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

by Higginson, Rachel

  Imagine that.

  If Reagan and my daddy were opposing poles, then I put myself somewhere in the middle. I couldn’t make myself feel the pity and grace Reagan felt. But then again, I would never leave them alive just so I could use them for my own personal gain.

  To me, the Feeders were less than animals. They deserved to die. And if we didn’t kill them, they would kill us. It wasn’t about mercy to me; it was about survival.

  Putting it in those terms made pointing my gun at their faces and pulling the trigger incredibly easy. If I had Reagan’s point of view, I wasn’t sure if I could actually kill them. If I thought about them in terms of who they used to be and the lives they used to live, I would have gone soft. Since I wasn’t starting out as very strong anyway, I thought it better to keep my monster-persona firmly intact.

  Not that much of the killing could be accredited to me anyway.

  Vaughan however…

  It was like he was born for this.

  He ran through the thin clump of trees with murder on his mind and precision in his hand. He took down one Feeder after another. His aim was nearly perfect and his determination rock solid. He moved faster than I had ever seen another human being move before, and he did not miss.

  I was more like the antithesis of him. My aim never found its mark on the first try. I wasn’t slow, but I wasn’t remotely as fast as him either. My hands and body weren’t used to the guns I carried or the combat I’d thrown myself into.

  I tried to run and shoot, but it was no use, and I almost shot Vaughan’s arm off. Thankfully, I couldn’t even hit anything when I missed. The bullet whizzed by Vaughan’s bicep and lodged itself into the bare bark of a Loblolly Pine. The bark splintered at the impact of my bullet and Vaughan gave it a scathing look before he turned that glower on me.

  I shrugged helplessly. “Sorry!”

  But then he was back to killing Feeders, and I went back to offering minimal backup.

  It took him twenty minutes to kill all eight Feeders. I did help slow them down but never had one solid kill of my own.

  When he had downed the final Zombie, he stood over the body, panting heavily. He was covered in blood and gore. His gun still tight between his hands, he looked it over and changed out the clip.

  I watched him, unable to take my eyes off him. The warm, golden sunlight lit the tree line behind him and glistened off his toned arms. Sweat beaded along his throat, and his mouth was set in a grim line.

  He was savagely beautiful.

  Handsome in a way I had never admired a man before.

  Logan had been gorgeous to me, incomparable with any other man. He had also been tough and very capable of taking care of himself. I had seen him get in countless fights with Gage or Kane. The boys in my hometown both played hard and fought hard. There was hardly a Friday night that went by when some idiot didn’t start a fight with Logan or one of his friends. And while he didn’t engage every time, I had seen him fight plenty.

  He had never once looked like this.

  And I was thankful for it. Thankful I never had to see him kill to survive or kill to ease some of his avenging anger.

  And that’s what this was to Vaughan.

  He hadn’t killed those eight Feeders for our safety, or at least not completely. He killed them for him. He killed them for vengeance and justice. He killed them with all that brutal grace because he couldn’t kill my brother; because Reagan was protecting someone she shouldn’t be protecting.

  He killed them because his baby sister was sick, and he couldn’t make her better.

  He killed them because he was frustrated and angry at the world.

  And I didn’t him blame him for one shot fired.

  His body vibrated with temporary satisfaction, and the energy rolling off him was rich with punishing righteousness.

  At this moment he looked like a fallen angel, the sword of retribution held loosely in his gifted hand. At this moment, my heart sped up, and I learned that I could be attracted to something dangerous and feral, primitive and raw.

  I’d loved the way Logan protected me, kept me safe and made me feel comfortable.

  Vaughan did none of those things and yet I couldn’t make myself walk away right now.

  Sure, he technically protected me from that immediate danger, but now that the Feeders were dead, I felt more vulnerable than I ever had. Something about this moment had ripped off my clothes and left me naked and exposed, sliced me open and left me hemorrhaging on the ground; it had gutted me so I would never be able to put myself together again.

  Vaughan lifted his eyes to me, and we locked gazes again.

  His shoulders heaved as he fought to catch his breath and his blue eyes sparkled with life even from five feet away. His expression was all power and virility. His body hummed as if it were absorbing all of the life and energy around him. He pulled it into him; he drew what life remained from his victims and swallowed it whole.

  He took a step toward me and those masculine brows of his dipped into a furrowed expression. “Tyler, what’s wrong?”

  I worked to swallow, but my mouth was too dry. My tongue felt swollen and numb, rubbing uselessly against the back of my teeth. My fingers tingled as if they’d fallen asleep.

  I was attracted to Vaughan.

  More than attracted to him.

  I felt something for him… Something I thought had died inside my heart the moment Logan was taken away from me.

  Since when?

  For how long?

  And what would this do to me?

  “Ty?” Vaughan took a step toward me and lifted a hand as if he wanted to touch me. He glanced down at the last second and realized it was covered with blood. He stared at it for a moment, and I wondered what thoughts were going through his head.

  Was he regretting the fact that he wanted to touch me?

  Did he realize how disturbed I was by his adeptness at killing?

  Was I disturbed?

  Or incredibly turned on?

  Okay, either of those options was not good for me.

  “I’m fine,” I told him with a voice that sounded like it had been scraped raw and run over by stampede of wild horses.

  He took another step forward. “I’m sorry if I freaked you out.”

  “You didn’t,” I said quickly.

  “Tyler-”

  For the second time today we were interrupted by Feeders.

  There was one behind us, crashing through the forest, tripping over downed branches and rocks on the ground. He sprinted over the leaf-covered forest floor and made huffing, gargling noises with every step.

  Vaughan whirled around and prepared to fight him off, but the Feeder wasn’t coming at us, he was running away from us.

  Vaughan tensed and pulled out the air horn.

  “Don’t you think we should just let him go?” I asked breathlessly.

  “Stay if you want Tyler, but he isn’t going to go hide. He’ll come back with more of his kind. We can’t let him get away. I have to get him.” He held up the air horn and released the sound.

  I ducked my head and covered my ears as the horn blasted through the quiet forest. Somewhere in the distance a flock of birds flew their nests at the interruption to their quiet afternoon. Their wings flapped in the still air that held only echoes of jarring sound and their angered squawks screamed their displeasure at us.

  I hadn’t heard birds in a while, and I was almost as startled to hear them as I had been the air horn. I wanted to stand still a little longer and listen to their flight, but Vaughan was already careening through the forest after the Feeder.

  I sighed and took off after him. I could be fast for a girl when I put my mind to it. I was certainly faster now than I had been when the Parkers first picked us up. My legs were in shape these days, my abs and chest used to the burn and exertion. I pushed my muscles to their limit so I could keep up with Vaughan.

  His long legs stretched out in front of him, and he ate up the ground in heartbeats. He belonged
in the Olympics or something. His speed was insane, and his body built to accommodate him.

  I kept one eye on his blue t-shirt and another on the forest around me. Feeders could jump out at any second and I was running too fast and too hard to even pretend to be stealthy.

  Vaughan kept running long after my lungs felt shredded, and my muscles had gone numb. My feet hurt from pounding against rocks and broken sticks. My arms and face were lacerated from the whipping tree branches and one specific tree that had jumped out in front of me. My jeans had a hole in the knee from where I’d tripped and sprawled forward as ungracefully as possible.

  Somehow I managed to keep Vaughan in sight. I would have been more afraid if I hadn’t heard the distant shouting of human voices way behind me. Reinforcements were on their way, and our gunfire would lead them right to us.

  Vaughan veered right, and I followed his path. Just as I rounded an especially thick copse of tall pines, I ran smack into him.

  He caught me with both hands as if he was expecting me. I leaned into him as drained and exhausted as I’d ever been. He was panting as hard as I was, and that gave me some encouragement. Sure, he was faster than me, but at least he was human.

  Just maybe not as human as me.

  Currently, my knees felt like Jell-O, and I seriously could puke at any second.

  “Where is he?” I asked on a strained whisper.

  Vaughan stepped out of the way and revealed a twitching, headless body.

  I jumped back and put a hand over my mouth. I hadn’t really had time to think through why Vaughan had stopped suddenly, but I never expected that to be the reason.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Vaughan explained. He waved an arm at a low hanging branch, the perfect height for… “His head snapped right off. It bounced over there somewhere.”

  Like an idiot, I looked. Sure enough, a few feet to my left ahead lay all by its lonesome. The bloody eyes were open and unseeing, and the sticky, greenish mucous hadn’t dried on its chin yet.

  I glanced back to the body. I didn’t know why I looked at it again, but maybe I was looking for something less gruesome than the head. I didn’t find it in the convulsing, spurting, headless body. Bone and muscles showed through flailed appendages. His shirt had been torn down the center, and the white ladder of ribs showed through peeled back skin and muscle. His neck poured that sticky, congealed blood and the scent of him was enough to do me in.

  I whirled around in an effort to give myself relief and puked up everything I could. I didn’t stop until they were dry heaves and my throat burned raw.

  When I finally settled down, I noticed Vaughan’s hand at my back. He rubbed soothing circles with one hand and lifted my ponytail with the other. Something in my chest ached at his soothing touch, hurt more than my tired muscles and ravaged throat.

  I closed my eyes against irrational tears that threatened to spill. Sometimes I didn’t think there would be a full minute in my life when Vaughan and I would be able to get along. Then in moments like this, he would take off his defensive armor, open up in that boyish, helpless way he had and ask me to be something more to him.

  I didn’t understand what he wanted from me.

  But I did know that even if I figured out what it was, I wouldn’t know how to give it to him.

  Though, there were times recently when I wanted to, when I wanted to tear down my own protective barriers and try to give him whatever it was; and if I couldn’t figure that out… If I couldn’t figure out exactly what he needed from me then, I would give him everything. I would give him all of me and hope it would be enough.

  Those thoughts were foolish.

  And misplaced.

  The reality of my wayward thoughts drove home when his hand ceased being comforting and applied pressure on my spine so quickly that I couldn’t brace myself. He shoved me into the dirt and left me sputtering around in wet leaves, mud and all kinds of creepy crawlies. Although, I didn’t actually see any insects, I knew they were there, just underneath me, trying their damnedest to get in my clothes and build nests in my skin.

  I had a deeply seated fear of bugs. But it only paled in comparison to my fear of Feeders.

  I flailed and screamed when Vaughan’s gun started going off. I curled into a ball and threw my hands over my head. His shots were insistent and with each pop I jerked my knees closer to my chest.

  Panic eventually resided, and I realized I looked like an idiot curled up on the floor while Vaughan fought for our lives alone. I forced my muscles to relax and slowly loosened my arms from over my head. I had held on to my gun somehow and knew I was going to have to pull myself together, stand up and shoot uselessly at whatever Vaughan was firing at.

  He knew as well as I did that I was no help in a gunfight, but it was one of those thought-that-counts moments.

  I had just steeled enough courage to make an attempt at getting to my feet when I made the mistake of opening my eyes.

  Vacant crimson eyes stared back at me. Pallid, exposed cheekbones. A half-rotten, unhinged jaw. A hairline that had receded due to the unnatural clumps that fell out in handfuls and a scalp covered in sticky, sour puss. A black tongue filled an even blacker mouth of rotten teeth and dried blood.

  The screaming started again.

  And it took me a good thirty seconds to realize that it was me making those god awful noises. My throat burned from the force of it and my hands dug into the dirt as I crawled away as fast as I could. I barely choked back frightened tears.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the hideous head or the neck that dangled ligaments, torn muscle and vertebrae that had been snapped in half. The horrific sight would probably star in every frequent nightmare for the foreseeable future.

  “Tyler!” Vaughan shouted at me. He sounded enraged and frustrated. I shivered violently and whimpered. “Tyler!”

  At the unrelenting tone in his voice, I tore my eyes away from those sightless, inhuman eyes and into the depthless, bright ones of the living man hovering over me. “Enough!” Vaughan shouted. “He’s dead! We need more of them just like that!”

  I forced myself to take in the rest of the forest which opened into fields and a sprawling meadow directly in front of us. Feeders flooded the open meadow and moved at a gallop toward us. This must have been a thin strip of trees to line the highway and nothing more. A homestead stood on a sloping hill in the distance, but no other life moved between us and it besides the hungry Feeders that raced toward us. We were their next meal.

  “Can you help me?” Vaughan demanded.

  I numbly felt at my loaded pockets. I wasn’t very good at shooting, but nobody in their right mind would walk out onto a perimeter search without being armed to the teeth.

  “Yes,” I croaked.

  He held out his hand and yanked me to my feet with so much force I had to hop a couple times once I landed. “Good,” he growled. He gave me a quick double take. When he spoke next, his words were reinforced with titanium and his will was so superimposed I felt his orders in the marrow of my bones. And I didn’t like it one bit. “Do not close your eyes when you fire, Ty, or there will be consequences. You’re going to learn to do this, and you’re going to learn to do it right this goddamn second. Eyes open. Aim for the head. And stay close to me but don’t you dare point that gun my direction. Not even if I’ve got three Feeders on me and I’m out of ammo. Never point your gun at another person.”

  “I got it,” I bristled.

  “Do you?”

  “I got it.” My words were slowly drawn out through bared teeth. God, this man infuriated me.

  “The one time you finally hit something, it’s going to be me, I just know it.” His words were a mumble not meant for me to hear.

  I stomped on his toe and started firing. He could be such a bully!

  Nevertheless, he had good advice. Closing my eyes was a particularly annoying habit of mine. I’d always been skittish and jumpy, even before the infection. Part of that was thanks to my childhood. Regular abuse and
the inability to tell what would set my father off did that to me. But also, apart from Matthias Allen, I had always been kind of a wuss.

  Firing a gun was the epitome of an intangible fear I didn’t feel I could control, even though I knew the build up to the shot was the worst part. Once my finger pulled back on the trigger, I could breathe again and try to aim. It was right before I pulled back that I felt all that wild tension that forced my eyes closed.

  It was like opening a pack of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls back when that was a thing and my mom wasn’t around to make me homemade biscuits. Unwrapping the shiny blue packaging would build up an irrational, crippling fear. As I waited for the cardboard to explode open, I would close my eyes and tense up so tightly my spine would hurt. Then the package would burst open with this soft, little “popping” sound, and I would open my eyes, relax my shoulders and wonder what the big deal was.

  When it came to mind over matter with me, matter won every single time. I couldn’t help it! And shooting a gun was the worst yet; it was so much worse than crescent rolls.

  Shooting a gun had the potential to take lives. I’d already been over the fact that I wanted to take those lives, but the possibility of stealing an innocent life hung over my head with a palpable weight. The possibility of ending my own life was a crushing elephant that had taken up residence on my chest and threatened to flatten me completely.

  “Eyes open,” Vaughan snarled through clenched teeth.

  One eye, then the other. I could do this. I could shoot a gun with a clear vision and a focused mind. I could be a force to be reckoned with. I could be a badass Zombie killer that killed mercilessly and thought about the consequences never.

  Or I could cower behind Vaughan and whimper every time my gun went off in my hands.

  “Eyes open, Tyler, or I’m going to shove you out into that meadow and make you fend for yourself. You will learn this lesson one way or the other.”

  I closed my eyes again and fired.

  “Tyler!” Vaughan shouted. “Don’t push me. You will regret it.”

  “I think I’ll regret listening to you more.”