The Dead Saga (Book 6): Odium VI

by Riley, Claire C.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake,” I grumbled. “Shooter told us that the Rejects treat their women like shit. He implied that they were abused and used, degraded in every way.”

  O’Donnell scowled at me like she didn’t believe me. “Really?”

  “Yes! He said that all the women are used for sex or punch bags, or both. That the Rejects kill and maim and murder without question. That’s the reason the club split into two in the first place.”

  She stopped scowling then, a small frown pulling between her brows. “They were one club?”

  There was a knocking from behind us and we both turned to see what it was, but there was nothing there. We stared in silence for a second before looking back at each other.

  “Yes,” I continued. “The Highwaymen and the Rejects were one club, once upon a time. They were called the Devil’s Highwaymen. Shooter was the president, and when the world as we know ended, he wasn’t happy with the way some of the men were behaving. He basically gave them an ultimatum: stop it or get out. Some of them chose to go and then they formed the Devil’s Rejects, ruled by Drag.”

  The banging came again and we both swung around, our gazes on the fence, where then, as we looked closer, we could see movement between the slats.

  “Deaders,” I said, my hand on my machete.

  “They’re behind the fence. We’re fine,” she replied, and I nodded in agreement.

  We took some cautious steps toward where the banging was coming from, our conversation forgotten for the moment. As we drew closer, the banging got louder and the growling from the other side increased.

  I side-eyed O’Donnell. “Guess they’ve caught our scent.”

  “Guess we smell good.” She smirked.

  “Well I know I’ve showered at least twice this year so I know I smell great.” I smirked back.

  She was carrying a long stick with chains wrapped around the top, and she pulled it off of her back and unwrapped the chains. They clanked noisily together, like we were ringing a dinner bell for the deaders, and they started freaking out even more.

  “It’s been at least three weeks since I even had a wipe-over, so I’m surprised there’s not flies swarming me.” She laughed and I laughed back.

  We were only a couple of feet away from the fence by then, and I could see that there was a lot of movement on the other side of the fence, but like O’Donnell had said, it was the other side of the fence.

  “Hey, you two!” a voice called.

  We both looked up to the top of the clubhouse and saw a biker sitting on top, resting a shotgun casually on his shoulder. He looked hot and pissed off at being up there, but his gaze was fixed on the fence.

  “That’s a big horde back there. I’m going to get the boys out to take care of it. You two get inside so you don’t get hurt,” he said, his gaze traveling over us like we were lambs ready for the slaughter.

  I quirked an eyebrow and glanced at O’Donnell. “He must be talking to you, because I can take care of myself.”

  “Well, I’m a sharpshooter by trade, so there’s no way he’s thinking that I need any help,” she scoffed, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.

  We both rolled our eyes and turned away from him, our attention back on the fence and the panel that was moving under the force of the deaders pushing against it. As if on cue, the sound of splitting wood could be heard and the panel pushed inwards, and arms reached in, making us both jump back, startled. It was now a weak spot in the fence and deaders started to push more forcefully on the fence, pushing aside another panel and finally squeezing into the clubhouse grounds.

  “I’ve got it,” O’Donnell said, stalking forward with her stick and taking a swing at the deader’s head. It cracked and split open like an overripe watermelon, the mushy inside splashing to the ground around its feet as its body joined it. The stench was unbearable and O’Donnell jumped back. Two more deaders squeezed through the gap, their clothes snagging on the jagged wood and tearing parts of it away to reveal naked and rotten torsos, half eaten by God only knows what.

  Actually I did know what, I just preferred not to think about it too much.

  “I’ve got it,” I said, jogging over and swinging my machete across one of the necks, taking the head clean off. It landed with a splat as I used my blade to slide down the middle of the skull of the other one, which immediately stopped it in its tracks, its cloudy eyes rolling back and its body going limp. I pulled my machete out and let the body fall to the ground.

  “Nice,” O’Donnell replied, “but you should never leave a head like this,” she said, stabbing her stick through the center of its forehead. “Heads are dan—”

  “Dangerous,” I finished for her, giving a half smile.

  “Exactly.”

  More deaders had stumbled through the gap, and we got to work on killing every last one of them. Deader by deader, swinging and slicing, finally ending the lives of those monsters. With each kill it felt like I was cleansing the world a little more of the horrors that roamed it. My muscles ached, but it was a good ache.

  I was breathless and sweaty, panting with exhaustion as the last of the deaders fell and some of the bikers finally came around the side of the building, blades raised. Their eyes went wide when they saw the pile of bodies, and in the center me and O’Donnell, dirty, bloody, sweaty and smiling like we’d just won the Nobel Peace Prize for extreme heroism in the face of adversity. Hell, I would definitely accept it if we’d been offered.

  Shooter stormed forward, his heated gaze moving up and down my body, checking for bites and scratches. When he was happy I was okay, he turned back to the other men.

  “Get the tools and fix this shit,” he yelled out. He looked up to the top of the clubhouse, where the biker was back. “And you, what the fuck happened?”

  The biker shrugged. “I took out that one,” he said, pointing to a deader half in the fence opening. “They’d gotten the rest before I could do anything else.” He shrugged again and I heard O’Donnell snicker from beside me.

  Shooter looked back to me and O’Donnell. “You don’t need to deal with this shit—we’ve got men that can handle it.”

  “Looked like it,” O’Donnell snapped.

  Shooter’s gaze narrowed on her, his mouth pulling into a thin line. “I said, we’ve got this. Now get inside.”

  I looked at O’Donnell and gestured with my head that we should go. She shook her head in annoyance and barged past me and Shooter, and I turned to follow her, stopping briefly to look back at him.

  His hands were on his hips, his hair loose around his shoulders. His tanned face looked furious, but the look in his eyes told me that he was proud of me as much as he was scared for me. Still, I wasn’t going to let him speak to me like that, despite what he wasn’t saying.

  “Do I need to remind you that you don’t own me? And you don’t get to tell me what to do?” I bit out. “And I don’t need a man to protect me.”

  A half smile crept up the side of his face and he stalked toward me, his hooded gaze fixed firmly on me. His hands reached for me before I could stop him, one hand moving to the back of my head and the other wrapping around my waist and pulling me close to him.

  “I don’t need remindin’ of shit, Nina,” he said, pressing his mouth to mine. He pulled away. “But it seems like you need remindin’ of a few things.” He sucked in his lower lip and let me go. “Later,” he said, and turned away from me.

  He’d already walked away and started barking orders at the other men before I could reply, so I turned and headed back inside to get myself a well-deserved drink instead.

  Some things weren’t worth arguing about, and that was one of them.

  Shooter would learn he couldn’t control me soon enough.

  Chapter Nine

  There were three things that I learned about the two motorcycle clubs within the first hour of being at the clubhouse.

  One: they hated each other. Deeply. One club had gone bad—real bad—and the other had tried to do good. It
was the simplest way of putting it.

  Two: they had been one club at some point, and the Rejects completed the same ritual that the Highwaymen had when we’d arrived, drinking whiskey and raising their glasses to their fallen brothers.

  And three, and possibly the most important of them all: regardless of what club they were currently in, all those men knew how to party.

  Within an hour of arriving, the place had been cleaned, rearranged, bodies moved, and drinks poured. We couldn’t turn on any music since there was no electricity, but I could imagine that years before music would have been blaring from the huge-but-now-useless speakers set in each corner of the room. It didn’t stop some of the Highwaymen from dragging out some old guitars from a cupboard and playing a few songs on those. Damn, it was good to hear music again.

  I was nursing the same drink I’d had since coming back inside, unsure of my place within the group. I had expected the “meet” to be a serious affair—all scowling faces, stroking beards, and hands slamming on the table to the tune of “you can’t handle the truth!”—but apparently the men needed to party and catch up before they got all moody and serious. Go figure.

  At the back of my mind I worried about Mikey. He was trapped somewhere with the Savages, no doubt frightened, and in danger, and there I was drinking and enjoying listening to the sound of a guitar and a butch man singing along to it. But those were the rules of the club, and some things you had to wait on. Apparently, the club did things in its own time and in its own way, and O’Donnell and I had to wait for them to clear the air in their own way.

  There was so much hate festering in the room, and yet beneath the hate you could see brothers reunited, laughing and back-slapping each other as they caught up and reminisced about the “old days.” It was kinda cute—you know, if lives weren’t literally hanging in the balance. As it were, I wished they’d all just dry hump and get on with the meeting to decide how we were going to take down the Savages and rescue our people.

  O’Donnell had stayed by my side the entire time, though she’d gone through twice as many drinks as I had since arriving. Apparently she needed to unwind too. Shooter had come over once or twice when he’d seen some of the Rejects looking at me, and they’d moved away quickly. And though O’Donnell wasn’t wearing a property patch, it was like the Rejects knew to stay away from her. Lucky girl.

  I sipped my drink, my gaze watching everyone. My muscles were tense and my head was swimming with a thousand questions, but the only thing I wanted to do was ask O’Donnell about Mikey. How had he been when she’d last seen him? Were they together? Where had they met? Yet every time I tried to speak to her, I found the words wouldn’t come. I guess my subconscious really didn’t want to know the answers to my inappropriate questions, since it really was none of my damn business.

  She finished her drink and went and retrieved another before coming back and sitting next to me again. Eyes followed her as she moved across the room, though again, no one made a move on her. Maybe the Rejects weren’t as bad as Shooter thought anymore. Perhaps he’d gotten things wrong.

  She sat back down. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said.

  “You have no idea,” I retorted, and took another sip of my drink. I think it was rum—or maybe brandy. It had been that long since I’d had a proper drink of liquor that I couldn’t be entirely sure anymore. All I knew for certain was that it was strong.

  “Butcher warned them that he’d cut off their most precious parts and shove it down their throats after frying it up with some onions if they came near me.” She smirked, and I stared at her in horror, my thoughts automatically going to Mikey being held captive by a bunch of cannibals. “I know, it’s tasteless, especially after what he went through, but he wasn’t named Butcher for nothing, right?” She shrugged.

  “Whatever keeps you safe, I guess,” I smarted, and her smile fell.

  “How are things with Shooter?” she asked, and I narrowed my eyes at her and she at least had the decency to blush. “I just mean, well, you’re together, right?” Her gaze dropped to the property patch on my cut.

  “Not really,” I said. “This was just to keep me safe while I was here.” I snorted on a laugh and shook my head. “As if I would need saving from these.” I gestured to the bikers in front of me, chugging whiskey and cheering each other on.

  “You two seemed pretty close outside earlier. Does he know you aren’t together? Because he seems to have it pretty bad for you.” She was trying to be casual in her questioning, but I could see right through her.

  “Well, we’re not.”

  “Oh,” she said quietly, and looked away. She took another sip of her drink before speaking again. “Look, I should probably tell you that Mikey and I—”

  I glanced sideways at her. “What about you and Mikey?”

  She tugged nervously on her hair. “I don’t know,” she sighed, struggling for the right words.

  “Sure you do,” I replied. “Just say it.”

  I felt angry. Furious, even. And I couldn’t understand why. There was no reason for me to be. And she was right—I was with Shooter. At least in the sense that we had kissed and I liked him. I dragged a hand down my face. It was like being back in high school again, and I couldn’t stand it. I stood up and threw whatever was in my cup to the back of my throat. It was a mistake I regretted right away, as it burned all the way down my throat. And not in a good way.

  “He thought you were dead,” she said, standing up and meeting my gaze. “If that makes it any easier.”

  I nodded, unsure what to say. But I had to say something. “So he moved on to you to get over me? Great.”

  “It wasn’t like that. He was like half a man when he arrived. After we…” She looked away. “He seemed better, like he could finally move on from you.”

  God, it hurt. It hurt so much. Partly because I guess I knew she was right. I wanted him to move on, to try and find a life in this nightmare, I just hadn’t expected him to do it so quickly, and it hurt that he had. But a part of me completely understood that. He must have felt guilt at me going back inside, at taking his place. I knew I would have, and I also knew I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself if I were him.

  “I love him,” she said, “and I think he loves me too.”

  I glared at her, hating her with every ounce of my being in that moment and envying her all at the same time.

  “I’m sorry if this hurts you, I’m not trying to be cruel, but we’re good for each other—Mikey and I, really good for each other. I’ve waited a long time to meet someone like him.”

  “Thanks for clearing that up for me,” I bit out, and turned to leave. I headed back to the bar and grabbed another drink.

  O’Donnell had followed and she stopped next to me.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked.

  “I want you to help me save him,” she replied simply. “He’s a good man. He deserves someone to fight for him, Nina.”

  It was too much.

  Far too much.

  I turned to her with a glare that could turn a person to stone. “And what the fuck do you think I was doing when I risked my life for him? He thought I was dead because I sacrificed myself for him, and then he moved on from me. ‘Thanks, Nina—so long and thanks for risking everything to save me!’” I swallowed my drink and gagged as the liquid hit my empty stomach, making it feel warm and gross.

  “Right, I get that, I do,” she replied.

  “Do you?” I bit out. “Do you really understand what it took to take his place? To go back inside that building where I’d just seen my friend shot dead? To leave Mikey the way I did because it was for his own good? I survived being gunned down, but I was captured and I watched a woman give birth to a monster! A monster which was literally eating her from the inside out, O’Donnell. Then more of my friends were murdered in front of me, and then I got to leave, safe in the knowledge that more of them were going to die and I couldn’t do jack about it. And I did that for him!” I w
as shouting now, practically hysterical as I relived the horrors of the past month. “And then you come here, asking for my help after telling me that you think he loves you. Telling me he’s moved on from me, but hey, can you still risk your life for him? And look,” I said on a sob, my hands waving around us, “I’m here aren’t I? I’m risking it all again, for him, aren’t I? I’ve convinced all these people to help us, so what? What else do you want from me? Do you want me to tell you that you have my blessing? That it doesn’t bother me you being with him?”

  O’Donnell stood watching me with wide eyes as I recounted the things I had been through. Things I’d tried to ignore or forget because they were too horrible to think about. “I’m sorry, I understand, I do.”

  “Really? Do you?” I shook my head at her. “Please don’t tell me that he deserves someone fighting for him…because I know all about that, and you don’t know shit.” I turned from her, heading outside. I needed to get away from her before I lost it big time.

  I pushed on the door and headed outside where there were fewer people. I took a deep breath and started walking, but when I heard footsteps I turned back around to find she’d followed me again.

  “You know, you’re not the only one who’s been through something!” she yelled. “We’ve all got horror stories to tell—some are worse than others, but they’re all pretty much the same: death, killing, murder, blood, death…blah blah.”

  I put my hands on my hips and gritted my teeth.

  I hated her.

  And I hated him.

  But most of all I hated the fucking cruel world that tore families apart. That separated families and killed innocent people. This world that let the dead live, the living die. This world that held no place for love in it anymore, because everyone you started to love died anyway, so what was really the point?

  “I was locked in a room with my brother, forced to watch him die in front of me, chained up with no way to get out as he slowly turned into one of those things. I had one cup of water to keep me alive for those four days of hell. Four days of staring into Joe’s face as he hungered for my flesh. Four days of wondering how long it would take before he tore his arm free and came for me!” She glared at me, her words coming thick and fast. “So you see, we all have stories, Nina!”