I went through the same prep-work as before, making as little noise as possible and holding my breath the entire time. I willed the door to open and the handle to turn all the way. Surely, if I put enough mental effort behind this the door would obey.
I found myself simultaneously elated and freaked out when not a second later all my telekinesis well-wishes seemed to work out because the handle did click open.
I had three seconds of deciding whether to exercise the demon from my body while jumping up and down with victory before a body pushed through the door with a gun aimed straight in my face.
Joy turned to blind fear and I fumbled for my weapon.
“Don’t move,” Kane’s deep voice ordered.
“You don’t move,” I shot back with false bravado. I didn’t even have my gun in my hand, but I was one hundred percent certain he wouldn’t hurt me.
Okay, maybe not one hundred percent… maybe more like… three or three and a-half percent sure.
“Haley?” Kane hissed at me and slammed the door behind him. “I knew I heard something over here!”
“Kane, put your gun down! You might shoot me!”
“I might want to shoot you!”
“No you don’t.” I took a step forward and pushed the barrel of his gun out of my face. My hands trembled and my heart pounded on the verge of a heart attack, but I had to get control of this situation quickly or I would lose.
And I couldn’t lose.
For Miller’s sake, for Tyler and Gage, for Vaughan and most importantly, for Nelson, I could not lose.
“You know, Reagan would never forgive you if you hurt me.”
“Reagan tried to kill me. Or don’t you remember? Why would I ever worry about who she does and does not want me to kill?” The stormy eyes behind his cracked glasses demanded an answer, but not in the way I had expected. There was a vulnerability to his question, a subtle helplessness that made his question genuine and desperate.
Throwing whatever caution I had left to the wind, I took another step toward him while his gun dangled limply at his side. “Because, Kane, because in your own sick, twisted, psychopathic way, you love her.”
He made a mocking noise from the back of his throat. “Be that as it may, Haley, if you haven’t noticed, my sick, twisted, psychopathic way is to take her away from everything and everyone she loves. I can start right now with you.”
Chapter Three
Kane’s face was shadowed in this light. I couldn’t make out his expression or his intentions. He was a mystery to me now more than ever before.
What I did understand perfectly clear, was the cold metal of his gun now pressed into my abdomen.
“That’s not even a nice place to shoot someone,” I scolded him. “It would take me forever to bleed out!”
He choked on something that sounded almost like a laugh. “I’m not trying to be nice!”
Okay this was escalating quickly. “How about instead of killing me, we talk this through. You don’t really want to kill me. I know that you don’t.”
“How do you know what I want?”
Well, this part was obvious. “Because, Kane, you’re just like me. We’re killers. We kill when it’s necessary. And we kill to stay alive. If you wanted me dead, you would have shot me the second you walked in this room.”
“Not true,” he argued. “I’m still debating whether this will work for me or against me.”
“Keeping me alive? For you. This will definitely work for you.”
He made a disbelieving sound in the back of his throat. “You really expect me to believe that if I let you live, you’re going to work with me to get Reagan to come live with me?”
“God, that’s so sexist.”
“Excuse me?”
“Why does she have to come live with you? Why can’t you give up your life to go live with her? Why is your life so much more important than hers? Huh? She’s got a lot of things going on too, okay. She runs a school now. Plus… other things. She’s got this whole life over there and you want her to uproot everything and come move into your freaky Children of the Corn village? No. Uh-uh. This might be the end of the world, but that’s where you’re missing the point. The end of the world, welcome to women’s liberation, bitch.”
He made no sound for a very long time. In fact, so long I wondered if my monologue had put him to sleep.
Eventually he cleared his throat and let out a low chuckle. The sound rumbled through his chest and made him sound like a completely different person. I had no good feelings for Kane whatsoever… like my feelings were worse than bad. They were worse than hatred and loathing and disgust. They were the very worst thing that anything could be. That’s how much I hated him. That being said… when he laughed like that, when he let himself relax a little and show whatever was left of his humanity… I got it. I understood the, er, big deal… Reagan’s deal.
But that was the last concession she was getting from me! This guy was so bonkers.
“If you’re finished, I’ll remind you that she has to come live with me because I shot Hendrix. I am having a hard time believing that you and your merry band of alpha assholes are going to welcome me with open arms.”
He had a point. “You may have a point.”
“Thank you.”
“You don’t stand a chance anyway. You have to know this. She loves Hendrix. They’re perfect for each other.”
I felt his entire demeanor change. He had started to relax around me but I put my foot in my mouth… big time.
Those might possibly be my dying words. Which sucked! I wanted the last thing I ever said to be about me, and the greatness that is me. Not Reagan! Of course, I loved the girl. And if she were here, I would be totally fine with like a last, “I love you, girl.” But sticking up for her relationship with Hendrix was not something to lose one’s life over.
Why didn’t I know when to keep my mouth shut?
It was like I had been born without the part of the brain that filtered thoughts for the purpose of survival.
“You know nothing about Reagan and me. You get your facts from her. You get your truth from her. And let me tell you how honest she is with you when I’m not around. She’s not. We have something between us. And she can lie to you and she can lie to Hendrix and whoever else she wants to goddamn lie to. But I know the truth. And I’m not delusional. I’m not crazy. Not about this.”
I had to fight not to believe him. His tone, his body language, the conviction that wrapped around each one of his words tried their hardest to persuade me to consider him. But I knew Reagan. I had known her almost my entire life. We had been through two years of living hell together. We had saved each other’s lives on numerous occasions. She was the very best friend a human being was capable of having. I knew that she didn’t feel for Kane what he felt for her.
I knew that.
But what if she felt something? Had she been leading him on? Had she been fueling his crazed desire for her and pushing him toward insane possession?
I wanted to say no. Except he was standing across from me telling me a different story, a story he believed with everything in him.
She had tried to kill him, though. She had stabbed him and shot him and pushed him out of a moving car.
That sent a pretty strong message, didn’t it?
Gosh, thank God, for Nelson. I couldn’t live with Reagan’s relational drama. Holy hell, this girl lived in a soap opera.
The Last Days of Our Lives.
General Apocalypse.
The Brains and the Beautiful.
All My Zombies.
One Life to Kill.
Had enough?
Okay, one more.
The Young and the Undead.
And that ladies and gentlemen are the soap operas of the Apocalypse. You’re welcome.
Kane stood there waiting for a reply. Oops.
“Okay, fine. I can admit that she maybe she hasn’t been entirely truthful with me. Possibly there are feelings involved that I
neither see nor understand. However, kidnapping her and dragging her back to your cave is not the way to get her to declare her feelings for you! It’s probably the worst thing you can do for your, er, relationship with her.”
Kane absorbed that for a minute and said, “I guess we’ll find out.”
That sounded like something I should investigate, except right then a shadow fell over the half-window I’d used as an entrance and clouded us into complete darkness. A second later, an arm shoved through the window pane. The entire wooden frame pushed back on its hinges, dislodging it completely from its track.
Nelson followed the dangling window and managed to launch himself at Kane. He hit Kane right in the center of his chest and slammed him against the door with a resounding crash. Kane’s head slammed back into the wood and when he slid down the door a thick smear of blood followed him. His gun clattered to the tiled floor and slid under the shelving unit.
Nelson and Kane continued to wrestle around on the floor, knocking things over in their struggle and in general being loud as all hell. I attempted to shush them while also managing to stay out of the way of their flailing appendages.
I accomplished neither.
I pointed my gun at the general area of where I thought Kane’s head might be, but it was useless. They were too tangled for me to get a clear shot. I thought about shooting anyway… but probably Nelson would not be so understanding if I accidentally shot him.
No matter how much he loved me.
The sound of fist hitting flesh filled the spaces between their grunts of discomfort and outright cries of agony. Someone’s head slammed back against the hard floor and the sickening smack of skull against hard tile reverberated to my bones.
“Nelson?” I gasped, but of course he didn’t answer. He kept fighting though, so even if it was his head, he couldn’t be that hurt…
A shadow darkened the window again and I looked up in time to see half of Vaughan’s body appear. He gripped the window ledge with his super-strong hands and pulled himself in the building by sheer force of will.
Holy shit.
Where was Tyler? She should be watching this! He was like the freaking Hulk!
I watched him, wondering if I could help somehow? No. He had this. He definitely had this.
When he had pulled himself up far enough that his feet could get some leverage, he propelled his body through the small space. He literally landed on the floor and threw himself directly into the fray.
Kane had been holding his own against Nelson, but he didn’t stand a chance against two Parkers. Nelson went for his chest again and wrapped his arms around Kane’s. Nelson then body slammed him against the tiled floor. I heard Kane’s head whack against the floor once and Vaughan’s fist connect with the front of his face. It was the hardest, most powerful punch I had ever seen thrown in my life.
Kane fell limp in Nelson’s arms, completely unconscious.
Also, possibly in a coma.
But probably not. Kane was much like a cockroach. This wouldn’t be enough to put him out of commission.
Nelson and Vaughan jumped to their feet. Both of them were panting heavily and sweating. Nelson turned to face me. The broken window let in more light than before and the sunlight streaked across his face, only revealing his eyes.
They were practically glowing in the bright sunlight; their blue color brightened with all his exercise and the adrenaline that pumped through his blood at the speed of light.
He looked me over and walked slowly to me.
“You scared the hell out of me,” he accused.
“Why?”
He slid his arms around me as if I was a breakable thing and he had to treat me with care. His hands wrapped around my waist and drew me tightly against his chest. His nose drew a line down my face from my temple to my jaw.
“We had to hide for a few minutes and when we finally came back, we could hear you in here with him. I thought… I thought… I didn’t know what he was going to do to you.” His kiss on my lips was insistent and needy. His tongue played with mine, his teeth scraped against my bottom lip. He tasted me, savored me, and worshipped me just to make sure I was still with him. I didn’t remember how afraid I was for him too before Kane interrupted me until now.
I clung to him. I let him have his way with my mouth even though this was the very worst place to be making out.
By the time he pulled back, my breathing had accelerated and my pulse pounded frantically beneath my skin.
“Let’s get this over with and go home.” He kissed my nose and I thought there had never been a better idea.
“You’re a problem solver,” I told him.
“Okay, let’s go,” Vaughan ordered.
I looked down, over Nelson’s shoulder and found Kane all tied up and gagged to the folding chair with bright yellow rope that must have been sitting on the shelves.
When did that happen?
Oh, when Nelson and I were getting reacquainted with our base hormones.
I used the toe of my shoe to lift Kane’s foot by the tip of his boot and I let it flop back down. He didn’t react in any way. “He’s out for good, isn’t he?”
“You sound disappointed,” Vaughan accused me in disbelief.
“It’s just that right before you guys barged in the room and saved the day, he said something that didn’t sit right with me. I wanted to ask him about it.”
“You were going to ask him about it?” Nelson chuckled. “He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to be very forthcoming with information.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Well, I was going to give him an incentive to tell me the truth! Duh.”
“What kind of incentive?” Vaughan asked sounding mildly amused.
“I was going to promise not to shoot him in the balls.”
“Duh,” Nelson taunted Vaughan. “You’ll have to make him a eunuch another day, Hales. It’s time to go.”
I drew out my gun. “Doesn’t anybody else think we should kill him right now? Anybody? He’s all… just lying there and my gun is bored. I’m thinking it might be a good idea if we ended this craziness now before he does something that makes us regret not taking this opportunity.”
Vaughan groaned. “Believe me; he would be bleeding out right now if it was up to me.”
“Why isn’t it up to you?”
“Hendrix made us promise to leave Kane for him. He wants the honor,” Nelson explained.
I looked down at the tightly-tied Kane. “Hendrix is a lucky guy.”
“If he gets the opportunity,” Vaughan drawled. “Like you said, as long as Kane doesn’t make us regret this moment.”
We fell silent after that and Vaughan moved to the door. He turned the handle exactly like I’d been trying to, quietly, stealthily and successfully.
With weapons drawn and trigger fingers readied, we filed into the dim hallway.
This part of the school building was out of the way. We walked straight into an empty corridor with empty lockers. It wasn’t until we followed Tyler’s game plan down a hallway and around the corner that we ran into the trophy cases of Feeders lined up along either wall.
They had been moaning maybe a little absentmindedly until we rounded the corner, and our fresh, fleshy smell created a frenzy of Feeder activity. We stayed exactly in the middle of the wide hallway while their greedy, decomposing hands grabbed for us.
Reagan had been right; there was no smell.
And while mentally I had been prepared for that, it still seemed strange. But these weren’t normal Zombies either. Their arms were almost too heavy for their weakened states to lift. Their putrefying skin sagged off their exposed limbs in pasty, peeling flakes. Their stomachs were emaciated and hollow, pressed against the steel bars so tightly that most of them had broken their ribs in an attempt to get to their next meal.
They were disgusting on a good day.
This day made me want to take them all home with me and turn them into housebroken pets.
Or, more ra
tionally, unload clip after clip into their rotting skulls so that they could have some deserved peace.
And that was the thing, they didn’t deserve this. Not even when they were the worst kind of creature on the planet. Not even because they could infect every last one of us until Earth was overpopulated with Zombies and meal plan consistently served brains.
They didn’t deserve this because we didn’t deserve this.
They were once people. They were once rational, thinking, intelligent human beings capable of kindness, goodness and love.
They deserved peace.
They deserved to leave this ugly world and the filthy, decomposing body they’d moldered into.
They deserved death.
And we should be able to give that to them. Not stoop to their brainless level and lock them away for showmanship.
Ugh.
They seemed to agree with my thoughts because as we moved by them they rattled their bars and snapped their slime-covered teeth at us.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly a show of solidarity.
At any rate, the equally hell-bound humans that inhabited this third ring of hell were going to hear us coming if these Feeders didn’t shut up.
We turned the corner and the Feeders lining this corridor reacted in a wave of motion. The clamoring started close to us and woke up each segment of Zombies all the way to the end of the hall.
We waited at the corner for someone to appear or check out the disorderliness. We could see the doors to the band room from here. They were a few yards down the hallway.
After a few minutes and when the Zombies didn’t calm down someone stepped out of that room and waved a semi-automatic rifle around. The angry looking man, dressed in all black, watched the hallway for a minute, tilted his ear toward the other end of the corridor, cursed the Zombies and went back inside.
“We’re going to have to take out whoever is in the room,” Vaughan whispered.
“Do you think Tyler and Gage are in there?” I squinted down to the end of the hallway. A sliver of light split up the darkness but that was the only thing I could make out. There were lanterns along the way, but their radius of visibility didn’t reach far enough for me to discern anything. Other sounds mixed in with all the Zombie moaning. Human screaming perhaps?