“Well, that’s not as fun as what I had planned,” I pouted.
My body shook with his laughter because of how firmly pressed together we were. “We’ll come back to this.” He pulled back my sheet and examined my naked body. “To exactly this.”
“I love you,” I confessed. There wasn’t anything else to say at this moment. We had been to hell and back and that was the one thing that remained constant. I loved him and I loved his family. I loved my friends and I loved those we’d collected along the way.
We had battled the decay of this world and the evil that reigned, but love was what got us through. Love was what saved us.
“I love you too.” His hand cupped my face and he held my gaze. “Thank you for bringing us here. Thank you for being undaunted by the journey. Thank you for your relentless spirit and sheer determination. Not one of us would be standing here without you, Reagan. We have you to thank for our survival.”
Surprised emotion punched me in my tender gut and I had to try very, very hard not to cry. “You can’t say all of those things to me,” I rasped.
He canted his head to one side and asked, “Why not?”
“Because those things are true about you, not me. I wasn’t relentless, I was stubborn. And I was far from undaunted. Very, very far. We wouldn’t be here without you, Hendrix. Every step I took was for you… because of you. And your family.”
“I love you, Willow. You know that. I have devoted my life to loving you, to cherishing you… to protecting you. I have the highest opinion of you. But in this one thing, I’m afraid you’re wrong.”
I tried not to smile. Tried and failed. “I’m not Willow anymore.”
He stared at my lips and I watched delicious distraction cloud his fierce blue eyes. “I’m okay with that.”
“Me too.”
“Ready to meet everyone else?”
I gave into the reality that I was going to have to get out of this bed. I couldn’t stay here forever with Hendrix, but we could come back. That promise was the only reason I was able to put my feet on the cold concrete ground and go about the tedious task of getting dressed.
Thankfully, Oliver had handed over some clean clothes. There was even a pair of generic, boring white underwear waiting for me. They were uninteresting, but they were clean and fresh and not… gross. So basically they were the best thing ever.
I also received khaki pants and a green polo that had the logo of the research facility stitched over the breast pocket. I pulled my hair into a braid and tied it with a piece of thread I tore from the polo.
Hendrix had gone to the trouble of giving me a sponge bath that I now realized I sort of remembered. It came back to me in flashes of consciousness in between memories of debilitating stomach pain and embarrassing bodily functions.
Thank God, this man had already married me. I needed a binding contract after what he’d endured over the past twenty-four hours.
I also remembered working toilets.
We’d officially found the Promised Land.
Hendrix dressed in an identical outfit, only with men’s boxer briefs instead of the granny panties I was currently rocking. We slipped on black socks and our old boots. We would have to remedy the shoe situation, but for now this was a thousand times better than what we’d showed up in.
Hendrix opened the door and revealed a narrow hallway with dimmer track lighting. Doors were spaced out on either side of the corridor and I assumed they were more living spaces, but I had no real knowledge to back that up.
Hendrix led the way through a maze of hallways. At one point, we stepped through an arched metal doorway and entered a less-sterilized, less-military way of living. Metal walls gave way to painted drywall and natural lighting. Windows graced the space and transformed the cold prison-like feel into something warm and inviting.
We kept walking and eventually found the clinical side of things again. Only this was actually clinical for a reason. Labs and lab equipment sat behind glass walls meant to observe the scientists at work. More glass rooms with metal tables in them sported bloodstains and hand and feet restraints.
I had to assume those were guest quarters for Feeders.
I didn’t see any of those rooms occupied at the moment and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d held in.
Eventually, we passed those too and came to another common room. This one was split in half. On one side of the room recreational activities littered the space. There was a ping-pong table and a foosball table. There was a TV set up in front of couches and an empty vending machine with no glass. On the other side of the room were round tables and a cafeteria style kitchen.
This was where we found everyone waiting for us.
I stumbled to a stop as soon as we walked into the room and let the peace of seeing my friends so at ease settle over me. It took me a full minute to believe that this was real… that we were really here and not in immediate danger.
I couldn’t remember feeling like this. I couldn’t remember not choking on the panic that we could die at any second or that nobody was hunting us. I couldn’t remember seeing Haley so serene as she nursed a contented Lennon on the couches across the room or Page so happy as she giggled at something Harrison and King said to her. I couldn’t remember Nelson looking so happy or Miller not vibrating with the rage that consumed him.
There was an intense grief that still followed us, that still kept Tyler isolated and despairing, but for the most part we had set that aside for right now. My friends let this new environment mean something profound to them and I appreciated that.
We would have time to grieve Vaughan and the last three years. We would have time to process everything we had been through and all that had happened to us.
All that we had done and been responsible for.
We would have time to breathe.
Time to heal.
We would have time to just be.
Or I hoped so. It was my fervent prayer that we could take some much needed time and rest.
They looked up at me as I walked into the room and they smiled at me. All of these people that I loved and cared for smiled at me and they were beautiful.
Sure, they were too skinny, they were beat up and they were hurting… but they were also alive. And now they had hope.
I had never seen them look more striking. My heart swelled in my chest and a few pieces of my sanity snapped back together.
We made it.
We actually made it.
“I’m Oliver,” the man from before stepped forward with his hand stretched toward me. I took it and let his strong hand envelop mine in a firm grip. “We met before, but I’m not sure if you quite remember.”
His British accent was as strong as ever, clipped and precise. I smiled and it felt natural… it felt real. “I’m Reagan. Sorry about earlier… I just… Don’t ever eat dog.”
He chuckled good-naturedly. “We have been sufficiently warned. Those little buggars. We’ve been trying to catch them for months. They don’t trust us and we can’t figure out why.”
It was my turn to laugh. “They think you eat Zombies,” I explained. “They can’t figure out what other reasons you’d have for hunting them.”
Oliver’s head dropped back as he let out a bark of laughter. “That explains so much. You’ve no idea,” he grinned. “See, not one of us is fluent in Spanish. It’s made our time here very interesting.”
“Believe me, if we didn’t have Adela, we wouldn’t have made it very far.” I shuddered to think just how quickly our journey through Mexico would have ended.
“We’ve heard,” Oliver sympathized. “Cannibalism is no way to go.”
I wondered just how much I’d slept through when Harrison yelled out, “We would have been fine!”
Adela retorted with some sassy Spanish and I was relieved to know that some things were still the same between us.
“Anyway,” Oliver continued, apparently already used to our antics, “This is Shay.” A severe looking woma
n stepped forward. Her blonde hair had been pulled back into a tight bun and her lab coat was pristinely white. She didn’t smile or wave. She simply tipped her chin once and stepped back. “And this is Fang,” Oliver continued. A slight Chinese man waved from across the room. I waved back. “They don’t look it now, but they’re very anxious to get started. We’ve been at a standstill for months. We’d all but given up on advances and resigned ourselves to one endless brick wall. You couldn’t have shown up at a better time.”
Nerves flipped in my gut and my hope brightened to almost blinding levels. “Do you really think there’s a possibility for a cure? Or vaccine or whatever? Do you really think you have enough to find something?”
Oliver frowned and I noticed his pale green eyes for the first time. They were startling in their lightness. They contrasted noticeably against his tanned skin. “I can’t say for sure, of course. But you’ve opened doors that were closed before. We have more tools at our disposal. It will take work, definitely. We’ll have to find more subjects. We’ll need to draw quite a bit of blood from those that feel they’re immune. We'll have to dive into this work and determine not to give up. But… but, yeah, I think it’s possible.”
“Incredible,” I whispered. I still didn’t believe it entirely. I would have to see it first. I would have to see results and experience how these people worked. I would have to make sure my loved ones weren’t taken advantage of and that we remained truly safe... but it was finally starting to set in that we were really here, that we had arrived. We could begin the second part of our journey now. We could officially begin cleaning this damn mess up.
Oliver gave me a gentle smile and said, “What’s really incredible is that you found us. After everything you’ve been through and how coincidental it was to run into our associates… It’s a miracle you made it here. It’s quite amazing.”
I was struck speechless by his words. These were thoughts I often had. They were pretty much on a constant loop inside my head, but it was his use of the word “miracle” that caught me.
In the past, and especially over the last few weeks, I had been looking at our lot in life as a curse. I had blamed God for our injustices, for our losses, for our pain. I shook my fist at the heavens and screamed, “You did this to me! I blame you!”
But it was wrong.
I was wrong.
We had lost. We had grieved. We had gone from one horrible problem to the next, and yet we survived.
We weren’t cursed to have lasted this long; we were blessed. And it wasn’t a plague relegated to our lives; we were living, breathing miracles.
God hadn’t punished us, He had saved us.
We lost some good people along the way, but there was a purpose. It might not ever be enough. This pain might not ever go away. But there was life amidst the suffering. We had cultivated truth and hope and something worthy.
And for now that was enough.
“There’s a lot more to talk about, but how about you get something to eat first, yeah?” Oliver’s eyes shone with kindness and even while I knew I would never trust him entirely, I started to believe he didn’t want to kill us.
Hendrix took my hand and pulled me to a table. “I should warn you,” he said gently, “you’re about to eat something you actually need. It’s not a candy bar or a random canned good that expired three years ago. It’s something you might actually want right now.”
I looked up at him, confusion clouding my face. “I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“Say thank you,” he smiled. Page stepped forward and held out a can of soup that looked suspiciously like chicken noodle.
“Is that what I think it is?” I whispered.
“I told you to say thank you.” Hendrix’s hands landed on my shoulders and squeezed.
“Thank you,” I choked out. I tried not to cry, but a few tears slipped by. It was just so beautiful. He was right. This was something I actually wanted. This was something my stomach wouldn’t protest and my body craved.
Hendrix stepped away to prepare it for me. He heated it up on a small stove in the kitchen and served it to me in a bowl with a spoon and soda crackers on the side. I marveled at the civility of it all with every bite.
While I ate and nursed my sore tummy back to healthy, Oliver talked. He told me about their solar panels and how they had access to electricity and water. He explained that their water wasn’t safe enough to drink, but they boiled it and treated it after it came out of the tap. The plumbing would still work for us, even though it was a temporary option. For now we were safe to use it.
They had stores of food and supplies that they’d taken from all over the city. They also had a greenhouse where they were trying to grow a few crops. Again, the greenhouse wasn’t a permanent solution, but while they figured one out it was better than nothing.
Most of the population of Bogotá had been wiped out by infection or moved out when they thought they could find help elsewhere. The children ran the streets and there were a few settlements of people, but the research station had set a precedent early on and was safe from anyone that lived in the city.
Occasionally visitors would stop by, but the researchers had either been able to scare them off before or kill them. I realized again how fortunate we were to get their attention.
I also learned that they thought our sickness had been a Trojan horse at first. They were impressed with our out-of-the-box thinking. Then they were swiftly unimpressed when they realized we were sick because we’d eaten dog…
They went over routines and how they would change them to incorporate us into the mix. They figured out a schedule of testing that we were happy with and they explained in general terms everything they planned to do and how it would affect us.
Their first priority was a vaccine because they believed that would be easier to discover than a cure. A cure was the dream, the white unicorn… the once-in-a-million chance and they didn’t trust us enough to believe we had what it took to find it.
That was okay with me. They would learn in time how determined we were, how resilient. They would come to understand the greatness of the Parkers and the sheer amounts of stubbornness I wore like a badge. They would see our persistence, experience our single-minded determination and believe us when we said we would not give up, that we would not stop until our goals were accomplished.
After hours of conversation and another bowl of soup, I started to droop. My body had been through something traumatic and I couldn’t fight the exhaustion anymore.
Hendrix wrapped his arm around me and excused us from the conversation. Nelson and Haley were in charge of Page for the night and they promised to get her to bed soon. Harrison, King and Adela had been given their own rooms and Tyler and Miller had opted to share.
We said goodnight to everyone and Hendrix helped guide me back to our room. I had no idea how he learned the layout of this place so quickly, but I was impressed. I hoped it would make more sense to me in the morning after a good night’s sleep.
But I wasn’t counting on it.
Back in our room, I kicked off my shoes and stripped down to my underwear. If Hendrix hadn’t been there to maneuver me, I would have landed face first on the bed and not moved for the next ten days.
I had never been so exhausted in my entire life, but I had never felt the kind of freedom I needed to rest as hard as I planned to.
Under the cool sheets, Hendrix wrapped me in his strong, warm arms and held me against his hard body. Our legs intertwined and my body nuzzled into the curve of his. We fit perfectly together and I planned on spending as much time as possible in this position until the day I died.
“I’m still having a hard time believing we actually made it,” I whispered, afraid to break our peaceful silence.
“I know what you mean.” His voice was soft and thoughtful.
We fell quiet after that, for a long time. I let my thoughts wander to all of the people we’d lost along the way. I thought of Gage and how generous he ha
d been with us, about how unfair his death had been. I thought about Kane and the love I’d given him, about our wild relationship and how it even came to be. I thought about how much he changed while I knew him and how selfless his death was. I thought about Vaughan and the friendship I’d cherished with him, his wise advice and the pure example of leadership he’d given his brothers and sister. I had never known anyone like him and I knew without a doubt that I never would again.
I missed each of those men. I missed what they brought to my life and how they made me a better person, each in his unique way.
I grieved them all over again and mourned their loss. I hated that we’d left them behind, that they hadn’t made it this final stretch.
But I thanked each of them too. I thanked them for their sacrifice and their investment in my life and this family. I hated that we had reached our destination without them, but I knew we wouldn’t have made it without them either.
They changed me. Profoundly.
And I would never forget what they did or who they were.
Now we had a chance to rebuild… to heal and I planned to utilize every second of this gift we’d been given.
This was the future I had hoped for… wished for… prayed for.
It was ours now.
I would not waste it.
Chapter Four
Four months later…
I set my plate down and rubbed my full stomach. I stretched arms that weren’t tired and blinked eyes that didn’t have bags under them. I looked up at my loved ones and counted them.
They were equally untired, unstarved and unpanicked.
We had survived the worst of the Zombie Apocalypse.
And somehow, in the midst of our most heartbreaking moments, we found a way to live again.
We found a way to be safe.
Page sat on the couch, helping Lennon stand on her lap. He wiggled unsteadily and gurgled his happiness at her. He had become quite the chunky baby over the last few months, with a full head of blonde hair and the brightest blue eyes. His smile and baby noises had us laughing constantly.