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

by Higginson, Rachel

  Frankly, he hadn’t gone through summers of cheer camp with me or handed me my first tampon.

  Reagan was first in line to get my potentially-fatal-sacrificial rescue attempts.

  I would do anything for her.

  And I knew she would do the same for me.

  “I know it doesn’t,” Nelson pulled me tighter to him. “Hendrix wants to leave now, but I told him we have to wait to make sure Gage pulls through. And we need sleep or they will kill us just because we’re too tired to stand. He’s going to get the Suburban ready again and pull together as many weapons as the compound can afford to give up. We’ll just take a couple hours to get right and then we’re back at it.”

  “I don’t know if I can sleep.” I lay my cheek right on his pounding heart and listened to the beautiful, assuring sounds of life pumping through his body.

  “They will be safe through the night,” Nelson promised. “Kane didn’t take them to kill them.”

  I thought back to my little interaction with him in the storage room. He had warned me about this. He had already planned it.

  “You’re right,” I agreed. “Safe from death, but not from Kane… or from Matthias.”

  Nelson let out a pained growl. He was so amazing to comfort me. He was a rock, my strength. He would get me through the gap in time between now and when I could say for sure Reagan would be safe again.

  When I could say that Page would be safe again.

  But it was his little sister that had been taken. It was Page that was the real concern.

  Reagan could take care of herself. I hoped.

  It was Page that would keep me awake until I had her back in my arms, until we could braid each other’s hair at night and giggle and laugh about everything an eight year old found funny.

  “Reagan will keep Page safe,” I promised Nelson. “She will do anything for that little girl, anything to keep her alive.”

  He buried his face in my neck and I felt the moisture pool in his eyes and wet my skin. But as quickly as it was there, it disappeared and I watched his entire body harden with purpose and determination.

  “We’ll get them back.” His words were a sacred oath of courage and resilience.

  “I know.”

  I kept the tears at bay after that. I was too pissed and too resolved to let emotion cloud my mind. I never slept. I couldn’t sleep; not after all that.

  Instead, I reflected on this precarious life I led and how much longer it would be until more of the people I loved were taken from me.

  Maybe we could fight Kane and get Reagan and Page back. Maybe some of us would die while we tried.

  Maybe we would all die.

  It was anyone’s guess at this point. I did know this… this life, this apocalyptic hellhole, this end-of-the-world purgatory, would do everything in its power to take those I loved away from me. That was the nature of this world. That was the fate I had been assigned.

  Sometimes there were beautiful, lovely things leftover from a time of decency and decorum.

  But at other times, there was only this… there was only ugly and evil, hatred and death.

  And I hated it. I hated every minute of this. I hated that I had to suffer on a daily basis. I hated that my life could be taken at any moment. I hated that evil ran so rampant it blackened good men’s souls and blinded them from the way things should be. I hated everything and everyone.

  Nelson strengthened his embrace and kissed my neck with a brokenness that reached into my chest and squeezed my heart until it felt close to bursting.

  I didn’t hate everything and everyone.

  I didn’t hate Nelson or his family. I didn’t hate this compound and the people that lived here with me. And I most certainly didn’t hate Reagan.

  I was mad… raging with fury and a bloodlust for vengeance that could rival every horde of Feeders.

  But it was these good moments, these still lovely things that would make me fight for a world where the ugly and evil disappeared, or at least faded into the underworld where they belonged. I would struggle, sacrifice and kill until the goodness outweighed the hatred and the life outnumbered the death.

  I would start tomorrow.

  I would start with my best friend and the little girl that stole my heart. A little girl that didn’t deserve this horrible world or the insane man that kidnapped her.

  And I would take every step with the man that now owned that heart and kept my soul safe.

  Episode Five

  Chapter One

  860 days after initial infection

  I blinked awake.

  Nothing around me made any sense but I kept blinking and staring and hoping that something would come together inside my muddled head.

  I had the oddest feeling that I should be home. Not home, as in at-the-compound, but home-home. My brain tried to put me back in Iowa, in my childhood home. I looked around for my bulletin board filled with pictures and memories of all my high school years. I scanned the room for my pom-poms I kept laid out on this kitschy, antique high-back chair my mom and I found at Goodwill. I stared at the nightstand for several moments wondering why I hadn’t plugged my cell phone in. I patted the bed next to me, looking for the book I’d been reading before I fell asleep, but I couldn’t find it. None of this was right.

  I blinked some more, hoping that would be the solution to my dazedness.

  I stared at the wood paneled ceiling.

  I turned my head and took in the simple room and the nightstand with a useless lamp directly to my left. The base was flaking gold beneath a dust-covered, pale pink shade. A handmade, yellowed, grimy lace doily sat beneath it.

  I returned my gaze to the ceiling.

  For a full minute where I wondered if I might be dead. Was this heaven? Did God need to hire a better cleaning crew? Eventually, I dismissed those crazy thoughts. Most of my muscles were sore and the back of my head pounded out a violent rhythm reminding me I suffered from recent head injuries.

  Also, I had the very intense instinct I was in danger and if I ever really did die, I’d better not feel that way. Heaven had to be a place where I felt safe. It had to be. There had to be a break in this looking-over-my-shoulder-every-five-seconds-thing in my eventual future, or I would just die. Again.

  A face appeared above me. Dark, thick hair curled just at the ends and tousled. This seemed wrong, too. My hazy mind wanted him to look cleaner, more military. His strong jaw had a days’ worth of uncharacteristic stubble and his nose had a gash across the bridge. His left cheek had another angry cut over the sharp bone. The intensity in his gray eyes glittered directly at me but remained partially subdued by his black-rimmed glasses.

  He was so serious.

  And with the appearance of his face, the truth of my situation started to come back… but slowly.

  “You’re not Hendrix,” I told him. My mouth felt stuffed with cotton and my throat like it had been scraped raw with sandpaper. “This is not where I live.”

  “Do you know what I like about you, Reagan?” he asked with a smile. The expression softened the rough edges of his presence and brought more cold reality rushing back with it.

  “My stellar observational skills?” I deadpanned.

  “Your resilience.”

  I rolled my eyes and yanked at my hands that were bound to the headboard above me. “I’m handcuffed.”

  His fingertips brushed over the curve of my waist. “I like that about you, too.”

  I stopped feeling fuzzy. Kane’s touch brought everything back into very clear focus.

  His eyes twinkled at me from behind clear frames. I flailed my body in a panic, making the bed creak and groan beneath me. My waist was the only part of my body not tied to the bed, but the springs in the mattress were bouncy enough that I was effective in pushing him back.

  “Damn it, Kane! I swear to god, if you touch me again, I will murder you!”

  He stood and backed up a step. “Reagan, geez! I’m just kidding. You need to relax.”

&n
bsp; “You kidnapped me!” I gave a pointed look at my hands and let my attention drop to my feet. “And then you tied me up! Relaxing is a terrible idea!”

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised in a tone I could almost believe.

  Almost.

  I mean, this was Kane we were talking about. He was a master at deceiving me with all his bullshit conviction and poor-me-I’m-so-misunderstood vulnerability. I wasn’t falling for this crap anymore.

  “Did you drug me?” I demanded, ignoring his false promises and soft desperation. It would do me absolutely no good to feel sorry for him now. He had really done it this time.

  Before, when I had to shoot him, stab him and then shove him out a moving vehicle… that was probably when I’d had enough of him. But now, he’d really messed up. He’d gone way too far this time!

  “No,” he answered immediately. “You fainted. You’re hurt.”

  “I don’t faint.” I said that because it was true. I had never fainted just because I was faced with a difficult situation, not even when I went head-to-head with my first Zombie. Not even when that first Zombie was my cheating, asshat boyfriend who was supposed to drive Haley and me out of Atlantic, Iowa and help us find some place safe to live permanently after all of our parents were killed. Sure, I panicked. And there were times after that, I sometimes screamed. Often, I started shooting before I could really understand the entire situation. There had been times I’d passed out due to head injury, but I had never fainted out of fear.

  “You have a head wound,” Kane reminded me meekly.

  “You’re going to have a head wound if you don’t untie me now!”

  Kane looked at my thrashing body. “Are you going to hip-thrust me to death?”

  Oh. My. Gosh. I needed to kill him. Like, for real. I could admit that I had been too forgiving before, too understanding. But now he was crossing the line. He was crossing all the lines!

  He continued in that same dry tone, “Stop before you start foaming at the mouth. This is happening, Reagan. The sooner you come to terms with it, the easier this will be.”

  Pretty sure, I actually started foaming at the mouth in that exact moment.

  Okay, not really. But some subtle part of my brain decided to be very concerned about my blood pressure. I had never been this mad before. Kane succeeded in bringing me to an entirely new level of fury. A level I didn’t even know was possible!

  Which was saying something.

  I had been furious lots of times before.

  But this was the worst it had ever been. The very worst.

  “You are a demented son of a bitch, Kane Allen!”

  His lips twitched. He thought I was amusing.

  I swear I could feel blood vessels popping in my eyeballs.

  “You haven’t even asked about Page,” he said casually. Oh, so freaking casually that every single thing inside of me stilled.

  “You are really playing up this psycho persona aren’t you?” I growled at him. My fury turned into a living beast inside of me. I felt so consumed with rage that I started to physically shake from the force of it. Any moment now, I was going to rip out of these handcuffs all Incredible-Hulk-style and tear Kane apart, bit by f-ing bit. “Kane, if something has happened to that little girl, I will-”

  “Save your threats for when they’re deserved. She’s fine. She’s in the other room.”

  My heartbeat slowed, but just barely. By now I had come completely awake and the hopelessness of my situation started to really hit home. Kane had managed to kidnap me, with Page, and right out of Hendrix’s hands.

  The nausea came next. Sickness in full body waves washed over my body. A cold sweat broke out in my hairline and my hands became moist with perspiration. I looked around again in a mild panic. This was not Kane’s house. This was not anywhere I had been before.

  This was not the Colony.

  The walls were paneled wood, like a cabin maybe? He had placed me in a room with minimal amenities and this bed with a rusted, golden bed frame. The sheets beneath me actually smelled clean, but their white had yellowed and the mattress was worn. A tall dresser stood along the wall opposite me and a longer dresser with a useless old box TV ran parallel to me and bordered the wall with the door that opened up to reveal more of the cabin.

  Despite the age and questionable credibility of the bed frame, my handcuffs were held firm and the metal posts they were locked around didn’t rip to pieces as I hoped.

  I was sufficiently trapped.

  But clothed.

  A fast glance down at my body, revealed that I was, in fact, clothed.

  Thank God for small miracles.

  “I want to see her,” I demanded.

  “I can’t let you do that, yet.”

  “Then I don’t believe she’s alright.”

  “You’re not going to manipulate me. And you should give that up now before you tire yourself out.” He gave a pointed look at my thrusting hips.

  I pinned Kane with a glare and dared him to say something that stupid again. “What was it you liked about me? My resilience?” He cocked an eyebrow at me. I mimicked his expression and started screaming at the very top of my lungs. “Page!!! Page!!!!!! Paaaaaaaaaaaage! I’m here! Page! I’m in here!!!!!! I’m fine! Don’t listen to anything he says!!! I’m fine! I’m in here and I’m fiiiiiiiiine!”

  Surprising warmth burned in the corners of my eyes before the frustrated tears fell. I kept screaming and shouting and making as much damn noise as I could while Kane watched me with bored disinterest.

  My lungs burned after a while and my already-tired voice lost any power that adrenaline and fear had given it. I tried to keep up the screaming, but I started sounding less like a girl with a plan and more like a frog with laryngitis.

  Eventually my anguished screams turn into cries of anger and frustration. I let out a hiccupping sob and hated that I showed this weakness to Kane. I hated that I had let him upset me this much and that I had put it all out here on display. I should be figuring out a way to get out of here. I should be marking the exits and cataloguing all the possible weapons I could use.

  Instead, I was handcuffed to a bed, weeping like a pansy.

  Freaking great.

  Kane sighed and sat down next to me. His thigh pushed against my side and the warmth of his body heat sunk unfairly into my skin. For the first time since I woke up I realized how cold I was in this room.

  I should have cringed in fear and scooted as far away as my binds would let me, but I wasn’t afraid of Kane. Not really. I was afraid of the things that he was capable of doing to me. I was afraid that I wouldn’t ever get back to the compound or see Hendrix and Haley again. I was afraid that Page was scared and alone and blamed me for being ripped apart from her family.

  But I wasn’t afraid of Kane.

  Not this Kane. Not the one sitting next to me on the bed. Not the one that smelled familiar and looked at me with such intimate awareness.

  I didn’t understand him. I didn’t trust him. And I didn’t have any faith that he had simple intentions with me.

  But I knew him.

  And more importantly, I was furious with him. And my anger overrode every other emotion and coherent thought.

  And for some reason that translated into letting him touch me because I felt a little bit of control with that. I used him for his heat and my muscles and bones relaxed a little, but it was enough to help me feel less miserable and right now, that was what I needed.

  “Are you finished?” he asked in a gentle tone.

  “No.” I glared at him and gave him the full force of my pathetic tears.

  His thumb brushed slowly across my cheek, taking my gathered tears in his sweeping motion. “Page is fine, Reagan. You can’t see her right now, but you need to trust me. I don’t expect you to, but you should since that is your only option right now.” His thumb pressed into my bottom lip and slid to the side. I tasted the saltiness of my tears and the sweetness of his skin. He watched the movement, tra
nsfixed by the connection of our separate pieces. His gray eyes were bright behind his glasses and I realized for the first time Kane noticed I was at his mercy. Sure, he was the psychopath that tied me up to the bed; but I really believed that he had done that out of necessity. For the first time since he came into the room, he realized how vulnerable I was.

  Now what would he do with all that new information?

  I needed to defuse the situation quickly. “I won’t trust you. No matter what you do to me or threaten me with.” I spoke against his finger. His eyes never lifted from my lips. “I want to see Page and I want to see her now.”

  Reluctantly, he lifted his gaze back to mine. Disappointment flickered behind the new lenses. “I will make you a deal.” I waited silently, too afraid to agree to anything before I heard him out. He pulled his hand back and put some space between us. “I want to look at your head and whatever other injuries you have and take care of them. If you let me change your bandages and dress your wounds without fighting me, I will take you to Page. If you challenge me, I’m going to leave you here for the rest of the night.”

  I clenched my teeth together. I didn’t want to agree to that but it seemed like the easiest and quickest way to get what I wanted. Plus, if I were going to find a way out of this, I did not need gangrene slowing me down.

  Noticing my hesitation, Kane grinned. “Just give me what I want, Reagan. You don’t exactly have any bargaining chips.”

  “We both know that I do,” I argued.

  He sat forward some. “Then use them. Bargain with me.”

  I watched him for several moments while that challenge churned in my stomach. Bargain with me.

  At what cost? How high were these stakes?

  “Fine,” I relented. “You can fix my booboos but then you take me directly to Page.”