Voodoo Girl Pt. 02

I looked down, feeling fear simmer in my stomach. "You almost make it sound like you're the person who let it in."

"Oh," he laughed, "no. I'm the observer-type, Fiona. I don't fuck shit up. I just watch, and go along, and flee when everything explodes." He made an exploding sound and gestured with his hands.

I went back to milking the cow. "Do you have any idea who might've—"

"No."

My shoulders sagged. I still had no idea why Zach made me come down here with him.

"So, what do you want Zach?"

He blew out a breath. "I want you to try to start trusting me. I'm not the bad guy here, Fiona. And I think you're smart, and you're strong—almost as strong as Libby. You're valuable. I'd hate to lose you."

My bucket was full. I stood and watched Zach stand, too. We regarded one another for a long minute.

"I'm not making any decisions just yet." The sun rose high enough to begin illuminating everything. Faint sunlight filtered through the slats of the barn and ran in stripes across Zach's body.

He stood still and kept staring at me. I refused to fidget or show him he made me uncomfortable. I didn't like the gleam in his eyes.

"But do you trust me?"

I sighed, eager to get the fuck away from him. "Does it really matter, Zach?"

He looked down at the ground and smiled to himself. "I would say so. You trust Nate, don't you?"

"I trust people who give me a reason to trust them."

He pushed his hair back slowly from his forehead. His eyes ran down my body and I couldn't hide my shudder this time. "What have I done to you to make you not trust me?"

"Absolutely nothing. Zach, I think we should—"

"I guess Nate's just your type, eh?"

My eyes narrowed. "Excuse me?"

"I know you're fucking him."

"I am not, but even if I were it would be absolutely none of your—"

Zach moved too fast and sprinted towards me before I could run, wrapping his arms tightly around my waist while also restricting the movements of my arms.

"Get off of me!"

"You smell good." He sniffed my hair; his exhale was damp and hot when it fanned against my neck. "I've wanted you for a long time. So long. And you're such a bitch about it, always teasing me. I'm gonna have you now."

He'd snapped.

I felt him then, hard and poking my thigh. It made me want to throw up, and for a moment I thought I might. I screamed but he slapped a hand over my mouth; with only one arm of his around me, I managed to twirl away from him. I ran towards the exit but I tripped hard, of course, and then he was pulling me back towards him by my flailing calf. I was fully under him and tried ineffectively to swat at his face. I stabbed his forearms with my nails but he didn't care.

"Come on, Fiona! Stop fussing. You must want it." He thrust against me. "Must need it. I can give to you. All of it. Right now."

"You're not going to get away with this!" I sobbed.

He threw me on a pile of hay and was on top of me before I could sprint away. He apparently didn't care about the consequences; he was far too gone. With one strong arm he kept me pressed down; with the other, he reached down to unbuckle his jeans and open his fly. I could feel the blood trickling from the knee I fell on.

Tears flowed from my eyes. "Don't do this, Zach. This isn't you."

"How the hell would you know what's me and what's not me? You've never bothered getting to know me before." He pushed against me and his eyes closed with bliss. "Besides," he panted, "no one is who they were anymore. No one." It was only then, with his naked cock against my flimsy underwear, that I began to panic.

"Help! Help! Someone, please help! Help me!"

"Shut the fuck up!"

Zach punched me in the gut, knocking the wind out of me, but I wouldn't be deterred. My will to survive had always been there encouraging me; it wouldn't fail me now.

I opened my mouth to scream again but no sound would come out. I inhaled heavy heaps of air, but I still couldn't catch enough air. Zach was just beginning to slip off my panties when I got my second wind. I kneed him in the balls—hard. The sound of his pained yelp gave me such exquisite pleasure as I pushed his disgusting body off of me.

Nate ran in, brandishing a rifle, but there was no need for it.

I covered myself, took a few deep breaths and then stalked over and kicked in Zach's face. Blood poured from his mouth. "You're disgusting."

Ariel was there suddenly, analyzing the scene. Her eyes went from him to me and back again. She knew. I could see it in her eyes she knew the truth. But it was scary being on your own in our black world, and she couldn't team up with me, or Libby, or Doug. Even Nate.

She ran over to Zach and tried to help him sit up. "I think you broke his nose," she said flatly.

"Good," I hissed.

I turned my back and ran for the house.

____________________

An hour later there was a timid knock on my door. I figured it was Libby and said "come in".

But it was Nate, looking so tall that I thought for a second he might not fit through the doorframe.

He was cradling his wrist.

"What happened?"

He followed my line of sight and put the wrist behind his back. "Nothing."

I smirked. "You punched the shit out of him, didn't you?"

Nate wasn't amused. His eyes, however, glowed with a sense of male satisfaction. Yeah, he'd beat the crap out of him. Zach probably wouldn't be able to walk right for days. I probably should have been alarmed I felt such glee over that, but fuck it.

"Ariel and Zach will be leaving the compound this evening."

Strange, but I hadn't expected that. I hadn't imagined the repercussions yet; I'd run upstairs to my room and cuddled into the fetus position. "With such little light? Maybe you should let them—"

"Oh, so he can try to rape you again?"

I looked down at my bedspread—it was beautiful; someone in his family must've made it—and shuddered. "You're right."

He took a soft breath and I could tell he was sorry for mentioning it.

"Has Libby said anything more to you?"

"No. I think she might be waiting for me to come to her."

Nate sat on a wicker chair near the window. The afternoon sunlight illuminated him wonderfully. He looked cozy. Like home, whatever that was. A home I never had, that's for sure. I coveted the life he'd lived there. Old-fashioned bedspreads woven together with knobby hands and homemade breakfasts and the American Dream draped around your shoulders. It must've been beautiful. I felt more sorry for him than I felt for myself. To have such bliss and perfection ripped from you, to be thrust into the greedy underbelly of human nature, to fight off your bloodthirsty neighbors who probably used to fucking tip their hat to you or something old-fashioned and country-like, must've been an outrageous shock for him.

He looked over at me and perhaps sensed my wistfulness—and maybe even a little of my envy.

He got up slowly, so as to not startle me, and then sat next to me on the bed. A large hand came to run its way through a wave of my hair. I wanted to tell him not to touch me, that it was confusing, but it felt too good.

"I'm meeting with Mac in a half hour."

My heart skipped a beat. "What?"

"He sent a message. He wants one of us to come, and I'm it."

"And you go. You, of all people! We all depend on you, Nate. What if something happens to you?"

Nate took hold of both my shoulders to calm me. "He isn't going to hurt me."

"Right. Like he isn't going to set a loose zombie in here."

He let out a big breath. "It's something I have to do, or he'll come here and we'll have an even bigger problem."

"I'm coming with you," I declared.

For the first time in a long time he smiled. I had genuinely amused him. Too bad I was deadly serious.

He touched a finger to my lip and then ran the back of his knuckles up my jawline. "I wish you could. He'd get a kick out of you."

"I'm fucking coming!"

Nate's smile faded. "Fiona. You've been hurt, and you know absolutely zero about any of this shit. You're staying behind."

"If you don't take me," I began, my mind desperately searching for a good enough incentive, "I'll...." and then it came to me, and it was cruel but necessary, "run away with Libby. Tonight."

He didn't react. His face didn't even twitch. His eyes didn't do an extra blink, and the vein in his neck didn't pulse. None of the stuff people tell you someone furious might do. I started thinking maybe he didn't hear me correctly, and then I really felt small and ludicrous when I knew he had and didn't care. God, I'd sounded sixteen!

He stood and nodded, looking at me straight in the face. "If that's what you want. If you think that's best."

He didn't say that ironically, or sarcastically. It was like a boss who just received your resignation letter going, "good job, thanks for all your work, buh-bye!"

It threw me off, but Nate was always good at that.

"Good luck with everything, Fiona," Nate said.

Then he dipped out of my room.

______________________

Ariel was wrapping up Zach's arm and helping him put his weight on her when I came downstairs. Doug cast me a concerned look, but Libby leant against the wall and watched the couple struggle. I almost wanted to offer to help until I remembered what happened. My ribs remembered and ached every time I breathed.

I looked at the two of them and knew they'd never make it out there. They probably wouldn't make it through the night.

Zach hissed and Ariel lost her balance, falling into the wall.

They definitely wouldn't make it through the night.

My mind began to work. It always worked peculiarly, my father said.

We needed Zach. He was a huge help to us on many levels. Forget about how he managed to organize the compound in his sneaky yet helpful ways, he was the main engineer behind how we got power. And even though he tried to molest me in the barn, he made a lot of great points when he tried to convince me to stay. I believed most of it. He was not the bad egg. Or at least not the bad egg we were searching for.

Perhaps keeping him in some sort of prisoner capacity could make all parties happy. We'd benefit from it immensely, of course, and he wouldn't be fucking dead.

How Ariel would take this was the only part I was uncertain about. I meant what I said to Zach that morning: Ariel was not a stupid woman. Surely she knew the odds. Looking at her, you'd never know she was panicking on the inside, but I was sure of it. I would be.

"Stop," I called out, coming to the bottom of the stairs.

Ariel gazed at me coolly. Zach kept his eyes appropriately on the screen door. He looked terrible; Nate really went crazy on him.

"You two aren't going to make it out there."

"Fiona, you—" Libby began to say, but I shushed her.

"Zach is very smart. We've established this. We've benefitted from this. In exchange for his work, he can remain here. Under supervision. Heavy supervision. And depending on how you behave, Ariel, the same arrangement can be made for you."

"Are you even allowed to make such an offer?" Ariel asked snottily. "You're the head of the group now? That'll come as a surprise to Nate, for sure."

I crossed my arms over my chest. "Be my guest. Go out into the dark with all the mosquitos and uneven dirt and wild animals, and of course, the zombies. Go out there with no guns. Go out there supporting an incapacitated grown man. Be sure to get a good grip on your flashlight with your free arm, yet practice being able to whip out that knife I know you carry around. Then worry about who is making you generous deals."

I turned my back on her but she called my name before my body could do the full rotation.

"What would... 'heavy supervision' entail?"

____________________________

I sat on a rock at the edge of the property, waiting for Nate's return. It was approaching midnight and he hadn't come back yet. I was worried and more than a little pissed off. He should have been back by now.

And then there was a shape moving with a familiar walk. The gate's electricity was shut off—Doug was on watch—and Nate walked onto our property looking much as he did when he left. I heard the hum of the fence being turned back on.

His eyes ran over me, taking me in, and it occurred to me for the first time I'd never dressed properly for the day. I'd never even cleaned up after Zach attacking me. I never dealt well with trauma. I was still in dirty sweat pants and a pink camisole.

"What are you doing out here?" he asked eventually, pulling me through the hay maze until we were up on the porch. "I thought you were leaving with Libby."

I ignored his baiting statement. "Waiting for you. I wanted to get to you before anyone else could."

He analyzed my expression and tried to read me. When that didn't work, he finally asked. "What did you do?"

"Why don't you go first and tell me how your meeting went?"

Nate just continued to stare at me.

I took a breath and tucked my hair behind my ears, trying to not have a heart attack. "I kept Zach and Ariel."

I could feel his body tense. I expected him to yell, or curse. Maybe even get up and find Zach and Ariel for himself, casting them out once again. He surprised me when he put his arm around my shoulders.

"You're not okay, are you?"

I snorted. "Do you notice how that's how we all talk to each other? 'Are you okay'. Over and over, and I know it's because we have nothing else to say but it's driving me crazy." I shook my head. "It's fucking ridiculous. There are things out there, eating people like you and me, people with flesh and blood and thoughts and hopes and fucking dreams... like maybe some dude wanted to be a fucking doctor or whatever, and his arm gets torn off. Bam, he's dead. Fucking finished. It's fucked up. So, no, I'm not okay. I'm never going to be okay. Neither will you. Neither will anyone. Christ."

He let me rant without comment. Then he sighed. "I see. So explain why you thought it was a good idea to keep a rapist and a raging bitch with us?"

I explained my reasoning, watching his expression carefully. He kept it calm. I told him Zach was tied up in the barn. Ariel was free to walk around, which would have been stupid under different circumstances but I knew she wouldn't leave without Zach and he was immobile.

Then Nate leaned against the railing of the porch and studied his hands. "I guess it might work. We'll have to see."

"You're not furious I acted in your stead?" I laughed.

He turned back to face me and he was smiling. I wished I could bottle up his smiles and whip them out when everything was terrible. Then his expression sobered.

"Have you thought any more about leaving?"

I stared down at my feet. "You can't leave here, Nate. It's not in your nature."

"I'm not an idiot. I know when it's time to run."

"Is that what your meeting with Mac told you?"

He rested against the railing again, this time facing me, and crossed his arms. "He said again it wasn't him and he wants to set up a barter system, which I agreed to. Anyway, I know it wasn't him. I know it in my gut. He blamed it on other nomads." A small smile touched his lips. "He called them rude and filthy."

"Dangerous, as well, then."

"He even advised me to get the fuck out of here. Told me we've been flirting with danger for a long time. I'm inclined to agree."

"You can't leave here. It's your home."

Nate laughed bitterly. "Home? This isn't my home. Not without Mom and Dad. No. Now it's just a shell with ghosts and too many empty rooms, and assholes roaming the halls. It's a coffin." He looked me over. "And what about you? What about your home? You ran away from it, too. You do what you have to when it comes to survival. You know that."

"And Libby?"

"No. Just you and me."

"Doug? Ariel? We just sacrifice them, leave them behind? Shouldn't we warn them?"

"Fiona, I'd drag you outta here barefoot right now if I thought I could. I would love to bring Doug along, but he will never separate from Libby. Feels beholden to her. And I don't trust her, not anymore."

I shook my head back and forth. "No. Libby...We're close."

He scoffed. "You think you're close."

"We are. That's why she wants us to go away."

"Look, it's simple. You have a choice. You hold the power. Me? I'm leaving in a few days. I'm going to gather as many resources and then I'm gone. You can come with me if that's what you decide. If you don't, no hard feelings." He stepped closer to me, intimidating me with his height just as much as that burn in his eyes. "But don't you dare tell anyone my plans. I'm trusting you with them, do you understand?"

"Yes."

Then he unexpectedly pushed me against the house and kissed me, running his arms up my body. His hips pinned mine against the house and he pushed roughly between my thighs. He was devastatingly hard, and I was desperately wet.

His tongue was calm and slow as it explored his mouth, but his hands were frantic and fumbling as they slipped beneath my shirt and found my breasts. A moan caught in my throat. His rough thumbs brushed against my nipples and I nearly wept.

That's when he moved against me in a steady pace, fucking me through our clothes in the sticky, humid night. He pushed me up and against the house with every movement. We panted into each other's mouths and stole kisses. My arms clutched his back and I delighted in the tense bunching of his muscles, indicating his quiet strength. I lowered my hands to his jean-covered ass, clutching it as best I could through the material. I tried to bring him closer. I wanted to absorb him; I wanted him to absorb me. I wanted us to sink into the other. But we were both wearing too many clothes.

One thrust moved against me sharply, pressing hard against my clothed clit, and I let out a loud, delighted gasp. Nate froze.

Slowly he lifted himself off my body, dragging his hands down my stomach and pulling them out from under my shirt. He looked into my eyes as if he didn't know me. The spell was broken.

"I'm sorry." He swallowed visibly. "I didn't mean to do that."

"It felt amazing," I confessed. I was breathless. "More. I want more. Please."

"I can't."

"Why?" I sobbed.

"I can't care about someone like that. I don't want to care—I can't do it. Feeling too much for you. I already like you. Please don't ask me to do more than that."

I knew a huge part of this was his loss of his mother. His father. The disillusionment he faced finding out what the world really was like beyond the sheltered farm he grew up on.

It didn't hurt any less.

"How do you expect me to go away with you when this will keep happening?"

He closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them, he was the same old Nate. "I told you. It's your choice."

"You're being so unfair." Fuck, I was crying.

At least he looked a little miserable again. "I know."

He disappeared inside the house.

______________________

The next morning I went for a walk. It was dangerous considering I was moving about without cover or someone spotting me, but I needed to gather my thoughts and I couldn't think in that stuffy house.

Nate was right. It was a coffin, filled with bad memories and bitter feelings. No one spent much time together anymore, not even Libby and me. Doug had withdrawn into himself and I didn't know why. Every time I tried to talk to him, he shot me down or made some excuse and ran away as fast as he could.

Ariel stalked around sulkily, spending most of her time in her room. Libby was either sitting in the kitchen, staring out of the window and looking deeply thoughtful, or I guess in her room.