“Reagan, I’m not asking you to fix me.”
“No, you’re asking me to save you. Both are impossible.” My hands smoothed out his skin as if I could erase the horrible memories I knew came with scars like these.
He dropped his head back and his hair tickled my fingertips. “You don’t know what it’s like to carry this.”
I don’t know what possessed me to do it. In fact, if I lived a thousand more years I realized I could analyze this moment every single day and still not know what made me do what I did next.
My hands moved softly to his shoulders, and I watched every ripple of skin and pulse of muscle as my palms landed on him . When the worst of his back was exposed to me again, I leaned forward and kissed those horrific lines, those nightmare memories that haunted him. I brushed my lips over one line, then another, then another. I couldn’t stop myself.
I inhaled him as I went and felt him shudder beneath me until he trembled at my touch and his heartbeat became a frantic rhythm in his chest.
“Reagan,” he whispered.
I pulled back realizing that I was sending the very worst message I could possibly send. “Sorry. I’m sorry,” I said quickly. God, my heart ached for this broken man.
“Don’t be.” I could tell that he intended for that to sound commanding and authoritative, but his hoarse voice shattered against the words and I heard the desperate plea.
He took my hand that rested on the top of his shoulder and tugged it in front of him. I walked around his impressive frame and faced him. I could feel how fragile this moment was; the delicate ground we traversed crackled beneath our feet and it would take nothing for both of us to plummet through the surface and plunge into unknown depths… depths I might not ever emerge from again.
I cupped his jaw in my hands and brushed my thumb over his lips. “You’re not him,” I promised him. “You’re not your father.”
“You’re the only person that believes me,” he spoke against the pad of my finger. “You’re the only person that sees me.”
“I also see you acting like him just to get your way. It’s not going to work.”
“I never thought it would,” he shot back with more confidence.
“Then why am I here?”
“Because I’m selfish. Because I can’t let you go even though I know that I need to.”
His hands reached out to graze my waist before they took my hips gently in hand. He tugged me forward and I fell into him so that my legs straddled one of his. His thumbs rubbed a trail over my hipbone. Up one way, then down. Up, over the sharp bone and back again.
Not even my jeans could take away the intensity of his touch.
“We will never happen.” I didn’t know where I found the courage to tell him that, but I forced the words out and let him hear the honesty they were wrapped in.
It was one of the bravest things I had ever done. At that moment, I wanted to give in to him. I wanted to take away his pain, his past and kiss him until his future felt better. I wanted to absorb his hurt and aching heart into my own body so that he could feel the freedom and promise of a better life, of a better existence.
His scars were older than the Zombie Apocalypse, his sickness much deeper than two years and some inherited power that had gone to his head. Kane Allen lived with a lifetime of nightmares. Zombies were the end of the story, not the beginning.
So telling Kane “no” went against everything that made me me. And it had nothing to do with Hendrix. I would never betray Hendrix, or cheat on him in any way. But I was also a person that could not overlook someone that needed help.
And Kane needed help.
Kane needed me.
So I gathered my courage and I stood against the tsunami of emotion this boy made me feel.
He didn’t respond verbally. His hands slid up to grip the curve of my waist and he held me in front of him firmly, possessively. He looked up at me and I saw the relentless hope dance in his eyes.
“You don’t have to stay at the Colony, Kane. You don’t have to be his puppet.”
Hurt flashed across his face but he was quick to hide it. “Are you going to let me stay with you? Do you think Gage has a room for me?”
“You’re a capable man. You could make it anywhere.” And I meant every single word. I had a feeling Hendrix would do almost anything to kill this man, but if he left… like for good… if he just got up and found someplace safe to go… he would be fine. He could make it.
He could get away from his dad and his poison propaganda just like his sister and little brother.
“Do you know that I’ve always been jealous of Miller?” he asked me out of the blue. I shook my head in a gesture asking him to go on. “He’s never put up with it. He’s never fallen for any of it. He just… he knew enough to get out, or want to get out, even when he was just a little kid. Sure he’s had to suffer through it, same as me, but he’s always been stronger. He’s always been smarter than me.”
My eyes were hot and wet with unshed sympathy. I shook my head again but this time it was to disagree with him. “No, he had you to watch. He was born third, Kane. Miller watched you and Tyler go through it first. You didn’t have anybody. You couldn’t have known better because it was all you knew. Miller’s not smarter, he’s lucky.”
A lone tear slipped from the corner of Kane’s eye and slid over my hand. “I tried to stop it for a long time. I stood in his place when we were younger. I took it for him. But, my dad knew what I was doing. He thought… he thought I was spoiling Miller and that only made things worse for him. When I tried to help, he would only punish Miller more. It got so that… it got so that I was afraid to stand up for him. I was afraid for his life. I know that you think I’m some kind of monster for letting my dad do what he does to my brother, but it would just be worse if I stepped in.” More tears fell over my hands and mingled with my own. “I know that you think I’m a sick bastard for not protecting Miller from my dad but… but I am protecting him. It’s the only way I know how.”
“You could have gotten him out, Kane. You could have let Miller and Tyler stay gone.”
“I told you not to let my dad find them. I told you what would happen. There’s only so much I can do, Reagan.”
“Not true,” I argued. I hated this. I hated this for Miller and Tyler and Kane. I hated their bastard father and I hated that they had lived a lifetime of this. I hated that they were ready for the Zombie Apocalypse because even Zombies weren’t their scariest nightmare.
“No,” Kane argued strongly. “I know that a better man could do more. I know that you would do more. But this is all I have left.”
I hiccupped a sob.
“Do you believe me?” he whispered gruffly. I gave him a confused look and he asked again, “Do you believe me? Do you believe that I tried to help Miller?”
“Yes,” I answered because I did believe him.
He closed his eyes and leaned into my touch. “You won’t ever be mine, but I’m yours.”
“I wish it was someone else. I wish it was someone else that you could have, too.”
He opened his eyes and started to say something to me, but something hit the front windows with thundering force and we jumped apart before any more declarations could be made. Kane wrestled his shirt back on and we tensed, waiting for what came next.
Linley raced into the front room and we all stood there staring at the windows. My first thought, although irrational, was that I never changed Kane’s bandages and he was still bleeding.
Something hit the window again and this time the glass shattered. The metal coverings were over every window at this time of night, so no glass made its way into the house but not one of us made a move to check out what caused the damage.
I wanted to believe the Parkers were waiting on the other side of the front door, but instinct told me that this was not them.
Something hit the metal shade and made it rattle violently. I shared a look with Kane while Linley sucked in a gasping breath.
“They can’t get in though,” I whispered decidedly.
The front door shook and bowed against the force of whatever was on the other side. The moaning came next. Low, groaning and determined.
Shit.
Definitely not the Parkers.
The metal frames started shaking continuously and the screeching metal pierced the silence of our stunned audience.
“They can’t get in, right, Kane?” I prompted aggressively.
“They can’t get in,” Linley assured me.
Yeah right, like I was going to believe that evil witch.
“Kane,” I pleaded. “Tell me again that they can’t get in.”
Something hit the door so forcefully the wood splintered all along the seams.
Kane still didn’t reply. I started to panic a little, and began chanting to myself that we were safe inside. I chanted it over and over and over, probably three hundred times in the span of a minute.
But in the next few moments, even my willful denial couldn’t quell the spreading fear.
Hell broke out all at once and my head spun and reeled as I tried to catch up to the confusing reality around me. Sounds from every direction assaulted my ears as Zombies attacked the house. Metal rattled with deafening strength. The door continued to bow inwards and pounding fists landed on every side of the house.
My breathing hitched and I stepped into Kane. How many were there?
Everything happened at once, so fast and so blurred that I would never be able to put the whole picture together in my head. Everything just happened.
Whether I paid attention or not, the night spiraled so quickly out of control, I would pay the consequences for the rest of my life.
“Page,” I cried as the realization hit me that she was locked in a bedroom while a horde of Feeders attacked the house.
Kane looked at me with panicked eyes and glanced around for his pants. “Mama, get the guns!” he shouted in his sprint to find the keys to Page’s room.
Usually, he kept them on his person at all times, but when he’d come in from burning the dead Feeder earlier he had jumped straight into the shower and his mom went to work on his wounds. He had been bleeding everywhere and if they got infected, he might not recover.
And come on, we all knew a wound like that from a creature like that was probably the easiest kind of injury to get infected.
Linley had locked Page in for the night and set the keys down elsewhere. Kane looked around the room a little confused before he dashed off for the kitchen.
Linley dove for her bedroom while Kane raced to retrieve the keys. I ran over to Page’s door but it wasn’t until I was right up next to it that I could hear her frantic screams to be let out. The house shook with the force of the Feeder attack and Page screamed with panic.
I screamed back, just as hysterical. I twisted, turned and yanked on the handle so hard I thought I could rip it from place but nothing happened.
“Page!” I shouted at her! “Hold on, baby girl! I’m going to get this door open! I’m right here, I’m right here, Pagey!”
Kane returned with his keys in hand and I immediately moved out of his way. I kept shouting at Page to let her know that I was here for her and I would get her out in just a second. She screamed at the top of her lungs with words I couldn’t even begin to understand. They spurred on the urgency to get her out of her bedroom.
I cursed Kane repeatedly for locking this door. If he hadn’t been such a paranoid kidnapper she would be out of there by now!
“Open the goddamn door, Kane!” I screamed at him.
In reality, the time it took to get the door opened took only a few seconds, but in my head, at that moment the seconds dragged on agonizingly slowly.
Linley returned with an armful of guns just as the lock clicked and Kane twisted the handle so the door popped open. He turned away to take a gun from his mom’s handful and I pushed the door open to retrieve Page.
The sound of metal shaking had been growing steadily louder the longer I stayed separated from her, but nothing prepared me for what happened as soon as the door opened.
Page had stepped back so I could get through the door and grab her. Just as I stepped into the room, the metal window shade burst backwards with a screeching groan. The glass pane had probably been missing for minutes by now and with the metal freed from its watchdog place, a Feeder jumped straight through the window.
Her hair hung around her shoulders in thin clumps of sticky strands. Her fingernails were elongated and yellow. Her jaw was bare, nothing but bone and teeth flashed at me in the mixture of lantern light and moonlight sneaking in through the broken window. She perched for a second in a crouched, predatory position on the window ledge before she attacked.
I screamed at Kane to use his gun at the same time she leapt at Page. Her sharp, deadly hands gripped my Page around her waist and her body tackled Page’s tiny little frame to the ground in a thud of heartbreaking precision.
Page’s hands flew out in front of her while the filthy Feeder covered the rest of her body. Kane didn’t hesitate to intervene.
Page had disappeared beneath the Feeder and Kane couldn’t just shoot the damn Zombie because he could potentially also hit Page. So he threw his whole body on the thing and tried to dislodge her with all his focused strength.
There were a thousand different emotions in that moment and I couldn’t grasp any of them. There were a thousand different thoughts but none of them would register.
I saw the Feeder’s mouth clamped onto Page’s back but the reality of that poignant action would not click in my brain. Kane had moved to the ground and started kicking at the Feeder’s head but she would not move. Page screamed helplessly from beneath her.
And for a moment I just stood there paralyzed.
Adrenaline and something that was outside of myself moved me into action; I jumped on the Feeder, not caring for my own safety or life.
I sat on her back and took handfuls of her sticky hair. I yanked her head back and to the side brutally, trying to get her to let go of Page. When she would not move and the hair came out in wet chunks in my hand, I threw it to the ground and attacked her forehead. I latched on tight and pulled her back. She arched with me and I could feel her loosening her grip.
Kane kicked harder. Sometimes he hit me in the arm, but I couldn’t care less. I wanted this savage monster off my little girl now.
Suddenly his gun rang out through our struggle several times. From the corner of my eye I saw that he was shooting at the rest of the Feeders that found this entrance. We were all at a disadvantage on the floor, but they had the narrow entry of the window which put them directly in Kane’s line of fire.
And thank God, he didn’t miss.
A knife fell at my feet and a quick glance up showed me that Linley was the one that tossed it to me.
I swooped it up and stabbed it into the temple of the bitch that dared to attack Page. She immediately fell limp beneath me. I pushed the dying Zombie off Page and gently pulled her into my arms.
Tears streamed down my face and Page cried hysterically against me. The force of her sobs racked her body and she shook violently in my arms.
My brain refused to think a thought beyond this moment. The only thing I could comprehend was that Page was terrified, I had failed her and now she needed me to comfort her because I was her only option.
I had allowed her to go through this but I was the only one she could turn to.
How messed up was that?
Kane scrambled to his feet and tried to drag us with him. There were more Feeders fighting to get into the house. Kane yelled and shouted at us to move but all I could do was grasp Page in my arms, knowing these were the last moments I was going to get to hold her.
She had been bitten.
I
knew she had.
I watched it happen.
I experienced the force with which the Feeder had latched on.
Page had been bitten.
Page had been bitten.
“We have to move now!” Kane hollered at me.
I shook my head. I couldn’t face this. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what I had to do next; so instead I just held onto Page as she cried and decided that I would go with her. That we would do this together.
I wouldn’t make her go through this alone.
She was only eight.
She shouldn’t have to face this without someone else. And I was in charge of her. She was mine right now.
I would go with her willingly, happily even, if it meant that she didn’t have to face the next part of this life alone.
Kane continued to yell but I just continued to pet Page’s hair and whisper empty promises. He relentlessly kept the Feeders at bay by shooting at whatever tried to come through the window but I could feel his desperation seep into me.
“Reagan, get up! We have to move!” he shouted.
“Ssh, Page, I’m here,” I promised her. “I won’t leave you.”
“Mama, get Page!” Kane shouted.
I clutched her tighter to my chest, refusing to let her out of my charge. Who knew what Linley would do to her! Would she kill her right at this moment? Would she lock Page up in that creepy ass school and force her to waste away to nothing!
“No!” I screamed as feral as any mother protecting her baby. “Don’t touch her!”
“Reagan, give her up!” Kane shouted. “We’re not going to hurt her! We just have to move!”
“I’m not letting her go!”
“If you want to save Page, then you’re going to stand up, take a gun and help us get out of this goddamn mess!”
His words lit a wildfire of determination in me and I quickly stood to my feet. I gave Page over to Linley with this warning, “If you so much as harm a hair on that little girl’s head I will rip you to pieces with my bare hands. Do you understand?”
Linley flinched at my warning but nodded her head.
Love and Decay, Season Two Omnibus: Episodes 1-12 Page 34