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“She still decapitated one with her pants,” William adds. I think he’s going to be happy telling that part of the story to everyone we come across.
Max goes silent and a chill washes through the air. Even William glances up and eyes him curiously before Max turns around and disappears back into his tent. When he reemerges, his gaze is even more intense and locked on me. I freeze in place, watching him move like a ghost toward me. Before I know it, he’s lifting my shirt. I’m caught by such surprise that I merely sit there instead of batting his hand away, but then he hooks his fingers around the fabric of my bra. I’m about to bite him when I realize it’s a small holster with a knife in it.
“I’ve been working on it for you and finally finished it last night. I had to work through the night to get it done, but I wanted to give it to you as a surprise.”
“That’s why you didn’t want me in your tent?” I whisper. I’m vaguely aware that William is watching this exchange with curiosity. I don’t know what he thinks. Heck, I don’t even know what I think. I’m beginning to realize that I don’t know anything anymore.
Max’s lips quirk up in a slanted smile. “Absolutely. It’s not a surprise if you watch me do it.”
“Could’ve given me a warning. I thought you were trying to feel me up just now.”
“If I was going to feel you up, believe me, there would be no room for doubt.”
My fingers brush against the holster before pulling out the knife and admiring it. It’s imperfect, which makes it absolutely perfect. The ridges, the smooth metal, the way the sunlight glints off the edge, revealing the sharpness. “You made this.”
“Don’t sound so surprised, pet. Wielding weapons isn’t the only thing I enjoy. Making them is almost as much fun.” He pulls out something else I didn’t realize he was holding and puts it over my head so it drops against my collarbone, falling down to rest right above my breasts.
Returning the knife to the holster and dropping my shirt down, I finger the small object before unclasping it and pulling it from the small sheath, and glance back up at him.
Max’s knuckles glide against the smooth skin of my neck while he traces the leather cord, a look of pride in his expression. “I never want you to be without a weapon again.” Then he mumbles something about now needing to make permanent shoes for me next, before walking off. I glance back at William and see him watching Max’s retreating form with the utmost curiosity.
“He makes weapons?” I ask.
“Before the dead rose, he invested his life in survivalist skills and anything sharp and pointy. Making weapons was his way of coping. Except, he’s only ever made them for me and Griffin.”
The knives look sharp, but I can’t help but wonder exactly how much. The knives I’ve had in the past were dull and I’d have to put substantial force behind them in order to kill a rotter. Holding the one from my new bra holster up to the sun with the rays flying off the smooth, pointed metal, I raise my free hand and touch my thumb to the tip.
I hiss out in pain and pull my hand away, but it gets caught in something. Someone else’s hand. With a squeal, I try to jump back, but Max holds on so I can’t. His head tilts to the side, and he watches a single drop of blood fall from the fresh wound. “What are you doing to yourself?”
“Oh, um, I wanted to see how sharp these are.”
His green eyes rise to meet mine. They’re so stunning and vibrant that I almost forget to breathe. “I would never give you a dull blade, pet.” He snaps his fingers. “In fact, I have something else for you.”
He pulls something out and I recognize it as my knife, the one that he was turning into the dirt the day I jumped out of the trunk. “My knife.”
“Mr. Pointy is now all sharp and pointy and ready for action.” We swap knives and I wrap my free hand around the familiar handle. The blade glints in the sunlight in a way that it never has before.
When I try to switch hands, I realize he’s still holding onto my wrist and the drop of blood is now falling down my thumb. “Um, can I have that back?”
Without breaking eye contact, he lifts my hand up to his mouth and pulls my thumb in between his lips, licking the blood and sucking away the sting of the cut. My heart beats harder at the intense look he’s giving me. When he frees my thumb and grins, there are spots of red staining his teeth. “Have you always been this way?”
“Only since my brother left me for dead, surrounded by rotters.”
I frown. “Wait, what? Your own brother?”
“The only family I had left until Griffin eventually found me. I almost slit his throat simply because I could. The stubborn bastard refused to give up on me, though, so now here I am wondering why I haven’t scared you away yet when I terrify everyone else I come across.”
“I don’t think you’re all that scary. A little unhinged, but not scary.”
“That’s because you haven’t crossed me yet.”
“Yet?”
He uses the hem of his shirt to wipe the knife clean. It’s almost impossible to tell where he wiped the blood off on the all black fabric. “It’s what people do. They betray each other to save their own asses.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I’ve been trying to leave them since day one. Not to save myself, though, but to save someone else. “How did you survive?”
Once he deems the knife clean enough, he holds it up to the sun. It looks as brand new as it did before I sullied it. Then he lifts my shirt and returns it into the holster and pulls my shirt down before I can even react, smoothing down the fabric as though I’m a dress up doll. “I did so by using my weapons to fight my way through the hundred or more rotters. Turns out I’m much harder to kill than my brother thought. I’m sure I’ll give him quite the surprise to still be alive if I ever see him again.”
