It would be a death sentence for the both of us.
“Tyler, what do I think this is?” he prompted impatiently, pulling me from my wild thoughts.
“Forever,” I whispered.
His eyes slammed shut and I watched pain contort his handsome features. My chest squeezed so tightly, I wouldn’t have been surprised if my heart popped from the pressure. I hugged my knees closer to my chest and looked down at my worn jeans. I could see my kneecaps through the frayed denim.
I focused on my stubbly, scabbed knees. They were so much better to look at than Vaughan who was finally realizing how serious I was.
He had been obnoxiously optimistic this entire time, never doubting that he could wear me down. And maybe he wasn’t completely off base.
He had worn me down. He had convinced me to fall for him in ways I didn’t think were possible. He had taught my heart to feel again, he had taught my soul to want again.
He had taught my body to need again.
But there were things he refused to understand. It was because I cared about him that I wanted to protect him.
“You still think you’re cursed?” he demanded in a rough, sandpapery voice.
With my attention still focused on my knees I said, “I know I am, Vaughan.”
“Tyler, you’ve loved me for a while. According to your rules, I should have died a long time ago.”
I popped up to glare at him. “God! You are so full of yourself! I can’t even believe you!”
He grabbed my hand and held it just tight enough that I couldn’t pull it away. And yet, even with his unforgivable grip, his thumb traced over my palm tenderly and I had to stifle a shiver.
“I’m not giving up, Ty. Fight me. Run from me. But at least acknowledge that you love me. God knows I deserve that after what I’ve put up with.” I narrowed my eyes, even while his beautiful mouth curved into a small smile. “We have something, Tyler Allen. Something real. Something beautiful. I’m not giving it up because you’re afraid of it.”
Hot tears pressed against my eyes and I wanted to scream. He had no idea! He wanted me to confess my feelings for him because my father was almost here and things could go badly for any of us. But he didn’t understand that was the very reason I couldn’t tell him how I felt.
My dad would see that. He would take one look at me and know.
Then he would take that one thing I loved so absolutely and he would destroy it. He would put every single resource he had into annihilating Vaughan. And he would do it right in front of me.
He would probably do that no matter what. But if I could hold back these words. If I could keep them from the air, from become something real and tangible, then maybe I could save Vaughan.
At the same time it felt like I was killing myself to hold back from him. My chest ached from the effort and my blood felt hot and wrong inside my veins.
“Vaughan.” My voice sounded as rough as his. My heart felt like I had dragged it across gravel and beat it against a cactus. I felt Vaughan’s disappointment descend on my shoulders like a cartoon boulder. It dropped from above, swiftly and punishingly. My soul hemorrhaged with my decision and I had to press my lips together to keep from spilling the truth while he watched me intently.
I expected him to storm off or say more harsh words. I thought that would be the end of our fragile bond. We might have had strong feelings for each other, but my constant barriers made our relationship tenuous at best.
And this was a blow even the strongest relationships couldn’t recover from.
I felt the heat of Vaughan’s body as he leaned in. His lips brushed the shell of my ear and my eyes closed in anticipation of his touch.
“I love you, Tyler. I’ve been falling in love with you every day since I can remember and I’m not going to stop. This thing between us is real and raw and infinite. You don’t have to say the words for me to know that they’re true. You don’t have to speak them out loud for me to hear them every time you touch me, every time you look at me, say my name or kiss me. It’s there in every single thing you do. If you don’t want to say the words to me, then don’t, but I know they’re true. Just like I know through every fiber of my being, every beat of my heart and breath in my lung, that I love you. And I will go on loving you. This will not stop. This will only grow and become that beautiful thing both of us have been searching for.”
I turned to face him before I could talk myself out of it. His words… his words touched some frozen place inside of me and melted the last ounce of my resistance. I had never felt this way before. My heart had never swelled this big; my soul had never ached this acutely. I couldn’t tell if I wanted to break out into the world’s goofiest grin or burst into tears.
As usual, Vaughan brought me to the brink of facing my fears head on or willfully choosing ignorance. He saw the pieces of me I had chosen to ignore and heard the whispers of my soul I had chosen to tune out.
But fear and doubt clogged my throat and tangled my tongue.
I looked into his fierce blue eyes, ablaze with truth and conviction, and I cowered. I chose fear over confession.
My fingers ached with the desire to touch him, but I kept them imprisoned against my body. I couldn’t do this.
He had finally asked too much of me.
He must have seen the resignation in me because he pulled back and sighed with all the frustration and disappointment I knew he felt.
“At least I have nothing to regret,” he muttered before jumping to his feet and putting as much space between us as the small jail cell would allow.
I watched him walk away and let the new doubt invade my thoughts. Had I made a mistake? I knew I could be a little irrational with my stubbornness.
But then I remembered Logan. I remembered what Matthias Allen did to Logan. I remembered the aftermath of my life after my father had shot my boyfriend in cold blood.
I would never let that happen to Vaughan. I refused to let him become another one of my father’s victims in his quest for ultimate power over this world and over me.
“What did you do to him?” Miller asked loudly from above.
My gaze swung to my little brother while I desperately tried to blink away the unwanted tears threatening to spill over. “Shush,” I ordered.
A knowing smile lit Miller’s face and I hated how much he looked like my dad in that moment. I wanted to wipe that smug look off his face and make him swear to never do that again.
I shivered thinking how he had started to do that more and more often. He was growing up, despite our low food sources and on-the-run lifestyle. He was several inches taller than he had been a year ago and his long limbs were filling out with shockingly defined muscle.
He wasn’t a little boy anymore. He was a young man, a young man that had unspeakable horrors and bore the scars from his trauma like a badge of honor.
“Did you break his heart?” Miller pressed.
I ignored the twist of enjoyment on his face. He liked Vaughan, so I didn’t get why he wanted to see Vaughan hurt.
“At least sit down next to me if you’re going to be nosey.” I patted the place Vaughan had just vacated.
Miller sighed as if I were asking this huge imposition on him, but eventually flopped to the ground. “Seriously, did you guys break up? Because if we’re getting kicked out of Clan de Parker, now is a good time.”
“No, we didn’t break up!” I hissed. “And even if we did, Vaughan wouldn’t kick us out. We’re not with them because I’m with Vaughan.”
“Whatever you say,” he mumbled, sounding unconvinced.
“Do you really believe that?” I couldn’t tell. He had been going through a bit of a rebellious streak since Kane died. So I didn’t know if he was just being difficult to get a rise out of me or if he really believed Vaughan only kept me around because he was getting some.
Although, if that were the case, Vaughan seriously needed to up his payment because I could hardly call what the two of us were doing as me putting out for pr
otection.
Not that we hadn’t had our moments… but there were just too many people around.
All the time.
And then there were all those times that we were running for our lives or trapped in cages.
“I don’t think he’d throw us to the wolves,” Miller explained. “I’m just saying, if we sounded sincere, dad would probably take us back if we need a place to go.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Miller! Do you want to go back with dad?”
“I want to not die.”
I met his gaze and tried not to flinch at the coldness echoing through his focused, dark eyes. “You know that he would kill us, right? He no doubt blames us for Kane and for Mom…” I suddenly couldn’t swallow. My throat had closed with emotion I hadn’t expected. I squeezed my eyes shut to keep the tears from falling.
Sometimes I couldn’t believe what had happened to my family over the past couple years. I would sit and think about how we got here, how my older brother died in a surprising act of heroism and how my mom had been shot and killed by two of the people I loved most in life. I would think about how maniacal my dad had become, how frightening and sadistic too. I would look at Miller and feel fear swirl through me and wonder what path he was on and where it would take him.
We had never been a functional family. My father had always been physically and emotionally abusive and my mother had been his perfect sidekick. She had been indifferent to our torture and demanding to our perfection. She had never loved me or my brothers. She had never even liked us.
Still, there were moments that grief would set my body on fire. It was always unexpected. It would always come out of the strangest places. I could never stop it either. I would bite my lip and clench my fists while it bore down on me.
It was like a tornado of emotion that would rip through my chest, tearing everything to pieces, destroying huge sections of my soul and misplacing everything I had worked to put in order. But it would be gone as soon as it came. If I just held on, I could make it through.
“Ty?” Miller whispered. His hand reached out and covered mine.
I took a steadying breath. He sounded like himself again and the relief was so intense that it pushed the other crap away. “I’m okay,” I whispered. “Sometimes, I just… It’s not like I miss them. I just… I hate the people that they are. They were supposed to protect us from everything evil, not be everything that is evil.”
Miller didn’t remove his hand. I could feel him processing my raw words. I didn’t usually open up to him like this. He had his own demons and I was always so afraid that I would add to them. I wanted to protect him from my personal pain, not give him more reasons to slip further down the spiral of darkness.
“I’m going to kill him, Tyler. I swear it.”
I lifted my eyes to meet him and tried to stifle the chill that caused goose bumps to pebble my arms. “Miller, maybe you should leave that to Vaughan or Hendrix-”
“You don’t think I can do it?” he demanded.
I cleared my throat and tried to stall for some time. “I know you can do it, Miller,” I finally admitted. “But I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to have that hang over your head for the rest of your life. I hate him too. I do. But he’s still our dad. I’m not sure we’re created with the ability to kill our own father.”
“You might not be,” he said. “But I am. I know I am. I feel it. Here.” He jabbed his chest with his pointer finger. “I know I can kill him. I want to kill him.”
“Let’s just hope he doesn’t kill us first.”
Miller grunted something I didn’t understand before sitting back against the wall and resting his forearms on his bent knees. He looked out at the busy lobby area around us and assessed it with a sharpness that wouldn’t have been there under normal circumstances.
The Zombie Apocalypse had shaped my brother into an unflinching warrior and the Parkers had fine-tuned his skill until he was a lethal killer.
My dad had made sure we depended on him and his Colony. He had kept us ill-equipped and unprepared for the dangers of this world- including him. It was too late for me to become any kind of threat to my enemies. Or maybe I just didn’t have it in me.
But Miller had picked up the necessary skills like they were the most precious kinds of gifts. He treasured his new skills. He worked on them daily and he was determined to keep up with the Parkers, even though he was several years younger than them.
“Don’t show him fear, Tyler,” Miller instructed as if he were the older sibling. “Don’t let him see that you’re still afraid of him.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.” I kept the bitter edge to my voice toned down as much as I could. It felt silly that Miller was the one giving me this advice.
“Exactly. You weren’t planning on it, but he is. He’s going to do whatever he can to make you afraid of him. Just don’t give in. That’s what he wants. That’s how he feels control.”
My irritation turned to warm affection. For as bothered as I wanted to be by Miller’s insight, I couldn’t help but be impressed. “How did you get to be so smart?” I pushed his shoulder a little and smiled at him, hoping to diffuse the new tension.
“Cause I feel it too, Ty.” His narrowed gaze cut to mine, gaging my reaction. “I want people to be afraid of me too.”
That damn lump reappeared in my throat and I felt like my tongue swelled until it was too big for my mouth.
What was I supposed to say to that?
I wasn’t a mom. And I sure as hell didn’t know how to raise a child. Yet, I was all Miller had. Even though he would never look at me or treat me like his mom, I still had a responsibility to give him good advice.
And yet, I was at a complete blank.
Instead of saying something profound and life changing, I just kept thinking, Holy shit! My brother’s a psychopath too!
Before I could think of something to say, anything to say, the outside door banged open and a tough looking Mexican walked through the door. His calculating eyes swept over the three cells that held the majority of us before they moved on to find Diego.
Diego had been sitting at a desk with his long legs propped up on piles of paperwork and other junk. He had been playing with a stress ball for the last hour, staring off into the distance as if he had to work out something highly cerebral.
He was a handsome man, but his whole tendency to lock us up in jail and his greedy need to take over the world, kept me from admiring him.
He was as bad as my dad, but unfortunately for us, we needed him.
He was a necessary evil we couldn’t afford to ignore.
Besides, he’d let us keep our weapons. I had a feeling that if Reagan would have turned down his deal, we would still be sitting where we were, but sans guns and ammo.
Which would have been significantly worse.
The new guy shouted something in Spanish to Diego who snapped to attention immediately and jumped to his feet. He straightened his shirt, ran a hand through his slicked-back hair and finally turned his cold, killer gaze on us.
“He’s here,” he announced with his thick accent. “Ready or not.”
Chapter Two
I quickly scrambled to my feet before I froze on the floor. Facing the reality of seeing my father again after all of this time threatened to turn my bones brittle and my blood to sludge in my veins.
I waited for my entire body to lock up right before it crumbled to ash in the jail cell. I felt unstable with fear and anxiety. My senses exploded with too much sensation and I questioned everything I heard or saw or felt. I knew Matthias was here, but I wanted him dead so fiercely I felt dizzy from it.
That was how afraid I was of my father.
Sure, I had come because my friends needed me to. Vaughan asked me to be with him and I agreed without a moment of hesitation. I put on a mask of courage and slipped into a constant state of denial. I clutched to Vaughan’s confidence and ignored my own instinctual terror.
But t
he truth was that I could barely breathe through this panic.
Just the mention of my father’s name sent chills racing over my body and horrific memories spiraling through my mind.
It had been easier to function when I lived with him. Back then the nightmare was my reality and I could only push forward because I refused to get tangled in the present. I could survive because I had to. If I didn’t fight for my life, he would have taken it.
Now, I knew what it was like to be free. I had tasted life without his oppression and abuse. I had the love of a real man, even if I was being difficult about it, and a family that understood loyalty and respect. Now that I had been rescued from hell and given a second chance at life, I could not go back.
I would not give my father control over me again.
I would die first.
And I had a feeling my father would gladly let me.
I tried not to contemplate how easy it was for me to give up my life and how difficult it was for me to admit that I could possibly love Vaughan. They should have been separated into different categories in my head, but deep down I knew they were related.
As long as my father roamed this world, feasting on his prey as savagely as the Feeders and cutting down any resistance that stepped into his path, I would always protect those I cared about most by keeping them away from me.
Miller’s grip tightened on my hand. He was growing incredibly fast, but my hand was still bigger than his. He squeezed my fingers until my bones rubbed uncomfortably together, his rough hand becoming a vice grip of determination.
I looked down at him and met his wide gaze. I had intended to smile at him or say something reassuring, but when I looked at him, when I saw the madness swirling in the depths of his light eyes and the small but cruel twist of his lips, I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.
“Please stay close to me,” I whispered to him.
He nodded. “We’re going to live through this,” he promised, his voice louder and stronger than my weak one.
“I hope you’re right.”
“Tyler, I’m not going to leave Page. I’ll kill him and then we’ll go back to her.”