Rise Again Below Zero by Ben Tripp Read Free Book Online Page A

hurried to add, although she didn’t know what he thought. “It’s just—well. I took her out for a feed tonight. She . . . I need you to keep this a secret.”
    “I have never betrayed a confidence,” Patrick said, stiffening his back. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have scored as much as I did in my twenties.”
    “I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking life and death maybe. See, I saw her with somebody. You know we go off on feeding trips. I’m not there the whole time. I leave her alone. Tonight I ran across that biker gang and came back early to pick her up . . . And I saw somebody. Something.”
    “A person?”
    “A thinker. Another thinker. They . . . they talked.”
    Danny felt as if she’d jumped off a cliff. Patrick had every right to run up and down through the plaza shouting this news, if he wanted to. But he wouldn’t. Only Patrick. Even Amy might blab. This man had the instinct for discretion.
    “Holy fucking shit,” Patrick said. “I mean, holy fucking leaping shit.” His hands went to his mouth, covered it like an injury.
    “That’s what I said. You can’t tell anybody . Not yet. Maybe never. I have to find out what it means first.”
    “What it means is they’re hanging out,” Patrick said. “It means—I don’t know what it means. Were they like passing a joint back and forth or anything? Dancing? I mean what do thinkers do when they meet?”
    “I just saw it for a second. She doesn’t deny it. She doesn’t even seem to think it’s a big deal.”
    “Maybe it isn’t.”
    “Maybe. There’s stuff she didn’t tell me.”
    “As long as nothing happens, it’s all good. But Danny? Why did you tell me about this?”
    She looked around them, as if the whole Tribe was listening in. In fact, they could not have been more perfectly ignored. There was food and heat and bedding to think about. Nobody cared what the sheriff and her old buddy were whispering about in the shadows.
    “First off, because you talk plenty, but you don’t tell. And I needed to tell somebody.”
    “Yeah, but you mentioned Beowulf. Why?”
    “That’s the thing,” Danny said. She was struggling so much with words. Her mind wasn’t geared for this kind of abstract thinking. “I . . . I thought after you lost that guy Weaver in the early days, you’d never find anybody else. You were real busted up over it. But then you found Beowulf. And you guys were like really tight. I mean I guess in love, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “And then a few months ago, you kind of stopped talking to each other.”
    “Yes.”
    “Were you really in love? Like, I want to spend the rest of my life with you?”
    “Believe it or not, Danny, even homosexuals can experience the full gamut of human emotions,” Patrick said, a little stung. “God, you’re so un-reformed in so many ways.”
    “I didn’t mean it like that. You guys were supertight and then you broke up. And he left the Tribe.”
    “Yep,” Patrick said, tight-lipped. Danny realized his eyes were getting wet. It still hurt to think about. That erased any doubts she had about the extent of his feelings. “What does my failed relationship have to do with Kelley?”
    Suddenly, Danny found the words.
    “I’m wondering if me and Kelley are meant to be together anymore. I did right by her. I did my best. I found her. Now the two of us sit together all day like one of those old married couples and there ain’t shit between us.”
    “Ah.”
    “And I’ll tell you what. You know how it felt when I saw that other one there? That other thinker? It felt like I caught her cheating.”
    “Danny,” Patrick said, and took her two-fingered hand in both of his. “Listen to me. Even after the end of the world, with humankind in ruins and zombies everywhere, people can still find love. I think that’s awesome. But if we didn’t fall out of love, too, we wouldn’t really be people anymore.I don’t know what Kelley’s up to, but you’re just doing the hard work of