"Pax—" Vanessa started but was cut off quickly.
"We need to leave," Pax said and began to walk past Dan.
"Is everything alright? We have medicine here if that's what this is," Courtney said, trying to keep up with Pax.
"I'm so sorry, I don't know what's going on," Vanessa said, signaling for everyone to follow.
"Pax," Dan said.
Pax stopped in his tracks and turned around.
"Thank you again for saving my people. Sorry we couldn't chat longer."
Pax swallowed harder. Was he taunting him? Did he really have no idea who Pax was? Did any of it matter? Pax opened his mouth and heard the words come out. "We'll get the chance again, Daniel."
Pax walked out of the camp, his hands shaking.
24
Courtney
"Do you think he's gonna be okay?" Courtney asked Dan. Pax had seemed fine moments ago, but out of nowhere, boom. Puking in the center of the circle. "You don't think he got bit?"
Dan turned to Courtney, his face twisted. "No, I don't think he got bit. Did you see blood coming out of his eyes, or anything like that? Besides, how long has he been here?"
That was true. Pax hadn't been there long enough to get any symptoms if he had been bit while saving her. It was just so strange. What could have made him get sick so quickly? "I hope he's okay."
"Do you?" Dan asked in contempt.
"What is that supposed to mean?" she questioned.
"I don't know, it's just, maybe those people seemed great, but as soon as they got in here, they started acting strange. Does that sound like a good plan to you?"
"How was I supposed to prevent that? They came in and saved me and Jennifer, for fuck's sake!"
"And why did you need saving in the first place. How did the soulless get inside?"
"The wall was built to shit! It broke at the seam. I was overrun, Jennifer was overrun, nobody came to help, except those people. They fixed the wall, and they saved our lives."
Dan shook his head. Courtney could tell he was angry by the way his face stood stern. "Those people could have been anyone. If I was here—"
"But you weren't, and that's the problem," Courtney quickly shot.
"No, but I figured—"
"You have no room to talk. You have no room to figure. I was here, Jennifer was here, you were not. We really needed your help but, instead, you were doing God knows what out there. Hunting down Mick? Did it go as well as you'd hoped?" She looked at his hands, the bloodstains told her everything she needed to know.
"It wasn't what you think," Dan said. She could hear in his voice that he was getting tired of defending himself. The thing was, she was getting tired of defending him to everyone else, too.
"Maybe if you were here more, our people wouldn't be so scared to fight the soulless. Maybe they could fend for themselves instead of always wondering where the hell you are and needing help. You're doing a disservice to them. Making them depend on you and you're never here. If you were truly leading, then there wouldn't be strangers in your bunker, fixing your problems."
Dan looked at her, his eyes easing up. Courtney wasn't going to let him say another word until she was finished.
"And you know what, Daniel?" She made sure to say his full name. She could see he was truly listening whenever she did. "You made a promise to Cole that you would teach and take care of Eden. Maybe if you were here, doing that, we wouldn't have to worry so much about her."
She could tell that she actually got to him with that one. She watched him take a deep breath and hang his head low. Maybe she had taken it a little too far, though. Arguing in the apocalypse was no different than arguing before the world collapsed. Whenever she fought with her ex-boyfriends in the past, it was a huge build-up, each one taking shots at each other until one finally hit that nerve. She was good at finding it then, and it appeared she was still good at it now. Usually, she would end up feeling great, like a champion in the ring, but then when she saw her ex's crying, it was nothing but regret. She hated knowing that she caused someone that she cared about so much pain.
Dan wasn't crying, but she could tell he was still feeling the effects of her words. "I'm sorry," she said. She didn't have much to be sorry for in reality, other than telling him the truth, but it's what she said when she wanted someone to feel better. "I just need you here. We all do. I need to know what's going on. What's so important out there?"
Dan shook his head, but Courtney grabbed his face with both of her hands, meeting his eyes with hers. She swallowed hard, debating on saying everything going on in her head, but said fuck it. "I know who you are, and I know what you are, or what you used to be, okay? I can see it, and I don't care about any of it. We need you, no, I need you for who you are."
Dan's face twisted again. "You don't know what you are saying. You have no idea who I am, or who I was before all of this."
"I love you. I love you for many reasons. I need you, so whatever is going on in your head, get it together. The man that made the decision to kill Alan before anyone knew anything was wrong, the one who came to rescue all of us even though he had no reason to, that's who I need. And I need you to listen, and I mean really listen to me now, okay?"
Dan nodded. Courtney thought she could see a little bit of water in the sides of his eyes, or maybe she was just hoping because she could feel it in hers.
"I love you, so much. I hope you know that. I know that how or what I feel for you isn't how you feel for me—"
"That's not—"
Courtney held up her hand. "It's okay. I love you more than you will ever love me, I know that. You may not love me at all, or maybe you think you do in your own way, however you can love. But knowing you're here and accepting of my love, knowing you are always going to be there for me is enough for me to keep loving you. No matter who you are, or who you were. Do you understand?"
Dan nodded, and Courtney smiled. "Good. Then we have building to do." She walked past Dan. Even if she didn't get through to him, at least she said everything she needed to say.
25
Vanessa
What the fuck had happened?
Vanessa stood outside, finding herself right back in front of the death house. She had not wanted to come back here. Sure, she understood the need for shelter as late as it was getting, but they had met people. They had the beginnings of an alliance, of a friendship forming. There was no reason they should have left.
She stayed quiet on the whole drive from Courtney and Dan's camp, all the way back to shit hole Pax expected them to sleep at. Hell, she had still remained quiet when he got out of the truck and walked into the house. The other men were out of the SUV, stretching and murmuring amongst themselves. She could tell the mood had turned from worry and confusion, to irritation and some anger. This time, she didn't know if she could stick up for Pax. Why wasn't Pax telling her what was going on?
"Hey, boss lady," Vanessa heard over her shoulder. She turned and saw Carlos walking up to her. "So, what's the plan then? Pax gets sick and we all leave? Now we get to sleep in the blood house?"
The last thing she needed was to deal with questions Pax should have been answering, but here she was. "I'm gonna check on Pax and see if he's okay."
"Great. Meanwhile, we just unpack and go to sleep? Then what? Wake up tomorrow looking for more people that Pax can fuck it up with? I mean, I know I'm not a big supporter of his, but this is ridiculous. Don't you think?"
Vanessa was over the conversation. "You know what I think? I think that you're a big boy and can figure it out yourself, Carlos. If you don't want to be here, then leave. But like I said, I'm gonna go check on Pax and see if he's okay. In the meantime, unpack, pick a room, jerk off, get some rest. Or don't. I don't give a fuck. But if you're still with us, we'll tell you the plan when we figure it out, okay?"
Vanessa turned around and headed into the house before Carlos could say anything else. Mark could get it all sorted with the other guys. They could take care of themselves, an
d if they couldn't, well fuck `em. She had bigger things to deal with. Carlos wasn't wrong, but his questions were directed at the wrong person.
Vanessa swung the door open and stepped onto the crunchy, bloodstained carpet. She walked through the shitty hallway, checking each of the rooms to see if Pax was in them. She made it all the way down and to the backdoor. It was slightly ajar. She pushed it open and immediately was refreshed by the cool air outside. She hadn't even been in the house for thirty seconds but could feel the thickness of death dissipate outside. Pax stood facing the cages.
She wasn't sure how she should start the conversation. Should she take the gentle and kind approach, the tough love approach, or the pissed off bitch that wanted to smack him around approach. There were so many questions to be asked, and she figured she would get to them all, but found that the first thing that came out of her mouth was, "Back to the death house, is it?"
Pax nodded and slightly chuckled. "It's funny, I didn't want to be back to this house, probably just as much as anyone. Just as much as you." He turned around and faced her, his eyes were wet with tears. "This place is so full of death. It's obvious that something awful happened here. But it's so much better than where I was at."
Pax was no longer sick. The color was back in his face, and he wasn't keeling over, ready to vomit again. Something else was wrong. Why was he crying? "Pax, are you okay?"
"I'm not sure. But I know I will be."
"The guys are all worried about you." That was a lie. She was sure that Carlos didn't give two shits about Pax right now and was probably getting the others riled up about what a shit job Pax was doing. "They're settling in to the house for the night. It's getting late, and we should probably get inside."
"We probably should."
She went up to Pax, who still seemed so far away. "What happened out there? Those people were good people. If you were sick, they had medicine they were willing to share. Fuck, we have medicine in the truck."
"I don't need anything, especially from them."
"What happened with Howard?
Pax looked at Vanessa. "Howard? Nothing happened, he just told us to leave."
"And now? Nobody told you to leave. We were all there. In fact, they asked you to stay."
"We couldn't trust those people. Someone would have ended up getting hurt," Pax said, scratching his neck. Pax was acting strange.
She went behind him and began to gently rub his back. She put her hand up on his shoulders, trying to squeeze out the tension. Something serious was going on in his head, and she couldn't figure any of it out. If he wasn't going to tell her, she was going to try to ease his mind.
"We can take care of ourselves, you know that, right? That's why those people needed our help. They were the ones that weren't safe. We should have been there to help them."
Pax shook his head. "No Vanessa. I just, no."
Vanessa was losing her patience. "Then what is it? You being all in your own fucking head doesn't help any of us understand anything. All you're doing is keeping secrets from me, and I'm beginning to wonder what the fuck is actually going on!"
She stepped back in front of Pax, again. "I'm sorry," he said.
"Sorry? Tell me what the hell is going on. Is it Courtney? Did you know her? Was it Dan? Did you know him from before? Something happened when they all came up, and I need to know, Paxton."
Pax's eyes darted up, but this time they weren't hurt. They were full of rage. "Do not call me that."
"Then tell me what it's all about. Is it Stacey? Did Dan fuck her before all of this? Did she cheat on you or something?"
She wasn't sure why her mind went there, but in the past, she always had a habit of associating secrets with cheating. But that was the straw that broke it. Vanessa could see it shift in his face. Pax grabbed Vanessa by the throat, his grip tight. "Never talk about her like that. She was better than that, she was better than me, she was better than you." He squeezed his hand tighter. Vanessa began struggling, obviously uncomfortable from his grip.
"Paxton—"
"That is not my name. You never knew that man. You only saw a sliver of what used to be. Of what I once was. But you never truly knew anything about me. I played nice, and I tried to be that man again."
Vanessa grabbed at his hand around her neck. He didn't squeeze any harder, but he didn't loosen his grip, either. "You are that man—"
"You only think you know me. Hell, I thought I knew me, too. But you have no idea. There's real evil in this world, and you've only seen the good go bad." Pax stared into her eyes and Vanessa was afraid that he was going to continue squeezing. He was much stronger than she was physically, and she didn't think she could fight him off. Instead, he shoved Vanessa backward, letting her go from his grasp.
Vanessa immediately gasped for air and brought her hands up to her throat, massaging. She stared at him, tears in her eyes. She opened her mouth, ready to say something but, instead, turned away and went inside the house. She didn't know what had happened, but that was not the man that she loved. Something terrible had changed inside of him. She wanted him to tell her, wanted him to let her in, but now she feared that she may have lost him completely.
Right now, she wanted to be nowhere near him.
26
Dan
Dan stood at the fence where the soulless had broken into the camp. He was no handyman, anything harder than installing a ceiling fan was out of his skill set, but he could tell the original work on the fence had been shoddy. The patch looked like it would hold, but it probably needed to be rebuilt completely. He was confused as to what happened with Pax and his crew to make him leave, but there were a lot weirder things going on lately. A group of people being skittish was on the less threatening side of things.
Would he need to go find those people? Maybe. But they seemed like they knew what they were doing. According to Courtney, they had a place of their own. Would they want to take what Dan and the others had built? Possibly. He would need to bring it up to Howard the next time he saw them, along with the Sistren. Right now, though, he needed to check in on Eden. He hadn't left things great with her before he left.
He walked around and up the hill to the bunker on top. He opened the door and stepped inside. There was a cup on the counter with a few drops of soda on the counter next to it. He shook his head and quickly wiped it up, placing the glass in the sink. Living with people was a lot different than being alone, that was for sure. He had always kept his messes cleaned up as he went, but no matter how many times he had told Eden to do the same, she still left cups out on the counter after using them. He supposed this was what parenthood was like.
"Eden, are you in here? I wanted to talk to you about earlier." His question was left unanswered. "Eden?"
There was nobody inside. He turned around and left the building, heading down the hill and around to the garden. Jennifer sat in a chair, looking at the sunset as she ate pickles from a jar. Each bite seemed to crunch louder than the last. "Hey, Dan, what's up?"
"Have you seen Eden?"
Jennifer thought for a moment while she chewed. "Honestly, can't say that I have. Not since earlier, at least. Hey, so why did Pax and Vanessa leave so quick?"
Dan really didn't want to get into a conversation about the strangers again. "I have no idea. You and Courtney had more words with them than I did. I barely got a greeting out and poof, gone." He made a gesture with his hands, extending his fingers as if they were blowing up.
"Yeah, strange. What do you make of it?"
Goddamit. "I don't know, Jennifer, why?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. They just seemed nice I guess."
Now this was interesting. Jennifer was a lot of things, but he didn't know when the last time she had described someone as nice was. "Nice?"
"Yeah. I mean, they didn't seem too bad."
"You did seem to be pretty friendly with them."
"Any word on if they're coming back. I think Mark could—"
"Wow," Dan said.
"What?"
"Mark, is it?"
"Yeah? What's it to you?" she asked.
"I don't know, it's just that usually you would be talking a lot of harsher words than nice, not too bad, and Mark is so great."
"I didn't say that," Jennifer said, spitting a bit of pickle when she did.
Now that he had gotten to the bottom of Jennifer's newfound curiosity, he was bored and had his own problems to get to. "Look, I don't care, Jennifer. I have no idea what is going on with those people. I think it's great that you have a crush on this Mark. But I have to find Eden now. I think Courtney is around if you want to get all schoolgirl with someone."
Jennifer stood up and smacked Dan on the arm. "You can be a real asshole sometimes, you know that?"
Dan chuckled to himself and watched Jennifer storm off. He did, in fact, know that. He turned his attention to the wall and saw a quick flash as if something had gone over. He walked over to the fence and examined it. What was that?
Dan looked around and saw that nobody was around. If he did see something, he knew that nobody else would have seen it. The sheet metal was nailed to wood posts in the ground. He grabbed at the wood and shook, but it was too sturdy. This spot in the fence was definitely built better than where the soulless had broken in earlier. He propped his foot on one of the beams across the post and stood up. He could barely look over the wall.
On the other side of the fence was dense with trees. But he could just make out a figure before it vanished into the thick forest. It was definitely a girl. It was Eden. What was she doing outside of the fence? He was about to call out, but then decided against it. She didn't seem scared. In fact, it looked as if she knew exactly where she was going. He looked over to his left inside the camp and saw Blanche talking to Anthony. It wasn't anything they could help with, and he didn't know if he even needed help. Instead, he stood taller and lifted himself over the fence.
Exodus: Soulless Wanderers Book 3 (A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Thriller) Page 13