Until the End of the World (Book 2): And After Read Online Free PDF Page A

can feel what he means. He pushes me onto my back and props himself on his elbows so his face is only inches away. I use my toes to inch his pajama pants down. “Hi, gorgeous,” he says.
    “That’s why I don’t take your compliments, you know,” I say. I press my chest against his warm one. Even with the furnace going, this purple outfit isn’t cutting it. “You throw them around like confetti. Blah blah blah gorgeous. Blah blah blah beautiful . How am I supposed to believe anything you say?”
    “So, what, I should tell you what’s wrong with you?” Adrian runs a thumb along my cheek, lips curved, and his smile widens at my nod. “Fine. You’re a slob.”
    “That’s more like it.” I run my hand down his side and around to his stomach. His dark lashes flutter and he lets out a hiss of air as it moves lower.
    “Your hair is insane in the morning.” He ruffles it with a hand and twines it through his fingers. “And your breath isn’t much better.”
    “Hey! Try waking up next to yourself.”
    I laugh and attempt to roll out from under him, but his arms are immovable. He raises a bored eyebrow at my struggle, and I stick my feet on the backs of his bare legs in retaliation.
    He clenches his teeth and growls. “And your feet are fucking freezing. Good enough?”
    “There’s got to be more than that.”
    His mouth moves along my neck, and I sigh when his teeth graze my earlobe. “There’s plenty more. But I’m kind of busy right now.”
    I move against him, and not because I’m cold. The furnace could be broken right now, and I don’t think I’d be chilly. “So, get in my pants already.”

CHAPTER 7
    The white plane waits on the runway just outside the east fence. It looks huge on the ground, but feels tiny when we’re up in the air, like the flick of a finger could knock it out of the sky. We would drive the eighty miles to save on plane fuel, but the roads are still blocked with a winter’s worth of snow.
    We load the veggie starts from our greenhouse into the cargo area. It’s too early for planting, so we’ll transfer them to Whitefield’s tiny greenhouse. Months of canned and dried fruits and vegetables have us all eager for something fresh, and these will produce a bit earlier than the ones they’ll sow directly in the ground.
    I choose a seat close to our pilot, Dwayne. He twirls the ends of his bushy mustache while he and Jeff, Dwayne’s sort-of copilot, run through whatever pilots do. Dwayne’s been teaching Jeff to fly and help to navigate. The plane may have state-of-the-art GPS, but since the satellites went out of whack in no time, it’s completely useless.
    Adrian sits across from me, legs bouncing. Nelly and John squeeze into seats next to us and buckle in as we roll. The trees that circle the fallow field flash by, and then the rumbling under the wheels ceases. I look down as we gain altitude. In a few months the fields outside the fence will be filled with oats, wheat and corn. The vegetable garden inside the fence will be lush and green. But for now, Kingdom Come is a mottled white and brown. Smoke rises from stovepipes and people stroll in groups of two and three. Everyone gets along for the most part—there are petty jealousies and problems, of course, but most of the time we remember how lucky we are.
    Together, Kingdom Come and Whitefield have just over two hundred-fifty souls. Moose River Safe Zone, in Maine, has five hundred. They’re pitiful numbers when you think of how many people the Northeast used to hold. I know we’re not the only ones; there have to be people out there who’ve found places to hole up, who’ve survived the cold and the Lexers. Maybe they’ll chance traveling when the snow melts and before the Lexers start their endless roaming.
    Nelly sips from his murky looking bottle of mint tea—the closest he gets to his beloved Pepsi these days.
    “We’ll have to go back to Whitefield again soon,” I say to him, raising my voice above the drone