the end of Everything (New Adult Erotic Romance) by Katie Ayres Page A

destruction upon the godless. The dead who were
rising again hadn’t become infected by some virus, he’d yelled at
us as we’d listened, riveted, to him. No, the risen dead were God’s
instruments of destruction, earth angels armed not with a flaming
sword, but with a hunger for sinful human flesh. I’d not yet seen
any of the risen dead and I don’t think anybody in our area had
either but, after that sermon, I imagined them as tall,
mud-colored, wingless versions of their former selves.
    Pastor Joseph advised us to pray forgiveness
for our sins, to pray without ceasing. The truly saved would rise
to heaven in the coming Rapture before the earth angels could
attack them. They would not be harmed. By the blissful
self-satisfied look on his face, I could tell he expected Jesus,
himself, to summon him heavenward at any minute.
    Ma and Pa sat between Gideon and me so I
couldn’t see his expression. Was he as worried as I was about what
we’d done? Was that why he’d practically stopped talking to me? But
it was just a kiss. Nothing more. Lot’s daughters had done worse
with their father but I knew that was no excuse. Gideon might not
be my brother by blood but we’d been brought up together and had
called each other ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ from the time I knew
myself.
    Pa and Ma adopted Gideon from an orphanage in
Nashville twenty-one years ago when he was just a little baby. Her
doctor had told Ma she wouldn’t be able to have children so they
made up their minds to take in somebody else’s child and give it a
good Christian home. But, then, a year later Ma got pregnant with
me which is why she sometimes called me her Miracle Baby. Gideon
doesn’t look like us at all. We’re big-boned and blond and I’ve got
Pa’s green eyes but Gideon was dark-haired and dark-eyed, his
angular face, fine-boned.
    As I’d grown older, my feelings for Gideon
had changed, deepened, but I’d known they were sinful and wrong and
had kept them under tight wrap. How could I ever have explained to
him how the sight of his shirtless chest made my heart slush around
in my chest? Or, how I felt like melting when he sent me one of his
slow, lopsided smiles? Gideon was beautiful. He looked like how I
imagined movie stars looked but, since we weren’t allowed to watch
movies, I couldn’t say which one. I was sure any Hollywood person
who saw him would have loved to put my brother up on the screen.
With his open good looks, sparkling honey-brown eyes, and kissable
lips Gideon would draw women in droves to whatever movie he
appeared in. These were sinful, lustful thoughts. They were not the
kind of thoughts a girl should be having about a young man, least
of all one brought up as her brother. Pastor Joseph’s sermon about
the wages of sin and the arrival of the End Times was like it was
meant especially for me.
    After church, Pa and Ma spent a long time
talking with their friends. Usually, people hurried home so they
could prepare lunch and then relax for the rest of the day but,
that Sunday, everyone wanted to talk about the End Times and about
the plague of the undead God had sent among us. The president had
called it a sickness, some kind of virus. He’d said his government
was doing its best to maintain order and control and keep the
sickness from spreading. He’d promised it would be over soon but he
was in D.C. and nobody trusted him, anyway, because it was like he
didn’t read his Bible and understand about the End Times.
    It made me anxious seeing how tense and
worried people looked. I was eighteen, officially an adult, but I
felt as frightened as a child who’d been told the bogeyman was on
his way. Pastor Joseph seemed very sure of his own salvation but I
didn’t think all his church members shared his confidence. I, for
one, didn’t, and Gideon’s expression told me he didn’t either. I
guess that’s why he stepped up his efforts to avoid me after
Sunday. If I entered a room he was in, he’d leave. If I asked