Chapter 36

The sound of a zipper ripping quickly had Rain’s eyes flying open just as quickly as she shot up and looked around, not sure where she was or what was happening but fairly certain she could be dead in a second or two if she didn’t get her wits about her.
“We need to move out soon,” Mist said, leaning in the flap of the tent. “Up and at ‘em.”
Relieved that she wasn’t about to meet her maker but still not sure what was happening, Rain dropped back down to try to clear her thoughts, expecting her head to fall onto the floor of the tent. Instead, she landed on something warm that made a soft groaning noise as her head made contact.
Once again, she was up, spinning around this time as she prayed it was Adam and not an infiltrator. The former Inseminator lie next to her, a smirk on his face as if he were trying to hold back a laugh at her expense. “Sorry,” Rain mumbled, sliding away from him. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“It’s okay,” he said, sitting up. “How did you sleep?”
Rain didn’t answer him as she continued to look around the tent. The last thing she remembered was going out of the tent and sitting next to him because she was so uncomfortable sharing the tent with Mist and Walt. Now, she was in here, sleeping with Adam. Well, not sleeping with him. Just sleeping on him. Not on him….
“Rain?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. What?” she asked, returning her attention to the handsome man whose hair was slightly askew from sleep, but even with that, he looked gorgeous.
“I asked how you slept.”
“Right, right. Good. I guess.” The urge to look around again was overwhelming. Instead, she asked, “How did you sleep?”
Adam was making that face again, the one that said he thought she was funny, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. “I slept all right. I wasn’t sure if I woke you when I carried you in here, but since you fell asleep out there, and our shift was over, I thought you should probably come back inside the tent. I hope that’s okay.”
“You carried me? Inside?” she asked, folding her arms around her knees. She had no recollection whatsoever of that. But she did remember then that when she’d gone out to sit with him, she’d fallen asleep. Had it been against his shoulder? She felt a wave of heat slide up her neck and imagined her face was turning as red as her hair.
“Yeah. I didn’t want to wake you. I guess I didn’t?”
“No, nope. Not at all.” She swallowed hard, shaking her head. “Guess I wasn’t a lot of help on ‘our’ watch.”
With a chuckle, Adam reached over and put his hand on her arm. “It’s okay. I told you I wasn’t tired. Even in here, it took me forever to fall asleep. I probably only got a half hour or so total. It’s all right, though. I’m ready to go. We should get to it. We need to get out of here before the Mothers have a chance to catch up.”
He was certainly right on that account. They probably hadn’t stopped to sleep at all. “Yeah, good point.” Rain grabbed her blanket and began to fold it into as tight a square as she could get it so that it would fit back into her backpack. She checked the tent to see if she’d gotten anything else out but didn’t see any other items that needed to be put away. Her gun was lying against the wall of the tent, which made her nervous. If she’d been so out of it she didn’t even realize she’d been asleep on Adam’s shoulder or carried inside of a tent and gently laid down on the ground--or was that also on his shoulder--what was to stop her from blowing her own head off or someone else’s?
Adam folded up the blanket he’d been using but didn’t put it in his pack. She imagined it had to have come out of one of the other two’s packs. He took it with him as he slid outside, his weapon holstered. Rain averted her eyes, as if looking at his backside might cause her to throw herself at him in an even more embarrassing way than she’d apparently already done. Once he was outside and she was alone, she took a few calming breaths, grabbed her gun and her blanket and stuck her head out to see the sun was just coming up.
“There she is,” Mist said, a suspicious grin on her face as Rain stood, noticing Walt had put the fire out and was packing up. “Hungry?” She offered Rain a stick of dried meat, and she took it, not realizing how hungry she was until after she took the first bite.
Mist pressed a button on the tent and it folded itself back into a more manageable size so she could shove it in her pack. Since they’d eaten and drank some of the water, there was more room in there now than there had been before. For a moment, thoughts of how far they had to go became overwhelming. What if they couldn’t find food? They had hydration pills and protein packs, as well as nutrient pills, but that wouldn’t do anything against the sensations of hunger pains or thirst. Rain took some deep breaths, realizing she was letting her thoughts get away from her. They’d be lucky to get to a point where they were far enough away to be hungry or thirsty. Chances were they’d be dead at the hand of the Mothers, a big cat, or a tragic accident that they wouldn’t ever reach such a distance.
“Are you all right?” Adam asked her, putting his backpack on. The strap scraped against the short sleeve of the white shirt he’d changed into at some point, and she noticed how chiseled his bicep was--not for the first time. Every inch of him was pure muscle, and she couldn’t help the images of his naked body in the soft glow of the IW emergency lighting that came to mind.
“I’m fine,” Rain stammered, wondering if he could tell she was practically drooling over him. She wouldn’t have been surprised at all if he didn’t have that amused look on his face, but he didn’t. His expression read something else entirely, as if he were also attempting to press images of her out of his mind that would distract him from the task at hand. She assumed she had to be imagining that. Wishful thinking. While she remembered the conversation they’d had the night before about how the former IW men might feel about relations with women now that they were free to make their own decisions, and she’d even held his hand for a time, it was silly for her to think that he might be having the same feelings for her as she realized she had begun to develop for him.
“I think we are about two miles ahead of the lead Mothers at the moment, if my calculations are correct,” Mist said, staring at the blinking red dots on her device. “That’s not much, especially if they are using land riders. So we need to get going. We should’ve probably left already, but the two of you were sleeping so peacefully….”
It wasn’t like Mist to put their safety at risk for some rest. “We might want to pick up the pace then,” Rain said.
“And head that way,” Walt added, pointing at a more northeasterly heading. “We know they’re already headed almost due north.”
“Sounds good to me,” Adam said, and the four of them took off at a jog, Mist giving the place one last look around to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind. The remnants of the fire were buried, and as far as Rain could tell, there was no sign that they’d been there at all. She just hoped the Mothers weren’t able to pick up on anything they’d missed, and if they did find their campsite, they wouldn’t be able to find their trail. It didn’t seem like a good day to die.