There’s a painful pause before he sighs and says, “Lola, it’s been hours. He’s not coming back.”
“You don’t know that,” I snap, turning to look out the back window, even though it’s pitch black and I can’t see a thing.
There’s a giant lump in my throat I refuse to acknowledge and I huff when Enzo tries to reason with me.
“He wanted us to go to Flag. He’ll meet us there.”
The late November weather is cold in the north, and I realize I’m shivering when I cover my face with my hands. Jase, Michele, and now Cole are gone.
Hunching over, I grab my aching stomach and bite back the sob hovering on my lips. This is it, but I’m not strong enough. I don’t know how to do this. As much as I told myself over the years that being alone was safer, having people who loved me around me fed my soul. Now I’m right back where I started, and the irony isn’t lost on me because I’m always fucking alone in the end.
“Hey,” Enzo says, leaning over the seat and reaching out to me, “It’s okay. He’s probably fine.”
“Don’t touch me,” I say, recoiling against the door and clenching the gun in my hand.
I don’t trust him. I don’t trust most men in general, and being alone with him in the dark during the zombie fucking apocalypse while my heart is breaking is causing severe hysteria to rise in my body.
“Okay, okay,” he mumbles as though I’m a wild fucking animal. And maybe I am because the burn in my chest feels pretty fucking feral.
Thankfully, he turns back to the front, leaving me to my breakdown. All the possible scenarios cascade through my vision while I stare into the darkness. Cole could be dead. He could be captured. He could still be looking. All I know is that time continues to pass, and he isn’t here because he left me with Enzo, a stranger.
After another interminable amount of time in which I indulge in my pity fest, I finally pull myself out of it and sit up. I don’t know where any of them are, but I’m still alive, and if I want to stay that way, which is debatable right now, we have to leave and head to Flag.
With a sigh, I climb over the console and settle in the driver’s seat. Adjusting the seat, I start the truck with icy fingers. “Should we drive back through?” I ask. “Maybe there are people there?”
“I don’t know, Lola. I don’t think Cole would want you to risk yourself like that.”
“Well, he’s not here,” I say hysterically, fighting back another sob choking my throat.
“Right, let’s just head to Flag. We can come back tomorrow and see what’s what,” he says soothingly.
Everything in me tells me to go back, but I do what Cole and now Enzo want me to do, and I pull forward, heading toward the main road. We bump across the grass as we hit random holes and hills, and it’s pitch black, but I’m afraid to turn the lights on. Instead, I drive five mph until I see the road in front of us before I slam on the brakes. We were closer to the road than I thought.
With a deep breath, I turn the lights on and head back toward Flag, where it all began and now seems to be ending, at least for me. But I have to hope Cole will find us there because I cannot imagine being stuck out here with just Enzo, of all people.
I drive slowly and cautiously, so it takes us a good hour and a half to reach Flag. The road is as we left it, the barricade still partially formed, and the cars moved out of the way to allow folks to make their great escape. I drive through them numbly and stop on the other side, nervously circling my necklace once again. “Should we move the barrier back into place?”
“Let’s worry about it when it’s light out. For now, we need to find somewhere to hole up until daylight,” Enzo says.
I nod because it makes sense, and I don’t have any better ideas. Achingly slowly so as not to draw attention I head back through the outskirts of town, where we pass the Homeward Inn and burned down Super Center. I’m impatient to get to our destination, some part of me hoping Cole will already be there, but the thought of fighting anything with just two of us in the dark makes me shudder, so I maintain my ridiculous speed.
I’m hoping that if Cole comes looking, he will assume we went back to what was familiar, which is why I aim for the Motor Inn we stayed at before, although, at this point, any of it could be familiar for us. When we reach the tiny rundown hotel, I stop at the entrance and survey the facade. It’s quiet, just a few straggler zombies roaming around.
I glance at Enzo, and he nods as I cut the engine. We exit the vehicle quietly. I don’t have any weapon besides the gun, and I can’t use that unless I’m about to die, not unless I want to attract every zombie in a 10-mile radius, so I’m extra cautious when we traverse the stairs and head back to the rooms we were in before.
I don’t want to stay with Enzo, but I don’t know how safe it would be to be separated, so I don’t argue when he follows me into the room. Just a few short weeks ago, we were here scavenging. Manny was alive and happy, and Cole and I had consummated our relationship after a long, painful wait.
Now I’m here with Enzo, a virtual stranger who still rubs me the wrong way. I can’t tell if it’s my instincts in overdrive or my overly paranoid past when it comes to men, but my radar is blaring long and loud.
It’s that which keeps me wired as Enzo looks around the space before sitting down heavily on the bed. I have no intention of sleeping around him because that would be the ultimate mistake if his motives are less than pure. It means a long fucking night for me, not that I think I could sleep anyway, but fuck this is a shitshow.
“You want to rest?” he asks gruffly, but I shake my head in the moonlight, and whether he can see me or not, he gets the message and sighs heavily. “Okay, wake me when you’re ready to switch.”
But I don’t wake him, and I stare at the wall and listen to every scrape and howl outside as I obsess over where Cole might be. And with every minute that passes and he doesn’t appear, I lose another piece of me. When dawn announces its presence with an orange glow, which I observe from my spot on the floor with the gun in my lap, I feel dead inside.
Although I dozed off once or twice, I quickly jumped back into wakefulness at the creaks and groans the motel made after years of age, causing it to settle in fits and starts. Enzo slept like a baby, which annoyed the shit out of me. We just lost our whole community. Doesn’t this bother him?
Whatever, I have to get past this ill will and figure out whether I should stick with him or venture out on my own. It’s safer for me to pretend we’re friends right now until I decide what the fuck I’m going to do.