Page 103 of What Remains

Liz's gaze followed his gesture, then met his. "You've got people depending on you."

"So do you." He gestured toward the supplies now filling every corner of the farmhouse. "This should get you through another winter."

Liz looked around the kitchen. The pantry sat fuller than she'd seen it since before the outbreak. The basement shelves held enough food to feed several families, the mudroom overflowed with coats, boots, and blankets, and the barn now housed sacks of livestock feed stacked shoulder high.

She turned slowly toward the others, her voice thick. "I don't know how to thank you."

"You don't," Cara said gently. "You survive."

Nobody spoke, and nobody needed to.

Cara's word, "survive," hung in the air. Finally, Jay broke the quiet. "We're heading out. First thing in the morning."

The room went impossibly still. Layla froze in the middle of arranging canned peaches on a shelf, her small hands hovering over the jars.

"So soon?" Liz asked.

Jay nodded. "We've stayed longer than we planned."

Cara reached over and rested a hand on Liz's arm. "The cabin needs these supplies."

Liz dropped her gaze, already knowing they were right. "I know."

Josie smiled, but her eyes stayed flat and her jaw was doing that tight thing Seth had noticed before, when she was trying not to show how much something had gotten to her.

"I figured." Her voice was so soft Seth almost didn't hear it. She glanced around the farmhouse as if memorizing it with them still inside. "We just... it started feeling normal, having everyone here."

Seth's chest tightened. His gaze drifted from Josie to Layla, then to the warm kitchen that had somehow become less a temporary stop and more something he'd nearly forgotten existed.

A home.

Tomorrow morning, they would head east. He pictured the road stretching out, empty and cold, and the image felt empty.

Chapter 24

Quiet Before The Storm

Josie eased Layla’s door shut with the softest click she could manage. The house still held the scent of dinner—garlic and rosemary lingering in the air, ordinary and comforting, as if the evening hadn’t already begun to fray. She stood in the hallway a moment, hand flat against the wood, listening to her daughter’s steady little breaths.

Then she walked to Seth’s room.

He sat on the edge of the bed in only his jeans, the top button undone, as if he’d started to undress and simply stopped. Bare feet were planted on the floorboards, elbows on his knees. His shoulders curved forward, drawing his frame into a tight knot of muscle. He stared at a space between his feet, his focus so absolute that the world outside that small patch of wood had vanished. His hair, still damp from the generator powered shower, had dried in dark patches against his neck.

The lamp threw a low amber circle across the sheets, catching the edge of the headboard and the shallow dent where he’d sat down hard. He looked up when she stepped inside.

The movement came slowly, almost reluctant, as if his body understood the cost before his mind did. Their eyes met, and for a heartbeat his face went unguarded—a flicker of pain so raw it was almost recognition. He didn’t need to ask why she had come; it was there in her gaze. The slow work of his throat was the only sign of the words he wouldn’t have spoken. His hands opened, then closed, fingers flexing against nothing. In the amber light his eyes looked darker, grief and hunger held there together, and he made no attempt to hide either one.

He didn’t speak. He simply waited, as if what had happened still belonged to her—even though they both already knew.

She crossed the small space and stopped between his knees. Close enough that the heat of his bare chest reached her through the thin cotton. For a moment she only looked at him—the amber light on his face, the shadows beneath his eyes, the tight set of his mouth. Then she cupped his jaw in both hands, thumbs tracing the stubble from cheekbone to the corner of his lips. The quiet scrape of it under her touch tightened her throat.

He turned into the contact at once, starved for it. His eyes closed. A low sound left his throat and he leaned into her hands like a man leaning into the last solid thing in a collapsing world.

When she bent to him, their mouths met softly, almost tentatively. The kiss stayed gentle through several long heartbeats: the warm give of his mouth, the faint trace of after-dinner coffee, breath trembling between them.

Something in him broke open. His hands rose, large and warm, sliding up the backs of her bare thighs beneath the hem of her dress. His palms moved with measured slowness, fingers spreading as they climbed, until they gripped her hips and pulled her forward. She came willingly, settling astride his lap, his hard length pressing against her through the denim and the thin barrier of her underwear. The closeness drew a shaky breath from them both.

The kiss deepened—unhurried still, but no longer restrained. His mouth opened under hers; their tongues met in a slow, searching glide, and she tasted the faint salt of him, the warmth he'd been holding back. They parted only to breathe against each other's skin before seeking again. A fine tremor ran through his fingers as he found her zipper. The teeth parted with a soft, continuous sound. He pushed the fabric from her shoulders with careful urgency, and the dress slid down her arms to gather at her waist. He unhooked her bra with steadier hands, drawing the straps down until the lace fell away. Cool air touched her skin for a single second before the heat of his mouth closed over her breast.