Love and Decay, Volume Eight (Episodes 9-12, Season Three)

by Higginson, Rachel

I willed myself not to cry from frustration. My favorite nine-year-old was right. Damn it, she was right.

  “Not without a cure,” Hendrix said after long minutes of silence. “We don’t go back without a cure or a vaccine or something to fight those goddamn Feeders with.”

  “On that scale… Hendrix, we’re not going to be able to take a cure to an entire country of Feeders. And what about everything between here and there? You’re talking… I mean that is years down the road.” Haley threw up her hands in defeat. “We won’t be ready for years. Maybe decades.”

  Hendrix looked at Page, then at Lennon and finally my stomach where he rested his hand. “I’m okay with that.”

  “We can’t do nothing!” Page whined. “We can’t let him win.”

  Hendrix squared his shoulders and captured Page’s full attention. “We’re not doing nothing, Page. We’re fighting him every day we live and breathe and continue to solve this infection. Every day we put into eradicating this plague, we fight the very thing he’s using to keep his victims imprisoned. He would be nothing without the threat of Zombies. There would be no reason to fear him if lives weren’t daily in danger. We do this first, we fight him here first, then we decide what to do. Yeah?”

  “You’re scared,” she sniffed at him. “You’re afraid that he’ll kill one of us.”

  Without apology or regret, Hendrix answered, “You’re damn right I’m scared he’ll kill one of us. I’m scared he’ll kill all of us. That thought haunts me every day of my life. I will not let it happen, understand? I’ll do anything to keep from losing someone else.”

  Page’s chin tipped up with defiance, “That’s the safe thing.”

  “Yeah,” Hendrix growled. “It’s the safe thing.”

  She met him glare for glare when she declared, “Well, I’d rather do the best thing than the safe thing. And saving those people is the best thing I could ever do with my life.”

  Hendrix stood up and towered over her. With a jab of his finger he finished the argument, “Then grow up first, little girl. Because right now I’m in charge and until you’re old enough to argue differently, you’ll wait until I’m ready to go.”

  Page didn’t say anything else. Hendrix had made his point, but I could see the defiance flashing over her usually sweet face.

  I felt uneasy with her strong opinion. She had never behaved this way before. She had always trusted her brothers to do the right thing.

  What changed now?

  Conversation evened out as we discussed more peaceful matters and what to say to Andy in a return letter. Haley took the lead and wrote out our thoughts and positions. We would do what Andy asked and find a cure first or a vaccine or something that would help the human cause.

  We would tackle that major problem first. Until then, we planned to live out our days here tranquilly and worry about the Colony when we were forced to think about them again.

  Nelson made the point that Matthias might not live for much longer if his health was really that bad. Andy’s army would surely grow between now and then too. They would gain more sympathy. People would realize how wrong Matthias was and decide they couldn’t live under the Colony’s thumb anymore.

  I believed that things would change for the better. We were on the cusp of innovation. Oliver and Fang talked about it every day. We were so close.

  This world we lived in wouldn’t be desolate forever. We wouldn’t live in decay forever.

  We were the solution now. We were the beacon on a hill, the light in the darkness. We would stay here and do whatever it took until this world was filled with life instead of death, love instead of hate.

  We would not give up.

  Hendrix took my hand after long hours of conversation. We stood up silently and said goodnight to our friends.

  We walked hand-in-hand down dim corridors until we came to our room. He opened the door for me and I walked into the space that had become ours.

  I didn’t get far before he grabbed my waist and pulled me back against his chest. We stood there, with his arms wrapped around me and my back pressed to his heartbeat, and breathed.

  “I need to worry about my sister, don’t I?” he whispered eventually. “She thinks she can save the world.”

  “I wonder where she gets that from?” I teased gently.

  “Not from me.” His trailed kisses from the nape of my neck to my earlobe. “I’ve only ever wanted to save my family and this girl I found wandering around a department store in search of makeup. My list stops there.”

  I wondered if that was true… if Page’s fire and determination had come from somewhere else.

  “But there is this girl I know,” he continued. “She thinks she can save everything. She’s never let a problem like Zombies or warlords stand in her way. She takes on the giant and laughs.”

  “Are you talking about me?” I was surprised to find myself choked up.

  He nodded against the curve of my neck. “You’re her hero for a very good reason, Reagan. I don’t think she could have chosen better.”

  I turned around in his embrace and threw my arms around his neck. “I’ll stop,” I promised him. Fear for Page’s life and her future decisions drove me to examine every single decision I had ever made… and regret them. “I’ll show her that it’s okay to be safe and secure. We’ll make a good life here and she’ll forget all about her superhero dreams.”

  Hendrix pulled back so that he could capture my gaze. His blue eyes were tender, but firm. “It’s too late, I’m afraid. The damage is done. But we’ll deal with it, Reagan. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “You’re okay with letting her go?”

  “I’ll never let her go,” he said immediately. “But I’ll do whatever it takes to keep this family together. If that means we have war in our future, so be it.”

  He leaned down and kissed me before I could ask any more questions. He swept me away with the press of his lips and the taste of his mouth. I got lost in my desire for this man… this man that had loved me before I deserved his love and stayed with me long after he should have left.

  When he pulled back I felt warm all over. I felt safe again. I felt peace.

  “Besides,” he murmured. “I have the only thing that I’ll ever need to survive.”

  “What’s that?” I asked breathlessly.

  “You,” he promised. “By my side.”

  Nine Years Later…

  Page

  My dagger plunged into the skull of a gruesome Feeder. Black, coagulated blood leaked from the wound, coating my knife. His red eyes dimmed into sightless holes in his ugly head.

  He was dead. At my hands.

  “You were supposed to bag him, Page! Not kill him!” My brother, Harrison, shouted from a distance. A Feeder lay at his feet unmoving.

  I shook my head, laughing at him. “And what about yours? I’m sure our instructions were to bring one back. It didn’t have to be mine!”

  “Mine was mean!” he hollered back.

  “Mine was too nice,” I teased. “He was a disgrace to Zombie-kind everywhere.”

  “You’re such a smartass,” I heard him mutter. He walked toward me while I cleaned my blade on my pants.

  “And you are going to be in trouble with Hendrix. He’s going to blame you for this.”

  Harrison groaned. “He’s such a sexist! You’re so special because you’re just a weak little girl. It’s depressing really. I feel sorry for you.”

  I punched him in the arm and jumped out of reach when he tried to return the favor. “You’re just mad because I’m better at this than you.” I waved my hand at the rubble of our city.

  “You’re not half bad,” he argued “But you will never be better than me.”

  “We’ll see,” I mumbled. “The real test is coming.”

  He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. I felt his hesitation from here. I felt the way he looked at me with frustration and disappointment. “You could change your mind,” he suggested. “We do
n’t have to go.”

  I stared straight ahead at the setting sun. “Going is the one thing we have to do.”

  My city glistened in the orange light, telling the story of the last nine years of my life. A lot had happened in those years. I had grown from a child into an adult, from a little girl into a capable woman.

  But our time in the safety of this city and the isolation of our station had come to an end.

  Because my city was safe, but this world was not.

  I lived in a world of death and decay, built on the bones of humans and Zombies alike, ruled by the most evil of men.

  I had been born with a gift… with rare blood… with the will to tear down tyranny and give the people a freedom I had never known.

  My world was decay, but my future was freedom.

  Thank you for reading Season Three of Love and Decay!

  I have loved being in Reagan’s head for the last three seasons. She is one of my favorite heroines. But as the series moves forward, she will hand over the narration to Page Parker.

  Look for Season Four, from Page’s perspective, coming December 4th, 2015

  About the Author

  Rachel Higginson was born and raised in Nebraska, but spent her college years traveling the world. She fell in love with Eastern Europe, Paris, Indian Food and the beautiful beaches of Sri Lanka, but came back home to marry her high school sweetheart. Now she spends her days raising their growing family. She is obsessed with bad reality TV and any and all Young Adult Fiction.

  Look for more from Rachel in 2015.

  Other books by Rachel to be released early 2015 are The Heart, the third and final installment of The Siren Series, Every Wrong Reason, an Adult Contemporary Romance and Bet on Me, an NA contemporary romance.

  Other Books Out Now by Rachel Higginson:

  Love and Decay, Season One

  Love and Decay, Volume One (Episodes One-Six, Season One)

  Love and Decay, Volume Two (Episodes Seven-Twelve, Season One)

  Love and Decay, Season Two

  Love and Decay, Volume Three (Episodes One-Four, Season Two)

  Love and Decay, Volume Four (Episodes Five-Eight, Season Two)

  Love and Decay, Volume Five (Episodes Nine-Twelve, Season Two)

  Love and Decay, Season Three, Episode One

  Love and Decay, Season Three, Episode Two

  Love and Decay, Season Three, Episode Three

  Love and Decay, Season Three, Episode Four

  Love and Decay, Volume Six (Episodes One-Four, Season Three)

  Love and Decay, Season Three, Episode Five

  Love and Decay, Season Three, Episode Six

  Love and Decay, Season Three, Episode Seven

  Love and Decay, Season Three, Episode Eight

  Love and Decay, Volume Seven (Episodes Five-Eight, Season Three)

  Love and Decay, Season Three, Episode Nine

  Love and Decay, Season Three, Episode Ten

  Love and Decay, Season Three, Episode Eleven

  Love and Decay, Season Three, Episode Twelve

  Love and Decay, Volume Eight (Episodes Nine-Twelve, Season Three)

  Reckless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 1)

  Hopeless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 2)

  Fearless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 3)

  Endless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 4)

  The Reluctant King (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 5)

  The Relentless Warrior (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 6)

  Breathless Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 6.5)

  Fateful Magic (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 6.75)

  The Redeemable Prince (The Star-Crossed Series, Book 7)

  Heir of Skies (The Starbright Series, Book 1)

  Heir of Darkness (The Starbright Series, Book 2)

  Heir of Secrets (The Starbright Series, Book 3)

  The Rush (The Siren Series, Book 1)

  The Fall (The Siren Series, Book 2)

  The Heart (The Siren Series, Book 3) coming 2015

  Bet on Us (An NA Contemporary Romance)

  Bet on Me (An NA Contemporary Romance) coming 2015

  The Five Stages of Falling in Love, an Adult Contemporary Romance

  Follow Rachel on her blog at:

  http://www.rachelhigginson.com/

  Or on Twitter:

  @mywritesdntbite

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