His observations did nothing to make me feel better about the situation.
“Kane’s alive,” I said unnecessarily.
“And stalking you,” Gage finished.
“Again.”
“And you’re sure you don’t want to clue Hendrix in about this?” I shrugged, unsure about anything I wanted to do. “Reagan, if Kane is still after you, we could all be in danger. Keeping this a secret from Hendrix could end in more than just your life.”
“Keeping what a secret from Hendrix?” the man himself pushed open the door and caught the last tidbit of our highly sensitive conversation.
Oh, shit.
Gage and I looked guiltily back and forth, and I swallowed about three hundred different lies. In the end, I couldn’t make myself lie to him. Hiding things from him seemed like another kind of sin. Not one that I was particularly fond of, but one that was somehow more alright with my moral compass.
“Reagan?” Hendrix prompted coming fully in the office. Tyler and Harrison followed him.
Reading my silence as exactly what it was- cowardice- Gage covered for me. “About her injury. She didn’t want you to know just yet.”
Hendrix glowered at me. “Why not?”
“I-I-I didn’t want you to worry about me.” That was true. I hadn’t wanted him to find out about this.
His eyebrows dipped lower, and his lips pressed into a firm line. He grunted. That was the only sound he made, an unsatisfied murmur of disapproval.
“Can you fix me up, Nurse Tyler?” I asked with an exaggerated grin.
She shook her head while she looked at my shoulder. “Honestly, probably not. Just pray we don’t end up having to amputate it.”
Oh, geez. I promised myself she was joking… except, she’d used the word honestly.
“Where would you like to look at her, Ty?” Gage asked. He stood up from behind his desk and pulled the key out of the top drawer so he could lock the door behind us.
I didn’t know what Gage kept in here that was so top secret, but he guarded this place as if it were in danger of attracting Zombies. It’s not like we filled out confidential paperwork upon arrival, or that paperwork meant anything these days anyway.
“I’ll get my things and meet you all out back,” Tyler instructed after a minute. “I’ll need as much light as possible.”
We silently agreed to this request, but my insides twisted at the possibility of trouble outside. I was still bleeding and didn’t want to be a red flag for all things flesh-eating, but I also didn’t want to run the risk of needing an amputation.
Because that sounded terrible.
“Come on, Harrison,” Tyler grabbed him by the shirtsleeve. “You can help me find everything I need.”
In his most patronizing voice, Harrison asked, “Are you going to be nice to me?”
Tyler immediately responded with, “Are you going to tell us what really happened to Reagan?”
Harrison stopped teasing Tyler and obediently followed her down the hallway.
“Help me walk?” I batted my eyelashes at Hendrix playfully.
He stood over me and helped me to my feet. When I wobbled on my ankle and winced in pain at my shoulder, he shook his head at me. “Give us a second, Gage?” He posed a question, but his tone wasn’t entreating in any way.
“Sure, thing.” And the traitor, also known as Gage, escaped to the hallway.
“What are you hiding?” Hendrix demanded as soon as the door shut behind Gage.
I didn’t immediately respond, deciding there was way too much I was hiding.
Hendrix stepped forward and laid his hands gently on my hips. “Reagan,” he started, and his low voice rumbled through his body and sunk into my skin. “I love you.”
He paused and I took that to mean he needed me to reply, “I love you, too, Hendrix.”
“And I trust you.”
I could see where this was going, but I felt the same, so I told him, “I trust you, too.”
He stared down at me with an expression that managed to capture the depth of his feelings for me. Tears pricked at my eyes simply because I felt so insatiably loved and adored. We had been together for such a short time that it didn’t even seem possible to love and be loved so greatly. But this dangerous world we lived in propelled us into an emotional fast-forward that bonded us together in unmovable ways.
He looked at me as if he could see through me; as if he saw everything in me, every secret, hidden part I tried to bury from the light of day. “But not with this.” I didn’t say anything. Even though I argued with myself that I kept Kane a secret for other reasons than not trusting Hendrix… I couldn’t find the words to explain. “Well, Reagan Willow, I trust you enough to keep this secret. But you should know there is nothing on this earth that is more dangerous than me. Whatever it is that is so big you can’t tell me, should be more afraid of me than you are of it.”
I pulled on his collar until I could attack his mouth with mine. I kissed him senseless until he groaned with want and clutched me carefully against his body.
When we broke apart, panting and wild-eyed, he shook his head as if he knew I was distracting him on purpose.
“You know too much,” I told him, only half kidding.
“Not too much,” he argued. “Just enough.”
I turned around, and he wrapped his arm around my waist so he could assist me downstairs. “I think you know way too much.”
“Then it shouldn’t surprise you that I also know Harrison is the reason for this little injury you have.”
I groaned. “Please don’t kill him. It was an accident.”
“I’m not going to kill him,” Hendrix promised. “I’m going to torture him slowly until he wants me to kill him.”
“This is why I don’t tell you anything,” I quipped.
But it was way too soon to joke around about secrets.
“What other man are you protecting from me, Reagan?”
I wisely decided to be quiet then.
Chapter Two
Out in the courtyard Tyler cut open my plaid, button-up shirt from wrist to collar. I was bummed about the loss of a cutesy top. I didn’t have many. And I didn’t really need many. But when I played “school teacher ” I liked to dress the part.
I couldn’t help it. The once aspiring-grown-up in me wanted to look professional, and I believed it helped the children look over my lack of qualifications and take me seriously.
I glanced over at Harrison, who was green with guilt and uneasy from all the blood.
Okay, not all the children took me seriously, no matter what I wore.
“This is ugly.” Tyler whistled through her teeth. “Too bad we don’t have a tetanus shot to give you.”
“How is that supposed to make me feel better?” I winced when she started to clean the gash.
She replied immediately, “It’s not.” After a long pause she asked, “Did you want me to make you feel better? Your shoulder got sliced open by a dirty ladder. You probably need proper stitches, and the scarring is going to be horrid. Please tell me what I could say that could paint this scenario in a better light?”
I glared at her. “You are the worst nurse ever.” And then I glared at Hendrix and Gage when they failed to suppress their laughter.
“Well, you’re the worst patient ever,” Tyler shot back.
Tyler worked for a while on my injury, doing her best to clean the wound and patch it up. I winced and gritted my teeth against the pain, but I wasn’t very effective in playing tough. There were some things that were easy to fake bravado through- like Zombie attacks. But sitting in the warm sunshine, with nothing else to focus on other than the pain in my shoulder and my impending death by blood poisoning, left my brain with very little to think about other than the sharp, stinging agony.
King walked out into the courtyard and threw his hands in the air with frustration. “There you two are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
“Oh, shoot,” I groaned. “I forg
ot to get the word to Haley that I needed her to cover for me.”
Hendrix eyed his youngest brother thoughtfully. “Did Haley send you out here?”
King nodded. “She said to track Reagan down and tell her to get her skinny, pale ass into the classroom right this second or she was going to throw you over the wall the next time you got your period.” King finished with dramatic energy, paused for effect and exclaimed in his best impression of Haley. “Son of a bitch!” He grinned at us. “Her words, not mine. I’m just the messenger.”
“She probably owes Page a thousand dollars by now,” Hendrix laughed with him.
“She is going to be so mad at me,” I groaned.
“She already is so mad at you,” King pointed out. “I’m not sure there’s a way for her to get any madder, actually.”
“Reagan’s hurt,” Hendrix pointed out.
“I can see that,” King drawled. “But I don’t think Professor Hard Ass is going to care.”
“Cuss jar,” Tyler and I said at the same time.
King gave us the middle finger.
“Ooooh, I’m telling Page,” I taunted.
“Alright, children,” Hendrix intervened. “That’s enough. Harrison and King, go tell Haley what happened to Reagan and ask her politely to take over school this morning while Reagan gets patched up.” The younger Parkers groaned for reasons I didn’t understand. Were they dreading telling Haley she had to deal with the rowdy savages all by herself? Or bummed that I couldn’t teach them? I liked to think it was reason number two. Hendrix called out after they were almost to the door, “Oh, and Harrison, make sure you keep your story straight. I don’t want you to get caught up in your web of lies.”
Harrison rolled his eyes at Hendrix then gave himself away by shooting me a concerned glance. I waved him on.
“You're overly suspicious,” I told Hendrix.
“And you’re badly injured and bleeding. I don’t think it’s asking too much for you to tell me what really happened.”
Tyler pressed down on my shoulder, and I shouted out in pain. “I should probably know, too. For medical purposes.”
I gaped up at her. Medical purposes? As if any of us were taking her seriously.
“I told you guys what happened. I got in the way of a ladder that fell over when I was watching out for Harrison. He moved out of the way and I stood there like an idiot. I didn’t see it coming. It clipped me on the shoulder and knocked me over. I twisted my ankle when I fell.”
They were silent for a moment, absorbing my truth. And everything I said was the truth. I just left out the whole… ladder on top of the table thing. That was for Harrison’s sake. He would never hear the end of it and Vaughan had a strict no-unnecessary-stupidity clause. He would be in huge trouble for that particular accident.
However, if the boy ever tried to stack an enormous extension ladder on top of anything else again, I would pull him by the earlobe in front of a Parker tribunal and let them gut him.
“Well, this isn’t going to heal prettily,” Tyler told me. “You really did a number here.”
I let out a frustrated sigh and rolled my ankle around. It was barely swollen, so I knew it wouldn’t take long to heal. I made the motions of the alphabet with my toes in an effort to loosen it up. That was a trick I’d learned from cheerleading whenever an ankle injury popped up among the squad. I would forego the cold/hot treatment and soak it in warm, salt water. I idly wondered how cavemen used to deal with injuries, because at the moment I felt very much like a barbarian struggling in prehistoric Dinotopia.
“Will you still love me when I’m disfigured?” I looked up at Hendrix and caught the faint hint of a smile.
“No.” He bent down and kissed the tip of my nose. “I’m very shallow. Unfortunately, this is a deal breaker for me.”
“Bummer,” I giggled.
His fingers swept down my bicep, grazing the side of my boob. He reached for my hand and held it gently in his, comforting me while I endured Tyler’s ministrations.
“You’re going to miss out on scouting,” Tyler told me.
My eyes flickered up to Gage, who stood hovering over us like a silent giant. His mouth pressed into a firm line, and his eyes glared holes into Tyler’s back.
“You’re taking her scouting?” I accused. “Are you crazy?”
He let out a derisive laugh. “I’m not crazy. She’s crazy. She’s all but threatened to go alone. I don’t like it, but I’m not going to let her over there by herself.”
Tyler shot Gage a nasty look. “I haven’t seen Miller in weeks, Gage. Anything could have happened by now. I have to know if he’s alright.”
“It’s dangerous, Ty,” Gage entreated softly. “You know the risks. You left Miller behind for a reason.”
“Ow!” I hollered when she pressed unnecessarily hard on my open wound with some gauze.
She ignored me and continued her violent wrapping. “I left Miller behind so I could go back and get him. I stupidly thought that I would have a group of men brave enough to go with me.”
Hendrix ignored her. She’d thrown this same argument at Vaughan and Hendrix countless times over the last several months. They were used to it by now.
Gage was not, or at the very least, less tolerant. “We are working on getting him out of there, Tyler. But it’s not like we can just walk in there and ask politely. We’re waiting for the right opportunity.”
Tyler finished wrapping an Ace Bandage around the gauze she’d pressed to stop the bleeding and fastened it with a silver clip. She whirled around on Gage and slammed her hands to her hips. “Then it’s a good thing we’re going scouting. Can’t find an opportunity if you’re not looking, right?”
“When are you leaving?” I asked neutrally, hoping to break some of the hostile tension.
“Tomorrow,” Tyler bit out.
At the same time, Gage said, “Three days from now.” He shot Tyler a daunting look and explained. “The Suburban is almost back in running order. I’m giving the mechanics a couple more days to get it working again. It’s our best bet for surviving this trip.” He stepped closer to Tyler and put a hand on her shoulder, forcing her to turn around and face him. “You do want to survive, don’t you? You do want Miller to survive?”
She slapped him.
Hendrix and I watched with mouths agape.
Gage rubbed at his reddened jaw and looked up through his lashes at her. She was shaking with fury, and her hand clenched and unclenched at her side as if she wanted nothing more than to slap him again.
“How dare you,” she whispered through a voice thick with emotion.
Gage looked at her with a steady gaze and let her hate him. I did not understand anything about their relationship. There were moments when I thought Gage was blindly in love with her. And there were moments when I thought she felt the same way. And then there were these moments, when I was convinced they couldn’t stand the sight of each other.
They were exhausting.
But then again, Tyler was like this with every boy. She could be equally hot and cold with Vaughan.
Of course, her psychotic father had shot and killed the love of her life… that might have had something to do with her current relationships and how she treated men.
Gage took a step forward, so they were only a breath apart. He towered over her usually, except now his face was right in hers. I applauded the fact that she held her ground and didn’t give Gage an inch, but personally I would have been shaking in my boots.
In a low, harsh voice that brooked no room for argument, Gage growled, “We will get Miller back, Tyler. We will. But I’m not going to lose you in the process.” The backs of his fingers ghosted across Tyler’s cheek in a tender gesture that contrasted with the fury still vibrating through him.
Tyler waited until his hand dropped down to his side before she pushed passed him and disappeared back into the building. We watched her go, feeling her desperation to be alone as if it were a tangible thing.
As
soon as the door closed behind her, Gage rubbed his hands over his face and let out an aggravated sound that was half-grunt, half-sigh. “That girl is a real piece of work.”
I smiled, but Hendrix seemed a little uncomfortable with Gage’s statement. “She’s going through a lot,” I offered on her behalf. “We all have things to deal with these days, but Tyler’s plate is piled high with shit right now. I’m not saying she’s dealing with everything properly, but maybe we should give her a break?”
Gage cut a look at me, and an amused smile lifted his full mouth. “I won’t argue that she has a lot going on right now, but Reagan, don’t for a second be fooled by all that southern charm. She’s been a handful ever since we were kids.” Gage let out a low chuckle and rubbed his jaw that still had her hand print reddening it. “I’ll tell you this, too. That was not the first time she’s slapped me.”
“So you enjoy pissing her off,” I concluded.
Gage’s attention was back on the door to the warehouse. “I enjoy getting under her skin.”
Oh.
Oh.
Well, that confirmed my suspicions.
Hendrix stayed quiet.
“How’s Vaughan doing?” Gage asked Hendrix after a few more minutes of silence.
“Making progress,” Hendrix answered. “It’s slow because we don’t want to waste bullets or hurt anyone, but this group should be ready for the field in another couple weeks.” Gage nodded, looking impressed. I had the fleeting thought that Haley and I should probably go through training, too. Just because we could shoot a Zombie directly between his eyes without much thought, did not mean we were in any way Parker-prepared to face the end of the world. Hendrix rested his hand on my good shoulder and said, “I should probably get out there with him, though.”
“Help me to the classroom?” I asked sweetly.
“Aren’t you in pain?” His eyes danced with amusement.
“So? Better to be busy and in pain then sit around and just be in pain.” Plus, I didn’t want to go back to my room alone. I had been avoiding being isolated ever since the hunting knife showed up. I was not about to spend the rest of the day hanging out by myself, waiting for a psychopath or one of his minions to show up.