What Walks Among Us (book one)

Suprise (Part 1)

Chester was one of those people. But slowly, I could tell being here in this house with the boys, he was coming out of his funk. He was rising up, and more often than not I saw genuine smiles. The real ones, not the perfectly practiced ones that trick the world.

Cody on the other hand was a hard person to crack. But yesterday during training I had a glimpse into his life, into who he was. It wasn't much but it was enough to be credible into how he was shaped into the hard ass he is today. He had had a sister, and he had protected her, until he couldn't and she had died. That was all I had managed to figure out before he had locked up his past.

Getting to know them all was hard, because when you get to know someone, you're supposed to open up too. And so far, all they knew was what they've known the whole time. My home wasn't quite right, something was up with Mabel and I, and I had a cute kitten who was becoming more of a spitfire the longer she spent time with Leo.

I was home alone tonight. Sam and Chester had left to go on some sort of run. I had come to realize they did some sort of run every three to four days, and the boys who had taken me in seemed to be among the favorites to be chosen to go out and help out. Beck and Cody were out preparing things for tomorrow, I didn't know what was so special about tomorrow, they wouldn't tell me and I knew it was no one's birthday because those were clearly marked on the calendar. I wasn't sure where Mabel was, but she had a strict curfew to be back, and if she missed it it would be her third warning, and she'd have to do some sort of punishment as a result.

Chester had explained that the strikes were reserved for big things.

Like her trying to drown me.

I shook the thought from my head and started to get to work on the stack of dishes in front of me. There really weren't a lot, maybe three sink loads or so. I was mainly just procrastinating, I could have had this done about an hour ago if I hadn't gotten distracted by the radio, the window, the stairs, you know, just about everything one can be distracted by.

I was listening to one of Chester's CD's, it was upbeat and really helped me get a move on as I skipped around the kitchen, putting away the dishes that had already been cleaned so that I could wash the ones that hadn't. When I finally got into the groove of cleaning up the dishes it took me no time at all, and soon I was left with nothing to do. The random things that had previously distracted me had no appeal because I knew that I didn't have anything I really needed distracted from.

The house was quiet and I contemplated going over to Evan's house. He was nice, we had spoken a few other times after that night I had met him but other than that I didn't really know much more of him. In the end I convinced myself I shouldn't go drop by. We didn't really know each other and if he had prior arrangements that would just be weird to impose. Not to mention awkward.

I went upstairs and found my worn out novel before skipping down the stairs two at a time, when I got to the couch I tucked my feet under my body and covered my lower half with a blanket. I got lost in the pages and within what felt like moments but could have easily been an hour, I was dozing. It was one of those sudden dozes that you don't realize is happening until you wake up with a puddle of drool all over your book.

Cold air hit my upper half and I felt goosebumps rise up all over. I let my book drop to the ground and I pulled the blanket higher as the boys walked in. I heard their voices float around me and I felt one of them lift me up into their arms. By this point I had actually woken up so I was well aware that Beck was carrying me to my shared room.

He set me down in the bed and I kept my eyes shut even as he pulled off my socks and replaced them with a softer pair, and tucked me in. I heard Cody say something from the doorway, but it was too quiet to make out.

"Huh?" Beck asked, while still standing next to me. I guess I hadn't been the only one to miss Cody's question.

"I said," Cody murmured a little louder, "Do you want to heat up some food, or should I?"

Beck started to reply but my sleepy brain was suddenly wide awake and very alert. I sat right up and put a hand out, grabbing Beck's wrist as he tried to walk away.

"Wait," I said, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes.

I felt Beck pause and his hand jostle as he turned towards me, "You okay? Do you feel alright, what's wrong?"

I stifled the smile at his worry and looked up at him, "I want food too.."

Beck smirked and looked down at me, "Wait were you sleeping at all?"

I felt my cheeks heat up, "Well I mean, I was when you picked me up?" I said, questioning as to whether it was a good idea to admit I had knowingly made him carry me up those stairs.

He just rolled his eyes, "What do you think, Cody?"  he looked up and over at Cody.

Cody was watching me, he looked at Beck, "She has to heat up dinner," he gave a slight smirk before stomping down the stairs and I gave a playful groan.

"Cheer up, buttercup, he could have made you carry ME down those stairs," Beck said. I could only imagine my facial expression when Beck grinned and tousled my hair, "kidding, come on, hurry up!" with that he winked and walked out of the room as well. ***

The next morning I was up bright and early, lacing my shoes up for the run that Cody and I would be going on. Mabel had gotten in minutes before curfew and when Beck had offered her food she had said she ate already. She was now snoring in her bed and she looked as if she had been run over a few times. Not like she had been abused but like she was sick or something.

I was debating whether or not to tell one of the guys to see if we couldn't get the Doc to check her out, when there was a light knock on my door. I grabbed my grab bag and slipped out of my room. Since coming to the compound I had changed up what was in my grab bag. It now held a change of clothes and my gun, along with my dagger and some energy bars, along with a bottle of water and a first aid kit.

Chester had advised me to keep it light, and I made sure to do as he suggested while still keeping the things that I needed.

In the hall Cody gave me a look of approval, probably because I was actually up today and not groaning at him until he bribed me with food when we came back.. either that or he liked my shoes.

"Listen, today's run is cancelled," he kept talking before I could cut him off, "And before you rip my head off, it's because the boys are getting back today, if everything on the outside went as planned, and they want to do something with you."

I frowned, "What .. like they want to run with us too?" I asked, not understanding what he meant.

Cody shook his head, "No, not exactly. Look you'll see, anyways since you're dressed why don't we jog down to the gym and work out a bit before they get back?"

I didn't exactly understand the change in plans but I wasn't going to start complaining about it, especially if the others were getting back today. I nodded at Cody and he said something about going to finish getting dressed.

I went downstairs while I waited and decided to make some pancakes for breakfast. One good thing about pancake mix is all I really did to it was add water, and then drizzle syrup on the finished product.. which meant it was pro apocalypse as long as I had syrup- which the guys had.

Cody came down just as I had finished cooking, he took his plate with a thank you and we ate in comfortable silence. When we had finished breakfast, I rinsed off the plates and washed them, and he washed the bowl and the pan that I had used to cook with.

Outside we started our jog off slow, as the gym wasn't really far away and we weren't in any real hurry. The pain of running had sucked the first day, and it still sucked when we ran, but I was slowly getting used to it, which was why it was kinda sucky that we weren't running today. I didn't want my body to have some sort of conniption when I started up running again tomorrow.

We made it to the gym in no time at all, and got submerged into the workout.