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“No, you don’t. You hate the outside. You told me all the time. It’s why you never rode your bike with me.”
Sasha winced. Whenever Lucy asked her to go and play with her, she always told her she was allergic to the outside. That being on a bike would make her sick.
All of that time she’d wasted.
Now she’d give anything to go back to those moments.
“You know what, Lucy, the moment we see a couple of bikes, I’ll go for a ride with you all day long. I won’t stop at all. Not even if we’re hungry. How about that?”
“You promise?”
“Yes. I promise. I don’t want to do anything unless it’s with you.” She kissed her sister’s hands.
Lucy’s smile would stay with Sasha forever. As her sister threw herself into her arms, Sasha caught her, holding her tight, and promising herself she was never going to let her go. Not ever.
Chapter Fourteen
Hell can be pretty cold
The promise of fall would be here before Malachi knew it.
Malachi could smell it in the air, taste it in the way the wind bit at him.
He’d left the city and headed north, toward the mountains, away from what was left of civilization.
He’d been camping out in the woods for the last week, having pitched a small tent he’d found on this journey, scavenging supplies here and there on the way.
He’d been able to bathe in a creek just the other day, the frigid water a blessing in an otherwise shitty situation. But hell, he’d experienced more than this in his lifetime, lived through a hell of a lot worse.
The small town he was about to enter looked like it was part of some Wild West re-creation, with the wooden storefronts, the squared-in town center, and even the red, white, and blue banners hanging intermittently on the building posts.
Malachi moved his gaze back and forth along the deserted, eerily silent town. The wind picked up and had a few shutters on the mom-and-pop stores banging against the storefronts. He had his gun at the ready, as always, and stopped, listening, seeing if he was truly alone.
He sure as fuck felt like it.
He’d been alone for so long now that actually seeing someone else would be weird as hell.
Malachi moved past a hardware store, a video rental place, and even a pharmacy. He needed to check out the latter, seeing if there were any meds still there. Although he wasn’t sick, antibiotics and other first aid shit would come in handy.
Malachi headed there first. He kept to the building, listening, scanning. The store was empty aside from a rat he saw scurrying around.
The pharmacy was small, with only a few rows of shelving, and the main med counter in the back of the store. There were a few motivational sayings on the wall, framed, some broken, others hanging on a lone nail.
He moved down each aisle, picking up a few items that he found, a couple candy bars, one bottle of cough syrup, some gauze. He made his way toward the back, where the medicine was. Or where he hoped it was. Malachi wasn’t expecting anything, not with how trashed the store was.
Scaling the counter, his shoes came in contact with broken glass. Malachi started scanning the shelves.
The bottles he did find, he had no fucking clue what they were, but he shoved them in his backpack. He’d see if this place had some kind of med book, or maybe there was a library in town that would have something he could use.
Shit, he missed the Internet.
Malachi was versed in the illegal shit. It’s what he’d sold back when he’d ruled the underground.
Vicodin.
Percocet.
Oxy.
All of that shit had been cash to him.
He did find some Tylenol, two bottles that had rolled under the counter, dust and dirt covering them.
“Bingo,” he said low as he saw alcohol pads, peroxide, and a few more boxes of gauze. He stood and headed toward the backroom he’d spotted, saw it was used as an employee breakroom, with a first aid kit tucked on the top of a shelf.
For the town being so small, and this store looking ransacked he’d made out pretty fucking well.
As he was about to head out and hit up another store, he saw a tipped-over vending machine and a surge of hope filled him that there would be something of use in it. He walked closer, rounded the corner of it, saw nothing but busted glass and emptiness, and growled low.
“Fuck,” he said and kicked the motherfucking machine. He was pissed, frustrated, but those emotions spurred him, fueled him on. It was what he lived for, how he grew stronger. He took a pile of shit and turned it into gold. That’s how he’d built an empire.
He did one more sweep of the store. After he found what he could, and took what he needed, Malachi headed out, instantly wanting to go back inside to stave off the cold. But he had to keep moving, and with hours before the sun set, he needed to scout for more supplies before calling it a night.
