Filled with relief and the pulsing urgency to move my ass, I grabbed Hendrix’s hand and smiled up at him. He glanced back and forth between Kane and me clearly needing answers I couldn’t give him at the moment.
“Say it one more time, Reagan,” Kane demanded without even acknowledging Hendrix.
I turned to face him and held his steady gaze. “Kane.” But there was no coy sexiness in my tone or flirtatious secrecy. This was a curse on my lips. This was a promise to keep my word, to fight him always, to never go willingly with him. This time his name was acid, poison and disgust in the air.
“Then go,” he ordered. “If my father’s men catch you, they will not be as nice as me.”
I didn’t stick around for a second longer. I pulled on Hendrix’s hand and dragged him toward the Suburban. He shook off his confusion and started to move on his own after only a second’s hesitation.
“Reagan…”
I could feel the questions bubbling up inside him as we ran, but now was not the time, so I cut him off. “Not now, Hendrix. But I will tell you everything. I promise you. But let’s get home, first. Let’s get safe, first.”
He nodded, and we did exactly that.
My entire body throbbed with anguish, but I pushed myself to my very limits. My shoulder leaked blood, every part of my face and neck felt knifed from the trees, and we weren’t through them yet. Branches continued to assault our bodies as we pushed through the forest. Every one of my bones hurt, my muscles ached, and my head felt split open. My ankle had twisted again on the way down the hill, and it screamed in pain with every step.
I couldn’t imagine Hendrix was in any better shape than I was, but we struggled on as fast as we could.
Miraculously, we didn’t run into any more Feeders. I tried not to think of Kane and his men as a blessing… but it was hard not to. They were forced to use their ammo and manpower to deal with the Zombies while we escaped.
I didn’t think they would have shared my optimistic outlook, but it was the truth.
I tried not to analyze what happened with Kane too closely. I would have plenty of time to think about that later. Hendrix and I would have plenty of time to think about that later.
After agonizing minutes, we stumbled to the Suburban. We nearly collapsed at the sight of it. Vaughan, Gage and Nelson were standing around it with weapons raised and anxious expressions on their faces.
“What the hell happened?” Vaughan demanded.
“We’ll tell you in the car,” I wheezed. “Can we please go? Can we please get out of here?”
They decided this was a great idea, and the three of them helped me into the backseat. They tried to help Hendrix, too, but he growled some filthy curse words at them, and they all backed away. When Hendrix finally pulled himself into the seat next to me, he threw his arm around me and held me against his side.
The rest of the boys piled in, and Gage started us toward home. Haley reached out and immediately took my hand. We didn’t need words. We’d been here too many times already. It was enough that she was here and alive. And it was enough that I was here and alive.
There wasn’t much more we could ask for.
We watched the road behind us for a long time, waiting for Matthias and his men to catch up to us. They never did. I assumed they didn’t see the urgency in attacking right this second. Matthias was waging war, and he could bring it to our doorstep whenever he wanted to. The small skirmish today had been happenstance, and both sides were lucky nobody had been lost.
I snuggled into Hendrix’s side and relished the close contact he had denied me this week. Tears fell freely from my eyes, and I didn’t even bother to hide them or try to stop them.
I was overwhelmed. I hoped it was a momentary thing, but at the moment I felt this was too much to ask of me! I was only one person.
How could I be expected to fight Zombies daily, struggle to live day to day life and deal with Kane Allen? And the entire time I struggled to manage all that, I also had to worry about losing people I truly loved and cared about. I couldn’t handle this! It was too much.
It was too much for me.
I turned into Hendrix and buried my face in the warmth and solace of his body. I thought I lost him today. It was only for a few moments, sure, but that had been long enough. I felt like I couldn’t handle this life, but I knew without a doubt, I would be destroyed if something happened to Hendrix.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed myself as tightly to him as I could. My silent crying turned into miserable sobs, and I wept against him while he held me patiently.
“Reagan, is something wrong?” he asked innocently. “I mean… more than Zombies and Kane? Are you hurt?” he growled with frustration and amended his statement. “Are you hurt significantly? Like dying?”
I couldn’t help but smile at that. I wasn’t the only one that realized our lives were so incredibly screwed up. We went from asking if we were all right, to narrowing it to “Are you dying?” That was not okay.
This was not okay.
“I thought you were dead,” I confessed in a croaking voice. “When I got to the bottom of the hill, you were so still… so… I just, I thought you died.”
He didn’t hesitate to wrap me tighter in his comforting embrace. “I didn’t.” He pressed a kiss to my neck, tasting the salt from my sweat and the blood from all my different cuts. “I didn’t die. I wouldn’t die. I would never leave you.”
I squeezed him tighter.
“Promise me,” I demanded.
A rumbly chuckle vibrated through his chest. “Only if you promise me the same thing.”
I nodded against his body. “I promise.”
“Then I promise to.”
“I love you,” I told him.
“I love you, too, Reagan.” He paused for a minute and whispered, “But we needed to talk.”
“Okay.” And it would be okay. We would be okay. And even if we weren’t, at least he was alive. I thought I wouldn’t be able to survive if he broke up with me, but death was infinitely worse. I knew I could live through anything as long as he was still breathing.
I didn’t want to be forced apart from him. I didn’t want him to leave me. But as long as he was alive… I would continue to live, too.
We drove back to the compound in silence and without any incident. Hendrix and I were the only ones that had been roughed up. The rest of our scouting party was as whole and healthy as when we left.
We parted ways as soon as we parked, not even attempting to debrief the events of the day. Gage made us promise to come to his office first thing in the morning so we could discuss what happened, but I thought even he realized how traumatized I was from our hasty exit.
Hendrix helped me upstairs to our storage bay he’d somehow managed to keep private. I stood in the middle of the dark room, carefully breathing and distracting my mind from the pain I could no longer ignore. Hendrix went around the room and lit all of the candles before immediately returning to my side. The painted flowers on the wall reminded me of the first time we were here and the promises we made to each other. My heart melted with hope, and I couldn’t stop the overflow of relieved tears the entire time we helped wash each other.
We hadn’t stopped to grab new clothes, but at some point during our stay here, Hendrix had stored outfits for us. He took care of my cuts and scrapes and treated my shoulder wound. He wasn’t thrilled when I produced the antibiotic cream and told him where I got it from, but he didn’t hesitate to use it either.
Finally, when we were clean, cared for and dressed, he pulled me over to the love seat and sat me down to face him.
He stared at me for a long time, watching my face in the candlelight and playing with the tattered knee of the jeans I was wearing.
“Reagan, I told you that I trusted you with secrets. I told you that I trusted you to know what to share with me or not to share with me. And I did. But what you kept from me… what you kept from all of us… wasn’t something that only affe
cted you.”
I felt sufficiently chastised by his words, and I struggled to think of a remorseful response. “Hendrix, I didn’t think…”
He leaned forward with such a dark expression marking his face I instantly teared up again and shrank back; whatever words I had been about to say died on my lips. “That’s the problem, Reagan. You didn’t think.” My heart cracked with the pressure of his words. I wasn’t a submissive person by nature, but he was right. And the fact that I completely messed up and that he was calling me out on it sent fissures of regret and hurt crackling through me. I had to wrestle with my pride to keep my mouth shut, but it was worth the effort. I didn’t have an argument for this. I didn’t even have an excuse. He wasn’t finished anyway. “It’s enough that Kane is stalking you and that you kept it from me for weeks. That is enough for me. But that isn’t enough for you, apparently. Instead, I get knocked unconscious only to wake up to find you two sharing secrets over my lifeless body! Reagan, what am I supposed to think? You almost kill the guy one second, and you’re hiding him from me in the next. I don’t know how to understand this situation. And I’m even less sure of what it says about you.”
Okay, that made me a little angry. “I was protecting you, Hendrix. We both fell down that hill. We fell down it together. And I thought you were dead. It was like the minute I realized you weren’t, Kane found us. I was sharing secrets with Kane because I didn’t want him to shoot you. You and I both lost our weapon in the fall. I had nothing but secrets to use.”
His jaw clenched tight, and he crossed his arms over his chest. “Did he try to shoot me?”
“He threatened to,” I told him honestly.
“What did you do…?” His voice cracked, and he looked away before he could finish his sentence. “What did you do to keep him from shooting me?”
I watched Hendrix for a minute, trying to decide how to tell him the truth. It was no longer a question of if I would tell him or what I would tell him, but how. He was going to be pissed. That was obvious. But we could work through that- I hoped. If I continued to hide things from him, especially things about Kane, there would be nothing left between us to work through.
What was funny was that I had been so afraid of Hendrix when I first met him. I hadn’t wanted a relationship with him for this very reason. Relationships were messy, and difficult and freaking hard. And I already had enough problems with the rest of my life. I didn’t need this.
But now I didn’t want to live without it.
I wanted Hendrix and me to be alright again. I wanted him to trust me. I wanted him to hold me.
I wanted him to forget Kane and any of my behavior with Kane.
I wanted to be us again.
Finally, I sucked in a steadying breath and confessed, “I talked to him. I was nice to him.”
“What else?”
“I said his name.”
That gave Hendrix pause. His head snapped back to me, and he repeated, “You said his name?”
I pressed my lips together and nodded.
“He’s so messed in the head,” Hendrix laughed humorlessly. He looked up at me through thick eyelashes and hit me with all his Hendrix-Parker-intensity. The vulnerability in his expression was my undoing, and I reached out for him, half-expecting him to push me away. He didn’t. He let me take his hands and pulled me into the warm fold of his arms. I sprawled out across his body and let myself touch him in as many ways as possible. His next words shocked me though, and I jerked up so I could look him in the eyes again when he said, “I can’t compete with that, Reagan. I can’t compete with broken and needy. I’m neither. And I hope never to be those things. He speaks to you in this way that I will never be able to. I don’t know how he does it… I don’t know if it’s a trick because he knows you’re gullible or if it’s this language you two share that I just don’t get. But whatever it is, it’s fighting its way in between us and I don’t know how to stop it from manipulating you. I don’t know how to keep you when I can’t understand my enemy.”
My heart stopped beating completely at the raw honesty of his words. He really feared that Kane had a chance with me.
I wanted to be angry with him. I wanted to slap him and tell him to go screw himself.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t because I knew that he was right.
“Do you think I’m as crazy as he is?” I whispered my words, too afraid of the truth to put any confidence behind them.
“No,” he said. And I believed him. There was conviction in his voice; there was honesty. “I don’t think that at all.” He had hesitated before continuing, and I held my breath the entire time. “I think you are a good person. And I think you want to believe there is a little bit of good in everybody. I think you hate Kane for what he’s done to you but not in a way that condemns him completely. You think there’s hope for him. You want to believe there’s something in him that isn’t completely evil. And I don’t blame you for that. I just don’t know how to convince you that you’re wrong.”
I let his words settle inside me before choosing my response carefully. “You might be right,” I relented. “But that doesn’t mean I think of him… romantically. You’re right that it’s hard for me to completely convict Kane. But it has nothing to do with Kane. It’s hard for me to look around the world we live in and see the decline of civilization in general. Before Zombies, I lived in the suburbs! I lived next to neighbors I trusted and went to school with kids that planned on going to college and making something out of their lives. My friends were future dentists and lawyers and teachers. And now, only two years later, I’m faced to deal with men who look at me and want to rape me, or kill me or keep me as a pet. It’s hard to comprehend that, let alone believe someone our age is capable of that kind of evil! When I see Kane, most of the time I know that he’s out of his mind. I see how unhealthily he looks at me and how sordid his intentions with me are. I get it. I really, really do. But then, sometimes I look at him and see this twenty-three year old kid that had a future once, too. I see someone close to my age that has been as thrown by the Zombie Invasion as the rest of us. His entire life was shredded into nothing around him and he has forced to adapt and make the best of what he has left. And not only that, his dad is absolute bat shit. If his parents are setting the standard of normal for him, what chance does he have?” Hendrix didn’t answer. He just stared at me, watching me and taking me in with this silent expression I couldn’t read. So I pushed forward. “He’s not your competition, Hendrix. Not in a thousand years would I ever stand him next to you and find you lacking. I choose you because I love you, because I want you and because there is nothing left of my heart to give to anyone else. You have it all. But that doesn’t mean I’m completely devoid of all other feelings. I feel sorry for Kane. And I would be lying if I said I didn’t hope that he comes to his senses and remembers dignity and sanity. But he will never be competition for you. Not ever. You’re it for me, Babe.” I blushed at those words, realizing how much I was promising him. In a much meeker voice, I added, “I hope that’s okay with you.”
His face split into a heartbreaking grin and his deep blue eyes danced with a happiness I hadn’t seen in a long time. “That’s very okay with me.” And then he kissed me.
Senseless.
When we finally came up for air, I asked the one question I dreaded most, “Does that mean you forgive me?”
He leaned forward and nibbled on my lower lip, sending us into more gasping kisses. His hands moved over my body and somehow he managed to maneuver me underneath him- clever boy. He hovered above me with the length of his long body pressed into mine.
“I forgive you,” he finally promised. “But don’t keep anything from me again, Reagan. Whatever it is, we deal with it together, yeah? It’s you and me against the world, against every odd and statistic that we will die or be separated. This isn’t going to be easy, and it’s not going to be fun. But if we hang in this thing together, we can make it work. Do you believe that?”
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I wholeheartedly agreed. “Yes.” I reached up and cupped my hand against his jaw. This was so different than with Kane. I loved the feeling of his beard scratching at the pads of my fingers. I adored the heat of his body as it reminded me of his life and still-beating heart. What I said to him earlier was true, I felt sorry for Kane.
But I loved Hendrix, with everything I was and everything I would become.
“And you’ll give us a chance? You’ll let this be hard, and you’ll go through the tough stuff with me, knowing we’ll be stronger at the end of it?”
“Yes,” I promised. His eyes darkened with my simple word. I could see the unquenchable desire and devotion written all over his face and feel it through his delicious body. “But you’re wrong about one thing,” I told him.
“And what’s that?”
“It is fun.” I ran my hands over his waist and slipped them beneath his fresh t-shirt. “Sometimes it’s very fun.”
He grinned wickedly at me and then he showed me just how fun it could be.
And the whole time I reveled in his words and his promises. He was right about this relationship: we were up against everything. And not only did the degeneration of this world seek to separate us, but we had a very tangible enemy that had made it his purpose in life to pull us apart.
We were up against a lot- more than most relationships.
But we could make it. We had to make it.
It would take work and honesty; it would take sacrifice and a lot of devoted intention. And we still might fail in some way or the other.
But we might not. We might make it. We might turn this new relationship into the kind of love that fairy tales were written about and love songs penned. We might turn ourselves into the kind of inseparable love that would carry us until our dying day- whenever that might be.
And that’s what I hoped for. That’s what I wanted. There was no competition with Kane, because I chose Hendrix. And there was no danger in anything else separating us because I chose us. And I would continue to choose us until not just the end of our world, but the end of everything.
Love and Decay, Season Two Omnibus: Episodes 1-12 Page 13