Chapter Four

Almost a year after the Explosion, there was a group of people travelling through our town.

As usual, we were weary of new people since in these times, people always ONLY look out for themselves and their own, disregarding everything and anyone else.

Their group was 6 adults and 4 children, and they were passing through on foot under the green haze of the looming acid rain storm. We let them, watching from the building rooftop as they passed us.

I remember laying on my stomach on the roof with the other adults, gun in hand and aimed at someone in the passing group. I was only pretending to be studying them in case they drew weapons on us like I was supposed to be, but really I was just so fascinated at seeing other children in almost a year.

It was then that the first crack of thunder sounded, so loud and earsplitting that it shook the earth. The travelers stopped frozen in their tracks, looking around at each other helplessly. They knew that if they didn't find shelter in the next few minutes, the acid rain would dissolve through their flesh and kill them in a grueling and agonizing death.

They started arguing with each other immediately, trying to decide the best plan of action. They knew that even if they did find shelter, they would most likely die anyways. You can't go outside during an acid rain storm, meaning they'd be stuck in a building with no food or water for weeks at a time before the storm let up.

This knowledge caused the adults in my group to start arguing as well. The 9 of them were deciding whether or not to help them; whether inviting them to stay with us and our healthy stock pile of supplies was the right thing to do.

My dad was a good man, but he was smart, and he knew survival came first; he argued against letting the strangers stay with us. A few other people sided with him, a few people switched sides a couple of times, and I stayed silent. I didn't want to send these people to what I knew would be their deaths, and I would love to talk to other children, but I learned the hard way to never question my father when it came to matters of survival.

In the end, 6 of the 9 adults voted to let them stay with us, and we came down from the building, quickly ushering them in before the sky cracked open and beat down mercilessly with toxic acid.

At the time, we were living in the old elementary school. We decided that it was better for us all to stay together, and the elementary school was big enough, but not too big for all of us and our stock pile of supplies. We welcomed these people into our home, and treated them like they were our own.

As the only child in the group, I was so ecstatic to have other children to talk to.

I was even more ecstatic about Logan.

I was an almost 14 year old girl who hadn't spoken to a boy that wasn't a full grown man in almost a year. It was a gigantic bonus that Logan wasn't just "cute because he's the only boy around," but actually, in the standard definition of the word, FREAKING CUTE. He was tall for a boy his age, with dark black hair and the bluest eyes I had ever seen.

I was smitten immediately.

In the weeks that we spent together trapped in the school, Logan and I became close, and my crush intensified immensely. He was 2 years older than me, but he didn't care. He made me laugh freely, blush deeply, and smile just by looking at me.

I was the happiest I'd been since the Explosion.

About two weeks into the acid rain storm, I was alone in one of the gun rooms cleaning the rifles. Logan surprised me by sneaking in to visit me, silently closing the door behind him.

He told me that I was the most amazing girl he'd ever met, pre-Explosion included. He said in that short amount of time, he'd been happier with me than he has in a long time. He told me I was beautiful, then he kissed me.

My very first kiss.

And it was even better than how it was described in all the books I read.

For the next two weeks, I was happier than I could've imagined possible. Logan and I would sneak away whenever possible to make out. We would stay up late at night, in our sleeping bags lying next to each other, and whisper about anything and everything until early morning.

My dad was suspicious.

He didn't know about the kissing, but he knew about my gigantic crush. He warned me to be careful, not to put so much trust in a boy.

Naturally, being a teenager and thinking I knew everything, I completely brushed all his warnings aside. He was my dad, he was biologically wired to hate any and all boys that I wanted to be my boyfriend, and therefore his advice was biased and invalid.

One night, I was woken up with a strong hand clamped over my mouth, and a sharp kick to my ribs. I immediately sat up, and was met with the cool kiss of a gun pressed against my temple, slowly guiding me back down to my pillow.

"Scream and I'll blow your brains all over your pillowcase," threatened the hard voice in my ear.

I nodded, and was guided into a sitting position. My eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering in through the windows, registering that the less green glow of the light meant that the storm was finishing.

I glanced at the man holding the gun to my head and pressing his hand into my mouth, and swore I felt my heart literally tear in two. The empty, hardened sky blue eyes of the guy I'd spent the last few weeks giving my heart to, was pressing a gun to my head.

I swear I didn't recognize those eyes. They used to be kind, friendly, understanding, and welcoming. But the eyes looking back at me were the opposite of that. They were empty; devoid of emotion.

Those eyes gave me chills.

I glanced around and saw that the other members of his group were doing the same thing to my group. Hands over mouths, guns pointed at temples. The people that we welcomed into our home, shared our supplies with, spent time with, shared stories and laughs and in my case, kisses, with, were betraying us.

Logan removed his hand from my mouth, and I immediately disobeyed his command and screamed to alert the rest of my group who was either still sleeping, or outside the room keeping watch for Rotters. We didn't think we'd need to have someone keep watch IN the room; we thought the travelers were part of our group.

My scream was rewarded with the back of Logan's gun being slammed into my head, sending me into the awaiting dark embrace of unconsciousness.

When I regained consciousness again, I had a massive migraine, but that was overshadowed by the fact that my hands were handcuffed behind me, around a pole in the middle of the room. The rest of the people in my group were in the same position as I was, some were bloodied up as well.

Immediately I looked around for my dad, screaming in horror when I saw him handcuffed with his hands behind his back like me, but he was unconscious and laying in a pool of his own blood.

Like before, my scream was rewarded with a hit to the face with the back of a gun, this time to my jaw, making me bite my cheek.

Logan was in front of me, holding the offending gun in his hand.

"Stop screaming. It's annoying," he told me.

I answered him by spitting my blood onto his face.

"Cami. Stop. Yelling," he stressed every word, as if it was supposed to mean something to me.

"Go to Hell," I struggled against the pole, straining at the handcuffs.

I realized that the handcuffs weren't tightened that tight around my wrists, and with enough wiggling I'd be able to easily slip my hands out. I force myself not to give my advantage away by smiling.

It's then that I noticed the gun he was holding.

It was my gun.

The gun my father gave me when I decided to stop closing my eyes to the reality of our situation and become brave, and hardened to the world.

That gun represented my transition to the world of survivors; of learning that no one was going to save you but yourself, and symbolized my transition from a silly child to an adult.

It was MY gun, the one my father engraved with MY initials, and the first and only boy I'd basically given my heart to had used it to bash my face in.

I watched helplessly as their group moved out of the building, Logan barely giving me a backwards glance as he left. All of our supplies, I was told later by my father, were moved into our cars, which they took with them.

They left the doors wide open, practically inviting the Rotters in, leaving us tied up, exposed, defenseless, weak, and to die.

That's how I learned the hard way what I already knew, what my dad has been drilling into me since the Explosion.

People are the real enemy.

That's when I decided that I didn't care how trusting someone looked or how good looking someone was. That's when I decided that my emotions were pointless and at odds with my survival instincts; that trusting strangers was for the weak, like my dad always said. I would never listen to my emotions again, since they would only betray me in the end. I fell for a pretty face and his pretty words when he told me how brave and pretty he thought I was, and how much he liked me.

I decided that I didn't care much for a pretty face or boys in general at all, since they were still people, and people only did one thing in this world: screw you over and take care of their own.

That, and many other reasons and hard learned lessons, is why, looking at the guy in front of me, I didn't need to be told that he couldn't be trusted. I didn't care that he was the only guy around my age that I've seen in quite some time.

I didn't care that he technically saved me from the Rotters that were trying to literally eat my face off.

I didn't care that he was hot, not only in a "because he's the only boy around," way, but pre- and post-Explosion alike. I didn't care that he was giving me a smirk that pre-Explosion would've made my pulse race and heart beat out of my chest.

Because he was still a person I didn't know.

And people are not to be trusted.