“Holy shit,” I breathed. I looked up at Kane’s stoic expression and said, “Your whole family is out of their goddamn minds. No wonder you’re so crazy. You didn’t stand a chance with parents like that!”
He stared at me for a long, hard minute. His jaw ticked and his body stilled with tense rigidity. Finally, he tore his eyes from me and focused on Page. “Are you finished, Page? I have chocolate for dessert if you’re all done.”
His tone was gentle despite the aggressive waves rolling off his body. Page’s whole body jumped with excitement at his words but she looked at me first for permission.
I couldn’t say no to her. I couldn’t deny her such a special treat.
But, now he really was manipulating her. I could not allow her to trust Kane in any way. He’d made this rock and a hard place infinitely more difficult to navigate.
Damn him.
“I thought you weren’t going to bribe her with sweets?” I accused.
“I’m not bribing her,” he said with his back to me while he dug around in the cabinets. “I’m trying to comfort her after your unnecessary argument with my mother. I know your opinion is more important than anything else in this world, Reagan, but did you stop for one second and realize how much you were frightening her? Are you even capable of stepping outside of your own head to see how your words and opinions affect other people?”
Now Kane was mad at me?
Worse, he was right. I felt awful for exposing Page to that.
I squeezed her tightly against me and kissed her head. I looked down into those depthless blue eyes and silently asked for forgiveness. “Did I scare you?”
She shook her head, “I was already scared.”
And even in my screw up, she was trying to make me feel better.
“I didn’t mean to, Page. I’m sorry I yelled in front of you.”
She nodded and tucked her head against me. Kane brought a candy bar over and set it down in front of her. He held one out to me and I reluctantly reached for it.
I hated Kane.
But I didn’t hate chocolate, so I didn’t think the candy bar should suffer.
He didn’t release it right away, so I looked up to see what he wanted.
“Is this going to make you more pleasant to be around?” his tone was the slightest bit teasing and I almost smiled.
“No,” I admitted.
He released an exasperated sigh but his eyes danced with amusement. “I guess, I shouldn’t expect anything less from you.”
“You’re finally starting to get it,” I echoed his statement earlier.
His lips twitched but he didn’t give me a smile either. Not that I wanted one.
“Come find me when you’re done.” And then he left us alone.
Once Kane left, I relaxed a little. I let myself be silly with Page while we ate our chocolate. I desperately hoped that the dessert portion of our evening could reverse the emotional trauma I just put her through.
She didn’t ask any questions about the conversation I had with Linley, and we didn’t talk about the house or Kane or anything else that was scary. We simply broke our chocolate bars into little rectangles and built houses out of them or faces and slowly nibbled away until there were only a couple pieces left for each of us and we had to stop our game.
“Do you think my brothers will come tonight?” she whispered after we’d fallen into comfortable silence.
“I hope so,” I told her honestly. “But I don’t know if they’ll be able to find us by tonight. We aren’t where they thought we would be.” I said that because I had no doubt the Parkers and Haley and Gage all assumed we would be at the Colony. When they went looking for us, if they hadn’t started already, they would go straight there.
A thousand images came up with those thoughts and I pushed them all away. I couldn’t think about them trying to storm the Colony two days in a row. I couldn’t think about the warfare they would engage in if they thought Page and I were locked away in that town. I couldn’t think about Hendrix, Vaughan and all the others scouring the Zombie-ridden countryside looking for us, putting their own lives in danger in order to hunt uselessly for us.
Those thoughts brought the panic back and since there was absolutely no way to confirm or deny all of the possibilities in my head, I decided not to dwell on every single “what-if” and choose to believe they were all healthy and they were all safe.
And that they were on the right track to finding us even while we sat here enjoying chocolate.
That was all I could do for my sanity and for Page.
Page’s voice dropped even lower when she asked, “Reagan, do you think that there are knives in here?”
I sat up straighter. Why was Page reminding me of my mission to escape? I should have been casing this kitchen the moment Kane left it. “Good idea,” I smiled at her. “Stay here.”
I pushed my remaining chocolate her way and slowly slid back my chair. Walking as lightly as I could in my sock-clad feet, I moved over to the nearest drawer. I tried to pull it back silently, but the old cabinetry squeaked on its rollers. I opened it wide enough to see what was inside and then slid it back into place. No knives.
I moved onto the next drawer. This one squeaked louder and I heard footsteps in the other room. I quickly shut it as quietly as I could and started moving the dirty plates from the table to the sink. I knew the water wouldn’t work, but I wanted to make an excuse for the noise I was making.
Kane reappeared in the doorway and I gave him a fleeting glance over my shoulder as I continued to clear the table.
“My mom will do that,” he told me.
I shrugged and stopped clearing the table.
“I put the dishes in here. I didn’t know where else they could go.”
“There is fine.” He walked over to the sink and to my complete amazement, when he turned the sink on, water sputtered from the spout. “It’s a well system that feeds from a nearby river. The tank fills with water and comes through here. If you use too much of it, you’ll have to wait for the tank to fill again, but it works pretty well.”
I stared dumbfounded at the water pouring over the dirty dishes. “Wow.”
“Obviously, there’s no temperature gauge and we have to boil it before we drink it, but it works for this. And for showers.”
“Showers?” I whispered almost afraid to believe that could be true.
Kane chuckled. “Cold showers.”
I opened my eyes and met his amused ones. “Well, that’s just perfect for you.”
He laughed harder, even throwing his head back with the force of it and flashing me every inch of his long throat. When he settled down, he dropped his head and met my gaze again. His eyes danced with mischief and his lips pulled into a smile. “They’re worth it.”
I didn’t have a response to that and so I stayed quiet and averted my eyes. Page was watching us with rapt fascination and I found that I couldn’t look at her either.
Kane didn’t have that problem.
“Come on, Page.” He held out his hand to her. “Reagan and I are going to put you to bed.”
She hopped up from her seat but didn’t walk to Kane. Instead, she took my hand and sidled up close to me.
Kane didn’t seem bothered by this, which relieved me. I didn’t want his weird stalker tendencies turning toward Page and I realized for a moment I had been concerned about that.
But it seemed that his kindness to Page was simply that: kindness.
Kindness that I didn’t understand, but innocent as far as his intentions went.
Kane led us back to the room he’d kept Page in before and opened another tall dresser to show us clothes that were around her size. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a dresser full of clothes for me in the other room. How long had Kane been planning this?
How thought-out was this scheme?
Obviously, he had succeeded in extracting us from the Parkers and Gage’s compound, so I knew that he had already put quite a lot of careful c
onsideration into this. I realized at that moment, that I had assumed that was where his planning ended. That once he got us out here, he hadn’t really deliberated what else he would do with us.
I had been wrong.
There weren’t just clothes for Page, but another drawer revealed shoes. The bed was made up with sheets that had been washed. There were all kinds of toys and books stacked on a bookshelf in the corner next to the chair by the window.
Kane led us to a bathroom with the same kind of water pump system and pointed out two toothbrushes that were for Page and me. The sink also boasted plenty of toothpaste, towels and washcloths.
I gave Page her nightclothes and told her to brush her teeth. Kane explained that she could brush and rinse her mouth but she could not drink any of the water. The bathroom had a similar well system that emptied into a septic tank and we were able to use the toilet and flush. This amazed me but Page seemed unfazed. She agreed not to swallow the water and then we gave her privacy. We waited on the other side of the door for her to get ready for bed.
I turned to Kane in the darkened hallway and jabbed a finger his direction, remembering his behavior in the kitchen just now, “Stop flirting with me.”
He wrapped his hand around my finger and pulled me toward him. “No.”
I decided that might have been a fruitless argument so I changed directions. “Is your mom staying with us the entire time?”
He grinned at me. “I thought you would appreciate the chaperone.”
He pushed me, using his grip on my finger, and my back came to rest on the other side of the narrow hallway where the bathroom was located. He stepped into me.
I used my same finger and shoved him back a step. He allowed it and I kept my back against the wall to give us as much space as possible. “Your mother is a real piece of work.” He stepped forward again. I held up my other hand to stop him. He was being playful and it was throwing me way off. “In fact, your whole family is crazy.”
“I suppose you exclude Tyler and Miller.”
I thought about that. “Only Miller. Your sister can be equally as bat shit as the rest of you, but at least her heart’s in the right place.”
He took the finger that he was holding and held it to his chest. He released his grip on my finger and moved it to my wrist so that he could press my palm flat against him. “My heart is in the right place, too.”
I snorted. “Kane, come on, that was so cheesy!”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he chuckled with me. “I meant, that I also want what’s best for everyone. I’m doing what I think I should to keep those I care about alive. You call me crazy, but you forget that you are one of those people that I care about. I’m trying to protect you, Reagan. I want you safe and cared for.”
“You don’t even know me. You can’t care about me because you don’t know me.”
He was silent for a minute as we stood there in the hallway, me pushing him back, and him pushing against my hand to get closer. “So let me get to know you,” he finally said. “Let me know you so that I can decide.”
“That’s not how this works. You kidnapped me. You kidnapped Page. You don’t get to know me now.”
He started to say more but the door opened and Page walked out of the bathroom. I pulled my hand away from Kane and held it out to Page. She looked at Kane warily but took my hand and let me lead her back to the bedroom. Kane yanked a metal shade down over the window that locked on the bottom of the sill; there was a ring at the bottom of the frame I hadn’t noticed. The shade connected straight to the metal ring. Kane pulled out a padlock from his pocket and clicked it into place.
“We tried the window already,” I reminded him. “I couldn’t get it to budge, so I highly doubt Page is going to get through it.”
Although, secretly, I really hoped she could somehow.
“It’s not to keep people in,” Kane said simply. “You of all people should recognize something designed to keep others out.”
He was right.
And I knew he wasn’t referring to the Parkers.
With the absence of Feeders over the course of one day, I’d forgotten about all of the other threats that lingered on the outside of these walls. I’d been too wrapped up in the evil inside the house.
Night had fallen outside and so Kane turned on a small, battery-powered lantern to a low setting and set it on the night table next to Page.
“Will that help you sleep?” he asked her in a gentle voice.
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“I’m going to let Reagan say goodnight to you but then she has to leave you be for the night. Miss Linley will come check on you in a few minutes.”
Page nodded again and gave me her big, scared eyes.
“Goodnight, Page,” he said to her and then left us alone.
I patted the bed and she crawled into it, slipping under the covers and pulling them tight to her neck. One fat tear rolled down her cheek and she quickly wiped it away. The reality of our despair had finally settled on her small, brave shoulders.
I sat down next to her and gathered her torso into my arms so I could kiss her head. “We are going to be alright, Page. I promise.”
“I miss my brothers,” she sobbed.
I started crying, too, out of empathy. I knew she hadn’t been away from them since they left their parents at the beginning of the Zombie infestation. There were nights when she had been separated from some of them, but her life over the last two years had revolved around the protection of at least a few of her brothers constantly.
And now all she had was me. And scary Kane and his crazy mother.
“I thought they would be here by now,” she whispered and then sniffled.
“They are coming, Babe. I know that they are. Maybe we have to get through this one night and they’ll be here in the morning. And if they’re not here in the morning, I bet we will have to wait a little bit longer. They are going to save us. They always do.”
Her crying lessened some and she looked up at me. “Do you think they will be mad at me?”
“For what?” I gasped.
“For leaving them. I was never, ever supposed to leave them. My daddy told me that and Vaughan and Hendrix told me that every day.”
I squeezed her against my chest. “Sweetheart, they know that this isn’t your fault. You didn’t want to leave them and neither did I! They won’t blame us. They will know exactly who to be mad at.”
And murder. But I didn’t say that part out loud.
Although, it turned out I didn’t have to.
“They’re going to kill Kane, aren’t they? They will kill him for taking us. And Hendrix will kill him for the way he looks at you.”
Too surprised to really unpack the fact that this eight-year-old girl in my arms was talking about having someone killed, I asked, “How does Kane look at me?”
She was pacified now that she’d convinced herself of her brother’s impending vengeance and I couldn’t say I blamed her. I felt better, too, knowing that the Parkers would give Kane the justice he deserved.
She settled back on her pillows and blinked up at me. “Like he wants to keep you.” Her eyes fluttered closed and she yawned nice and big. “Goodnight, Reagan.”
“Goodnight, baby girl.” I kissed her forehead and left her alone.
She wasn’t wrong about Kane, but it was weird to hear a child explain it. He had told me as much himself, but still, Page’s declaration put it that much more into focus.
Kane would keep me if he could.
I would never get out of here.
As I left Page alone to sleep, I repurposed my mission to escape this place with her. We had to get out of here before Kane’s delusions deepened, before he saw us for anything more than what we were. Before he convinced himself that I didn’t hate him.
Chapter Four
Out in the living room, Kane sat talking casually with his mom. They both looked up when I closed Page’s door. Linley gave me a curious glance and then
stood up and brushed invisible debris off her perfectly creased pants.
“I’m going to say goodnight to the little one,” she announced.
“She’s trying to sleep,” I said. “Don’t bother her now.”
“Reagan,” Kane warned in that authoritative voice he had.
Linley tried to squeeze by me but she didn’t need to say goodnight to Page. I had already tucked her in. She didn’t need to go anywhere near Page and the fact that she wanted to was seriously infuriating me.
“No,” I barked at her.
She stepped back and looked at me like I’d kicked her puppy. “You are a difficult woman,” she hissed at me.
“And you are a crazy bitch,” I growled back feeling very low-society despite my well-deserved insult.
“Mama,” Kane tried a different tactic. “Maybe now isn’t the best time.”
Linley glared at me, huffing with Kane’s suggestion. “Fine,” she finally growled. She turned on her heel and walked to a different door that must lead to her bedroom. She walked in and slammed the door shut behind her.
Page was safe for now.
I let out a breath of relief.
“Have a seat,” Kane ordered. “We can talk now.” He inclined his head toward the couch. He sat perpendicular to the spot in a worn, plaid recliner.
After having his mom banished, I felt obligated not to put up a fight. Plus, he had promised me some answers earlier and I decided I would collect them now.
I walked to the couch and plopped down, tucking my feet underneath me. All of the windows in the room had already had their steel shutters closed and locked and the front door had multiple padlocks and a floor lock that had been clicked into place. More camping lanterns lit up this space, but the rest of the house was dark.
A chill had settled over the house now that the sun was down and I pulled an afghan off the back of the couch and tucked it around me.
Kane slid forward in his seat and rested his elbows on his knees. Despite our different furniture, we were close now in this position. I pulled my torso back but his fingers dangled just half an inch from my bent knees.
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