Page 74 of Claimed By Ruin

She nodded curtly. “Good. Please rinse your dish if you’re done. I’ll be on the fences.”

Asia

It was quiet, dead, appropriate for what the day was, and I was glad. Other than Jack crashing in like a meteor, it was an uneventful day.

I had time to think.

Funny how thinking used to be one of my favorite pastimes, but I hated it more than almost anything now. There was no escape. No way out.

I’d done a good job so far pretending that this hadn’t happened, pretending that I didn’t have a baby on the way, pretending that I wasn’t completely alone.

But something about the memory of seeing Caitlin lowered into that hole cracked that lie.

And Jack…Jack being gone shattered it.

Left no doubt that it was all lies. I was a willing participant in my own deception.

And now he was back, and I was so happy, so relieved, that it disgusted me.

Jack waited on me in my room, looking unbothered.

No surprise there.

His dark hair was wet, the tips dripping ever so slightly, and other than the deeper golden hue to his skin, there was nothing to indicate that he’d spent three, almost four days, burying bodies, stripping and hiding cars, fighting fucking zombies.

I would be wise to follow his lead. “Elliot took watch.”

Jack nodded. “I know. He told me he was going to. I made sure he got a couple of hours of sleep this afternoon. You didn’t need to stay out there that long.”

I didn’t respond and undressed, wrapping the fluffy terry cloth robe he brought back in the eighteen-wheeler around me, and went to the shower.

I stayed far longer than I should have, far longer than was smart. When I got back into the room, Jack was still there.

“You were hiding from me,” he said.

I didn’t look at him. “You would think that. I just wanted to clean up.”

“I was talking about today. I was worried about you.”

I looked at him. He stared at me, the lantern dim, but bright enough that I saw his worry.

It broke something inside me. “You were worried about me?”

He nodded faintly, though I was sure he didn’t miss the shrillness at the end of my voice.

“Worried about me.”

He nodded again. I stared at him, so many thoughts coursing through my head, one paramount among them. “Never mind. I’ll let myself get a few hours of sleep, then take over for Elliot. We might need to increase patrols. We don’t know what Christopher’s going to do, and we can’t be unprepared.”

“Asia.” His voice was firm, demanding. The Jack I recognized. The Jack who broke me.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to go to bed.”

“Asia,” he said again. This time he whispered.

“What!” I screamed, but I didn’t care. I stared at him, and he stared back, his eyes unreadable. “Don’t look at me!”

He didn’t look away, and I stepped closer to him.