Love and Decay (18 page)

I’d seen it over and over again as I grew up.
They were memories ingrained on my mind… images I could never
forget.

And so for whatever reason, I’d applied those
memories to Luke.

After all these years of separation and
letter writing and anticipation, I’d expected us to fly together
and wrap our arms around each other violently.

I’d expected the wind to be knocked from my
lungs and tears to cling to my lashes.

I’d expected my hands to shake and the very
foundation of the world to tremble in this grand reunion.

But that didn’t happen.

And when I realized I’d been waiting for it
to happen, I couldn’t remember why I’d wanted it to. I barely knew
Luke. He was still a stranger after this last decade.

I barely remembered him before we were
separated and now… now it had taken serious detective skills to
spot him in a crowd.

It seemed to be the same for him. His eyes
had searched my family and friends, looking for me. I had known it.
I had seen his gaze scan each face, determining if he could
decipher the little girl he’d once known in the aged lines and
matured features.

Finally, his focus fell on me. But it wasn’t
at all like I’d imagined. Instead, he moved toward me slowly. His
arms at his sides, his mouth slightly ajar.

He stopped just a foot away. I could sense
the electric charge in the air, the tangy taste of metal on my
tongue. My heart pounded in my chest and my blood rushed with
aggressive excitement.

Luke.

After all this time… Luke.

“It’s you,” he rasped just above the whisper
of the wind.

I nodded, suddenly aware of everything around
me. I felt my family press in, my friends watch on with
open-mouthed curiosity. I felt the tickle of the breeze dance
through my hair, tossing the loose strands. I sensed his people
watching with just as much fascination.

All of my senses perked up and paid
attention.

My lips smiled as the words jumbled in my
mouth trying to make sense out of each other. “It’s you,” I
echoed.

He swallowed audibly as if he had something
to be nervous about. I wanted to scream and dance and shout that
we’d finally found him… that we had finally reached the end of our
journey, but I couldn’t force my body to do what I wanted it to
do.

His hands fell awkwardly on my shoulders and
then ran down my biceps until he could wrap his arms around my
waist and pull me in for a real hug.

His body pressed against mine and I inhaled
this new Luke smell that I had never smelled before and laid my
head on a shoulder that felt too hard and too different and too…
brave for me.

His breath pushed against the hair at my
nape. “It’s good to see you again, friend.”

Emotion finally surfaced, past the shock,
beyond the speechless awe. “You too. It’s good to see you again,
too.”

He didn’t linger in our embrace. He pushed
back, placed his hands on my shoulders again and smiled so brightly
I wasn’t sure that it was the same person anymore.

In the five minutes I’d been around Luke, I
could tell that he was a hard man. He looked ten years older than
his age, which was only a few years older than me. Deep lines
etched through his forehead and from the corners of his eyes; his
mouth had a serious tilt towards a permanent frown.

Even his initial smile looked slightly…
forced.

But now, this one, this smile that stretched
as wide as it could and revealed straight, white teeth, lit up his
entire face. He looked younger instantly. He looked happier and
relieved and… grateful.

This smile was a peek at the soul I
instinctively knew was hidden from everyone, out of necessity for
the cause.

And probably because life sucked at the end
of the world.

If I had lost all of my family, I wouldn’t
have anything to smile about either.

He laughed low and deeply. “I can’t believe
you’re here.” And then he was gone. He pulled back and went
straight to Hendrix. He then shook Nelson’s hand, introducing his
people and my family as he moved through the crowd.

I shook hands with several people with names
I forgot as soon as they moved on. I probably could have remembered
them under normal circumstances, but my mind overflowed with new
information and I didn’t have a place to store it all.

I stood toward the back of the crowd and
watched Luke’s expression change to wild wonder when he was
introduced to Diego. “
The
Diego?” he asked.

Diego leaned in with all his suave machismo
and smirked. “The one and only.”

I rolled my eyes as the two men clasped
hands. Only Diego could pull off an introduction like that with his
lilting accent and warlord aura.

As the night darkened and the wind turned
colder Miller stood next to me with arms crossed over his chest.
“Is this what you expected?”

His voice held that darkness he constantly
warned me about and I didn’t know whether to be honest with him and
risk his anger at Luke and his community, or lie to him and risk
his anger with me when he found out the truth.

Instead, I settled for, “No, it’s not. But
how could I have possibly known what to expect?”

“They have a lot to prove,” Miller murmured.
“I’m not impressed so far.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it. Of course, big,
bad Miller wasn’t going to be impressed with them. I doubted he
would ever be impressed with them or what they’d done.

“We’ve only known them for ten minutes,” I
pointed out. “They still might surprise you.”

I felt his gaze on my profile. “They’d just
better not surprise you,” he countered.

I chewed on my lip, hating that my thoughts
were so aligned with his. And not because I didn’t trust Miller,
but because I really was surprised that I didn’t trust Luke.

After all these years of writing and planning
and thinking, I had expected Luke and me to share this insane bond
that transcended time and space and zombie apocalypses.

But seeing him for the first time after such
a long time… I had to admit the truth. Luke was a stranger. There
was no bond. There was no interstellar connection. There was not
even a hint of nostalgic intuition.

I didn’t know this man.

I didn’t know anything about him.

Maybe it was the distance. Or maybe it was
the difference between our lifestyles. Maybe it was who he was and
who I was and the fact that neither of us could trust anyone on
this planet outside of our own people. And maybe those skeptical,
paranoid feelings extended to each other, despite our future
dependence on one another.

Or maybe it was just the proximity to
Matthias that made me jumpy.

Whatever it was, I felt itchy and nervous. My
skin crawled with warning and the knots in my stomach tightened. I
couldn’t let my guard drop.

Not yet.

“So,” Luke announced, addressing the whole
crowd. “Your first impression of our little operation isn’t a very
good one. We use this place for overnight visits only. And we came
down here with the very simple mission of extracting Riple. Having
y’all here is something of a surprise. A good surprise to be sure.
But an unexpected one as well.”

“We’re easy guests,” Hendrix told him. “We’ll
only bother you for as long as it takes to kill Matthias, then
we’ll gladly get out of your way.”

Hendrix’s words were met with enthusiastic
group cheers that warmed my heart a little. At least we had a
common purpose. Even if I didn’t trust these people instinctively,
at least they wanted to take out the Colony.

“Hey, we can open our doors for that!” Luke
called back. “But the logistics for at least the next few days are
a little harder to hammer out. We had planned to wait until
tomorrow night to head toward home. But with so many of y’all, I’m
not sure that’s the best idea. How about we go inside and you can
debrief us on what happened and how you came to know our man
Ripley.”

“Oh, that was nothing but a little providence
of fate,” Ripley declared.

Miller leaned in, “He might be right about
that.”

I had thought the same thing, too, over the
last thirty-six hours. What were the chances of meeting up with
someone from Luke’s people the second we were captured? I mean,
that had to be a miracle right?

Or something close to it.

Or the complete opposite of it.

I looked at Miller and noted his grim
expression. “You don’t trust him?”

“Page Parker, my circle of trust is more like
a straight line from me to you and then back to me again. I don’t
trust most people.”

“My brothers,” I whispered to him.

He didn’t bother answering. The message was
clear. Of course he didn’t trust Ripley. Of course he didn’t trust
Luke. Of course he would never trust another person ever again.

But he really did trust my brothers.

We followed Luke and half his people into the
barn, while the rest of them spread out with their weapons raised,
providing cover. I wanted to have a feeling of relief that they
were watching out for us. But it was more like the opposite. They
were pretending to be on the lookout for Feeders, while keeping us
under the threat of their weapons.

I wrinkled my nose. They didn’t trust us and
that was annoying. I could only understand it because if the
situation were reversed, there was no way in hell we would trust
them. But just because I understood it, didn’t mean I liked it.

The inside of the barn was even darker than
the black night. The moon and starlight barely penetrated the heavy
shroud of the barn. And where there was a streak of light, it
landed on ambiguous shadows or rusted machinery.

The siding lifted in places where the wind
blew strongest. The walls would creak and rattle only to slam back
against the frame when the wind hit it just right. Overhead the
roof behaved in the same way. The rafters groaned and whined at the
night sky, railing at the moon as if it were a prison guard on a
prison planet.

Goosebumps spread over my skin and my back
snapped straight. I didn’t like this place. I didn’t like feeling
like I was trapped here.

I didn’t like that this wasn’t the cozy
homecoming I’d expected it to be.

“It’s not much,” Luke announced once we’d all
gathered around him inside. “But it’s dry and the ground is pretty
clean.” He turned to my sisters-in-law with their children in hand.
“We set out blankets on the ground over there, if you’d like to sit
down.”

Reagan and Haley mumbled their thank yous and
herded their children over. Santi and his guys followed so they
could sit, too- because that was how they operated.

Luke’s inflection didn’t change. His
expression didn’t light up. Physically, he gave nothing away when
he said, “You’re here.” But there was something behind his tough
façade that gave me hope that this quest wasn’t a complete waste of
time. He went on. “I… When Hank didn’t come back… I gave up
hope.”

My brothers shared a look and then surprised
me by looking back at me. Hendrix lifted his eyebrows expectantly.
Apparently I was taking the lead on this one.

I cleared my throat, “Yeah… he was in a
pretty bad way by the time he reached the station. He, uh, had just
barely survived the journey.”

Luke’s eyebrows pinched together. “He knew
the risks and he was one of my best men. I didn’t think he’d have
trouble with the distance.”

I cleared my throat for a second time. “It
was more than the distance. It was… well sometimes… Er, sometimes
it’s harder on their minds than their bodies.” I thought of Stevie
nearly dying in the hallway of the research station. “For Hank, his
mind was as sick as his body.”

“So he didn’t make it?” Luke pressed.

I shook my head. At least for this part, I
didn’t have to pretend remorse. “No, he didn’t.”

Luke’s head dropped and all of his people
mimicked the pose. They put their hands over their hearts and
whispered something I couldn’t make out.

“Did you bury him?” one of Luke’s men
asked.

I tried not to squirm. “In a way.”

I felt a dozen gazes pin me in place. I had
the full attention of the room. “What does that mean?” Luke
demanded.

I decided I didn’t want to be the lead
anymore. I should have forced Harrison to do this. Or King.

Or Miller.

Or really any other person than me.

“We burn our dead,” I answered confidently.
“So, yes, we gave him a proper funeral, but we didn’t exactly bury
him.”

An angry outcry tumbled through the crowd.
Great, I’d just made enemies with our only allies on this entire
continent in less than ten minutes of meeting them.

That took skill.

A special kind of skill.

Be jealous.

“They’re not like in the movies,” a woman
standing next to Luke said.

Since she was staring directly at me, I felt
compelled to answer her. “What?”

“The Feeders,” she bit out. “If you bury a
dead man, he won’t actually come back as a Zombie. They have to be
bitten for the infection to transfer.”

I was so stunned by her snarky response that
I couldn’t form words to reply. Instead I looked at Miller with
wide, infuriated eyes and silently passed this task off to him. I
could not even begin to deal with someone that talked to me like
that without using violence.

And I was pretty confident Luke would frown
on violence.

At least between us.

He had to be pro-violence with everyone
else.

Right?

…

Right.

Of course.

Miller stepped forward. His tall frame seemed
especially intimidating tonight as he sized up this mouthy woman.
He paused before talking, as if he needed to pick each word extra
carefully. And when he finally answered the accusation, the entire
room cowered from the force of him.