Love and Decay, Season Two Omnibus: Episodes 1-12

by Higginson, Rachel

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and let the tears fall freely. “We need a vacation,” I sobbed.

  A surprised chuckle rumbled in his bare chest, and he squeezed me tighter. “First, we need showers.”

  I winced.

  “I mean, er, baths,” he corrected lamely.

  “I hate this,” I hiccupped. “I hate this and I hate Zombies.”

  “Me too,” he agreed softly. His lips were on my ear, his breath hot and comforting as it floated down my neck.

  We stood like that for endless moments, until a crowd formed around us, and Gage came out to see what was going on.

  Finally, when I knew we couldn’t stay here like this anymore, I pulled back and let myself fall into the dark blue depths of Hendrix’s steady gaze. “But I love you.”

  His lungs filled with a deep, satisfied breath, and he gifted me with a sweet smile. “And I love you.” In that moment the future, this life, and our growing list of enemies... lightened. I could breathe again. I could live again. I would survive this just like everything else. Hendrix seemed to understand that small victory inside of me because he pulled back even more and said, “I’ll deal with Gage and all this. You go get cleaned up and take the rest of the day off.”

  “Alright,” I agreed quickly. We pulled apart, and I took Haley’s hand instead. Maya was sitting on the ground surrounded by two others that seemed to be comforting her. Gage stood over her, and I knew he would take care of her. I needed to deal with myself before I tried to help Maya work through her first mission and the awfulness that accompanied it. Vaughan and Nelson were already in deep conversation, and I met the oldest Parker’s concerned stare as I walked past.

  “You alright, Willow?” he asked with a voice that disguised the true fear in his navy blue eyes.

  “I will be,” I told him honestly.

  “Glad you made it home safe.” His easy words contrasted with the severe sincerity of his tone. My heart stuttered in my chest at how acutely he cared about Haley and me and how profoundly he entwined us in this family. It wasn’t just Hendrix I had given my heart to, but the whole Parker clan. I could no more lose one of them than they could survive losing Haley or me.

  Haley pulled me with her into the compound where we stumbled our way into the community room, only to realize Vaughan and Tyler had moved us into our separate apartments while we were gone.

  We both let out an annoyed sigh and turned around to sludge our way up to our new space. We leaned into each other and let the companionable silence blanket our frayed nerves.

  “What the ever-loving-hell happened to you two?” Tyler demanded as we finally pushed our makeshift curtain aside and staggered into our more permanent quarters.

  Page sat up straight from where she’d been working on her lesson for school by the light of no less than five candles. The color drained from her face, and her little shoulders shook as she waited for us to explain.

  “The mission didn’t go as planned,” Haley grunted while we continued to lean on each other.

  Tyler snorted, “They rarely ever do.” Her assessing eye had glanced over us one more time before she demanded shortly, “Are y’all alright?”

  “We’ll be fine,” I panted. “As soon as we get a bath.”

  “Did everyone make it home?” Page whispered when she couldn’t take it anymore.

  Hating that I couldn’t answer her question with good news, I told her the only information she really cared about, “Your brothers are perfectly fine, Pagey. They were so brave. They saved our lives.”

  She beamed with little-girl pride and filled back up with that vibrant life we were all loved. “That’s their job,” she told us.

  “Truer words were never spoken,” Haley agreed on a weak laugh.

  Tyler met my eyes and quirked a brow. I doubted she knew exactly who went with us, but she would have known our team was bigger than the Parkers and us. When I shook my head to let her know that not all had survived, she’d mouthed, “Later.”

  I wanted to tell her “much later” but I didn’t quite have the energy.

  Tyler pointed out our beds. Haley’s mattress had been pushed to one back corner and mine to the other while Tyler and Page’s sat several feet up the wall from ours, lining the walls just like ours. Our room had some furniture in between- a small table with two chairs, a couple short nightstands with drawers that would work as our dressers, a beanbag chair and an old-fashioned vanity with a cute round bench and an oval mirror on top. Clothes, backpacks, supplies and more littered all the space in between and would take time to sort and put away.

  But we would get to it eventually.

  Haley and I picked through the piles of clothes and toiletries and found enough to make us clean and decent. I eyed my bed longingly, but it stayed dark and abandoned while I forced myself to rinse off.

  Haley and I walked back downstairs and bathed in the backyard. This wasn’t the most efficient way of getting clean, but it would do. Usually, we bathed as groups- the men on one day, the women on another- in a creek not far from this property. But I had no desire to leave the safety of these walls. And I was pretty confident Haley felt the same way.

  So we cleaned ourselves the best we could with cold buckets of stored creek water. We took turns shielding each other from prying eyes, and we helped wash each other’s hair.

  By the end, we smelled like fishy, creek water, and our hair wasn’t even close to having the sleek shine of shampoo commercials of the past, but we were thoroughly cleansed of our bloody Zombie-battle and the chemical stench that followed us home.

  On our way back up to our room, Haley finally broached the topic that I wanted to tie to another car and light on fire.

  “Do you think that was Matthias?” she asked in a very low tone. If I hadn’t been expecting this question, I wouldn’t have been able to hear her.

  “Who else could it be?” I whispered back.

  “So, they had to have been following us,” she concluded. “Both yesterday and today.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking, too,” I told her.

  A world-weary sigh fell from her lips, and I knew she carried this new information as heavily as I did. Not only was Kent’s death a devastating blow, but now we had to deal with this.

  “I should want to go talk to Vaughan and Gage, but I just can’t find the energy,” she whimpered.

  I knew exactly what she meant. Vaughan and all his brothers were most likely down with Gage hashing out exactly what happened today and devising some super-hero plan while Haley and I tripped into bed and fell into adrenaline-draining-shock-induced comas.

  Or, I almost tripped into bed. Something on top of it stopped me from making that perfect landing. The candlelight was low in our room. Tyler had taken Page down to a meal, although my tired brain couldn’t remember which one. Haley was already snoring from her single mattress in the opposite corner.

  I felt alone, standing over my bed like this.

  More alone than I’d ever felt so far.

  I picked up the foot-long object and let my fingers rub over the cottony fabric. I walked over to one of the candles so I could have light enough to see what I was looking at.

  At first the object didn’t make sense. I held it in my hands too afraid to open it, but not cognizant enough to put it down.

  Finally, after agonizing minutes, I slowly unwrapped the bloodied shirt that had long since stained and dried. Once I opened the piece of clothing, I nearly slice my finger on the dangerously sharpened hunting knife wrapped inside.

  Not just any hunting knife… my hunting knife. The one I’d used to stab Kane.

  A piece of paper flitted down from the package, and I watched it float side to side before landing at my feet.

  I stared down at it, shaking from the implications of the knife in my hands and the potentially devastating words on that scrap of paper.

  I wondered if this was confirmation of whether or not Kane was still alive. Part of me hoped so- that part that had f
elt a bizarre kind of friendship grow between us and selfishly didn’t want to be responsible for killing a person. And the other part of me, the part that survived today and valued my own life, that part of me hoped this was Kane’s epitaph.

  Reminding myself that I was brave, that I’d just killed in order to survive and that I’d stabbed the bastard to begin with, I slowly reached down and picked up the paper. It wasn’t big, just a note card size with thin, masculine script scrawled across.

  With the knife still in one hand, I held the note by the flame of the candle and read the message written for me.

  Have you missed me?

  I wanted to return this.

  It’s dangerous out there.

  I wanted you to be adequately prepared.

  Consider it my gift to you.

  Kane.

  That was him. For sure that was him.

  A violent tremor assaulted my back, and I almost dropped the knife on my foot.

  Oh my gosh!

  Was that a threat?

  How could it read any differently after all that happened today?

  In a haze of overwhelmed exhaustion, I wrapped the knife back up in the shirt Kane had been wearing when I stabbed him. I was careful to leave the note embedded inside and then I buried the “gift” in the bottom of my backpack that Hendrix and Vaughan had rescued months ago from the old van that had first brought us here.

  I didn’t use the backpack now, but it was my most noticeable possession, and nobody else would go near it without my permission.

  Kane.

  Kane.

  Kane.

  I lay down on my mattress and covered myself with a blanket Gage had provided. I pulled Page’s necklace out and wrapped my hand around, hoping to find my equilibrium.

  My head spun, and my stomach dipped. There were so many things to feel that I didn’t even know where to begin.

  How did the knife get here? Had Kane been here? Or was someone in the compound working with him? For him? Did someone here have ties to The Colony?

  And if so, was it that same informant that had compromised our mission, or had they followed us yesterday and today as I’d originally wondered.

  And what did this gift mean?

  Was this just a callous threat or had he really meant his words?

  Those were the thoughts that whirled around and around in my head while I pretended to sleep for the rest of the day. Eventually, I believed nighttime came, but I definitely wasn’t leaving the safety and comfort of this bed.

  Tyler and Page had come back too, sometime earlier, but I still pretended sleep. I couldn’t face anyone yet.

  The irony of the situation was that even though I faked sleep, I couldn’t fall asleep. My brain was working too hard; my mind could not shut off. The events of the day swirled around in my head and waged war with the knife that had been waiting for me.

  It wasn’t until hours later when I’d almost been completely consumed with fear and anxiety that Hendrix slipped into my room and crawled into bed with me.

  I leaned back into him immediately, and my body purred out a contended sigh.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” he whispered in the darkness. “I knew you were just over here, but I missed you. I missed holding you.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, so I didn’t. “I more than missed you,” I confessed. “I need you tonight.”

  He chuckled lightly, and the vibrations of his chest buzzed against my back. “My goal is to make you say that every night.”

  “Oh yeah?” I laughed quietly.

  “And it won’t always be because you need me to sleep next to you.”

  I blushed at that insinuation and pushed into him even more. He was ready for me and simply wrapped his arms around me and tightened them.

  “But not tonight, Reagan. I’m only here to sleep.” He lifted up so he could press feather light kisses along the shell of my ear and down the column of my throat. “Goodnight,” he whispered. “I love you.”

  “Goodnight,” I whispered back. “I love you, too.”

  And this time, when I closed my eyes, I didn’t see the gruesome details from earlier today or the terrifying image of that hunting knife waiting for me on my bed.

  This time, when I closed my eyes, I saw only peace and safety; I saw love and hope for a future that we would protect with our lives, that we would protect so fiercely and devotedly that the death and rotten things of this world could not touch it.

  This time, when I closed my eyes, I saw only Hendrix and how he wanted me to stay by him.

  And I saw how easy that was for me… how desperately I wanted to stay by him, too.

  Episode Two

  Chapter One

  848 days after initial infection

  “Am I going to make it?” He looked down at me, and I swear I saw true fear flash across his face. The lighting was so poor that I could barely make out his features, so I wasn’t sure. I didn’t blame him if he was afraid, though; things were not looking good.

  “I don’t think so,” I told him honestly. “I think that’s as far as you go.”

  He let out a soul-weary sigh and reached forward.

  “You’re going to die.” And I meant that. “And your brother is going to blame me; and then I’m going to die.”

  “Which brother?” he asked.

  “Vaughan.”

  He thought about that for a moment and agreed, “Yep, if it’s Vaughan we’re talking about, then you’re definitely following me into the afterlife.”

  “Hendrix would be really mad, too.” I tried not to sound too smug, but I wasn’t fooling anyone.

  “Right,” he dragged out the word. “He’d be mildly annoyed, but we both know he’ll get over that quickly. As long as you’re fine, Hendrix couldn’t care less about the rest of us.”

  I chuckled because Harrison believed that was the truth, even though I knew better. Hendrix would do anything for his brothers and little sister. I was a newbie, a recent addition to the Parker militia, and I wasn’t entirely sure they were finished with their hazing.

  Or at least the younger brothers weren’t.

  I stood behind an eight-foot table, the kind that could fold up and easily store. On top of it was a sixteen-foot extension ladder balanced precariously on the unsteady surface. Harrison dangled from the top rung, leaned over in order to retrieve something from the high storage bays in the warehouse part of the compound. This was supposedly an errand at Gage’s request. But I seriously doubted our fearless leader had specifically requested the fourth Parker brother to risk life and limb in order to salvage…

  “What are you even looking for?” I demanded from the solid ground. I gripped the ladder legs firmer, stretching my arms to accommodate the wide expanse. I had stumbled upon Harrison and his stunt-doubling adventure by complete accident, or maybe by fate, providence, the Good Lord’s sovereign will. I was on my way out to the back yard when I caught Harrison scrambling up the swaying ladder. I jumped in immediately to offer my ladder-stabling-services, but now I was stuck here, spotting the idiot who should apparently join a circus- if they still existed- and I couldn’t go grab help.

  “Gage wanted me to see if I could find some winter clothes.” His voice was muffled with his head shoved into cardboard boxes. “He thought there might be more up here.”

  “I thought the whole point of Oklahoma was that it didn’t get cold,” I grumbled. Seriously, that was one of my reasons for traveling this direction. Last winter had been miserable for Haley and me. We were almost positive we wouldn’t survive another one without a permanent place to stay and until Gage and his compound we had been reluctant to set down roots anywhere else.

  And for good reason. The people of this day and age weren’t exactly known for their generous hospitality.

  I heard Harrison snort into some boxes. “I don’t think it gets arctic down here, but we’re not exactly tropical either.”

  “Since when did you get to be such a climate nerd?” I wiggled the ladder l
egs, and he let fly a curse word that definitely put him in debt to the cuss jar. “Oooh,” I taunted. “I’m telling Page!”

  He shot me a nasty look over his shoulder and began to climb back down.

  “You’re worse than my brothers,” he mumbled under his breath.

  “Hey now!”

  I thought he might continue this witty argument, but then he stepped off the ladder onto the table and his life flashed before my eyes. With his sudden and considerable weight, the table tipped back like a weighted seesaw. I panicked, not sure whether to grapple with the heavy ladder or the flipping table. And in my wild indecision, I managed control of neither.

  Harrison’s arms flailed crazily around him, but he somehow managed to jump backwards and avoid landing on the back of his head or getting smashed by the table or ladder.

  I wasn’t so lucky.

  The ladder crashed down on me, hitting me on the top of the shoulder with its long metal leg. I crumpled under the pain and pressure and let out my own foul curse word that made Harrison’s look like pennies in the jar. The push of the ladder technically only got me down to one knee before it slid off my body and landed with a crash on the floor next to me, but the pain was acute enough that I fell onto my back, cradling my hurt shoulder with my uninjured opposite hand.

  Hot tears pricked at my eyes, but I blinked them away.

  I’d been injured so many times over the past two years that I was more than a little familiar with pain. However, this particular mishap was incredibly obnoxious, and the tears were more from a mixture of frustration and a stinging ache on my shoulder than from the agony of a massive ladder trying to murder me.

  Warm blood squished between my fingers and my ripped shirt. I found myself impossibly more annoyed that I was bleeding.

  “Holy shit, Reagan!” Harrison exclaimed. “Are you alright?”

  “No,” I groaned. “You killed me.”

  “I’m so dead,” he muttered. “Hendrix is going to throw me over the wall and feed me to the Zombies.” He stood over me, his blue eyes wide with fear and shock. His hands tugged at his unruly dirty blonde hair making him look more like a child than an almost grown man. He assessed my shoulder, my position on the ground and the blood and asked mutinously, “Do you mind if I abandon you? You’re mostly fine, right?”