“What have you learned so far?” Vaughan pressed.
“How much time do you have?” she laughed lightly.
That seemed to pull us all out of the conversation and we looked around at the forest that lined this strip of highway.
“We should get some place safe for the night,” Nelson suggested. “Do you all need a place to stay? Or do you have accommodations?”
Bobbi Jo and her group of research scientists laughed in unison. “Yeah, we’re just down the road at the Motel Six,” a guy in the back said.
We laughed at his joke and some of the tension created by our unfamiliar union eased.
“We have a place,” Vaughan told them. “It really is just up the road. You can stay with us for the night.”
“Thanks,” Bobbi Jo said, sounding tremendously relieved. “We slept in trees last night. It wasn’t the best night’s sleep we’ve ever had.”
“Clever,” Vaughan commended. “Looks like it worked out for you.”
“Well, you don’t survive Mexico without learning a trick or two.” Bobbi Jo sighed a drained sound that I’d heard lots of times since the initial infection; it was the sound of an exhausted soul and a bone-deep weariness.
“It’s that bad?” I asked gently as we made our way back to the Suburbans.
She nodded once, falling into step beside me. “There were four more of us when we left the station. We’re hoping that one of us will make it back.”
My stomach dropped at her goal. To pack a team with enough people just so one person could make it back? What kind of dedication did it take for a group of people to sign up for a mission they didn’t expect to live through? What could they be looking for that incited that kind of selfless drive?
I looked around at the Parkers. We had love bonding us together, a mutual respect and the incentive to protect each other. These scientists were motivated for a different reason. They still believed in humanity. They still believed in a world that could be whole again… that could be the difference.
They sacrificed their lives and their safety to create something that seemed impossible.
I still didn’t know everything about them or if we could trust them, but I wanted to know everything about what they had learned so far and what they hoped to do.
I also wanted to know exactly what they were searching for… but mostly for my own hungry curiosity.
We reached the cars where Vaughan looked back and forth between the two vehicles. I could see his dilemma and almost laughed at the absurdity of it. Should he put them with Kane and Linley or risk revealing Page to them?
“You’ll have to split up,” he finally said. “We have… difficult cargo in both vehicles. Three of you can squeeze in that last one and the other two can come with me in this one. Stick to the middle seats.” They looked uncertainly at each other so Vaughan assured them, “We won’t hurt you. We didn’t just use our own bullets to save you, so we could waste more bullets ten minutes from now and kill you.”
That logic seemed to make sense to them and they reluctantly split up. Bobbi Jo and the man who’d made a joke earlier went with Vaughan and the two remaining men and the other woman followed me to Hendrix’s car.
Hendrix had leaned against the hood and watched us talk but hadn’t joined the conversation. After I opened the door for our guests and they crawled in, he grabbed my bicep, wrapping his whole hand around my arm and pulled me back to the front of the car. The windows were down and I could see Gage and Tyler pointing guns at Kane and Linley. They crawled into the backseat to make room for the newcomers. Both parties were extremely confused by the behavior on either side, but nobody asked questions.
Probably a good thing.
Gage and Tyler were squished in the back with Kane and Linley; guns were still held aggressively, when Hendrix asked, “Who are those people.” He pushed me back against the grill and leaned in so I could hear him while he whispered.
I was pissed at him.
But this was closest we’d been since he rescued me and my heart pounded a frantic, desperate rhythm.
“They’re scientists,” I told him. “They’re working on a vaccine.”
“Vaughan trusts them?” He shot a skeptical look over my shoulder and his hand settled on my waist.
I shivered at the contact but reminded myself I was still mad at him. “Obviously.”
His gaze snapped back to mine and he hit me with all the intensity Hendrix was capable of- which was a lot. Slowly he dropped his head to mine and breathed in as if he could inhale me. “We need to talk later.”
I nodded. The tone to his words was so irrevocably sad and defeated that I knew for certain I did not want to talk to him later. I was not interested in whatever he had to say.
He released me and walked away. I stood there for a second, knowing that everyone was waiting for me, that I was holding us up. But my legs felt boneless and my spine had disappeared. I wanted to melt into the ground and disappear into the center of the earth. I wanted to crumble into dust and blow away with the next breeze. I wanted to do anything but get in the SUV that would eventually take me to that conversation with Hendrix.
My heart hurt already and every decision I had made in the past six months started to come back to me in haunting memories and second guesses. I searched for my convictions and those confident pieces of me that would not only get me through whatever Hendrix wanted to talk about, even though I had an idea of what it would be, but also defend my answers and those beliefs that had become part of my core.
With quaking legs, I pulled myself up and walked to the passenger’s seat. The car was silent as we pulled forward and maneuvered over the pile of dead Feeders. I focused on my breathing and ignored the rising panic that started in my toes and bubbled up throughout my body until it threatened to overcome everything I was made of.
In an effort to distract myself, I turned in my seat, resting my rifle on my lap and started a conversation with the newcomers. “I’m Reagan,” I offered in what I hoped was a friendly voice. “This is Hendrix. Behind you, the ones with the guns, that’s Tyler and Gage. They’re good guys. The other two are not good guys. Their names are not important.” Unable to stop myself, I glanced at Kane, who pressed his twitching lips together and shook his head slowly as if silently amused with me.
Probably better to ignore him completely.
The guy in the middle was an African American with salt and peppered hair and distinguished wrinkles in the corners of his eyes. He had to be fifty or more, but he was in great shape and didn’t seem bothered by our guns or prisoners at all. “I’m Charles, and this is Ralph and Maria.”
I smiled at them. Ralph had very light skin with pale freckles covering his face and exposed forearms. His hair was an ashy shade of blonde and his face narrowed to a thin point below his long nose. Maria was a tiny woman with some kind of Hispanic origin. Her chocolate hair tumbled over her shoulders and her dark eyes sparkled with interest. She also clutched her very large handgun to her chest as one might hold a baby that was in potential danger.
“Nice to meet you,” I told them. “Can you tell me more about your research station? I’d love to hear your methods of studying Feeders and working on a vaccine.”
Charles smiled at me as if he had been expecting these questions. “We work mostly with captured Zombies, although we will go out into the field if we have to and observe them in a more… natural setting.”
“What do you mean by captured?”
“Our set up is nice. We first took refuge with some of our colleagues studying primates in the surrounding jungle. The facility is set up well for what we need. There are labs where we can work with battery-run microscopes and testing equipment and more. Plus, there are caged in courtyards where the previously studied primates could cohabitate. We keep the Feeders we catch in those areas and study them. We also run blood tests, mucous tests, look at their bone and brain matter and in general study every part of their bodies that we can.”
“Do
you muzzle them? Wait till they die? Starve them and make them immobile?”
“We sedate them,” he answered. “They respond to high doses of sedation. We have special suits we wear, but mostly we sedate them and get to work. They are unconscious for the duration of our testing.”
“That sounds like a catastrophe waiting to happen.” Gage voiced the exact same thought I’d been having.
“We’re very careful,” Charles replied.
I was sure that they were, but those were famous last words if I’d ever heard them.
“And what have you found out?” I asked, completely engrossed in this fountain of new information.
“Lots of things,” Charles assured me. “We’ve learned that the infection is spread through two saliva-like enzymes in their mouth. One is secreted through their softened teeth and the other through their mutated thyroid gland. They have to bite down or put pressure on their teeth to release the secondary enzyme. To infect another person, those two combined conditions have to mix with the blood stream. We’ve also learned that their bones eventually become so brittle that they start to disintegrate into their blood stream. Their strength grows over time, even while their bones shrink. They are not completely brain-dead as we once thought, but more brain-dormant. Eventually, when their bodies adjust to the disease their brains wake up again. Not in the way we operate, but enough for them to communicate some and follow rudimentary orders.”
“What else?” So far, other than the teeth thing, I hadn’t learned anything new. That was disappointing.
“They will eat any flesh. Not just human, but animal and reptile as well.”
“I knew all of that,” I told him.
Charles looked disappointed. “Oh.”
“Except for the teeth thing,” I assured him. “But to be fair, I‘ve been on the road for two years, so I’ve kind of worked out my own research process.”
The three scientists looked at me like that couldn’t possibly be true. I wanted to ask them more questions, but Hendrix had turned into another gas station. He followed Vaughan around the building where he parked.
It looked like tonight we would be staying in an antique mall that connected to the gas station. This had to be one of the more interesting places I’d stayed at. And I really hoped there were still pieces intact. I wouldn’t take anything with me of course, not unless I could use it to save my life or someone else’s. But I suddenly loved the idea of browsing through expensive pretties and dreaming up where I would have put them in my imaginary house.
It sounded so normal.
And I needed normal.
We climbed out of the Suburban and I gathered my guns. I usually had a pack or a few packs to tote around, but obviously I hadn’t had time to put a bag together when Kane kidnapped me. And everything I’d used at the cabin had been burned up in the fire.
These guns weren’t even technically mine, although I had no plans to return them. Finder’s keepers.
Gage and Tyler kept their guns on Kane and Linley. They didn’t have any possessions either. Kane wandered over to me as I stood watching Haley and the guys unload the trunks and the scientist team introduce themselves around the group. Gage watched Kane carefully but didn’t try to stop him.
“Are you going to tell them about Page?” Kane asked in a hushed voice.
I shrugged. “They might already know.”
“I think you should,” he said in a low voice. “They might be able to help her.”
“I’ve thought of that.”
He shrugged this time. “Will you fix my glasses?”
I looked down and realized his hands were tied behind his back. I hadn’t noticed them before, but I understood why Hendrix and Vaughan had taken that measure. I faced him completely and used both of my hands to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
He watched me intently and seemed to want to say a hundred more things to me. I was tempted to let him.
“Reagan,” Hendrix barked.
I jumped. I wasn’t proud of the fact that Hendrix managed to startle me, but he had.
“Let’s go.” He inclined his head toward the shop and disappeared inside the heavy brass door wielding his guns and presumably checking that Feeders hadn’t taken up residence in the time between when they first stayed here and now.
I stood still, not wanting to follow Hendrix on command, but also not wanting to stand here with Kane. At one time, Haley had given me a hard time for feeling things for both Hendrix and Vaughan. And it was true, I had liked them both. I hadn’t loved either of them at the time, but they’d both shown me a lot of attention and they were great guys. I just hadn’t gotten to know either of them to decide which one I liked more and I had thought it unfair to ask me to choose so suddenly in our relationship. Honestly, I hadn’t wanted to choose because I didn’t want a relationship with either of them for this very reason. I looked from Kane to the door and wondered if this was a legitimate love triangle. Had I managed to get tangled in the one thing I didn’t want to deal with ever again?
Was there such thing as a hate triangle?
I didn’t even like Kane and I wasn’t Hendrix’s biggest fan today either. They should just cut me out of the equation completely and have at each other. That seemed like a much better option.
“You’d better go reassure Hendrix you still love him,” Kane taunted me. “He’s looking a little insecure.”
“Stop gloating.”
I had been watching the door, but I felt the atmosphere shift around me when Kane absorbed my words. Suddenly my lungs weren’t filled with oxygen, they were filled with Kane. And the breeze didn’t float across my skin; Kane’s energy did.
In a rumbling, deep voice that forced me to stretch my toes to keep them from curling, he asked, “Do I have something to gloat about?”
“What?” I gasped, realizing my own mistake. I shook my head frantically. “Don’t be so full of yourself; that’s not at all what I meant.”
I pushed by him and hurried after Hendrix. I couldn’t seem to get anything right today, especially not where Kane was concerned. Shit.
Hendrix stood just inside the door. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness and dim light of one of the bunker’s camping lanterns, but eventually I could see again.
Hendrix walked silently down an aisle filled with outdated styles of lamps and lamp shades. This store was enormous and shaped like a barn. The ceiling above hung a hundred different chandeliers of every shape, style and color. Most of them disappeared into the darkness above, but I liked that they were there; I liked the world they represented and the period of history that was now lost.
Hendrix took me directly back to where some antiquated couches sat pushed into a sitting area. A pretty Persian rug made the space warm and inviting and a marble coffee table helped pull the look together. I imagined my parents shopping here in a time before Zombies, stumbling on this little area and discussing where they would put all these interesting pieces in our very outdated house. The thought nearly paralyzed me with homesickness.
“Do you want to sit down?” Hendrix asked. I blinked out of my daydreaming and noticed that he had already sat down in the corner of a high-backed couch.
I lowered myself onto the other couch that sat perpendicular to his. We sat separately but still very close. He set the lantern on the coffee table. It cast his face into the soft light and made me ache to kiss him.
Except I knew that was not why he’d brought me back here.
This was not the kind of alone time I craved with Hendrix.
“I can’t do this.” His words fell out of his mouth with raw finality. They scraped at my heart and stabbed at my soul. “Reagan, I love you, but I cannot do this with you when he is around.”
“Kane,” I confirmed.
“Yes,” he growled. “I would do anything to be with you, except condone what you’re doing with him.”
“I’m not doing anything with him.” I felt righteous conviction burn in my belly. This wa
sn’t fair. “I gave you my reasons for not wanting to kill him. But I told you before; I won’t always feel that way. I want him dead too… I just… I just can’t have that… You don’t know what I went through. You explained to me your side, but you haven’t even tried to hear what I have to say. I was the one that was kidnapped. I’m not belittling what your week has been like, but I do know that mine was just as bad.”
“You thought I was dead? Did you go through that? Did you mourn me? Did you have to force yourself to investigate the area you were sure only held my charred remains? How about finding out your sister had been bitten by a Feeder? Did you go through that, too?”
“No! I didn’t find out later, Hendrix. I watched it happen. I dealt with the aftermath and took care of her for the last three days. I love her too, Hendrix. You’re not the only one that’s suffering right now.”
“But you’re not her sister, not by blood. Your parents didn’t beg you to keep her safe and task you with her life. You haven’t raised her for the last two years and before that helped your sick mother raise her. She means a lot to you, Reagan, I know that she does. But not what she means to me. And you can’t compare the two.”
I swallowed the bitterness and argument that I wanted to spew at him because he might have been right. I might not have loved Page as much as he did, but it felt like I did. I loved her as much as I could love anyone else, but I didn’t know how to compare that with him. Instead, I tried to find my footing. But then I wondered why I had to argue someone into staying with me. Why did he put Kane between us like this? I knew things were confusing between us, and that the impression he had of Kane and me when he opened the hatch was not an accurate one. But I didn’t know how to explain that to him or help him see.
“I love you, Hendrix. I love you. Whatever you think I feel for Kane or want with him, the simple truth is that I don’t love him. I don’t even like him. And I love you. Why isn’t that enough? Why can’t you help me get through this?”