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I’m hunting. I train the girls because together, we work well. I need you to be here so I know you’re safe. It’s the only way this works.”
    “I hate it here!” he shouted, and I cringed.
    “More comic books? What do you want, Grayson?” He seemed to be doing this more and more as of late.
    “I want you to look at me like I’m old enough to take care of myself! I was taught by Dad, too. I know what to do, Emma. I’m not stupid. I can learn to fight so that I can help you!”
    “You are! But smart people don’t want to go outside; they don’t ask to go outside because it’s not safe!”
    “You do!”
    “I do it because I have to. Dad taught us how, but he also said you needed more training and to be able to control your temper more before you’d be ready to go out. I’ll see what I can find for you today, and I’m planning on going to Spokane soon, so I’ll make sure to hit up the comic book shop.”
    “Promise?” he begrudgingly asked.
    “I promise, and, Grayson. Try not to be in such a hurry to go out there. What you see on those monitors is only half of what happens. I love you, brat.”
    With Grayson settled down, I headed to the main room. I’d redone a lot of the inside to make it more efficient. I walked to the wall of mask, as we referred to it and pulled down a modified sugar skull mask.
    “How many are coming out?” I asked to no one in particular. I didn’t have to, because they knew if they didn’t pitch in, we wouldn’t survive the winter.
    “Kaylah, Greta, and Jillian wanted to go. Who else?” Addy asked as she bounced into the room in a whirl of color. She had on yellow leggings, a blue shirt, and red skirt with hot pink Nike shoes. I smiled and wondered at her choice of clothes, but I wasn’t judging. Oh who am I kidding? Holy friggin’ rainbow!
    “I’m not going,” Bonnie said as she flattened herself out on the couch.
    “Well then what do you plan on doing?” I asked as I folded my arms over my chest.
    “I don’t feel up to anything,” she complained.
    She complained a lot. “Bonnie, you can either work here, or you can come with us. No one gets to sit around. No one.”
    She glared at me, and I had to remind myself that while mentally punching the spoiled brat in the face was allowed, hitting her in front of everyone? Not such a smart plan.
    “Who the hell died and left you in charge?” she snapped and I flinched.
    “My father,” I whispered with venom dripping from my lips. “You want to try your chances on the outside? Go for it.”
    Jillian and Bonnie were Towners as we called the people from our town that had joined our group here in the shelter. They had come here for help and we’d allowed it. We had a few others, but mostly we’d accepted the elderly or the young who had been abandoned or orphaned by the flu.
    Bonnie glared at me, but it didn’t faze me one little bit. Little did anymore, and it was getting worse. The only thing I’d felt in the last week was the unexpected response from the mystery man. That, however, was unsettling. I’d never felt my body respond to any male like it had to him, and I’d made a mental note to take a break from reading romance novels for a while.
    They were my guilty pleasure, which made me curious, but not enough to jump on the first male I saw. Not that my mystery man wasn’t jumping material, because he was. He was jumpable, but he also thought I was a gangly boy. I shook my head and turned my attention to the problem at hand. “You know the rules. You either help out, or get out, Bonnie. This place works because we all work on it; if I let you lounge around, others will try it, and I can’t allow that.”
    Yes, I was taking the high road and being nice. Did it mean I wasn’t mentally punching her in my head? Nope. I was beating the tar out of her. She’d been a spoiled brat all through high school, and had been Jillian’s shadow. I watched as she twirled her dark blonde hair in her fingers and