Read Contaminated 2: Mercy Mode for Free Online

me …
    “Oh my God.” Dillon grabs me by the shoulders, turning me to face him, not letting go, even though I wince at his grip. “Velvet. What the hell happened to you?”
    “I just ran into someone in the woods—”
    “Who? Who did this?”
    Carefully, I shrug out of his grasp and go to my dresser to pull out a pair of pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. I slip the bottoms on without taking off the towel, but then keep my back to him while I let it drop so I can pull on my top. Bending to pick up the towel, I wince again and gasp a little at the stab of pain in my ribs.
    “Velvet.”
    I turn. Dillon takes my wrist and leads me to the mirror on the back of the door. He turns me and lifts the hem of my shirt to reveal a cascade of darkening bruises all the way up and down my back. He’s gentle, but I ache. Suddenly, now that I’m letting myself think about it, I hurt everywhere.
    He touches the bruises lightly with a fingertip, and our eyes meet in the reflection. I give him a small smile. “Hey. It could’ve been worse. She didn’t bite me. Tried, but didn’t.”
    “What did you do to her?”
    I don’t want to think about that. My chin goes up. “I fought her off.”
    “A Connie.”
    “Yes.”
    “There are more of them all the time. Turning.” Dillon frowns.
    “Yeah. So much for the mandatory testing.” I tug my shirt down and push past him. I need to check on Opal and Mrs. Holly and Mom before I go to bed. I need to check the locks on the doors—not that they’ll keep out anyone determined to get inside. I need to turn off the generator. I need to …
    “Velvet,” Dillon says again. Louder this time. Harder. “What happened today at the ration station?”
    My legs are sore from running and kicking, but they should still be strong enough to hold me up, and I mutter a low curse when they betray me. I sink onto the edge of my bed, which is inches from Dillon’s. We could reach out in the night and hold hands across the space between them, if we wanted to. We never have, but we could.
    “The Voice was talking about it on the radio,” he says. “There was a riot? Were you there when it happened?”
    Briefly, I describe the woman who wanted peanut butter. I look at him without flinching. “It was ours, Dillon. I couldn’t let her just take it.”
    He sits on his bed. Our knees touch. He reaches for my hands, linking our fingers together. “You can’t go by yourself anymore. The woods are too dangerous. And if there are going to be riots—”
    I squeeze his hands. “Hey. Stop. You know that’s unrealistic. You have to work. In another six months, so will I. And then what will happen to Opal and Mom?”
    “Mrs. Holly will be here. And that has nothing to do with you waiting for me to go with you—”
    “And what happens when they pull me aside for testing at the checkpoint, just because the soldier in charge of things is bored that day? You know how much more likely it is for that to happen there than at the pickup location itself.”
    Dillon doesn’t answer.
    “We need to stock up,” I tell him sharply. “I can’t miss a ration delivery. We can’t let the vegetables in the garden die or go to waste. We need to be harvesting and drying and canning and hoarding, Dillon. Because when I turn eighteen, they’re going to assign me to some job that means I have to leave the house for hours a day, just like you do now, and there won’t be anyone here to do everything—”
    I’m crying, and I hate it, but Dillon enfolds me in his arms. He kisses and hugs me every day, but it’s been a long time since he held me like this. I melt into him. He strokes my hair. He rocks me a little, back and forth, and I want to let him soothe me, but all at once everything seems so hopeless that there is no solace, not even in his arms.
    “You don’t have to do all this yourself, Velvet. I’m here. I’m a part of this family now. You have to start letting me help you.”
    I say nothing.
    Dillon kisses the