Chapter Seven

The next couple of days pass without incident. It generally follows the same routine everyday: Cade trying to make conversation and be friends with me, and me keeping my walls up and barely being any more civil towards him than I have to. During the day we'd keep the doors to our rooms open, free to go between the two rooms as we please, and the second Emma is ready for bed I'd kick them out and lock the door.

But he's not making it easy for me to keep pushing him out, being all effortlessly good looking and being so damn great with Emma. Not to mention that even Tyler is working his way into my heart, despite never speaking a word.

During one of the earlier days, Emma and I were sitting at a table in the furniture section, a couple of lanterns surrounding us to illuminate the space. I had gathered a bunch of school supplies and spelling books, and like we usually do at home, I was teaching Emma how to read and write.

She's almost 5, the age when she would've been starting kindergarden if we weren't in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. I had decided that I don't want her to be illiterate or not know basic math problem solving skills.

I might never need to teach her about how to calculate the hypotenuse of a triangle or why tan is sin over cos, but she should be able to figure out how many pineapples John ate if he started with 39 and has 7 left.

You know, math that can be used in everyday situations.

She's already a smart girl, so she's been picking up on it pretty quickly. She's still young, so we're still doing the basics like learning the alphabet and recognizing letters and their sounds.

During our lesson, I didn't take my attention off of Emma, but I was aware of Tyler's presence. He was kind of lurking in the shadows near our table, hesitating, as if he wanted to join us but wasn't sure if he was allowed.

Honestly, I think the kid is kind of scared of me.

After waiting 5 minutes to see if he would make up his mind, I turn around to look at him. He freezes when he sees that I've noticed him, his eyes going wide as if I caught him stealing my favorite gun.

"Have you been spying on us, Tyler?"

If it's possible, his light blue eyes widen even more, and he takes a step back while holding his hands up, shaking his head violently from side to side.

Poor kid, he's definitely scared of me. I normally like when people are scared of me, but not children. Especially not a sweetheart like Tyler.

"Would you like to join us?" I ask.

I wonder if Cade has been teaching him any type of basic reading or writing skills. He must have been around Emma's age when the Explosion happened, so he's probably never been inside a classroom before.

He looks around, unsure, as if waiting for Cade to appear and tell him what to do. I can tell he wants to join us despite him not saying it; just because he can't talk doesn't mean he doesn't want to learn to read and write.

"Come and sit with us," I decide for him, and he hesitantly walks over to the table in slides in beside me.

"Do you know how to read?" Emma asks him, to which he shakes his head no.

"No one taught you how to read or write?" I ask, which again, the answer is no.

So I began teaching him. Every day we'd carve out a time when the three of us would sit down, and I'd teach them both at the same level how to read and write. Sometimes Cade would join us, but I started strategically scheduling our lessons around the same time he would do his 3-4 hour long workout.

I confronted Cade after that first lesson about why he never taught Tyler how to read and write. He got pretty insulted about it, and said something along the lines of "I'm sorry, but we were too busy trying to survive. Next time I'll carve out a time between running from Rotters and trying to find our next meal to sit down and teach him all about how the letter 'y' is only a vowel sometimes."

I scoffed at him and walked away, but in all honesty, I get it. I got the feeling that life has been pretty hard for them since the Explosion, but they haven't gone into detail. I just know that that scar on his Tyler's face was given to him after the Explosion, but I never asked, and I made sure Emma knew not to ask either.

As the days went on, the storm showed no sign of slowing.

On the eighth night, the thunder and lightning was so bad that even I was kind of scared, though I'd never admit that out loud, especially not to Cade. Emma however, was terrified, and didn't care who knew it.

It was around 2 am, and she was in my bed with me, clinging to me and bawling her eyes out for the last hour. I had tried blocking out the windows so that she couldn't see the flashes of lightning, but it was so bright and loud, and the earth shook so violently that it was hard not to be aware of the chaos occurring outside.

Either Emma was crying so loudly that Cade and Tyler could hear her through the walls, or they just knew that the weather would get this kind of reaction from her, because there was a knock on my door. I thought it was going to be Cade coming over to tell me to get Emma under control because it was causing him to lose sleep, which I would've stabbed him for.

I put my boots on and shove my knife into one, and strap on my harness to put my handguns on the outside of each thigh, deciding to leave off my harness for the guns that go on either side of my ribcage.

When I open the door, what I was greeted with definitely wasn't what I thought it would be.

There's a navy blue tent set up in the hallway, one of those big ones that could comfortably fit around 6 people. Tyler's sitting in the entrance, waving Emma to come in and see the inside. She untangles herself from me to join Tyler, with whom she's grown a comfortable friendship with despite him not talking.

I give Cade a quizzical look, waiting for an explanation. He has no weapons that I can see, his brown hair is messy from sleep, and he's wearing grey sweatpants and a loose grey tank top, which does nothing to hide this tanned muscles.

"We could hear Emma screaming; thought this would help," he shrugs as if it was no big deal.

He closes the door to my room, effectively cutting off the green glow of the lightning, leaving us in the hallway lighted only by the dim battery powered lantern and glow-in-the-dark star stickers.

I crawl into the tent, and see a bunch of soft looking sleeping bags with pillows, illuminated by a very dim battery powered lantern hanging in the top corner.

I see Tyler showing Emma one of those old battery operated, portable single CD players, which I didn't know Walmart even sold at the time of the Explosion. I hear Cade crawl in behind me and I move over to make room for him. His 6'3" frame takes up most of the space, but the tent is a good size to fit us all comfortably.

We can't see the lightning from here, and the thunder isn't as loud since we're not right beside a window, but the storm is still pretty evident.

Cade lays out beside Emma and props himself up on his elbows, explaining to her what the CD player is and how it works.

Tyler has one of his own, and he pops the earphones in and lays out in one of the sleeping bags, trying to fall asleep.

I hear Cade tell Emma that she and Tyler are listening to the same CD, one of children's lullabies, and that it'll help her fall asleep without hearing the thunder. As Emma gets settled in her sleeping bag, Cade hands me another portable cd player and headphones.

"I got one for you too, if you wanted it. I don't know what music you like, so I just got some generic ocean sounds," his eyes hold no judgement, voice not betraying that he thinks I'm weak for admitting if I'm scared.

I take it from him but put it aside.

"I'm fine," I lie, forcing myself not to jump at the earsplittingly loud clap of thunder.

He shrugs, as if he doesn't care whether I used the CD to drown out the thunder or not.

Emma's settled in her sleeping bag between Tyler and Cade, and I get in mine, not taking off my guns.

I guess just for tonight we can sleep in the same vicinity. The storm doesn't seem like it's giving up anytime soon, so it's not like Cade can strip me of my weapons and steal my supplies— he'd have no escape route. I mean, he could always just kill me, but then what? He had the opportunity to kill me or take advantage of me or use Emma against me plenty of times, and instead he chooses to help however he can.

I'm still not taking my guns off. It might not be the most comfortable, but at least they'll be close.

Cade helps Emma put the headphones in and pushes play, then gets settled in his sleeping bag. Before he's even all the way in, I see Emma get out of hers, and casually get into Cade's sleeping bag with him. She cuddles into him, pushing her face into his broad chest.

Cade, to his credit, doesn't look bothered or inconvenienced by his new cuddle buddy. He pulls the blanket around Emma more securely, then wraps his arms around her, making her feel safe from the chaos outside. She looks tiny compared to him, engulfed in his muscled arms.

She's no longer crying, not even sniffling. She looks at peace and comfortable.

Safe.

My heart can't help but squeeze at the scene in front of me, butterflies erupting in my stomach.

I lay down in my sleeping bag and close my eyes, no longer bothered by the thunder outside.