Fighting for Rain Read online

  FIGHTING

  for RAIN

  BB EASTON

  Copyright © 2019 by BB Easton

  Published by Art by Easton

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-7327007-4-1

  e-book ISBN: 978-1-7327007-5-8

  Cover Design by BB Easton

  Cover Photographs licensed by Adobe Stock

  Content Editing by Traci Finlay and Karla Nellenbach

  Copyediting by Jovana Shirley of Unforeseen Editing

  and Ellie McLove of My Brother’s Editor

  Formatting by Jovana Shirley of Unforeseen Editing

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. While several locations in the book are based on real places in and around Atlanta, Georgia, the events that take place there, characters portrayed as employees, and even the interior layout and décor are products of the author’s imagination are used fictitiously. The publisher and author acknowledge the trademark status and trademark ownership of all trademarks, service marks, and word marks mentioned in this book.

  This book is dedicated to anyone who was ever afraid but did the damn thing anyway. Especially you, Staci.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Playlist

  Books by BB Easton

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Fighting for Rain Synopsis

  The world was supposed to end on April 23, but Rainbow Williams’s world ended days before that. The mass hysteria caused by the impending apocalypse claimed everything she’d ever loved. Her family. Her city. Her will to live.

  Until she met him.

  Wes Parker didn’t have anything left for the apocalypse to take … he’d already lost it all by the time he was nine years old. His family. His home. His hope of ever being loved.

  Until he met her.

  Brought together by fate and bound by a love that would last lifetimes, Rain and Wes were prepared to die together on April 23.

  They were not prepared for what would happen on April 24.

  April 24, 1:35 a.m.

  Rain

  With my arms around Wes’s waist and the roar of a motorcycle engine drowning out my thoughts, I turn and watch my house disappear behind us. My home. The only one I’ve ever known. The trees and darkness swallow it whole as we speed away, but they don’t take my memories of what happened there. I wish they would. I wish I could pull this ache out of my chest and throw it into that house like a hand grenade.

  I also wish I weren’t wearing this damn motorcycle helmet. Wes should be wearing it. He’s the survivalist. I don’t really care if my head gets cracked open. All I want to do is lay my cheek on his back and let the wind dry my tears. Besides, the inside of it smells like hazelnut coffee and cold-cream moisturizer. Just like my mama.

  Who’s now buried in a shallow grave behind that house.

  Right beside the man who killed her.

  I might have survived April 23, but not all of me made it out alive. Rainbow Williams—the perfectly preppy, straight A–earning, churchgoing, trophy girlfriend of Franklin Springs High School basketball star Carter Renshaw—is buried back there too, right next to the parents she was trying so hard to please.

  All that’s left of me now is Rain.

  Whoever the hell that is.

  I curl my fingers into Wes’s blue Hawaiian shirt and look over his shoulder at the black highway laid out before us. My friends, Quint and Lamar, are up ahead in their daddy’s bulldozer, clearing a path through all the wrecked and abandoned vehicles that piled up during the chaos before April 23, but it’s so dark that I can barely see them. All I can see is the road directly in front of our headlight and a few sparks in the distance where the bulldozer’s blade is grinding against the asphalt. All I can smell are my memories. All I can feel is Wes’s warm body in my arms and a sense of freedom in my soul, growing with every mile we put between us and Franklin Springs.

  And, right now, that’s all I need.

  The rumble of the road and the emotional exhaustion of the past few days have me fighting to keep my eyes open. I nod off, I don’t even know how many times, as we crawl along behind the bulldozer, jerking awake the moment I feel that first twitch of sleep.

  Wes slows to a stop so that he can turn to face me. A lock of hair falls over one cheek, but the rest is pushed straight back and tangled from the wind. His pale green eyes are almost the only feature I can make out in the dark. And they don’t look too happy.

  “You’re scaring the shit out of me. You’ve got to try to stay awake, okay?” Wes shouts over the sound of metal scraping asphalt up ahead.

  I glance past him and see the headlights of the bulldozer shining on the roof of an overturned eighteen-wheeler. It’s blocking the entire highway, but Quint and Lamar are hard at work, trying to push it out of our path.

  I pull Mama’s helmet off my head and feel her disappear along with her scent. It’s replaced with the smell of spring pollen, pine trees, and gasoline.

  “I know,” I shout back with a guilty nod. “I’m trying.”

  A burst of sparks flies behind Wes as the bulldozer gives the tractor-trailer another good shove.

  Wes puts the kickstand down and gets off the bike. “This is gonna take them a while. Maybe you should stand up and walk around a little. Might help you wake up.”

  He’s just a silhouette, backlit by the haze from the headlight, but he’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen—tall and strong and smart and here, even after everything he just witnessed. As I place my palm in his, the tiny orange sparkles of light glittering in the background match the ones dancing across my skin, giving me goose bumps, even under my hoodie.

  I can’t see his expression, but I feel Wes smiling down at me. Then, suddenly, his energy shifts. As I slide off the bike, he grips my hand tighter, lifting his head and inhaling so deeply that I can hear it, even over the grinding, crunching sounds coming from the bulldozer.

  “Shit.” The profile of his perfect face comes into view as he turns his head to look over his shoulder. “I think I smell—”

  Before the word can even leave Wes’s lips, the eighteen-wheeler explodes in a ball of fire. White-hot light fills my eyes and scorches my face as Wes tackles me to the ground.

  I don’t feel the impact. I don’t hear the debris landing all around us. I don’t even hear my own voice as I shout my friends’ names. All I can hear are the thoughts in my head, telling me to get up. To run. To help.

  Wes is looking down at me now. His lips are moving, but I can’t tell what he’s saying. Another explosion goes off, and I cover my face. When I lower my hands, he’s gone.

  I sit up and see Wes’s silhouette running toward the bulldozer.

  Which is now engulfed in flames.

  “Quint
!” I scream, taking off in a sprint toward the passenger side as Wes heads toward the driver’s side. “Lamar!”

  I climb up onto the track, thanking God that the fire hasn’t made it through the blown-out windshield yet, and pull the door open. Inside, Quint and Lamar are slumped over in their seats, covered in broken glass. Wes is unbuckling Quint’s seat belt. His head snaps up when I open the door, and his dark eyebrows pull together.

  “I told you to stay the fuck there!”

  “I couldn’t hear you!” I lean into the cab, struggling to move Lamar’s body so that I can unbuckle his seat belt.

  “Rain, stop!” Wes snaps at me as he lifts Quint’s lifeless body into his arms.

  “I can help!” I get the belt off and give Lamar’s shoulder a hard shake. His eyes flutter open as something begins to hiss and pop under the flaming hood. “Come on, buddy. We gotta go.”

  Lamar twists in his seat to try to climb out, but he winces and pulls his eyes shut again.

  “Lamar,” I shout, tugging on his shoulders. “I need you to walk. Right now.”

  His head rolls toward me, and the light from the flames illuminates a deep gash across his forehead. The dark red blood glistens against his dark brown skin. I pull on his arms harder, but he’s so heavy.

  “Lamar! Wake up! Please!”

  Two hands clamp around my waist and pull me out of the cab just before a blur of Hawaiian print swoops in to take my place.

  “Go!” Wes shouts as he pulls Lamar from the bulldozer. “Now!”

  I jump off the track to get out of his way and run toward the motorcycle. As I get closer, I notice Quint’s body lying on the ground next to it.

  It isn’t moving.

  As I rush to him, my mind goes back to the day we met. We were in the same preschool class, and I found Quint off by himself on the first day of school, quietly eating Play-Doh behind Ms. Gibson’s desk. He begged me not to tell on him. I didn’t, of course. Instead, I sat and ate some with him just to see what all the fuss was about.

  I found out years later that his daddy used to beat him whenever he got in trouble, so he got real good at not getting caught. His little brother, Lamar, didn’t seem to learn the same lesson. He got caught all the time, but Quint always took the blame.

  I kneel next to my very first friend and reach for his throat, hoping to find a pulse, but I don’t get that far. I find a shard of glass sticking out of his neck instead.

  “Oh my God.” The words fall from my mouth as I grab his wrist, pushing and prodding and praying for a heartbeat.

  Wes sets Lamar down next to me as another explosion rattles the ground below us. I scream and cover my head as the hood of the bulldozer lands with a clang about thirty feet away and skids to a stop.

  Wes leans over and puts his hands on his knees to catch his breath. “He okay?” he asks, gesturing to Quint with a flick of his head.

  “He’s alive, but …” I drop my eyes to the glass sticking out of his neck and shake my head. “I don’t know what to do.”

  God, I wish Mama were here. She would know. She was an ER nurse.

  Was.

  Now, she’s dead.

  Just like we’re going to be if we don’t get the hell out of here before that gas tank explodes.

  I look around and realize that, with the light from the flames, I can actually tell where we are now. The sides of the highway are cluttered with all the cars and trucks that Quint and Lamar pushed out of our way, but the faded green exit sign on the side of the road says it all.

  PRITCHARD PARK MALL

  NEXT RIGHT

  My eyes meet Wes’s, and without saying a word, we get to work. He stashes the motorcycle in the woods, I drag the hood of the bulldozer over to make a stretcher for Quint, and Lamar shakes off his daze enough to stand and help carry his brother past the wreckage.

  When we get to the exit ramp, Pritchard Park Mall sits at the bottom, shining in the moonlight like a worthless mountain of crumbling concrete. It’s been rotting away ever since the last store closed up shop about ten years ago, but the land isn’t valuable enough for anyone to even bother tearing it down.

  “Fuck. Look at that place,” Wes groans. He’s holding one side of the makeshift stretcher while Lamar and I struggle with the other. “You sure about this?”

  “I don’t know where else to go,” I huff, shifting my grip on the corner of the yellow hood. “We can’t put Quint on the bike to take him home, we can’t leave him here, and we can’t sleep in the woods because the dogs will sniff out the food in our pack.”

  A howl rises over the sound of burning metal, pushing us to move faster.

  “You okay, man?” Wes asks Lamar, changing the subject. He doesn’t want to talk about what we might find inside this place any more than I do.

  Lamar just nods, staring straight ahead. Quint’s smart-ass little brother hasn’t said a word since he came to, but at least he can walk. And follow directions. That’s actually an improvement for him.

  When we get to the bottom of the ramp, we find a chain-link fence circling the perimeter of the mall property. The sounds of gunshots, terrified screams, and revving engines fill the air—probably Pritchard Park rioters celebrating the fact that they survived April 23, but they obviously don’t care about looting the mall.

  They’re smart enough to know there’s nothing left to loot.

  We walk along the fence until we find a spot that’s been flattened. Then, we cross the parking lot and head toward what used to be the main entrance.

  We pass a few cars with For Sale signs in their broken windows, kick a couple of hypodermic needles along the way, and eventually make it to a row of metal and glass doors. At least half of the windows have been broken out already, which makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

  We’re not the first ones here.

  The bulldozer hood won’t fit through the door, so we set it down on the sidewalk as carefully as we can.

  “I’ll go in first,” Wes says, pulling the gun from his holster.

  “I’m coming with you,” I announce before glancing over at Lamar. “You stay with him.”

  But Lamar’s not listening. He’s staring at his big brother like he hung the moon.

  And then fell from it.

  “Don’t you dare touch that glass,” I add, pointing to Quint’s neck. “He’ll bleed out. Do you hear me?”

  Lamar nods once but still doesn’t look up.

  When I turn back toward Wes, I expect him to argue with me about coming with him, but he doesn’t. He simply offers his elbow for me to take and gives me a sad, exhausted, exquisite smile.

  “No fight?” I ask, wrapping my hand around his tattooed bicep.

  Wes kisses the top of my head. “No fight,” he whispers. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  Something in his words makes my cheeks flush. I should be afraid of walking into an abandoned mall with no electricity at night in the aftermath of The Apocalypse That Never Happened, but as Wes tucks me behind his back and pulls the broken door open, the only thing I feel is an overwhelming sense of belonging. I would follow this man to the ends of the earth, which, from the looks of it, might be right here at Pritchard Park Mall.

  Wes guides us through the open door and eases it closed with the tiniest click. We tiptoe over the broken glass like professionals, and Wes leads the way with his gun stretched out in front of us.

  The smell of a decade’s worth of dust and mildew is overpowering. I have to clench my teeth and cover my nose with the sleeve of my hoodie to keep from coughing. The only source of light inside is the moon shining in through a few dirty skylights, but I came here so many times as a kid that I know the layout by heart.

  At the end of this hall, there should be a fountain in the middle of a two-story atrium. I remember there being escalators behind it and elevators on the left—cool glass ones that I used to beg Mama to ride over and over and over. Branching out from the atrium, there are four hallways—this one leading to th
e main entrance, the north hallway that leads to the old food court, and two more on the left and right that lead to the big department stores that Mama always said we couldn’t afford to shop at.

  Even though I remember coming here as a kid, there’s no sense of nostalgia. No warm familiarity. It’s so dark and so vacant that I feel as though I’m walking on the moon and being told that it used to be Earth.

  As the crumbling edges of the stone fountain come into view, the sound of voices in the distance has me pulling Wes to a stop.

  I push up onto my tiptoes until my lips graze the shell of his ear. “Do you hear that?” I whisper. “It sounds like—”

  “Freeze!” a voice shouts as the silhouette of a man holding a rifle appears from behind the fountain.

  Instinctively, I hold my hands up and step in front of Wes. “Don’t shoot!” I shout back. “Please! Our friends outside are hurt. We just need a place to spend the night.”

  “Rainbow?” His voice softens, and I recognize it instantly.

  It’s one I’ve heard say my name a thousand different times in a thousand different ways. It’s one I never thought I’d hear again, and after I met Wes, never wanted to. It’s the voice of the boy who left me behind.

  “Carter?”

  I thought April 24 was going to be a new beginning.

  Turns out, it’s just the beginning of the end.

  Wes

  Carter.

  His name on her lips hits my ears like a blaring, screaming alarm clock, waking me from the best dream of my life.

  It all seemed so real. I can still feel the heat of her thighs around my waist and see the tears glistening in her big blue eyes when she told me she loved me. When she promised she’d never leave. And I believed her.

  Like a fucking dumbass.

  The impending apocalypse made people do crazy shit. Some burned entire cities to the ground. Some, like Rain’s psychopathic dad, committed murder-suicides just to get it all over with. And me? I let myself believe the desperate ramblings of a lost, lovesick teenager.