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“A kid will cost you more.” Justin wasn’t inclined to be generous. Sam trotted over to sit down beside Carly as though he had come to the same conclusion about Jeremiah that Justin had: smarmy, not dangerous.
“True, that,” Jeremiah said, after a moment’s consideration. “All right.”
Justin checked the cap of each bottle to make sure it hadn’t been opened. They exchanged six bottles for six packets of pills. “She prob’ly won’t last longer than that,” Jeremiah said with an indifferent shrug when Justin questioned the number. “It’s a fuckin’ chore to get her to eat, and half the time, she pukes it up.” Jeremiah stashed his pills away into a bag. “What do you want for the woman?”
Justin brightened at the thought. Yes, a present for Carly. That would be nice. “She might like some chocolate. Or a book, if you have one.”
Jeremiah chuckled. “That’s not what I meant. I meant I want to buy her from you. How much?”
Justin had joked about it with Carly, and truthfully, it was something he expected in this new world, but it still came as a small shock to hear it. Women’s liberation had died during the Infection. In this new world, power and strength determined status.
Justin’s gorge rose a little as he thought of this creep so much as leering in Carly’s direction. “She’s not for sale.” Justin said this through clenched teeth and his hand drifted, seemingly of its own accord, toward the gun on his hip.
Jeremiah didn’t seem to notice how close Justin was to murder. “You sure? I’d be willing to make it worth your while.”
Justin didn’t trust himself to respond.
“What about for an hour of her time?” Jeremiah licked his lips, and his eyes flicked over to where Carly sat, holding a one-sided conversation as she combed the woman’s hair. Marcy stared ahead, her eyes as blank and empty as a doll’s. Justin thought it was a small mercy, given her situation.
“Absolutely not.”
“Two cases.”
“I said no,” Justin snapped. He was a fraction of an inch from losing his temper. He wondered for a moment how Carly would take it if he decided to shoot Jeremiah on general principles. He called to her, “Come on, we’re leaving.”
Jeremiah muttered under his breath and went over to pull Marcy from the ground. He gave her a shove to get her walking, and the two of them started off down the road.
Carly put her comb back in her pack. Her eyes were troubled. “Justin, we can’t leave that poor woman with that man.”
“What do you want me to do, Carly?” Justin tried to keep the tension from his voice but was only somewhat successful. “Do you want to keep her and take care of her ourselves? Of course, I’ll have to kill him to get her away from him.” Not that he’d mind, but he thought Carly might.
Carly winced. He could see the struggle in her eyes as her old morality continued to war with her new understanding of this brutal world. Just like the child who had peeked through the curtains as his father tried to bargain with useless metal, they couldn’t save everyone they encountered. They couldn’t feed everyone. They couldn’t protect everyone.
Carly looked down and nodded. They mounted their bikes and set off again, quickly passing Marcy and Jeremiah. Carly didn’t look at either of them as they passed. She pedaled hard until they were far ahead, and each time he glanced her way, Justin could see her eyes were damp.
Shadowfax and Sam both had to trot to catch up to them. She took one hand off the handlebars to dash the back of it across her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Justin said. His primary responsibility was to Carly and he couldn’t apologize for making a decision that would help keep her alive in this brutal new world. Perhaps he was apologizing for how hard decisions like that were on her, on her soft heart. But that was Carly, and he wouldn’t want her to change for anything.
That night, he heard her sniffle softly on her side of the tent, and he longed to pull her into his arms and comfort her, but he couldn’t. He stared up at the top of the tent and listened to her cry herself to sleep.
They couldn’t go on like this. Justin rolled over and gazed at Carly’s sleeping face. She was frowning slightly, as though she couldn’t escape her sadness, even in the realm of dreams.
Justin was self-aware enough to recognize his avoidance of relationships stemmed from the fact that everyone he’d ever loved had abandoned him. That was bound to leave scars. And while he didn’t think Carly was a fickle woman, there was little doubt in his mind he wasn’t good enough for her and she’d probably rethink a relationship with him once she had other options. Someone her own age, someone less scarred both physically and mentally, someone who could be emotionally available to her.
But if he was already hurting Carly by his refusal, did it make sense to refuse the happiness from being with her? Carter’s words about life being too short to turn down chances at happiness floated through his mind.
Maybe it had been inevitable from the beginning. That was the thought which kept him up late into the night.
Chapter Six
Carly walked with her hands fluttering in front of her, her feet carefully shuffling over the ground. Justin’s blindfold blocked out every shred of light, and despite his steadying hands on her shoulders, she was afraid she’d trip or run into something.
The past few weeks had been very difficult on her. She was depressed for the first time in her life. Justin’s polite, impersonal treatment made her chest ache with loneliness. She missed the man who had teased and laughed with her. She missed playing poker with Justin by the fire and belting out 80s love songs at the top of their voices as they biked down these deserted roads. She missed his pranks. He had once sworn with wide and innocent eyes he had no idea how that rubber frog she put into his sleeping bag had ended up in her oatmeal bowl. She missed his stories of his foul-mouthed commanding officer and the hijinks he and his fellow soldiers had gotten into during The Unit’s training. She missed their easy camaraderie most of all.
She lost her appetite and could only pick at her food. By the time they reached Edmonton, Carly needed a new wardrobe because everything she owned was hanging off her thin frame. Even her snug sports bras had to be replaced, and Carly didn’t take as much care to select comfortable undergarments this time. She just grabbed things from the rack of the store they stopped at, barely looking at them other than to confirm the size. She would later regret that when she was poked by underwires and scratched by clasps.
Carly knew Justin was worried about her, but that was a distant concern on the horizon of her mind and made little impression. He wanted to give her medication. She caught him once, speculatively eyeing a bottle of Prozac, but she was pretty sure there wasn’t a pharmaceutical cure for situational depression. Her circumstances were the problem, not a chemical imbalance.
