“Hold my hand, Meggy,” Margot said.
Before Meg had a chance to tell her no, Margot’s hand slid into hers. Meg rolled her eyes, but didn’t pull away. Her sister’s hand was small and bony in hers, but warm.
They’d almost made it to the end of the street before the scream cut through the happy atmosphere. Meg’s steps faltered, but her mom moved faster, pulling the girls with her. All around them people began to yell and run, and then someone called out the word that Meg had been raised to fear, and a shudder shot down her spine. Zombies. In the city.
Tears filled her eyes and she found herself holding onto her sister’s hand tighter. Margot was already crying and Meg knew she needed to be strong for her sake if nothing else, but these were zombies. Real ones. She’d seen them from far away, but never up close. How had they gotten in?
“Keep moving, girls,” their mom yelled.
There was fear in her eyes, but she held on tight to Margot’s hand as she ran, looking over her shoulder every few seconds to see if they were behind her. Meg wanted to look too, but she was afraid. Afraid that she’d see something she’d never be able to forget or that the second she took her eyes off the road in front of her she’d trip and fall.
The street was crowded and there were so many people around them that when her mom disappeared, Meg didn’t see it happen. Once second she was there, and then a scream ripped its way out of Margot and their mother was gone. Meg stopped running and looked around, but the people surrounding them were all strangers. They were running. Pushing. Crying. Screaming. No one was paying attention to Meg and her sister, and their mom was nowhere in sight.
Margot was sobbing and Meg knew that it was up to her to get her little sister to safety, so she held her little hand tighter and once again started running. She pushed people out of the way and pulled on her sister’s arm, trying to get her to move faster. Focusing on the street in front of them. Her own eyes were full of tears and everything in front of her was blurry, but she didn’t stop, didn’t even slow. Not for a second.
At least not until Margot’s hand was pulled from hers.
It felt like someone had ripped her away. One second she was there, her little hand wrapped around Meg’s, and then she was gone. A scream that could have come from Margot rose above the noise, but when Meg turned her sister wasn’t there. She spun around, looking through the crowd, but everything was crazy. And there was no Margot. There was no Mom. There was only her.
Meg screamed her sister’s name. She called for her mother. The words were almost lost in her sobs, but she didn’t stop. People ran past and pushed her aside, but Meg didn’t move. She didn’t know where to go or what to do, she just knew that she had to find her little sister and get her to safety.
Even when Meg saw the first zombie, she stood frozen in place.
Everything was so blurry from her tears that she was positive the terrifying face in the crowd couldn’t be real. But the thing was still there when she wiped the tears from her eyes, and then another appeared next to it, and another. They were rotten and gross. They reached for people and made sounds that caused Meg’s legs to shake. They were coming right toward her.
And she was frozen in place.
“Meg.” The boy popped up out of nowhere and put his arm around her. “Are you okay?”
People were still running and pushing each other and the zombies were still coming. Meg shook her head, unable to speak and uncertain what this boy, someone who was the same age as her, would be able to do anything to help. She felt sure that she was about to die.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said, and then her eyes adjusted and she recognized him. It was Jackson Star. His dad was the leader, the Regulator of New Atlanta. Maybe he could save her after all. Maybe he was just important enough that the zombies wouldn’t be able to touch him.
Jackson started to move but stopped, his eyes going from the zombies charging them to the people running for their lives. His expression changed, but Meg couldn’t figure out what he was thinking, and then it didn’t matter because right in front of her eyes a man tripped. He flew forward hard enough that he seemed to fly, and it happened so fast that she couldn’t believe it, and when he hit the ground he was right in front of the zombies.
It took a split second for them to attack, and then their teeth ripped into the man and blood sprayed across the street. He screamed, and he was so close that Meg could smell the rot and blood, and his screams were vibrating in her ears. She wanted to run, but Jackson didn’t move an inch. He watched the scene unfold as if captivated by it, and once again the expression on his face was so unfamiliar that Meg couldn’t figure out what he was thinking.
She started to cry harder and that seemed to snap Jackson out of his trance. He held her tighter and pulled her away from the zombies, pushing his way through the crowd as he led her to an alley. There he let her go long enough to move a couple crates aside.
“Get in,” he said, motioning to the opening he’d made.
She did as she was told and once she was safely inside, Jackson climbed in after her. He pulled another crate down so it was over their heads and Meg scooted as far back as she could. She was stuck between a crate and a dumpster that smelled like rotten food, but she felt safer here.
She couldn’t stop crying, though, not even when Jackson put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. She rested her face against his chest and he told her not to be scared. He told her it would be okay. He said everything she wanted to hear before she could even think it, until slowly she started to regain control and her tears died off. In his arms, with the world going crazy around her, Meg felt safe and protected, which was odd because she didn’t even know this boy and he wasn’t very big. He was smaller than she was, actually, but something about him made her believe that he would keep her safe.
“Thank you,” she said.
Jackson’s only response was to hold her tighter.
After what felt like decades, the screams died down. Jackson and Meg climbed out of their hiding place, but all she could think about was finding her mom and sister. There was so much blood on the street that she wanted to run back and hide. There were bodies, too. Some were zombies, their worn and filthy clothes giving them away even if their faces weren’t visible, but there were other bodies that had to be human, and the sight of their torn and bloody flesh made her stomach twist.
“Mom? Margot!”
Meg called their names and forced herself to search the street anyway. Jackson helped by looking at the bodies so she wouldn’t have to, something she would always be grateful for, but again and again they came up empty handed. Meg, who had just begun to calm down, felt her control start to slip away as they covered more and more ground, only to come up with nothing.
“They’re gone,” she said, her shoulders shaking from the sobs she was trying to hold in.
“Don’t.” Jackson grabbed her shoulders and held her gaze, and to Meg his brown eyes seemed so much older than he was. There was more depth and he seemed so much more capable than anyone she had ever known. “We’ll find them.”
They continued up the street, following the path of death the zombies had left in their wake. Meg worked hard to keep it together, and at her side Jackson felt like an impenetrable force, a rock that couldn’t be moved or a wall that couldn’t be broken down. He didn’t hesitate to look at the blood on the street or the mangled bodies strewn about, and Meg admired him for that. He was strong. He was steady. He would help her find her family.
When she caught a glimpse of blonde hair in an alley, she took off running.
Lying on her side just inside the opening of an alley, Meg found her mom. She was out cold, a gash on the side of her head. Her hair was matted with blood and her face streaked with dirt, and it took a great deal of effort to rouse her. But she finally opened her eyes, drawing a sigh of relief from Meg. Everything would be okay now. Her mom was awake and she would find Margot and then they would go home together.
&nbs
p; “Meg?” Mom’s expression was confused for a few seconds, and then she blinked and pushed herself up, looking past Meg to the empty street at her back. “Where’s Margot?”
“I don’t know.” The tears returned, harder this time.
All Meg wanted was for her mom to wrap her arms around her and hold her close, but that’s not what happened. Instead she got to her feet, shaking her head like she was trying to chase away the fuzziness in her brain, and then she moved past her crying daughter and ran out into the street.
Jackson helped Meg up and put his arm around her, doing what her mother had not done. Together they followed her mom back onto the street where more people had started searching the death and mayhem for loved ones. She and Jackson searched too, checking every nook and cranny for Margot, but still they turned up nothing.
Before long the enforcers showed up, including Meg’s dad. By then her mom was nearly hysterical and Meg found it impossible to stop crying. They never stopped looking, and Jackson never left her side.
But all they found was Margot’s backpack. It was ripped and covered in blood, and most of the contents had been lost in the street. It wasn’t a body, but to Meg it told her what she needed to know. She’d been there, she had felt her sister’s hand get ripped from hers and she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Margot was gone.
They kept looking as the maintenance crew arrived and began collecting bodies. Meg’s parents refused to give up hope. Not even after all the remains had been loaded onto a truck. Not even when the sun had set and they’d returned home. Not the next day when there was still no word or the day after that. They held on for more than a week before accepting the truth, and every moment that passed during that time was torture for Meg because she felt with certainty that her parents blamed her for what had happened to Margot.
Jackson came to see her every day that week. He checked on her after school got out, brought her luxuries like chocolate bars. He comforted her while she cried, something her own parents had yet to do, too lost in their own grief over their missing child to realize that she was hurting as much as they were. During that week of hell, Jackson seemed to always be there for her when she needed him. He listened and comforted and let her cry on his shoulder, and with each day that passed, she felt a little more certain that he’d been sent by God to save her that day.
By the time Meg’s parents finally remembered that she existed, Margot had been dead for a week.
Meg
The first year after Margot’s death was the hardest of her life. She missed her sister, missed the companionship and fun they’d had together, but at the same time she felt smothered by her parents. They’d lost a child in the most horrible way possible, and they were determined never to let it happen again. Meg found herself trapped at home for long hours, her only companions her two cousins, Luke and Charlie, but even they were rarely home because they had friends outside their family.
Meg had never had friends, and it was during that year that she needed them more than anything. Which was why she was so grateful to have Jackson in her life. Their friendship had only grown stronger as the weeks after Margot’s death had stretched on. He became something she’d never had before, someone to lean on, and someone who didn’t care what her last name was.
Thanks to her family connections, Meg had found forming relationships difficult. She’d tried, back when she was younger and had first entered school, but the few attempts had led to uncomfortable questions from the children of fanatics. They’d asked personal things about her uncle and what he had been like, even sometimes going so far as to ask about her dad. It hadn’t taken long for her to realize that none of them really had an interest in getting to know her. It was all about Angus James.
Jackson, however, was different. Not only did he seem not care about her uncle at all, but his father was the Regulator of New Atlanta, which put him in a similar situation to hers. Plus, in Meg’s opinion, Jackson was a very misunderstood person.
Her family didn’t like him, they had made that much clear, and no matter how often she tried to get them to see the real Jackson Star, they refused to think of him as anything but the Regulator’s son. Not that it derailed their friendship.
The years passed and much to her family’s dismay, Meg’s relationship with Jackson grew. They were best friends. He was the first person she wanted to talk to when something good happened and the one she ran to when she needed a shoulder to cry on, but there was nothing romantic between them. Not even when they reached their teen years and the other kids around them began to pair off. There were times when Meg sensed that Jackson might want more from her, but to her their relationship was fine the way it was. Better than fine, actually. It was perfect.
Until she met Colton at the age of eighteen, Meg had never shown any real interest in boys or dating. Before then she’d never had a boyfriend, had never even wanted one since most of the boys in the settlement were much younger than she was. Between her family and Jackson, Meg was fairly certain that she had everything she needed, and there was even a part of her that thought one day she might be ready to take things to the next level with her best friend.
Colton changed all that.
They met accidentally one fall evening when Meg went to the wall to visit her dad. He was supposed to be on watch in the front tower, but when she climbed the ladder it only took a millisecond to realize that something wasn’t right. It was dark and the man in the tower had his back to her, but he was taller and broader than her father was.
“You’re not my dad,” Meg said, unable to hide her surprise.
The man shifted and a second later the soft glow of a lantern lit up the small space. He was already smiling when he turned, and when his dark blue eyes moved over her, the grin stretched wider.
“Thank God for that.”
Heat spread through her, but she found the feeling pleasant. Almost welcome.
He was young, in his early twenties, with eyes that twinkled when he laughed and dark hair that curled around his ears and at the nape of his neck. He had a dimple in his right cheek that made her want him to never stop smiling, and when he laughed it actually made her toes curl.
So instead of climbing back down the ladder, Meg stayed.
She and Colton talked for less than an hour that first night, but by the time she left she was head over heels. Unlike most people, he hadn’t asked about her uncle or anyone else in her family, and she could tell that he was genuinely interested in getting to know who she was. It was almost as if he had no clue who Angus James was at all. Or maybe he just didn’t care.
By the time she found the right tower and climbed in next to her father, Meg’s cheeks ached from smiling so much.
“There you are,” her dad said when she plopped down next to him. “Thought you’d be here a long time ago.”
“I climbed the north tower by accident.” If it was possible, her smile actually stretched wider. “I met Colton.”
Her dad narrowed his gray eyes on her. “That right?”
“Yeah. We talked for a little bit. He seems nice.” She looked down, trying to act casual even though she knew he could see right through her. “Do you know him?”
“Sure do.”
When he chuckled, Meg’s head snapped up. “Why are you laughing?”
“No reason,” he said, but he laughed harder.
“Dad!” She knew she sounded like a whiny kid, but his laughter made her cheeks grow warm, and for some reason she had the urge to cover her face.
“I’m sorry.” He bumped her with his elbow, not looking the least bit sorry. “Least I like this one.”
Meg sat up straighter. “You like Colton?”
Her father nodded, and there was a knowing look in his eyes that made Meg squirm, but it also made her suddenly hopeful for the future.
Two days later there was a knock on their door. Meg was the only one home and even though she was thrilled to open it and find Colton standing in the hall, she felt strangely unsure ab
out inviting him inside.
Thankfully, he didn’t ask to come in.
“Hi.” In the light of day his smile was even more amazing, showing off his perfectly straight teeth.
“Hi,” she said, trying—and failing—not to think about how soft his lips looked.
At eighteen she’d never kissed a guy, although she and Jackson had come close a few times. She’d almost gone through with it, had been so close that she had felt his moist breath on her lips, but she’d always pulled back. Always felt like it was a step she shouldn’t rush. Now she found that she was glad, because even though she had just met Colton, she couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to kiss him.
The silence stretched on as they stared at each other like two idiots until they both burst out laughing at the same time. It helped lighten the mood, and by the time Colton asked her out, she was once again at ease in his presence.
Meg couldn’t wait to tell her parents. Her dad had already given his approval, and when her mom got home from work she was just as thrilled as her father had been. It felt nice to have them excited about the date. After seven years of friendship with Jackson, her parents still hadn’t warmed to him, which was probably one of the biggest reasons Meg had never pursued a relationship with him. Even though she felt certain that her parents were overreacting, the idea of being with someone they disliked so much hurt.
Like everything else that happened in her life, Meg couldn’t wait to tell Jackson the news. Even though she hadn’t expected him to be jumping up and down to learn that she was going out with someone else, she’d hoped that he would at least be happy for her. He’d dated other girls—although he’d never admitted it to her, she knew he occasionally went out with the daughter of one of the council members—and it only seemed fair that he would support her in finding happiness as well. Only that wasn’t what happened.
Twisted World Series Box Set | Books 1-3 & Novella Page 67