Chapter 27

The storm I'd watched cloud his aura darkened and morphed into a winding twister. He sucked me in and spun my thoughts until the only direction I could decipher was toward him. It was different. It was incomparable.

He touched me here, kissed me there, tangled my limbs around him tighter, and drove into me so completely, I didn't know where he ended and I began. All I could do was drift, be tossed and rocked in the waves his chaos created.

He was everything. He was rough but not careless. Demanding yet tender. He took until I cried out, then gave it all back with an intensity that made my legs tremble around him. Croc kept my face above the surface and breathed new life into my lungs.

And when the waves began to crash, my body convulsed and lungs expanded. His name erupted from my lips like the final crack of thunder before the world settled.

He kissed me more gently, caressed me softer, then gathered me into him and carried us both through the trees and into the water.

He waded into the canal, then stopped and held me with one arm, alternating back and forth as his hands cupped the water and drizzled it over my shoulders, my neck, my chest.

I gazed up at his face, absorbing the tenderness of his touch, and my throat clogged. My eyes burned.

When his eyes met mine, his lips pursed. He cupped the water again and lifted his hand to let it gently drip over my forehead, then he took his thumb and wiped my temple, my cheek. "Did I hurt you, Willow?" he asked, words rough.

I placed my hand over his and held it there. "No." I turned my face, kissed his palm. "You didn't."

"You're crying."

I lifted my other hand and felt the moisture on my cheeks, but I couldn't be sure if it was from me or the canal. "I'm not."

"You are," he bent forward and hoisted me up, pressing our foreheads together, "I'm sorry. I should have made you go."

"You tried to make me go. I didn't want to. I still don't." I bent forward and kissed his lips. "If I'm crying, it's because I've never been as happy as I am right now."

He drew a breath that shuddered in his chest, then pulled me into a crushing embrace.

I let him hold me and used my hands to cup the water up and over his back, his shoulders, his arms, washing away the dirt, sweat, and blood that coated his skin. My chest ached more with each new cut I uncovered. He'd done that. He'd bound himself and suffered, all to protect me.

He was right. He wasn't a man. I'd dealt with men. I'd lived in a world full of them, and apart from Merle, not one had ever caused me anything but grief. Croc was godly. He was perfect, inside and out, and he cherished me. For the first time in my life, I felt lucky. I felt blessed, and those were things that didn't exist in the current world unless you were born with them.

"You're a gift," I whispered, both to myself and him.

He loosened his arms, allowing me access to cup the water over his chest, his stomach.

I focused on my work, but I felt his eyes on me, watching, intent. "I'm not used to having someone take care of me." I flattened my palm over his chest, running it down to the V of his stomach. His muscles shook under my touch. "I guess I got overwhelmed." I glanced up at him. "It was beautiful, Croc."

He nodded, acknowledging my words, but he didn't speak. His face was shuttered, his eyes fire, and the bone in his jaw jumped in time with the knot in his throat.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

He grunted, and his lip twitched at one side. "You're asking if I'm okay?"

"You look tense." My lips curved. He had no idea. He was God's gift to women, designed specifically for me, and he was worried that I'd have some complaint. It was absurd. It would be like winning the lottery and complaining about how to spend it. What would he do if he knew how perfect he was? Would it change him? I didn't think it would.

"I'm a little tense," he admitted as he lowered me backwards and continued his washing. He bent his legs and rested me there, letting the top half of my body float out in front of him as he gently ran his hands over my skin.

I watched him, completely content with giving him control. His hands were rough, but the water softened his touch. He massaged as he went, avoiding my more intimate areas. I tilted my head. "Why are you tense?"

"Why do you think?" He met my eyes for a brief second and arched a brow before returning his focus to his hands. "I'm nowhere near finished with you, Willow."

***

When the sun had just started to wake and paint the air in hazy blue light, Croc carried me home on his back. My arms over his shoulders, hands clasped loosely at his chest. His grip gentle yet sure on my legs. I kissed his neck the whole way home until he climbed onto the roof and laid us both atop his blankets, side by side on our backs, where we stayed for a long time. Quiet. Companionable. Croc held my hand up in the air above us, absently rubbing my fingers, studying their size and shape and comparing them to his own.

Now that the night between us had passed and my mind had time to clear, the thought of birth control and protection came crashing down on me like the aftershocks of an almighty earthquake. I watched him, torn between total contentment and full-blown panic. My mind wouldn't stop. I didn't regret being with him. Not at all. What I regretted was how I'd been so stupid as to risk bringing another child into a world that was absolutely fucked. Not just any child, my child. A mother. I didn't know how to be a mother. I'd never had one, and didn't history always repeat itself? Shitty parents beget shitty parents? Abuse and neglect leads to more abuse and neglect? I'd tried to pretend with Eve, and she'd almost died.

There had to be a plant or berry or bark. Some form of nature I could use as birth control. Danny's bag. My mind locked on the idea. The chances of him carrying around contraceptives weren't the slimmest I'd encountered by a long shot. He'd given me a pill after more than one deal was done. The idea of asking him for it, however, made me want to crawl inside a hole and rot.

Croc linked our fingers and dropped our joined hands to rest between us. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

He turned to look at me. "It's not nothing."

I almost laughed. "I'm pretty sure you're the only man in existence to actually know that for a fact."

"I can smell it," he said, not understanding my joke.

I blew out a breath and shifted onto my side. I'd been reluctant to voice my concerns with him since the moment they entered my mind. I didn't want to ruin the moment, and I was afraid he'd take it the wrong way. But there was no hiding it, and if I wanted to have any chance of finding a solution, I'd rather it be with his help. I bit my lip and stared at his face for a long moment, procrastinating the inevitable.

"What is it?" He flipped to match my position and cupped my cheek, caressed my temple, and held my gaze with a look soft enough to break me more than any man ever could.

"I don't want babies." The words flew out in one blunt jumble of syllables, and my chest ached at the loss of them.

His eyebrows lifted, then lowered as his gaze averted. He scanned the blanket, thoughtful for a long, drawn out pause. "You said that," he murmured. "In the beginning." His lips pursed. "Never-ever-ever-ever–"

For fuck's sake. He was breaking my heart. I cut him off. "Yes. That hasn't changed, Croc. You understand that, right?"

He nodded, still not meeting my gaze. "I understand."

I bit my lip again. Why did he have to look so sad? Why did he have to make me feel like I'd just massacred every puppy on earth? "If things were different, I would."

He looked up. "If what was different?"

I sighed and shook my head. No doubt he thought he could devise a plan to fix whatever was in his way. Our laying side by side even having the conversation was proof that he was capable. Hadn't that been what he'd done? He'd made every effort to demolish my reasonings as to why we couldn't be together, and there we were. Together. This wasn't as simple, though, and no man, not even Croc, could fix it. "The world, Croc. If the world was different. But it's not, and I don't want to subject a baby, especially ours, to the way things are."

He studied my face. "But we're in the swamp," he said. "It's different here. I can protect you—our baby."

"For now. But how long until that changes? How long before they accomplish something in those experiments and send people in here, or anywhere like here, and discover what this stuff can do." He needed to understand. It wasn't him. It wasn't about commitment or a lack of faith. It was logic and bad luck, and there was nothing either of us could do about it. "All it takes is one hint for everything to fall apart. There may come a day when we need to run, and I can't live with the idea of having an infant when that happens." I squeezed his hand. "We still have Eve and Eric. They're like ours, right? We're a family here, aren't we?"

An argument brewed in the lines of his face before he finally blew out a heavy breath and flopped back onto his back.

I tilted my head back. His hands were clasped over his chest, face tense, staring up into the early morning sky.

"What can I do?" he asked. "It's already happened."

My heart broke for him. It wasn't fair. Maybe I wasn't cut out to be a mother, but if anyone deserved to be a father, it was Croc. He'd be excellent at it, probably even good enough to make up for what I lacked. That didn't change what he couldn't control, though, and no matter how amazing he was, he was no match for the greater good.

"I need Danny's bag," I said in a soft voice. "He may have something in there that can...fix it."

"Fix it?" His gaze jerked back to me, fully alert. "What does fix it mean?"

"It will stop me from being pregnant." I retrieved his hand and pulled it close, holding it in both of mine. "It will stop it before it can start. If he even has it. I don't know. But I need the bag, Croc. I don't want to have to ask him for it."

He released a breath that lifted his whole chest and rumbled on the way out. "Okay," he said as he rolled off the blankets and stood. "I'll go get the bag. Don't move."

I watched him go with the ridiculous urge to tell him to stop. It didn't matter. We'd do whatever made him happy. It was outrageous. It was a baby, not a choice of dinner or sleeping arrangements or what to watch at a Saturday night movie. A baby, and as much as I wanted him to have one, it wasn't me that made it impossible. I hadn't made the world the way it was. I hadn't started the movement that put Josef Arogander in power.

The sun was visible now, just peeking over the canal, and I marveled over how different the day was to the one before it; how much could change in an instant. Time had morphed my life, over and over again. I was like a butterfly, constantly evolving and reshaping, but today, I noticed it more. Today was different. Today, it felt like I'd finally grown wings.

I watched the sun go from deep orange to bright yellow, steadily rising until it was high enough to blind me, then I gave up on being patient and crawled to the edge to search for Croc. It shouldn't have been taking near as long as it was. Had he run away, determined to hide until a baby was ready to pop out?

Then, I saw him cut through the trees into the yard at a brisk pace.

My stomach soured. Something was wrong. "What happened?" I called down to him.

He looked up sharply then shook his head. "I'll get you a shirt, then I'll carry you down." He quickly closed the gap and climbed up the side, then grabbed a button down he'd had hanging off the corner of the lean-to.

I watched him closely as he pulled it on me and started doing up the buttons.

"Croc?"

He focused on his task.

"Where's the bag?"

His shoulders slumped, hands stilled. The bone in his jaw jumped, and his eyes finally rose up to mine. "He's gone, Willow. He left, and Gator didn't notice because he was," his jaw clenched, "distracted."

"Gone?" It couldn't— He couldn't— A million scenarios played out like nightmares through my mind. Officials taking the kids. Then rounding us up. Killing Julia. Taking Croc to be tested and poked and prodded until he wilted away. "What do you mean 'gone'? Did something...did the gators..." Please let the gators have eaten him. Let him have drowned. Anything that kept him from reaching the outside.

"I don't know," he said, "but I'm going to take you inside where you can keep an eye on Julia and the kids while I go find him."

I nodded and swallowed hard against the lump in my throat. What if he made it out? What if he made it back and convinced the officials about what he'd found here? What if he brought them back?

It was all the fears I'd just voiced to Croc as to why we shouldn't have a child. I'd spoken them out loud and brought them to life.

Croc pulled me into his arms and started down. When we landed on the deck outside the front door, he gave me a tight hug. "I'll find him," he murmured, then drew back to look at me. "And if I don't, it's because he didn't make it far."

I searched his gaze, willing myself to believe. He was right. I'd seen it myself firsthand. I'd seen how quick the gators could sniff someone out, how soon they'd arrive in numbers to hunt that someone down. "Okay," I said, taking his hand in mine and pressing a kiss to the side of it. "Be careful."

He snorted, then tilted my chin up to press his mouth to mine. "I'm not worried," he murmured against my lips. "I'm just mad I had to put a shirt on you and leave."

I smiled into the kiss and relinquished my stress. If nothing else, I trusted Croc to handle it. Danny was one man and not exactly a pioneer. Croc was right, he wouldn't make it far.

He reluctantly pulled away and opened the door for me. "I'll be back," he said, even though he still didn't move to let me inside. "Don't change your mind about anything while I'm gone."

I grinned despite my lingering unease. "About what?"

"Anything." He tugged me into his arms and kissed me again, harder, rougher, until my toes curled and my heart raced, then he pulled back and groaned low in his throat. "Stay just like this until I get back."

I nodded and bit back a whimper as he released me.

He paused twice before he shook his head and started to walk away. Halfway across the yard he froze and turned back as if he'd forgotten something. "Willow?"

"Yeah?"

"Is it okay to kill him now?"

I would have laughed, had he been joking, but he wasn't. He asked the question as if he were checking to see if we needed milk from the store. I shook my head. "No."

He grimaced, nodded, and turned away, shaking his head and muttering beneath his breath until he dove into the canal and disappeared.