Ex-Communication, Peter Clines [ebook reader online free txt] 📗

she said. A moment passed and her free hand went up to sweep a strand of ebony hair away from her face. As she lowered it, she paused to tug at the collar of her blouse.

The silence stretched out for another few seconds before Danielle cleared her throat. “Hello,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting … we … We didn’t know George was … seeing anyone.”

“You,” said Barry, “are very pretty.”

Stealth’s lips twitched and she dipped her head to him. “Thank you.”

Danielle set the wine down on the table. Then she picked it back up. “George, do you have a corkscrew?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

The redhead nodded, glanced at the other woman again, and vanished across the room. St. George separated his fingers from Stealth’s and followed Danielle into the kitchen.

She turned on him as soon as he stepped through the doorway. “It’s her, isn’t it?” whispered Danielle. It wasn’t a question.

“What?”

“Don’t play stupid, George.”

“I’m not playing.”

She glanced back at the living room with wide eyes. They could hear Barry filling the air with small talk. He was quizzing the dark-haired woman on her favorite movies.

Danielle looked at St. George. “Want to know something? Women size each other up all the time. We’re way more competitive than men. That’s why no one ever knows who I am out of the armor.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I know those hips and that rack, I just never see them without black spandex and leather straps stretched across them. And besides, I screened her when we moved into the Mount, remember? I didn’t see her face, but I know she’s black.”

A wisp of smoke sighed out between his lips. “Don’t say anything, okay?”

“Don’t say anything?!” Danielle swung the bottle back at the doorway. “What the hell is going on?”

“She’s trying to socialize, okay? She hasn’t dealt with anyone without her mask on in three years.”

“And you know what that says to me? She’s going to kill us all because we’ve seen her face.”

“Please,” he said. “Just be cool about this. For me. She needs it.”

She glared at him for a moment, then thrust her hand out. “Corkscrew.”

He pulled open a drawer, fumbled through the collection of kitchen tools, and held up a corkscrew. “Thank you,” he said.

She pulled it from his fingers. “Don’t thank me yet.” She took a deep breath and headed back into the living room. She ran into Stealth in the doorway. They stood eye to eye for a moment.

“Have you started the pasta?” Stealth asked.

Danielle swallowed. St. George shook his head. “No, I was just about to.”

“I will take care of it,” she said. She stepped to the oven. Danielle vanished back to the living room.

Barry gave a couple frantic waves when St. George returned, and the hero crouched by the wheelchair. “Where?” demanded Barry. “Where in God’s name did you find a woman like that?”

“What?”

“Her. Karen. Where’d she come from?”

He blinked and exchanged a glance with Danielle. “Are you serious?”

“Of course I am.”

“You … you probably just never noticed her before.”

“It’s the Mount,” hissed Barry. “You can’t hide someone who looks like that. Was she from Yuma?”

St. George shook his head. “No, she’s been with us all along.”

“Liar. I know her from somewhere, though.”

“Maybe right here?”

“Your Jedi mind tricks won’t work on me. I’ll figure this out.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of his wheelchair.

Stealth stepped back into the main room. “Dinner should be ready in fifteen minutes,” she said. “The wine should have just enough time to breathe.”

“It was only a step above Two Buck Chuck before the end of the world,” said Danielle. Her lips twitched into a smile. “I’m not sure if breathing’s going to help it any.”

“Still,” said Barry, “it’ll be better than that fruit cider–stuff they’re brewing down in Larchmont.”

“I’ve got a bottle of that, too,” said St. George. He tipped his chin at Danielle. “Did you finish gathering up all those helmets?”

She shook her head. “Not yet. I went out with Cesar riding shotgun and got maybe two-thirds of them. We might’ve missed a couple.” She sank the corkscrew into the top of the wine bottle. “Something kind of strange I meant to tell you. There’s a lot of military helmets out there.”

“There were several units of Marines and National Guard in Los Angeles before the fall,” said Stealth.

Danielle nodded. “I’d expect some, yeah, with all the stuff Legion scavenged. The percentage just seems kind of high. I mean, didn’t we gather up a lot of that stuff when we were setting up the Mount?”

“Has anyone else thought that we need a new name?” asked Barry. He’d already started in on the first loaf of bread. “I mean, this is the Mount here, yeah, but are we going to call everything inside the Big Wall ‘The Mount’ or what?”

“That would be up to the civilian government,” said Stealth, “would it not?”

“Yeah,” he said, “sorry. Shouldn’t bore you with shop talk.”

The cork popped on the wine. Salad was tossed. Pasta was drained. Danielle sat down across from Barry. St. George and Stealth flanked them. They passed the salad and the bread. St. George poured the wine.

They paused with their glasses in the air. He realized they were looking at him. “Toast from the host,” said Barry.

“Yeah,” Danielle said. “This may be the last bottle of real wine in the world. Let’s do it justice.”

“There are nineteen pre-outbreak bottles in the Mount,” said Stealth. “Several families hold on to them for special occasions.” St. George gave her a look and her shoulders slumped. She gave a forced, awkward shrug. “Or so I have heard.”

St. George raised his glass. “I guess … to bringing the world back to life.”

“In the good way,” smiled Barry.

“In the good way,” agreed St. George.

Their glasses chimed together over the bread basket. Stealth put her lips on the rim, but barely let a drop touch her tongue.

Barry began to load up his plate. Danielle, seated across from the dark-haired woman, had another sip of wine and seemed to relax. Stealth tore off a small piece of bread, then