The Remaining: Refugees (19 page)

Lee
grabbed a fork
. "Thanks
, Marie
."

"Hey there, Lee." Angela appeared beside him and
put a lingering hand on his arm. "Breakfast was delicious,
"
she complimented Marie.

"Thanks," Marie smiled back, and Lee noticed her eyes flick to him, as though gauging his response to Angela's presence. "How's Abby?"

"She's good." Angela
sighed
. "Much better, thank you."

Ever since Lee had rescued Angela and Abby
—
after gunning their infected husband and father down right in front of them
—
Angela had worried about Abby's increasing withdrawal. She spoke very little over the following months, acted out around Lee, and often refused meals. Just recently, inside the relative safety of Camp Ryder, she'd begun to open up a bit more. Now she was playing with some of the other children, and Angela said she was acting more like her old self.

Her attitude towards Lee had not changed, but Lee could not blame her for that. She was young, and her understanding of things was limited.
It would be a long time before s
he
was
able to wrap her brain around why Lee had
killed
her father.

Lee wasn't sure what had happened inside Angela
’s mind
, but she had never
held
any animosity towards Lee for what he had done, and
he had never seen her grieve
for her late husband.
It
was too much of a sensitive and uncomfortable subject for Lee to broach, so he stayed the hell away from it.

Throughout the last fe
w months, they had grown closer and i
t was the closeness of two survivors that have made it to the other side of some wretched crucible together. Though their trials were far from over, that common thread still bound them
,
and the comfort that they took from each other had grown.

Whether there was a name for this type of relationship, or whether it was some strange psychological syndrome that they were suffering
from
as a result of what they had been through together, Lee hadn't the slightest idea. Nor did he c
are to ruminate on it
.

"Glad to hear it," Marie said, breaking into Lee's thoughts. "Captain, you eat your food. Angela, make sure he eats it all."

"You are looking a little thin," Angela pointed out.

"Great."
He looked at the two women
. "Gettin' it from all sides now."

Lee took his plate of food and headed for the door.

Angela walked beside him. "Little crowded in here. You wanna eat outside?"

"Yeah, that's fine."

Outside, the shade was chilly, but the sun was warm. It would be more pleasant
today than it had been in several days
. Perhaps the last week had just been a cold snap. In Lee's experience, the temperatures during a North Carolina November fluctuated greatly. It might be forty degrees out one day and seventy the next. Typically, though, Lee noticed that it would begin to chill towards the end of November. Then there would be one last little heat wave of sixty-or-seventy degree temperatures, as though summer was attempting to get one last kick in, and then the climate would fall into winter.

They chose a place in the sun where a few plastic crates had been set up around a small
fire pit
that no one appeared to be using. Lumps of ashes were all that remained of the fuel that had burned the night before. There was still some mild warmth coming from underneath the blanket of gray.

Angela sat beside him on another crate and clasped her hands between her knees, facing the sun and seeming to enjoy the warmth. She looked content.

Lee chewed a few bites and swallowed. "Where's Sam today?"

"He went out with Keith again. They left really early this morning."

"Oh." Lee nodded. "Hunting?"

"Yeah. Rabbits and squirrels."

"Okay."

Angela looked at him, one blue eye regarding him, while the other squinted shut against the morning sun. "I think he knows that you're very busy," she said. "I don't think he holds it against you."

"Well, I wasn't planning on doing anything today," Lee picked at a bit of venison in his teeth and wondered why he felt so responsible for the damn kid. Guilty that he was gone all the time, like Sam was his own son and Lee was missing his baseball games to go on business trips. "It's not like that," Lee murmured to his own thoughts.

"Like what?" Angela asked.

Lee tapped the fork against the plate. "I'm not his father."

Angela hesitated for a moment. "I know that. I'm sure he knows that too."

Lee sighed and leaned back on his crate a bit, slouching his shoulders. "I feel like I should be."

She turned partially towards him and rested her head on her hand. "Why?"

"I guess I feel partially responsible for his father's death. I didn't stop his father's death, and I saved Sam. That makes me the de facto caretaker."

Angela shook her head. "Sam likes you, Lee. You're like a hero to him. But I think he views
you as more of a...big brother.
O
r maybe an uncle."

"Hm." Lee considered this.

"You can't really replace a child's parents, Lee."

"I wasn't trying to replace..."

"At his age, that's a hole that's never going to get filled. All you can do now is be a friend."

Lee set his empty plate down on the ground beside him. "Yeah, I suppose so."

Angela reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "You do good."

He smiled
guardedly. "Thanks."

They passed another ten minutes, just sitting in the sun and enjoying the warmth. Angela sat with her elbows leaning against her knees, and her hands clasped in front of her, a contemplative pose, and he sensed that she was taking her time, considering her words.

When she spoke, it was delicately. "I want to ask you something, I don't want you to be angry at me. I just...need to know something."

Lee
tensed, a bowstring being drawn back.

"How do you feel about Julia?"

There it is,
Lee thought.
You knew it was coming.

"Julia," Lee said with a deep breath. "Why do you ask?"

Angela laughed, but it sounded sad. "We're not married, Lee. Stop putting responsibilities on yourself that don't exist."

"Yeah, I know." Lee turned slightly so he was looking at Angela. She was shading one side of her face with a hand. Her smile was enigmatic. "Julia...is a good teammate."

The smile remained, but Angela looked away from Lee. "Old Captain Harden. Always such a secretive creature."

Lee scratched underneath his chin where his beard itched. "Well...what do you want me to say?"

"I don't
want
you to say anything.
"

A moment of silence passed between them and they both just looked out at the barren woods beyond the barbed-wire-topped fences.

"I don't know what we are," Lee stated.

"Who?"

"Me and you."

Angela considered this at length. Lee was surprised that she did not have a ready answer for him. He had always kind of figured that he was the only one confused about things,
and that she
would have a better idea of what was going on. Apparently the mystery of them was just as elusive to her.

"I don't know," she said, as though coming to a decision. "But I think we trust each other. I think we lean on each other. Maybe because we don't think there is anyone else to lean on."

A gust of wind blew a bit of hair into her face and she hooked it with a finger and drew it back. "Maybe there would be more between us if we didn't both realize just how fucked up that would be."

They both laughed suddenly.

"Right?" She looked at him, sheepishly.

"Yeah," Lee smiled at the ground
. "I guess it would be kind of fucked up."

Another long silence.

"It's sad, actually," she said.

"How so?"

"It's sad that we still think like that, when obviously things have changed." Angela looked
at her hands
and the stubborn dirt under her fingernails that she picked at incessantly. "Otherwise..."

Lee waited for her to finish, but she did not.

She sniffed and Lee thought it sounded wet, but when he looked she had turned her face away from him. Her voice was
solid
when she spoke. "You don't have to sleep up in the office, you know."

"Alright.
"

He didn't want to leave
her
quest
ion unanswered.

"Julia is a good friend," he said. "A good teammate."

"You can tell me if you like her."

"I do in some ways," Lee said earnestly. "In other ways she pisses me off."

Angela smiled. "And you can tell me if you have feelings for her."

Lee
shook his head
. "I'll let you know if that happens."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"Captain Harden," a voice said from behind them.

Lee turned and found a man of about thirty years that he recognized from Camp Ryder. He'd never had
much reason to speak
with the man, but they'd been friendly in passing. He was one of those that gave Lee a respectful nod when he saw him, but
never
approach
ed,
and the extent of any conversations they had were one word greetings.

"What can I do for you?" Lee's expression was cautious.

The man glanced quickly between Lee and Angela, but whatever he was thinking remained a mystery. He pointed in a general direction towards the Camp Ryder building. "Could I get you to come with me for a moment? It won't take long."

Lee looked at Angela and she nodded graciously. He stood and motioned the man forward. "Lead the way."

The man turned and began walking, his rifle slung diagonally across his back from shoulder to hip, the barrel pointing down. It swung slightly as he made his way, not into the Camp Ryder building, but around the side of it, towards the rain catches. Lee followed a few paces behind and became suddenly and acutely aware that he was unarmed.

His whole body tensed when he turned the corner.

Facing him were almost twenty armed men.

CHAPTER 9
:
VOLUNTEERS

Unconsciously, Lee's feet spread, and the tension pulled the muscles in his legs taut. He was only about ten feet from the corner of the building, and he estimated he might be able to leap back into cover before they began firing. They were only about twenty feet from him, so he would have to move quickly, as each one of their shots was unlikely to miss at this range.