Alive (The Crave) (11 page)

Olive watched the movement of Rose’s hand on her large belly. She knew who the father of the child was. It was no secret. Reno. He fucked all of them. Olive didn’t like it when he fucked the other girls. A strange feeling would sweep across her body when she would hear his thighs slapping against the legs of the other women. She never said anything, though. This was her new station in life, what she had accepted when Reno had found her some eight months ago practically starving to death.
“If you fuck me, I’ll take care of you…forever.”
Those were his words and she had happily spread her legs for him. He wasn’t the first man to put his dick between her legs, but he was the only one who had asked permission.

When she came into the group, Laney and Rose were already with him. Olive seemed to be the only one who happily accepted his sexual ministrations. She’d watched him fuck the other girls more times than she could count. Laney always laid there and took it, never responding unless he ordered her into a position.

Rose didn’t. She would fight him, curse him in Spanish. It was the only time she ever heard the woman speak. Olive couldn’t understand. Reno wasn’t a bad looking man. Tall and strong with thick shoulders and a handsome face, he was of Latino descent, though his voice bore no hint of an accent. Even covered in the dark beard and long hair, he was still appealing to the eye of a woman. She didn’t know for sure, she figured he was in his mid-thirties.

He was brash and over-bearing, but that was part of the deal. The women did what he wanted and he took care of them. Simple as that. More than anything, he always got what he wanted even after Rose fought him, he would always win. Another reason Olive didn’t understand where the woman’s fight came from. There had been multiple times where she wanted yell at him.
I’m willing! Why even bother with that tramp?
She never did. She would just lay there and listen to it.

“Rose!” The woman flinched, the movement of her hand stopping in the middle of her belly. Rose stood and stomped over to the bag that had their water bottles in it. Olive lay back against the worn blanket. She sucked in a deep breath. Her life had changed since her and Eve had split up. The funny thing was, she didn’t miss her sister a bit. It seemed harsh, but the reality was that she didn’t care about Eve.

She didn’t hate her, no, to hate was to go against God himself, but she knew she didn’t love her. Their parents hadn’t loved Eve, at least not in any fashion that Olive could identify with.
“She doesn’t deserve love.”
Olive could remember her momma’s words one night after they’d finished their prayers.
“She’s damned and she always will be. Nothing can save her. We just have to accept it.”
Olive accepted it. There were just some souls who were inherently bad no matter how hard they tried. There was no escaping the darkness inside them.

Olive rubbed her hand up and down the rough fabric of her blanket. Her life had definitely changed since leaving her sister that day in Louisiana a year ago, and she couldn’t help but feel it was for the better.

Chapter Twelve

Eve took a deep breath as she stared down at the ruined picture in her hands. It wasn’t much and if the world was a how it used to be, it would have been thrown in the trash long ago. These days, pictures didn’t exist anymore and the charred piece of film in the shattered glass frame was probably the last picture Eve would ever see of herself.

In it, her and her sister were around the ages of ten and twelve. They were at school, which was why she had it to begin with. Her parents weren’t ones who took pictures of their daughters, at least not of Eve. There had been plenty around the house of Olive, the blessing child.

Olive wasn’t smiling in the picture. She stared at the camera with the same sea-green eyes that Eve had. She had been a child who smiled a lot, but looking at the picture one would think that Olive may not have smiled because she didn’t get what she wanted, or something along the lines of the equivalent. Eve knew the truth though. Olive wasn’t smiling because she had to take a picture
with
Eve. Her little sister was just as much of a monster as their parents were when it came to feelings about Eve.

Eve’s heart twinged with pain. Even after the Crave had set in and they’d left the trailer, her sister had seemed to despise her even more than in the before. She couldn’t understand it, but she accepted it. She never expected Olive to change her feelings toward her, even though Eve had always loved her sister regardless. She figured it would take no less than an apocalypse to change her mind and not even something as mountainous as that, had worked.

She couldn’t believe that out of all the pictures that could have survived, this was one she found underneath a battered piece of tin she’d kicked with her black boot the day before.

The picture was the reason she had been ready to go. Ready to get the hell out of there. She had shoved the splintered frame into her pack and turned away from the rubble, before the tears began to fall.

Eve ran her hand up and down the weathered frame. The candlelight danced over the broken glass. She should have blown the thing out by now, but no jenks had yet to show up and she hated to admit how much she enjoyed the sight of Gage sleeping soundly a few feet away.

When she thought of what they did together just hours before, her cheeks heated and she glanced over at his perfect sleeping form. He had one arm over his head, the other gripping the shaft of Hilda.
Stupid name.
But she smiled in spite of herself. She didn’t want to like Gage, not after their history.

Never in her life had she gotten so carried away when it came to something sexual. The first and only time she’d had sex with Gage, she’d been nervous and scared. But what happened today was totally different. The things he’d said and the unbearable sexual tension that had been building between them had set her on fire, sending her body into the motions of getting what she wanted. She wasn’t that girl who let people walk all over her while she just laid there and took it. She was the girl who got things done on her own terms with a kill stroke to anyone who didn’t like it.

It was nothing.
Just two people helping each other get off.
That’s all. Really.
A strange feeling traced through her body, but she ignored it. She took a deep breath and looked back down at the picture in her hand for a moment before shoving it angrily back into her pack. What was it with these emotions running through her like triathlon? One minute she was horny, the next, she was sad, and then the two converged into anger.
Ugh.
She thought she had left those petty emotions behind long ago.

She looked up at the—barely visible—chandelier that hung above the huge living room. The candle’s light was too dim to fully illuminate its priceless beauty. In the sweep they’d done of the house she’d seen nothing else that had any sort of value, a bummer, but she could accept it.

She stood up carefully, shouldered her pack and stuck her craftsman in between. Eve was never more than two feet away from it. She had to have it with her at all times in case something happened and she was caught unawares by some jenks. She didn’t want to have to worry about trying to fight her way to the only things that belonged to her. Her pack was everything. Even though heavy and somewhat of a burden, it was hers and it had taken her a long time to fill the inside.

She reached for the candle and stood fully erect over Gage, holding her breath, hoping that she didn’t wake him. There were two reasons for this—one being that he needed his sleep like anyone else. Two—she didn’t want him to know how badly she wanted the damned thing. Her fingers were already shaking now, just at the thought of wrapping them around the sparkling crystal.
I’ll just take one…or two and hoof it back down here.

She moved as silently and quickly as she could muster, taking far longer than she would have liked to climb the flight of stairs and walk around the railing closest to the grand chandelier.

She set the candle down on the dark stone floor. She gripped the dusty wooden banister with both hands and hefted herself into a sitting position. With slow movements she maneuvered her body to stand on two feet in a crouching position with both hands still gripping the railing in front of her.

Slowly but surely, she stood up. Her eyes focused on her prize a little over a foot away. She turned her body and wobbled. Instantly she wished she had left her pack down by the candle. It was making it so much harder to maintain her balance.
Too late for that now.

She leaned forward, releasing the rail with one of her hands and grabbed for the closest crystal. Her hand slipped around the cool glass like it was a droplet of heaven. She smiled and tugged on the gem until it came free. She shoved it in her pocket, afraid that if she dropped it onto the first floor balcony, it would shatter into a million pieces.

She reached forward for another. Her thighs were burning from her crouched position. Her palms were sweating and she couldn’t stop smiling. Her cheeks ached from the way the muscles pulled. She hadn’t found something as invaluable as this before.

She jerked a second one off, her body teetering on the edge of the railing. This time she had to pull harder and the rest of the little crystals tinkled together, sounding like a rustling wind chime in the breeze. She froze, hoping Gage didn’t hear.
What difference does it make if he does? Who cares?
Her subconscious prodded at her, but her answer to either of those questions was far more complicated than she wanted to think about.

She’d planned to only take two and call it a night, but now that she was here and could feel the heaviness of them in her pocket, she wanted more. And why not? Anyone who cared about this old thing was long since dead.

She leaned forward again, farther this time, toward one of the large jewels that hung closer to the center of the chandelier.
This one will be worth even more than the other two!
Her fingers closed around the gem. She took a deep breath, preparing to tug it free. She tightened her grip on the rail, ignoring the way her thighs screamed in displeasure and—

“What in the hell are you doing?”

Eve jumped at the sound of Gage’s voice. Her sweaty palm slipped on the large gem and she was forced to lean back and grab the railing with both hands to keep herself from falling to her death.

“Fuck.” She hopped down. Her whole body trembled, and not because he scared her, but because she hadn’t gotten that last jewel. She could still feel its cool ridged surface against her hand.

“What were you doing?” he repeated.

She glanced up at the sharp edge in his voice. The sight of his gloriously bare torso did a number on her insides, making her want to run her hands up and down his chiseled perfection.
How can someone look this sexy?
It shouldn’t have been physically possible.

Instead of answering, she shrugged and tried to move past him to head back for the stairwell.

“I asked you a question,” he said between gritted teeth. He blocked her from passing, moving his large body in front of hers.

She met his angry gaze.
Why is he so angry?
“Just getting a souvenir.” She shrugged her shoulders and moved to go around him again. He didn’t let her.

“You mean stealing?”

Eve frowned. “Not stealing. Looting.”

“Looting is for food and stuff you actually need. Not priceless heirlooms that don’t belong to you.” The rage in his voice had Eve taking a step backward.

A wave of anger flushed her body. “Excuse me?”

“Did you know that James Jackson bought that chandelier for his wife, Jean, when he built the plantation?”

“I hardly see what that has to do with—”

“Did you know that she was sick? Dying—but he didn’t know that. He was sure that if he bought her something that sparkled and lit her home as bright as she lit his heart that she would pull through and live. He was sure that she would get better.” Gage took a step-closer. His fists were clenched at his sides, his gaze bored into hers in the dim candlelight.

“Gage—”

“He had to order it. I don’t know how he found it, but he did. It came by boat from France and cost him more than he spent building the whole house. Each one is a gray diamond and there are more than a thousand on this chandelier.”

“Wow.” The two diamonds weighed heavy in her pocket and suddenly became so much more than she expected them to be. Real diamonds, big enough to fit over half of her palm. They were worth a fortune!

“It didn’t come in time though. She died in the bed they shared, months before it ever reached the plantation.”

Eve frowned at the sadness that replaced the anger in his voice.

“You don’t think it’s sad?”

He must have picked up on her shocked expression.

She shook her head. “Sounds like a wonderful way to die—in the bed of the man you love at the hands of a sickness that doesn’t reanimate your corpse and turn you into a monster.” She sounded like a bitch, but she didn’t care.

His gaze hardened again. “You were still stealing.”

Eve couldn’t believe her ears. “So what, Gage? Who cares? It’s not like good ol’ James Jackson, slave owner extraordinaire, is on his way home from work with a ladder to dust the damn thing.” She turned on her heel and took a few steps. She made up her mind to just go around the entire floor to get back to the stairs since he wasn’t budging.

The diamonds pressed against her pocket as she walked, threatening to pop out of the small space of her denim shorts. She stopped and shrugged off her bag. She couldn’t lose them, not after all the trouble she went to, especially having to listen to Gage gripe about it.

“I’m the only living person left in my family, Eve. The diamonds—all of this—belongs to me!” Her pack had just hit the ground when he came up behind her and grabbed her arm. “What were you going to do Eve? Just steal from me and leave? High tail it out of here before I woke up? Was that your brilliant plan?”

She turned back around and looked into his hysterical gaze. “What?” She shook her head in confusion.
Is that why he’s mad? Cause he thought I was going to leave?
“No.”