We fell down the steps and out onto the street just as the entire roof caved in. I shouted with the impact that rattled all of the broken, injured parts of me. My vision went black and I pushed up with my good arm just in time to dry heave onto the dusty ground.
The building erupted in flames behind me. The entire structure turned into a blazing tinder box. The fire continued to spread to the buildings next to it. The whole street burned angrily.
I had wondered if three bullets would be enough to kill Matthias. After all of that. After everything we had been through. After all of the times we’d tried to kill him before.
I honestly didn’t believe it was enough.
The burning building was enough though. It had to be.
Nobody could survive that. Not even Matthias Allen.
I felt unconsciousness creep up on me. The bullet lodged in my thigh hurt more than anything I had ever felt before. The indescribable pain sickened me so severely that I felt it in my spine.
Men continued to scream, but I was useless. I had to give into the pain somewhat to stay awake. I had to acknowledge it and grit my teeth through it or I would lose my tenuous hold on reality and slip away.
Hendrix pulled me against his chest and we curled up together right there in the middle of the street, while the village burned and the rest of the Parkers finished off the rest of Matthias’s men.
I needed Hendrix right now. I needed him to hold me close to his heart and remind me that he was still alive. I needed him to remind me that I was still alive.
That I was still human.
Looking at the rest of my loved ones, I wondered if they needed the same thing.
Joy held Luke against her chest while silent tears streamed down her face. Luke lay limply in her arms.
Was he dead?
He had to be.
When the final gunshot went off, I lifted my head and surveyed the pile of dead bodies.
Andy moved to his family and fell to his knees in front of them. He shoved his hand through Luke’s hair and tipped his head so he could look at it.
I turned away. I couldn’t watch that.
Harrison and King stood over the dead men with slumped shoulders and horrified expressions on their faces. They each held semi-automatic rifles in their trembling hands.
Vaughan held Tyler as close to his chest as he could while she wept onto his shoulder. He rocked her back and forth in the middle of the street, murmuring into her hair.
Miller curled into a ball next to us and started to cry.
My heart broke all over again. Tyler and Miller had wanted Matthias dead as much as we did, but he was still their father.
They had both just taken part in murdering their father. And if we wouldn’t have won, he would have murdered them instead.
I looked up the road and watched Haley and Nelson sprint off into the distance.
Where were they going?
“Are they all dead?” I heard Hendrix ask anyone who would answer.
Nobody answered him. I vaguely wondered if that meant no, but I didn’t have enough strength to question anything further.
I sunk into Hendrix. I held up a wet hand and realized it had been lying on my leg. Now it was covered with bright red blood.
Oh, my god, I had been shot. It was the first time I’d let myself admit that. I had only been able to acknowledge an injury before. But now reality settled in and I realized how dire my condition was.
“Hendrix,” I winced.
“Shh,” he soothed against my hair. “We’re going to get you help.” His voice trembled and his body shivered uncontrollably.
Or maybe that was my body.
“I… I…” I couldn’t think. I couldn’t make sentences.
“Reagan,” Hendrix growled with a broken voice. “I am going to get you help. I am going to fix this.”
I wanted to nod, but I wasn’t sure if I managed it.
“You’re going to stay right by me,” he continued to promise. “You’re not going anywhere.”
I blinked tears away as the huge van Andy drove careened down the street toward us. Buildings continued to crumble and crash beneath the weight of the flames. I felt the tightness of my singed skin, but I couldn’t feel the heat. I shivered instead, feeling colder than I ever had.
My mind started to wonder and I realized I wasn’t going to die of a bullet wound or broken arm. I was going to freeze to death instead.
The van stopped in front of us and Haley and Nelson jumped from the front seat. Adela followed behind them, cradling a tiny baby in her arms. Page stood right beside her, clutching Adela’s leg. It took me a long time to remember where that baby came from.
Shit.
Keep it together.
People started yelling again and Hendrix tried to stand up. As soon as he moved, my stomach dipped and I felt sickness crash through me. Everything hurt.
I squeezed my eyes shut and hot tears leaked out. I might have passed out after that because when my eyes opened again, Hendrix had me cradled against his chest and was walking toward the car.
Page’s ashen face appeared in front of mine, her bottom lip trembling.
“Just fine,” I wheezed. “I’m fine, Pagey.”
She turned whiter than a sheet. Apparently I wasn’t very convincing.
Hendrix set me on a bench seat as carefully as he could while everyone else piled in. I started to have the worst feeling that we were forgetting something.
Nelson jumped in the driver’s seat and turned the vehicle back on. The feeling that we were leaving something behind intensified.
“Hendrix,” I mumbled.
He didn’t hear me.
I tried to sit up and get his attention, but I couldn’t move. I had no strength left. Everything inside of me was working extra hard just to keep me alive.
But still… that feeling that I had unfinished business in this town overpowered every other thought. Even the pain.
Suddenly it came back to me in a rush of urgency. “Diego!”
I hadn’t said it very loud, but I had at least captured Hendrix’s attention. “What was that?”
“Diego,” I repeated. “We need… we need to see…” I closed my eyes and focused everything I had left in order to say, “Alive.”
Hendrix growled out a curse, but slammed his hand on the seat in front of him. I heard him shout, “Go back! Goddamn it! Go back.”
Angry voices boomed through the van. I wasn’t coherent enough to make out what they were saying. The van lurched to a stop and the rocking motion was too much.
I passed out again.
Nausea assaulted me first, pulling me out of the blissful blackness I decided I wanted to live in for the rest of my life. There was no pain in that quiet place.
No agony.
I woke to agony supersized.
It hurt to breathe. It hurt to not breathe. It hurt just to lie as still as possible and not do anything.
When I finally found the ability to open my eyes, it was dark outside and not from the storm. It was nighttime and we were still in the van, driving away from Diego’s burning village and Matthias Allen’s rotting corpse.
The vehicle was completely quiet except for the rumble of the engine and the occasional baby coo or whimper. Hendrix’s hand gripped my good one. There was hardly any room for him on this bench with the way I had been laid out, but he made it work.
His eyes were closed while his head rocked back and forth with the movement of the van, but I knew he wasn’t sleeping. I could see the tightness in his brows and his mouth had been turned down into a frown.
I didn’t want to disturb him though, just in case he was trying to sleep.
I tried to shift, but I couldn’t manage to move my body. I felt sticky with sweat and dirt from head to toe. My entire face was slick with a thick layer of it.
I smelled something foul that I convinced myself was already an infection.
I couldn’t look up to see where everyone else was, but I could look
down. Diego lay sprawled out on the floor unmoving.
I bet we looked like twinsies right now with our sweaty skin and ghostly white pallor. Although with him, if it hadn’t been for the sweat, I would have assumed he was dead.
How he was not dead, was completely beyond me anyway. He looked like death. I would be shocked if he made it through the night.
See? Twinsies.
The van finally slowed as it made its way over bumpy gravel and awful road. I started to dry heave again, unable to hold back the sickness.
I didn’t have anything to throw up though. Hendrix’s arms were around me in a flash as he helped me up so I wouldn’t choke on my tongue or spit.
When he laid me back down I immediately missed the warmth of his touch, but at least I had stopped trying to puke.
Eventually we pulled to a stop and Nelson turned the van off. We all sat there in stunned silence while we came to terms with how we made it back here.
Fresh tears pooled in my lashes and I didn’t have the strength to wipe them away. I couldn’t stop my quivering lip or the reluctant compassion I felt for all of those men.
I hadn’t wanted to kill them. If it had been left up to me, I wouldn’t have ever killed anyone!
I would have remained a pacifist.
I would have remained innocent.
The walk into the bungalow was a blur of passing out and sickness. I hated being moved. I needed this bullet out of my freaking leg and I needed someone to glue my arm back together because it felt like someone had ripped it apart with their bare hands.
Hendrix laid me down on one of the couches and helped prop my arm so I wouldn’t pass out again. I watched Joy walk around the room, deciding where to start.
I was surprised when she chose Diego over Luke. Vaughan and Nelson dumped Diego directly on the rug, so she had to push the coffee table out of the way to reach him.
“Luke?” I rasped, unable to find more of a voice than that. Nobody heard me at first, so I asked again. “Luke? Where?”
Joy glanced at me over her shoulder and wiped away a single tear. “He’s bad, Reagan. But not as bad as you. Or Diego.”
I let out a reluctant breath of relief and said a quick prayer. Luke hadn’t died. Thank God. I couldn’t see him from where I tried not to move, but I trusted Joy.
After a long time, of which I wasn’t sure that I was entirely conscious for the whole thing, Joy walked over to me.
“What’s wrong?” She asked in a low voice.
Hendrix answered for me. “Gunshot to her thigh and I think she has a broken forearm.”
Joy tsked. “Sounds like she had a good time.”
Hendrix grunted a bitter laugh. “He’s dead, so she better not die too.”
“You did good,” Joy smiled.
“It’s all this girl,” Hendrix confessed. His hand squeezed my good one gently. “She’s the real reason we’re still alive.”
It was right after he said that so sweetly that I blacked out again.
Chapter Four
I regretted opening my eyes again. I should have slept forever.
Was that an option?
Pain. Pain everywhere!
The aching, the throbbing, the stinging, the burning… they melded together into a giant super pain that threatened to take over the planet. I wanted to be sick, but there was nothing in my stomach to lose.
I tried to wet my dry lips, but my mouth felt like someone had stuffed it with cotton balls. My skull threatened to split in two from the force of my headache and every muscle inside of my body felt beaten and battered.
Then there was the broken arm. And the gunshot wound.
I closed my eyes again and reevaluated my will to live. I wasn’t sure I still felt as strongly about survival as I once had.
“How are you feeling?” Hendrix’s roughened voice slid over me like balm. I struggled to breathe deeply before opening my eyes to meet his beautiful blue gaze.
“Like hell,” I croaked.
He lifted a glass of water to my lips and helped me sip slowly. I thanked him with tears in my eyes.
Morning had come. The bright sunlight streamed through the open windows of the bungalow in contrast with yesterday’s volatile storm. I heard bugs buzzing outside and the wind rustling Joy’s wind chimes.
Today was a new day. I had left the majority of my problems in yesterday. Even though I didn’t want to imagine trying to get off this couch ever again, even though a lot of people had died and I had nearly lost my life and those of my loved ones, even though I still had the Zombie Apocalypse to deal with, yesterday was over.
And today was a brand new beginning.
“Here.” Hendrix held up two white pills. “Tylenol. Joy is hoping it will at least dull the edges.”
I opened my mouth and let him feed them to me. He followed the pills with another sip of water. Only one of my arms had been tied tightly in a makeshift tourniquet, but I let Hendrix do all of the work. I couldn’t find the energy to lift my head, let alone an entire arm.
“You look good,” I huffed. “How come you didn’t get shot?”
His eyes twinkled with humor. “It could be because I’m faster.”
All of my feminism flared to life. “That’s so not it.”
“Then it has to be because people generally hate me less than they hate you.” He leaned down and brushed his lips over my forehead.
“You might have a point there. But at least those people are dead now.”
“And you’re alive,” he whispered, kissing me again on the corner of my mouth.
I closed my eyes in a useless attempt to keep from crying. I was alive. And so was he. The magnitude of that miracle weighed down on me in a way that I knew I would never forget it. How could I?
We both could have died. So easily. Or lost someone else we loved.
And yet…
“Hey, by the way! What happened to staying by your side? You completely disappeared on me!” I pinched his thigh lightly where it sat pressed against my side.
He winced, “That will never happen again,” he promised. “My idiot brothers nearly got themselves killed. Of course, when I left you for a minute, I didn’t expect you to throw yourself in front of Matthias either. You’re lucky I caught up.”
“Not luck,” I whispered. “I knew you would.”
His expression softened. “Yeah, you’re right about that.”
We stared at each other for a few more minutes. I just loved watching him look at me. I loved knowing that he was alive and uninjured and next to me.
People bustled quietly around the rest of the small house and I could hear others outside, but nobody disturbed us for a really long time. They let us have this little reunion.
Eventually I couldn’t be quiet anymore. I had to know the damage. “Okay, Parker, how bad is it?”
Hendrix’s fingers trailed over my jaw. “Your arm is broken. Joy said it was a clean break though and she’s hoping that it will heal okay. She wrapped it up and told me how to care for it. As long as you go easy on it, you should be fine.”
“And my leg?” I felt some relief about my arm, but that wasn’t the worst of my damage. I held my breath while Hendrix explained.
“She said you also got lucky there. The bullet didn’t hit an artery or bone, but it didn’t go straight through either. She’s not a surgeon, but the bullet stayed intact and she was able to dig it out. It hit the outside of your thigh where there’s mostly muscle.”
“So…? What does that mean?”
Hendrix shook his head and his blue eyes shuttered with his effort to hide his emotion. “We’re not sure yet,” he confessed. “We’re going to have to see how you heal. Joy said you could be fine. Your muscle could mend nicely and your leg might not have any problems in the future. But… but there’s a big possibility that your leg won’t heal correctly and that you might have issues with it in the future. We’re all just going to have to wait and see.”
I let out a stunned breath and tried not to
let my brain run with all of the negative possibilities. If my leg healed correctly. If my arm healed properly. If… if… if…
There were too many variables and this world was not on my side.
Hendrix’s hand cupped my jaw. “You’re going to be okay,” he whispered. I watched tears shimmer in his bright blue eyes and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down while he struggled to swallow. “You’re alive, right? That’s all that really matters. We’ll figure the rest out as it comes.”
I nodded, too overcome with emotion to speak. Two tears slipped from the corners of my eyes and landed on his fingertips. He looked more rugged than ever. His beard needed a trim badly; his hair had been washed, but neglected ever since. His eyes looked a hundred years older, as if yesterday had aged his soul by a century.
Maybe it had.
Maybe my soul had aged just as much.
“How about everyone else?” I whispered when I could finally talk.
His lips pressed into a frown before he said, “Most everyone is okay. King dislocated his shoulder, but he’ll be alright. Miller’s burns are the worst. You and I have some too. Luke is… Luke is in bad shape. The gunman shot him in the shoulder. Joy got the bullet out, but it’s a pretty brutal wound. He came down with a fever last night. He’s alive for now, but…”
Nausea churned my stomach. “What does Joy think?”
Hendrix cleared his throat and said, “She’s doing everything she can.”
Hendrix slid his hand over my mine and squeezed. “I thought it would be worse,” he admitted with a sorrowful tone. “I really thought it would be worse.”
I pressed my lips together. I didn’t tell him what I had thought would happen. Hendrix had expected to lose more people, maybe one of his brothers.
I had gone into yesterday expecting to lose everyone.
I didn’t know how we would survive Matthias and all of his vengeance. But somehow we did. We had been given a second chance, one that was free of the Colony and the evil it spread.
I thought back to my dream of Matthias and how he had challenged me to take over America. What would happen to my home now? What would happen to all of those people united under the Colony? Would they be free as well?