That first night when I went to sleep in my little twin bed in my old room, Rage surprised me by getting in right beside me. “What’s going to happen to this house?” she asked without a trace of tiredness in her voice.

“Bank will probably take it back soon.” I said, yawning.

“Good. That means we can blow it up when we leave,” she said, sitting up and hopping up and down on her butt and clapping like she’d just been crowned prom queen, which she most certainly could’ve been with her blonde hair and tanned skin. However, I had the nagging inkling that Rage’s past was more colorful then prom court and pep rallies.

“Deal,” I agreed, enjoying the idea of watching the place go up in an explosion of flames. “But do you really have to sleep in here? You can sleep in my brother’s old room. Or on the couch. It pulls out. The extra linens should be in the hall closet.” I didn’t mention anything about my parents’ room, preferring instead to pretend like the room where I’d found my father’s bloodied body didn’t exist.

Rage ignored me, her silence telling me all I needed to know about her plans for going to find another place to sleep.

“Is what King said true?” I asked. “You don’t sleep?”

“No, I don’t. Not really. Not for a long time, anyway,” she said, staring up at the ceiling.

“How do you survive?”

“I don’t really know,” she answered with an audible sigh, although she seemed like she was talking about more than just her lack of sleep.

“I have to help Bear,” I admitted. Testing the waters to see if there was any way I could get her to help me instead of hindering me.

“You can’t help him,” Rage said, taking me by surprise.

“Why the hell not?” I asked, turning on my side to face her. Rage did the same. Her blue eyes sparkled but were lacking something which I soon realized was what King had been talking about when he’d dropped us off.

“Because you can’t leave the house. Those are my orders.”

“But why?”

“All I know is that I’m here to make sure you don’t try anything stupid.”

“How are you going to stop me?” I asked, growing bold.

Rage giggled like a schoolgirl with a secret, she rolled onto her back, again turning her attentions to the ceiling. “That, Thia, is entirely up to you.”

CHAPTER TEN

Thia

I HAD A dog.

Well, sort of.

I sort of had a dog.

I first spotted it one night when I was sitting out on the porch in my grandmother’s old rocking chair. Rage, who I was supposed to believe was a killer, unabomber, babysitter of sorts, spent the afternoon baking muffins. Really good muffins as far as I could tell from the one bite I’d had. But before I could grab it off the plate again, which I’d set on top of the old wooden toolbox, it ran away in a flash of teeth and brown fur. I stood up an looked out over the railing at the tiny thing who was barely out of the puppy stage, happily munching on my muffin. He was all skin, ribs, and bones. The second he took his last swallow, he hightailed it between the trees and into the grove.

The very next night I left out some food again, this time on purpose and this time it was a few pieces of breakfast sausage. I sat in the same spot, watching and waiting. Sure enough, he crept from his hiding spot in the trees and stole my food all over again.

Night after night it played out the same way, except I’d switched to feeding him actual dog food that Rage had delivered from the feed store. Everything else we needed was magically stock piled in the refrigerator and pantry, even the deep freezer in the garage. We weren’t just hiding out. We were all set for the zombie apocalypse.

“You should name that thing,” Rage said, taking a seat on the top step. You spend enough time with it.

It’s not like there is much else to do.

“I should just name him Muffin since that’s what he took from me the first time.,” I said.

Rage turned up her nose. “Nah, if you’re gonna name him a breakfast food then name him something good at least, like Pancakes, or Waffles, or something like that.”

Pancakes.

I fed Pancakes for weeks. Every morning and every night, I put out a bowl of dog food and another with water and stand back and watch him suck it all down, keeping a distrustful eye on me the entire time. And without fail, each night after he’d finished, he’d scurry away again. Eventually I started standing a little closer while he ate and finally instead of running away, he began to linger for a few minutes after his meal.

One night I didn’t wait for him. I just set out his food and went back inside.

I was in a bad mood, unable to shake thoughts of Bear never coming home, and the hope of doing anything to help him faded away minute by minute as I sat there being utterly useless.

I didn’t wonder where Rage was. She was always close by. I stopped talking to myself out loud because even though I didn’t see her all the time, she was usually close enough to answer me back. The first few times it scared the crap out of me, once I fell off the porch.

I really wish that bitch slept.

By the time I reached my room I thought that Pancakes would be long gone.

I was wrong.

Not only did Pancakes not wander back off into the wild, but he followed me into the house, and when I plopped down face first onto my bed, the mattress dipped slightly and a wet snout came to rest across the back of my knee. I lifted my head and there he was, looking up at me with big, yellowish-colored eyes like his behavior was perfectly normal. After a few seconds of staring at one another, he fell asleep, like he’d never been afraid of me at all.

“I guess I have a dog, now,” I muttered into the pillow, drifting into my own nap as Pancakes’ warm doggy breath tickled the backs of my legs.

He was a poor substitute for Bear.

Too hairy.

Too skinny.

No tattoos.

But he would have to do.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Thia

SIX MONTHS.

Six loooooong fucking months with no end in sight. Not a word from Bear. What was worse was that each time Rage’s phone rang, my stomach lurched and my heart dropped. The world around me stopped spinning until she gave me the, “It isn’t that call” look and I could breathe again.

At least until the next call.

I felt nauseated at least three hundred times a day.