Love and Decay (4 page)

I should have known that wasn’t his
style.

He took my hand and I let him. He walked
slowly out of the way, moving us closer to King and Harrison. “You
know me,” he said in a hard voice. He didn’t allow room for doubt
or argument. His voice was steel with conviction and truth. He shot
me a quick glance before turning a watchful eye back to Diego’s
men. “You know the truth about me.”

Anger and impetuousness got the better of me
and I hissed, “Are you saying, you’re not going back to the Colony
so you can inherit your father’s dictatorship?”

“What are you guys talking about?” King
asked. Joss walked next to him as they moved toward us.

Miller didn’t answer. It seemed he was
leaving the truth up to me. He said I knew him. I should know the
truth about him.

But the real truth was I didn’t know him well
enough to decide. He’d kept himself from me over the years. What
was I supposed to believe about him?

Part of me knew he hated his father as much
as I did, if not more. He wanted to take Matthias’s kingdom and
burn it to the ground. He wanted to erase whatever legacy Matthias
had managed to build.

He did
not
want to sit on Matthias’s
throne and
become
his legacy.

He didn’t.

I refused to even entertain the idea.

Except…

I shifted uneasily and said, “What’s with
them?” I nodded to Diego and Adela. Diego had stopped spinning and
now cradled Adela’s face in his hand. They leaned into each other,
talking fast and sweetly in Spanish.

“I don’t know,” King answered. “I thought we
rescued Adela from Diego.”

“Who’s Diego?” Joss asked. “And what were
those things? Feeders? Their eyes were clear.”

“Cannibals,” King spit out. “Filthy
animals.”

Miller smiled at him. “At least they didn’t
try to roast you over an open spit this time.”

King shivered and jammed his hands in his
pockets. “Don’t remind me.”

Joss’s jaw dropped open. “That happened? They
tried to eat you?”

“They almost succeeded,” he growled. “And
Harrison. We’ve lived very strange lives.”

Joss laughed. “No kidding.”

“And Diego’s the guy over there. The one with
all the muscle. He’s our ally. Kind of.” King retrieved a hand and
wrapped it around Joss’s shoulders. She didn’t look quite as
comfortable as my brother, but I was giving her some time to adjust
to my family before I judged her.

We were a lot to take in.

Diego did, in fact, have a lot of muscle with
him. Armed men surrounded the clearing and spread out toward our
camp. They carried big blades, machetes, spears and even some guns-
although not many. These fierce men with angry faces and muscled
bodies were ready to kill anything that looked at them wrong.

My feet were suddenly very interesting.

“We should burn those bodies,” King added
after our tense silence stretched on.

Miller nudged me with his elbow, “We took out
more of them than I thought we did.”

“If I never see a cannibal again, it will be
too soon.”

King laughed. “Their days are numbered.”

“What does that mean?” I hoped King wasn’t
planning another revenge campaign. I could understand the Rat King.
That had made sense to me. But if he decided to take out the entire
nest of cannibals, I was going to make Hendrix step in and tie him
up.

At one time Diego had actual jail cells.
Maybe we could throw King and his exaggerated sense of justice in
one of those until it was time to move on.

“They have a disease,” King explained. “I
can’t remember the name of it. But if you eat too much human meat
you get a brain disease. It’s fatal.”

“How do you know that?” I relaxed knowing he
wasn’t planning some elaborate attack he’d probably not
survive.

King was… well, King was the king of trivia
in our family. He knew all kinds of random facts from before the
infection. He often impressed the scientists from the randomness
stored in his brain. Haley was just as bad, but we were nicer to
her about it.

“I read it once,” King said. “I used to like
Silence of the Lambs
. I was strangely fascinated with
cannibals for like two months.”

“What’s
Silence of the Lambs
?”

Joss pointed at the dead men bleeding out on
the desert ground. “That,” she said simply. “That’s
Silence of
the Lambs
.”

I didn’t have time to question them further
because Reagan rushed into the clearing. Hendrix followed after her
with Vaughan and Jagger tucked close.

“Well, as I live and breathe,” she announced.
“Diego the Warlord. Fancy meeting you here.”

Diego stepped back from Adela and grinned at
Reagan. For the second time in a matter of minutes, a woman
launched herself into his arms and he caught her with a big
hug.

“The Reagan!” he laughed.

She pulled back and looked up at him. “How
are you, my slaving, terrorizing, warmongering
amigo
?”

“You have not changed,” he laughed at her. He
nodded toward her kids. “Except maybe for the
bambinos
.”

“You haven’t changed either,” she told him.
“But no
bambinos
for you?”

Diego’s eyes notably moved to Adela. “Not
yet.”

Adela blushed and looked away. Harrison
turned around and left. King leaned in and said, “This is like a
telenovela. I need popcorn.”

I didn’t know what a telenovela was either.
Apparently, on this side of Mexico, I needed someone to translate
for me.

Miller sensed my frustration and leaned in.
“Easy, Killer.”

I shot him a glare over my shoulder. I had
just shared this amazing moment with him. I thought we made all
this progress and things would be different between us. Then he
went ahead and said what he did to Diego and now I didn’t know what
to think about him. Or his plans. Or the darkness he claimed lived
inside him.

Months ago, I thought he was being
melodramatic.

Now I wasn’t so sure.

And that was the most frustrating thing of
all. I thought I could read Miller… anticipate his thoughts and
actions. But he was as much a mystery to me as the world before it
ended. I could no longer decipher him than I could a telenovela or
Silence of the Lambs
. I might have a vague idea of what
those things were, but I didn’t have an exact picture. I could
guess, but I wouldn’t be exactly right.

I could hope I knew what they were.

But I couldn’t be certain.

Hendrix stepped forward with his hand
extended to Diego. “Diego.”

“Hendrix,” Diego smiled. “You need my help
again.”

Hendrix’s smile widened. “And you need
ours.”

Diego’s eyebrows scrunched together over his
long nose. “You mean the American spies.”

Hendrix nodded. “The threat is real,
then?”

“We find them along the border,” Diego
answered. “Of course, there are no clear borders anymore. But they
come too close to my territories. My Dead can smell them and they
grow restless in their pens.”

Reagan disentangled herself from Diego and
crossed her arms over her chest with a serious pose. “How many have
you seen?”

“We’ve
buried
six over the last nine
months,” Diego noted. “But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been
more. We see them. We kill them. If we don’t see them, we can’t
kill them.”

“Are they armed?” Reagan asked.

Diego gave her a look. “Of course they’re
armed. Who isn’t armed in this world? But they are… they are
usually alone. Or with one or two others. No armies, if that is
what you are asking.”

“No armies, yet,” Hendrix murmured.

Goose bumps popped up all over my arms,
despite the warm air. Hank, the man that had betrayed my family in
Bogotá, had been right all those months ago. Matthias had set his
sights on Mexico. Instead of trying to conquer the Rockies and head
West or go east to the Zombie-ravaged coast, he planned to fight
Diego.

I wondered if it was a true quest for more
land and power or if it was a pissing competition between the two
world powers. At least on this side of the world.

“You are going to help me with this?” Diego
asked, a hint of a disbelieving smile playing over his lips.

Reagan’s eyes flashed with the challenge.
“We’re going to save you from this.”

Diego’s head tipped back and he let out a
bellowing laugh. When he finally settled down and looked at her
again, his expression was filled with affection. “I have missed
you, Reagan. More than I should have.”

Reagan smiled at him too. “It pains me to
admit this, but I think I missed you too.”

Joss leaned forward and whispered to King, “I
feel like your family might actually be a cult.”

Miller put his hands on my shoulders and
massaged as if that was the most natural reaction ever. To Joss, he
said, “Wait until you meet my family.”

“Gather your people,” Diego announced to
Hendrix. “I shall show you my kingdom.”

It sounded arrogant and unbelievably
ridiculous, but Diego hadn’t been lying. We collected the
scientists and the Colombians and the rest of my family and Diego
led us to his transportation. More of Diego’s men waited by four
big trucks and we piled in the back, squishing together while
Diego’s men found footholds around the outside of the trucks and
held on tight.

When the trucks were started, I said a silent
prayer that we wouldn’t explode right there on the spot. I hadn’t
ridden in an actual vehicle for a very long time. Not since we
barely rolled into Bogotá a decade ago. We’d used motorcycles over
the years, but those engines purred compared to the booming,
vrooming growls of these beasts.

The trucks lurched into movement. Not
expecting the jerking movement, I let out an embarrassing squeak. I
grabbed Harrison’s shoulder since he sat right next to me, but it
was Miller’s arm that wrapped around my waist and pulled me next to
his body, holding me in place.

I tried to remember that I was mad at him.
And scared of him. And nervous for him.

But I couldn’t deny the reaction of my body
to his strong hold or the way his arm seemed to fit around me so
perfectly.

Diego took us on a tour of his territories.
We rode in the trucks, bouncing and bobbing, for more than an hour
while he shouted over the roar of the engines, explaining every
building and rock in existence.

When the sun finally set and darkness
descended, headlights popped on, guiding the way back to Diego’s
palace. We drove through the main town first, a single strip of
highway with buildings on either side. Plenty of people milled
about, coming and going from buildings lit with candles and pit
fires.

I was impressed by the peace and the general
sense of safety as we waved at Diego’s people. I thought what we
did in Bogotá had been impressive, but it was nothing like
this.

We continued on the highway after we left the
city. After a while we passed outdoor cages, made from heavy steel.
The landscape remained black as ink, but the moon glinted off the
metal bars, revealing the creatures trapped inside. The Feeder
armies dangled their rotting limbs through the small squares,
clawing at the air as if they could reach us from here. Their heads
tipped back and inhuman screams screeched at the stars
overhead.

The Colombians and scientists stared with
open mouths. Even though we’d warned them of the Zombie armies,
this was their first time seeing the captured hordes in person. For
my family and me the novelty had worn off. Especially after we had
spent significant time in identical prisons. But for those seeing
it for the first time, it was understandably horrifying, while also
being impressive.

I remembered those cages well. I could
picture them all over the landscape of Mexico. At one time the
slavers would capture humans in order to keep their hordes happy. I
had almost been a meal too many times. I couldn’t help but
physically react to seeing them now.

Did Diego keep humans as slaves too? Did he
lock them up and leave them to the elements so they would be weak
and helpless when the hordes were hungry?

His enemies had.

How else did he keep them obedient and
loyal?

Finally we pulled up to a sprawling estate
and my mind flooded with unwanted memories. For the second time
today I was thrown back into the time of my life when I was fragile
and too little to do anything worthwhile. I pictured my time here,
held prisoner by a different dictator, and wanted to crawl out of
the truck and take off running.

I couldn’t go back in there.

I couldn’t face the ghosts that still haunted
me.

“What’s wrong?” Miller asked immediately.

“I didn’t… He lives… I didn’t think I would
ever have to see this place again.”

Miller turned around and assessed the
sprawling mansion with new eyes. It was too dark to make out the
grounds or how expansive the estate was, but I had it memorized.
Even to this day. “Is this where we rescued you from?”

“Yes.” My voice was a strangled gasp.

Harrison leaned forward, noticing my panic.
“What’s wrong, Page?”

“Do you recognize this place?” Miller asked
him.

He squinted through the darkness, taking in
the estate again. “This is where they held you? What was that guy’s
name?”

“Arturo.” My fingers dug into Miller’s arm,
still wrapped around my waist. “His name was Arturo.”

Miller and Harrison fell silent, neither of
them knowing what to say. Trauma was part of our lives. It wasn’t
something any of us could escape. And it wasn’t like we could ask
Diego to move his operation somewhere else while we crashed his
kingdom.

I needed to get my shit together.

And fast.

It was bad enough they knew this place
unnerved me. I didn’t want them asking deeper questions.