'Jade, you don't need to say sorry. I understand, everyone lost people at Sanctuary. All of you needed to grieve,' she answered gently.
'I know that, but do you. I know how much you love Jensen, but you still lost Nikkita. More than that, you had to do what no one should have. That kind of pain stays with you, and none of us gave you that chance to mourn her,' I said tearfully.
She sat down on the floor next to me, I could see the tears sliding down her pale face. 'I just had to keep you all going, you're my family and I've lost more people that you can imagine. I stopped caring what happened to me, I just had to keep you safe,' she replied crying. I put my arms around her, I let her lean on me like I should have all those months ago.
'You don't need to always be in charge, let me share that burden with you,' I told her. She nodded, still crying and for a moment I allowed myself to feel her emotions. It was as though a weight were lifting off her shoulders, I could feel her heart letting go of all the pain she'd held on to these last months.
We stayed at the school for another three days, we needed to process everything and find a way to carry all the food that was here. I smiled thinking that at least we wouldn't have to worry about starving any time soon. In the days since our talk, Frankie stepped back from being the leader so much and I saw just how much happier she was for it.
'Come on then, lets actually get to the lab,' I told the group.
'Here, here. I want to make sure Finn and the others are alright,' Delilah agreed.
'I'd like to be somewhere longer than a few days,' Tessa chimed in.
'And I'm anxious to meet this lad you all speak so highly of,' Dom piped up cheerfully.
So we set off for the lab once more, I could only hope that the rest of our journey there would be a little less adventurous. Sadly that was not the case, as we walked through a small town not far from the lab, we stopped to rest for a moment outside what used to be primary school. I didn't want to be here, it was a reminder of Annabelle. I looked at the others, they were all tired, the sun had been beaming down harshly today and they needed rest. So we sat down on the grass to drink some water and have some food, I was glad we didn't need to ration too much now.
'I could use a snack,' Frankie said lightly.
'Same here,' Jensen agreed.
'What about you you lot?' I asked the others.
'I'm so hungry I could eat a horse,' Delilah chimed in. 'I'm starving,' Dom smiled. Brooke and Tessa merely nodded in agreement, while Brooke didn't really speak much I was worried about Tessa. I had been too preoccupied this last week to really notice, but Tessa wasn't herself. I knew her dads death still weighed on her mind, I could only hope that once we reached the lab and made a home for ourselves she would feel somewhat better. We sat down to eat and I decided to try and not have another meal time where we were sat in awkward silence.
'Any ideas on what we should do after we've got to the lab?' I asked trying to sound somewhat happy.
'Me and Frankie thought we could go home, you know back to yours,' Jensen said cheerfully.
'Yeah, it was our haven for so long and we think it might be good to be somewhere safe for a while,' Frankie chimed in.
'I wouldn't mind seeing your house,' Delilah smiled.
'I'm happy to be anywhere as long as it's safe,' Dom piped up, in his normally chirpy voice.
'I'm not sure, I think staying at the lab is a good idea,' Brooke mumbled quietly.
'How about you Tessa, what do you think?' I asked her softly.
'Honestly I can't even think that far a head, I just want to get to the lab first,' her voice while soft had a sombre note to it.
'I'm getting more and more worried about Faye and Finn,' Frankie said.
'Same here, I just want to hurry up and get there,' I replied. I was grateful that we got through the journey without incident. We easily found the church which held the entrance to the lab, I felt happy but nervous. I lifted the hatch that led to the lab itself, I went it first wanting to make sure it was safe.
We listened for voices, we walked along the long poorly lit hallway in silence. I called out to Finn once we reached the glass doors but we heard no response. As we opened the doors, no words could describe the sight before me. I stood in shock, speechless at the girl who stood in front of me. It wasn't until she flung her arms round me that I knew, I wasn't dreaming. Never in a million years did I think I would see her again, my daughter, Rowena!
Chapter 8
Dom
In these last few weeks I'd been through more highs and lows, than I had in the last decade. I found my best friend, and my adopted daughter Tessa, along with some nice folks. They'd told me about their mission to get back to the lab, their scientist friend had developed a cure. Those two things alone, were so overwhelming.
Then Troy died, we went to a school and found a child. In the end the child tried to kill Jade and she'd accidentally killed her and then when we finally got to the lab, Jade's long lost daughter was here waiting for her. I sat and watched as they reminisced about old times, looking as though they'd never been apart.
While I felt joyful that they'd been reunited, I could not help feeling envious. I'd not seen my children in decades, I longed to see their faces again. Sadly I knew, it would never be possible.
'You alright uncle Dom?' Tessa asked kindly.
'Yeah, just lost in my thoughts,' I replied smiling.
'Oh I forgot, introductions are in order,' Jade announced happily.
I sat smiling as I was introduced to Finn, the tall blond haired boy, his sister who looked like his twin and his mum Morgan, who clearly needed a good meal in her.
'Nice to meet you all,' I said politely.
'Rowena, I want you to meet Frankie and Jensen, my adoptive children,' she beamed.
'Ha, and I always thought the three of us were a handful enough for you,' Rowena joked.
'I'm so glad to meet you, your mum's told us so much about you,' Frankie told her cheerfully.
'Nothing too bad, I hope,' Rowena laughed. I sat listening to everyone talk, while I had not known these people long, I could already tell they were good folks. Seeing Jade smile warmed my heart, Tessa had told me what they'd lost at Sanctuary. Two of Jade's adoptive children had died there, it explained why she had been cold and quiet.
Seeing her now with her blood daughter, made me believe in miracles. It had been almost six years since the world when to hell, everyone had lost more family, more friends than we could count. Yet here she was, sitting, holding her mums hands as they talked about everything they'd missed out on.
'I'm really glad you and Jade found each other, but don't you think we should talk about the other reason we came here?' Delilah gently.
Delilah was right, it was time to talk about the thing we were all dreading. Who would be the guinea pig and test the cure? Frankie, Jensen and Delilah sat and listened while everyone else talked about it. Finn and Faye had offered, but Morgan had refused.
'I've only just got you back, I'm not having you put your lives in danger. If it comes to it, I'll do it,' Morgan said fiercely.
'With all due respect Morgan, you can't do it. We need you alive to make more if it works, and to keep trying if it fails,' Jade told her kindly.
'You're right,' Morgan replied.
'I'll do it,' Tessa piped up.
'No, I'll not have you risking your life. I've just found you, I don't want to lose you,' I replied kindly.
'Look I've lost my family and now I have the chance to make the world a better place, I'm doing this with or without your blessing,' she said angrily.
I shook my head in defeat, when Tessa made up her mind there was no changing it. Even in all the years I'd been separated from her, she hadn't changed one bit. Tessa was still as stubborn as her dad.
'Alright, if that's what you want,' I replied softly.
She smiled weakly, I knew she was afraid but I also knew that this was something she just had to do.
'Okay now you've decided,
let's get started,' Morgan looked and sounded very nervous. Morgan strapped Tessa down on the bed, she asked her again if she was sure and Tessa said she was. Morgan went to the fridge and took out a glass tube that had blue liquid inside it, she used the syringe to put the liquid inside it. She was shaking as she walked over to Tessa, she must have known that she could be killing her. Jade and I held Tessa's hands as she closed her eyes and waited for Morgan to inject her with the liquid, I could see the heavy beads of sweat pouring down her face and silently prayed that it worked.
Morgan found a vein to put the needle in and we all held our breath as the potential cure was injected into her veins. Once the needle was out, Tessa's eyes fluttered and she appeared to be having some kind seizure, Morgan shouted at us not to touch her, We all watched in horror as her eyes rolled round in her head and her whole body shook.
It seemed to last forever when really it was only a few moments, Tessa opened her eyes and appeared to be herself.
'Tessa, can you hear me?' Morgan asked worryingly.
'Yes,' was all she said.
Morgan unstrapped her while Jade and I helped her up, she was a bit shaky on her feet otherwise looked fine.
'We should get her to the other room,' Morgan's voice just as shaky as Tessa was. We took her into the other room where Morgan's husband was strapped to a bed, Tessa seemed to get stronger with each step she took. Morgan removed the strap from her husbands mouth being careful not to get bitten, Tessa reached over and let him bite her.
'We need to put her back on the table, she'll have to stay there for twenty-four hours until I can be sure she's not going to turn,' Morgan looked sympathetically at Tessa while being gentle with her.
We sat with Tessa for hours before she fell asleep, poor girl she must be exhausted after all that. I hoped that she survived this, I looked round at the others to see the solemn looks on their faces.
'Can you tell me about the strong walkers you've come across?' Morgan asked them softly. The others told her in great detail about the increased strength and speed of the biters they had faced in the last few months, she wrote it all down in her book while they talked. She told us that a mutated strain of the virus had come about, the army people that had been looking for Finn and Faye were part of a specialist team that had been trying to find a cure.
The scientists in their team had made a grave error in their work and had created a stronger form of the virus, obviously the subjects had escaped and the army had been unable to eradicate them all.
Like with the original virus when some one was bitten by one the new types of biters you became one of them, it made survival that much harder but still not impossible.
Assuming that Tessa survived the vaccine trial, Morgan needed to find one of the stronger walkers and catch it in order to create a vaccine for the mutated strain. We all sat down to eat dinner, though none of us spoke. I guess we all had other things on our mind, I never believed in God but I prayed to what ever higher power there was, to let the cure work and have Tessa live. I had only just found her, she couldn't die, she just couldn't.
'Who's going to take the first shift?' Frankie asked worryingly.
'We'll do it,' Jade piped up, referring to her and Rowena.
'Alright then, Jensen and I will take the late shift,' Frankie told them.
'Okay then, everyone else go and get some sleep,' Morgan told us. I didn't need to be told twice, while I did want to be there for when Tessa woke up, I wasn't a young man any more, I needed to sleep. I went off to my room, that I shared with the others, although it was just Delilah and I tonight. I laid down on the air bed, not really knowing what to do. My mind was wide awake, all I could think about was how badly I wanted Tessa to survive this. As twilight approached, I found myself thinking about my ex-wife and kids.
I wasn't always the happy care free man that I was today, I was like a lot of misguided people my age back when I was a teenager. I came from a very strict household, my father ruled the family with an iron fist. We were either caned or we got the buckle end of the belt if we misbehaved, no matter how small our crime was. I was the eldest of six, not only that I was the only boy. By the time I reached eighteen I'd had enough, I left home and went to live with some friends. I got a job in the local pub and met my wife a year later, but sadly by that time I was already addicted to drugs. It was the only thing that numbed the pain of my childhood, it took away the guilt I felt for leaving my mum and sisters alone with my father.
My wife knew nothing of my addiction until after the birth of our second son, for the first few years I was still able to maintain a job, keep a home and help out with my boys. Yet still, I had two young kids by the age of twenty-two. While I loved them all, I could not give up the drugs.
I'd never told my wife about my past, I even gave her false hope that if we married I would quit. I couldn't fault her in the end, she took my boys when my youngest was barely four. I gave her everything in the divorce, I knew she deserved it. The house, what little savings I hadn't burned through, everything. To be honest I was glad to be rid of the house, I'd bought it with the money I inherited when my father died when my youngest turned two. My mum and sisters had not spoke to me since the day I left home, I could not blame them, I abandoned them, left them to bear the brunt of my fathers temper alone.
If it wasn't for Troy and Tessa, I never would have made it back to myself. I lived with them for a while, until I found my feet, I hoped and prayed that I could find my children again. My ex-wife told me nothing of where she'd moved to or how my children were doing, it took me years to find them. It was only when social media was created that I was able to track them down.
I'll never forget staring at the computer screen, looking at my son's faces for the first time in fifteen years. My boys were spitting image of me, their dark skin and black hair so like mine but the curls, they came from their mother. Both of them were them were tall and lanky, also like me though they were actually much taller than I was.
My hands trembled as I typed my message, I poured my heart out trying to find the right words to tell them just how sorry I was. It was almost a month before I heard back, and to my disappointment they wanted nothing to do with me. They told me how their mum had remarried and how that man had raised them, been there for them in all the ways I should have been. I cried my eyes out that night, as I shoved the needle into my veins, I felt my heart break, my hope dissipate.
Again if it hadn't been for Troy and Tessa, I would've been dead. Tessa was seventeen at the time, and the look of horror on her face as she saw me passed out on the floor with a needle sticking out of my arm, it tore me apart.
She wailed and cried, clinging to me as she begged me not to do it again. She had her dad, but in all the years since she'd been born I treated her like one of my own. Well looking back I treated her better than I had my own kids,it was a hard road to recovery but with their love and support I made it once more.
I moved to an area that was run down, dirty and full of other addicts but it was all the council could offer me. Somehow I resisted temptation, but after only a week of living there my flat was burgled. They took everything, my phone, my clothes, every ounce of food and money that I had.
I'd lost Troy and Tessa's number, I hadn't told them where I'd moved to yet as I had wanted to get my place looking nice before they came to visit. So after over thirty years of friendship, I lost my best friend and then not two years later the world ended.
'You alright down there Dom?' Delilah asked interrupting my thoughts.
'Yeah, I'm just thinking about some things,' I replied.
'I'm worried about Tessa too, but I think she'll be alright,' she told me happily.
'I hope you're right, but that's not all I'm worried about.'
'You thinking about, what we're going to do next?' She asked.
'Yeah, I mean if this works, we'll be the ones to save the world. That's both incredibly amazing and terrifying.'
'I know what you mean, but I'm choos
ing to believe that it can only be a good thing. To have the purpose of saving the WHOLE world, is one thing I'll be happy to take on,' Delilah said cheerfully.
'Ha, I wish I had your enthusiasm,' I laughed.
'I think I've got enough for the both of us,' she joked.
'That, I can agree with,' I smiled. Twenty-four hours had gone by so slow, we had all taken it in turns watching Tessa. We were over joyed that she hadn't turned, Morgan had found a cure to the first strain of the virus. It was the scientific discovery of a lifetime, I was relieved that Tessa was alright although there was something very strange about her. I couldn't put my finger on it but she was different, I had known her since she was born and I had seen her go through many things. I watched her grow up into a beautiful, smart young woman and I couldn't be more proud.
Yet when I looked at her now, she seemed colder somehow. Maybe she hadn't wanted to survive the vaccine trial, and now that she was alive she felt sad. I hoped that in time she would come to embrace life again, I know her father's death had been hard on her but she still had so much to live for.
If any of us were going to survive this world, it would be Tessa as she was the smartest person I had ever known, she was kind and caring but could also be tough as nails when she had to be. Now that we knew the vaccine worked, we were all injected with it. It was painful to watch, the spasms and convulsions, it was ever more painful to go through. In the end it was a small price to pay for being immune to the deadly bite of a corpse.
I sat on the floor next to Jade, I looked at her and saw a true survivor, like most of us she had been through hell. When I first met her she was so down and sad, though I had come to know why, it made me feel like I had done the right thing all these years by not staying with people.
As I had got to know this group I found that they were all strong and they looked after each other, I often thought that Jade was the strongest of them all. She certainly was the most beautiful. Even when she was covered in blood and guts, she was still mesmerising to look at. I knew she had lost her husband last year and so I didn't let on that I liked her.
Dead World Rising (Book 3): The Cure Page 8