He ran his fingers along the door, examining it for durability, before sighing and leaning against it, his shoulders slumping forward.
It was unusually quiet without his wife, Lydia around, and he found himself enjoying the silence, even if he was playing babysitter for the next ten hours.
For the most part, he tolerated Lydia’s berating and controlling personality with submission, even if he felt like a powder keg ready to explode. He hated her for making him feel like less of a man, for embarrassing him with her obnoxious, bipolar outbursts and unfiltered rants against Kennedy.
Sure, they’d had some good moments over the years. Lots of travel, socializing with friends at swanky bars in the city. He’d always hoped they would have children, but she didn’t want any. When he thought about it, it was a Godsend that they hadn’t. He wouldn’t have wanted his kids to live through this.
By the time the chaos started, they were the furthest thing from prepared with no weapons or food to see them through it. Lydia was mad at him for this, as well. Stewart was staunchly against owning firearms. Lydia came from a family of gun nuts, where each member in her family had at least three. It was ridiculous. They only had two hands. What was the point in having three different guns?
Shaking his head, he muttered under his breath.
He just didn’t fit in with that family. In fact, he was relieved when the infection spread, and they lost complete contact with them.
Guess their damned guns didn’t save them after all.
But when it was all said and done, owning a gun would have been a plus when the world flip-flopped. He would never admit this to Lydia though. And regardless, even if he’d had one, he wouldn’t have known what to do with it.
A handful of neighbors who had turned were the reason Stewart and Lydia had been forced from their home. The zombies had managed to get in from the low gate in the backyard. All it had taken was for one of them to see Lydia as she looked at them through the window. That triggered a chain reaction in the whole group, and before they knew it, the creatures were so desperate to reach them that they’d even impaled themselves on the sharp metal tips of the waist-high gate, flailing and writhing to get free. The others used their comrades’ pinned bodies as a ramp to crawl over the gate.
It didn’t take them long to smash through the delicate French doors.
Running for their lives had been the only option until Kennedy rescued them. They were starving and barely coherent, but she’d gotten them the care they needed to make a full recovery.
Lydia should have been grateful to her, but she wasn’t. She loathed the redhead, and there didn’t seem to be any decent explanation as to why, short of the fact that Kennedy was someone who couldn’t be controlled, unlike Stewart.
Stewart honestly didn’t have a problem with Kennedy—a part of him even found her fearlessness and authority attractive—but he went along with his wife’s disdain for her to avoid confrontation.
And now here he was, living in quarters smaller than their old master bathroom, stuck sitting outside a madman’s makeshift holding cell.
He clambered to his feet at the sound of nearing footsteps.
Vetta Davenport walked in, holding a tray with a bowl and cup on it.
“Kennedy asked me to give this to you for him.” She tilted her head to the prisoner.
Stewart raised his hands defensively. “I don’t want to give it to him. You do it.”
Vetta glared at him. “I need to tend to a woman and child who got the shit kicked out of them by this asshole. I’d just as soon see him starve, but I don’t turn down orders from Kennedy. So do us all a favor, and grow a pair, Stewart.” She set the tray down and left the car.
“You grow a pair,” he mumbled after she was out of earshot. Scowling, he crossed his arms in frustration.
He didn’t want to get any closer than he already was to Cade Foster.
Vetta took off her latex gloves and pulled a blanket over Haven. She quietly walked to the door of the cabin to find Mark, Brett, Houston, and Colin just outside, the latter two anxiously pacing back and forth.
Houston saw her emerge and nearly ran forward to meet her.
“She’s banged up pretty badly, but she’ll recover just fine,” Vetta told the group.
“Can I see her?” Houston asked.
Vetta gently stepped in front of him. “She’s sleeping now, but you can go in as soon as she wakes up. She needs her sleep.”
“Is she alright though?” Colin demanded.
Vetta sighed. “Well…” she began, “she’s got a couple of fractured ribs, contusions, her nose was broken…” Their expressions were riddled with worry, and she paused, her tone softening. “Right now, it looks a lot scarier than it actually is. I set what I could and gave her plenty of pain meds. Don’t worry; everything will heal. She just needs rest,” Vetta emphasized.
She started to usher them away from the cabin, not noticing that Mark had crept past her while she was addressing the others. Brett caught sight of him and chewed on his lip, wondering if he should stop him. After a couple of seconds, he turned with the other men and let Vetta lead them away.
Mark carefully edged around the medical supplies in the room, wincing as his own sore body protested the added movement, and slowly climbed into Haven’s bed.
Her eyes were closed, so swollen and bruised that they wouldn’t have been able to open even if she wasn’t asleep. Vetta had placed several strips of medical tape over Haven’s nose and had stuffed the nostrils with cotton.
Every now and then, Haven would shake her head and murmur something unintelligible.
Mark tenderly took her hand in his and lay beside her.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you, Haven,” he whispered, a tear rolling down his cheek. “But I won’t let him hurt you again. I promise.”
Chapter Fourteen
Chicken noodle soup spilled over the lip of the bowl as the guard hastily set the food tray in front of Cade.
Cade watched the man quickly scurry backward and close the door behind him. From the small window, he could see the guard lifting a lighter to a cigarette hanging from his lips. The tip of the cigarette glowed bright orange as he took a long drag.
“Hey. Hey, brother. Can I bum a smoke off you? Just one,” Cade called out.
Stewart looked at the floor and pretended not to hear him, just as he had done the last couple of days when Cade asked him for a smoke. He hurriedly sucked on his cigarette.
“Yeah, you. I know you can hear me,” Cade pressed. He was slumped against the wall of the car, his legs sprawled out in front of him.
Stewart instinctively looked down at the large key ring hanging from his belt, comforted to know it was still there.
“More like yeah, right,” he muttered under his breath.
Cade sighed and tilted his head back against the metal siding. “I can barely even take a shit in these things.” He jostled the shackles encircling his wrists and ankles. “It’s killin’ me.” When he was met with nothing but silence, he added, “You can at least tell me your name. We have nothing better to do than shoot the shit in here, and I’ll be really honest… I’m bored as hell.”
Stewart couldn’t disagree with that. “You and me both.” He shifted away from the window. For some reason, his hands were damp with perspiration. He wiped them on his pants and shut his eyes, raising the cigarette to his mouth and languorously drawing the smoke into his lungs, his body beginning to relax.
“She always put you on guard duty?” Cade continued. “Seems like the worst bitch job I’ve ever heard of. I’d rather be doing laundry with the women. She must hate your ass.”
At first, Stewart thought he was talking about Lydia before realizing he was referring to Kennedy. “It’s not so bad.”
Cade snorted. “Can’t believe you guys let a ginger bitch run the show here. That’s just crazy. I can’t wrap my head around it.”
Stewart smirked and without thinking, replied, “We think so, too
.” Then he frowned, recognizing that he shouldn’t be having a conversation with a prisoner, much less agreeing with him about who was in charge… agreeing with him about anything.
“Oh yeah?” The interest in Cade’s voice was palpable. “A lot of people don’t like her?”
“I didn’t mean that,” Stewart backpedaled quickly. “My wife…”
Cade sensed the guard’s discomfort and decided to go in a different direction. “You’re lucky you still have your old lady. What I wouldn’t give for some pussy right now.”
Again, Stewart had a hard time disagreeing there. Lydia didn’t put out often, and when she did, she always rushed him or complained. On one occasion, he remembered when he caught her actually looking at her watch while he pumped away on top of her. Another time, she kept pushing him off of her, whining about how he was too sweaty, how she didn’t want his “nasty” sweat on her before she fell asleep. That didn’t exactly keep the mood going, and after that, he just rolled off of her, and she promptly went to take a shower. It was demoralizing beyond belief. His own wife didn’t even enjoy being intimate with him.
Sometimes he fantasized about Kennedy instead of the hag he married a few years before.
Hell, what was I thinking?
What he wouldn’t give to be single again…
“Where are you from?” the prisoner inquired.
Stewart paused. Should he tell him? It wasn’t like Cade was going to get off the train and trek back to his house and burn it down. All of that didn’t matter now. His house was probably a pile of ashes anyways. He preferred that over imagining it being overrun with undead.
“Chicago.”
Cade sucked his teeth. “Damn. That’s a city I would love to visit. Grew up in Green Acres. What a shithole. Most boring place ever to live.”
“Small towns aren’t that bad,” Stewart lied. Small towns were the worst. No decent restaurants, no good bars, no golfing. God forbid it was a “dry” county where he couldn’t even buy alcohol.
“Yeah, tell that to me when you can’t even find a damned liquor store.”
That got a chuckle out of Stewart. “You read my mind there… bro.” It sounded awkward coming out of his mouth, but for whatever reason, Stewart felt compelled to add it on.
Cade chuckled, too, and Stewart’s face flushed.
“The first thing I’ll do when I get out of here is have a glass of Jameson.”
He had Stewart’s attention. “Hell yeah. My favorite place to go was this cigar bar downtown. Have a glass of whiskey, straight, and a Cuban, watching the game in front of the fireplace. Damn… those were the days.” Reminiscing about the 567 Bar made his stomach knot, knowing he’d never go there again. He made a promise to himself to enjoy another cigar before he died. Maybe he wouldn’t get to sit on the plush sofas or enjoy the dark, inviting ambiance of the nineteen-twenties-style décor of 567, but he was sure there were still a few cigars left in the world that had his name on them.
“Just because the country went to hell doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy the simple pleasures, right?”
Stewart smiled and looked down. Why the new girl and her friends made such a big deal about Cade was clearly unfounded. In fact, he didn’t seem that bad at all. Stewart probably would have hung out with him before the virus broke out.
He missed the camaraderie of his friends. These days, the only person he really talked to was Lydia, and it was enough to make any sane man lose his mind.
“So,” Cade said finally, “how’s about that smoke?”
Stewart looked around for a few seconds and paused, weighing the consequences. His fingers fumbled at the key ring on his belt, and even though a tiny voice in the back of his mind warned him not to, he pressed the key into the lock and opened the door.
“So what are you going to do then?” Colin called out to Kennedy as she swiftly made her way down the train to her makeshift office. “You can’t leave him on here. You have to throw him off.”
She unlocked the door and turned the knob. Colin, a few steps behind her, followed her in.
He hadn’t actually been inside her office before.
The room was devoid of windows, and the only light came from a small desk lamp.
Taking a quick look around, he noticed maps of the country all over the walls, certain cities circled in blue, while others had red or green Xs on their names.
A worn wooden desk was in the center of the cabin with three mismatched chairs around it. Multiple mugs with stale coffee inside them sat on top of the desk.
On his left, a black futon was pressed up against the wall, its cushions sunken and torn. Some clothes lay haphazardly on the armrest, including a black bra, and Kennedy quickly snatched them up and stuffed them behind her desk.
“I’m gonna release him at the next stop. Until then, he’s going to stay locked up and guarded at all times.”
Colin gritted his teeth. “That’s not enough. You’re keeping a dangerous criminal on a train, a train with women and children who are defenseless by comparison. Fuck, you’re even feeding him and giving him medical care!”
Kennedy opened a drawer at her desk and pulled out a hefty binder filled with notebooks and loose-leaf pieces of paper, then sat down and began perusing the notebooks, jotting down notes as she turned the pages.
He slammed his hand down in frustration. “Bloody hell, Kennedy. You can’t just ignore this. That guy has had it in for Haven since she was a kid. He almost killed her!” When she didn’t respond, he ran his fingers through his hair and turned away. “If you guys hadn’t come in at the right time, she’d be dead.”
Kennedy noticed that his voice caught ever so slightly.
“You’re in love with her,” she replied softly, not looking up as she wrote. She felt nauseous all of a sudden, but she kept her eyes on the pages so he couldn’t read her emotions.
He spun back to her and pointed a finger. “Don’t bring that into this.”
Placing her pen down, she sighed. “She’s the one you’ve been trying to forget since you’ve been here.” When he looked at her in surprise, she said, “It’s obvious you were trying to forget someone, Colin. I’ve worked with a lot of people over the years; I’ve never seen anyone work so hard to stay busy in my life.”
Colin placed both of his hands on her desk and leaned down, inches from her face. “Don’t change the subject. A psychopath that you let on this train, against the advice of others, went after a woman and a kid. We are in crisis mode here, Kennedy. You have to make a decision and fast.”
She stood up quickly and slammed the binder on the desk. “You think I don’t realize that?” She clenched her jaw as her eyes began to water.
Don’t cry.
Colin took a step back, unprepared for her reaction. It was the first time he’d ever seen her like this, the first time she’d shown anything but firm resolve and confidence in her actions.
Now, as he searched her eyes, he saw flickers of uncertainty and fear. His expression softened, and he walked to the door and closed it.
When he got back to her desk, he quietly sat down across from her. “What’s going on?”
Kennedy inhaled a deep, shaky breath. “Every day I hear rumors. People are mad about rations. They’re mad we’re bringing in new folks.” She covered her mouth with her hand and looked away. “Some want me gone.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Colin retorted. “You’ve saved so many lives because of this train.”
She sank into her seat heavily, as though an invisible weight was pressing down on her shoulders, and she couldn’t carry it any longer. “I don’t know what to do.”
When he said nothing, she continued, “I thought that handling less than a hundred civvies would be easier than all the Marines I commanded overseas. I thought if anyone could do this, it would be me.” She stared blankly at the wall and was quiet for a moment before tears started trickling down her cheeks. “When everything started, I couldn’t even protect my family against an enemy th
at was completely unarmed. I watched my brother and his family get torn apart, and I froze.” Drawing her knees up to her chest, she locked her hands around them, pulling them tightly against her body. “I forgot the training I’d spent the last fifteen years of my life perfecting. It was like I was suddenly paralyzed, helpless. And because of that, I lost everyone that day. I have no one.”
“That’s not true. You have us. And your men would follow you anywhere. They believe in you. I believe in you,” he added.
Kennedy felt her pulse quicken ever so slightly, but she shoved the feeling down and shook her head determinedly. “Maybe they shouldn’t. I couldn’t even protect my own family. What if I lead them into something they won’t come back from either?” Her eyes met his pleadingly, begging him to give her some kind of assurance that the passengers on this train wouldn’t meet the same demise. He noticed how green her eyes were, brighter than any green he’d ever seen. “Colin, what if I’m not cut out for this?”
He reached across the desk and held out his hand.
Tentatively, she placed hers in his.
“No one is ever born to take on this kind of shit, and not just keep their own arse safe, but keep a hundred other people safe, too. You’re one tough broad, Kennedy. I respect you for that.” He scooted in a little closer and rested his other hand over hers. “And you know why you’re the best person out of everyone on this planet to be our leader? You have a lot of heart. I’ve seen you rush forward and take those things on without any thought for your own safety, only to keep them away from people who don’t deserve your protection.” He waved his hand dismissively. “These angry passengers... ah, fuck ‘em, Kennedy. They’ve forgotten that they were once the ‘new people’ here, and they don’t have a clue how much shit they’ll be in if you aren’t their leader anymore.”
She gave him a sad smile and wiped her eyes. “I don’t know why I’m saying all of this to you. I’m sorry.”
“Hey,” he told her, squeezing her hand. “Don’t apologize. If anyone needs to say sorry, it’s me. I shouldn’t have barged in the way I did, assuming that you were dusting this Cade matter under the rug.”
The Good, The Dead & The Lawless (Book 2): The Hell That Follows Page 19