“Trusting someone with your life is different than trusting them with control. Your life is easy to give to someone because it’s always in danger. Control is something else. It’s all you have left. It’s your last line of defense before everything is taken from you. You throw up that wall with Hendrix and you throw it up with me. But not anymore. I have it now. It’s mine. Your last wall is down and while I have it, we’re going to get to know each other. I’m not asking for anything else.” His hand dropped from my chin and wrapped around the back of my neck.
I realized what he was doing. I realized this was his idea of “dating” me. “You’re sick,” I told him.
He shook his head again. “I’m desperate. I see the girl that I want, the girl that I can’t stop thinking about and she’s with another man. Every day she moves farther and farther away from me and I don’t live in a world where I can throw myself in her path and force her to look at me… acknowledge me. That’s it. I want you to see me.”
“I do see you,” I told him. “I don’t like what I see. You can’t force me to see you differently.”
He looked truly disgusted when he said, “I don’t want to force you to do anything.”
“Except stay here. You don’t want to force me to do anything except stay here and spend time with you. Even when I don’t want to.”
His expression turned slightly embarrassed. “Fine, except that, I won’t force you to do anything else.”
He stepped back and adjusted his glasses.
“Where did you get those?” Curiosity got the better of me. The last few times I had seen him, one of his lenses had been cracked.
He shrugged. “I have more than one pair.”
“You’re out of contacts?”
He looked at the doorway. “No.”
“Then why are you wearing glasses? Aren’t contacts easier?” I was being really bitchy with him, but I was so tired of this and I had the worst feeling that my time with him was just beginning.
He looked back at me with the most serious expression on his face. “You like my glasses.”
I felt my eyes grow big. I had never once told him that, or told anyone that! It was a fact that I had only admitted to myself in the very recesses of my mind, in the place I wouldn’t even let my consciousness dwell. I had never even truly admitted that to myself. What the hell! “What?”
His eyes narrowed behind those clear frames and he watched me for several moments, analyzing whatever he saw there. “Dinner’s ready.”
“I want to go home, Kane,” I pleaded on a broken whisper.
“Not yet.”
He turned around and left the room. I debated the positive points of staying in this room and not eating, but I knew Page was out there, so there was really no argument. Obviously, I would go out there. I would never willingly leave her alone with the Mother and Son Team from hades.
I followed Kane into the kitchen where a small eat-in table was pulled out from the wall. Four chairs surrounded the round table and Page and Linley were already seated.
Page looked up at me with expectant eyes and I gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m fine, now, Sweets. That was nothing.”
She did not believe me. Her little lips trembled and her big blue eyes widened. I slid into the seat next to her and wrapped my arms around her thin shoulders. I kissed the top of her head and promised again in a whisper at her ear that I had gotten scared but that I was all right now.
She hugged me back and whispered that she was also scared.
I pulled back and stared down at her beautiful but pale face. “We’re going to be okay, Page. I will not let anything bad happen to you. I will always protect you.”
I knew Kane and Linley were listening but I didn’t care. This little girl was my sole reason for living right now and I wasn’t going to let those two crazies intimidate me.
In usual Page fashion though, she looked up at me and asked, “But who’s going to protect you, Reagan?”
I started to formulate an answer that sounded like anything other than a lie when Kane butted in. “I’m going to protect her.” Page jumped at the sound of his deep voice but eventually he won her attention. She turned away from me and met his gaze. “Do you believe me?” he asked her. “Do you believe that I will keep Reagan safe?”
She nodded slowly, shocking the ever-loving hell out of me. “Yes,” she said. Her shoulders relaxed and her face brightened when her color returned.
I stared down at her, stunned and completely confused. When I finally found the courage to look at Kane again, he was already watching me.
He stared at me, waiting for me to get it. I knew he was waiting for me to believe him like Page did but I didn’t have Page’s faith or her innocence of this world. Sure, he would keep me safe from Zombies and other worldly dangers but what about himself?
How could he keep me safe from him when he refused to acknowledge that he was a threat?
Or maybe he did acknowledge it.
Maybe he realized he was a threat to me and that was the whole point.
Chapter Three
Dinner started as a silent affair. Kane and Linley put together a meal of jerky, canned green beans, stuffing from a box that they cooked with boiling water and real, fresh apple slices.
We ate decently at the compound, but I hadn’t had fresh fruit in forever. Page ate at least an apple and a half of slices all by herself and I was close behind her. Linley and Kane watched in fascination as we devoured the fresh produce and licked our fingers clean.
“Where did you get these?” I asked in awe.
“We have apple trees,” Linley answered coolly.
I glanced up at her. She was already watching me, leaned over her plate with a hot cup of coffee in her hand. This cabin came with a propane powered camping grill and she had made a pot with an old-fashioned percolator.
I wanted a cup desperately but I was too proud to ask.
I’d rather be Zombie food than ask Linley Allen to share her coffee with me.
Instead I suffered in silence. The afternoon light turned into the dimness of evening, so lanterns had been turned on around the kitchen and the air smelled like cooked spices from the stuffing and rich coffee. If I didn’t hate these people so very much, I would find this meal beautiful and inspiring. It would have reminded me of home and eating with my family.
But I did hate them. If not for any other reason than they completely tainted all the stored-up coffee fantasies I’d had over the last two years.
Bastards.
“We have more than apple trees,” Kane explained. “We have a very large harvest this year, plenty of fresh produce.”
“How nice for you,” I smiled sarcastically at him. “I’m sure all the brain-washed lemmings love that.”
Kane scowled at me and Linley gasped in surprise.
“Reagan what’s produce?” Page asked quietly.
“It’s like these apples, Babe, or green beans. Fruits and vegetables are called produce, and when they are straight from the ground or a tree, we call them fresh produce.”
“So, we don’t have any fresh produce at home?” There was an obvious tone of disappointment in her words and my heart ached at the sound.
“We have plenty, Page,” Kane butted in. Again. “While you’re with me, you can have as much as you want.”
“We should be careful not to have too much, though,” I told her quickly. “These apples might upset your tummy. You’re not used to this kind of food. We’ll eat it slowly from now on, alright?”
She looked up at me hopefully. The promise of more apples brightened her spirit once again. “Alright.”
I glared at Kane. “What are you, the White Witch?”
“These aren’t truffles and chocolates,” he defended adamantly and I had to admit I was surprised he understood my reference to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. “She needs fresh fruits and vegetables. You do, too.”
“You need to mind your own business.” Ha! Take that.
&
nbsp; Okay… it was kind of a lame comeback, but give me a break, it had been a long, traumatizing, very emotional day.
“You’re too skinny. Your diet is not healthy. How do you expect to continue your crime-fighting lifestyle when you won’t even be able to lift a gun soon? You need muscles to fight bad guys, Reagan. You can’t have muscles if you don’t eat.” He waited expectantly for my reply.
“I’m not too skinny.” I felt irrationally insecure at those words. I shouldn’t have cared what he thought about my appearance, but I couldn’t help it. I knew that most days I was a hot mess. My hair was out of control and rarely clean. I was constantly covered in blood and dirt. My fingernails were a joke of filth and brokenness. I didn’t even want to contemplate what my face looked like after two years of living on the road and no makeup. And it wasn’t like I had ever been vain or overly concerned with my looks, but I enjoyed feeling pretty. Even more so now, when I never felt attractive. I could be the bad ass Zombie-killer all day, every day, but I was still a girl; I was still feminine and I still wanted to be beautiful. I didn’t want to reflect the ugly world I lived in. I wanted to stand apart as something not of this world.
Maybe that was asking too much.
At the very least it was putting the wrong priorities on the top of my list. But the feelings were there all the same.
So, Kane calling me too skinny cut me much deeper than it should.
I wasn’t too skinny by choice. I didn’t want my hip bones to jut out. I didn’t want my boobs to shrivel to raisins and my head to look too big for my neck. I couldn’t stop these things from happening.
My period had started coming less and less frequently and I knew I was malnourished- worse than I ever had been.
But what did Kane expect me to do about it?
I would have loved to run to the nearest grocery store, spoon in hand and devour their frozen desserts section.
Obviously, that was not an option.
“I’m not insulting you,” Kane broke into my whirling thoughts. “But you’ve dropped significant weight in the last couple months.”
Really? He wanted to go here? Fine. He could have it. “That’s because we have to ration food!” I shoved my plate forward, completely losing my appetite despite our conversation. “That’s because somebody keeps booby-trapping our raiding missions and our supplies are dwindling! That’s because we used to have a trade agreement with you guys until you ended all that in favor of becoming kidnapping, psychotic assholes!”
“The mouth on you,” Linley scolded me. “I don’t get it, Kane. I don’t get what you see in her.”
I almost laughed, instead my focus swung to Kane to watch his reaction.
He smothered a smile and winked at me.
The man winked at me.
He kidnapped me. He kidnapped the most important thing in my life- Page. He threatened me. He bullied me.
And then he freaking winked at me! Playfully!
I shoved away from the table, “I can’t do this!”
I stood up and stomped around the table. Kane caught me with a hand around my waist and looked up at me. He didn’t say anything at first; he stared at me, holding my gaze. A lock of hair had fallen over his forehead and gotten caught in the top rim of his glasses. Before I knew what I was doing, I let my fingers brush the hair aside, out of his face.
“Sit down, Reagan,” he commanded in a stern but soft voice. “Finish your dinner.”
I was so stunned at what my fingers had done, at the fact that his arm had wrapped all the way around my waist and I hadn’t flinched or moved away from him or tried to do anything to stop him from touching me that I obeyed. I turned around and his arm dropped. I silently walked back to my seat and pulled myself back to the table.
And then I ducked my head and focused on eating.
My heartbeat picked up speed but I ignored the rising panic again. I could control this. I could control what happened to me here and how I reacted.
Kane was wrong about earlier. I did still have control.
And maybe that made me some kind of control freak. Maybe he had even been right about my relationship with Hendrix.
But the thing was, I was not actually looking for some personality reformation. I was quite happy with maintaining all the control in the world and I certainly wasn’t going to let Kane Allen be the one to take it from me and teach me how to trust someone completely.
I would work on that with Hendrix and nobody else.
And there it was.
The hope that Hendrix would still save me. I couldn’t give that up. I wouldn’t.
I looked down at Page as she focused on her own meal. She remained quiet the rest of the meal and I knew that she was having similar thoughts as me. She was such a smart little girl and while she had never been through this particular scenario, she had lived enough of this world, to understand the danger we were in.
But she wouldn’t give up hope in her brothers and I wouldn’t either. They were the freaking Parkers. They were the cavalry.
They were coming.
They had to be coming.
Linley picked up her fork that she had set down to watch me make a scene, and began eating again. She had impeccable manners, the kind that intimidated every other person at the table. I found myself sitting up straighter and taking smaller bites to feel like anything other than a complete barbarian.
Finally, after long moments of strained silence, Kane said, “We would rather live in peace with Gage. You started the war, not us.”
I cleared my throat and formulated a mature response. My anger wasn’t going to get me anywhere with these people. “Please explain to me how we started the war. You initiated the gunfight in the compound, not us.” There was more to that story, like Kane’s first attempt at kidnapping me, but I decided to let that rest for now.
“You took my son and my daughter,” Linley shot out immediately. “That is how this war started. You took my children from me!”
I met her steely gaze and noticed for the first time that Kane got his eyes from his mother. They were steel gray, the color of cold metal and stormy skies. “Your son and your daughter wanted to leave. They would have left with or without us. We kept them alive. We kept them fed and armed. We taught them how to take care of themselves on the road. If it weren’t for us, they would be dead in a ditch right now or worse.”
Some secret emotion flashed across her face but it happened so fast that I couldn’t decipher it. “I want my family back, Reagan. I will do whatever it takes to keep my family together and happy.”
I let the purest form of conviction fill my voice when I promised her, “Me, too. I will do whatever it takes to keep my family together.”
She sat back in her chair, disturbed by the truth in my words. I wondered if she heard the meaning imbedded in my promise; I wondered if she felt the threat to Kane’s life that those words really were.
“We’re at a standstill, I guess,” I continued. “Tyler and Miller don’t want anything to do with you and even if they did, how could we know that the war would stop if they went back to the Colony?”
“You couldn’t,” she answered casually. The demure, polished woman was back and as elegant as ever. “Matthias is finished negotiating with Gage. We’ve decided to expand. We’ll take the land in between and spread out as far as your facility. And when we’ve taken enough people to fill in the gaps, we’ll expand some more. Your settlement is doing well for what you are, but you are shortsighted in the grand scheme of things. Matthias will return this country to its former glory. As of right now, you are nothing but in the way.”
I had heard Tyler talk about all this before. Matthias had grand plans for this country and I hated to admit this, but if anyone could manage to brainwash an entire continent of post-apocalyptic survivors, I had no doubt it would be Matthias Allen.
“What happens to the people that don’t want you taking over?” I raised my eyebrows and waited for her to confess future-genocide.
??
?Those people are in the minority,” she countered. “You are in the minority. The majority of those left want someone to take over. They want someone to tell them everything’s going to be all right. They want to be told what to think, where to stand, how to behave. Things were not so different than before the Zombies. Human nature doesn’t change despite the circumstances. Right now, humanity has a problem. And I don’t mean the Zombies. You look around this country and you see a people lost and confused. They are without leadership and guidance. They want someone in control. They want someone that will take care of them. You look at my husband as some kind of monster, but he isn’t out to hurt people, Reagan. He’s out to save them.”
“By murdering everyone that gets in his way? By abusing his children and turning those who disagree with him into Feeders? He isn’t out to save anyone! He’s out for his own glory, his own greed and power!” I put my arm around Page because I knew that she wasn’t ready for this kind of conversation and her brothers did a great job of shielding her from this depth of horror. But I needed to say what I thought. I didn’t want Page to hear any of it, but it was impossible to protect her from this reality in this moment. She eagerly leaned into me and put her arms around my waist.
Linley dropped her fork and it clattered onto the ceramic plate with force. “Don’t you speak about my husband that way. You know nothing of this world, little girl. And you know nothing about what is good for this country. You’re out to save your own skin and nothing more. I don’t want to hear your poison thoughts about my family, when you couldn’t even be bothered to see what was good for the people that took you in and sheltered you. You want to blame my husband for the war he is bringing down against Gage, well, then go ahead; but you’d better understand that you blame him because you are losing. If you had any insight into the situation at all, you’d realized you started this war, that you are the one responsible for all those innocent lives being lost and the starvation that’s plaguing your compound. And furthermore, you can resist my husband’s leadership all you want, but in the end you will yield to our way of life or you will be pay the price. There is no other way. We’re coming for you and you are helpless to stop us.” With that she pushed back from the table and left the room.