Damn them all.
I was a survivor. I would survive this.
That was mantra these days and I whispered those words like a prayer and an oath.
Movement on the couch across the room caught my attention. For a moment, I thought I was still dreaming. My stomach clenched with anticipation and my steady heartbeat took off into a gallop.
Page.
I rolled to my side and pushed up onto sluggish feet. I sprinted across the small distance, leaping over slumbering bodies and tripping on someone’s head that bothered to get in my way.
“Reagan?” I heard Nelson ask from around the corner.
I ignored him. “Page,” I whispered into her blinking face. “Baby girl?”
She made a grunting sound in return and licked at her chapped lips with a dry tongue. I fumbled for the water bottle we kept near. It was half empty after several mildly successful attempts at persuading her to drink while she’d been unconscious.
“Are you awake?” I asked stupidly.
“Page?” Nelson demanded in a rough voice from behind me. “Page, get up!”
I stroked her sweaty face and gave her a watery smile. She half tried to sit up but collapsed back down from weakness. Her hairline was drenched with perspiration and her skin felt clammy to the touch.
Good signs. Her fever had finally broken!
“Reagan,” she croaked. “I dreamed about my brothers.”
“It wasn’t a dream,” I told her. Relieved tears slipped down my face and I couldn’t wipe the grin off; it was genuine this time. Selfishly, because I knew her brothers had priority over me and they would be coming for in seconds, I gathered her up and squeezed her tightly. Her arms went around my neck instinctively although I could feel her confusion.
“You were sick,” I explained. “You’ve been sick for a while.”
She made another sound that didn’t quite come out right. I pulled back and smiled at her some more. Her eyebrows had furrowed over her cute little nose and her mouth had turned into a curious frown.
I gave her the water I still held. She took it from me and started downing it in big gulps.
“Careful,” I told her. “I don’t want you to throw it back up.”
She reluctantly gave me the bottle back with a little bit left at the bottom. I knew she didn’t want to listen to me, but her brothers were all around me now and they won out over whatever other physical needs she had.
Nelson pushed by me and scooped her up in his long arms. He turned around so he could sit with her on his lap and held her there against his chest. He buried his face in her neck and his shoulders started shaking, the unmistakable sign that he had started to cry.
Haley put her hand on my shoulder as she joined him on the couch. We were all squished together as close as we could get to Page. Haley tucked her legs underneath her so I didn’t have to move and with a trembling hand she started to run her fingers through Page’s soft hair. Relieved tears streamed down her face as well. We shared a goofy, watery grin and were not the least bit ashamed of our waterworks.
Vaughan sunk down on the other side of Nelson and pulled her from his brother’s grasp. Nelson immediately wiped at his face with the hem of his shirt, pretending he wasn’t a mess of emotion. Haley gave him an amused smile and wrapped her arms around his shoulder.
“It’s okay, big guy. We all know you’re delicate,” she teased him until he elbowed her in the ribs.
King and Harrison had crawled next to me and watched Page with careful disbelief, like they expected her to fall over unconscious again or keel over dead. I could feel the amazement and shock ripple through the room as we all took in her very-much-alive state of being.
Every single one of us had devoted every waking moment to praying and hoping this little girl would be all right. But I wasn’t sure if any one of us actually believed it was possible. We had been trapped in the worst kind of limbo, putting our faith in the impossible while expecting the worst.
“When did you get here?” Page rasped to Vaughan. We all broke out into relieved laughter. She blinked up at the rest of us with the most adorably confused expression on her face.
God, I’d missed those expressive eyes and every innocent thing she said and did. I’d missed her. I hadn’t realized how much until this moment when her wakefulness brought a torrent of stress relief that felt like a physical weight lifting from my chest. I was so giddy and wildly happy that I felt out of control with it. And when I looked around the room, I could tell I wasn’t the only one.
The scientists had walked over to see what all our commotion was about. They generally stayed in another part of the store, a separate group from us. We hadn’t been overly noisy, but any small sound these days was enough to alert us. They stood on the fringes of our group, watching us with marked interest.
A warm hand rested on my shoulder and I looked up to see Hendrix standing over me. His blue eyes glistened with unshed tears in the lantern light. He didn’t make a move toward Page or away from me. Something frail and tiny, a seed of some emotion I couldn’t yet identify, planted itself in the emptiness of my heart from that warm contact. I wanted to lean into him. I wanted to rest my weight against his strong, muscled leg and wrap my arms around his thigh. I wanted to press my face into his jeans and let them catch the tears I couldn’t stop shedding.
I didn’t do any of that.
I held perfectly still so that I wouldn’t frighten him away and that I didn’t look pathetic. Damn my pride, but it was there and I couldn’t stop it from getting in my way. My emotions were impossibly tangled and I didn’t know which strand to start unraveling first. Hurt and betrayal? Or longing and all those remainders of love?
He took the decision away from me when he stepped over me and took Page from Vaughan. She reached up for him immediately and threw her arms around his neck.
“You found us, didn’t you?” she demanded in that hoarse, parched voice. “I told Reagan you would come for us. I told her you wouldn’t let two people you loved go.”
I tried to swallow around the planet-sized lump in my throat, but it was nearly impossible. Fresh tears assaulted my eyes and I wanted nothing more than to scream at Hendrix that Page should have been right. That he should have come after me because he loved me and that he should keep loving me because I can’t stop loving him.
But I pressed my lips together and looked away from them. Hendrix held his sister tightly, with both arms wrapped so completely around her small waist, and his head concealed her curtain of hair. Page’s arms crawled trustingly around her brother’s neck and her legs wrapped around his body… It was too much. They were too much.
Together, and probably unintentionally, they made me feel completely and utterly alone.
The pain in my chest became a splitting canyon. I felt the crack acutely and then each inch as it continued to fragment and widen. Soon it was a gaping ravine with an endless bottom that would never fuse together again. At least not correctly. I would forever wear the scars, the uneven places where I would try to align the two halves of my heart perfectly and would fail. I would forever carry these weeks with me and be forced to let them define who I was from here on out.
“Of course, I would find you,” Hendrix promised his sister. “I will always find you.”
“And Reagan,” Page insisted.
“And Reagan,” Hendrix agreed.
That was too much. I couldn’t listen to that. I jumped to my feet and whirled around. Someone reached out to grab my hand, but I flung them off and bolted for the front doors.
I needed air. I needed… space.
I shouldn’t have been so self-centered. I shouldn’t have been so dramatic. I should have stayed with Page and sucked up the consequences of my actions. But I couldn’t.
Not yet.
I felt shattered into a million jagged pieces and I didn’t know how to cope with what I’d allowed to happen. I pushed past the heavy front door and stepped into the hazy, predawn light. The cold morning breez
e tickled my neck and iced my nostrils. I sucked in a steadying breath and let the fresh air wash some of my despair and hopelessness away.
I let my fingers trail over the rough, faded red wood of the building while I walked along the front and took refuge around the side. The pads of my fingers bumped and snagged on old wood, but I let them trail in my wake, soaking up the painful splinters and self-inflicted hurt. The pieces of me so devastated by pain felt adrift, floating in space where I would never be able to reach them again. The small stabs of pain reminded me that I hadn’t been sectioned off and sent to the four different corners of the earth. They reminded me that I was still whole. Still human.
Still alive.
I stopped just around the corner of the building. I could easily sprint back inside if Zombies appeared. I had my gun, too, loosely held in my right hand. I had at least enough of a defense to make it back to the front door if things got really bad.
But I didn’t think I would need to worry about that. The early morning was especially quiet today. A smoky fog drifted through the gravel parking lot that bordered a woodsy area. Dew had blanketed the Suburbans and browning grass. The pavement where I slid down to sit on was mildly damp, but I ignored it.
I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my forehead on them. I tried to reason through my dilemma by taking calming breaths.
I had been talking to Bobbi Jo over the last few days, trying to glean as much information about her Colombia research station as I could. From everything she said, it sounded like a seriously thought-out compound. They had a steady supply of food and water; they were working on things like tangible cures and vaccines. She didn’t think they were close yet, but their research hadn’t been a complete waste of time. They were actually making progress.
And that’s what I wanted to be a part of- progress.
I was so tired of the decline of civilization. So sick and tired of watching humans-turned-Zombies decompose and fester in front of me. So over humanity regressing into sorry excuses for civilization. So done with the abuse and paranoia and willful tyranny.
I just wanted to see something not… dead. And not rotten or decayed or some other ugly version.
I just wanted to be part of the solution. Not part of the problem.
But was that even possible? Was it possible to make it through Mexico? Was it possible to survive on my own?
Was it possible to leave all these people I loved so completely?
Even if they didn’t love me in return.
“May I join you?”
My heart started that frantic pounding again. I looked up into startling blue eyes and shaggy blonde hair.
I looked up at Hendrix.
“Sure,” I said. I hoped I didn’t sound as shaky as I felt.
He walked around me and slid down the wall until he sat with his legs extended and crossed at the ankles. We weren’t touching, but I could feel the low levels of body heat he let off. They traveled the small distance between us and seeped into my skin with searing awareness. His hands rested beside his legs, his slender fingers as worn and rough as the ground beneath them.
I tucked my own hands under my thighs so I wouldn’t be tempted to reach out to him. Or so I wouldn’t be encouraged to act on that temptation. Because it was definitely there. My entire body hummed with vivid responsiveness to every part of his close body, so within reach. But pride kept me in check and my recently broken heart reinforced every stubborn thought.
He had given a weak, uncomfortable laugh before he admitted, “I’ve been working up the courage to talk to you for days.”
When he didn’t immediately go on, I struggled to swallow and then prompted, “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat and stared at his hands. “I don’t think I was fair to you before. I think I might have… I was stressed. I was really stressed out. And I think I let myself become overwhelmed with everything. I definitely said things to you that I didn’t mean.”
I squirmed next to him. My body didn’t seem to know how to react to his confession. Should I take that as an apology? What exactly didn’t he mean to say? How was I supposed to interpret any of this?
“I think we both said things we didn’t mean,” I offered. A peace treaty. I had to hope he took it and found a way to say all the rest of what he was supposed to. Starting with… I’m sorry.
He turned his head to look at me and when I matched him, met his gaze, it was through squinted, intuitive eyes that he stared back at me with. “I wanted things to be different for us. You have no idea how much. I thought… I thought you were it.”
His words did not soothe or heal. His words hurt. They stabbed deeply and reopened wounds that hadn’t even begun to close. I forced tears and wretchedness back. “I thought you were it, too.”
His face flashed with some emotion I didn’t want to define. If it was anger, then what did he expect? If it was hurt, then why did he say that to me? Didn’t he think I would be equally as anguished?
An indefinable smile played at the corners of his mouth. “That came out wrong,” he admitted. He ran a nervous hand through his shaggy beard, a sign that he was embarrassed. A whoosh of relief soared through me, but it didn’t last as long as I would have liked.
I steeled my courage and asked, “What did you mean?”
He let out a weary sigh and tore his gaze from mine. He tipped his head back and rested it on the weathered wood behind us. “I meant that I have never been more broken over a girl before. It wasn’t just because I love you more than any other girl I’ve ever known, but that I honestly never expected something to be able to tear us apart. And because I didn’t expect something to be able to get in between us, I think I was twice as crazy about it. And it wasn’t just that… it wasn’t just Kane or you or whatever, it was everything that led up to finding you and my sister and that damn bite. I just… It was too much for me and I think I lost my mind for a bit. I shouldn’t have talked to you the way I did. And I should never have treated you with so much disrespect.”
I cleared my throat and tried to digest his words. “I was pretty out of my mind too. I understand why you were as emotional as you were.” Those were hard words to say, but I said them because they needed to be said. I didn’t necessarily understand where he came from that day or why he had so willfully chosen to let Kane come between us. But if it got us to a better place, then I would allow them. I would be the diplomat here so that our relationship could have a future.
So that I could stop feeling so utterly wretched.
He swung his attention back to me and gave me a sad smile. “I never want to go through that again. I never want to have to deal with so much at one time. But that’s probably asking too much of life, isn’t it?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know what to say to that. It probably was asking too much of this life, but I didn’t want to voice that opinion aloud and give it credence. I waited in anxious silence for Hendrix to say more. To be more.
He didn’t make me wait long.
“I really am sorry, Reagan,” he said through a hoarse voice. “I really wish things could have been different for us. You don’t have any idea how much I wish that. But mostly I’m sorry for the way I talked to you. You have every right to your opinions and your affections. And just because… I mean… it’s not like we’re married or were even all that serious-”
“We weren’t serious?”
He looked away again. “I mean, we didn’t have sex or anything. I could see why you didn’t think of me the way that I thought of you. No, that’s not true. I can’t see that. But I’m trying to. I’m trying to understand it.”
My heart stopped beating in my chest and fell somewhere between my guts and my toes. It beat with a heavy, laden rhythm that sounded like a funeral dirge in my ringing ears.
“Hendrix, sex had nothing to do with it. Has nothing to do with it. I never, I mean it wasn’t like… I thought we were serious. I thought we were super serious. I didn’t think about marriage only because I d
idn’t think it was ever a real possibility. I mean, maybe, if we ever happened to run into a priest or pastor or… ship captain. The only reason I never thought about marriage was because of our circumstances, but we were as good as, well, okay, not married but the next committed thing… like engaged or something. That’s how deep into it I was. I would never have broken up with you. I would never have left you. You-”
He cut me off with a frustrated growl. “So it’s worse, isn’t it? You felt this great level of commitment to me and you still developed, er, whatever you did with Kane. That still happened. And we were as good as engaged in your mind?”
Trap. Damn it. I’d just set myself up and walked into my own trap.
“Yes. No. I mean… Okay, maybe engaged is the wrong word. You didn’t ask me to marry you or anything and so I can’t really assign that to us. But I-”
“This is my fault? I should have asked you to marry me?” His eyes glittered angry sapphires at me and his entire body seemed to vibrate with renewed fury.
“Please listen,” I begged. “This is not coming out right.” He snorted an ugly sound and I winced. Why was this so hard? It should be a simple matter of communicating my feelings. My right feelings that weren’t betraying him in any way. “What I meant to say is that I was committed to you in every way that a person can be except for sex. But that’s only because we… We hadn’t… Well, you know, you were there. But my heart was yours; my life was yours. I would have followed you anywhere or gone anywhere with you. You were everything to me, Hendrix.”
You are everything to me, Hendrix.
Refusing to believe my words, he demanded, “Then what about Kane?”
“He’s not between us. Whatever I feel for him doesn’t take away what I feel for you.”
“But you feel something for both of us?”
“No,” I quickly said. “Yes. I don’t know. I don’t know what I feel for Kane. It’s not… it’s not like anything I’ve dealt with before. I think it’s a major case of pity that’s gotten twisted out of control because of how he feels for me. It’s not substantial. It’s not comparable to what I feel for you.”