There wasn’t anything left to ask. We trusted Vaughan to make the right decisions, the hard decisions. And if Nelson and Hendrix didn’t have anything to add or argue, then this was the plan. Nobody else held quite the credibility to make the oldest Parker brothers seriously question their methods.
Except on occasion, me. But that never ended well for me. I had been contemplating retiring all those difficult parts of me. They just got me into trouble.
“And Page?” Haley pressed.
Vaughan’s eyes flashed with frustration. “We’ll take turns carrying her. I’m not leaving her behind. I’m not leaving anybody behind.”
I felt Haley tense next to me and knew she wanted to argue, but she held her tongue. It was frustrating to have to keep Page with us during something so dangerous, but our options were nonexistent. We had to keep her with us or risk losing her forever.
Besides, we needed everybody. We were up against a formidable enemy. David against Goliath.
We unloaded the Suburban and Nelson drove it into a copse of trees where it rested partially hidden. We consulted the highway and our memories and decided to move to the left of the highway and make our way through the thick covering of trees that lined the shoulder of the road.
We were already exhausted and on edge from our restless few days. With every snap of a twig beneath our feet and crunch of leaves the tension tightened among us. Not one of us trusted our environment. Nobody trusted our plan or our objective completely. This felt like swimming through shark infested waters with a hemorrhaging wound.
Impossible.
And highly dangerous.
It was also impossible to keep a group this size of us. Not only were there so many of us that even muffled noises seemed to echo loudly through the forest, but Linley had no intention of keeping quiet.
We marched her along with her hands tied behind her back and her mouth stuffed with a t-shirt. Her clumsy feet still stomped and staggered along the rough, uneven ground. She made all kinds of noises, her sobs rattling in her chest, or her muted screams pinging around in my ears.
I hated this woman. Beyond anything. Maybe even more than Matthias. At least with Matthias I somewhat understood his motives, which in turn helped me understand his brand of monster.
Linley was a different story. What stirred a woman to mistreat her children? Or turn a blind eye to their horrific abuse? What incentivized a mother to allow her children to be tortured, traumatized and stripped of their dignity, integrity and spirit? What drove her to continue this cycle of sickness?
I honestly couldn’t even fathom the answers to those questions. She was something other than human. Something lesser. And I had no respect or pity for her.
My right hand twitched with the desperation to pull out my gun and put her out of her misery. I had never wanted to kill another human being in this cold of blood before.
Never.
Yet with her… I wanted to end her. Punish her. Make her pay for her disgustingly endless list of sins.
And in the end, I should have. I should have ignored the conviction of my conscience and the voice of the opportunist inside of me that wanted the compound back.
I should have pressed the barrel of my gun to the back of her head and simplified my life… my everything.
But I didn’t.
And nobody else stepped up with the same intention.
So she continued to live.
Worst decision of my life.
We had walked for over an hour before we ran into any trouble. We knew there was a chance that they were waiting for us. We knew that they had to assume we were coming for them, for the compound, for Matthias. And we had been prepared.
Gage and Tyler had split off from us twenty minutes ago. Vaughan was not thrilled to let them go, but Tyler had been insistent to stick to the plan. He knew how hard it was for her to leave Miller, and I wondered if that was the only reason he let her go. He knew she would do anything to get back to her brother. Although I also saw how much he wished she had been that determined to get back to him, too.
She was on her way to something substantial with Vaughan. Well on her way. She just needed a little more time. Vaughan was doing everything he should. Their friendship was helping her heal after Logan and living with her parents for so long. His friendship was helping her view life with much less hopelessness and despair. He was so good for her. And even though it was hard to admit, considering, I had to say that she was good for him too.
Anyway, the point was that we were lucky we had split up so soon. Especially since in our original plan, we had decided to stay together for longer. We were almost to the spot we had designated to part ways when Matthias’s men surrounded us.
When I considered everything that happened from that moment on, I knew Kane’s advice was the only reason we survived that initial confrontation. I didn’t know if Hendrix and Vaughan would admit to the same thing, but without Kane’s insistence, we would have fought back. And then we would have all died.
Instead, guns and men flooded out of the forest from every direction and corralled us together in a narrow meadow. Vaughan held his gun up in the air with one hand and grabbed Linley with the other. He shoved her in front of him and raised his other hand above his head.
I stepped into Kane and tucked myself against his side. He leaned over and pressed a kiss to my temple. I couldn’t tell if that was his instinctual reaction to my closeness, a gut reaction to my palpable fear or a calculated move for the benefit of his father.
Hendrix stood behind us with a gun pointed at the back of Kane’s head. This was part of the act Kane insisted we perform. He wanted his dad to assume Kane had failed at his kidnapping shenanigans. He wanted Matthias to believe Hendrix held a particularly strong grudge against Kane.
I had almost reminded the boys that Hendrix wasn’t going to have to pretend… but I decided to keep that truth nugget to myself.
And now that the moment was here, I was glad there was real animosity between the two boys. They made us look sincere in front of Matthias and his men.
My heart started hammering in my chest when the second the wall of militia parted in front of us. Matthias walked through the space given him with an obnoxious swagger to his arrogant gait. He grinned at us while his eyes swept over our group, examining his prize.
“Where’s Tyler,” he demanded of Kane. His gaze dropped to all the points of contact that Kane and I displayed. I quaked a little bit with legitimate fear and so this captivated, seduced prisoner routine was not that hard to pull off.
“She ran,” Kane gritted out. “With Gage.”
Matthias did not react. Not in any way. Not visibly at least. I could feel the storm brewing beneath his calm surface. I could feel his wrath as he calculated its total and decided how to divvy it up between all of us.
And at that moment, I feared for Gage. I feared for his life if Matthias ever caught him.
More than ever, our plan had to succeed.
“How did you know to expect us?” Kane asked with a bored tone.
Matthias’s men approached each of us and started searching our persons, systematically stripping us of our guns and knives. We let them without much opposition.
Except, of course, when their wandering hands creeped too close to my important bits.
We were already off plan and we hadn’t even started yet. Sure, we had backup plans, but this was pretty much worst case scenario. At least Gage and Tyler were still out there.
“We got a tip,” Matthias responded.
“A tip?” Kane asked. He pressed his chest into my back and even though his hands were still tied behind his back, he stood next to me in a way that was obviously familiar.
Matthias inclined his head curiously. He had watched us intently for several moments before he called out to one of his men. The air rippled and shifted with building tension while something struggling and frantic was dragged through the line of armed men. The soldier tossed the bundle onto the ground before us whe
re it shook and trembled and whimpered in a pathetic ball.
It was kind of annoying.
Or it would have been annoying if shock hadn’t gotten in my way and stopped me from feeling anything but crazed disbelief.
“We met some of your friends,” Matthias announced while he looked me directly in the eyes.
“Not our friends,” I argued. “Not anymore.”
Matthias grinned at me. “They were kind enough to warn us that you were coming.”
I swallowed back the bile that rose like a volcano erupting in my throat.
“And why would they do that?” Kane asked, not giving away anything.
Matthias’s eyes flickered over our group and came to rest on Page.
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
His expression soured into greed and sadistic hunger. He looked like a maniac with his dilated pupils and a sick twist to his lips.
“From what I’ve heard, it sounds like you have something valuable traveling with you these days. Something they want. Something they were willing to trade anything for.”
Chapter Two
Nelson clutched Page as tightly to his chest as he could without making her pass out. Matthias took a few steps closer to the pair and eyed her over the bridge of his nose.
Page’s arms were wrapped around Nelson’s neck while he held her like a baby, but her vulnerable position didn’t seem to bother her at all. She glared at Matthias with a level of vehemence and disgust I didn’t know she was capable of.
“So you’re what all the fuss is about?” he said to her.
She shook her head. “Nope.”
“You survived a Zombie bite, little girl. That sounds like a pretty big deal to me.”
“I survived your ugly wife,” Page snarled. “That was worse.”
I pressed my lips together and tried not to laugh. I didn’t entirely succeed. Matthias’s eyes turned into slits of fury. Linley let out an outraged huff and stomped over to her husband.
“Get these off me,” she hissed. She spun around and presented her bound hands to Matthias.
He took out a pocket knife and with a quick flick of the blade, the plastic tie fell to the ground. Her arms bounced uselessly at her side until she’d rubbed enough feeling into them that they worked again. Her wrists were bloodied and torn from where the plastic had dug into her skin and I could see from where I stood that she would have to work to get her full strength back.
Matthias slid his pocketknife back into his pocket and laid both of his hands on her shoulders. He had rubbed them soothingly before his hands slipped down her biceps and over her forearms. He seemed to be caressing feeling back into her arms, helping her recover. The gesture looked sweetly intimate, and I found myself shocked that Matthias did actually seem capable of love.
At least for Linley.
His children were a different story.
Someone walked up behind Kane and cut his ties loose as well. He rubbed at his own bloodied, bruised wrists, but I didn’t offer to help, although I could tell he wanted me to. It would have been way too awkward though. I would play enough of this game with him to aid my own survival and the escape of my friends, but I wasn’t going to make a spectacle of myself or flaunt Kane’s feelings for me in front of this collectively evil audience.
Or in front of Hendrix.
“Everything go as planned?” Matthias asked Kane. The glint in his eyes revealed exactly what he was talking about. He even smiled. And it was gross and creepy and super perverted.
I hated it. Yuck.
Kane didn’t hesitate. “It did.”
Matthias bent down and pressed a kiss to his wife’s temple. “You’re a trooper, Darlin’.”
I stopped myself from rolling my eyes. I could see that Matthias thought everything went according to his plan. And in his eyes, it probably did. Kane had managed to kidnap me, and seduce me. Or something along that line. Plus, the Parkers and Gage had been lured out of the compound just in time for Matthias to take it over. Meanwhile, we walked right back into his trap and basically handed ourselves over to him.
Matthias had gotten everything he set out to get.
Oh, only he’d lost one major asset. Kane.
And we were here to kill him, not join his brutal crusade to take over the world.
I glanced at Kane nervously. Matthias had lost him, right? Kane was playing him, not us. Right?
Kane looked down at me and met my concerned gaze with the cocky arrogance of a man that could conquer anything and anyone. Without warning, he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to my closed lips. He tasted like sweat and dirt and… him. I squeezed my eyes together to keep the fears at bay. He loved me. He really loved me. He was on our side now because he loved me. This was all an act. He played his part perfectly.
That was all.
We had not been double-crossed.
“You’re mine now,” Kane murmured to me. His mouth slid up my jawline and came to rest on the shell of my ear. “I taste it on you. You’re mine.”
My heart crashed to my toes, and my fears became a living, breathing, tangible monster inside me. It ate at my flesh and clawed at my insides. It opened its mouth and devoured me whole. It consumed me. Every part of me.
Was he right?
And if so, was I his by force or choice?
I couldn’t form words to reply to him. More questions swirled in my head and fluttered in my stomach, but they spun too fast for me to make sense of them or come up with any kind of intelligent answer.
“Load them up,” Matthias ordered.
The gunmen moved on us, but the Parkers bristled with instinctive defense. It took one more order from Matthias and a deadly weapon trained on Page’s head for the brothers to submit to their captors. Her brothers were smart enough to know that their compliance would keep her safe.
Page. Our weakness. Our greatest hope.
Miller was not as wise, even though he probably understood his dad’s actions the best. He rushed in front of her and tilted his head up in a defiant posture. He spread his skinny arms out and glared at his father. “Touch her and I’ll kill you.”
Matthias’s expression turned black with some vile emotion I had never even seen before. No matter how much I hated Matthias and Linley, or the Feeders that plagued my life, I had never hated something as strongly as Matthias hated Miller. He closed the distance between his son and him and backhanded Miller across the face so hard, that the younger boy crumpled to the ground unconscious.
“Stupid little shit,” Matthias grumbled, standing triumphant over his son’s unmoving body.
I gasped at the sight of Miller lying there, helpless, beaten. Matthias just picked him up and tossed him over his shoulder and motioned for the rest of us to follow him.
They herded us to the road and loaded us into separate vehicles. The ride to the compound was a blur while my nerves and fears blinded me to everything but “what ifs.” I stayed close to Kane, I followed the plan. I couldn’t tell if we were still going by script or not, but I wasn’t going to deviate until I absolutely had to.
Kane wrapped his arm around me and held me close against his body. We rode in Matthias’s vehicle while the rest of my group did not. Linley sat up front with him and relayed everything that happened over the last couple weeks.
“And they believed you, Son?” Matthias asked over his shoulder to Kane when Linley got to the part about Kane helping the Parkers.
This was the part of the story I was unclear about. This. Right here.
This is where doubt and uncertainty settled into my bones and made me paranoid.
“Obviously,” Kane chuckled. “I delivered them right to you, didn’t I?”
“That you did.” Matthias squeezed the steering wheel in his grip. “What do you think about it, Reagan? You think my son’s a smart man? You think he got what he wanted?”
I stared out the windshield and refused to acknowledge him. I didn’t know what Kane got. I didn’t know if he got what
he wanted or not. I didn’t know if he was still on my side or not. I didn’t know anything anymore.
“Answer me, girl, or I’ll find creative ways to make you answer. And trust me when I say my methods are not nearly as kind as Kane’s.”
I swallowed down the bile pushing its way up my throat and said, “I’m not afraid of what you can do to me.”
Matthias barked out a burst of laughter. “Ain’t nobody said I would do anything to you, little girl. My son wants you to stay pretty. And I can’t say that I blame him.”
The innuendo that he would hurt someone I loved was enough to cow me. I didn’t need any more persuasion to obey. “Your son is very smart.”
Matthias seemed pleased but Kane did not. “What else am I?” he teased me. His arm tightened around my shoulders, and he pulled me closer to his body. “Tell me what else I am.”
His words were a demanding whisper, so I felt justification when I replied just as softly. “Cocky,” I told him. “Reckless. Inconsiderate. Dominating. Tyrannical. Ugly.”
“You don’t think I’m ugly,” he chuckled.
I pursed my lips and argued with myself not to say anything that would encourage him.
“You don’t think I’m ugly,” he said again, but the timber of his voice had deepened and stretched out. “At least you don’t look at me like I’m ugly.”
Unable to stifle the curiosity, I asked, “How do I look at you?”
“Like I came from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” I quirked my brow at him and waited for an explanation. “A tree in the Garden of Eden. The fruit Eve picked and ate was from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Delicious, eye-opening, and powerful, but forbidden.”
“And deadly,” I added. “Eve took a bite of that fruit and died.”
“Not right away,” he whispered in my ear, his lips grazing my skin. “First she realized she was naked.”
Okay, it was so not right that Kane could make me shiver with stories about the Bible. That was wrong, right?
Oh, so wrong.