Love and Decay (27 page)

Which was fine with me.

Because like I said, he pissed me off.

I had never trusted Santi. There were
Colombians I would have died for back in Bogotá. I would have done
anything for the friends we had made in that city. But Santi had
always been after something.

For a long time I’d assumed he was after my
sister. But I wasn’t even sure about that anymore.

The man was an enigma.

A dirty, creepy, lazy enigma.

“Maybe I will go look for her. Someone has
to.” He ran his hand over the scruff on his chin in a cocky,
challenging gesture.

I didn’t have time for this. He was little
compared to my other problems. I took a step, trying to move around
him. “Let me know what you find out.”

He called after me. “My men are getting
restless. We were promised a war. So far, we’ve seen nothing but
this building.”

That was amazing coming from someone who been
a part of the same journey I had. A month ago, we’d all but crawled
into Diego’s territory on our very last leg. And now he was
bored?

“Nobody’s stopping you, Santi. Walk out the
door and go find yourself a war. We’re not standing in your
way.”

He tipped his head back and laughed at the
skylights. “That would be a mistake,
culo
. A huge
mistake.”

“Is there a problem?” Hendrix stepped up next
to me with Nelson beside him.

My brothers to the rescue. As if I couldn’t
take care of my damn self.

Santi leaned in. “No problem.” His accent
thickened. “Just wondering after Page.”

“We all are,” Hendrix answered.

Santi scurried off to the rat hole he’d
crawled out of and I looked fleetingly at the door. I needed out. I
needed fresh air. I needed space.

“What was that about?” Nelson pressed. “You
looked pissed.”

I shrugged. I didn’t exactly know how to
answer his question. “I am pissed. But I’m also on edge. I’m not
sure if Santi was trying to irritate the piss out of me or if I’m
just ready to fight someone.”

“Probably both,” Hendrix suggested. “But that
looked like more. Santi looked… agitated.”

“Santi doesn’t know when to shut his mouth.”
I stretched my arms over my head and yawned. I couldn’t remember
the last time I’d slept. Or at least slept well. I had been awake
all night waiting for Page and Luke to show up and when they hadn’t
I’d gone on a search and rescue mission that ended with the
remnants of what used to be Allentown burning in a massive inferno
that lit up the black night.

We had no idea if Page had survived or where
she’d gone if she had.

And so, those second in command to Luke had
declared that we wait here for their return. If they weren’t back
by dusk tonight, Luke’s people wanted to leave without them.

That was their contingency plan.

Apparently when things got tough here, the
tough… bailed.

What they didn’t realize was how loyal my
family was to one another. If Page wasn’t back by tonight, or hell,
if she wasn’t back in the next couple hours, we’d go out searching
for her again. And this time we wouldn’t rest until we found her.
No matter how many men and settlements and Feeders stood between
her and us. We would not stop until we had her back.

Even if we had to burn this entire country to
the ground.

Again.

“I’m going for a walk,” I announced. “I’ll go
crazy if I don’t move. I need air.”

Hendrix stepped back so I had more room. “Do
you want me to go with you?”

I looked at my older brother and considered
his offer. I could see concern etched across his brow and it wasn’t
just for Page. He was worried about all of us.

He always had been.

Vaughan had been the same way when he was
alive.

And Nelson was just like them.

They would do anything for their family. They
would take care of us till the very end. They would protect us,
fight for us… die for us.

It was awesome. Nothing made me feel more
secure than knowing I had three capable killers at my back every
step of the way.

But what they didn’t understand, what they
needed to realize, was that I was a grown man now. I could take
care of myself. I could deal with my own shit. Survive my own
issues.

And they had families to take care of now.
Their lives had grown bigger than just the siblings. Hendrix and
Nelson had to let us go… trust us to be the men, and woman, they
had taught us to be.

“I’m good,” I told Hendrix. “I need to be
alone for a while.”

“Sure?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Be safe then, yeah?” Nelson asked. “Don’t
wander off.”

I cracked a smile and lifted the front pouch
of my holster. “I’ll be okay, big brother. You don’t need to worry
about me.”

I walked through them before they could spout
some sappy shit at me about how they can’t help it or whatever.

Pushing through the old warehouse doors, I
followed the now familiar path to the back of the building. It was
pretty ingenious to use an old Wal-Mart to hide out in. The walls
were thick and sturdy. The location was out of the way, off the
main street. And the skylights added enough natural light that they
didn’t need to burn anything to see.

Still, just like everything else in this
godforsaken world, it was far from foolproof.

On the horizon the sun had just made its
first appearance of the day, but most of the sky was still a hazy
gray. I hadn’t realized how hot I’d been inside, how stifled I’d
felt. A line of sweat dripped down my back and dotted my forehead.
A light breeze curled around me, cooling my damp skin and giving me
the heady sense of relief I’d been looking for.

I walked the length of the building, trying
to keep to the shadows. It was easy back here with the building on
one side and a thick copse of trees on the other side of the
pavement. Warehouse docks provided more cover and abandoned cars,
either from the Resistance or other, made the place look
deceptively busy.

It felt weird to be alone. In Colombia I had
ventured out often by myself. But since we’d left, I’d rarely had
the opportunity to get away from my family for even a few
minutes.

I needed this right now. I needed to get
inside my head and sort stuff out. I talked a lot and joked a lot,
but needed time alone to figure out what was going on in my mind. I
just needed to turn down the noise and let my thoughts
marinate.

I had always been like this.

My family had always been big, so adding a
few tagalongs to our numbers over the last ten years hadn’t
bothered me. I was a more-the-merrier kind of guy. But I also
needed space.

And I needed to not be around every single
person I knew every second of every day.

The walking helped too. My body craved
activity. I preferred to be moving or fighting or doing something
to control all this jumpy energy inside me.

For my mind to be healthy, my body needed to
be too.

I could tell I’d been sitting for way too
long in there.

I let my fingers brush against the rough
concrete bricks of the building while I listened to every single
thing.

This world was so silent. So… dead. Even when
there was life, it always seemed to be shrouded in death.

While I was growing up, a place like this
would have been inundated with a myriad of sounds. Cars would have
been coming and going in the parking lot. Employees would have been
back here taking smoke breaks or unloading semis full of inventory.
Planes would have filled the sky with noise. Life would move and
communicate and come and go and never stop.

But now there was nothing.

The woodsy area to my left had fallen eerily
silent. The animals had either died or fled. The birds had
disappeared. Even the insects had ceased their incessant
chatter.

Every creature was afraid of the Zombie
threat.

Or if not Zombies, then the Colony.

It was the one thing that made hunting
Feeders so easy. We could hear them a mile away.

Or so we thought.

The Zombies in this part of the world had
apparently evolved into something worse. I’d been thinking about
how they could choose to be quiet long enough to capture a kill. It
terrified me. And not many things did.

But if they’d figured out that much. What
else could they figure out?

My mind whirled. My thoughts returned to Page
and her invaluable blood. Why hadn’t the scientists made a
breakthrough yet? And what was it about Page that had saved her but
not Vaughan?

After that, I remembered that my little
sister was still missing. And now I wanted to murder something.

She was smart. That was my saving grace. She
was too smart to get caught or eaten.

Page was a badass of the best kind. I had
full faith that she could fight her way out of anything.

But where the hell was she?”

In this cycle of endless thoughts, voices
interrupted my solitude of silence and forced me to tune back into
reality.

I let out an annoyed sigh and prepared to
turn around and head back around to the other side when their
foreign words caught my attention.

They were speaking Spanish. I recognized
Adela’s blistering tone instantly. Diego spat back at her and I
wanted to strangle him. Immediately. Without thought to the
consequences and without regret.

Inexcusable anger burned through me. It
seared my blood and set my heart pounding. I hated Diego. But even
more, I hated that he triggered this side of Adela… that he sparked
her furious passion, her fire… her wrath.

It probably made me certifiably insane that I
was jealous that she was mad at someone else… but I’d stopped
questioning my emotions concerning Adela a long time ago.

It was easier to accept them so I could
continue to ignore them.

I stopped moving… making sound… doing
anything that would give me away… and leaned against the cool brick
wall. They were speaking super-fast Spanish, but I’d picked up
enough over the last ten years that I got the gist of what they
were saying.

I stood there listening like an asshole, but
I couldn’t help myself. This wasn’t me. I might be nosey, but I
didn’t eavesdrop by standing in the shadows. I didn’t press my ear
against a wall and stop breathing so I could hear the intonation in
her voice and make sure she was okay.

And yet here I was.

Because just like every other time, when it
involved Adela, I acted like a complete buffoon.

She wanted Diego to back off. He was pushing
her to make a decision about whether she was going back to the
Territories with him, but she wouldn’t.

This was news to me, since I’d assumed that
was a foregone conclusion. She’d been waiting for ten goddamn years
to get back with Diego. Why would she hesitate now?

“What do you have to think about?” he
demanded.

“Everything,” she hissed. “I love these
people. They are my family. You took me from my family twice
already. I’m not going to let you do it again.”

“Once,” he snarled. “I took you from them
once. The second time, you left of your own accord.”

“To get away from you!”

“Adela, be reasonable. This place is not for
you. Come home with me. Come back to your family. Sit by my side as
my queen. I can give you anything you want. Anything you desire. It
is time that you got over our past so that you can rule with me.”
His voice dropped low and I could barely make out his final, “I
need you, my sweet.”

I wanted to punch something, but I wanted to
hear her response even more.

My chest squeezed tight and I thought my
muscles would rip through my skin. They were too tight… too wound
up.

I braced myself for what I knew was coming.
I’d heard it before.

I’d heard it too many goddamn times.

Ten years ago, I’d overheard a very similar
conversation to this one. Only I couldn’t understand it word for
word. I could just pick up on the sounds and body language.

But it had been as clear back then as it was
now, Adela loved this man. For whatever deranged reason, she
couldn’t help herself.

Sure it made me furious.

But it also made me feel sorry for her. Diego
was useful at times, but he was also psychotic. He kept Feeders in
cages and ran his Territories with an iron fist. He was as likely
to kill someone as he was to help them.

I expected more from Adela. Over the years,
I’d tried not to. God, I’d desperately tried to stop giving her
more credit than she deserved. But I couldn’t help it.

And then I was only disappointed when she
went back to Diego every freaking time.

The craziest part was that we hadn’t even
seen him in ten years! And yet I still lost to the filthy rat
bastard.

Adela answered him and everything inside me
stilled and stopped so I could here every little word, nuance and
whisper. “Diego,” she said, “we’ve been here before. I left for a
reason.”

“You left because you didn’t think I could
change.”

“And you didn’t!”

His low chuckle made me see red. “But, my
beautiful girl, I did. No more drugs. No more trafficking. I’m
settled. I’m only missing a queen to sit by my side.”

She let out an angry growl and I hated that
it was directed at Diego and not me. “Druglord to warlord is not
different! Why can’t you see that? You’re still the same person.
We’re still fighting over the same thing.”

I tensed when Diego’s tone turned dangerous.
I moved closer to the corner, readying to stop him from hurting her
at any cost. “No, you’re wrong. I am a king now. I am a god. Why
can’t you see that? Why are you being so difficult?”

I strained to hear her. “This is why,” she
whispered. “Why can’t you see it?”

Rocks were kicked and feet stomped over hard
ground. I pressed against the wall while staying on my toes in case
I needed to jump in. “So you’ve made up your mind? You’re staying?
You’re making me go home without you?”