Vaughan chuckled at my expression and then kissed me on the forehead. “Stop apologizing, Reagan. Be a big girl and accept the consequences of your actions. The rest of us have; it’s time you caught up.”
Then he walked away.
Harsh but necessary words. He was right. Everyone else had already embraced the events from six months ago and accepted our new reality.
I was the one dragging my feet. I was the one still pining over everything I could and should have done differently.
Be a big girl.
Good idea.
A distant rumbling sound caught my attention and I turned to face it. The highway ran long and straight. The blacktop disappeared into the horizon on either side of us and with the heat of the day it looked like oceans of water stretched across the gritty surface.
The rumbling became more distinct and soon a wavy image of a truck dotted the road, headed straight for us and coming fast.
More bounty hunters?
The town had been left untouched and abandoned even by looters for three years. What were the chances these new strangers were completely harmless?
“Get in! Let’s go!” Vaughan yelled his instructions. Our old friend paranoia hit us all with unease.
I scrambled into the back and made a seat on a cooler we’d packed with food. Harrison, King, and Miller joined me while the rest of the group climbed up into the cab.
Great. While Tyler and Haley sat in the comfortable fabric seats of the cab, I got to ride with the local middle school. This should be a fun trip across the border filled with fart jokes and ungodly teenage boy smells.
I had really started to rethink this. I mean, how bad could bounty hunters be?
Vaughan threw the truck into reverse and then again into drive. We peeled out of town like the hounds of hell chased after us.
And maybe they were.
The bed-topper had tinted windows on both sides and a long oval one across the back side. I watched the town disappear from sight and gave a silent thank you to those that had died before we ever arrived. They saved our lives. I truly believed that.
“They’re following us, aren’t they?” Miller slid forward to his knees and stared out the back window. “They’re definitely following us.”
“Shit,” I hissed when I saw what he did.
The truck behind us didn’t even bother to stop in the town. They sped right through without even pausing. They were gaining on us quickly.
I slapped a hand on the window that divided the cab from the bed and Hendrix forced it open.
“Do you see them?” I had to shout over the rumble of the road beneath us.
He nodded. “Yep. We’re not going to speed up though. We don’t want to seem unnecessarily suspicious.”
“Sure.”
He took in my mildly panicked wide eyes and smiled patiently at me. “Reagan, I’m going to keep you safe. Do you believe that?”
I nodded, too dumbstruck to say anything. He’d said my name. My first name. And he promised to keep my safe.
That was all I needed.
“Good.” He took in this moment too, pausing for a full minute. Maybe he had realized how long it had been since he used the “R” word too. Or maybe he needed time to form his thoughts into a plan. “Now scrunch down so they can’t see you.” He looked to his brothers in the back and then at me before he said, “Harrison, King, do what you can to hide Reagan without making it seem like you’re hiding something. And then make sure all three of you stay out of sight. Yeah?”
The three boys mumbled, “Yeah,” in unison.
And then they got to work. We moved the cooler I used as a seat out of the way and I slunk down behind it with my knees pulled to my chest. Wedged between the cooler and the wall, they went to work piling things around me.
I didn’t know if it looked natural or not, but I had to trust that they boys knew what they were doing. The window between the cab and us closed, and suddenly I felt very alone back here in this claustrophobic space.
I could hear the second truck gaining on us. The engine roared loudly and deeply. I sucked in a breath when it seemed to pull up to the side of us and then drop back down.
When it did that again, I really got nervous.
Suddenly, Vaughan slowed the truck down and swerved to the side of the road. The engine didn’t shut off, but quieted when he threw it into park.
The cab doors opened and I heard a few people get out and then the telltale click of guns. A wave of nausea washed over me when adrenaline bombarded my system.
The second truck stopped right next to us, more doors opened and more guns clicked dangerously.
“Where’d you get that truck?” a shrill female voice demanded.
“Found it,” Vaughan answered immediately.
“You found it?” She did not believe him.
That much was obvious.
“We found it,” Vaughan repeated in a growl. “It was just sitting there, with the keys in the ignition.”
“So you thought you’d just take it?” That came from a man. He sounded mildly amused.
I pressed my ear to the cool metal and tried to make out the situation better. The rumble of the engine made it hard to hear anything outside, even though we were absolutely quiet in here.
“We waited for someone to claim it. We waited the whole night, but nobody ever showed up. It’s not like people last long out here. We figured something probably happened to whoever rode it into town.”
“How generous of you,” the man chuckled sinisterly.
Shit.
This was not going as smoothly as I wanted it to. Clearly these guys knew the owners of this truck.
More bounty hunters perhaps?
The woman confirmed my fears when she said, “See, this truck belonged to some friends of ours. We were supposed to meet up with them last night and they never showed. Then we find this morning that their truck was commandeered by other people who claim to have spent the night in the very town they went to investigate. This looks suspicious to us.”
“I can see why,” Vaughan said in his most pacifying voice. “But we found the truck when we arrived. I’m sure you saw that there were many vehicles in town. This was the only one with the keys in the ignition.”
There was some shuffling of feet and silence for a few minutes; a hand banged obnoxiously on the side of the truck topper right by my head. I jumped but didn’t scream.
“Quite a crew you got in there,” the man’s voice boomed from right by the window nearest me. “You wouldn’t happen to be brothers, would ya?”
“And if we are?” Hendrix asked in a low voice.
“Well, that would be a problem for us,” the guy sneered.
“A problem how?” I could hear the aggression in Hendrix’s tone and it made my entire body grow taut with tension.
I could barely breathe through my nerves. I wasn’t used to hiding like this. I was used to being the first into danger, the first one with my gun raised and my intentions clear. I knew why I needed to stay quiet and still, but it felt like cowering.
And I was not cool with cowering.
“We’re looking for a group of brothers,” the woman barked. “A group of brothers that fit your description. You wouldn’t happen to have a girl with you.”
“You can see that we have three girls with us,” Nelson said easily.
“A girl that looks like this?” I didn’t have to be able to see them to imagine one of them pulling the wanted poster out of their pocket and holding it up for the Parkers to see.
“Nope. Never saw her,” Hendrix replied after a few minutes where I assumed he pretended to study the picture. “But that’s a big reward for such a little thing.”
I could hear the smile in the guy’s voice, “Yeah, the guy looking for her will do just about anything to get her. He’ll give up just about anything too. You could see why we’d be motivated to find her.”
“I could see why,” Vaughan answered smoothly. “But like we said,
we haven’t seen her.”
“What did you say your names were?” the man asked.
Vaughan didn’t even hesitate. “I’m Stevie. This is my brother Jimi and my other brother Willie.”
I almost laughed. When you’re named after the last name of famous guitar players, coming up with a first-name alias was apparently super easy.
“Your names are Stevie, Jimi and Willie?” The guy sounded unconvinced.
“You got a problem with that?” Hendrix sounded more agitated than ever, as if he were really offended people might have a hard time believing his name was Jimi.
Or that Nelson’s name was really Willie.
“No problem. None at all,” the guy answered quickly. “Well, maybe one problem. See our buddies were carrying a pretty big load of gasoline when they left us and half of it is ours. You wouldn’t mind if we opened up the bed and retrieved it, would you?”
I sucked in a breath and held it. Vaughan better not give up this gas just to keep me safe. I would face every single bounty hunter on earth before I willingly gave up fuel.
Vaughan chuckled. “You want us to give you the gas that we found?”
“Well, it’s ours. We’re being kind by only asking for half of it. We really should take all of it.”
“You say that it’s yours, but that’s all we have to go by. And no offense, but we don’t know you. We don’t know anything about you except you’re willing to turn some poor girl over to a very bad man because there’s a reward in it for you.”
“That poor girl has killed a lot of people,” the woman snarled at Vaughan like she knew me.
I rolled my eyes because it was the only way I could be defiant right now.
“We’ve all killed a lot of people,” Hendrix countered. “It’s the Zombie Apocalypse. If you haven’t killed someone, it’s because you’re already dead.”
“Maybe we’ll just take the truck back, then.” The guy changed the subject and lost all the amusement in his tone.
“Finders keepers,” Nelson taunted. “We’re not going to give you this truck. Forget it.”
“Then we’ll take it.”
“You can try.”
In my head I had a very vivid picture of guns raised and lines drawn. Hendrix, Vaughan and Nelson would not back down with all of us inside this vehicle and so close to the border. This was our saving grace.
I had never before thought of myself as a materialistic person, but my survival had been called into question the last few days and I was not comfortable with that. I nearly died not because of Zombies, or illness or injury, not even because Matthias Allen caught up to me, but because of the elements and lack of food and water.
That was not okay.
We needed this truck. We needed it to survive. And we needed it to cross the border into Mexico.
“You don’t want to do this,” the woman said evenly. “You’re going to get killed over a truck.”
“You don’t want to do this,” Vaughan countered. “Or you’ll end up like your friends.”
I had never felt more impotent without a weapon than that moment. I heard the silence. I felt it. The second Vaughan dropped the bomb about their friends the atmosphere around us froze completely.
I had to believe that Vaughan knew what he was doing. I also had to believe that these three brothers could get us out of this alive.
But I could feel the strangers’ aggression through the walls of the truck. I could feel their sudden panic and realization. And I could feel the fury that pulsed beneath their skin.
“So you did kill our friends!” the woman confirmed in a harsh shriek.
“We didn’t kill them,” Hendrix said slowly. I could mentally picture his casual shoulder shrug when he continued, “One of them is dead, but that wasn’t us. The other guy accidentally shot him. It was… it was this whole thing.”
“And you expect us to believe you?” The woman was beyond outraged. Her voice screamed shrilly and demandingly. “You have their truck! And all of our supplies! Of course, you killed them!”
“One of them is still alive,” Hendrix said in a calming tone. “We’ll tell you where he is so you can go get him. He’s hurt badly. He’ll need some medical attention.”
One of the strangers let out a keening sound from the back of their throat. More silence ensued for another minute or two.
I broke out into a sweat just waiting for something terrible to happen. I feared the worst and expected not much better. My stomach tied itself in knots and I couldn’t imagine how the other guys back here remained so quiet. I was pretty much losing my mind.
“You’re them, aren’t you?” the man demanded. “You’re the people Matthias is looking for.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hendrix clipped out. “But I do know this. Your buddy is bleeding or at least covered in blood. Your other friend is dead. And they are just sitting there, waiting for some Feeders to happen upon them. Now I suggest that we wrap this little pow-wow up, and go our separate ways so that you can go save your friend. Otherwise, things are going to get dicey. And I do not want to be you when things get dicey.”
I suppressed a smile. What kind of smack talk was that?
“We’re not scared of you. You’re nothing but some punk kids.” The stranger did not sound like he was in a negotiating mood.
Vaughan let out a sinister chuckle. “That’s exactly how your friends felt. If only they were here to tell you that themselves.”
“Screw you,” the woman hissed.
“Your friend is in the pharmacy. He’s locked in the office. He needs your help.” Nelson sounded like the voice of reason. Maybe he was the good cop to Vaughan and Hendrix’s bad cop routine. “We outnumber you and we’re only going to hurt you if you force us to. Help us out, make the right decision.”
“Shit,” the guy growled, but he sounded resigned. “You have her, don’t you? I know you have her. He said she’d be with you no matter what.”
“That girl you’re talking about? She died three months ago.”
“She did not,” the man shot back.
While I admired his faith in me, my life would be a whole lot easier if he decided to spread the word that I was dead. Please and thank you.
“Feeder attack. We were ambushed at the Texas border. You’re welcome to go look for her body, but I doubt you’ll find much left.”
“You expect us to take that back to Matthias? You think that will appease him?”
The fear in the guy’s voice was unmistakable. Been there, buddy. It would probably be better for all of them if they didn’t mention running into us at all. I doubted Matthias was going to be very forgiving if he knew they actually caught up to us and couldn’t manage to apprehend us.
“I don’t care what will appease that rat bastard,” Hendrix snapped. “I just want you to have the truth so we can be on our way.”
“We can’t leave without the girl,” the guy said, but he sounded less sure than before.
“That would be a bad move for you.”
“You think you’re so tough because you got one more person than us?” The woman cackled hysterically. She sounded less than sane. I hoped we didn’t break her brain when we told her one of her friend’s died. “You ain’t so bad.”
A fist hit the side of the truck and I had to slap my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. Holy crap! I was wound tight and that scared the bejeezus out of me!
The back door opened and I almost screamed again. From my hidey-hole and without any vision, I really thought they were coming for me. But when the movement started from inside the truck and moved out of it, I realized that the rest of the Parkers were probably joining their brothers. One of the cab doors opened too, and I heard someone step down and slam the door- probably Tyler.
“You should pay attention to the rumors,” Hendrix growled. “There’s a hell of a lot more than three of us.”
I tried to remember how many armed guns we had and if there were enough for everybody. I d
idn’t think that there were, but probably in this situation as long as they held a seemingly loaded gun, that would be enough to send the message.
“Fine,” the guy returned. “We’ll go.”
“Don’t forget about your friend,” Vaughan reminded him on a taunt. “If he hasn’t bled out by now.”
I didn’t hear another word spoken from either camp. Eventually, the purr of their engine pulsed with gas and turned to a roar. Several lurching movements occurred, which I believed was the truck turning around and the punch of gas when the strangers sped away.
I wanted Hendrix or Vaughan to shoot out their tires so we could be sure that our getaway actually got us away, but I knew they couldn’t waste the bullets, or risk missing and provoking our new friends.
I dropped my head to my knees and let out a very slow breath.
Good grief, get me out of this country already! Or what remained of it. Hasta luego, bitches.
A whoosh of air hit rushed over my head and the back of my neck when the pile surrounding me was forcefully dislodged. I looked up and came face to face with Hendrix.
“There’s a lot of people after you.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I’m sorry.”
“I told you not to apologize to me.”
“I just put this entire family in danger, Hendrix. I owe you an apology.” My adrenaline became channeled rage. If Hendrix wanted to antagonize me about this, I would gladly give him the fight he was looking for.
“I don’t want it. Not now, not before, not ever. You’re part of this group. We protect our own. I didn’t come back here to ask you to apologize for that. I came back here to make sure you are all right.”
I snorted. He in no way sounded concerned. In fact, he pretty much sounded the opposite.
I waved a brisk hand at my body. “I’m fine.”
“Good.”
“Are you all right?” I demanded in an irritated tone that disguised my true fear and anxiety over his wellbeing.
I thought I would die back here. I really did. And not because I was afraid of those bounty hunters, but because I could not stand being useless. If those idiots would have started shooting at my friends, I would have been helpless to stop them. Something terrible could have happened and it would have been just another thing that was my fault.