Isolation , Jones, Nathan [top 20 books to read TXT] 📗

long. Charlie had informed her that her fiancé wasn't in a good place at the moment; even with how angry he'd been at Jay, and how much he'd wanted to stop him, there were some things no one should have to witness.

From Charlie's downcast gaze, it was obvious he was equally shaken. Val and Tallie had been sitting with him when Aimee left, doing their best to keep him out of his own head.

It felt weird to just be sauntering out past the earth berm they'd made to protect themselves from Jay's goons. She knew some of those people were still out there, and Denny was keeping up a strong force of scouts to make sure they weren't still hanging around to cause trouble.

But with the battle won and Jay dead, Aimee had a feeling that the people who'd terrorized them for so long were finally going to leave. Go back to Wensbrook, maybe, or wander off to become looters and bandits. Some might even decide to stick around and try to keep raiding around Stanberry.

But without Jay's organization, their back was broken. They'd never be the same threat they'd been before.

She hoped.

There were plenty of people out in the woods. Some were taking advantage of the new feeling of safety to gather firewood, giving the clearing with Jay's body a wide berth. Others were searching for Jay's people who'd thrown Molotovs at the barricades, making sure they hadn't gone into hiding instead of running.

Aimee saw Ben walking back towards camp, looking sweaty and exhausted and carrying a shovel over one shoulder, and veered aside to meet him. “Have you seen Chet?” she called.

Her soon to be brother-in-law, who already felt like a brother to her, nodded and jerked his head back the way he'd come. “He's taking a breather on a log a ways back.” He forced a smile. “Guess in his old age he can't handle a little manual labor.”

She lightly slapped his chest with the back of her hand. “Hey, that's my fiancé you're talking about.” When he didn't respond with his usual easygoing grin she paused and gave his face a closer look, seeing the tension there. “Hey, you doing okay?”

Ben shrugged. “Jay got a bit too close to punching my ticket while we were chasing him. And then when he . . .” He trailed off, paling, and shook his head. “I hated the guy, but I wanted him to face justice. That was hard to watch.”

Aimee pulled him into a comforting hug, then glanced over his shoulder. “I should check on Chet.”

He nodded. “I'm heading back to camp to sleep for a week.”

She patted his arm and continued on, eyes searching until through the trees she spotted her fiancé slumped on a fallen log. His head hung low, and he showed no sign of noticing her until she settled down on the log beside him. Then he jumped slightly in surprise and looked up at her.

“Oh, hey babe,” he mumbled, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her close. “Sorry, didn't mean to make you worry and come all the way out here.”

“I wanted to be with you,” Aimee said, resting her head on his shoulder and snuggling closer. He was caked with dirt from digging, which had become streaks of mud from the sweat soaking his shirt and skin, but she didn't mind; she liked the smell of his sweat, and even his BO wasn't that bad.

Besides, even if he was covered in sewage, it wouldn't stop her from holding the man she loved when he needed her comforting presence.

After a few minutes of heavy silence she shifted to look up into his eyes. “It sounds like it was pretty bad.”

“It was messed up,” he agreed in a hollow voice, tearing his gaze from her to go back to staring at his hands. He shook his head as if trying to dislodge the awful memory. “Just seriously messed up, you know?”

“What happened?” she asked gently.

Chet took a while to reply. “After Jay started shooting up the camp it was all just a blur of running through the woods, ducking from tree to tree expecting to get shot any second. Then I spotted him dropping from the tree and running away and I started chasing him. We almost had him but he fired back at us, nearly hit Ben, and we backed off a bit.

“Then he tripped in that clearing, went down like a ton of bricks and his rifle went flying. After that he just knelt there, like he'd knocked himself out on his hands and knees, until Nick got there and started talking to him. After that . . .”

He shuddered and fell silent. From his posture it was clear that was as much as he wanted to say.

Aimee took his hand, squeezing it soothingly. “Why don't we head back to camp, honey? Ben was going to sleep, and that sounds pretty good to me, too.”

“Yeah.” Her fiancé seemed to come back to himself, nodding firmly as he pushed to his feet, offering her a hand up as well. “Yeah, that does sound good. I haven't had a decent night's sleep since this trouble with Jay started, but now that he's gone maybe I'll be able to.”

She wrapped her arms around him as they started back to camp, holding on even when navigating through the woods like that was awkward.

She was torn about the way Jay had died; part of her was glad that nobody she cared about had been forced to kill him, but another part of her regretted that they'd had to witness his grisly end.

Hopefully time would heal this wound as well, just like it had allowed her to recover her strength when she could barely twitch a finger after nearly dying from Zolos. Just another thing they'd survived in this messed up world since the pandemic hit.

With this nightmarish war with Wensbrook hopefully done with, maybe things could finally start getting back to normal. They could do