The damage was extensive, but it wasn’t more than I expected. In fact, it was less. I imagined a forest fire, without an adequate fire department to intervene, would never stop or slow down. I picture it eating away every tree and bush until all that remained of Oklahoma- if we were still in Oklahoma- was dust and smoke. But it hadn’t gotten nearly that far.
“Reagan,” Tyler breathed a sigh of relief and pulled me into a tight hug.
Finally, someone knew the right way to react to seeing me again. I squeezed her back and couldn’t stop the overflow of emotion as it leaked out my eyes. I needed this hug; I craved it.
I didn’t even realize it until now, how desperately I needed someone to be happy to see me and thankful that I was alive. A sob hitched in my throat causing a chain reaction in her.
Pretty soon we were both hysterical messes of tears and snot.
From the few seconds I’d been able to take in her face, I could see that she had been badly beat up recently and one of her arms was limp across my back, while the other held me tightly to her. I wanted to ask her all about rescuing Miller and how they’d found us. Clearly it had not been easy, but I couldn’t seem to form coherent words or put my thoughts in order.
I looked at the rest of the group that came to my rescue through blurry vision. Haley stood with King and Harrison as the watched over Linley. Gage hovered nearby with Miller leaned against him. Both of those guys looked really beat up. Miller was clearly in a worse state than Gage, but both had been through hell.
Eventually, Tyler let go of me and traded places with Haley. She held me tight while Nelson explained to everyone what happened to Page. They all listened in stunned silence until the end, when they still didn’t speak. Hendrix emerged from the bunker right behind Vaughan with Page in his arms. Hendrix carried as much contraband as he could and instructed Haley, Nelson, Harrison and King to go back for the rest.
When they came back with arms and packs filled with more supplies and guns and ammo, Vaughan motioned with his head toward the direction of the charred forest and we fell into line behind him. We walked through tar-like mud. Our shoes and pants became caked with the sticky ash and residue of the forest floor.
Nobody spoke on the way back to two new Suburbans, parked about a mile away from where the cabin had been. The road between us and the new rides were littered with fallen trees and other debris caused by the fire. They had parked as close as they could.
I recognized the Suburbans as the kind that we’d been using, procured from the Colony, only in much, much better shape than ours. I knew these were also from Matthias and had no doubt that they were one of the reasons the entire group looked beat up and worse for wear.
Even the Parkers had bumps and bruises, cuts and limbs to match Tyler and Gage. Page and I fit right in with this group.
I winced at that wayward thought. Page didn’t have a tiny goose egg on her head or even a serious gash that needed to be stitched. She needed an act of God.
And she wasn’t likely to get one.
Still, a breath of relief whooshed out of me and I felt an incredible weight lift from my shoulders, from my very soul.
Safe.
Selfishly, I forgot about Page for a moment and let that simple word sink in.
The packs were loaded into the trunks of the SUVs and the gas tanks replenished from a substantial reserve. Before we loaded the two vehicles, Vaughan pulled us together for some last minute instructions.
“We’re happy to have you back, Reagan,” he announced. He seemed genuine, but also exhausted. I couldn’t imagine what kind of toll this trip had taken on all of them. “We didn’t know… we didn’t know what we would be walking into. Then, when we finally found this place, we couldn’t even be sure that you were here. On top of that, it looked like… it looked like nobody could have survived this kind of destruction.” He paused for a moment and I took that in. After all that the fire had destroyed, it really was remarkable they’d even bothered to check the place out. More relief surged through me. “We’re very happy you’re alive, Reagan. We’re very relieved to have you back with us.”
I gave him a watery smile but couldn’t form the words to reply. I was suddenly extremely exhausted and overwhelmed. I couldn’t string together coherent thoughts, let alone express the kind of extreme gratefulness I felt at that moment.
Vaughan seemed to understand and didn’t wait for me to say something. “Let’s load up people. We have a long way to go before this thing is over.”
There was a collective groan, but I had a feeling it was meant for the journey ahead of us and not Vaughan. I wanted to ask how long it would take and what kind of danger they’d run into on the way down, but honestly, I just didn’t have it in me to question anything.
“Nelson and Haley, you’re with me and in charge of Page while I drive. Harrison and King you’re with me too. Gage take the other car with the Allens and Hendrix and Reagan.”
I must have winced or made a horrible face because after everyone dispersed, Vaughan walked over to me and put a sympathetic hand on my shoulder. “I won’t let my sister be around those people for a second longer. And there’s no way in hell I would put my younger brothers near them. Haley is in a better state to take care of Page right now. I wouldn’t put you with them unless I had to. And on top of that, Hendrix is the most motivated to keep them in line right now. Do you understand my reasoning?”
“I get it,” I replied sullenly.
Vaughan chuckled and patted my arm. “We’re almost home, Reagan.”
He walked away and climbed in the driver’s side of his SUV while I digested those words. I knew that he was right. The compound couldn’t have been more than a day or two away. But for some reason I didn’t feel close to home… I didn’t feel anywhere near home.
“Are you ready?” Hendrix stood over me, his shadow hiding me from the sun.
“Do you really blame me for Page?” I hadn’t meant to ask that question. I had meant to comply easily and get in the car where I fully intended to pass out for the next forty-eight hours.
I caught his eye and watched him battle with his response. Eventually, he let out a too-loud groan and scrubbed two hands over his dirty, scruffy face. His skin was darker than it had been the last time I saw him and his beard hadn’t been shaved since then either. He smelled like sweat and dirt and a little bit of Zombie. His clothes were covered in blood and mud. And his hands trembled when he wasn’t paying attention.
He looked like someone else. He was not in any way less gorgeous or formative… but he was different.
And I didn’t know this different Hendrix.
I didn’t know how to talk to him or how to read him.
The problem was I knew that he was looking at a different Reagan, too. One that he didn’t understand or maybe even know either.
“Why do you think that?” he asked with a calculating gleam in his expressive blue eyes.
“You haven’t touched me,” I told him. “You’ve barely acknowledged me.”
“Reagan, I don’t blame you.”
“Entirely,” I added when his sentence seemed to be missing something.
His intense, furious glare was back on me. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Do you know what I’ve been through over the last week? I lost you, Reagan. I lost you. I should have been able to protect you, but I couldn’t! And I didn’t just lose you, I lost Page, too! They stole my little sister from me and I couldn’t do anything to stop them! Then they beat up my brothers and I still couldn’t stop them. I thought they were going to kill Harrison. I still don’t know why they didn’t…” His eyes glossed over for a second while he lost himself in that horrific memory. Suddenly his expression was as sharp and jagged as ever and he was no longer in the past, but in the present, my present. “I’ve killed a lot of people this week, Reagan. A lot of people. We attacked the Colony. I’ve tortured people. I’ve ended lives. I was forced to wait another whole d
ay while Tyler recovered from rescuing Miller. It took her another half day to remember the general vicinity of this place. When we got here, everything was… everything was black. Burnt.” He stopped to compose himself when his voice broke over his last word.
I saw real tears flood his eyes and I started crying again on impulse. I couldn’t handle that… I could not handle watching Hendrix cry. But when I reached for him, he pulled back lightning fast. The hole in my heart expanded to a gaping, bleeding wound. I pressed my lips together and with more will than I knew I possessed, I forced myself to stop crying- at least until he couldn’t see me anymore.
“I thought you were dead. I’d been struggling with the idea for days now. I just had this feeling… this gut feeling something was really wrong. Then there was this.” He gestured around at the blackened, dead tree trunks. A single tear escaped the corner of his eye and he violently swiped it away. “I didn’t know how you’d be able to survive. And that bunker…” He took a moment to compose himself and said. “And when I opened it, I saw you. I saw you alive. I saw you alive, Reagan. Do you get what that did to me? It should have been the single best moment of my life. Instead, you were standing next to him, in front of an entire wall of weapons and you hadn’t bothered to pick one of them up. The metal of that hatch was cool, so I knew you’d been down there a while. And you hadn’t ever thought to use a gun on him. Kane. The source of all these problems. Then you tell me my sister was attacked. Put yourself in my shoes for thirty-freaking-seconds. And when I want to kill the man responsible for this, for all of this, you stand up for him! And not just that, but you plead the case for him! What am I supposed to do with that, Reagan? Should I just pull you into my arms and pretend everything is okay? Should I ignore your request and drag him out here so I can do what I really want to do, which is put a bullet through his head? I don’t blame you for Page, Reagan. But there’s plenty of other things that I need to work through before I can… before I can do this.” His forefinger flicked back and forth between us with casual disgust.
Confusion squeezed my heart and purged poisonous blood all over the inside of my body. “I-”
He cut me off, which was fine since I hadn’t been sure of what I was going to say anyway. “I couldn’t even touch you right now if I wanted to! I’ve never been this angry before and it feels explosive! I’m afraid of myself right now. I just need space… distance… time. I just need to get my head right.” I opened my mouth again to say something, but he interrupted me again. “Save it, Reagan. I just don’t have the energy to hear what you have to say right now.”
And then he walked away.
From me.
And whatever it was I wanted to say.
Chapter Three
After his blowup, Hendrix didn’t speak to me again for the rest of the day. Maybe if I had been able to stay awake for longer than five minutes at a time, he would have tried. I doubted it though. And I couldn’t even force myself into consciousness long enough to find out.
The Apocalypse had caught up to me in a big way. After my enormous head injury and the ensuing events, my body had enough. I slept the entire day in the Suburban. And it was a hard sleep. I didn’t just doze, I all but blacked out. I didn’t dream. I didn’t wake up for anything unless someone shook me very hard, and that only happened when we stopped once for a meal and another time to help keep watch while the guys pushed a car out of the way. And that time had been rough. I was nearly useless. They promised me if they hadn’t been desperate for man-power and in such a hurry, they would have let me continue to play dead.
The weird thing was that they had just come this way today and the car hadn’t been on the highway earlier. We didn’t find any bodies lying near the abandoned vehicle and that made us all nervous. Vaughan checked it out and discovered it had run out of gas. We didn’t stick around to find out where the people had run off to.
By the time we stopped for the night, I still hadn’t had enough sleep. We stayed at the same place they’d used on the way here, a metal storehouse on the back property of an empty, picked-over gas station that had been blown up. The floor was filthy concrete and it smelled like gasoline fumes but it was relatively safe for a short amount of time. Vaughan locked us in for the night and before he could assign the watch shifts, I’d already passed out again.
The next time I woke, I was back in the Suburban. I had no idea how I got here or who brought me, and the feeling was very disconcerting. I tried to shake off the unease and be thankful that I was surrounded by people that could protect me this entire time. I should have been alert and ready for anything, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open long enough to summon enough strength to sit up.
Finally, around noon on the second day, I sat up and opened my eyes. My head felt groggy and my body sluggish and limp, but I made myself stay awake.
The car was utterly silent while Hendrix drove around potholes and other debris. The other Suburban led the way ahead of us. I glanced to my side to find Tyler next to me. She offered me a reassuring smile, but it looked tight and forced. With her mother and older brother just one seat behind us, I didn’t blame her.
“How’s Page?” I asked anyone in the car willing to talk to me.
“She’s the same,” Tyler answered. “She isn’t worse, but then again… she’s not any better.”
“How’s the bite?”
Tyler puffed her cheeks out and abruptly released the breath. “Green. Oozing. Gross.”
I turned in my seat and met Kane’s gray gaze immediately. He had either been watching the back of my head or was that in tune to my behavior. “Did any of the others live this long?”
He shook his head. “Not past the first night.”
I nodded, thankful for his honesty. That had to be a good sign.
Tyler made a growly sound in the back of her throat and shook her head disapprovingly. “I can’t believe you’d even consider believing him. You remember he kidnapped you, right?”
I did not appreciate her tone. “Do you have experience with someone that’s been bitten, but not turned, Tyler? Would you prefer I ask you these questions?”
She glared at me. “Now you’re defending him?”
“I’m defending myself.”
“Tyler, leave your brother alone,” Linley cut in.
I half expected Hendrix to swerve to the side of the road and take out his building frustrations on Linley. But he just gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white and muscles popped out on his forearms and pulsed with each of his heavy breaths.
“Quiet, Mother,” Tyler hissed. “You forget your place in this car. You’re not the Queen of the Damned here, Mama. You’re a simple peasant prisoner on the way to the guillotine.”
Linley tsked. “So dramatic.”
Tyler’s fingers dug into her thighs and Gage shot her a worried look over his shoulder. I got the impression Tyler reined in her temper just enough not to go flying over the back seat and strangle her mother with her bare hands.
I commended her valiant effort.
However, I would have also supported the alternative decision.
“Mama, Ty is right. Hold your tongue for now.” Kane sounded so mature… so in charge still. He confused me more than ever these days.
Which I had begun to realize was his plan.
If he could keep my head spinning, then maybe he could impair my judgment enough to get his way.
Or had he already?
No.
No, he hadn’t.
No matter what I felt for Kane it wasn’t real. Not like it was with Hendrix. Not in the way that there was trust and commitment or depth of feeling.
Hendrix was my rock and my sanctuary. He was my partner and treated me with equality and respect.
Kane was a passing intrigue that would fade the moment he walked out of my life. He would get muddled in all the other nightmarish incidents that I collected at the end of the world and I would forget about him.
Soon he would just be a faceless
ghost that sometimes haunted my sleep, but never again interrupted my reality.
Linley quieted down at Kane’s insistence. The Suburban fell into quiet solitude once again, but Tyler’s unmistakable smirk gave her away.
After a couple more hours riding that way, I wondered if tense silence had ever been linked with panic attacks before. And this wasn’t just silence; this was heavy, vindictive pressure and I could feel it from every single side.
I had started to imagine unconventional ways of breaking the quiet, but couldn’t come up with anything conducive to traveling in the heart of Feederville. Everything from running a spontaneous fire drill to seeing if we could switch drivers without slowing down while careening over roads that looked like they were once minefields both seemed like possibly bad ideas. But I was desperate and they had been fun back in high school
I stretched instead and it felt really good. My muscles had all but been atrophied over the past week and I couldn’t wait to get to a safe place and be active once again. Plus, my head felt so much clearer after all that sleep. I wasn’t so hopeless today; there was actually something light inside my chest, something that wasn’t complete and abysmal despair.
That feeling died abruptly when the lead car swerved and screeched to a halt. Hendrix was forced to follow suit and I tried not to be reminded that he chose to drive instead of sitting next to me.
Vaughan had stopped because there was action up ahead. A group of people fought an epic Zombie battle. Five men and women held their own against a horde of eighteen Feeders.
I had that strange feeling again while I watched the excitement unfold through the perfectly intact window. This time it felt wrong. The people fighting for their lives were not Kane Allens and I did actually have an opinion on whether or not I wanted to see them die.
Basically, I did not want to see them die. They were as innocent as we were as far as I was concerned. And for some strange reason my mind flashed back to Gary, aka Bruce Willis, aka BW, from months and months ago. He and his goons had let us stumble into a trap of scary undead and waited in the wings while we did all the heavy lifting. They came out at the end to congratulate us on not failing their test.
Love and Decay, Season Two Omnibus: Episodes 1-12 Page 41