“I don’t like you,” Axe said between mouthfuls and I glared at him. “I think you’re an asshole.”
I snorted on a laugh. “Rude.”
Axe looked up and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Put it this way: you’re reckless, spontaneous, and argumentative. And Shooter’s probably gonna shoot my ass when we get back to the clubhouse. Ain’t no reason I should like you other than you got a nice rack and a tight ass. Shame about the scar cutting up your face though,” he said before continuing to eat.
I swallowed, my face feeling hot, and I had no doubt that it would be bright red right then if I was to look in the mirror. I self-consciously reached up to touch the scar running from the corner of my mouth to my cheek. It wasn’t as red as it used to be, but it was raised and ugly—there was no denying that it was there. Most days I forgot about it, because who had the time to think about their looks in times like that? But sometimes the feminine side of me reared her ugly head and made me feel like shit.
“One big ol’ happy family, aren’t we?” Aiken chuckled and stood up. “I should tell you, if this shit goes south, I’ll have no problem ending either of you. O’Donnell is one of ours, but I don’t know either of you. I’m going on her word and nothing more right now.” His gaze fell to me and I could sense he was thinking something over. “But Mikey and Phil are NEOs too. They’re good men, so I owe it to them to try and save their asses, because I know if it were the other way around they’d do the same without hesitation.” He turned and walked toward the door. He leaned in and muttered something to one of his men that was standing there and then left.
I felt uneasy about the whole situation. About Aiken, about Axe, about Shooter. Everything. But mostly I was hungry as hell yet felt sick to my stomach with worry for Mikey.
I looked back down at my full plate as Axe pushed his empty one away and gave a loud belch. He picked up his water and downed the whole glass before standing up, his chair scraping noisily against the wooden flooring. I looked up at him as he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the top pocket of his cut and lit it.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Going to check that no one has fucked with our truck. He don’t trust us, and that lack of trust goes both ways. Now hurry up, I wanna get back on the road and back to the clubhouse. We might make it by first light tomorrow if we set off now and travel through the night again,” he grumbled, and left, leaving me alone.
I ate my food in silence, enjoying every morsel of it. I’d been eating well at the Highwaymen clubhouse since they’d made it so sustainable with fresh water, vegetables, and cattle for meat. Yet years of surviving the apocalypse on scraps had me appreciating everything I ate those days. I never took a single thing for granted because you just never knew when it was going to be taken away from you. Or when the good thing was going to come to an end.
When I’d finished, I stood up and thanked the woman who had brought my plate out. She gave me a curt nod and a gentle smile before clearing the table, and I left, heading over to the truck. Axe had climbed into the back and was going through the small amount of supplies we had left.
We’d earned not just our lunch but some extra food to take on the road with us by heading out front and killing off the deaders that had wandered to the front of Haven. Apparently there was a swamp or something a little under a mile away that was teeming with deaders. O’Donnell had said that they were mostly stuck in the sticky swamp water but occasionally they managed to free themselves and made their way over. A couple of NEOs went out once a day to kill off any that had gotten close. It was a smart idea, in my eyes. Most people would ignore the deader horde building up outside their walls until it was too late to do anything about it, but I’d always thought that was a stupid idea. One deader drew the attention of another and another and another, until there were half a dozen of them all groaning and grabbing at the walls. The noise those monsters made would draw even more to the same spot, and before you knew it there was a breach and everything you’d been building was gone.
It was a scary prospect, having to go out once a day and kill one or two deaders, but much better than having your walls collapse in and your safe place destroyed by an angry mob of deaders hungry for fresh brains.
“You guys ready to go?” O’Donnell said as she came over to us. She’d changed into fresh clothing and had clearly washed. Damn, she scrubbed up well.
“Yep, ready when you are,” I replied, looking to Axe to confirm that for me.
He grunted in agreement and climbed out of the back of the truck, slammed the hatch shut, and headed to the front to climb in.
“I’m going to ride with Aiken, if that’s cool,” O’Donnell said. Though it was more like she was seeking acceptance from me.
I shrugged like I didn’t care either way. But the truth was I would have liked her to ride with me and Axe.
I liked her and I trusted her, and maybe that was stupid of me, considering the awkwardness of our situation, but either way I couldn’t deny the way I felt. And in a different situation, under different circumstances, we probably could have been good friends.
“Cool, well look, ummm Aiken wants you and Axe blindfolded and one of our guys driving your truck as we leave. He still doesn’t trust Axe, ya know.” She looked uncomfortable as she said it, and I guessed it was because she wanted me to let Axe in on that great nugget of information.
I looked to the front of the truck and groaned. “He’s going to flip his shit,” I sighed before walking away.
At the front of the truck Timbo stood waiting for us, some rags hanging from his back pocket, and I rolled my eyes as he nodded at me.
I opened the truck door and looked in at Axe. “Hey, look—don’t freak out or anything, but they want us blindfolded as we leave,” I said bluntly, deciding it was better to rip the Band-Aid off quickly.
His hard gaze shot to mine. “No fuckin’ way.”
“I said don’t freak out!”
“And I said no fuckin’ way!”
“Someone will drive us out of here and then when they think it’s a safe distance away they’ll let us take the blindfolds off,” I said. “It’s fine, don’t be such a baby about it. They just want to protect their home.”
Axe’s jaw was clenched tight, his nostrils flaring as his eyes narrowed in on me, and then he moved his gaze to Timbo stood beside me.
“Don’t like this,” he grunted. “Not one bit.”
“Me neither, but they don’t know us, so why would they trust us?” I shrugged.
A grumble rose from his chest and he shuffled over in his seat, surprising the hell out of me. “Let’s just get this shit over and done with. We need to get back to the clubhouse.”
Timbo leaned his crossbow against the side of the truck, and then he tied the rag around my head, covering my eyes. “Didn’t think you’d be wanting to leave your little safe haven, Timbo,” I bit out.
“Aiken says jump and I say how high. Like I said, I intend on staying alive,” he replied as helped me up into the truck.
I slid on my seatbelt because you know, safety first and all that, and then I felt the truck shift as Timbo climbed in beside us. I felt Axe tense beside me and guessed Timbo was tying a blindfold on him then.
“All right, off we go,” Timbo said as the truck started up and we began to move.
My heart pounded in my chest, nervousness, apprehension, and something else gnawing at my insides like a rat trying to get out of its cage. One more day and we’d be back at the clubhouse. Back with Shooter and on our way to rescuing Mikey. One more day until decision time.
As the dark thoughts and worries rolled around in my head, I felt myself beginning to grow sleepy. I leaned one way, resting my head on the window, the soft vibrations thrumming through my skull, down my neck, and into my spine.
The future was a scary and uncertain place, the past was terrifying and full of loss, and the present? Well, the present was just making me sleepy. My stomach was full, my mus
cles ached from our earlier fighting with the deaders, and my heart was in turmoil, but I was alive, and for all I knew, so was Mikey. As long as air still filled our lungs, we still had a chance. We still had hope.
And in a world filled with fear, fury, and death, having hope was everything.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The blindfolds had been removed over an hour earlier, and I’d gone straight back to sleep. I’d done the journey once and I knew Axe would keep us safe, if for no other reason than he didn’t want to get shot by Shooter for getting me killed. And I wasn’t scared of Timbo, who had decided to ride in our truck. He actually seemed like a pretty nice guy; though he was quiet and didn’t give much away, I felt that he knew more than he let on. Couldn’t really say I blamed him for that, though.
We were leading the convoy toward the clubhouse, with Aiken, O’Donnell, and three trucks filled with NEO citizens and their weapons and food following. They kept a respectable distance and I noted that the NEO members in the passenger side of each truck held onto their rifles tightly, making sure that their guns were in plain sight at all times. Shooter wasn’t going to stand for that shit, and I didn’t think Aiken was going to be down for leaving their weapons by the front gate, but it was a problem I figured we could discuss when we arrived back home.
Home. It was strange how easily we made new homes now. A foreboding shiver ran down my spine and I wondered what my problem was. I should have been excited to get back; everything was going according to plan. We had more weapons and more people, and if the nomads that Shooter had called to the clubhouse came, we were good to go and get our people back. That was the plan, right? That was what we all wanted?
I chanted my mantra in my head over and over in the hopes that the more I chanted it, the more real it might become.
Rescue Mikey.
Kill the Savages.
Live happily ever after.
Only there was no happily ever after. That didn’t exist in our world anymore. All that would happen once it was all over was that we would all have to confront the next problem and try to stay alive some more.
I dragged a hand down my face and rubbed at my eyes, wishing there were a pause button I could hit.
“Hey, Nina,” Timbo whispered from next to me, stirring me from my thoughts.
I’d been gazing out the side window, my eyes on the tree line. The day had quickly drawn to a close and the world around us was dark, with only our trucks headlights and the soft glow of the moon to illuminate the road. I guessed it was somewhere around three in the morning, but who really knew anymore.
I turned to look at him, feeling a little drowsy still, despite my earlier nap. “What’s up, man?”
“Mind if I grab a little shut-eye?” he asked, almost apologetically.
“Sure, go for it,” I replied, wondering why he was asking me.
He gave me a small smile. “Thanks. I can do without many things, but not sleep.”
I smiled back. “Is that your thing?”
“My thing?” he questioned, looking confused.
“Yeah, everyone has a ‘thing’ that they miss the most.”
“Thought you said you didn’t think about the past or miss things anymore,” Timbo said, reminding me of our earlier conversation.
I laughed. “Oh, Timbo. I’m a serial liar. Of course I think about the past. And look, we all miss almost everything, but there’s always that one thing we miss the most. That one thing that if we could have, it would make this hell endurable.” I looked over at Axe when he mumbled something under his breath. “Let me guess: your thing is personality? You lost your personality back in the day and now all you have left is this empty shell of a man that no one quite understands. You’re basically a sappy romcom,” I laughed. And then I laughed even harder when he gave me the middle finger.
“You’re a real bitch, you know that,” Axe bit out, but I saw the grin he tried to hide from me.
“Yeah, sleep would be my thing then,” Timbo cut in. “I haven’t slept more than three hours at a time since the world went to hell. God, I miss sleeping in on the weekend.” He went silent as he thought about that for a moment. “I worked real hard all week and on the weekend I loved to lay in bed with my Diet Coke and play video games all day.”
“Living the life, my friend,” I replied, and he grinned.
“I worked in the bank, getting mortgages for people. Never really enjoyed the job, if I’m honest—it got boring. And let me tell you, the customer is not always right, and neither is the bank!” He shook his head.
“Stick it to the Man, Timbo,” I said, offering him a high-five which he took with a small laugh.
“Reese’s Pieces,” Axe said, glancing over at me. “That’s what my thing would be. That and my band.”
“I loved Reese’s Pieces too,” Timbo replied.
“Me too,” I agreed. And then I turned to look at him. “Wait, you were in a band?” I asked with a smirk, and for the first time since I’d met him Axe came to life, his emotions bare on his face as he smiled, reminiscing about the past.
“Hell, yeah. We were called the Crawling Tigers. I played bass—fucking miss that thing.” He bit on his bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth like he was reminiscing about kissing girls and making music.
“The Crawling Tigers?” I laughed. “What kind of name is that?”
Timbo started to laugh with me but Axe just shook his head.
“You ever seen a tiger hunting?” he asked darkly, and I shook my head no. “When they hunt, they hide in the long grass, crawling along on their bellies until they’re ready to pounce on their prey. By the time they do, it’s too late for their prey to run, and even if they do they’ve already lost. The tiger is just playin’ with their food. That was kinda like our music. It would creep up on you, and before you knew it you were lost to its vibe, body moving to the beat like it was your own pulse. Ain’t never a time we left the stage and didn’t get women screamin’ for us to come back and play another song.”
My eyes were wide, my mouth open, not only for the damn good explanation he’d just given me but because he looked so…happy.
“Well damn, Axe. It’s a shame I can’t hear you play sometime.”
“Yeah, it is,” he agreed with a sad smile. “We were really fuckin’ good. Took it on the road for a while, but I hated being away from the club, if the truth be known. Tried to keep it going when we got back, but then club politics eventually got in the way and the band broke up. Always thought we’d get it going again someday, but then the fuckin’ end of the world happened. Shit happens, I guess.” He shrugged like it was no big deal, but it clearly was a big deal. At least to him.
“Nina?” Timbo said, clearing his throat to draw my attention. “Any chance of that nap now?”
“Yeah, yeah, sorry, Timbo. Go right ahead.”
“Thanks.” He smiled. “Just don’t tell Aiken, okay? I’m supposed to keep a close eye on you two.” He looked at Axe and then back to me. “Mainly him.”
“I’ll watch him for you,” I said with a smirk. “Get some sleep. I think we’re all going to need it tomorrow.”
Timbo nodded, and before I knew it he was slouching down in his seat and resting his head on my shoulder before folding his arms across his broad chest and closing his eyes. I glanced over at Axe, who was trying not to laugh, and I gave him the middle finger.
The hours went by as night turned to day and we came back to more familiar territory. Barren roads and empty fields turned into dilapidated roads and sidewalks, and buildings began to surround us on each side once again. Everything seemed exactly as it had been when we’d left, and yet so much had changed. As we got closer and closer to the clubhouse my heart began to beat faster and harder in my chest, nervousness clawing at my throat like I wanted to scream.
I nudged Timbo awake and he sat up abruptly and grabbed his crossbow before almost falling off his seat.
“It’s all right, we’re just nearly there. I thought it best to wak
e you up.” I patted his arm.
Timbo rubbed at his eyes and yawned. “How long was I out?”
“A long time,” I replied with a smile as he looked around us in sleepy confusion. “Over three hours.”
Timbo turned to me, his features softening at my words. He didn’t say anything and instead nodded at me, and I hoped that meant that I could count on him for something. Anything. I hoped that it least meant that maybe he trusted me a little, because I could really do with more people to trust.
As the gates of the clubhouse came into view I glanced over at Axe, watching the tick of his jaw and realizing how anxious he must have been feeling too. But the sort of man he was meant he couldn’t say anything—you know, because real men don’t talk about their feelings and all that bullshit. Insert eyeroll.
“I’ll make sure he knows it was my fault,” I said, watching his face for any change. “I’ll make sure he knows you had nothing to do with it. We can tell him you didn’t even know I was there until the next day, until we were pulling into the NEO headquarters, and by then it was too late to turn back.”
“It won’t matter,” Axe said, his tone harsh.
“I won’t let him hurt you, okay?” I said, feeling almost desperate.
Axe turned to look at me with a scowl. “You think that’s what I’m worried about, Nina?”
I shrugged at him and he chuckled and shook his head.
“Shooter’s temper ain’t nothin’ I can’t handle.” He turned back to the road, pulling the truck to a stop.
“Then why do you look so…worried? What are you worried about?”
“Who,” he replied darkly. “Who am I worried about.”
“Fine, whatever. Who are you worried about?”
Axe turned to look at me again, a sympathetic look in his face. “You, Nina. I’m worried about you.”
My stomach turned as Axe cut the engine and opened his door, jumping out. I glanced over at Timbo, who was clutching his crossbow and frowning at the approaching bikers. Shooter pushed his way to the front, his stormy eyes finding mine inside the truck.
The Dead Saga (Book 6): Odium VI Page 20