Brandy Creek (Book One Completed)

(Part 39)

It only takes me thirty minutes to get dressed for the weather and pack for the trip. Micah and company take Mato and I to a gas station, we fill up multiple gas cans of fuel. Its probably not the best idea to use regular gas station fuel on a heli, but its all we have for now and it'll work for what we need. We head over to the heli that I confirm works and has enough fuel to start us off. After securing everything in the back and ourselves, Mato white knuckles holding onto anything not important. I'm glad because as we take off I'm afraid he's going to snap something off the heli.

"Don't worry, I was taught how to fly helicopters and small fixed wings as soon I was big enough to actually do it." I say then laugh at the memory of it. "In fact I learned how to fly before I drove, I was to short to see over the dashboard and use the feet petals."

"There are some weird fucking facts about you." Mato says, I can see hes not holding on quiet as tightly, but hasn't given up hold on completely.

"We don't know very much about each other." I say and he goes a silent. I fly us over the hoard of infected, hovering for a second to watch all the zombies break out from their hiding places around and inside of buildings around the hoard. Mato only lets go of the heli to pull out a large atlas, its huge and each page lamented. We had gone over a plan on the way to the heli, fly along the main road but not directly above it. We still had satellite GPS which has me think. "How long do you think we have until satellites start falling from the sky?"

Mato makes a noise I can barley hear in the headset. "I don't even want to think about that right now."

"So instead of talking about that we should talk about something." I say looking down over the forest of trees. From up here its amazing to see, but I see smoke in the distance, white smoke so what ever it was isn't burning anymore. It wasn't our problem right now. "Who are we going to go get?"

"My sister, her husband and kids. My mom and dad and my dads dad." Mato says simply finding our spot on the map. "There might be more people, I told them to keep it small but knowing my mom she'll want to save everyone she can."

We fly in silence or well as silent as we can get in a helicopter, flying just above the trees on the mountains. Mato asks me. "So just your aunt? Or are there any other family members?"

"I have a cousin." I say not wanting to talk about that more. I had gotten really close with said cousin in the past few years since I've meet my aunt. I hate to think about where my cousin is right now, I just hope they were somewhere safe. I don't doubt they could take care of themself, if they weren't in a city at the time of everything happening.

"Just your aunt and a cousin?" Mato asks me. "No partner?"

I snort at that. Is that why he thinks I'm not jumping at his proposal of being with him and the others? I decide to answer him honestly, maybe with honesty from me he will decide to open up more about himself. "I have never had a actual relationship, I didn't expect to live past thirty so I didn't want to drag someone down with me."

"You really didn't expect to live much longer?" Mato asks.

I shrug. "With what I was doing I'd either get killed doing my job or be sent to prison on death row." I let out a laugh. "But I was in prison facing death row, so I was right."

"How did you get caught?"

My laugh this time was bitter. "There was a guy in charge of handing out jobs, he got mad that I wouldn't sleep with him so when he got caught he threw me under the bus."

"Wouldn't that get him killed?" Mato asks me. "Ratting out someone in your line of work?"

"Just getting caught probably put a hit out on him to be honest. The feds probably promised him protective custody in Mexico or something." Maybe me having him killed at the courthouse was a little over kill to be fair, he was probably going to die soon anyway. It was nice to see it happen though.

Mato lets me fly us in silence for a whole five minutes before he asks. "What about now? Worse or better?"

"If I see myself living longer?" I question and debate that. "If the community Adam has going works in the long run I can see myself sticking around. At least for the most part. I do think that I have a better chance in the zombie apocalypse then with what I was doing before."

Mato lets out a huff of a laugh. "I don't think many people can say that."

I give him a shrug, because it was true. I lived a life of danger, not just who I worked for or what I mostly did. I did other things, driving cars to fast or hanging around with dangerous people. And along the line I might have developed a drug or booze problem, that was normal for my line of work. If the job or the people don't kill you, you kill yourself.

With him asking so many questions, I think its a good time to start asking him. "You or the guys don't have partners or flings? What about Micah?"

"We've had flings yes, as for Micah he was married but she left almost a year ago. I've never had a relationship last longer then a year, once I joined up I didn't have much interest until lately now that I'm older and seeing my little sister have children."

"So you want a family?" I question him, I think that might be a hard limit for me. I can take care of Sarah or Casey, they are already grown enough to handle themselves for the most part. Maybe I would even consider taking in a toddler to young child younger then Sarah if I had to. But having my own kid? I wasn't ready to consider being pregnant.

"I used to think yes, I wanted my own child with a women I was committed to. Marriage, a house, and kids. Now though I can see it being different, there are so many kids that we have found in just a few days that don't have family anymore." Mato actually sounded sad, distant as he talked and thought about that fact. "If you agree to try this with the guys we would consider Sarah ours, like we would hope you'd consider Theo yours."

"How would this work? I mean I live with Seb and Lex but what about the rest of you? That seems.. unfair."

"We've talked about that last night." Mato says, he points to the road that turns to the north east in front of us, I turn to follow the curve of it. "Adam had talked about making additions to the cabins we already have, use them as bunk houses. If we make Alphas big enough to hold all of us plus the kids we can live in that and figure out sleeping arrangements. North and Anthony would move in with us, Ajax and Milo could take over your trailer with Tyler. We just have to figure out something for Blair."

"So we'd all live in a big house and be a happy family?" The tone comes out more satirical then I meant it to, but I don't try to correct myself.

"Yes we would." Mato says I risk a moment to glance over to him, he was focused on me, half facing towards me. "We would all live in the cabin, with Sarah and Casey if Casey wants to stay with us. It will probably be cramped and take time to get used to but we would all be together."

"And your sure your okay with that? Sharing the women your sleeping with?"

"I didn't think I would but I also didn't think I'd actually like you when I first heard about you."

"That was only a few days ago." I point out, we had barley any time to actually get to know each other. And he wanted a relationship with me.

"Were in the apocalypse, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't attracted to you." Mato says back. "In the few days we've been at camp you completely shattered the idea of what I had of you. You help with whatever we ask you too, and you do more like taking the girls in and you've started training some of the people."

I wasn't sure if he knew about that, Adam must of told him at some point. And shit, I had already made up my mind about this subject, I was just pushing it off because I was scared of the possibility's of what would happen. It seemed they wanted more of a relationship, and I'm still not sure how I felt but.. "I'm.. wiling to try to have something with you guys. Just know I have never been in any relationship nor had I wanted to be in one before everything happened."

"But now your willing to try?" He asks me.

I give him a shrug. "So many things have changed in the world, and I enjoy being around you guys so far."

"So you will try?" He sounds smug, I glance over to see a smug smile to match on his face.

"Yes, I will try when we get back." I roll my eyes at him, the fluttering that starts in my stomach is hard to ignore though.