His intense gaze stayed on me though, hard and penetrating. He always had this ability to see through me, see through whatever bullshit I tried to use as glamor. He had always known me in this way that was uniquely his.
I shifted uncomfortably and the floorboards squeaked loudly beneath my feet. The sound made me jump and quiet down. I wasn’t used to making unintentional noise quite that clumsily.
Hendrix stilled too, which was why the footsteps on the porch caught our attention.
Unfamiliar voices drifted in through the propped doors and the sounds of jingling, like keys or something, punctuated the fact that we did not know these people.
Hendrix and I dropped to a squat instantly. There was a door that led to a back room just to the right of the water that Hendrix pointed at. We scurried through it before we could be found.
The room opened to an office. I pressed against the wall behind the door and Hendrix flattened himself against the other wall, leaving the door open just a crack so he could hear.
We stood in complete darkness, with only the dim sliver of light from the cracked door to help us see. Hendrix looked at me across the small space and put a finger to his lips.
As if I needed to be reminded to be quiet.
My stomach clenched with nerves for Haley and Page. Those fears were quickly elevated when one of the strangers spoke.
“You think they came this way?” Stranger One asked in what sounded like the middle of the pharmacy.
“They would have had to,” Stranger Two answered.
Who were they talking about? Did these guys live here? Were we going to be shot for eyeing their water?
Nooo!
“That was their handiwork on the highway, wasn’t it?”
A prickle of nerves shot through me and Hendrix gave me a very concerned look.
“That many dead? Had to be. Matthias will be happy to know we’re on their trail again.”
Shit!
I held Hendrix’s eyes and pleaded with him to make those men go away. He stared at me with intent written all over his face. He looked furious. His entire body had turned to steel and his mouth pressed into a frown.
“You want to waste time riding back to camp or keep going? They can’t be that far ahead of us. Those bodies weren’t that old.”
“How could you tell? They all stink like they’ve been dead for days and the blood was good and dried.”
Their footsteps brought them closer to us and I held my breath lest my breathing give us away. I heard the distinct clicking of a gun safety and I squinted my eyes shut, afraid they were about to burst through the door and shoot us on the spot.
“If they’d been there for longer than a couple days other Feeders would have found them by now and eaten the rest of them. They’re freshly dead.”
The other stranger chuckled as if truly impressed by this logic. If only they were actually smart enough to realize how fresh those bodies were.
“Let’s stay on the road. He’ll be pissed if we gave up their scent just to tell him about it. But, if we manage to return with them, he’ll make us kings.”
The first stranger laughed. “He does have it out for them pretty bad.”
Any hope that they were talking about anybody but us was squashed when the second voice replied, “They killed his wife, Moron. You would have it out for them pretty bad too.”
The first guy grunted his reply and they started to move around the pharmacy. Too many fears ping-ponged around in my chest and I had to press my lips together to keep from whimpering. I had to believe that Vaughan had somehow noticed these guys before we did and had gotten everyone else to a safe place. And I also had to hope that these guys, clearly sent by Matthias, hadn’t noticed our fresh footsteps in the dust.
They walked even closer to us, their footsteps jingling with their car keys and louder-than-normal noises. One of them made an overdramatic spitting sound and then they both chuckled low and victoriously.
“Well, well,” the first guy gloated. “Look at all this.”
“There was that mass grave about a mile back. It wasn’t a warning, it was this town. They must have offed themselves communally before the Feeders got to them.”
A sick feeling rolled through me. Preemptive deaths? How very sad.
That’s why there was all this water too. If they had been planning to wait out the Apocalypse, something had changed their minds.
“We’ll load this up in the truck,” Bad Guy Number Two declared. “We’ll go back to Matthias with a trunk full of water and that bitch, and he’ll make us filthy rich. We’ll be set for life.”
I panicked at his words and jerked in my spot. I hadn’t meant to move, but those guys were talking specifically about me and that freaked me out! Another floorboard creaked unforgivably beneath me and I knew I’d just signed our death certificates. I couldn’t believe I was so stupid!
My eyes popped open and I met Hendrix’s steely gaze. I know I had to look terrified, but he appeared absolutely calm.
Calm and furious.
“What was that?” one of them asked quickly. “Did you hear that?”
“I did,” the second guy confirmed. “It came from right through here-”
The door started to open and I didn’t bother to stay quiet then. I screamed at the top of my lungs because Hendrix had jumped through the door and a gunshot rang out loud and clear.
Chapter Three
The door slammed against me when a body fell limply against it. I was momentarily trapped by the weight of a full-grown male. I pushed and wiggled, but until he slid to the floor, I was effectively trapped.
And all I could think about was Hendrix bleeding out on the other side. Crazed necessity to get to him clawed at my throat and churned in my gut. I felt violently ill. And apart from that one scream, I couldn’t seem to make a sound. A lone tear slid down my cheek, born from panic and fear.
I needed to get to Hendrix now.
I pushed with everything in me and thanks to the adrenaline surging through my blood, I managed to move the body on the floor and slip out. I dropped to my knees immediately and cradled a head.
A head that was decidedly not Hendrix’s.
What in the world?
I looked up to see Hendrix in the middle of a brawl with the other thug. There were no weapons in either of their hands and they swung wildly at each other, knocking into display cases and the metal shelves separating the aisles.
I dropped the head quickly and stood up to see what I could do to help.
The answer was: not much. Hendrix seemed to have this under control.
He pinned the stranger on the floor and punched him repeatedly until the guy’s nose crunched beneath Hendrix’s fist and blood spurted everywhere. Hendrix didn’t stop then either; he kept going and going and going.
Vaughan and Nelson stumbled into the pharmacy looking just as determined to save Hendrix as I had been. They had watched him in confusion for several seconds before they registered the dead guy and me.
They made no move to stop Hendrix from beating the other guy to death.
After another minute, he stopped on his own. He gathered the guy’s collar in his fist and pulled the stranger up so they were nose to nose. The guy’s head lolled helplessly back and forth and I could tell he was having trouble focusing.
“You’re here for us?” Hendrix questioned in a fierce growl.
The guy didn’t seem able to make sense of any of it.
Hendrix shook the stranger and then adjusted his head so he could see me. “You’re here for her?”
The guy worked really hard to focus. His face was covered in blood and both of his eyes had started to swell shut. He jerked one of his hands and before Hendrix could punch him again, the guy started patting at his front pocket. He made a series of grunting noises that didn’t make any sense.
Finally, Hendrix dropped him back to the ground and dug in the pocket for him. Hendrix pulled out a folded piece of yellowed paper. There were speckles of b
lood on it and the creases were deep and wrinkled.
Hendrix slowly unfolded the paper without giving the now-unconscious guy any breathing room. Whatever was on the paper completely deflated Hendrix. His entire body sagged when he read it. His rigid shoulders drooped, his proud head hung and a heavy breath of air whooshed from his lungs.
“What is it?” Vaughan demanded.
Hendrix held up the paper and Vaughan reached for it. Nelson peered over his shoulder and together the two brothers read it. In unison, Nelson and Vaughan looked at me with matching expressions of pity.
“What?” my voice was a whisper. “What is it?” I couldn’t even imagine. I mean, somewhere in my whirling thoughts I knew that it had something to do with Matthias. That much had been said already by the two strangers. But what? What could be written down on a piece of paper that would leave three Parkers looking so defeated?
“Let me see it,” I demanded when nobody made a move to tell me what was going on.
“No,” Hendrix growled. “She doesn’t need to see it.”
“I do.”
“She does,” Vaughan agreed with me.
This was one of those rare moments when it was better not to be in a relationship with Hendrix. That meant he didn’t get a say about things like this.
So, see? My loneliness and depression were totally worth it…
Kind of.
Okay, not at all.
Vaughan stepped over two bodies and his brother to hand me the paper. I took it with trembling hands and had to steel my courage before I could even look at it. It annoyed me how weak I acted around this stupid piece of paper.
Paper couldn’t hurt me. Whatever Matthias wrote about me, could not hurt me. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Right?
Right.
I turned the paper over and felt my entire world crumble and crash into ruin around me.
It wasn’t words on the paper. It wasn’t slander or something written.
It was a picture.
Of my face.
Someone had drawn a very realistic headshot of me. And when I looked at the paper closer, I realized that this was a copy of an original.
So someone had managed to create a Wanted poster of me and then they’d managed to make who knew how many copies.
I flashed back to the first time we’d met the Allens, that very first time we were exposed to the Colony. We had broken into their farmstead and made use of their solar paneled electricity.
How hard would it have been for Matthias to return to that town, to the capital city of his kingdom, find a copy machine and paper, then take it back to his farm and run electricity through it?
Not hard at all.
The realization of what I held in my hands hit me again when I remembered that his governing seat had once been in a school building. Where surely they would have copy machines a plenty.
Or at least one machine.
These things seemed like impossibilities to me. Electricity, paper, copy machines? Those were basically archaic concepts everywhere else in the world, but Matthias had managed to make them realities for his world- for the Colony.
I forced myself to look at my face again. It was definitely me. There was no denying the likeness. Whoever drew it for him had not only seen me up close and personal long enough to study my features, but they were very talented.
If only they weren’t using all that talent for evil.
Although, I doubted there was much of a demand for artists these days.
Or any demand at all.
There was officially no demand for artists anywhere on Earth, except in Matthias’s camp.
My focus dropped to the bottom of the page where some instructions were written: This woman, by the name of Reagan Willow, is wanted preferably alive. Deliver directly to Matthias Allen, leader of the first and only United Colony. Reward: Untold wealth. Power. Protection.
Untold wealth? He wanted me dead so badly he was going to gift untold wealth to someone?
There was a small part of me that considered turning myself in. But… no. That would be a bad idea. Right? Right.
Right?
Okay, for real, right. That would be dumb. He wouldn’t give me untold wealth. He would cut my head off.
Or worse.
I did kill his wife. Or, er, I had a part in killing his wife. And then I supposed you could technically hold me responsible for getting his firstborn and heir to the Allen throne killed as well.
Plus, there was the whole thing about me “kidnapping” his other two children.
There was no doubt in my mind the man hated me. Obviously he hated me enough to go to the trouble of creating a flyer with my face on it.
Whether there was actual untold wealth waiting at the end of the Reagan Rainbow was another unsolved mystery.
Although, I supposed a treasure like that was relative these days. Maybe he meant a steady meal ticket or a storehouse filled with guns and ammo. Maybe he just meant power over the people Matthias had so cleverly enslaved.
Or Zombie protection.
Untold wealth could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But the one thing I knew for certain was that I was the key to it all.
I didn’t know how many people carried these damn flyers, but one was too many for me.
I kept reading Matthias’s instructions because there was definitely more. Damning me wasn’t enough for this man. Oh, no. He wanted to take every last one of us down.
The paper continued to read: She can be found traveling with a large party of mostly men. They are to be considered armed and very dangerous. Take care not to become another one of their endless line of victims. They are the enemy. More riches will be considered if you can apprehend anyone with Reagan Willow. My children are among them but are considered traitors. Do with them as you please.
Geez. This was bad. So very bad.
I looked up again to find Nelson, Vaughan and Hendrix watching me. They seemed to be waiting for some kind of verbal response from me, but I didn’t have one. I just looked from the paper, from my well-drawn face back to them and hoped they had some kind of solution for me.
I was at a loss.
“We’re near the border,” Nelson finally said. “We’ll cross the border and then this won’t be a problem anymore.”
Vaughan looked at Nelson and then carefully back to me. “Right. The border. He won’t be able to find you once we cross the border, no matter how many flyers he makes.”
I looked to Hendrix. He pulled his fist back and slammed it into the stranger’s face. The guy’s head dropped to the side. He was out cold.
Hendrix climbed off the guy he had beaten unconscious and stood over me. He vibrated with raw fury, a primal energy that made me shiver despite the heat.
He held his hand out to me and I took it without thinking. He yanked me to my feet and then caught my waist because I nearly toppled over from his forceful momentum.
He didn’t apologize.
“We won’t let Matthias touch you, Willow. We won’t let him get anywhere near you. You don’t have to be afraid of a piece of paper.”
I swallowed and accepted his words. “Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“I know you do.” And I did. I could feel how furious this made him. I could see the evidence of what he would do to anyone that tried to break into his family and tear it apart.
And that’s what I was. I was his family. No matter how bad things were between us or how awkward they were. No matter that I broke his heart and betrayed him and his family. No matter that I was the reason for all of this, that I brought it on myself. He had accepted me from the very beginning and he would protect me, no matter what, to the end.
Thank God! I would have been dead like fifty times already without the Parker brothers by my side. And the paper in my hand was a sick reminder that this was only just beginning.
Matthias was after me and there was no way he planned on stopping or givi
ng up.
I could almost respect his persistence though. Almost.
If someone had killed my wife and taken all three of my children from me, I might not be very forgiving either.
“I mean it,” he repeated.
“Hendrix, I know. I trust you.”
We stared at each other for a long minute until he accepted my faith in him. He broke away first and turned around to give his brothers instructions.
“Help me search them for keys. They drove here. They were talking about a truck.”
The boys got to work around me and I tried my best to stay out of the way. Vaughan found keys and a lighter. Score for both of those.
They moved the two bodies into the office and closed the door. They tied up the unconscious guy until we were ready to leave. They didn’t want him interfering with our business here, but they weren’t going to leave him completely helpless either. They were better men than Matthias.
“If you’re going to let this guy live, why did you kill his friend?” I looked at the dead guy and tried to make sense of his blood-soaked back.
“I didn’t,” Hendrix explained. “The other guy shot him. Apparently, I scared him when I jumped out at them. My intention had been to take them by surprise, but I didn’t expect that. Lucky break, I guess.”
He said it so casually, but my mind raced to catch up with him. “Wait, they had guns drawn when you jumped at them? They had guns pointed in your direction and you jumped at them and hoped to take them by surprise?”
“They were going to find us. Something had to be done.”
“You could have died!”
“Yeah, I could have died here. Or I could have died last night when we were attacked. And you could have died then too. You almost did die. I’m not letting that happen again.”
He turned away from me and gathered the guns both men had dropped. Nelson pulled their extra ammo out of their clothing and then shut the door.
I just watched the whole thing without being helpful for even a second. I could have stood there for the next five hours trying to decipher Hendrix’s words. He wouldn’t get that close to death again? Or he wouldn’t let me get that close?