Ravenous (The Ravening #1)(36)
Author: Erica Stevens

However I saw no sign of them in the dawning day. My brother had completely disappeared. My heart lumbered to pump the blood through my veins, but it was having great difficulty with the task.

“Bethany.” I turned back to Cade. Abby and Jenna were behind him. Abby was crying; tears ran down her dirt streaked face. The sight of my sister, my only living relative, helped to ease the constriction in my chest a little. “We have to go Bethy.”

I bit on my bottom lip as I nodded to him. I knew we had to go, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t even know where we were going to go, or what we were going to do. I wasn’t ready to leave Aiden and Bret behind, even if they were already gone. I glanced back at the hated bridge. Our lives were rapidly unraveling, but at least we still had them. For now.

Motion to the right caught my attention. My eyes narrowed on the IHOP restaurant. There were woods behind the building, and in the shadows of those woods, there was movement. I took a step forward as I strained to see what was moving around over there. Aiden suddenly appeared at the edge, his hair was tussled and standing on end, he looked beaten, but he was there.

“Aiden,” I breathed.

“What?” Cade demanded.

Abby, Cade, and Jenna hurried to my side as Bret appeared. Relief swamped me and I found myself able to breathe again. “Oh!” Abby cried, she went to run out of the woods but Cade grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her back.

“You can’t go out there,” he admonished.

Abby looked like she was going to protest but thankfully she thought better of it and remained silent. Molly appeared behind Bret. It seemed that she had taken the worst of whatever had happened to them. Her clothes were torn; her reddish hair was a frizzy, crazed mess around her dirt streaked face.

I didn’t see the man that had been with their group. I didn’t know if he was choosing to remain hidden, or if he’d been lost like the others. Aiden pointed behind the building, toward the road that ran under the bridge. He began to make motions like he was doing something, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. “Is he pumping gas?” Jenna asked in confusion.

“The gas station, down by the beach,” Cade said with a note of dawning realization in his tone as Aiden began to make swimming motions.

“Near the rental place,” I whispered.

Cade gave him the thumbs up sign. Aiden hesitated before nodding and slipping into the woods. Molly followed behind him but Bret remained for a moment before blowing me a kiss and fading away. “Thank God,” I whispered.

Cade squeezed my shoulder and pulled me away from the roadway. I didn’t miss the questioning look that Jenna shot me. Though it seemed silly to even think about such things now, I knew that she would reveal anything that happened between Cade and I to Bret. Even now, after all of this, she still wanted him. Or maybe it was because all of this, she wanted him even more. We had few loved ones left, it only made sense that we would search out more loved ones to rely and depend on.

I looked toward Cade. From the outside looking in, someone might say that was what I was doing with him, and what he was doing with me. But as his midnight gaze met mine, I knew better. I knew that no matter how badly I didn’t want Bret to be hurt, he would be. There was no way to stop that, because in Cade’s eyes I could see my future, my home.

It was the strangest, most exciting, confusing, and comforting feeling I’d ever experienced and I savored in it. Cade’s carved features softened, his eyes gleamed with understanding as a secretive smile curved his full mouth. A connection sizzled between us, a bond that I felt in every cell of my body as my toes curled. His hand seemed to burn into my skin, searing through my flesh as it flooded me with a heat the likes of which I’d never felt before. A heat that I’d never even imagined could exist until Cade.

“What are we going to do now?” Jenna inquired.

Though our attention was diverted to her, I could still feel the strange connection that pulsated between us. I was unreasonably certain that the strange bond couldn’t be broken, that it never would be. Not even by death.

I thought I should be terrified of these emotions; I’d never wanted to be this vulnerable and exposed. But I was vulnerable, I was exposed, and I was at the complete mercy of my feelings for Cade. I’d vowed I would never feel this helpless again after my father’s death, but I was.

If he didn’t feel the same way about me… But he did. I was illogically certain of that.

I slid a sideways glance toward him as he walked beside me. His shoulders were tense, his gaze slid over the woods as he seemed to search everywhere at once. His words from the tree whispered back over me, ‘you will always be the only one that matters.’ They had been true, I knew that instinctively. Knew it with everything that I was and always would be.

He had meant those words, because for some strange reason Cade desired me, and cared for me far more than I had ever realized. We were bonded by similar experiences and losses and grief, but even more than that Cade saw all of me. Saw everything that I was, and always would be, and he understood it in a way that no one else could. I think he understood me better than I did, and though it was frightening it was also exhilarating and wondrously comforting.

If something were to happen to him…

I broke the thought abruptly off. I couldn’t go there; I couldn’t even begin to go there. I couldn’t bring myself to face the fact that I was more than likely going to lose more loved ones before this was over. That it was likely we wouldn’t all survive, that none of us may survive.

“Find a good place to lay low for the day, and get some rest. We can’t get to the gas station without running across the highway; we’re better off doing that at night, and we can’t keep going without some rest,” Cade finally answered.

We slipped further into the woods and moved quickly through the underbrush. “I’m so relieved,” Abby said as she looped her arm through mine.

“Me too,” I agreed, though it felt odd to be happy in this horrible situation. People had just died, many other lives had been lost, but we still had Aiden and Bret. We began to climb as the woods started sweeping upward. It was full morning now and sweat was already beginning to bead along my forehead and trickle down my back. I longed to sit for a little bit, maybe even close my eyes. Recently my main mode of transportation had been my feet, as had many other people’s, but I wasn’t prepared for this much walking, and running. I was pretty sure my blisters were growing blisters.

Cade stopped as we came across an old rock wall splitting the hill in half. “If we keep going we’re going to come across the paintball course,” I said.