Her attempt at a smile failed. “It’s a terrible sort of silver lining, I suppose.”
“Who lived in this house?” His voice was gentle. “You must have known them.”
“The Buchwalds. An older couple, originally from Canada. No kids.” Mrs. Buchwald’s hair had gone completely white soon before the Breach, and she’d been using a blue rinse to deal withyellowing from sun exposure. A bit too much blue rinse, as it turned out, because her hair had acquired a distinct but pretty cerulean undertone the last few months of her life. “They used to babysit me sometimes when both my parents had to work in the store. I was sort of their…”
She took a moment. Cleared her throat.
“They called me their surrogate daughter.” And she’d just set fire to their fucking home. “They died in the First Breach. No one could locate any living relatives, and no one wanted to buy their home from the bank.”
The house-proud Buchwalds’ retirement paradise had turned overgrown and mildewy. The roof sagged, and the glass windowpanes were cracked. When Edie had gone on her scouting walks, she’d occasionally looked through their windows and seen dust. Insects. The encroachment of nature, as all the couple had built slowly rotted and turned to dust.
“No one will miss this house”—except her—“so it seemed a safe bet for burning.”
The conflagration had cast an orange glow over the other homes on the street. Max’s, which had once contained Bruce, Christian, and their adopted infant son. The two-story colonial positioned between the Brandstrup residence and the Buchwalds’ house, which had been bought by a defense contractor couple during Edie’s first year of high school.
Her own home, which had encompassed her entire world.
Every house had held life and now only held memories. Sad ones she carried like lit candles at a shrine, as if the remembrance were her privilege but also her duty.
Itwasn’ther duty, though, and the privilege felt an awful lot like a burden most days.
Besides, remembrance didn’t require a shrine.
“I want to move,” she told Max. Told the flaming remnants of a wonderful couple’s former home. Told the Buchwalds. Told her parents, wherever they were. “Even if we kill every fucking zombie on this planet, I want to move.”
He hesitated before answering, his arms tightening around her. “Okay.”
“I carry their memories with me wherever I go. I’m a living, breathing reminder of their lives and their love for me, and I’m still alive even though they aren’t, so I can go. I should go.” She tipped her head in the direction of her childhood home. “I don’t need the house.”
“You don’t have to make that decision now, darling,” he said gently.
“I know. But I did.” Leaning back, she let him support her full weight, and he didn’t falter. Not even for a moment. “You’d better gird those awesome loins of yours, vampire boy. Soon enough, you’ll be making small talk with strangers who aremere humans, and if you’re a condescending jackass to our new neighbors, I’ll withhold sex.”
His snort ruffled her hair. “No, you won’t.”
“No, I won’t.” Even she wasn’t that stubborn and self-defeating. “But I’ll eat nothing but processed food in front of you for days at a time,dude. Endless cans of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Falafel and various jerkies of mysterious provenance, washed down by weird green-tinged sodas containing absurd amounts of caffeine and chemicals as yet unexplained by science.”
“You wouldn’t.” His forefinger lightly flicked her earlobe. “You’d miss your pomegranate juice.”
Insinuating herself further into the cradle of his body, sherubbed her ass against his hardening dick. “Anything in the name of revenge.”
“Short of denying yourself orgasms,” he said, voice as dry as the kindling they’d used to light the Buchwalds’ home on fire.
“Exactly.”
“I’ll make small talk. If it means I have you.” He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, even though the house fire was throwing off an enormous amount of heat. “If you want to move, ma puce, we’ll move. If you don’t, we won’t. Simple as that.”
She twisted her head to kiss him, and he met her halfway. Afterward, still wrapped up in each other, they stood and bore silent witness to the final destruction of the Buchwalds’ home for a long, long time.
And then…something changed. The Girl Explorers hadn’t given a signal, and Edie hadn’t heard or seen anything unexpected. But somehow she had a feeling.
Time was running short.
If she died tonight, she wouldn’t do so regretting what she hadn’t said.
“I’m falling in love with you.” The declaration wasn’t tentative or nervous, but a firm statement of fact. “You need to keep yourself safe for me, Max.”
He squeezed her so tightly she squeaked. Although he didn’t respond in words, he pressed a fierce kiss to the top of her head, then her temple, her cheek, and her ear.
