“Thank God Hendrix is staying with you,” I groaned. “You’re a disaster.”
She sniffled again. “Stay away from Kane,” she warned. “I mean it, Hales. I know you have this crusade in your head and think you can sneak in there and fight my battles for me, but he’s smart, too. It’s going to take more than one of your half-assed plans and a few rounds of bullets. That boy is always waiting to be attacked.”
“Fine.” It wasn’t really fine, but I didn’t want to admit that she was right.
“Promise me you will not try to kill Kane while you’re in there and I will let you share one scenario with me before you leave.”
I couldn’t stop the slow smile that spread across my face. “Fine, I promise.” She waved her hand for me to continue. “So, we arrive at the Colony unseen. We sneak into the school and it’s exactly like you said it would be. There are Feeders lining each wall and crazed militia walking every corridor. I creep in exactly like James Bond, all super-sexy spy and very stealthy. My objective is to get to Miller, but I’m side-tracked by the need to hide. As I’m waiting for the people to clear the hallway, Kane comes walking toward me. He’s alone and I don’t want to draw attention to myself. So, I wait for him to pass me; then I cartwheel into a double back-handspring out of the darkness directly in front of him. When he looks up, his eyes register immediate surprise. And then he says, ‘Haley, what are you doing here?’ And then I say, ‘You gave my friend nightmares, so I’m going to put you in one of your own.’ And then I will karate-kick straight into his chest and knock him into the wall of hungry Feeders, who then proceed to tear his entire body apart with their pussing fangs. They rip him to pieces while I cackle sadistically in the background. And that, my dear, is the end of Kane Allen.”
“You are such a psychopath,” Reagan muttered, clearly amused.
“Not a psychopath,” I told her. “I’m a criminal mastermind.”
Harrison happened to be walking over to us and caught most of our conversation. He looked back and forth between us with wide eyes before announcing, “Nelson, your girlfriend is crazy with a capital C!”
I looked over at Nelson to see him flash a shit-eating grin and shout back, “And it’s so goddamn hot!”
“Cuss jar!” the entire group yelled at him.
“Alright, Reags. See you in a few.”
“Kick some ass,” she instructed and hobbled over to say goodbye to Vaughan.
I walked to the Suburban and felt a blinding, flash of light hit me right in the corner of my eye. The kind that reflects the sun of something bright and makes you squint immediately. I snapped my attention up to see what the sun glinted off and what could be hitting my peripheral so directly.
Looking around, I couldn’t see anything that would cause light to do that, or anything that could even hit me at that slant. The black Suburban roof didn’t reflect the sun at sharp angles. The building behind me was gray concrete with no shiny or sharp points on this side. I stared across the highway at the trees that lined the road and waited for something to move or reveal itself but nothing happened; the trees stayed perfectly still. I must really be crazy after all. Good thing Nelson found it so appealing.
Page tugged on my hand and I looked down into her worried face. Her small nose crinkled with concern and her sparkling eyes revealed way too much maturity for such a little thing.
“Nelson promised to take care of you,” she told me gravely.
I stole a glance at her older brother who was already in place inside the SUV. His arm hung languidly off the backrest and his slow smile glinted with arrogance. “Nelson will always take care of me,” I promised her.
“Will you take care of him,” she whispered loudly with a hand covering the side of her mouth so Nelson couldn’t see.
“Page, do I love Nelson?” She nodded enthusiastically. “Then you should know that I always protect the people that I love. Always.”
“Do you love me?” Her voice sounded so unsure that my heart cracked right down the middle.
I squatted to her level so I could meet those wise, discerning eyes. “You know that I love you. I love you so much that I’m going to make sure we’re home before your bedtime so I can tell you again.”
She threw her arms around my neck and squeezed me into her tightest hug. I clutched back, knowing I would do every single thing in my power to keep that promise. She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and ran to Reagan’s side.
I climbed into the SUV next to Nelson and pressed into his welcoming body. He laid an arm around my shoulders and kissed my temple. “Ready for this?”
I patted my backpack full of guns and slipped on my shoes. “As ready as I can be.”
“Stay close to me, yeah?”
I looked up into those dark blue eyes and couldn’t stop the love-stupid smile from twisting my lips. I never thought this thing would happen to me… this love thing. I couldn’t even figure out where it had come from. Yet here I was, madly in love with a man that had been perfectly created for me. In every way. Sure, we were still a young couple and had our fair share of problems and communication breakdowns, but this man was for me. He was it. I needed him as much as I loved him. I wanted him, I craved him, I adored him.
He took the ticking away. And when he couldn’t do that, he let me talk his ear off about stuff he could care less about. He eased my restless mind and soothed my constant anxiety. He took care of me, but he let me take care of him, too.
“Yeah,” I promised him.
He bent forward and kissed me slowly. His tongue dragged across my bottom lip and swept across my own tongue when I opened my mouth for him. I shivered from his practiced technique. This boy knew how to kiss.
How to make me melt.
I turned into him, unable to resist the magnetic pull of his drugging kisses. His hand curled into my shoulder and my fingers traced a slow line over the waistband of his jeans. His skin was so smooth under the pads of my fingers, hot with desire and warm with life.
“Alright, love birds, let’s save the sexy time for when you’re any place but here.” Gage climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind him.
Vaughan jumped into the seat next to me and Tyler slid into the passenger’s seat. The doors closed and the vehicle sat silent for a few minutes. We waited while Reagan took Page and King inside with her and a fully-armed Harrison and Hendrix opened the gate. Gage started the engine, put the Suburban in drive and pulled out onto the highway. He waited another long minute for the gate to be closed and locked before he really took off for the Colony.
I appreciated all the safety measures, but I had to admit life was obnoxiously tedious when we had to take every single detail into account.
“I would leave that,” I announced glumly, mostly to Nelson. “I would leave having to say goodbye to people I love for any reason. Especially, when I can’t be positive I will ever see them again.”
“You’ll see them again.” Nelson snuggled me closer to him. He changed the topic in an effort to divert my mood. “And what would you keep?”
I thought about that for a long time and said, “You.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled at me. “I would keep you, too.”
I warmed at his sweetness and felt all gooey inside. I was on my way to save a boy that was severely abused, and I would potentially fight our way through a camp with armed men and outrun Zombies between here and there, and yet, Nelson could still take away all those fears and uncertainties and leave me filled with love and hope. “What would you leave?”
He leaned forward and nibbled on the fleshy part of my ear. “Communal bedrooms,” he murmured. “There was once a time when I had my own room and girls liked to stop by and… help me with homework.”
“I bet that was really nice for you, all those girls wanting you to get better grades.”
“They were very helpful,” he chuckled.
“Pervert,” I groaned.
“Jealous.”
Gage gl
anced at us in the review mirror and interrupted an epic battle of name-calling. “What is that? What were y’all doing?”
“It’s a game,” I explained over the roar of the wind and a sputtering engine. “Kind of a stupid one, but we always play it. You name something about the post-infection that you would keep if you could and something you would get rid of immediately if you could.”
“Tyler, do you play this?” Gage asked her.
She shrugged casually. “Sure.”
“Alright, what would you leave?” Gage glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, completely anticipating her answer.
“I would leave my dad.” Her voice was deadpan and tinged with sadness. I hated that her pain wouldn’t leave her alone. We all had our fair share of grief to deal with; but hers would not go away, no matter how badly she wanted it to.
“And keep?” Gage pressed.
“My new abs and guns.” She lifted her bicep and pressed a showy kiss to her growing muscle mass, clearly not meaning the semi-automatic kind of “guns.”
Vaughan snorted next to me and that earned him a very haughty glare from her.
“Gage, your turn! What would you leave?” I found myself very anxious for his answer. It was always fun to have new blood join the game.
“All of it,” he said quickly. I was about to correct him with more detailed rules when he said, “But more specifically, no televised college sports. My weekends have been forever ruined. All I want is a little bit of Big Twelve Football and some March Madness. The closest thing I get to entertainment these days is Reagan coming down with another concussion.”
I couldn’t argue with him there. “And what would you keep?”
He laughed a little self-deprecatingly and admitted, “The no bills part of this.”
That shocked me. I really couldn’t picture a pre-Apocalypse Gage worried about money. He was so… responsible.
Gage explained a little further, “I had a bunch of credit card debt before the Zombies showed up.”
“What? Really?” I couldn’t help myself. I had to dig deeper. I had to.
He shrugged and looked out the windshield. “Oh yeah, I used to love the strip club. But all those tips have to come from somewhere.”
I choked on my laughter. “The strip club! That was worth going into debt over?” His low chuckle told me that it was. “I would never have guessed that about you.”
“Oh, yes,” Tyler chimed in. “Gage has always been the resident bad boy. His affinity for all things with daddy-issues is just the tip of the iceberg.”
He grinned at Tyler and slid his hand over her thigh. Vaughan shifted next to me. He hadn’t said anything since we started this trip and I was dying to know what he was thinking about this.
“I do like a girl with daddy issues.” Gage’s drawl had slowed to sweet honey. Oh, boy. He was really laying it on thick with Tyler. But then she rolled her eyes and pushed his hand off and I had to wonder what she thought about the whole thing.
I couldn’t dwell too long though; I needed to get to the bottom of this credit card debt thing. “But the strip club? Really? Was it that hard for you to get girls all on your own? You needed dolla-dolla bills to seal the deal?”
He laughed good-naturedly at my teasing and explained. “The difference between strippers and other girls is that they have very clear boundaries. They have time limits and pricing sheets and no expectations for me except that I clear my bill.”
“Oh, this is like a commitment issue thing.” It was starting to make sense. Albeit, I was a little disappointed with the obvious conclusion. “You just hadn’t found the right girl yet.”
Gage’s entire demeanor stilled. He had this buzzing energy about him before, adrenaline for the mission ahead, excitement to be away from the compound… Then he went quiet. He cleared his throat and admitted, “No, I knew the right girl.”
I should have heeded the warning signs and backed off. But I couldn’t. There were so many things about Gage that were a mystery to me and I wanted to understand him. “So then what was with the strippers?”
“The right girl was with someone else. Strippers were the only thing depraved enough to keep my interest after losing her to someone I couldn’t compete with.”
Tyler turned toward the window and Gage’s hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles stretched white. I almost asked another question when suddenly it dawned on me that Gage was talking about Tyler. The history of whether or not Gage had always been into her was now officially solved. Gage definitely had a thing for the homecoming queen.
He had always had a thing for her.
Holy smokes!
She didn’t seem to return his feelings though… which was strange.
The car fell silent after that. Vaughan silently stewed next to me and Tyler seemed beyond uncomfortable up in the front seat. Gage lapsed into pensive silence and Nelson and I just enjoyed each other. It was nice being in a committed relationship. These people around us seemed way too angsty for their own good.
I looked up at Nelson and kissed his scruffy jaw; I sighed with utter contentment.
We were headed into hell, but at least I didn’t have a love triangle to worry about.
Chapter Two
Gage parked the Suburban a ways out from the Colony. It was something like four in the afternoon when we arrived and the autumn sun dipped low on the horizon already. The trees had a crisp scent about them and decorated the landscape prettily instead of deadly.
Rust, aubergine, ochre and auburn painted leaves floated to the ground all around us. The air breezed cool and smoky around my neck. For a moment I imagined my life pre-infection. I should be cheering for football games now, wearing warm jackets and cradling a cup of hot cocoa while I cheered for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Reagan and I should be roommates in student housing, with a mini-fridge illegally packed with wine coolers and fake IDs for the weekend. We should be stressed about midterms and student loans and which frat house kegger we wanted to crash this Friday. I should be planning an epic Halloween costume that was equal parts clever and slutty. I should be enjoying my youth.
I should not be packing more than the Terminator and not be ready to gun-sling my way through a rescue mission. I should not be looking over my shoulder every thirty seconds to double check there were no Zombies about to take a big bite out of my ass. And I definitely should not be thinking about saving Miller’s life.
The world was certainly not supposed to go the way of the toilet. But the worst had happened and now I was living through the consequences whether I wanted to or not. Damn the Zombies. And damn science for making this happen.
That’s right, Medical Science, you cocky son of a bitch. You ruined my life!
Nelson cleared his throat. “Uh, Hales. You said that out loud.”
“Oh.” I gave a nervous chuckle. “Well, I meant every word.”
“I hope you got it all out of your system, because this is where things get hairy.” Gage dropped down to a crouch and surveyed the forest in front of us. “They are going to be everywhere, especially since they caught us last time. I can only imagine Matthias has upped his security.”
We nodded because we would have upped security too.
“We need to get into the school first. That’s where they will keep him. In the old band room, my father keeps his prisoners in the practice rooms. If Miller’s not out front, that’s where he’ll be.” Tyler drew the school in dirt while she talked. I was the only one who hadn’t been in there yet, so this diagram was for me. Although, it was unnecessary because she’d done this before for us and my memory was nearly photographic. She marked out the path with another line of her stick and I committed the route to memory.
“We will come out over here.” Gage circled an area that I had been told was the forest that backed right up to the football field. “It’s an obvious attack zone, but it’s also the most efficient. Any other path has us going all the way through town. We want to get in and out as soon as possible.”
Tyler took over again. “They will have been warned to shoot to kill. I’m hoping Kane will have them looking for Reagan, which will slow them down. And I don’t think they will try to kill me. But the rest of you should know the truth. If they get a chance, they will put you down.”
“We are well aware of the risk, Tyler,” Vaughan snapped impatiently. “And we’ve been over this before. If you don’t have anything new to add to the mission, I’d like to get out of this forest before we have to fight Feeders and your father’s men. I’ve done that before and it turns out I’m not a fan.”
“You’re right,” Gage agreed and stood up.
Tyler didn’t look as willing to concede but she understood that time was of the essence and eventually threw her stick down.
“You don’t have to be such a dick about it, Vaughan.”
“And you don’t have to be such a-”
“My guns are loaded!” I announced needlessly, but I could see that Vaughan was about to dig himself a heartbroken hole and I didn’t want to watch him hinder his chances with Tyler if he actually could bring himself to have a thing for her.
Was I the only person that thought she was too prissy for the end of the world? If this were an actual horror movie she would have been killed off in the first scene.
Yeah, it was only me that thought that? Perfect.
Gage gave us a hand signal that I guessed meant game on and we were off.
I had hoped the forest would be uneventful and we would make it through to the town easily. That was not the case.
Several times we had to stop, drop and hide for the sake of our lives. I lay in the leafy ground, smelling like earth and dirt, with just bushes to lend me cover and I got close to God really fast. You can never underestimate how many prayers you can say in a five minute period.