Love and Decay (17 page)

“Here’s what happened. It’s crazy that you
showed up last night. And in that damn hole. We only came down this
far south because one of the runners said that Diego had left the
Territories. So Matthias wanted a patrol along the fence. Well
that’s fine and all, but we’ve got a long stretch of fence to
patrol. So we’ve been taking shifts. I just happened to be on last
night’s shift because Tony had the stomach bug and he couldn’t get
off the damn toilet. So there I was on a shift that wasn’t mine,
when Feeders set off the alarm. And what do you know, when we go to
check out the Feeder problem, we find the freaking Parkers instead!
How crazy is that!”

We all stayed silent as we tried to process
this guy’s explanation.

He took our silence as proof we understood,
so he went on while the rest of us tried to keep up. “What’s even
crazier is that this was one of my last shifts. I was going to
defect, you see. I was headed back to Kansas within the next few
days. But Luke wanted me to stick around for as long as I could.
But things were getting dangerous. More than I was particularly
comfortable with. I knew I had to get out and I knew it had to be
fast before I ended up on one of those blocks in the center of the
city. So I’d already radioed Luke and told him to come get me. So
not only do you show up on the one night I’m patrolling, but Luke
already has men out here to throw a diversion in the way and get
you free.”

My eyes widened while he spoke. For as hard
as he was to understand I realized we had been up against a whole
lot more than we’d realized. Even after we crossed the border, none
of us had been ready for the crisis ahead.

“Y’all! You’re here!” The kid continued to
grin at us like we were the answer to all of life’s problems, when
really he’d solved a whole bunch of ours.

“We should go,” Hendrix decided.

The kid sobered some. “We should. There’s a
rendezvous spot a few days from here. They’ll be expecting us.”

Nelson sighed, “I have to ask this for my own
peace of mind. Is this a trick of some kind?”

The kid tipped his head back and laughed.
“I’m wondering the exact same thing. I guess we’ll both find
out.”

That didn’t make anybody happy, but it was
the best answer we were going to get from him.

Hendrix stuck out his hand and said, “I’m
Hendrix by the way. And I’m going to drive. But you’re welcome to
give me directions to the safe house.”

The kid eagerly shook Hendrix’s hand and
grinned like a lunatic. “Hendrix Parker. I can’t believe it. I’m
Ripley. It’s so nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Hendrix finished. “Ripley, sit up
front with me and tell me where I’m going.”

Ripley bounced on his toes, looking very
excited to be given the honor.

The rest of us piled in the back of the
truck, except for Diego and Harrison, who announced they would be
riding with Ripley to help him remember the right way to the safe
house.

The rest of us crammed into the back of the
truck, barely fitting. I had to sit on Miller’s lap, but even that
wasn’t comfortable for him because his legs kept falling
asleep.

I didn’t know if Hendrix was trying to drive
like a maniac or if it was the nature of the road and the accident
in front of us, but it wasn’t long before I’d decided to never ride
in a car again. My stomach churned and a headache crept along my
brainstem and temples.

I turned and lay my head against Miller’s
chest. He was dirty and exhausted, but I didn’t care. I just needed
his touch right now… I just needed him to hold me against him and
never let me go.

“Page,” he murmured against the top of my
head.

I drowsily looked up at him, feeling the
drain and exhaustion from last night and the day before. Miller’s
hand splayed over my spine and he held me close.

“I guess we’re closer to Luke and his
resistance than we thought,” he murmured.

“Isn’t it amazing?” I let out a weary sigh.
“After tonight, I’m not sure we could have just stumbled around the
States and found them. This is so much better.”

“You’re too trusting, Page Parker.” He
laughed, but I didn’t hear humor in his voice. And when I looked up
at him there was a hardness in his dark eyes… a resistance that
seemed out of place for the last several days.

“Yeah, amazing…”

“We’re almost there, Miller. We’re so close.”
My eyed drifted shut without my permission. They were just too
heavy to hold open for a second longer.

Besides that, Miller’s soothing touch and
warm body helped lull me to sleep. The adrenaline had finally
rushed out of me and I felt like a skeleton version of the badass I
usually was.

Even though my eyes were closed and my body
had started to relax, my thoughts still spun with things I needed
to do and say. “Be nice to Luke,” I mumbled to him.

“What was that?” He leaned down so my lips
brushed his ear.

It was loud in the truck with all of the
people and the roar of the engine underneath us, so I wasn’t
surprised when he couldn’t hear me.

I tried to stir up enough energy to help him
out, but the longer I lay there the farther away they slipped. “Be
nice to Luke,” I said more confidently.

His warm chuckle rumbled through me. “What
makes you think I wouldn’t be?”

“The darkness,” I whispered. I was too far
gone to realize what I’d said or how defensive it could make
Miller. I was too close to sleep to feel anything real like
embarrassment or shame. “Don’t let the darkness win, Miller.”

Before Miller could reply I finally slipped
into complete slumber. With my head nestled on his chest, his
strong arms around me and finally out of danger, I didn’t stand a
chance. I curled one arm around him, holding onto him in my
sleep.

In my subconscious I hadn’t realized I’d said
those thoughts out loud. In my sleep, I didn’t think Miller had
responded to them.

But if I’d stayed awake for just a minute
longer… if I had been able to see his reaction or listen to his
whispered promise, I would have realized that Miller had no
intention of ever being nice to Luke.

And Miller had never once believed that he
could stop the darkness.

In Miller’s mind, the darkness had already
won.

Episode Seven

Chapter One

It was dark again by the time we got there.
Feeders and damaged road made our journey difficult and epically
uncomfortable.

By the time I crawled out from the back of
the truck, my legs ached and my butt was numb. I stumbled around on
the dirt road until my ankles were mobile again and the roaring in
my ears had died down.

I lifted my gaze from the ground and found
the remnants of an old fashioned barn in front of us. So, the safe
house was less of a house and more like ruins from a world passed
away. But there it was. The resistance.

The revolution.

Luke and everything he had to offer.

My insides tangled in knots as I attempted to
breathe through my rising panic. Suddenly, nerves crippled me. I
had been perfectly fine all day… all year… all of the years before
now. I had pictured this moment since I was a little girl.

I had dreamed about it.

Fought for it.

Sacrificed for it.

But now that it was here??? I couldn’t face
it.

I had always pictured meeting Luke in the
daylight. The sun would be shining and he would run out towards me,
sweeping me up in his arms and hugging me so tightly I couldn’t
breathe.

After all, I had built him up to be this hero
in my mind. He fought the fight we couldn’t. He demanded the
revolution we had been unable to inspire.

He was actually working against Matthias,
while I had never done anything but think about it.

Luke was everything I wanted to be, but now
that it was time to meet him… I was scared.

And rightfully so.

Ripley jumped down from the truck cab and
stretched his gangly arms over his head. He shook his shaggy hair
and made a funny sound as his cheeks filled with air. When he
caught me staring at him, he winked and smiled.

He was likeable enough. I hadn’t had much of
a chance to get to know him since I’d been imprisoned in the human
spaghetti bowl in the back, but whenever we’d stopped or fought
over the past thirty-six hours, he had been an active, valuable
asset to our group.

“This is the safe house?” Harrison demanded,
as he joined Ripley on the ground. At Ripley’s enthusiastic nod,
Harrison added, “This looks neither safe nor like a house.”

Joss let out a long sigh. She’d come to stand
next to me and I could feel the judgment radiating off her.

I gave her a sideways look. “It’s not exactly
the splendor of Mexico City.”

She tugged at the black scarf she kept tied
around her neck. “You’re right about that.” She breathed another
long sigh. “But I gave it up for a reason. This is what I
chose.”

I suppressed a smile. “You don’t sound
certain about that.”

It was her turn to give me an assessing
glance. “You don’t either.”

My stomach clenched with uncertainty and I
turned back to the shadowed barn. I didn’t like that she barely
knew me and could read me so easily.

I needed to at least pretend the confidence
I’d felt back in Bogotá. Like Tyler always said, “Fake it, till you
make it.”

“I just want to get the kids someplace safe,”
I told Joss. “This doesn’t exactly look like the stronghold of
safety and civility I was hoping it would be.”

Ripley’s low whistle pulled our attention to
him. He walked toward the barn with hands raised out to his sides
and weapons strapped to his back where they would appear the least
threatening.

The barn walls, or what remained of them,
rattled in the night breeze. The sky was clear overhead, shedding
moonlight on the rusted roof. The walls had been stripped in
places, by weather or man, and the wind sang as it rushed through
the open places.

The drive had remained dirt and gravel, but
the yard surrounding the barn was overgrown with tall grasses and
brambles. My heart hammered wondering about what kind of things
could hide away in there.

If Luke and his men weren’t here, then for
sure there would be a horde of Zombies waiting to ambush us.

Or Matthias’s men.

Or monsters and demons and the boogeyman.

That was just the nature of this barn- almost
cliché in the way it stood so ominously and forbidding.

In the way, it threatened every one of my
expectations and assumptions.

A high pitched whistle answered Ripley’s
initial call. Ripley stepped forward, cupping his mouth with one
hand, “I’ve got a delivery,” he hollered. “Did someone order a
package of Parkers?”

There was a thick moment of silence where
nobody made a sound. Even the wind quieted down to highlight how
still everything became.

The leaves stopped rustling. The tall grass
ceased its swishing. The entire world ground to a halt while two
different parties from two very different sides of the world
prepared to meet face-to-face.

As quickly as everything stopped, everything
started again. The obscure blackness from the barn shifted with
life until it became shadows of men and women. Only the hazy
outline of them appeared at first, making them look like winged
demons trying to cross the veil between this realm and another. But
as they moved closer to us, weapons raised and guards up, they
became the shapes and figures that made the most sense.

Humans, not demons.

Men and women, not zombies.

Dangerous. Lethal. Filled with purpose and
revolution and… hate for the tyrant they sought to bring down.

I recognized him immediately. Not because I
remembered his face or had been able to picture what he would look
like all grown up.

Instead, it was in the way he carried
himself. In the way his shoulders pushed back and the muscles in
his arms flexed and tightened. It was in the lines of his jaw and
the way his mouth slashed across his face in a determined
frown.

Mostly though, it was in those eyes. It was
in the way they swept over our group with quick calculation and
lasting judgment. It was in the flicker of intelligence and flash
of understanding.

It was the way he found me only seconds after
I had found him.

His eyebrows lifted with subtle
acknowledgment and the corners of his lips kicked up with
disbelief. “You came,” he stated so simply.

It could have been an insult. After
everything it had taken to get my family to leave Colombia. After
the relentless hardship of our journey. After getting caught only
hours after crossing the border…

Luke’s words could have been taken badly.

But they weren’t.

There was a depth of pain and understanding
in those two simple words that declared how deeply he understood
our sacrifice. His baritone voice rasped over the words as if he
had to drag them from his lungs and push them out of his mouth. His
gaze deepened with understanding. His expression grew grim and
optimistic all at the same time.

As his hands started to shake, he dropped his
arms to his sides, lowering his weapon, then dropping it to his
feet. And his mouth. Those full boy lips lifted in a smile that
held the very limits of relief and gratitude and hope.

Before today I had always imagined us
crashing together in the middle of a big crowd. I’d seen the way my
brothers opened up their arms for the women they loved and caught
them. I watched as Hendrix would catch Reagan as she flew through a
crowd and launched herself into my brother’s arms. I’d witnessed
Haley search desperately for Nelson until she finally found him and
then she’d throw herself at him, trusting that he would catch her…
that he’d never let her fall.

I even remembered how Vaughan would hold
Tyler’s gaze and simply open his arms for her to collapse into.