The Risen Series | Book 5 | Defiance

by Crow, Marie F.

  I don’t know when I lost the ability to stand or how I ended up sitting, propped up on the same molding I had thought to use as a barrier of protection. Now, as I sit here, watching handfuls of flesh being torn, I know what the sound was I heard. It was the soft sounds of still wet meat being lifted from the bones they held together. It was the soft sucking of rotting fingers. It was organs being scooped out as if they were fruit at the bottom of a blood-bathed ice cream sundae. It was my friend.

  “Helena,” Marxx calls to me.

  His is another voice now added to my soundtrack of regrets.

  “Helena,” he calls again, and I turn my eyes from his body to the sound of his memory.

  I’m staring into those same steel-resolved eyes. As if even he can’t handle the sight of his death, he is squatting down just on the other side of the doorway looking only at me. He isn’t covered in his final moments the way my ghosts are normally. He isn’t watching me with the judging eyes of my Angels or the mocking horror of Margaret and her friends. Marxx is simply there, holding his hand out for me to take. He’s sitting there to guide me out from this mental prison of which I have locked myself. He’s there to be sure I don’t scream, to be sure I don’t break.

  As I reach for those fingertips, I completely expect them to dissolve under my touch. My hand hovers, knowing this will be the last moment I can hold onto before denial is inescapable, but when they slide against mine, the warmth is startling.

  “Will you please get the fuck up?” he whispers, between clenched teeth.

  When Marxx asks you to get the fuck up, ghost Marxx or not, you get the fuck up. So, I do but it’s not graceful, at all.

  My legs are limp from how I crumpled. As I attempt to crawl through the doorway with his request, I might as well as trample through my exit like a toddler throwing a reluctant fit. Every noise I can possibly make, I do. Every wooden surface which could tattle on my retreat, it does. Boots may be great for winter and protection, gentle escapes, not so much.

  “Damn it,” Marxx sighs. He pulls me towards him with a jerk. Spinning me behind him he asks with a heavy voice, “What’s one more?”

  In my confused mind, I’m not sure if he’s asking about his death-- or mine. Watching him lift the muzzle of his gun to what is heading towards us from the room, apparently, it’s neither.

  It’s a single shot. He doesn’t even wait for his murderer to fall. With all the confidence he has always conveyed, he turns to walk down the stairs. He doesn’t step over the scattered limbs strewn around the room or their attached torsos. He doesn’t have the same fragile mindset as I did when I had entered the second floor. The brittle bones break under his thick boots. His prints leave stains upon the spots of unmarked carpet darker than the ones which have already soaked the thick fibers around us.

  My confused mind fights to put this new puzzle together. The edges don’t line up. The pieces don’t mesh. Nothing is locking into place with any solid answers or even half-clues.

  I follow him just the same. I’ve followed worse people to much more confusing places. After all, it’s Marxx with his warning labels of rage now no longer highlighted, but just as bold. He glances one more time over his shoulder to be sure I am following him. I am, but I can’t help but worry where his fine print is taking me.

  Chapter 19

  “About damn time,” Aimes states, as I step back out onto the porch where this whole thing started.

  I look to Rhett with confusion coloring every corner of my face. Like some dark gargoyle, he is leaning on the frame of my truck where he can watch over April with her legs dangling out the open door. His eyes glance towards me before adjusting back to the little girl. As always, they give no answer to his mental state, just a brief recognition of something shared over what must have happened only a few moments ago.

  Without his help, my mind is stuck, looping through what I saw in there and what I am seeing out here. They were dead and now one stands mocking me and the other just lead me through their tomb. I can’t help but wonder if this is how Alice felt when she first fell down the hole.

  “What did you do to her?” Aimes is waving her hand in front of my stunned face. She turns to Marxx asking, “How did you make her shut up?”

  Marxx does his normal half-smile before saying, “Found her that way.”

  I can feel Lawless analyzing me from behind his dark sunglasses where he sits on his bike. He says nothing though and I wonder if I’ve finally gone insane.

  “You were dead? I saw you both, dead,” I force the words to form. “Rhett…” I look to him for help. This time not physically, but for help just the same.

  If he heard me, he doesn’t answer. His eyes are all for the little girl he’s been using as a shield and as an excuse wrapped in one big ball of avoidance. His fingers fidget. They shake, tapping out a pattern along the metal of the big beast I stole. Rhett doesn’t have many tells, and when he does, it’s normally not a smart idea to push him. Unfortunately for me, I’ve never been very smart.

  I close the gap between me and Rhett in a few quick steps. I sense Lawless moving behind me, unsure of what mood swing I’m riding now. Rhett doesn’t turn to face me, not entirely. He lowers his head so that it swings towards me with his eyes blank and lips half curled. If his tell was a warning, the blank eyes should have been a screaming signal of caution. His half-smile is a declaration of danger. Yet, I stand here, face-to-face demanding answers.

  We don’t exchange words. We just stare at the other, each waiting for someone else to say the first word. Who it is, is not what I was expecting.

  “It’s my fault,” Genny’s voice shouts from where Peyton has gathered their group.

  Ginjer stands, letting her long hair announce her movements before her body does in a way I have only seen her capable of accomplishing. “It really is,” she says, having no guilt for throwing the teen under the blame bus. “I told her it was a dumb idea, but she takes after her mom. A bleeding heart, that one.” She whispers the last part as if the woman might overhear her opinion of her.

  Genny makes a noise as close to teen angst as I have ever heard. “What was I supposed to do?” she shrieks at the woman. Turning to Peyton, she asks again, “What was I supposed to do?”

  “What’s the plan?” Ginjer’s words crush Genny.

  I have no idea what hidden wounds those words hold, or why they do, but I’ve been around ‘family’ long enough to know a manipulation move when I see one. Ignoring the brute in front of me, I look to Lawless, and by his posture, I can see it didn’t slip past him, either.

  I cradle my head in my hands, asking in the self-made dark shelter, “Can someone just tell me what I’m missing?”

  “Boobs. Personality. A butt?” Aimes offers.

  I meant to glare at her. I was fully prepared to level her with our silent eye games. I wasn’t prepared to have my eyes land on the dumped body of her doppelganger resting on the edge of the driveway.

  Rhett’s watching me with a different interest, now. When our eyes meet again, that damn puzzle allows another piece to fasten into place.

  “Wait,” I can hear Aimes behind me also matching the picture forming to the box it belongs to, “you thought that was me?”

  Rhett and I say nothing. It's a different type of look we share, now. Before we were waiting for the other to speak first. Now, we want to be sure neither of us speaks at all.

  Aimes comes to stand beside us close enough to make herself be seen. “You both thought that was me?” she asks, letting the words unite Rhett and I, and hitting an annoyingly high pitch.

  We watch her walk to where the body has been discarded. She squats with not an ounce of shame to her investigation. She leans over to peer at the woman below her, tilting her head various angles. All she is missing is a stick to poke the deceased to complete the picture.

  Sighing, she stands and turns to us both. “I don’t see it.”

  “Blonde,” is all I can offer her, with my own explanation being bleak
.

  Aimes turns to the body again. “Really, Hells?” she asks. “Like my roots aren’t a mile long?”

  “I wasn’t looking at her roots,” I shrug, shutting off the words which want to spill out.

  I want to tell her all I saw was that morning in a crimson-caked hallway. I want to explain to her how every clinging moment of fear of having lost her that day was all that I could feel again, but I don’t, and neither does Rhett.

  “Obviously,” she mutters.

  Rhett mock whispers, “Carpet doesn’t match the drapes.”

  “Self-esteem doesn’t match the shaft,” she counters without a pause.

  Paula clears her throat. “Children.”

  “Them or Genny?” Marxx asks, already over the scene and settling into the seat of his bike.

  Sliding onto the bench of the truck, Aimes blows Marxx a kiss wrapped around her middle finger.

  “Children!” Paula glares at Aimes when she takes the seat beside her.

  “Definitely them,” Lawless echoes, but I can feel him still watching me. He’s waiting to see if the bomb has been diffused or if the explosion is still counting down.

  Aimes leans over to shout out the open door, “Why are we still standing around after we’ve just escaped attempted number two-hundred billionth on our lives?”

  “Where to?” I ask the two men who have become the rulers of our civil club.

  “Home,” Leigh glides past both groups, from who knows where, to throw a leg over Marxx’s bike. Wrapping her arms around him, she settles in behind him as if there was an invitation granted to her.

  “Home.” Lawless echoes, when Marxx doesn’t baulk over his new rider.

  “Sure thing, Polly,” replies Aimes, with a shout.

  I slide into my seat to start the truck’s engine. Black horses weave between my truck and the red Jeep parked near me. April watches them with a smile I used to wear when first hearing their engines come to life.

  “Start ‘em young.” Aimes pats April’s head and playfully tugs on her ponytail.

  She’s rewarded with a gentle laugh and it sets the whole cab of the truck into a smile.

  I nod to Peyton, letting him know to take the lead. Following him out, I brave the question to finally put the puzzle to rest, “What did Genny do?”

  “She opened the back door for two people running from the monsters,” April offers. “Then the monsters followed.”

  “She thought she was helping. She couldn’t stand by and listen to them die.” Paula tries to add more clarity. “We didn’t know how close the infected were or we would never have allowed it.”

  “And the plan?” Aimes asks.

  Paula leans a little deeper into the back of the bench seat. “It was the rules her mother used to have her repeat. Part of it is referenced to only help others if it were safe to do so.”

  “You’ve picked up a lot with the short time you’ve spent upstairs,” Aimes delivers the compliment with a backhanded meaning.

  If Paula was offended, she doesn’t admit it. She continues to run her fingers through April’s long hair blocking Aimes’ attempts to annoy her. Not many can ignore Aimes, but Paula has always been able to completely throw ice water on Aimes’ antics.

  Now I understand why Genny was instantly defeated by such a short phrase. We believe the dead hold higher expectations of us than they ever did when living. It makes failing them so much more painful.

  “So, the two I saw…?” I trail my question into the shared space, not caring which one of them answers.

  “Not yours truly.” Aimes smirks. “Touching, though. Did Rhett actually cry? Or, just pout?” she asks, making my mental breakdown all about her.

  “They were the two Genny tried to help.” Paula crosses her arms over her chest, still ignoring Aimes. “The girl never made it upstairs. We thought we were trapped until Lawless and Marxx arrived. They cleared a path and we went out in two separate directions for safety. Peyton took the two down the stairs. Jacob, so he said his name was, separated and went into a far bedroom. The rest of us climbed out a fire escape someone had installed on their child’s window. We met at the front, but when you weren’t there, Marxx rushed back in to find you. Lawless and Peyton stayed back to keep a path cleared just in case they missed any roaming in the house.”

  “And my father? Did he offer to look?” I don’t know why I asked. Some wounds just crave the salt.

  “He had his hands full with Genny.” Paula attempts to smooth over what she knows she is avoiding saying. The lemony zest hurts just the same.

  Aimes leans over April sitting between us to whisper, “That’s a no.”

  “Yeah. I got that,” I tell her, still tasting the salt of their answers.

  Aimes covers April’s ears and in the same attempted whisper asks, “Can we kill him, now?”

  “I can hear you,” April says, with an amused voice.

  Aimes shrugs, settling back in her section. “So home, huh?” she asks to no one and anyone.

  Home. It’s such a word filled with longing. We’ve heard it so many times here recently. Each time the ‘home’ proves to be anything but something for which to belong. Each time it’s been said we earn more scars, figuratively and literally. We lose someone we love. We are torn apart. Home isn’t a word I long for, anymore. It isn’t something I even crave as I once did with child-like hopes for safety.

  Home is just another word Truth and her sisters taunt us with. It’s a carrot on a stick, and to their amusement, we jump after it each time. We jump right off the ledge, never stopping to gauge the distance of the coming descent. Home isn’t where the heart lies. It’s just lies, and our hearts are the prize.

  Chapter 20

  I’m not sure how long we drove. My mind was weaving in and out of thoughts like the forgotten traffic patterns left along the cluttered roads of abandoned cars I steered us through. I traveled through thoughts of Chapel and how we seem to be lost without his gentle guidance. I thought of J.D.-- wondering where his leadership would have led us with the many twists and turns we have encountered to reach this point. With so many winding roads, and morale mishaps, how would the two of them be guiding us if they were among us? They each held their shades of grey, but J.D.’s was always so much darker than the rest.

  Marxx had taken the lead once we arrived on the main roads. With gentle nudges from Leigh, he had navigated our troupe through forest laden scenery. The long tree limbs reach for us like the nightmares from which we keep running. As if the limbs reminded Paula of the same thoughts, she has kept her eyes roaming the area, searching for any movement. When Aimes and April were on their billionth round of a random hand game, and just to the point of pushing me to pull over to trade them with another set of passengers, Leigh finally signaled for us to pull over and park.

  Around us, various other vehicles are tucked away in this almost hidden spot. Some look as if they had traveled their last mile years ago. The vines of the forest have overtaken them, stretching their way across their hoods and roofs to secure them as part of this new landscape.

  A few look as if they have just arrived, windows open, and awaiting their passengers to return. Only the streaks of various weather patterns left upon their paint tell of their discontinued use.

  As the truck slows, Aimes begins to mimic Paula, peering around the many thick trunks of trees surrounding the makeshift parking lot. “Seems kinda sketchy.”

  I shrug and exit the moaning door of my truck. I’m just happy to escape their chatter.

  “So, you’re not even going to wait and let them look around?” Aimes shouts.

  The slamming of my door is her answer.

  “April, don’t grow up like your Aunty Hells,” I can hear Aimes saying to the little girl beside her. “She’s moody, rude, and totally bi-polar.”

  They are sliding out of the truck now behind me. I don’t acknowledge that I heard them. I simply keep walking to where the group has congregated.

  “What’s bi-polar?” Apr
il asks.

  I figured I would hear some quip from Aimes, but it's Paula who shuts down the conversation.

  “It’s what men make women,” Paula says.

  I smirk as she walks past me.

  “Well it’s true,” she adds, looking as if she needed to defend her point of view.

  “Chapel, too?” I don’t know why I ask that. The words tumble out with him having been so present in my mind during the trip.

  I regret asking instantly and my face shows it. She lifts a hand to stop my pathetic attempt to apologize.

  “That man could drive a nun to sin,” she begins, “but he had a heart which would make a nun want to sin.”

  It’s the only explanation she shares as we come to join the others. Ginjer is doing full body rotations, keeping every inch of the wooded area in her sight. Terrence is resting on the body of the Jeep where most of the men have spread out the notebooks. His mind and cares are far away from our current situation. Genny and my father have somehow managed to end up right across from me. Like a battle line in the sand, our stance copies those emotions. Genny has a right to have that anger in her eyes for me. It’s not my nature to look away first. This time, I do.

  “The plan?” I ask the men gathered around the hood of the Jeep. I hadn’t meant to repeat the words Ginjer had used as a weapon earlier. I hadn’t meant to, but I can see their impact on Genny from the corner of my vision. If anyone else caught my mistake, they didn’t show it.

  “How about we just follow Crazy?” Aimes is pointing to the shoreline where Leigh is walking, having once again slipped away from the group without anyone noticing her.

  Rhett is the first to break. He walks to where Leigh is headed, saying, “Works for me.”

  “You running to follow a crazy brunette? Shocked!” Aimes follows him, to accompany or berate, not sure.

  I watch Leigh walk along the shoreline. She has no real motivation to her steps; no joy at the thought of rejoining her family. It’s the same slow, bored walk she has always displayed. Warnings tickle the back of my senses, whispering hints as to something I should be seeing, but since when have I ever listened to such sensations.