Love and Decay (30 page)

King snapped his fingers like he’d just
thought of something, “Oh, it’s because of that thing.”

The guy’s eyebrows lifted. “What thing?”

“That thing,” King mumbled. “We’re in a… a
famous singing group.”

The guy’s eyes went big. That was the very
last thing he’d ever expected to hear. “A what?”

“No, it’s true,” King insisted. “We’re a
traveling acapella singing group.”

I’d have laughed if there weren’t so many
guns pointed at my face.

The spokesman turned to me. “Are you shitting
me?”

“It’s true,” I said with a straight face.
“We’re called… Aca-Pocalypse. You’ve probably heard of us. We’re a
pretty big deal.”

The engine was loud, but I clearly heard King
cough to cover his laugh.

The other guy lifted his gun again and aimed
it right at me. “You think this is funny? You think this is some
kind of joke?”

“Not at all,” I answered. “We take harmonies
very seriously.”

He didn’t look like he believed me. And I
didn’t blame him. Clearly he was smarter than he looked. “We’re
taking you back with us,” he declared. The guns stayed trained on
us.

“Taking us where?”

His eyes narrowed on me. “
With us
.
That’s all you need to know.”

“But your city is on fire,” I argued. “I want
to know where you’re taking us.”

“Well, we’re not taking you to the city,” he
growled. He turned around and shouted for two guys to jump down and
commandeer our vehicle.

My pulse jumped as I gaged how much time I
had before I had to get out of here. “But where are you taking us?
We’re just trying to get through, man. We don’t want any
trouble.”

“Then don’t be trouble,” he grunted. “You’ll
be fine. Just don’t fight us and we won’t have to hurt you.”

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

From the corner of my eye, I checked on
Adela. She’d listened. Her body was squeezed between the front seat
and the narrow backseat.

Good girl.

“You’re not going to tell me where you’re
taking us? Fine. But at least tell me you caught the people that
set your town on fire.”

I felt my mistake as it left my mouth.
Awareness rumbled through the other side and the spokesman’s eyes
widened. “How do you know
someone
started that fire?”

The gunmen that were supposed to take over
the driving were on either side of the doors. I locked them.

“Unlock the doors,” the one closest to me
ordered. He pointed his gun right at my head. I’d waited too
long.

“Was it you?” the first guy shouted. “Are you
the ones that started the fire?”

That right there. That was what I needed to
know.

“Sorry,” I told them. “It wasn’t us.”

“Unlock the door,” the guy at my side
demanded. “Or we’re going to start shooting. Maybe we’ll kill you
all at once. Maybe we’ll do it one by one. Let you watch as your
friends die.”

“Alright, alright.” My hand moved to flick
the lock open. The gunman’s satisfied smile stretched across his
face.

The moment was right. I slammed the door
open, right into that smug expression. His gun flew to the side
while I yanked the gearshift into drive.

Gunshots started firing as I slammed my foot
on the gas. Glass shattered behind me and Adela screamed as it
rained down on her. I ducked down and kept driving.

Swerving around the abandoned car, I gunned
it forward to get as much of a head start as possible.

I yanked the wheel to the right and then to
the left, trying to evade flying bullets.

In another three seconds we pulled ahead and
out of range. They’d had to wait for their grounded men to board,
giving us just the opening we needed to take off.

I turned a fast corner and ignored the
expletives shouted from all directions. I strained to keep my eyes
on the road in front of me, but I was drawn to the rearview mirror
every ten goddamn seconds.

At first it was to count everyone and make
sure nobody was shot. Miller, Joss and King were just now lifting
their heads off the truck bed to see if they were safe yet. But it
looked like they’d miraculously gotten away without a scratch.

So far.

“Everyone okay?” I shouted inside the
cab.

“Fine!” Adela squeaked from the floor.

“Peachy,” Mertz squeaked.

I turned to him. “Did you think we were going
to die?”

“I still think I’m going to die!” he shouted
back.

That made me smile. For a half second.

The roar of the chasing engine overpowered
ours. I glanced in the rearview mirror again and found them gaining
ground.

It had been a bad idea to incite them, but
I’d gotten the information I needed.

If they thought, even for a second, that we
were the ones that had set the fire that meant they didn’t have the
people that actually set the fire.

That meant Page was still out there.

That meant that we just had to find her.
Rescue here. Get rid of the truck behind us. And survive.

So basically, just another day in the
neighborhood.

Chapter Three

Gun shots rang through the air as they tried
to do lasting damage to us.

“Stay down!” I yelled at the people in the
back. My brother threw his body over Joss and Miller hung onto the
wheel well while I continued to swerve like a crazy person.

They pursued relentlessly. I realized this
could last all day… for as long as it took for one of us to run out
of gas.

I did not have time for this shit.

“Hold on!” I shouted over everything and
hoped that they could hear me. I gave them three seconds to take my
advice and then I slammed on the breaks.

Tires squealed under my truck and the truck
behind me. The moment slowed down and moved frame by frame.

I struggled to hold onto the wheel as the
other truck turned sideways in an effort to keep from hitting us,
but still slammed into us.

My airbag deployed and my hands flew from the
steering wheel. I let out a shout of pain as burns shot up my
forearms and across my chest. The truck spun around and then around
again. The world dipped into crazed chaos with screaming and
screeching and sounds that didn’t make sense.

When we finally came to a stop everything was
eerily quiet. Well, except for the ringing sound clanging through
my head.

I shook my head.

Then shook it again.

Something dripped into my eye. I swiped at it
and noticed my fingers were red with blood.
Shit, that was from
my head.

“Harrison!”

I shook my head again. Why did my arms
hurt?

Goddamn, they burned like a bitch.

“Harrison!”

All at once the ringing stopped and reality
punched me in the face.

“Adela,” I said.

“Are you okay? You’re bleeding?” She glanced
behind her. “We have to go! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I shook my head again. It hurt.
God, that hurt.
“I’m fine.”

She pulled out a knife and held it over her
head. For a split second I thought she was going to murder me. But
the scariest part was that in my fuzzy head, it made sense.

I thought, of course this is the moment she
stabs me. In the eye. Why wouldn’t she?

But instead, she plunged her knife into the
deflated airbag hanging all over me. Some of the burning sensation
lifted from my body- but not much.

I glanced down at the powder covering my
chest and arms. “Holy shit, that hurts!”

“What did you say?” She pushed my shoulder.
“You have to drive now. Harrison, drive!
Now
.”

I stomped on the gas and the engine revved
beneath me. We lurched forward and it took several seconds too long
for me to right the truck and get it going again.

I was facing the opposite direction from when
I’d started. I pushed on. I didn’t want to head back toward town,
but I also couldn’t take the time to turn around.

We’d figure something out later.

I realized I should be surprised that the
truck still ran. Metal screeched behind us and my brain slowly
processed that we were dragging something. That something was
slowing us down and making our trip more difficult, but I’d worry
about that later.

Looking over at the wreck, I gathered their
truck had taken the brunt of the collision. They’d slid sideways
and hit us with the driver’s side door. The entire cab was bent in
and crumpled. Men that had been standing in the back now littered
the pavement, all in various states of alarm or
unconsciousness.

Some were holding bleeding heads.

Some weren’t moving at all.

Someone lifted a gun and shot at us as we
passed, but the majority had lost their guns in the collision.

I hoped the crushed driver’s side meant they
couldn’t drive after us. I gunned the gas and watched the rearview
mirror for a long time. I took as many turns as I could, always
moving in random ways to keep them from catching up with us.

But I never saw them again.

Finally, after thirty minutes where I was
certain there was no one following us, I took inventory of my
crew.

Mertz was slumped over in the passenger’s
seat. His head was bleeding onto the window, but his chest was
rising steadily up and down. Adela sat in the middle seat behind
me, with her right hand on Mertz’s seat and her left resting on my
shoulder.

She was the only reason I could keep moving
forward. That one small gesture was the only thing keeping me
grounded right now.

My head pounded and my skin burned like hell.
The airbag powder had apparently given me some kind of chemical
burn.

Which was more obnoxious than it was
life-threatening, but still… uncomfortable.

In the review mirror I could see Miller, Joss
and King moving around back there. None of them was moving quickly
or easily… but they were moving.

That was all that mattered.

“You guys okay back there?” I hollered and
then immediately regretted it.

King lifted a weak thumb’s up. The other two
ignored me.

But they were alive.

“That was brilliant,” Adela said in my ear. I
felt her lips at my lobe, her hand on my chest. “Harrison, that was
amazing.”

Damn, her accent could bring me to my knees.
I searched for sanity somewhere in my muddled brain, but with her
this close, being this nice to me, it just wasn’t possible.

“Don’t go with him, Adela.” My voice was too
loud. My tone an embarrassing plea. I hadn’t meant to say any of
that.

Instead of pulling away, she kissed my cheek.
My chest tightened and thoughts bumped into each other in my broken
head.

She pulled away, sitting back down. But her
hand stayed on my shoulder.

What did that mean? Was that a yes?

Or a goodbye?

Goddamn.

My thoughts drifted to the first time I’d
ever been open with her about my feelings. I had been nothing more
than a kid. Eighteen and cocky as hell.

“You’re here for me,” I had told her. Like an
idiot.

She hadn’t even been able to look me in the
eye when she said, “I love another man, Harrison. I will always
love him. I’m not here for you. I’m here for me.”

Rejection had burned like nothing I’d ever
felt before. And yet I still wanted her. Even after she told me she
loved someone else… I’d still think of nothing besides her.

My instinct was to write her off and avoid
her at all costs and look on her with disgust. But that reply…
that, “I’m here for me” had planted respect and admiration.

I had never been so in awe of a woman before…
so completely amazed.

So I decided, that if I couldn’t have her, if
I couldn’t get her to see me, I’d hate her instead.

If she thought she was here for herself and
no one else, than screw her. And I hoped she’d die alone.

Our relationship had only grown more
complicated.

We’d gotten to know each other through
stolen, secret moments and harsh, public ones where we’d fought and
called each other names and hurt each other.

One time I’d kissed her. Only a year after
she’d told me she loved someone else and I’d realized that someone
else was Diego.

We’d been up late in the commons and I’d
leaned across the couch and kissed her. I’d been so hungry for her;
I hadn’t been able to eat anything else. I’d been starved for those
lips. Her touch. For her to see me and know me and forget
everything else.

And everyone else.

She’d kissed me back, just as greedily.

And then she’d told me that it didn’t change
anything. That she still loved Diego.

Part of me wanted to argue that she could
love more than one man, but the louder, more dominant part of me
didn’t believe that.

I wanted her for myself.

I didn’t want to share her with anyone, let
alone a psychotic warlord.

So I’d decided to hate her even more.

She chose Diego time and time again and I
wasn’t going to keep falling for her.

If I’d learned anything from my brothers it
was that love wasn’t split up into different pieces. Love was
whole, completely… healthy. It made a person better, not worse.

It made life better. Not worse.

And yet, Adela and I were nothing but toxic
for each other. I was man enough to admit that.

I could admit my faults in this.

Besides, what I had with her wasn’t what I
wanted. I wanted what my parents had. I wanted what my older
brothers had. And because the end of the world
sucked ass
and everyone felt like they needed to be a goddamn couple, even
Page and Miller were getting their shit together. And I was left on
my own. In love with a girl I couldn’t even stand half the
time.

How was that fair?

Sharp pain lanced across my eyes and I shut
them momentarily. When I opened them I slammed on the brakes
wrongly thinking I was about to hit a pedestrian.