RED Eye
The Armageddon Series
Season Three: Episode Three
By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Claire C. Riley
&
Victoria Cage Author
Eli Constant
RED EYE The Armageddon Series
Copyright ©2020 Claire C. Riley & Elizabeth Constantopoulos
Cover Design: Wilde Designs Elizabeth Constantopoulos
Editor: Amy Jackson
Formatting: Claire C. Riley
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, without express permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.
About the episode
** Sam and Rose have finally found each other, but a manipulative Barrett threatens their sisterhood. And on the horizon…the Sins, zombies, and a whole world of blood. **
About the Series:
A new location brings more terror as Rose and Sam find themselves at the mercy of Barrett’s crew, the Sins.
Now separated from both Sam and Nolan, Rose is a caged animal, terrified but determined to find the people she cares about the most. But how much can one person take?
More than ever, Rose would give anything to be sat in a boring office back in England right now.
Sam’s secret is never safe; that’s a reality she’s learning to live with. Barrett has protected her up until now, yet surrounded by his so-called family, she wonders how long it will be before he turns on her…
Sam longs for the days when her biggest problems were a failed relationship, too many carbs, and a sprained ankle.
Life has never been easy, not before the zombies and certainly not after. But even with the dead rising, it is the living that are causing the most problems. It’s the humans that elicit the most fear, that make the apocalypse bloodier, and that kill anyone necessary to survive.
Between humans, zombies and the desire for brains,
the world’s getting darker by the hour.
And the two unlikely friends,
need one another more than ever.
That doomed red-eye flight seems a lifetime ago…
*
Start this epic zombie apocalypse thriller written by USA Today Bestselling Author Claire C. Riley and Victoria Cage Author Eli Constant.
THE SERIES SO FAR:
Red Eye Complete Seasons One & Two (eight episodes) – OUT NOW
Red Eye Season Three: Episode One – OUT NOW
Red Eye Season Three: Episode Two – OUT NOW
Red Eye Season Three: Episode Three – OUT NOW
Red Eye Season Three: Episode Four – coming soon!
RED Eye
The Armageddon Series
Season Three: Episode Three
By
USA Today Bestselling Author
Claire C. Riley
&
Victoria Cage Author
Eli Constant
Prologue
I used to go to church every Sunday.
I’d teach the little ones before the main service. And then I’d sing in the choir, as loud and as joyfully as I could. Daddy would drive us to Newark’s for ice cream sundaes afterwards. I was twenty-six, but still his little girl. And he’d give me his Maraschino cherries, always saying “April, you’re the sweetest thing in my life.” I believed him. Momma left when I was five. We only had each other. I didn’t go to college so I could stay home and help him.
God, if Daddy saw me now.
He’d be ashamed.
I leaned against the wall, listening to the girl called Rose move around in the tiny room that was no better than a prison. Sandra and Destiny had led me into that room more than once.
Rose seemed so young and defenseless. And she was going to die. She didn’t stand a chance. Sandra had left a few minutes ago, glaring at me to find something productive to do before Destiny saw me wandering around places I didn’t belong. But I was avoiding my next job—to go to the pool and be one of the girls fawning over Charlie, the obese, disgusting king of the Sins. A tiny part of me, sometimes, thought maybe dying would be worth not having to be touched by fat, sticky fingers ever again.
But then I’d be facing death. Like Rose.
If she’d just fallen into line and behaved, she would have been okay. But she hadn’t. She’d chosen the difficult way. The path that let you hold on to your morals and your humanity, but ultimately got you killed. The stupid road, the one that ended in only two ways: a shallow grave that the desert animals would dig up for the promise of fresh food or as an undead monster in Smiley’s godforsaken arena.
It had taken me minutes to make my choice. Get killed, or do whatever it takes.
I’d watched my daddy die horribly, the pastor going crazy during Wednesday night prayer supper. Daddy had tried to calm him down, tried to keep him from going near the children and old folk, but it had been futile. There was nothing I could do, nothing to save him. The light had gone out in his eyes so fast that I still had nightmares.
I’d run away, with little Maggie Phillips in my arms. I’d found her grandmother, handed the child off, and then I’d kept running.
Until I got home, and I bolted the front door.
And then I’d fallen down against the scratched-up hardwood, feeling the emptiness of the house like a great, gaping, open wound across my body.
Because Daddy was never coming home again.
Crossing my arms, I tilted my head down and closed my eyes. Tears were threatening, which wasn’t unusual for me. I cried more than I liked to admit. But in private. Nathan didn’t want sad girls, sniveling and whining.
Women are meant to be pretty.
Pretty little playthings.
They have their use, between the legs.
Nathan’s voice barreled through my brain, and my heart panged. I wanted my daddy’s voice. Or the preacher’s voice. Or little Maggie Phillips’ humming as I tried to teach a Bible lesson.
I stayed there a few minutes, sinking into sad memories, until I heard footsteps coming my way. If someone saw me lingering, they’d ask questions. Even if I was doing nothing wrong, they’d tell Nathan. And if Nathan didn’t punish me, Destiny would just for the hell of it. Sandra wasn’t really the enforcer. She was kinder, even when her words were harsh. She understood what it meant to survive, but still cling on to who we once were.
The rest here were all so very awful, and I sometimes couldn’t believe my life had come to this—a whore, in the middle of the apocalypse, screwing whoever they told me to just so I had food, safety, and a place to sleep.
I’d learned to live with it, learned to survive.
But I’d done so many things that were bad.
I wouldn’t ever walk into a church again in this lifetime.
Wouldn’t ever pick up a Bible again.
My soul was too fractured.
I walked quickly, heading in the opposite direction of the approaching people. Pushing through double doors, I didn’t look back to see who it was. Being nosy was another way to end up punished. God, Nathan might put me in his cage. I’d only been in there once, when I’d first come to work for him.
I’d never go back there.
Never.
Chapter One.
; Sam
“You’ll help her? Her and Nolan?” I stared at Barrett, not believing a single pretty word that came out of his lying, terrible mouth as he sipped the warm beer.
“That’s what I said.” He nodded slowly.
“What’s the catch?” Because with Barrett there was, without a doubt, a catch. He didn’t do things for free, out of the kindness of his heart. I knew that with absolute certainty now.
“Nothing much.” He kicked back his chair from the table and stood up. He looked down at me, mouth twitching. I stayed rooted to my chair, waiting for the ball to drop. “You just stay with me. Be mine.”
“Fuck you, Barrett.”
“Yeah, and that. Stay with me. Be mine. Fuck me.” The quirk of his mouth spread into a self-satisfied smile.
My mouth gaped. “You can’t honestly expect me to…to stay with you? Be your woman, your little damn plaything, after what you did?”
“That’s exactly what I expect.” His self-assured smile didn’t falter, staying plastered across his face like a mask—one that wouldn’t melt, wouldn’t warp, wouldn’t alter no matter how much heat and anger was channeled toward it.
“You’ll save Rose and Nolan if I agree to stay with you.” I narrowed my eyes.
“Stay with me. Be with me.” He nodded slowly. That smile. It stayed. Didn’t widen, didn’t lessen. So pleased with himself.
“Fine,” I murmured. “Fine.”
“What’s that?” he pressed. “Couldn’t quite hear you.”
“I said fine,” I repeated louder, hands balled into fists. “I agree. Save Rose and Nolan, and I agree to be with you.”
“Perfect.” Barrett set the empty beer bottle down, stood up, and stretched happily, groaning a bit as he lifted his arms over his head and arched his spine. “I’ll go make arrangements.”
“Easy as that?”
“Not so easy.” He finally looked serious. “Little Brit’s dug herself quite the hole. Charlie and Nathan aren’t going to let her get out of fighting. But with the right distraction, with the right push on an over-stressed system, the arena could be their hope for an escape.”
“What can I do?” I forced my fingers to unflex and I crossed my arms. “I’m not just sitting around waiting for you to save the day. I don’t fucking trust you.”
“Don’t got much choice but to trust me.” Barrett shrugged. “And sitting around is exactly what you’re going to do.” He walked toward me, and I flinched when he lifted a hand and cupped my chin. “Sit. Look pretty. And keep your promise.” His other hand reached down and his fingers grazed my chest gently. “From now on, you’re mine. Top” —he traced down my body, around my waist, and gripped my ass—“to bottom. Every inch.”
I gritted my teeth and lifted my chin. “Why, Barrett? Just tell me that, because I don’t get it; it doesn’t make sense. Why would you want to keep me when you could have any woman you wanted? Why keep someone around who fucking hates you?”
His jaw tensed, his nostrils flaring as he stared down at me. “Just sit and look pretty, Sam,” he replied without answering my question. His hand squeezed my ass a little tighter and I stiffened, wanting to pull away from him. Wanting to wash the smell of him and the touch of him off my skin. I wanted to burn the clothes I was in, sear his face from my memory. But I couldn’t.
I’d made a deal.
A deal with the devil.
And I felt, in my gut, that there was no turning back.
He’d known he’d lost me as soon as I found out about Rose and Nolan being here, and this was his way of keeping me.
*
“Y’all done taking over my building?” Stash sauntered in then.
Barrett wrapped both hands around my waist and jerked me toward him, pressing our bodies together so closely that I couldn’t mentally escape the feel of him and the heady sandalwood-and-sweat scent that emanated from him. He mashed his mouth against my own, tongue pushing in hard and unrelenting. I didn’t kiss him back. I let him have his way with me and when he stopped, he looked at me, anger snaking through his eyes like poison from an apple, from a tree that shouldn’t bear fruit.
He came away with the knowledge that I might stay with him, but he would never really have me again.
My body.
He could have that.
But my heart?
Never.
“Watch her for me, Stash.” Barrett turned around and eyed the older man, who stood near the entrance to the storage building, his hands occupied by two plates filled to the edges with sandwiches, chips, and something else I couldn’t make out.
“Sure thing—even brought her lunch.” He nodded down at the plates.
“Two plates?” Barrett’s eyebrow quirked.
I moved around him, already tasting the chips in my mouth.
“She’s prettier than you. And skinnier.” Stash chuckled. “Besides, you’ve always been a little touchy about people making your grub.”
“You just think you still have a chance.” Barrett walked forward and glanced down at the plate of food before stealing one of the sandwich squares. He took a bite and audibly grunted in disgust. “Fucking pimento. Goddamn apocalypse, and pimento cheese survives.”
“Food of the gods,” Stash snarked, taking the half-eaten square from Barrett’s grip and popping the whole thing into his mouth. “Tastes like cheesy heaven with a dash of feet.”
“How you’re alive with the way you eat…” Barrett’s voice trailed off. “Just watch Sam. Don’t let her go anywhere while I’m gone.”
“And if I need to piss?” I asked crudely, anger flaring and vision tinging pink.
“I got a bathroom back there.” Stash cocked his thumb toward a rear door nearly hidden by shelves of supplies.
“See? No need to do anything but stay here.” Barrett starred intensely at me. “And look pretty. Just like I said.”
“Whatever, Barrett.” I turned away from him, focusing on a row of items on a nearby shelf while Barrett and Stash finished. Chewing tobacco. Cigarettes. Cigars. Even at the end of the world, people clung to their vices. I only turned around when I heard the door open and close, a rush of hot desert air pulsing into the building.
“He’s gone,” Stash confirmed, drawing my attention around to him and the table and chairs, where he’d placed the food. Two new bottles of beer had joined the nosh. “Get over here and eat while the pimento’s warm and the beer is cold-ish.”
“Warm pimento cheese?” Truth be told, I’d never actually had the stuff. If it was anything like grilled cheese sandwich, though, I’d eat it with gusto.
“Best way to have it. Little mayo, bit of pepper, healthy spread of the orange deliciousness.”
I hurried over, trying not to salivate down my chin, and sat down opposite him.
I quickly learned that warmed pimento cheese is nothing like a grilled cheese sandwich.
It tasted mostly like the nasty red middle of a green olive. My dad would love it—green olives were his favorite. If I hadn’t been starving, I might have spat the sandwich bite out. As it was, Stash must have seen a less-than-thrilled expression cross over my face.
“Not your cuppa, huh?” He grinned like a maniac…or a Cheshire cat having played a particularly mean trick on an unwitting Alice.
“I’ve had worse,” was all I could manage to say.
“It’s the pimentos. The red bits. Lot of people can’t stand them.”
“They taste like green olives.”
“Jarred green olives are sometimes stuffed with pimentos.” Stash waggled his eyebrows and stuffed a whole sandwich square into his gaping mouth, bits of the orange artificial cheese stuck to his teeth.
I laughed despite myself, the nausea and anger still jumping around inside of me like two out-of-control toddlers with sensory overload. “I hate green olives. My dad loved them though. Like really loved them.”
“What happened to your dad?” Stash took a long swig of beer, washing down his food. “Mom? Siblings?”
“Dad died before all of this started.” I stared past Stash at more supplies. Slate gray canisters, thin and tallish. Ammo storage, maybe? “I’m glad about that, I think. Dad was all about the… the creature comforts. He was a hard worker, made sure I had everything I ever wanted. But I think he'd have stayed in his recliner watching Lucy reruns all the time if he was able. He liked air-conditioning and cold beer.” I lifted up the beer, condensation running down the sides in cool trickles that were pleasant to my bruised, warm fingers. “And he loved me. I’m glad he’s not alive to see the world the way it is now.”
“Or to see you the way you are?” Stash probed, hand lifting another square of pimento cheese sandwich to his lips.
“Yeah, that too.”
He didn’t ask about my mom again, or about siblings—which I didn’t have.
Or, at least I didn’t use to have a sibling. That was one thing I didn’t regret about the end of the world: finding sisterhood.
My mind went to Rose. Walking in that arena with the sign, looking so small and defenseless.
“And that girl…she really a stranger to you?” As if he’d read my mind, Stash asked about the British girl who’d become as close to family as I had anymore. I missed her. I wanted to hear her voice, and hug her to me. I wanted her to be safe.
Which is why you’ve made this deal, I told myself. Stay with Barrett, and she’ll be safe. And Nolan will keep her alive.
“I mean, I don’t think we’d have made it out of that airport without each other. So I care about her some. She helped keep me alive, but I don’t really know her.” I averted my gaze, looking down at the food and stuffing my mouth with the horrible sandwich so I couldn’t keep talking.
Stash made a small grunt and lapsed into silence. But I knew he was thinking, that keen brain of his working around my omissions and Barrett’s outright lies to get at the truth of things. Crazy old man. Perceptive as hell. But crazy. Anyone would have to be to push at Barrett for information he didn’t want to give.
Red Eye | Season 3 | Episode 3 Page 1