Love and Decay: Revolution
Episode Ten
By Rachel Higginson
Copyright@ Rachel Higginson 2017
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Copy Editing by Amy Donnelly of Alchemy and Words
Cover Design by Caedus Design Co.
Other Books Now Available by Rachel Higginson:
Love and Decay
Love and Decay, Season One
Love and Decay, Season Two
Love and Decay, Season Three
The Star-Crossed Series
Reckless Magic
Hopeless Magic
Fearless Magic
Endless Magic
The Reluctant King
The Relentless Warrior
Breathless Magic
Fateful Magic
The Redeemable Prince
The Starbright Series
Heir of Skies
Heir of Darkness
Heir of Secrets
The Siren Series
The Rush
The Fall
The Heart
The Five Stages of Falling in Love, an Adult Contemporary Romance
Every Wrong Reason, an Adult Contemporary Romance
Bet on Love Series
Bet on Us
Bet on Me
Magic and Decay, a Rachel Higginson Mashup
The Forged in Fire Series
Striking
Brazing
To my readers,
Because you are kind and patient,
And so very gracious with me.
And because I know you would kick
Serious zombie ass if you needed to!
Chapter One
The Underground was located exactly where it sounded like—underground. Deep underground. Discretely placed solar generators dotted the surface. They were positioned directly on top of us, hiding our lair. The generators operated in conjunction with the sometimes-working power stations in the area that were kept running by the nearest Colony settlement. Between the two we had enough power to keep the lights on and the kitchen appliances running. But our new subterranean living was as crude and desolate as anywhere else on the planet these days.
The salt mines did serve us well, however. Out of the way of regular traffic, whether human or other, we were well hidden from the Colony and roaming hordes. The generators and food system served us well. And bonus, we had an abundance of salt.
Despite tense foreign relations, we could easily live down here for a very long time.
Luke’s people lived in subdued harmony. A few hundred people made up the entirety of Luke’s resistance. They were a hard, solemn bunch of survivors from all over the country. Their grave eyes told the story of endurance and a lifetime’s worth of grief. Bitterness followed them around like a specter, always hovering over their shoulders, darkening their shadowy faces, pulling their expressions into listless masks of hopelessness.
And they had no patience for us. It was like they blamed us for leaving them, for living the last several years in relative peace. We were traitors to them. Mutineers. Outsiders.
And it wasn’t just because of our exodus to Colombia. They blamed us for smiling, for believing in a greater future. Where we saw potential, they predicted doom. Where we fought for a better life, they settled into the gloomy darkness of the underground and gave up life on the surface or in the sun.
They weren’t like us.
What little life remained in them had been snuffed out under the Colony’s oppression and the claustrophobic conditions of living underground.
Life meaning the quintessential pieces of them that made them human, that separated them from Zombies and evil men, giving them hope, joy and personality.
They’d become their own version of the undead.
Harrison had once described them as placated robots. They didn’t act individually. They all stayed dedicated to the good of the community. They didn’t think for themselves. They didn’t speak out for themselves. They simply did what they were told.
We hadn’t been here long enough to judge if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe the muting of their individuality was a part of their survival process. Maybe they had tried alternative methods, and they had all ended badly.
I didn’t know for sure.
But what I did know was that my family and friends felt like we’d dumped a bucket of colorful paint all over a black and white picture. Comparatively, we were loud, boisterous and highly opinionated.
Our new roommates had no idea what to do with us.
And Luke wasn’t any better.
Not that the men in my circle were all sunshine and unicorns. They struggled to connect with Luke and honor his leadership. They were used to being in charge, used to having the ultimate say.
When the two factions were forced to interact with each other it was like something out of a “How to Make Enemies and Piss People Off” handbook. Surly, irritated and antagonistic were the nicest adjectives I could think of to describe them when they were forced to be in the same room with each other. And it only went downhill in varying degrees depending on which brother Luke was forced to deal with.
By the time it got to Santi or Miller, intolerant became gently murderous, and men stood by armed and ready to intervene.
Except I had started to feel like the cannibals from Mexico. When I was a child, we’d found them living in caves. Their skin pale and chalky, their mannerisms more animal than human. At first, we’d thought they were merely cagey from their cramped conditions. We’d been wrong.
Really, really wrong.
That was how I felt now. Locked inside a giant tomb, destined to become pale, pasty and hungry for human flesh.
Since my latest bout with the infection, I already dreamt I was one of those things.
I roamed the silent corridors, my neck prickling with the feeling of being stalked. Silence filled the wide hallway with not even an echo to keep me company. With so many people living together, the halls should be filled with people talking and moving about. But not these people. They darted in and out of rooms with their heads bowed low, and their mouths zipped shut. Ghosts of the people they should be.
I had the strongest urge to stand in the middle of the biggest room and scream at the top of my lungs just to make some noise. Any noise.
Instead, I tried to keep the peace. If these people were used to calm tranquility, who was I to disrupt them?
Besides, they still looked at me like they wanted to put a bullet between my eyes. I was the very last person that should cause trouble.
I smiled at the few people I passed, but generally, they scooted to the opposite side of the hallway and scurried past me, still afraid of th
e Feeder bite that had healed weeks ago.
Even though I’d passed my “trial” and gotten Luke’s seal of approval, my pariah status hadn’t been upgraded. Two weeks had gone by, and I was still considered “infected” by the general population. They watched me with wary eyes and whispered in hushed, fearful tones. I’d heard one woman call me “possessed.”
Harrison had loved that.
Luke assured me time would pass, and everyone would forget, but I wasn’t so sure. These people were skittish at best.
I was here to help them, and they couldn’t get past the one thing that should give them hope. I could be the cure to this entire problem. I could be an antidote, but they were too shortsighted to see beyond their fears.
It had been hard enough convincing my family to join me. Now I had to convince an entire group of people I was on their side.
I didn’t have time for this.
I had wars to fight. Dictators to unseat. Countries to unite.
Tyler popped around the corner in front of me, and I sucked in a startled breath. Glaring at her, I couldn’t help but be annoyed that these people were starting to rub off on me. I had never spooked easily before. I blamed the bite.
I blamed the bite a lot these days.
She grinned wide, flashing teeth. “Did I scare you?”
“I’m starting to get cabin fever,” I admitted.
Tyler raised an eyebrow. “Just now? You’re more patient than me.”
My shoulders shifted uncomfortably, and my skin felt too tight, too stretched. “It’s getting worse. I don’t know how much longer I can stay down here without going completely crazy.”
The truth was I had been jumpy and uneasy since I woke up from the infection. I liked to blame being underground, but I couldn’t quite make myself believe the lie.
My blood didn’t feel right in my veins. My bones seemed too short or too long or too wrong. I woke up in the middle of the night covered in sweat and growling at the darkness surrounding me as if I were some feral creature locked in a cage.
A cage.
That was exactly how this place was starting to feel.
“I’m with you,” Tyler sympathized. “I think we need a field trip.”
I shook my head. “Not happening. We’re barely co-existing down here. If we break out now, I don’t think they’ll let us back in.” There were worse things they would do, but I didn’t need to share every dirty detail with Tyler.
She huffed an impatient breath. “That might not be a bad thing.”
I licked dry lips and then pressed them together to keep from agreeing with her. Luke had been clear enough in his threats. I wasn’t going to risk my family or friends just because I wasn’t strong enough to battle an uncomfortable case of claustrophobia.
If I could handle Zombies and that damn infection, I could deal with this.
“Where are you going?”
She tugged on my arm. “To find you. Hendrix wants to have a family dinner.”
“Of course he does,” I sighed. “Where’s Miller?”
We started moving down the hallway together, her arm linked with mine. “I volunteered to find you,” she explained. She darted a glance at me out of the corner of her eye. “You’re not the only one that needs occasional space.”
I suppressed a laugh. “You? Tyler Allen needs space? I’m so shocked right now.”
Her elbow found my ribs, and I lunged away from her, feeling lighter than I had in days. “All right, smartass. Enough out of you.”
Shooting her a grin, I empathized, “It’s this place. Everyone we know is everywhere we go.” She chuckled at my rhyming. “I think it’s the infection or something. My family is driving me nuts.”
“It’s the happiness,” Tyler countered sarcastically. “They’re all so blissfully happy. And balanced. And in love. It’s gross.”
“Agreed. I hate happiness too.”
She elbowed me again. “You know what I mean. We’re smack dab in the middle of the Zombie Apocalypse, and they’ve got families and happily ever afters and hope. I’m not going to lie, it makes me a little bloodthirsty.”
I decided not to call her out. She was always bloodthirsty. My brothers and their significant others had nothing to do with it. But then again, so was I. And bloodthirsty for me these days was a very literal thing. So who was I to judge?
She sighed, and it sounded weary, bone-tired. It made my heart clench, and hot tears prick at the corners of my eyes. I instantly knew she was thinking about Vaughan.
“Happiness is overrated,” I said quickly.
Her shoulders sagged, but she found the courage to smile, even if it was barely. “Nah, it’s not so bad. It’s just picky with who it chooses.”
Tyler’s sorrow pressed down on me like a physical weight I was too weak to carry. I opened my mouth to say something profound or encouraging or basically just anything when we rounded another corner and nearly ran into someone.
We stepped back, out of the way and so did the other person. “Page,” he said.
“Micah,” I tried to sound pleasant, but his name fell flat in the empty hallway. “How are you?”
He blinked at me and didn’t answer. “Going to dinner?”
I nodded. “My family’s waiting for me.”
He swallowed roughly, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. I realized what a douchey thing that was to say. He didn’t have a family. He didn’t have anybody.
I instantly felt guilty for my self-obsessed feelings of morose. I had a family. I had people that loved me. I had faith that these pessimistic feelings would end. I should have been the annoying kind of happy that Tyler despised.
The lingering remnants of the infection pulsed in my blood, reminding me that with everything good in my life, came something monstrously scary.
The silence between us grew tight and prickling, so I blurted, “What are you doing?”
His eyes shifted to Tyler, then back to me. He shrugged. “Avoiding assholes.”
Tyler snorted an unexpected laugh. “A worthy pursuit.”
He turned to face her and stretched out his hand. “I’m Micah.”
She glanced at his waiting hand dismissively. “I know who you are.”
“But I don’t know who you are.” His lips kicked up on one side.
Tyler looked at me. “We should get going.”
“This is my friend Tyler,” I told Micah. “I’m afraid she’s one of the assholes you’ll want to avoid.” I smiled at them both, showing that I was only kidding. Neither one of them laughed.
Tyler glared at her shoes while Micah glared at her. Whatever friendliness he’d been showing us disappeared. It just… dissolved. And in its place came a rolling thunderstorm of anger and hatred. “Tyler?” he asked. “As in Allen?”
Oh, shit.
Before I could rescue her, she lifted her chin and confirmed, “One and the same.”
Micah’s mouth turned down, and the corners of his eyes wrinkled with distaste. “Next time you see your dad, give him my regards.” Micah’s middle fingers danced near his chest then he stalked off, bumping his shoulder against Tyler’s.
She spun around, angry fire lighting her from the inside until she practically glowed with rage. “I’ll be sure to do that right before I stab him in the face, Moron!”
Micah didn’t turn around or even acknowledge Tyler’s promise. We watched him disappear around another corner. When I turned back to Tyler, she was slumped against the wall, shoulders heaving with her effort to control her breathing.
“Moron?” I asked, trying to lighten the suddenly tense mood.
She covered her eyes with one hand. “It was the best I could come up with on the spot. Now that he’s gone, I have so many bitchier things to say.” Her chin trembled, and I was the one that felt like a moron.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
She swung her fist back, pounding it against the wall. “Ignorant,” she hissed, all traces of heartbreak gone. “All of them are so damn igno
rant. They act like they know who I am and what I’m about. They don’t know a goddamn thing.”
My chest hurt for my friend, for this strong, invincible woman I had looked up to for so long. “They don’t. They have no idea who you are.” I turned to stare down the hall at Micah feeling disappointed and annoyed. “I expected more from him though. He’s been… nice to me.”
She made a sound in the back of her throat. “You saved his life twice, Page. He’s obligated to be nice to you.”
I let her words roll around in my head, trying to make them stick. “Maybe,” I finally relented. “But it was more than that. He doesn’t fit in here either. I thought… I don’t know… I expected him to think outside of the hive mind.”
“Yeah, well, my dad’s henchmen were about to beat him to death in front of a crowd of useless lemmings when the two of you met. You can’t exactly expect him to be endeared to the Allen family name.” She shifted uncomfortably, shaking out her shoulders like she was brushing the filthy feeling of rejection off her.
“Yeah, I can,” I argued. “I can at least expect him not to be rude. You’re not your dad, Tyler. Just because you share a last name doesn’t mean you should be treated the same.”
“I should have changed it.”
She’d lost me, so I turned to face her and gave her my full attention. “Changed what?”
“My last name.”
I stared at her. “What would you have changed it to?” It didn’t matter that much to her, did it? Who cared what her last name was. I knew who she was. She knew who she was. She had people that loved and supported her. Her last name meant nothing significant.
She looked away again, down the other end of the hallway. Her answer came in a broken whisper that had me wishing I would have kept my big mouth shut. “Parker,” she rasped. “I should have let him change it to Parker.”
Him as in Vaughan.
My heart dropped to my toes where I trampled it with grief and stupidity and sorrow for my friend and myself. “Ty—”
Love and Decay: Revolution, Episode Ten Page 1