Leigh is screaming; filling the room with her high-pitched anger as she rides what is left of the director to the ground, as they both fight the other. Her voice is banshee-like with nothing on her mind but the utter destruction of the walking demon underneath her. She doesn’t just want to end whatever form of life is staring back at her, but to destroy the shell of which it lingers.
Everyone in the room knows her anger. We know with each stab Leigh is no longer seeing the muted eyes underneath her. We know with each attack she doesn’t register the damage she is doing, but the damage that has been done. She isn’t thinking of what she is killing, but of who has been killed by it. She isn’t concerned with the pain the fight is causing her body as the monster underneath her struggles to win, but with the pain the monster has already caused her. So, we don’t move. We don’t offer to help her. We watch, silently, as Leigh does what her soul needs her to do to survive what has been done to her. The battle ends as all wars do - with one side screaming and forever changed with what they have done to the other side. Only then does Rhett move to lift Leigh from the carnage she has caused.
She doesn’t fight him. With everything poured from her, she is empty and almost limp with the void it causes her. The director stares now with completely vacant eyes locked in some last expression of shock at the room decorated with the black shades of her blood. It’s as if in her last moments some piece of her tried to return to the surface, but just like her blood, all her beautiful hues are gone. Just like Leigh, there is no life left to her now. Leigh watches me as she exits the room with eyes as dark as her last memories of what she’s survived.
Chapter 13
“Who is that?”
Aimes doesn’t like the woman who Rhett is placing on the back of his warhorse. She isn’t even trying to hide it with the locked scowl and unhidden gestures. Rhett doesn’t hide the fact he sees her, either. He smiles across the war zone, winking before slipping his dark glasses over his eyes. I used to think they wore them to protect their eyes from the road. Now, I think they wear them to protect them from their mistakes.
“Leigh,” Dolph says, as he places the last crate of supplies into the bed of the truck. “Helena and I found her locked in one of the rooms in there.”
Thanks, Dolph, is what I allow my glare to sarcastically tell him. I can feel the heat of Aimes’ eyes already swinging towards me. I don’t have sunglasses to hide behind to protect me from the damage from which Rhett has escaped. I shrug, hoping the little gesture will save me. It doesn’t.
“You couldn’t have just killed her like you do everything else in your path?” she asks me.
“No. Despite the rumors, I don’t make it a habit of shooting at the head of living people,” I reply.
I shouldn’t have. I should have just ducked and covered. Never said I was the brains of this survival team.
“Let’s define the word ‘habit’,” Aimes says, and I can already feel my skin being raked with the sarcasm she is aiming towards me. “Habit is when someone does something often, as they often plan to shoot at people. Now if you really want me to develop this habit, I can.”
“Hey,” I offer, sliding into the truck as if it could be used as dark glasses, “I’m not the one with her on my bike. I’m just the one who didn’t shoot her.”
“Good to know that option is still open for taking,” Aimes says, sliding in from the other side.
I cringed. I did. I let her last little swing connect and bit my tongue against the return pitch. Maybe I am learning after all.
“Did you find out any more about the fort?” Aimes asks.
She can’t handle silence. It doesn’t matter how angry she is with someone. She would rather fill the silence with meaningless conversation than sit in defiant anger. Which, for a normal person wouldn’t be a bad thing, but for someone as gifted in verbal manslaughter as she is, there are times I’d just prefer silence.
“We have the notebook. Once we get back to the group, we can all discuss what we want to do,” I tell her, keeping my eyes on the road ahead of me.
“You mean if we want to keep hopping like squatters from home-to-home or maybe find an actual place with actual people to actually live?”
Her tone is so sugary sweet with false concern my teeth hurt.
“Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
Aimes says nothing. She is watching the men behind us and I remember not so many months ago, when I, too, was watching something similar. Law was just playing a different game than the one Rhett is smirking over.
“You remember how when we first hooked up with these monkeys how we didn’t know how to ride? We pretty much kept our eyes closed the first few turns where they tried to out spark the other?” she asks me.
I nod. I’m not risking another swing.
“So, why is it that every bimbo seems to know just how to ride once the apocalypse hits? Tits are perkier, boots are easier to find, and every come-save-me-slack-gina knows how to ride a Harley.”
“But not a stick,” I hear myself say.
I almost sink further down in the seat when I feel the ice of her eyes swing my way. I can’t hide the smirk, though.
“I guess I’m just not a slack-gina,” Aimes replies.
“Nope, just a urinal,” I say, with a smile slowly growing larger across my face.
I can’t help it. I should learn to, but I just can’t help it with the roles reversed.
“What really happened in there?” Aimes asks me, unwilling to further make way for my sarcastic enjoyment of the situation.
“Remember the pictures of Pinky with the older woman?” I ask, waiting for her mind to switch gears and follow along with our new direction.
“Yeah. Okay no, not really.”
“Well, let’s just say that Pinky didn’t take too well to his version of cougarville finding men her own age.”
“The boss lady was with the teen crazy?”
“Yeah, with his mom working as the secretary for the place.”
“So, what does Rhett’s new seat warmer have to do with it?”
“Pinky was feeding people to the babies and his lady love. In his mind, she was just a little out of touch with reality and he could keep her forever as his own.”
“He was a little out of touch.”
“Leigh said she didn’t work there. Pinky must have been finding people to feed to the things. She said she was held hostage in a closet with four others he used as a snack break for his little secret.”
“Stop, just stop. You’re making it hard to hate her and I really want to hate her.”
Clicking my tongue, I tell her, “You don’t even know her.”
Aimes looks at me with one of her arched eyebrows and matching smirk before saying, “Since when did that little fact ever matter before?”
I shrug again, not really having the words to explain why I find myself defending the woman other than for the obvious reasons. “She is going to have one hell of a long road ahead of her,” I offer, as some type of answer.
“You could have at least tried to clean her up some,” Aimes says. It’s the closest thing to an agreement with me, with her brand of blame that she's going to offer.
I shrug again. It hadn’t occurred to me. I’m not sure what that says about my mindset when seeing someone covered in gore and death doesn’t bother me anymore. I’m even starting to see it as normal.
“What are we going to tell the other group as to why we have another stowaway?” Aimes asks.
“Murderella had a bad week?” I offer, trying to bring a little more humor and less death into our conversation.
“Are there good weeks?” she asks me.
“Are you dead yet?” I ask in return, growing tired of the constant emotional babysitting our days are filled with.
“I’m not sure who the lucky ones are anymore,” she says. “Are they those of us who are left, or those of us who’ve escaped?”
She repeats the same question I have asked myself many times, and heari
ng it formed on the lips of another other than my own, it steals my breath. My heart clamps, forcing me to breathe through the pain as my mind recalls each person we have lost, either as a group, or from our personal collection of souls. Are we the lucky ones? Or, are they for no longer having to debate such questions?
Chapter 14
The pouting male egos Aimes and I had left behind are still lingering. The men wear their unhappiness to be back as proudly as they wear their vests. I didn’t expect them to hug and make-up, but if something doesn’t break the walls soon, there might not be any of us left to hug.
Not that the local HOA is going to be making rounds anytime soon, but the porch is destroyed where the male problem solving took place. Amid the wooden debris and the glass from the ruined windows, sits Genny on one of the rockers. She is watching me with eyes so like my own that I have to look away. Need a warm body to run into certain death? I’m your girl. You want to sit and talk about feelings? Sorry, I’m already running to the whole certain death deal.
“Coward,” Aimes whispers into my ear.
I roll my eyes, ignoring her and her comment with my boots crushing the glass underfoot. I can feel Genny’s eyes on me with every step. The constant creaking of the rocker reminds me of a clock keeping time with my approach.
“Hey Gen-Gen,” Aimes calls out, before we enter what is left of the house.
“Who’s that?” Genny asks her, staring out at the arrival party.
“Leigh. She’s Aim-Aim’s new playmate,” I answer, mocking the pet name Aimes tried to use to annoy me. I know I shouldn’t have, but I did, and I smile when Aimes shoves me the rest of the way through the door.
“Is that her blood or someone else’s?” Paula asks me, as I wait for my eyes to adjust to the dark front den of the house.
“Something else’s, I think,” I answer her, and the meaning is understood.
“What’s in all the crates?” Peyton asks me from where he, too, had been watching our arrival.
“Not sure.”
My answer brings his eyes to me as if I’m a kid trying to sneak away with a lie. His normally soft eyes turn a shade of something more while he stares at me. The man who once advised on how we all needed to trust each other seems to be a little more on the other shade of the argument.
“Honestly,” I tell him, “I don’t know. I wasn’t there when they were loading it up. It could be stashed porn magazines to a holiday feast for all I know.”
“If Rhett helped pick items,” Aimes mutters, “it’s most likely the first.”
“Looks like he’s brought back something more useful for that purpose than just magazines,” my father says.
The look the room gives him is shared. He stumbles over his facial emotions as he realizes what he has said and what it implied.
“No, no what I meant was in the crates. For the feast comment!” Collin says, trying to save what grace is left for him to recover. “Looks like a lot of dry food. That will easily keep no matter where we end up.”
Peyton looks back at the gathering of plastic milk crates and sighs. He knows the men out there are not going to wave any flags of peace or offer any branches of hope by just handing the items over. It’s once again up to Peyton to make the first step to find a remedy to the divide so his group doesn’t go without.
I can’t help but miss Chapel even more at times like this. He would have already stepped up, divided the supplies evenly and dared the men to question him. He was our compass. He was our due north when the world always seemed to be heading straight south. We are drowning without him.
“I miss him, too,” Paula whispers, to what is left of the window.
She doesn’t acknowledge me when she pushes past. She has already slipped into her role of the nurse as Leigh stands mutely in the yard, lost as to what to do now. She will sink into the numbness, her white noise of her making. Her sense of duty always allows her to find it, because just like me, we aren’t ready to accept the loss of the one man we both can’t stop thinking about.
With the tension thick of unsaid things, Peyton and my father follow her out. My father’s head is so low one would think he was obsessed with his shoes. Good to know I came by my fear of feelings honestly.
Aimes does her normal flop into the nearest chair. Her body might be limp, but her mind isn’t. I can almost see the thoughts her mind is trying to work through. I’m honestly worried she might hurt herself.
“What?” I finally ask, taking what was once a matching chair. Now it’s torn and stained from either stray animal abuse or something worse. I squirm a little thinking of what might be under me.
Her blue eyes lock onto mine with such a force I tilt my head back without meaning to do it. Something tells me I’m not so lucky as to have her thoughts focused just on Rhett’s new toy. No, this is going to be something painful for me.
“You didn’t tell them,” Aimes whispers like a dirty secret.
I shrug, unwilling to help a conversation I’m still uncertain about.
“Tell them what?” I ask.
“Are we taking them?” she whispers again, completely refusing to accept my denials.
“There is as much risk with numbers as there is safety. If we have to quickly leave a place, it’s double the people we have to see out. It’s twice the supplies. It’s twice the-“
“Death,” she says, cutting off my rambling. “It’s twice the risk of losing someone you care about.” Her whole face is calling me on my pathetic excuses, as she says, “It was easier when you thought he was dead. Now, he’s not and he could be. You might think you don’t care about him, but you do. Maybe not so much about him as a person, but no matter what your past holds, he is your dad and he is the only one who is left knowing the truth about your mom.”
I shrug again, sinking into the chair despite the many stains around me. “There’s Gen-Gen,” I offer as a rebuttal to her logic.
“Chances are Gen-Gen only knows the PG-13 version of what happened. One doesn’t normally add all their yearly details of their holiday affair to Christmas cards.”
I say nothing, letting her simmer in her thoughts.
“If we take them, you’re going to have to finally admit to what happened,” Aimes says. “If we just skip out, you can keep right on running from your past like you have been.”
“I told you. I’ve told you all that happened,” I say, with a voice as cold as ice, unbelieving that she’s wiggling her finger, again.
“No,” Aimes replies, “you’ve told us the abridged version. Now, you’re going to have to go all full biography.”
She’s right. It’s not the fact of what secrets my past is obviously holding that keeps me from Genny. It’s not the many years of unreturned love that’s keeping me from Collin. It’s my secrets that won’t let my eyes look at either of them for too long.
“You want to try a practice run with me?” she asks me.
My arched eyebrow is enough of an answer.
“Just trying to do that supportive thing I hear so much about,” she replies, with her hands held out in a surrender-like position.
The men’s stomping in saves me. Both of us watch as the crates are lined by the front door just as the weapons once lined the windowsills. Those habits, so hard to break, I suppose.
“No nudie mags,” Rhett tells Aimes and me, letting us know Peyton’s attempt to bond was spent over our speculation of how helpful Rhett might have been in our survival selection.
“Nope, you have found a whole doll,” Aimes says, without missing a space of a beat.
Rhett flashes her one of his trademark warning smiles. To others, it might be charming, perhaps even panty-dropping, but to us, we know the truth. Unfortunately for Rhett, Aimes isn’t fazed by it anymore. She returns her own version with just as much energy behind it. They both might have met their match.
“Okay, love birds,” I whisper, “that’s enough.”
“Take your pants off,” Rhett commands of me.
Aimes a
nd I both look at him as if he is either the boldest man alive or the dumbest.
He smiles slowly, like the man we have come to know. “Flattered, but it’s Paula who wants you,” he tells me. “We have bets on how many stitches you’ll need this time.”
I shudder, remembering the pain of the improvised needle and thread.
Rhett smiles again when seeing my discomfort. “Daddy could hold your hand if you want him to.”
“Funny, but I don’t ever remember calling you, or any other man, Daddy,” I tell him, with my version of his dare.
“You haven’t given me a chance, yet,” Rhett shouts to my back as I leave the house to find Paula.
“I have, and I still don’t call you Daddy,” I can hear Aimes tell him.
The rest is muffled laughter as the two exchange jokes with their attempt to repair their little world. Whatever they are saying, it’s enough to cause Genny to blush and rush from the porch.
Even demons have their desires and needs. A personal demon demands such a heavier price to soothe its damaging ways. My hope is theirs have finally found peace now that they have found each other. With their laughter growing bolder by the second, maybe there is hope for us all, after all.
Chapter 15
Four stitches later, in a better pattern than those of my stomach, half a bottle of discovered whiskey down, and a few too many smirking men, we find ourselves sitting around a slow churning fire in the fireplace of our new hideaway of a house we have claimed as our own. With the destruction from Rhett and Marxx, the other house was voted not safe, or worth defending, should we be ambushed. Now, we sit in the den of a home no one here could ever afford while the ones who could afford sit dead and propped as door stops on the exterior doors. Their hanging jaws seem to gasp at the irony of it all. Luckily, their eyes have long since glazed over to keep their glares subdued and muted.
“It’s not funny,” Aimes says, looking around the room for what must be the hundredth time.
The Risen Series | Book 5 | Defiance Page 10