“Have we spoken to your council yet?” I mumble.
I open one eye to glare at him, not bothering to get up. It annoys Taylor when we sleep in so I do it as often as I can.
“Not yet, Princess.”
“Then yep, still here. I’d be happy to go away if you’d let us talk to them.”
“Not enjoying the accommodations?”
I sit up to stare at him, my face carefully blank. “It’s a little Colonial for my taste.”
Taylor shakes his head, a crooked grin forming on his face. “Watch what you say. I’ll start to think you’re one of them again.”
I frown, surprised. “Meaning you don’t think that now?”
“Meaning I have my doubts.”
“Why is that?” Ryan asks.
Taylor folds his arms across his barrel chest, looking down at Ryan where he sits beside me. He glances over at Trent who stares back vacantly, his butt already perched in his favorite chair. When Taylor meets Ryan’s eyes again, he looks far less annoyed than usual. Almost casual.
“You don’t say grace.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“A lot. The Colonists, the true to the bone followers, they’re very religious. Devout.”
“Overzealous,” I mutter, thinking of Crenshaw.
Taylor nods. “Exactly that. They don’t take a meal without saying grace or hit the sack without evening prayers. I’m not saying all religious people are Colonists just like I’m not saying all Colonists are religious. But I’ve seen you three dig into your food without washing your hands or thanking Jesus and to a genuine Colony follower, that wouldn’t fly. So either you’re just not one of the true followers, which makes it unlikely you’d be trusted to come in here to gather intel, or you’re not with them at all.”
“We’re not with them at all,” I insist.
Taylor shrugs. “Maybe you are or maybe you aren’t, but Sam seems to think you’re on the level so I’m inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“You trust Sam’s judgment that much?” Ryan asks dubiously.
“That kid is an excellent judge of character. Why do you think I have him in training with the guard? He’ll have my job one day.”
“Probably tomorrow,” Sam mumbles from his cot, his face turned toward the wall.
“Chow is out,” Taylor tells him.
Sam is up and out the door before any of us can say goodbye.
“If you don’t believe we’re spies,” I say to Taylor, “then why won’t you let us see your council yet?”
“Because that’s not how it’s done,” he says simply. “Never has been, never will be.”
“We only want to talk to them. They could come here and—“
“It’s not how it’s done,” Taylor repeats, this time more forcefully. “Look, here’s the deal. The people on the council are important. President of the World important only with fewer sex scandals and racial discrimination. They absolutely will not be brought anywhere near you, any of you, until you’ve passed quarantine. Because I’m guarding you, I’m not allowed near any of them until the quarantine is over just as a precaution and that is messing up my game something awful.”
“Your game?”
“He’s boning one of the people on the council,” Trent tells me.
I scrunch up my nose, grossed out by his phrasing. “I doubt he’s ‘boning’ one of them.”
“Trying to!” Taylor objects.
“Ugh,” I groan.
“Get over it,” he tells me, sitting down hard in a chair just outside our cage. It’s the closest he’s gotten to us without a tray of food since we got here. “The world has ended but life goes on and a big part of that for a man is a beautiful woman. Don’t think for a second that your boy here likes sleeping curled up next to you because he’s attracted to your soul and a morning punch in the mouth. He does it because you’re soft and no matter how dirty you get, your hair smells like strawberries. It’s a mystery of nature, but a fact nevertheless, one he’d like to get up close to and research further. More in depth, if you know what I mean.”
“Speaking of messing up people’s game,” Ryan growls from behind me.
I look back to see him shooting daggers at Taylor, his hand making a cutting motion across his neck.
Taylor chuckles. “Own it, kid. She needs to know and trust me, she won’t mind. Badass as she wants to be, she’s still a woman and even the toughest woman has times when she wants to feel like just that – a woman. Let me guess, Princess. Despite that rough exterior, you secretly like the fact that his hands are so much larger than yours. That they make yours feel delicate by comparison.”
I’m calling it now – Taylor is a witch. A mind reading, secret spilling, smug SOB of the absolute highest order. He’s also dead on. Ryan’s broad shoulders, his large hands, the fact that he towers over me when he stands close; it all messes me up inside. It flips a switch I don’t know how to turn off but maybe that’s because I’m not trying hard enough. Or at all, really. I’m not trying because I like it. Because I want to swim around in it feeling fluid and free. Feeling like he’s the wall between the rest of the world and me. Like I can lean on him. Count on him.
“Yeah,” Taylor drawls, sounding satisfied as he watches me. “That’s what I thought. Don’t be embarrassed by it. Nothing makes a man feel more like a man than giving you that feeling and he makes you go all Go-Gurt inside, doesn’t he?”
“What the hell is Go-Gurt?” I ask, evading the question.
“Sorry, that’s probably before you’re time. Sometimes I forget what younger people missed out on. Basically it’s sweet flavored mush in a tube and that’s you. Pure, sweet mush inside.”
I want to tell him that he’s an idiot and he’s wrong, but he’s not. He’s right and I’m pissed. I’m mad because I’m no longer a Jawbreaker. I’m more of a Gummy Bear or a friggin’ Laffy Taffy. What am I supposed to do with that? How am I supposed to survive on the outside out in the wilds of Neverland with every Lost Boy and zombie in the world barreling down on me and I’m busted and cornered like Tinkerbell with a broken wing. They’ll get me eventually, one of them will. I’ll be put back in a cage that looks like a dream but you’re never allowed to wake up. I’ll go insane inside and eventually the mush will leak out and drown me in myself until I can’t remember what it felt like to run. Until I’m one of those animals in Ryan’s nightmare zoo, laying down for the last time and wondering where the world went.
“Joss,” Ryan says, his voice cautious. It’s the tone he takes when he knows I’m spooked. When I look like I feel – trapped.
“If you’re done teaching sex ed, do you mind telling us how it started?” I ask hotly, desperate to change the subject but also wondering why we haven’t asked them this yet.
Here’s the thing. On the outside, out in the wild, no one knows. Even back when it was contained in Oregon, no one knew how the outbreak began. Or if they knew they sure as hell weren’t telling. Reporters and wackos came up with wild theories about biological weapons, military experiments to create Super Soldiers that wouldn’t die, some even said it came back to stem cell research gone wrong. Very few people believed it was just an illness that bloomed into being and wiped out the planet. Most were convinced someone was to blame. We just never found out who.
Taylor looks at me surprised. “How would I know?”
“Sam said you have military here,” Ryan begins.
“Ex-military,” Taylor clarifies.