Chapter Ten
Split
As Patrica broke down from the news of her husband's death being delivered long after it happened, Shane shifted. His hand held onto Laini's. It gently squeezed.
Tension rose between the pair that none were privy to; their shared guilt in the man's death and his wife's pain had them bound together in the depths of what they'd do to survive. Shane, to kill, and she, to know it and still want him.
Hershel offered them the living room for the night. He admonished Shane for walking on his injured ankle. "If you don't rest that, you'll suffer with it all your life. I wish you'd let me look at it."
Shane raised his hand. "I'm fine."
"It's no trouble," Hershel stated. "You may not think it, but you've got a long life ahead of you to start having joint problems now."
Shane still refused. He assured the doctor that there was nothing serious in his injury despite his hobbling pace.
Hershel wished them a good night. "If you change your mind, I will be down the hall."
T-Dog curled up with a blanket around his shoulder on a recliner. There was a glider chair with a footrest that Glenn stretched out on, claiming as his own, which she really thought was them being polite since a full-length couch was open.
It was a space nicer than they were accustomed to. Even at the CDC, their accommodations weren't so rustic and charming as a farmhouse in the middle of Georgia countryside.
"Go on." Shane pushed her toward the couch. "You take it."
"No, you," she countered. "You need the rest. I'll take the floor."
"I'll be damned if the woman -." He cut his statement short. They were surrounded by listening ears, strangers, uncertainty. His tongue went to his cheek. "Please, Lain. I'm fine on the floor."
He sat in front of the couch where she laid. His back was at her, with his eyes focused on the darkness outside the windows.
He'd ran back in total black to a truck to find his way back home to save his best friend's son.
Delaney did not think on how scared he must have been. How he forced himself ahead despite knowing he'd crossed a line he never thought to.
Her hands slipped over his shoulder.
"It's alright. I'm right here," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."
True to his word, he stayed in place that night. Her palm did not move from his shoulder until early morning light peeked through the windows of the farmhouse.
Glenn groaned and tucked his face farther under his hat. The other man snored loudly in the recliner. His wound was wrapped under white gauze that was absent of blood pooling.
The house was still. No one yet stirred.
"Baby," she murmured.
Shane ran his hand through her fingers against his shoulder.
"Come cuddle me."
"I don't want to crush you…"
"It's fine," she grumbled. She pulled his shirt back toward her. "Please. Cuddle me."
He shimmied behind her on the couch. His arms wrapped around her torso. They held her close.
Shane ran the end of his nose against the divots of her neck. The soft flesh tickled under the sensation. He took a long inhale.
"You're a good friend, Shane," she assured him with a small whisper.
His body stiffened. The hold clenched against her.
"I was going to tell you before we split in the hope you might stay with me," she revealed. "I'm glad I didn't. You wouldn't have been around to save Carl if I had. Saved your friend the grief."
"And I could have caused my own if you'd been ambushed out on the road or in the woods or anywhere." He snuggled against the side of her neck. "I always thought that when I became a dad, I'd do it right. Wouldn't mess up and let it go. I'd do what was right by the mom, by the baby. And if I wasn't the man I wanted to be, I'd become him. Be a father the baby was lucky to have 'cause there's a lot of shit ones out there."
After being with Shane constantly, sleep was easy to find inside his arms. Her heart slowed. The strength of her eyes faltered.
"I never thought I'd get to be so lucky by you," he continued in his gentle murmurs. "I'm gonna do whatever I got to. To make it through all this. Me and you and our baby. Whatever it takes."
She drifted back asleep in his arms. It was crowded on those couch cushions with little space to spawl, but after all that had happened out on the highway with Sophia, Carl being shot, and Shane doing what he did to make it back, the feel of him against her settled the anxiety that'd built.
They awoke to Hershel's footsteps against the creaky wooden floorboards on the way to Carl's room. Shane stirred. His breath rushed in through his nose as he awoke.
Now, the routine was that she ran up to the bathroom the second her eyes opened. She had to pee so much! Shane was standing when she came back down. As was Glenn and T-Dog. They shifted awkwardly.
What did they do now?
"They'll be coming here at first light," Glenn relayed to Shane. "Once they waited for Sophia. I think we could maybe make a sign for her. Bits of board or something. Tell her where we went. In case she comes back."
"Let's just get to work getting our people all in one place," Shane said, "before we go searching. We can't afford to risk any more lives. We're stretched too thin."
"How's the ankle?"
"It's fine," Shane said with a firm tone. He was so resolved to resist help. Perhaps it was his own brand of torture to keep his guilt from overtaking his mind. "I won't walk too hard. We got too much to do for it to matter."
Hershel walked from the kitchen with a short stout mug. The liquid steamed up from its glass. He announced plans for a funeral for Otis now that Carl was stable. It was time to do what they needed to.
Patricia, whom they hadn't noticed in the kitchen, entered.
Deep purple bags laid beneath her eyes. Her face was puffy, red, tear-stained, devastated.
A screen door clattered in its frame as Maggie emerged from the outside. She carried an overfilled basket on her hip. Round fuzzy fruit boasted from its top. Peaches. Her hand offered out a fruit to each of them.
Laini felt her eyes glaze over as she stared at the fruit – fresh. Thick sweet nectar slid down her throat. It made her delirious. A grin spread across her mouth.
T-Dog sat on the front porch steps with juices dripped down to the wood below. He chuckled with delight.
"I never thought I'd taste fresh food again," he marveled.
Her lips slurped up the peach juice from the meat below the skin which earned a crude twisted smirk from Shane.
A noise he fondly remembered.
She rolled her eyes and shoved a gentle elbow into his side.
They had not seen Lori or Rick that morning yet. Or Carl. Glenn glanced back inside the house more than once as if he expected them at any moment. He looked rather stressed. The youth of his face pulled taut. His brows knitted upward at their center.
Shane ate half of his peach; the other half was handed over.
"Go on. You need it," he urged.
She shook her head. "Half a peach isn't going to make a difference."
"Take it, baby. It'll make Daddy feel better if you do."
Her eyes doubled in size.
T-Dog and Glenn were right there. Their ears were not stuffed with wax or cotton.
He held the peach still in expectation for her to take it.
Shane was not a small man. He needed more than her to keep going. A peach was not all the difference for a growing baby. It could not sate an entire baby from a single time.
However, as she considered it, Shane wouldn't last longer with it either. The man needed protein, calories. Half a peach would not make the difference for him either.
She pulled it from his fingers and instead replaced it with her own barren peach pit. "Fine."
A while later, Hershel declared it was time to prepare for Otis' funeral. They set to a pile of rocks on the property. Shane, Glen and T-Dog rose to help gather rocks. Beth's boyfriend, Jimmy, Maggie, Hershel and Patricia collected rocks alongside them.
Delaney resented how hard Shane resisted her own offer to help. Beth emerged on the porch in a soft greeting. Their eyes watched the morose rock gathering.
A collection of their loved ones collecting a grave collection for a slain one.
"Is Shane your boyfriend?" Beth asked suddenly. Her arms were knit against her body.
"I suppose," she answered.
The young woman thought a moment. "He worked as a police officer. Serve and protect."
The navy blue cap with the big words covered his head as he worked. Laini really needed to throw that out.
"A sheriff's deputy."
"So why didn't he protect Otis?"
It was a startling change to her voice. Bitter and angry. The blonde turned her back and marched inside the porch door without another word. It slammed behind her.
Small fragments of guilt split through her. It was to her benefit that Otis died. The pain caused to the family was the pain saved from herself. She swallowed the emotion back. Her refusal to allow it to fester was what she had to do.
The world was changed. There were choices to be made.
A creaky old RV bumped down the road a while later. Its pale green exterior was a welcome sight. The following sound of a rumbling spitting motorcycle, too, despite the person attached to it.
She flew from the porch to greet her friends. Her heart beat in happy time as they all dismounted from their vehicles, intact and in one piece.
Albeit one member still missed from their ranks.
Poor Carol looked the part of Patricia. They would be kindred spirits. In their sorrow and ache.
Andrea gave a worn out grin. Her eyes traveled to the funeral rock pyre being erected with a subtle questioning shrug.
Dale bounded down the stair of the RV. His exit made Andrea move away.
"What's going on?" He asked.
Daryl approached. He wore his usual scowl. The extent of the lands around them showed in the daylight. Cows grazed in fields fenced near the house. A large red barn with outbuildings, the clucking of chickens on the air, with an oversized garden.
It was paradise for a survivor. Better than any they'd seen. Why wasn't the biker impressed?
"The man who shot Carl." Her throat struggled to voice the lie she was complicit in. "Otis. He died last night. They're readying a funeral for him."
"Oh, God. Was it walker attack?" Dale asked.
She noticed Daryl's interest in the conversation. He leaned in to listen.
"Carl underwent surgery. He needed to be put under, and the supplies were at a FEMA outpost. It was overrun. Shane barely made it out. Otis didn't."
Daryl's gaze went straight to Shane out in the land beyond. "Carl make it?"
She nodded. "Just barely. Rick had to keep giving him blood. He's like a walking corpse now, but Carl is recovering. Won't know when he'll be able to wake up, though. Doctor says it could be a while before he's healed enough." Her eyes met the narrow blue gaze of the Dixon brother. "Any word of Sophia?"
"We left her supplies and a note on a car," Dale explained.
"I'll start the search again. She ain't near the highway or else we would've found her," Daryl said. "She's gotta be deeper in these trees somewhere."
They unloaded the tents. It brought flashes of the camp back to mind as they made their place under a small cover of trees out in the yard a ways. Carol worked on a firepit with stones lined around its outer edge.
Andrea placed hers next to Laini's. She was rather quiet.
The tents, perhaps, reminded her of what Laini thought when saw them. All that time away from their survivor camp on the outskirts of Atlanta and they were back in the first homes they had. Where so much heartbreak lived.
The blonde tossed over a pair of sleeping bags. Maroon and navy blue.
One was unrolled on the bottom as a pad while the other would be used as a blanket. Shane did not like sleeping in his own little sack. He needed a body to sleep against.
They were offered the cot, but she refused. Her back could not handle going back in that cot. The ground was better. It might spare her back pain.
Carol swung the large stockpot back and forth as she carried it toward her established campfire hearth.
"Too good to sleep with the rest of us?" Laini mused to Andrea as they watched Daryl establish his own camp an inordinate length away.
"He's used to being on his own," she revealed.
It was a surprising insight to a man never cared for very much back at camp.
Andrea shrugged off the narrow questioning of Laini's eyes. "He's not so bad. Once you get to know him."
"You do remember Merle, don't you, Sugartits?"
That awful nickname was one of many that Merle liked to dish to the women of camp. He'd known not to try it with her, seeing as Shane already marked a very possessive claim over her. Andrea hadn't been so lucky.
"He is rough around the edges, sure. That comes from him being a forgotten about kid. But, Daryl is not Merle."
She swallowed. "I know he's been helpful since Merle left. He does seem genuine about finding Sophia. Forgotten about or not, he's still an asshole."
"Then he should be just your type."
"Shane is the exception," she hissed. "Not the rule."
Andrea gave a slow curled smirk. Her feet backpedaled. Her crude amusement infuriating.
The rolled sleeping bag at her feet was left in offering. A challenge by the blonde to prove her point, or her wrong, or something. Laini stomped the way up the hill toward the solo biker's tent. He had his motorcycle parked alongside the pitched tent. A makeshift campfire was constructed a few feet outside the entrance.
She cleared her throat. Not that the crunch of her feet wasn't announcement enough.
He perked his head from behind the tent. His back was bent to the ground. An anchor pressed into the dirt under his thumb.
"Brought you a sleeping bag." The evergreen pack was obvious and bulged. It hadn't been rolled very carefully, no doubt in their rush to abandon what they'd endured.
He stepped around the tent. Each step was a jutted confident one that did not waiver coming too close.
His hands snatched the pack from her hands. "Alright."
By the time she descended back down the hill, Shane was there with his hands on his hips. He frowned. The cap pulled down lower on his head until only bits of his dark hair peeked out.
"Done already?" She asked.
The rock pile was mounded the length of what a body would be. It was formed in the shape of a person, too.
She couldn't help but blanch at its sight.
"Hershel's called a funeral," he answered. The frown still deep on his face as he eyed the lonely tent on the outskirts of the farmhouse yard. "He wants us all there."
"I don't want to go," she admitted.
"Me either, but they'll expect us. Especially me."
There was not a single shred of joy in them as they followed the group up to the sight of Otis' makeshift headstone piled with rocks like an ancient memorial to a fallen warrior.
Her eyes gleamed with emotion as she listened as Shane recounted the last memories of Otis' life – not a shred of truth in them. It was difficult to pretend that he did not matter when she was faced with the weeping face of those who loved him.
Stories told of a lovely man. Not one who would have killed Shane to get away, but rather, died for him.
It was a solemn march back to camp. Hershel led the way while the other survivors followed behind.
They were given a map of the county by the older daughter called Maggie. She spread it out. Rick leaned over, eyes roving over the lines, when Hershel approached. His frown lines grew deep.
"You can't go out searching for that girl, Rick. You're half alive yourself. It won't do you any good to collapse out there." The southern man gestured his head at Shane. Fingers clenched tighter against Laini's. "Your man there has a busted ankle. Shouldn't be walking either."
Rick was reluctant. The man was half a skeleton with paler than white skin.
How could he not see how unwise it was to push on?
"Come on, man. Take the day," Shane urged. It was not for his own benefit. The ankle would not be tended to as it should. Her eyes dipped to the sore swollen thing hidden under the cover of the baggy jeans. "Carl might need you again."
The voice of reason from the man who had sacrificed a man to save that very son.
Search for Sophia was officially delayed a day.
"Might as well use the day to teach them to shoot. Andrea is itching to get behind the trigger. Before then, I'd feel mighty better if she'd gotten some practice in. Laini needs some instruction on firearms, too."
Rick looked to the man of the farm, in respect. "Would you mind if we did a little shooting?"
"Yes, I do mind." Hershel held his shoulders high. "Guns on my property is not something I'm comfortable with. You can have them, but not while walking around. In a safe space where they wont be used haphazardly. I've got daughters, people, animals that have a right to their lives not being punctured by a bullet."
Their leader dipped his head in agreement. It left a silent exit for the farmer to retreat to the house with the rest of his household. An undisputed claim to rule over the lands on which they resided since it was his before.
Shane was ten shades of pissed. He swore as he placed his firearm on the hood of the truck.
"This is a mistake, Rick. You hear me? We're all sitting ducks out here. Nothing to protect us from the walkers. In the cover of dark. They'll overtake this farm."
"I know your concerns, but we are guests. This is his farm. He saved Carl."
So did Shane.
He ruined himself to ensure that Carl lived and their group continued on. Strong together.
Other guns of the group were handed over. Lori's pistol along with Andrea's were placed in a black duffel bag. The same one they'd taken from the lock up at the sheriff's office.
The guns were tucked away. A flicker of longing shadowed Andrea's face as she watched it be carried away.
No one seemed to notice the woman alone at camp. Her frail thin body hovered over a large stock pot of boiling water. The short gray hair was rubbed as she straightened. She was a wreck. The whites of her eyes were a constant shade of red. Her lips seldom smiled, and now were fixed in a permanent frown near the edge of sobs.
Lost a husband. Now a child. How could she not be a wreck?
The world was not kind to women. The end of the world was not any different.
Delaney escaped talk of rescue plans in favor of offering a conversation to the woman they'd all seemed keen to avoid.
Not that she blamed them. She felt the same around Patricia. Her guilt of being whole when they were broken and unable to be repaired was strong. There was guilt in smiling, laughing, being hopeful about the future. It was taboo to mention around Carol. Like they were scared she'd break down all over again and scream for Sophia.
She watched Daryl head in the direction of the trees with his crossbow. Rick ran after him. Maggie stood and pointed at things over a ways to Glenn and Dale and T-Dog.
Her eyes scanned the area, momentarily frightened, until she caught sight of his dark hair. It glowed in the hot light of day against the ugly green of the RV. She squinted against the hard rays of the sun. There was another person leaned up against the side.
Limp hair and a pair of empty brown eyes stared up at Shane's face.
Her blood ran cold. The pair spoke off on their own. Quietly, by the quick glance around by Shane.
What would they need to talk about? Secretly.
"Once we get some waste water, we'll wash our clothes," Carol said. Her voice pulled attention back to their conversation. "There are some good trees here. We'll string up the line again."
Laini pretended to care about laundry when all her mind truly thought of was Shane and Lori in private discussion. He knew – he knew how she felt about their conversations. There was an intimate layer to them that he did not admit to.
Her stomach was violent inside her body. It twisted and heaved as her nerves tied hotter and hotter together.
"Where is it?" She asked suddenly.
Carol's timid eyes jumped to her face. Her expression full of surprise.
"The clothesline," she clarified. "Where is it? We'll hang it up right now before we get too busy to."
"Oh." The woman took a deep breath. "In the RV, I think. You'll have to ask Dale."
There was spark to her step to get to Dale without Shane's notice. She thought she might get close to overhear what Lori and Shane discussed with such intensity. Their hands moved as their mouths moved. The emotion on Lori's face was something that only rivaled that when Maggie rode through with the news that Carl was shot.
Dale and T turned to greet her.
"You got the clothesline in the RV?"
He thought a minute. "Yeah. In the glovebox is where it got put. I think. It could be back in the junk drawer."
When her feet moved in the direction of the RV, she noticed that Shane was no longer there. He was stationed up at a picnic table nearby though. The bag of guns was on the bench next him. Andrea moved at a fast pace toward him. No doubt to pester about the pistol again.
Laini climbed inside the RV with fallen hopes. She half-heartedly searched for the long bit of rope that they used as a clothesline. It was not in the glovebox as Dale thought. Why a man would think to put it there was beyond her.
She went to the proclaimed junk drawer where the rope also was not. Her eyes rolled. She inspected through every drawer in the blasted old RV down to the back bedroom with two twin beds against each wall. Her ass was in the air as she inspected the cubbies in the wood paneling of the walls below the bunks when a firm grip took hold of her hips.
It pulled her back onto a jutted erection.
"You know I love the way you look bent over," Shane hummed. He angled himself against the center seam of her soft pants where he knew it taunted her lust.
She rose. "Shane. Someone might see."
"Nah. They're all busy," he assured her. "I checked."
Of course, he did.
His eyes were glazed with that rutting desire. The part of his lips with that subtle touch of the tip of his tongue to the back of his teeth.
Hands fled her hips. They pulled at her neck, her shoulder, pulling closer to his probing lips. There was such urgency in his action. It was the hot touch of desperation. He spewed the dire need to be lost in pleasure.
She quietly wondered if it was his desire for Lori that he wanted to be rid of or if it was the guilt over Otis.
Shane quickly sat on the bed. He wanted her to climb atop his lap where she could ride him. But her hands held at his hips as she lowered onto her knees.
His breath grew quick. A teasing smirk on his lips as he stared at the slide of her tongue against her closed mouth.
"You just keep getting better and better."
The marvel in his voice rolled in the back of his throat with the slip of his cock into her the back of hers. The length of her loose hanging hair was knotted in his hands, held taut with his fingers as they held on for their ride on the back of her head.
"Let me see your eyes, baby. Show me those pretty blues."
He groaned in approval as her eyes stared up from between his legs. The blare of his deep dark eyes burned bright enough for her to melt hot for him. "Oh. Laini."
Her tongue rubbed at the ledge of his head where a soft little spot hit his spot just right. She kept pressure there as she alternated between hard sucks and gentle humming. Each bob of her head was met with his satisfied grunt.
The shaft hardened. It went tight. His balls clenched shrinking as they moved upward nearer her mouth. Her scalp burned from the strength of Shane's fist through her hair as his hips moved forward, then stilled.
His climax was near.
She pushed through the pain in her head, his growing sensitivity with a want to slow down, until a sudden exhale burst from his mouth.
Hot cum spilled into the back of her mouth. Its slippery salty bitterness coated her tongue.
Shane held her in place for a moment as he reeled from his orgasm. His fingers then relaxed.
He remained still with his zipper wretched open, half flaccid cock out, trying to catch his breath.
"Better?"
"Marry me." He panted.
She snorted. "That the post-nut clarity talking or the lust still?"
Marry him. Was he serious? They were four months in. FOUR. That was too soon for marriage. Too soon for a baby, really, but there was no choice in that now that it happened.
"Shane? Andrea, where's Shane?" Lori's voice called through the soft calm of the farm.
It intruded their moment.
He sighed and zipped himself up. "What now?"
Laini felt a slight bit better than he was not eager to rush to the infuriating woman. She followed him down the RV stairs out into the warm air. It was fresher than the stuff trapped inside the sauna of the RV. Her nose took a long inhale of the moving, cooler air (still blazing hot).
Andrea left the picnic table. She caught sight of them and approached with quick steps.
"Dale and T found something," she reported.
Her eyes caught against the ragged wild edges of Delaney's hair. Andrea chuckled in short amusement behind Shane's back. He marched out to the field's edge where a well. Andrea continued out to see what had Dale, Lori and T so worked up.
Laini trailed back to camp, past Hershel and Rick huddled over a map, still in discussion about what they should do, where Carol remained. Her fingers were moving through a pair of pants that she recognized as Glenns. A needle and thread moved through the gash.
"Couldn't find it," she proclaimed. "Dale must have hid it. I looked everywhere in there."
Carol shrugged. "We'll manage."
She scanned around the large property. "This is a farm. No way they don't have rope around here." There was a silence that surmounted the air between them. A strange sensation grew in Laini's stomach. The talk of what kind of search should resume in the next day was loud enough for the pair to hear. Rick and Hershel only lowered their voices a little.
What agony it was to look at Carol knowing she would be out there in the trees if they'd let her. Screaming for Sophia.
Carol looked on the edge of tears as she mended the pants. A tremble through her fingers paused her progress.
Laini dusted off her pants and bee-lined straight for the survivors appointed leader, Rick. His eyes met hers on her fast approach. He lowered his chin and acknowledged her so that Hershel might turn around and take notice of her too.
"Laini," Rick drawled slow. "What is it?"
"Carol and I want to go back to the highway," she said.
He paused.
Hershel gave her a long look. "What do you hope to find there?"
"They made a sign for Sophia out there. I think it might do Carol some good to wait out there. In case Sophia comes back to where she knows," she explained. "I can wait with her."
"I don't know. The two of you, out there," Rick mumbled.
"We'll take knives. Or guns. Whatever."
The man thought on it a good long while. The doctor kept quiet. It seemed like he did not want to step on Rick's authority by expressing his dislike over the idea. Of course, she'd not seen the man happy, so maybe that was the way his face looked.
Rick said they could go. T-Dog could drive them out in the truck so they didn't have to walk.
Carol and T loaded up into the truck. T slid in behind the wheel since he had the knowledge on driving a manual. The thought hit her as she slammed the truck door closed that Shane wouldn't know where she went, and how furious he'd be when he found out.
The truck drove in the opposite direction of the well. Far out of sight.
Laini clutched the grip of the long jagged edged knife in her lap. She'd made him promise not to go off half-cocked on any more missions, yet she'd done just that.
Part of her marveled at how scared she'd been when Shane left, she was so nervous that he'd never return, now that it was her turn to part for a dangerous adventure, she'd not thought to be scared. Only determined to aid Carol in her grief.
The highway was just as hot and eerie as they left it. The sign for Sophia was written on a car window with bottles of drinks and food out for her.
Carol approached the car with her arms crossed against her chest. She eyed the provisions – none of them seemed to be missing.
"Thanks," she said, "for this. I – I really wanted to be out here. But they refused to leave me."
Laini gulped. Her eyes scanned through the splintered road in search of any motion.
"Daryl is off looking," she said in the hopes it would reassure her. "He is going to find her. Come hell or high water."
A small smile slithered against the woman's mouth. She said nothing. Instead, she leaned against a car in wait for her daughter to emerge from the trees. Her eyes stared down at the same spot that Sophia had split through two days prior.
Delaney kept her head on a swivel.
It was the first time she'd been alone in the responsibility of keeping herself alive. Carol was not concerned. She did not raise an eye to any noise in the distance. Nor did she walk circles around their location at intervals to ensure there was no horde descending on the highway.
Eventually, Laini settled atop a car. It was high enough to see a good ways around them.
It had to be good enough. Her mind was going crazy like a caged tiger on constant alert.
The knife, too, was triggering memories of the walker she killed. The only one. How awful it felt to kill the creature – once a person and surely in want of its haunted end – and taint her soul with the weight of being a killer.
She glanced down at the hands in her laps and saw the deep brown red color at the tips of her fingers. She gasped and shook them out, and the blood disappeared.
If she felt this kind of guilt over killing a dead person, what Shane felt had to be ten times worse. There was a person at the end of his gun. A person with skin like theirs, alive eyes, feelings of pain, sadness. How did he do it? She looked down at the knife to image using that to split a persons chest as hot blood rushed down both their chests, the anguish and pain on their breath as they staggered, frightened and betrayed by her attack.
Her stomach twisted in a sudden upheaval. It was violent and strong.
She managed to climb out of the car before vomit spewed from her throat. It caught Carol off guard. Her lips frowned. It was over before the woman walked over. Laini staggered to standing. Her hand shook against the hood of the car.
"Are you alright?" Carol asked.
She deflected away from the fact she vomited. "I never thought I'd live to see this happen."
The older woman – how old was she? Her short graying hair contradicted the plumpness of the woman's cheeks – deepened in her frown. Her ice blue eyes looked out at the stretch of trees in front of her.
"I tried so hard to protect her. From Ed. From the damage our home would cause." Carol swallowed. Laini eyed her carefully. "I'd thought I'd be the one to die and leave her all alone. Not this."
Tears rimmed at the woman's glass eyes.
The words of a mother who tried so hard to ensure her daughter lived was heartbreaking. How the words twisted around in Laini's heart. That agony of knowing that they'd delivered someone they loved so much to their death, unhealthy and unhappy, a life of suffering.
"Would you do it?" Delaney voiced. She needed to know. "Would you do it over, knowing how it would go?"
Carol blinked, almost in disbelief at the question. "I'd endure a thousand of Ed's beatings just to get to have my daughter. She was the only thing that gave my life meaning."
They climbed back into position on tops of cars. Carol on the hood nearest the ditch, she on the roof of a car a few deep on the road.
It was eerie quiet out there. Wind whipped through the empty fields on the east side of the highway. Whispers of birds chittering came from the tree line. It felt unnatural. Like a lure to calm their nerves.
The hot air was scented with nature. As much as she resisted its allure, she found herself loving the smell of the outside. Warm grasses and dirt, with faint smells of flowers that had bloomed in the heat of the sun, pecans and nuts all rustling on their branches. There was the fluttering of long unmowed grasses in the ditches.
There was a lovely rhythm to the world. A breath in, with the strength of the sun beating down on the road and cars, but then the exhale blew a wind throughout the lands and blessed it with a relief. Faint little bodies fluttered high above their heads. Small dots of darkness in the sky. Little birds.
She thought there might be hope for the world with those precious little creatures still alive, still singing their joy, in spite of what had happened, but the sunny rays had clouded her mind with too much positivity. It'd turned her into a smiling mess as she absorbed the tan. Her heart beat slowed.
Her hands slipped against the front windshield slipping her down the front of the car.
It awakened her senses. She grabbed for the knife next to her, alert to what kind of threat could be lurking, and was humbled when it was nothing but her dozing in place.
"They think she's dead," Carol once muttered bitterly.
Laini shook out her hair. The loose strands were getting knotted in the gusting of the wind. She swirled the ends together and wound it around itself in a form of knot.
"Daryl doesn't."
It avoided the fact that Shane was convinced by his time as a deputy that child disappearances were almost always found dead. The longer it took, the more dead they were.
Of course, that had risk factors like other people to consider.
Sophia was a lost child in the woods. There was hope she had found enough to eat, found a place to ride out the nights and weather. Perhaps.
"I can see it in their eyes. In yours." Carol accused. "You think she's a lost cause."