Free The Scavengers by Gen Griffin Page A

that just barely showed at the edge of his narrow lips that reminded me so much of my Dad when he was teasing me.
    “Not.”
    I stopped dead in my tracks. Jesus Christ did this monster really remind me of my Dad?
    “You're missing a chunk of your face,” I pointed out as I forced myself to really look at Seth. To look at him without looking at him, screaming zombie and running away.
    “Shit happens.” Seth shrugged his shoulders and smirked. “You just sat on a machete.”
    “That wouldn't have happened if you hadn't snuck up on me.” I had been right last night. He wasn't nearly as muscular or as broad across the shoulders and chest as Drake was. He was lean almost to the point of too skinny under the nubby-textured long-sleeved cotton shirt he was wearing. The cross bow was absent from his wardrobe today but he still had the weapons belt slung low against his slim hips.
    “How was I supposed to know you were running around in here naked?” he asked. I guessed he was easily over 6 feet tall and most of the height was in his legs. His hips were easily six inches above mine.
    “You knew.”
    “Not the naked part,” he said. “That was a lucky bonus. Nice underwear.”
    “Ugh.” I was surprised to realize that at some point in the last three minutes I had quit being afraid of Seth. I was still wary of him and I definitely didn't like him much, but he wasn't going to hurt me or he already would have done it. He'd had all the opportunity in the world to kill me in between my dropping the gun and my less than graceful landing on the machete.
    “Maybe we should start over,” he suggested, holding out his hand to me. “I'm Seth.”
    “I know.” I glared down at the cowboy boot that had tripped me twice in less than ten minutes. I needed new boots but not at the expense of my life. If Seth had been a real zombie I would have been dead.
    “I was being polite,” he clarified. “I didn't catch your name last night.”
    “Maybe I'm not sure you need to know it.”
    “Fine,” he eyed me for a moment. “If you won't tell me your name, I'll have to give you a new one.”
    “Oh, this ought to be good.” I decided it was safe enough to turn my back on him as I headed back to the closet. The cowboy boots weren't going to work for me, but maybe I could find another pair of shoes that would. My toes were freezing after slogging through mud puddles in Dad's leaking boots all morning.
    I could feel Seth's cold, dead eye on me as I pushed hangers of clothing out of the way of the shoe rack that hung next to the door.
    “You look Hispanic,” Seth decided from behind me. I knew he was taking in my tan skin, short, stocky build and long brown hair.
    “I am Hispanic. My Mom was from Mexico.” Some girl had really loved her high heels that was for sure. And it did me no good.
    “You look like a Carolina,” he used the ethnic pronunciation.
    “No,” I whispered, frozen in place with chills running down my spine and shoes forgotten. He'd said Carolina exactly the same way my Dad always had when he was teasing my Mom.
    “No?” he asked.
    “My name is Pilar,” I told him, shaken to the core as I turned back to face him. “Carolina is my Mom's name.”
    “Oh.” I could tell by the sound of his voice he knew he'd said something wrong. The air was charged between us for a moment and then he broke the silence. “It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Pilar.”
    “That's a lie,” I muttered.
    “Is not.” Seth approached the closet and pulled out a pair of lace up boots I hadn't noticed because there was laundry kicked over beside them. “Try these,” he told me. “They're made well and they won't slip around like the ones you've been wearing.”
    “How do you know my boots have been slipping?” I argued with him for the sake of arguing as I took the boots he handed me. I didn't want him to be right about anything.
    “Your feet are rubbed raw,” he looked purposely down at my toes. There were bright red patches