Sorrow's Gift

Chapter Thirty: Karmen

Karmen sat in the back of the Humvee, her jaw tense and her legs crossed underneath her. The others were outside giving away half their water and food and she was stuck in the truck with the girl. She had a bad feeling about this girl, like she'd been keeping secrets from them.

A headache pounded in her skull, and all Karmen really wanted to do was close her eyes and sleep. Connecting with that huge group of rotters on the highway had taken a lot out of her. And it had honestly scared her to her core.

No human should have that kind of power. It made her feel dangerous, like she couldn't quite trust herself.

She leaned her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes.

They had managed to get through that group of rotters by some miracle, but what happened if she couldn't do it again? What other horrors were they going to face on the road?

There was no way to know, but stopping to give away a bunch of their limited supplies to people they didn't even know was not the answer.

It wasn't that Karmen was completely cold-hearted. She was happy to finally see some survivors, but Parrish and the others needed to get real about how the world was going to work from now on. It was every man for himself out there now. Karmen knew it even though they hadn't had a chance to see it first hand. She wasn't stupid. She knew the horrible things seemingly good people hid behind their perfect families and respectable jobs.

There was no reason to hide the ugliness now. No one would send the bad men to jail, so why not show their true nature? Why not take the things they always wanted?

No government. No consequences.

People would be different now. They weren't going to accept a couple of cases of water and say thank you from the bottom of their hearts.

No, people would see that you had supplies and they would do whatever they had to do to take all of it. They would see kindness as a weakness, and they would exploit and manipulate. It was human nature, and with no government to tell people otherwise, the whole world would go to shit.

Karmen scowled and glanced through the windshield. Noah, Parrish, and Crash were still out there talking to the group of soot-covered people. The older man pointed toward the road that led out of town. Maybe he was giving them directions to a safe place where they could stay. Karmen hoped they were wrapping things up so they could get the heck out of here soon. She did not want to be stranded somewhere on the road come nightfall.

"What's wrong?"

The girl's voice startled her, and Karmen tensed.

"Why do you care?"

The girl shrugged and looked toward the front windows. "I just wonder if these people are your friends or if you somehow got stuck with them and can't seem to get un-stuck," she said. "At first, I thought you guys were all close friends from before, but you don't seem to particularly like them much. Especially the other girl. Parrish."

Karmen swallowed and shifted her legs on the seat. "What about her?"

The girl's eyes seemed to see right through her, and Karmen squirmed under the feel of her gaze.

"You guys were friends before this all happened?" she asked.

Karmen looked down at her fingers and picked at the pink nail polish she'd just put on the other day. It was already ruined from her messing with it, and she realized she'd left the bottle at Crash's. "We were frenemies, I guess."

The girl shook her head. "What's a frenemy?"

Karmen rolled her eyes. Seriously. What planet did this girl grow up on? She seemed to be about their same age, but she was clueless. They'd had to teach her every card game yesterday, as if she'd never played in her life. Then there was that weird cloak in her bag. What was her deal?

"Friends, but enemies," Karmen said.

"How can you be both at the same time?" the girl asked.

Karmen shrugged again and peeled another long section of paint off her nails. "I guess you really can't."

She looked up to see Parrish and Noah squatting together by the supplies, their eyes locked on each other. It twisted her stomach to see them so lovey dovey. They should just kiss already and get it over with.

She pressed her lips together and swallowed her feelings of regret. She'd liked him for such a long time, but it had been his best friend Aaron who had shown interest in dating her. Not Noah.

Never Noah.

Karmen had really only gone out with Aaron to try to make Noah jealous. She'd thought maybe if he had to see her with another guy every day, he would realize how much he liked her.

That plan backfired horribly. She should have known better, really. Noah wasn't the type to ever betray a friend. Once she agreed to go out with Aaron, she was pretty much guaranteeing that Noah would never go out with her. Even if he had liked her.

Which she was sure now he never had. Not in that way, at least.

Thinking back, it seemed that he must have always had a thing for Parrish.

Why had she never realized that before? And why on earth had he never acted on it? Even now that they were all together and were literally, like, the last people on earth, he still hadn't told her how he felt about her. At least not that Karmen could tell.

She peeled the last of the paint off her nails and sighed. She needed to get over it. She couldn't torture herself with this forever. Especially if she was going to be with this group for the rest of her life—however long that might be.

She couldn't even imagine being parted from them anymore. No matter what else happened, they were in this thing together, for better or for worse. And whatever was happening between Parrish and Noah, it was right somehow. Meant to be.

That didn't mean she had to like it, though.

"I was wrong," she said to the girl. She watched as Parrish touched Noah's arm and smiled. "I think you actually can be close to someone—maybe love them—even if you don't always like them."