we worked to avoid once populated places—places where Creepers tended to congregate—but our current food shortage was starting to concern me; we couldn’t live off roots forever. The bigger the town, the bigger the payout would be.
As I made my way through the waist-high lawn, bugs rising from the foliage in dense black clouds, I began noticing bits of broken fencing. Toeing through the vegetation for a closer look, something else snagged my attention. I dug deeper, ripping away fistfuls of greenery, exposing the mouthwatering prize beneath—vines covered in clusters of juicy-looking grapes. Plucking one, I broke it open, examining its innards, ensuring that it was in fact grapes I’d discovered and not a poisonous impostor.
Look at the seeds—if they’re round, they’re grapes, if they’re crescent-shaped, they’re Fox Grapes.
It was thanks to my mother’s green thumb that I knew what little I did—mainly what was edible and what wasn’t. Looking back, I wished I’d listened more intently to her gardening nonsense—things that had seemed so insignificant at the time but had ultimately ended up saving our lives after everything had gone to hell.
Popping the grape in my mouth, I moved on, heading toward a small shed in the distance. Unlike my traveling companions, I actually had self-control. I could, and would, abstain from gorging myself until after our safety was ensured.
I circled the shed before entering—it was a typical garden-sized hut, windowless and with a barn door–style entryway. The doorframe was warped and rotting, the door latch rusted over. Prying off the latch, I used my crowbar to wrest the doors open; wood crumbled, breaking off in sharp, jagged chunks as the doors popped free.
Inside the shed, spiders hurried to climb up their silk strands, vanishing into the shed rafters. Standing in the entranceway, I surveyed the meager contents with dismay—a riding mower, a stack of dust-covered planter boxes, and a bag of topsoil.
Closing the doors, I made my way back to the house, loud laughter and a trail of cake roll wrappers greeting me in the hallway. No matter how many times I reminded Lucas and Willow to keep quiet, they rarely listened. Sloppy, forgetful, idiotic—I ticked off their less desirable traits in my head as I moved quickly down the hall. About to turn into the room, I stopped dead.
With her back to me, Willow stood in front of the open window, pulling her shirt off over her head. Raven black braids swayed across her back as she stretched, her softly curved form a beacon in the blazing sunset. The side of one breast was visible, the tilt of her chin exposing a sleek expanse of neck, while beads of sweat dripped down the concave center, her bronze skin shimmering in the most mesmerizing way.
My dick twitched and hardened, much to my annoyance. It wasn’t as if this were the first time I’d seen her without her clothes on. Hell, at this point, I should be numb to it. Living the way we did, we weren’t afforded the luxury of modesty, and we’d long ago grown accustomed.
“Are you two kidding me?” I said, barging into the room. “What if I was someone else—someone dangerous?” I pointed an accusatory finger at Lucas, who lay on the sofa, his arms propped behind his head. “What if I’d been a Creeper? We haven’t even set up camp and the two of you are already fucking off.”
They’d both jumped when I’d entered—Lucas shot up off the couch while Willow hurried to finish dressing.
“Well?” I demanded when no one spoke.
“Calm down,” Willow muttered. “We were just about to start.”
“Yeah right,” I bit out. “Did one of you at least finish clearing the upstairs?”
When neither of them replied, I turned away, shaking my head. “Set up camp,” I growled over my shoulder. “I’ll be upstairs finishing what you two should be doing.”
As I retreated down the hall, the house was quiet, the only noise from the frantic thrumming of blood through my veins.
My return to the office was met with gloomy expressions and sulking silence; Lucas sat on the couch with his nose buried in a book, while Willow sat on the windowsill, staring off into the fading sunlight. I ignored their silence, satisfied to find they’d actually listened for a change and set up camp while I’d been gone.
Our three threadbare sleeping bags had been arranged in a circle, our makeshift stove and canteens set in the center. Used mostly for boiling rainwater, the stove was nothing more than a large tin can with a small pot that fit over the top of it.
Closing the door behind me, I placed my findings at my feet and began barricading the door before dismantling what was left of my gear—the tool belt I wore at my waist, the blades I kept strapped all over my body, and my steel-toed boots. Stripping off my sweat-soaked socks, I laid them out on the floor to dry.
“Find anything good?” Lucas asked, his tentative tone and anxious expression reminding me so much of our mother when our father had been in one of his moods. As guilt swelled inside me, I gestured at the moth-eaten pillowcase I’d used to carry what I found. “Go ahead and look. Take whatever you want.”
Lucas and Willow glanced at each other, grins spreading across their faces. Like kids on Christmas morning, they raced across the room, both of them diving for the pillowcase, briefly yanking it back and forth before dumping its contents onto the floor.
“Yours.” Lucas tossed a box of tampons in Willow’s direction. Without uttering a word, she set them aside. While Lucas resumed pawing through the goods, I studied Willow, trying to recall the last time she’d alluded to needing supplies. Was she pregnant? I dismissed the panicked thought instantly—she’d shown zero symptoms. So then what? None of us were the picture of health—we were all overworked and undernourished—but if Willow wasn’t getting her period anymore, maybe I’d misjudged just how bad off we really were.
Looking at them long and hard, it suddenly struck me how prominent Willow’s collarbone was and how chiseled Lucas’s cheekbones had become. Another wave of guilt washed over me. These past few months we’d been teetering on starvation, and not a damn thing I did seemed to make a difference.
“There’s toothpaste!” Willow jumped to her feet, clutching the several unopened tubes of toothpaste I’d pillaged from one of the upstairs bathrooms. “No more chewing mint leaves.” She danced in clumsy circles around the room before bowing down in front of Lucas, holding out a tube in offering.
“For your awful, stinking breath, good sir,” she said, attempting a British accent.
“Why yes, I do have awful, stinking breath.” Lucas attempted the same accent. “It’s almost as wretched as yours, madam.”
Laughing, Willow continued dancing around the room, coming to a twirling stop in front of me. Again, she dropped down into a dramatic bow, holding out another tube of toothpaste. The deep bow caused her too-big T-shirt to sag open, the stretched-out material offering up a bird’s-eye view of her breasts. Perfect breasts. High, tight mounds of soft flesh topped with dark nipples. Staring, my mouth went bone dry.
“Hello? Earth to Logan. Would you like some toothpaste?”
With a growl, I snatched the tube from her and slumped back against the wall. Oblivious to my mood, Willow resumed dancing.
“Hey,” Lucas said, inching closer to me, holding a box of protein bars. “I found these in the garage—they’re your favorite flavor.”
Taking two, I pushed the box back at Lucas. “You need those more than I do.”
“Ha!” Willow exclaimed from across the room. “A protein bar is not going to help him with those puny little things he calls arms.”
Lucas pushed up his shirtsleeve and flexed, making a big show of giving his slight bicep a kiss. “You love my puny arms, Wilma.”
“That’s what you think, Luke… warm.”
“Lukewarm? That’s the best you could come up with—Lukewarm?”
While Lucas and Willow howled with laughter and made faces at one another, I was once again left feeling like the odd man out. Leaning my head back against the wall, I closed my eyes, grateful there was nothing left to do—
My eyes flew open.
“Did you guys set up the buckets?” Using plastic buckets that attached easily to our packs, we collected rainwater that we’d later filter and use for drinking.
“It’s his turn.” Willow jabbed a finger at Lucas.
“It’s not!” Lucas protested. “I did it last night.”
“I did it last night,” I growled. “One of you can do it tonight—and the other can go pick the grapes I found out back.”
Willow’s brown eyes went saucer wide. “I call grapes!” she shouted, scrambling toward the window. Tossing one leg over the windowsill, she launched herself outside. There was an audible thud as she landed on the ground below.
“I’m okay!” she shouted back.
Lucas snorted. “Remember how Mom always said Willow was like a bull in a china shop?”
“Yeah, well, Mom had a bad habit of making excuses for people,” I muttered.
Lucas glanced over at me, surprised. “That’s not the same thing. You can’t compare Willow and—”
“I know,” I snapped. “I’m not. I’m just—” I stopped speaking and blew out a breath. “I’m just tired.”
Lucas stared at me, his brow creasing, again reminding me of Mom and the concerned look she always wore whenever Dad was around. And I just couldn’t deal with it right now—the anger that was always welling inside me and the guilt that never seemed to abate. Needing a distraction, I forced my weary body to move; there was a gun safe somewhere in this house and I aimed to find it before darkness fell.