Love and Decay (19 page)

“Lady,” he started, “There would not be
enough dirt on this planet to bury all the dead we’ve been
responsible for. Whether Feeders or men, we don’t have the time nor
the inclination to bury them when it’s so much easier to pile ‘em
up and light the whole damn thing on fire.”

The woman choked in disbelief. She lifted her
gun, then dropped it to her side just as quickly. “This is your
answer, Luke? These people? God, we’re so screwed. We need snipers
and you brought us cavemen.”

I balled my hands into fists just in case my
verbal warning didn’t stick, but Luke jumped in before I could do
anything.

“You’ve obviously never seen them fight,
Trish. Let them be. We have more important matters to discuss.”
Luke’s focus turned to Hendrix. “Maybe it made sense to burn bodies
where you were. We can’t do that here because it will give us away
real fast. We bury. Never burn.”

Hendrix nodded crisply. “Noted.”

“So you’re here,” Luke repeated. “For
good?”

“This isn’t a holiday,” Harrison laughed, but
it was bitter and humorless. “Did you think this was a
vacation?”

“I was thinking I hadn’t heard from you,”
Luke replied and his gaze flickered to mine. “I was thinking you
hadn’t showed up in the last ten years, why would I be expecting
that now?”

I stepped forward, hoping to distract Luke
from all my brothers’ pooling testosterone. “We’re here now. We
came to help.”

Luke took a step back. His posture changed at
the sound of my honest plea. His expression even opened up. He
softened somehow. Or not exactly softened. He… I didn’t know the
word. He was hard as stone one second. And in the next, it was like
he restrained the tension inside him. He didn’t become less hard.
But he also didn’t try to kill us. Or tell us to go back where we
came from. Or argue with us any longer.

And I was starting to realize, that moments
like this with Luke were as much of a win as we were going to
get.

“You’re right,” he acknowledged. “You’re here
now. That’s what matters.”

“So fill us in,” I prompted. “Tell us what’s
going on.”

His lips twitched. “Only if you tell me how
you got here. I want to know everything about your last ten
years.”

I felt my lips lift in a return smile.
“They’ll probably find a cure for Zombieism before I get through
half of what’s happened.”

“The highlights then,” Luke insisted. “And
you can give me the finer details later.”

I nodded. We spent the next hour and a half
going back and forth over the decade we’d been apart. Both of us
omitted any personal data and kept our story telling to facts and
analytic data. I felt like Shay or Oliver as they combed through my
blood looking for cures and vaccines.

I wanted to know everything about Matthias
Allen. I wanted to know Colony specifics in miniscule detail. I
wanted to know how much ground had been gained and lost… how many
people had been gained and lost- to either side.

And Luke did not disappoint.

With a civil detachment that I was starting
to realize belonged to him, he went into great detail about
Colonized cities and the great area of land controlled by the
Colony.

Life inside the walled cities sounded
horrific. I expected that, but I wasn’t exactly prepared for the
brutality and humiliation Matthias put his people through.

Matthias punished his people by openly
shaming them in what amounted to a public square. If someone or
someones
disappointed him then they were dragged to the
center of town and beaten senseless. Then they were tied up or
caged in or stripped naked, or whatever other humiliating method of
torture Matthias and his men thought up, and left there for days.
Sometimes they were beaten more than once. Sometimes they were
starved, desiccated and forced to endure all kinds of inclement
weather. Sometimes, when their crimes were considered particularly
bad, they were fed to Zombies.

While the rest of the city watched.

A memory flashed in my mind from childhood of
being trapped in Colony territory. I’d seen Matthias use Feeders
like this before.

I’d watched it happen.

Luke told us how they’d taken some, but not
much, land on the eastern border. It was hard to convince people to
side with them when they faced consequences like death by public
Zombie feasting or worse.

I didn’t know what was worse than being eaten
to death by a Feeder… but if anyone could think of something more
horrific than that, it was Matthias Allen.

In turn, we told Luke about our plight to
Colombia and losing Vaughan. It was hard to read his emotions, but
I believed he was truly upset about that.

If, for no other reason than, Vaughan had
been an invaluable fighter.

Still, I could respect anyone that mourned my
brother’s death.

We also told him about our time in Colombia
and how the Feeders had evolved to pack animals of sorts. We shared
the scientists’ research over the years, but everyone was mostly
disappointed that they hadn’t found a cure yet. We did not give
details about the blood they were researching or who it belonged
to.

That was a secret my family generally kept
locked up tight.

And then finally, we shared about our
decision to join the revolution after Hank showed up. Without
giving specific details, we told them we just knew it was finally
the right time.

“So here you are,” Luke acknowledged after
I’d wrapped up. “Joining the revolution.”

I nodded. “Joining the revolution.”

“It’s not going to be easy,” he warned.
“We’ve been fighting for ten years and don’t have much to show for
it.”

My brothers and Miller, Reagan and Haley and
Tyler, the Colombians, the Mexicans… even the scientists… everyone
bristled at the warning.

“We’ve never asked for easy,” Miller stated
firmly. “You think we’re cowards, but you’re wrong.”

“Nobody said that,” Luke snapped back.
“Nobody blamed you for leaving. Even after you found out Matthias
wasn’t dead.”

I was surprised when it was Hendrix that
spoke next. “You don’t have to say it for us to read it all over
your faces. It’s fine. You think we’re cowards for leaving. But it
wasn’t cowardice that made us leave. It was survival. It was love.
It was grief after losing too many loved ones. And say what you
want about us, but until now we’ve been able to raise our children
in relative peace and safety. Don’t misunderstand this. Do not
confuse family loyalty for weakness. Because then you will miss the
most crucial part about us. And to do that would be
foolishness.”

“What’s that?” the woman called Trish
demanded. “What’s the most crucial part about you?”

Hendrix took a step forward. His gaze briefly
met Reagan’s before it returned to the challenge. “That we will do
anything to protect each other. We will do anything to keep each
other alive. We’re here to help you, but our family comes first.
We’ll help you kill Matthias and take down the Colony, but nothing
will get between us. Nothing will stand in the way of my family’s
safety first. We are not loyal to you. We’re loyal to each other.
We’re not dedicated to your cause. We’re dedicated to keeping each
other alive. That’s the only reason we’re here. That’s the only
reason we’re willing to fight this war.”

There was a tense moment of silence that
stretched through both sides of the discussion. It twisted the air
with promise and bent the breeze with conviction. I could feel
their fear to respond to my brother’s obvious gravity.

Finally, Luke made a sound in the back of his
throat and threw his weaponed hand to the side. “What are you doing
here then? If you’re so afraid to lose someone you should have
stayed where you were!”

Hendrix looked at me this time. “That is the
exact reason we didn’t stay where we were.”

Luke’s focus drifted to me, too. He stood
silently, seeming to read all the unsaid things in Hendrix’s
speech. The hazy moonlight highlighted one side of his face,
obscuring the other side in total darkness. He looked savage like
this. Half demon. Half man. His high cheekbones and full lips were
only half complete. His dark eyes and tussled dark hair only
accented the warrior in him, the raging fighter that struggled
tirelessly for peace and freedom.

When he spoke, his voice dropped, his tone
became something demanding and frightening. “You want to fight,
Page?”

I swallowed a hundred different responses. I
could have written a book on all the reasons I was here. Instead, I
told him the most honest truth I could think of. “I want to
win.”

The lightened side of his mouth lifted in a
startling smile. I swallowed again as I tried to make sense of this
new version of him.

He held out his hand to me and I let him
shake mine in a hard, firm grip as a sign of solidarity. As a
coming together of two different camps. As an alliance that would
shake the Colony to its very fibers.

Electricity sparked between our palms,
zinging up my arm and down to my belly. I flinched from the force
of it… from the sheer power buzzing between us.

Luke held my gaze and I watched the surprise
play out in those mysterious eyes of his. Then I watched as he
accepted whatever that was… As quickly as the sensation shocked
him, he conceded to it. His gaze turned accepting… allowing…

Approving.

“And now you’re finally here,” he smiled at
me, repeating the sentiment for the hundredth time. “Now you’re
finally a part of this.”

I licked dry lips and realized that this
handshake meant more than his hug earlier. I realized that my
presence meant something significant to him.

I realized now was the exact moment I joined
the revolution.

This was it.

This was finally the place in my life where I
would kill Matthias Allen.

Chapter Two

We left the barn the next day at twilight.
Luke had wanted to be able to make use of the night as best he
could.

I learned that Luke and his people usually
traveled at night. Not that it was easier. Not that there was such
a thing as easy anymore. Traveling blindly through the dark made it
simple to get lost and off track. It often took them twice as long
to travel the same distance at night than it would during the day.
Also, the Feeders were the most troublesome in the dark. Traveling
at night was not ideal.

But Luke’s people would rather face all of
those obstacles than Matthias’s men.

The survival of Luke’s people hinged on
secrecy. If Matthias found them, he killed them. If Matthias caught
them, he killed them. If Matthias heard of anyone in his Colony
connected with them, he killed them, too.

If Matthias ever found their base of
operations, the whole thing was over.

Just like that.

He’d kill every last one of them. Man. Woman.
Child.

Luke had to fight just as hard to stay out of
Matthias’s way as he did to take down the Colony. It explained why
he hadn’t made a great deal of progress over the years.

For as hardass and dedicated to the cause as
Luke and his people were, a large settlement of family and
survivors did not regularly battle or go on missions. Luke called
them the Underground.

I would soon learn that he meant that
literally.

We packed into vehicles of all shapes and
sizes. Luke had farmers in his settlement that knew the basics of
biodegradable fuel. None of the trucks was pretty. None of them ran
well. None of them was comfortable. But they did the job. And after
walking across countries, deserts, endless miles of highway and
Zombie-infested lands… I was happy to have something to ride
in.

Travel was slow as we worked our way toward
the middle of America. Luke explained that we were headed toward a
place that used to be called Kansas.

I tried to match my head knowledge with my
experience, but it was difficult. In my memories, America was
nothing but a wasteland of death and destruction. I knew the names
of the places we’d been, like a tangible timeline of my life.

Illinois- where I was born.

Missouri- where we’d met Reagan and Haley for
the first time.

Arkansas- where we’d run into the Colony for
the first time.

Oklahoma- where we’d found Gage and the
Compound.

Oklahoma- where Kane, Miller’s older brother,
had died.

Oklahoma- where I’d killed Linley Allen,
Matthias’s wife.

Oklahoma- where we’d finally escaped the
Colony.

Texas- where we’d crossed the border into
Mexico.

But I also possessed a head knowledge that
outlined the Colony’s territories based on Luke’s description of
them in his letters and the testimonies of the men that had visited
us on behalf of Luke and his dad over the years.

My head knowledge wanted to experience being
back in the former United States with cool calculation. But the
emotional side took every familiar thing… every trigger to a memory
I didn’t know I had… every English word I could read and American
style housing and construction and sense that I was home and where
I belonged… very hard.

I wanted to weep for my homeland. I wanted to
explore it all and protect whatever was left of it, all those good
but hidden places I knew still existed.

My grief for my parents, for my older
brother, for this world felt freshly ripped open.

I was no longer a stranger to a strange
world. I was a resident. I was a citizen.

This was
my
home that was ravaged by
an insidious infection.

This was
my
land that was ruled by an
evil, psychotic dictator.

This place belonged to me.

To my family.

To the men and women fighting for
freedom.

But as we moved in the cover of darkness, I
could see why the people had handed their rights over to
Matthias.