The Dead Saga | Book 7 | Odium 7

by Riley, Claire C.

  “That’s how I’ve always been,” I said, practically pouting.

  Shooter pushed out a chair next to him and patted it, and I should have told him I wasn’t his little dog and to go fuck himself but instead I walked over and readied to sit in the chair. Before I could sit in it, he grabbed me and pulled me onto his lap.

  “Yeah, you’ve always been reckless. A fuckin’ troublemaker for sure. And yeah, I’m even man enough to admit that I love that about you. You push me, Nina. As crazy as it is, you force me to a place I’m not wholly comfortable in, but I like that about you—about us. I like that you make me see this dark and crazy world differently, even if you do piss me off.”

  His cigarette was burning away in the ashtray, the smoke a thin stream in the air, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was me in that moment. His eyes on mine, his hands holding tightly to my body, keeping me safely on his lap.

  “But you’re not thinking straight right now, babe,” he said with a heavy sigh. “You’re not thinking in terms of saving people from the Savages. You’re thinking you want to kill them. To punish them. You want revenge…”

  “Why is that a bad thing?” I snapped, trying to free myself from his octopus grip. “Don’t you want revenge?”

  “No, I want them dead. That’s different.”

  “I want them dead!” I yelled.

  Shooter shook his head. “No, you want them dead at any cost—that’s fuckin’ different. You’ll happily get yourself killed so long as you kill them too. That’s the difference. You’re not thinking straight, and when you’re not thinking straight, it’s not just your life on the line, it’s my men, my family that will suffer, and I can’t have that.”

  I slapped at his hands. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” I hit at him again and again. “Ughhh, will you get off me, Shooter.”

  “No!” he barked, the single word an order. “You’ll fuckin’ sit there and listen to me, Nina. This can’t go on—otherwise there was no reason to stop you from bleedin’ out when Scar took your hand. There was no point in wasting all those damned antibiotics on your stupid ass. Goddammit, I fuckin’ hate sayin’ this, but there was no point in any of this if you just go out there and get yourself killed, woman! You’re taking all your hate out on the Savage bitches when it’s Scar you really want to hurt. But you can’t. He’s gone. You already sent him to ground, and you need to get your shit together before it’s too late. You feel me, Nina?”

  He was shouting now, but it was more than just anger in his tone, it was something deeper and more primal. Something I recognized immediately.

  It was fear and pain.

  He was scared of losing me, even though he knew he already had.

  Each day that went by, I slipped a little further from his reach and Shooter was there grasping for me, making room on that damned door for the both of us, and all I could do was wish that he’d just let me go. Let me sink beneath the icy waves and drown in my own oblivion.

  I could have said a whole lot to his comments. I could have reassured him and made him feel better somehow. I could have kissed him and promised him I would try. That I’d give it a good try and not be so damn sad all the time. That I’d do my best to live in this awful world that I couldn’t see any happiness in anymore. That I’d try for him—for us.

  But I didn’t say any of those things.

  Instead, when he finally released me from his steely grip, I stood up and glared down at him, anger running through me like lava through my veins.

  He thinks he’s doing what’s best for me, but he has no idea what’s best for me.

  “I’m going, whether you like it or not, Shooter. If you leave without me, I’ll follow you. If you lock me up, I’ll find a way out.” I stormed toward the door and glanced back at him, my hand on the handle. “And if I find out you’ve kept anything else from me again, I’m gone. Do you feel me?”

  I opened the door and stormed out.

  5.

  Nina

  I headed over to see Stormy, since I had nowhere else to be. Besides, my arm was aching and I was itching for one of those little white pills that took the sting away and dulled my brain so that the low throb was nothing but a muted buzz in the back of my mind. She said it was mostly phantom pains and that there was nothing left there to hurt anymore. The bad flesh had been cut away and my skin had finally healed enough that I shouldn’t have been feeling anything.

  She had no fucking clue what she was talking about, in my opinion.

  Unless you’ve had an arm or a leg cut off, then you aren’t qualified to accurately describe what someone is or isn’t feeling. Because she wasn’t there when I woke at three in the morning, the low burn in my arm making me feel like I was on my fire. I could practically feel Scar’s blade cutting through my flesh and bone. I could hear the tear of skin, the crack of bone, the slice of my muscle as it separated from my body.

  I might not have felt very much when it happened, terror gripping me like the cold hard glove of the devil, but I felt it now. I felt it every day and every night. And I had no idea when, or if, the nightmare was ever going to end.

  I stomped across the clubhouse grounds, my gaze on my feet; no head held high for me anymore—I was impossibly broken, both inside and out. And honestly, all I wanted, more than anything, was for people to leave me the hell alone.

  I could have walked away.

  I should have walked away.

  But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

  It was that intrinsically human part of me that still clung to hope. To life. To the desire to survive. And it knew I couldn’t on my own.

  It wasn’t the zombies that killed us.

  Or the psychopaths that had survived the end of days.

  It wasn’t disease or viruses or infections that killed us.

  The only thing that could truly kill us was lack of love.

  And not just receiving it, but giving it.

  And my heart was a shriveled-up pulp unable to do anything but beat steadily and pump the sludge of my blood through my body.

  I couldn’t love.

  I refused love.

  I didn’t want love.

  And yet still I lived.

  The clubhouse was busy today, I noted. A couple of the bikers had reopened the workshop and had bikes and vans, cars and trucks in various stages of disassembly. I was guessing that they were fixing them, but it looked like a junkyard, with hundreds of parts scattered around. I was sure that there was method to their madness.

  On the other side of the clubhouse were some of the women from the original camp. They were practicing their fighting skills with various weapons. Amara had been leading them all since I took several retreating steps away from humanity. She looked up now, her eyes catching mine. They held hope.

  I felt guilty for the hope she had.

  She wanted me back, but I couldn’t bring myself back from the darkness inside me.

  The other women stopped fighting and were looking over at me. I was like a beacon to them. I gave them so much and never asked for anything in return. They wanted to thank me. They wanted me to join them. But how? How could I? I was one part woman and ten parts ghost. I had one foot already in the grave, for God’s sake. I couldn’t join them—I was a liability like this, with one arm and a death wish.

  I hated that Shooter was right.

  I looked away, my shoulders slumping forward, and I focused on my path toward the little clinic that Stormy set up for me. She moved between our camp and the NEOs. Other than the first time, I’d never asked her about Mikey—I didn’t dare. I knew that he made it. That he was building his strength back up. That he’d been beaten, starved. He was dehydrated, his body exhausted. But that was it. He had still been in one piece, and he was getting stronger now that he was at the NEO camp. I didn’t need to know any more.

  Mikey wasn’t mine anymore. He was O’Donnell’s, and I was Shooter’s.

  It was best for everyone.

  He went to her, not me.
He made his choice, and it was a good choice because I had nothing to offer him.

  Maybe one day they’d have babies together—beautiful babies that would be funny like him and smart like her. They’d know how to fight and how to survive in this cruel world. He’d show them how to pick locks and how to survive in impossible situations. She’d show them how to fire a gun and how to befriend people that shouldn’t like you.

  My stomach churned, my eggs feeling gross in my stomach, and I pushed thoughts of Mikey and O’Donnell to one side, because really, I had no business thinking about such things.

  I pushed the door of Stormy’s clinic open and walked inside. It was cooler in there, though maybe that was just because I didn’t have a hundred eyes on me. The place used to be the office for the workshop, but it had been thoroughly cleaned—well, as much as something can be thoroughly cleaned in an apocalypse—and stripped of everything that made it what it once was. Now the walls were painted doctor’s-waiting-room white and someone had stolen a couple of the beds from somewhere. I didn’t think it was a hospital though, despite them being hospital-issue beds. No one had been to a hospital in a long long time. They were far too dangerous.

  The medicines and bandages were locked away in the back somewhere. I knew this because I’d seen her pull the key out from under her blouse when she went to get me my antibiotics and such. I didn’t go in the back though. No one did.

  She looked up from the book she was reading when I came in, and smiled warmly, despite me being a total bitch earlier.

  “Another murder mystery,” I said, nodding toward the medical journal in front of her. “I think it was the doctor, in the library with the candlestick.”

  Her smile grew, and I felt a little warm at the sight of it. “Just trying to clue myself in on how to check for kidney infections. You know, animals and humans are pretty similar, so it hasn’t been too difficult, but it’s always good to be sure.”

  I nodded. “Oh, I agree. For instance, I definitely don’t need anyone squeezing my anal glands anytime soon, but those antibiotics definitely made my guts hurt.”

  “That’s the pain meds and you know it,” she retorted with a smile, closing the book and sliding it to her left.

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

  Stormy gestured to one of the beds. “Take a seat and let’s have a look.”

  I did as she said and slid myself to sitting on the bed closest the window. The sun was shining through the cracked glass and cutting sunlight across my face. It was warm, and I liked it, because I felt so cold on the inside.

  She started removing the bandages on my arm and I looked away, keeping my gaze fixed outside because I had no desire to look at the mangled mess of my little stump. I looked once and it was fucking gross. Truth be known, it reminded me of dog food. It stank like dog food too.

  Stormy said it didn’t look like that anymore—that it was infected at that point, but it was clean now, the bad cut away and the healthy thriving. The last round of meds did the trick. It had been a long few months.

  I imagined in the old world it would be years before anyone recovered from something like this. But it wasn’t that world and we didn’t have the time to spare. So we cut away the bad, fed ourselves any antibiotics we can find, and hoped for the damn best. Lucky for me, my damn best was good enough and I was healing well.

  “Another couple of weeks and we can lessen these bandages, I think—start getting some air to the skin to encourage more healing,” she said as she rubbed some cream on my stump.

  I could feel her long fingers smoothing cream over my skin and I shuddered. I could only imagine what she was thinking at having to touch me. It must have been gross as hell.

  The door to the clinic opened and Highlander filled the small space, his eyes roaming the room until they landed on me. I flinched under his steady gaze, like I was practically naked. My cheeks heated and my stomach soured and I snatched my body away from Stormy’s grip and reached for something to cover myself up.

  “Nina,” Stormy grumbled, reaching for me again.

  “That’s enough,” I bit out, embarrassment staining my voice like blackcurrant juice on a clean white blouse.

  “I need to finish this. It’s important,” she snapped back. She gripped the top of my arm and pulled it back toward her.

  Highlander walked toward me, his heavy footsteps echoing in the small space. Balls was behind him, and in his hands was the hideous contraption from earlier. My gaze flicked between the three of them, realizing that this was a setup.

  “Nice,” I smarted bitterly, my teeth gritting so hard my jaw hurt. I lifted my chin, my nostrils flaring in resentment.

  Stormy was still working on my arm, but she lifted her eyes up to me, her gaze filled with apology. I glanced down at my arm, seeing the antibacterial cream she’d risked her life to get for me a few months ago smeared over the end of my stupid stumpy arm. She was right—it didn’t look like it used to. And all I smelled was a medical smell, like disinfectant or something. Much better than the rotting flesh smell. Much, much better.

  She wrapped something over the end of my stump. I didn’t know what it was because I was trying not to watch too much, but I felt the difference. This was padded and warm. Between this and the cream, it didn’t feel as sore and itchy, but I wasn’t going to tell anyone that.

  Highlander and Balls stopped in front of me, their expressions as serious as nuns at a funeral.

  “I don’t want any more shit from ya, Nina,” Highlander said.

  “Gonna be hard, man,” I replied with a sneer.

  “Try,” he said, his gaze sliding over to Stormy, who stood up and took a step back. “We good to go?” he asked her, and I scowled at all of them. She nodded and he took the contraption that Balls held out to him. “No biting, hissing and screeching while I put this on ya, understand?”

  I stared at it—this thing of leather and metal. It looked like a torture device, and in a way it was. It was an attempt to make me whole again, to make me normal. But I wasn’t normal and I certainly wasn’t whole. I didn’t want that thing anywhere near me because all it was going to do was remind me of what I used to be. Of what I’d never be again.

  Strong and capable.

  A survivor in a bleak world.

  Instead, now I was a liability.

  I was weak.

  I hated it and I hated me.

  I hated Scar, and I hated Highlander and Balls for making me do this.

  But most of all I hated Shooter, because I knew that he would have agreed to this.

  Nothing was done around there without his say-so, and this was all his doing.

  I shook my head, trying not to get emotional. “I don’t want that,” I said, pointing with my hand, “anywhere near me. It’s probably rife with germs and will infect my arm again.” My voice was shaking and I hated that too.

  “It’s clean. I disinfected it…and you,” Stormy said, her voice soft and, once again, apologetic.

  “Fuck you,” I snapped. “I’m not a child and I don’t have to wear that if I don’t want to.”

  Highlander sighed heavily, like I was pissing him off. Good, I hoped I was. I hoped he got some hideous disease that made his balls shrivel up. And I hoped that when he was staring down at his shriveled-up balls he would think of me and how much I pissed him off.

  “Quit bitching,” Balls interrupted, with no fucks given.

  “Just try it on, Nina. What do you have to lose? Your arm?” Highlander gave a dark laugh and I gave him the middle finger. “We designed it especially for you, woman. If you hate it, fine. But just try it first.”

  “And what, pray tell, do you have in the way of qualifications for designing and making such things, hmm?” I said with a raised eyebrow. “You’re just a biker with a beard.”

  Highlander scowled at me. “Actually, I’m a qualified mechanical engineer and Balls here used to work in physics for some…what the fuck was that place?” He looked to Balls, who shook his head.
>
  “You don’t wanna know, brother. Let’s just say I’m highly qualified when it comes to working out shit, and if you ever need someone to design a highly explosive weapon and kill a bunch of motherfuckers, then I’m your guy.”

  I stared at them both dumbfounded, realizing that my arguments were growing thinner by the second. My gaze dropped to the torture device in question and I swallowed down the lump in my throat. Maybe it was time to admit the real reason I didn’t want to try it on.

  Because wearing that would give me hope. Hope that I could be normal again. Hope that I wasn’t as broken as I thought. Hope that maybe I’d get to live…that I’d survive this monstrous thing too.

  “Nina,” Stormy said, her voice soft, soothing, “let’s just try it. What’s the worst that could happen? They’ve been at this for weeks. We all have.”

  I took a deep breath and found the courage that I’d buried all those months ago. My courage was dusty and full of cobwebs and it took a lot of mental pulling to drag it up from the murky depths, but it came. Eventually.

  Stupid courage.

  Stupid hope.

  Stupid arm.

  Even stupider Scar.

  I wished I could go back and kill him all over again.

  But I couldn’t, and it was stupid of me to keep that dream alive.

  Scar was gone, but I was here. I was alive.

  I had won, even if it felt like I had lost.

  I dusted off my courage and looked up at them.

  “Okay,” I said, my voice softer than it had been in so, so long. I was scared, but I didn’t really know what there was to be scared of. It would either be okay or it wouldn’t. No big deal, right? Only it was a big deal. This was everything. “What do I do?”

  Highlander’s smile split into a huge grin. “Hold out ya stumpy little arm and let’s try this shit on, Queen B.”

  I threw him a hateful look. “Your bedside manner is appalling.”

  “That’s not what I’ve been told,” he said, grabbing his crotch.

  “Eww, gross.” I rolled my eyes and held out my arm…sorry, my stump, shame and embarrassment flaming to life in my cheeks for my disfigurement. “Let’s just get this over with.”