“You’re green from head to toe.”
“Shut up.”
“Stop staring at my brother like he kicked your puppy. He’s not interested in the scientist. He wants information.”
I winced and gave up pretending. “She’s pretty.”
“She is pretty,” Hendrix agreed. His head dropped back down, and he stared at me seriously. “But Vaughan isn’t that shallow.” He jumped to his feet and held out his hand for me to take. I reluctantly slipped mine into his and let his massively huge palm envelop mine. “And, by the way, so are you. Vaughan would have to be blind and stupid not to see how pretty you are.”
I cleared my throat nervously. “I’m not… I don’t want you to think… I’m not really thinking…”
He shook his head once. “He knows that.”
I gave him a shaky smile and relaxed. The tension drained from my shoulders, and I decided I could probably start trying to trust Hendrix. He’d been recently heartbroken. I could relate to that. My heart lay in a hundred sharp, jagged pieces, in my chest, stabbing at vital organs and inhibiting my ability to breathe. Maybe we could lean on each other for comfort. Maybe he could understand some of what I was going through.
“Vaughan,” he shouted over my head. “It’s time for another perimeter search and it’s your turn. Tyler said she’d go with you!”
Or maybe I would stab him in the scrotum with my switchblade.
“What?” he laughed at me. “I said he knew you weren’t ready for a relationship. I didn’t say anything about me.”
“Aren’t you supposed to hate feelings right now? Aren’t you supposed to want happy people to die and rainbows to drip acid? What the hell, Hendrix!” My voice was a whisper-screech of incredulity and rage. He was out of his mind!
He just smiled that charming grin that probably roped Reagan in before she even realized what she was agreeing to. “Just because I’m not happy doesn’t mean I don’t want to see my brother happy.”
I rolled my eyes. “Hendrix the Great Matchmaker.”
“Your future children will thank me for one day.”
“Your balls should thank me that I haven’t popped them with Dolly.”
“Dolly?”
I pulled out my switchblade and pressed the springy silver button. His eyes grew big, and his hand flew to his junk. “Thanks, Dolly,” he gulped.
His nervousness gave me a heady sense of accomplishment.
“Is there a specific reason you’re holding a knife to my brother’s manhood?” Vaughan asked from behind me.
I put Dolly Parton away.
“She named her knife,” Hendrix told Vaughan with utter disbelief, like I’d violated the most sacred vow. “She named it Dolly.”
I whirled around and ignored Vaughan’s blank look. “Ready?”
Slowly life came back to his glossy eyes, and he looked down at me with a furrowed brow. “The better question is, is Dolly ready?”
“Y’all are hilarious,” I threw over my shoulder as I headed to the front of the store and the world beyond.
Vaughan hurried after me, checking his arsenal and chuckling quietly. We stepped into the bright but cool sunlight of afternoon. Autumn was in full force now, and the days had dropped to the mid-sixties. I shivered in the bitter breeze but loved the way the fresh air felt against my skin. It was hard to complain about feeling cold when I’d been trapped inside for more than twenty-four hours. I loved the warmth of the sun as it warred against the bite of the fall wind. I loved the colors of the leaves as they floated down to a leafier ground. I loved the browning grass and the still-strong scent of fire and smoke that clung to the edges of the day.
This was football weather. I desperately missed my red Hogs sweatshirt and my mom’s nacho dip.
I missed Logan’s letterman jacket and him screaming at the TV as if he could influence the outcome of the game.
I missed harvest and pumpkin patches and cute fall jackets. I missed scarves.
Mostly I missed a life in which the love of my life called me every morning and every night and promised a future filled with his children and devotion.
“So really,” Vaughan started. “Why were you threatening to turn my brother into a eunuch?”
I snorted. “He has one bad breakup and suddenly he’s Doctor Laura.”
“Are you speaking in riddles?”
I cut him a look and dropped down to retie my shoelace. “He tried to give me relationship advice. I didn’t want it.”
“Obviously,” Vaughan muttered. His body went still above me, icy with a chill I didn’t understand.
I stood up and swallowed against an annoying and unexplainable lump in my throat. “Which way do you want to go first?”
“Why?”
I replayed all of our conversation in my head but couldn’t understand his question. “Why what?”
His dark blue eyes narrowed on me. The Parkers all had blue eyes and blonde hair. When I first met them, I thought they were clones of each other. Although Hendrix was slightly taller than Vaughan, and Nelson and Vaughan were nearly the same height, they could have easily been genetic clones of each other varying in age only.
Now that I knew them, I could clearly see so many more differences. Vaughan’s blue eyes were darker than everyone’s but Nelson’s. Yet, somehow they were deeper. They twinkled with intelligence and a clear perception that seemed to rip through any barrier or wall. His quick mind played out in the expressions on his face and made his lips twitch with the rapidity of how fast he could think. His dark blonde beard was thicker than any of his brother’s and that made it necessary for him to keep it shorter, or I’d heard him complain about looking like a mountain man.
I noticed that he scratched at it often and rubbed at his neck. I didn’t really think that he liked the scruffy look, but kept it anyway out of some show of solidarity with the rest of his brothers. Or, it was because shaving it felt somehow less manly and Vaughan Parker, leader of the Parker clan and all around bad ass, was not about to come off less testosterone-inclined than any other man.
His smile was broad and genuine and revealed straight, white teeth. His neck was long and corded, his shoulders were broad and powerful. He was a weapon wrapped tightly in the skin of a beautiful man.
He was dangerous to Feeders everywhere.
And deadly to me.
I didn’t know when this started. These feelings… this confusion. This building inferno of wrongness. In fact, it didn’t even matter.
I devoted my life to one man, promised him everything in my heart and soul. Then he’d been taken from me.
If Logan had lived and I had died, I knew that he would never have broken those promises to me. And I had vowed the same for him.
Even this small attraction to Vaughan felt like a cruel betrayal to Logan’s memory. The problem was I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t know how to make it go away or disappear.
I was attracted to Vaughan the first time I met him. I argued with myself that any woman would have been drawn to him. It’s impossible not to be.
But physical attraction wasn’t something to worry about. I expected it to fade over time. He had surprised me, that was all; I just needed to let all those initial feelings crumble when his reality became exposed.
Except, I noticed I was becoming more attracted to him.
Which didn’t make sense.
We fought all the time. I never agreed with him on anything. And he drove me bat shit crazy.
And still, daily I found myself staring at him… The rough angles of his hard, world-worn face. Or the tension in his shoulders and torso when we argued. I noticed dumb things like how he rubbed his thumb against his eyebrow when he got stressed out or picked the red peppers out of his baked beans whenever we had them. I knew that he counted his siblings every single morning and at some point in time had started to include me in that numbering. The sound of his laugh instantly made me smile, and the intensity in which he looked at me now made me inexplicably nervous.
“Why was Hendrix trying to give you relationship advice?” Vaughan clarified. “Are you in a relationship?”
I took a step back. When had we gotten so close? We were nearly nose to nose for a second.
To diffuse some of the tension in my coiling body, I let loose a bitter laugh. “Not in the slightest.”
“Then why is my brother giving you relationship advice?” He took another step forward and spoke his words ridiculously slowly as if he were saying them to a small child.
“I don’t know! Go ask him.” I turned around and tried to focus on the job we’d come out here to do. I scanned the parking lot and highway. We were in plain sight of anyone driving by, but we couldn’t do much about it. The Suburbans had been moved to the back of the building and parked on a short, grassy lawn, but while we searched the area, we were completely exposed out here.
I didn’t like it, even though Vaughan carried an air horn we’d found as an alarm system to warn the others if we were attacked.
“Is it Gage?” Vaughan asked in a quiet, steely voice.
I choked on some laughter. “Why would you think that?”
Vaughan wrapped a hand around my bicep and turned me around. We were on the side of the building by now, and he coaxed me firmly until my back bumped against the faded red siding.
“Tyler come on, don’t tell me you can’t see it.”
I stifled a shiver at the sound of my name on Vaughan’s low, pleading voice. “See what?” I bluffed.
“Ty, Gage is in love with you. I thought you knew.”
I pursed my lips and fought an eye roll. “Gage has been in love with me since I got my first training bra. Just because I don’t lead him on, doesn’t mean I don’t know that.”
Vaughan seemed momentarily stunned. His lips moved slowly as if he were trying to form words but couldn’t think of the right ones. He seemed so lost, so… vulnerable in that moment, that I couldn’t talk my fingers out of skimming his jawline. The short hairs bristled against my fingertips; my middle finger skimmed over his earlobe.
“Were you worried about Gage?” I asked in a voice I hoped came off as sensitive and concerned. Honestly, I was neither. I was not about to worry about Gage’s feelings. The line had been drawn between us a very long time ago. Lately, he’d been trying to step over it, but I knew it was because he was lonelier than ever. It had nothing to do with his feelings for me. Not really.
As crazy as it sounded, I knew Gage just wanted to get laid. His carnal needs were completely separate from his emotional ones. He wanted me, so he wanted to sleep with me. But he also loved me, so he wouldn’t try too hard to bed me unless I straight-up asked him to.
Such were the complexities of Gage Tennison.
“I was not worried about Gage,” Vaughan all but growled at me. “How long have you known?”
“About Gage? I don’t know… The first time he told me, we were thirteen, and he’d come to work a summer on my daddy’s farm. But I think I knew even before then.” Vaughan got stuck doing that gaping thing again. I laughed and this time it actually sounded like it belonged in my mouth. “Don’t worry about Gage. Honestly, the boy isn’t really in love with me. He’s in love with the idea of me. And he and Logan never stopped competing with each other. I’ve always been more of a prize than a soul-mate. And after growing up in my daddy’s home, I have no interest in being anybody’s trophy wife.”
“So if Hendrix didn’t mean you and Gage, then who was he talking about?” He sounded so utterly confused that I almost wanted to take pity on him.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I smiled coyly and tried to slip by. If we kept up this conversation about Gage, then we were going to draw every Feeder in a five-mile radius.
Vaughan worked to swallow against his own lump. The grip on my bicep- the one he still hadn’t let go of- tightened with a restrained power that immediately brought me to attention. He took a step toward me, and I could feel the heat and strange intensity stiffen in his bones and wrap around his muscles.
His voice dropped to a deeply low tone, and his head followed until we were only a breath apart. “I would very much like to know.” His words and gravelly voice sent shivers racing down my spine, but I didn’t fully lose myself until he added a tender, “Please?”
And it was in that small word that I came completely undone for him.
“Vaughan, I-”
Saved by Zombie screeching.
Vaughan whirled around so that his body protected mine and lifted his gun. The Feeder crouched across the parking lot in an animalistic way. Its knees turned outward while the heels of its bare feet nearly touched. It, because I couldn’t tell if it was male or female, propped itself up by one finger planted on the ground and bared feral, blackened teeth at us.
Vaughan didn’t hesitate, forcing me to wonder why the Feeder had. The bullet exploded from the chamber of Vaughan’s gun and soared a lightning-fast path straight to the forehead of the scourge. Bone, blood and brain matter erupted from the wound, splattering the rotting body and the gravelly pavement around it. The impact from the bullet forced the Feeder backwards, arms akimbo, legs bent at awkward angles. It twitched for a moment before flopping one last time into eternal stillness.
I pressed myself back into the side of the building and tried to keep my lunch down. Although there wouldn’t have been much to throw up anyway. We weren’t exactly living large away from the compound.
Vaughan’s shoulders relaxed and after a few deep breaths, he turned around slowly. “Are you all right?” he asked.
I nodded. “Are you?”
His chin jutted once. “It felt good to kill one of those sons of bitches. After what happened to Page… I just want to hunt every last one of them down and open fire on their worthless heads.”
His voice broke with an emotion I understood. What happened to Miller and what happened to Page were completely different tragedies, but also very similar at the same time. His sister had been held hostage by my family, abused, traumatized and brought to the brink of death. Miller was in much the same position although I believed he had a stronger chance to live through his injuries than Page did.
I would never tell Vaughan that.
I ran my fingers lightly over his furrowed brow. I hated how much pressure he felt right now, how much sorrow. I would take it from him if I could. Bad things were supposed to happen to me. The cross of my family was supposed to be mine alone to carry.
The Allens were a poison, thick and acidic. We infected everything we touched, almost as fast as Feeders. Only our bite brought slow torture and never-ending suffering. We kept our prey coherent through their misery, alert, awake and cognizant. We touched them with our special brand of plague so we could watch their agony and observe their destruction. We didn’t ask them to leave and take the disease with them; we kept them close and intimate so we could drain them of life slowly, secretly. We puppeteered the entire obliteration of souls, fed off the pain architected by our own hands. We were the real infection.
We were the real end of civilization.
Maybe I hadn’t asked for this or sought the same path as my older brother. I didn’t want to be the heir to the Allen legacy or a conduit of its evil. But I was.
It wasn’t something I could step away from or separate myself from.
Guilt by association.
Maybe this wasn’t a choice. Maybe we were all cursed.
Everything I touched withered and died. Vaughan would be no exception. I’d already hurt his family. Better to keep things simple and distanced between us.
“So you’re saying you want to kill more Feeders?”
He gave me a crooked smile. “Will you think less of me if I say I just want to kill something?”
I shook my head. I might not be the best fighter, but I could really relate to that. “I would say you’re about to get your chance.”
I nodded toward the wall of forest behind us. Eight Feeders stepped out of the tree line in slavering, slumped over messes. They
must have been drawn by their dead comrade and Vaughan’s explosive shots. Their eyes lifted as if in unison and found us waiting for them.
Vaughan stepped forward, and we both aimed our guns in their direction.
“Should I call for help?” he asked with the devil on his shoulders.
I laughed. “And share this? I thought you wanted to do some damage.”
He chuckled too. “That’s all I want to do.”
“Then let’s go, Parker. We’ve got some pent-up aggression to work out.”
I had glanced over my shoulder at him for just a moment before I took off toward the pack. I’d expected his gaze to be firmly fixed on our enemies in front of us, but he surprised me. Those deep blue eyes were watching me, not the Zombies, and they were speaking something that felt hot and unfamiliar against my skin. We locked eyes for a moment too long, a moment in which I felt his presence sink from skin to my soul, leaving buttery, melting pools of bones and muscles in his wake.
Just when I thought my knees would give out, and he’d have to call for help to cart me away, he ripped his gaze away from mine and started shooting.
As much as I wanted to stay at that moment and analyze every last detail there was nothing like a roaring bullet and shrieking Feeders to pull me right back into reality.
And what an ugly reality this turned out to be.
Chapter Two
They were disgusting. There was no other way to say it.
I couldn’t look at them without wrinkling my nose. Saliva pooled in my mouth, and all I wanted to do was gag on their stench, but I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
Reagan had all these humanitarian ideas about them. She viewed her crusade as a mission of mercy. My father sat on the opposite end of the spectrum and treated these vile creatures like pawns in an elaborate game of chess. If he were king of the board, these made up his army. He manipulated his people with Zombies and had no intention of ever eradicating the problem. If there were nothing left to fear, then there would be nothing left to serve. And Matthias had waited his entire life to be worshipped.
Apparently my brothers and I didn’t do a good enough job of making him feel like top dog.