“Tyler, it is not your fault,” I promised her. “And I will never, ever blame you for what he does to other people. Yeah?”
She sniffled but nodded. “Yeah.”
I looked back and forth between Tyler, who was pulling herself together, and Gage, who was staring at Tyler with a furrowed brow and somber expression. There was definitely something there.
Not that I could tell what it was exactly from all these telenovela-worthy-dramatic-glances, but I would somehow get to the bottom of this.
Just not right this second.
Standing up, I declared, “Well, I need to get this over with before I talk myself out of it.” I pulled Tyler to her feet and smiled sympathetically at Gage. “Is he still upstairs?”
“Yes.” Gage stood too. “Do you want me to walk you?”
A quick glance at Tyler and that would be a hard no. “We can find it.”
“Alright. Whoever is keeping watch now will walk you down to the creek. They will stay there while you get him ready so that you’re not alone. Make sure you tell him you guys are leaving tomorrow.”
“Sure. Got it. Piece of cake.”
“Reagan,” Gage warned. “Don’t let him… just, uh, he can be…”
“Gage, I got it.” I held my palms up to keep him from trying to explain what I already knew- what I knew the moment I met Kane. “I’ll be fine.”
Gage turned his attention back to Tyler, “We’ll talk later, Ok?”
“Probably not,” she snapped back. I breathed a sigh of relief at her returned snarkiness. “I loved Logan, Gage. I still do. You have no right to question that.”
“I never questioned your love for Logan,” he growled, suddenly an entirely different creature than the apologetic, defeated version of himself. Now he was fierce with conviction and determination. “I watched you love Logan my whole life!”
“Then you’re familiar with me choosing him over you.”
Gage reared back and stared at Tyler with a mixture of anger and hurt splashed all over his face. I slipped out the door and pressed my back against the wall for Tyler to wrap that up. I didn’t think my infatuation with the drama in Tyler’s life included this kind of train wreck. I mean, I planned on listening, but neither of them needed me hovering.
“Tyler, I have never, not once, asked you to choose me over Logan. And I’m not asking you that now. I walked away from you and that town a year ago and I have not once come back for either of you. Don’t try to drag that dried-out bullshit here now. This is not about you. I am not about you. You showed up at my doorstep in trouble and in need. I’m just doing the best I can to help you out, what you choose to make of that is on you. But make no mistake that I’m asking anything from you in return.”
Tyler stayed quiet for a few agonizing moments and then relented with a humble, “You’re right. I apologize. I was out of line. I shouldn’t have assumed that about you. I just, what you said…. I’m more emotional than I should be. Let’s just forget this conversation ever happened.”
“That’s fine by me,” he deadpanned.
Tyler stormed out of the office before anything else could be said and gasped when she noticed me waiting for her. She clutched at her chest and pursed her lips, gesturing with her head for me to follow.
Once we were in the stairwell again, she collapsed against the wall and slid to the floor. In the dim light from the candle-lanterns I could see she was shaking again. She dropped her face into her palms letting her hair fall forward to create a curtain around her.
“Ty, are you alright?” I whispered, sliding down next to her.
“No,” she let out one painful sob.
I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she leaned into me. Struggling for something comforting to say, I ended with an inspired, “That was intense.”
A forced laugh croaked from her chest and another sob escaped. “He hasn’t changed.”
“What do you mean?
She sighed and removed her hands from her face so her voice wasn’t muffled anymore. “He’s always been like this,” she admitted. “My entire life I’ve had to choose between Logan and Gage. Not that it was much of a choice. It was always Logan; for as long as I can remember it was Logan. Besides, Gage never was really interested in me or anything. It was mostly, I don’t know, school stuff. And Gage and Logan were always competing. Somewhere along the way I learned to care for Gage too. And then…. all this happened. What I felt for Gage was never…. was more like the way you love a naughty puppy. But, gah! I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”
“Do you have feelings for him?” I wasn’t expecting this huge confession and I didn’t feel prepared to offer any kind of advice.
“No!” she promised, and honestly; I believed her. “I just didn’t know all that stuff about my dad and Gage. I’m not exactly sure what do with it.”
“Me either,” I empathized.
Tyler sniffled one more time and then pushed her way to standing. “Alright, enough pity party. Let’s go deal with Kane.”
I thought over her offer and decided she’d been through enough for one day. “You don’t have to go with me. I’ll just deal with him real quick.”
“I so can’t make you bathe him alone.”
I about choked on the word “bathe” but pulled myself together because I knew Tyler was not
nearly emotionally fortified to deal with the trauma he would cause her. “Seriously, go back. Take the rest of the day off. I got this.”
“Reagan, really, you don’t have to.”
“Tyler, I know. But, you’ve been through a lot. And it’s not like I’ll be alone. There will be other people there. With guns. That’s all I can ask for, really.” I grinned at her, hoping to persuade her to go. “Besides, someone should explain this to Hendrix and Vaughan and I really, really don’t want it to be me.”
She laughed at that. “Ok, I don’t blame you there. I’m sure Hendrix will hunt you down as soon as I tell him anyway.”
“True,” I groaned.
“Well, Ok, if you’re sure.” She sounded hopeful for the first time since I’d known her. If all it took for her to feel better was that I keep her away from Kane, then I would gladly sacrifice this for her.
“I’m sure,” I promised confidently. “Unless, you wanted to say goodbye?”
She let out a surprised burst of laughter. “Uh, that would be a no. I’m so over my crazy ass family. I just want to get them in the review mirror and move on with my life.”
I pulled her into an impulsive hug. “I just want to get away from your crazy ass family too, babe.”
She snorted and pushed me away. “Ok, go. I’ll give you like a ten minute head start before I send Hendrix after you.”
“Yeah, push it to fifteen minutes and I’ll give you my next ration of bread.”
“Deal,” she smiled at me.
And then we separated ways. I went upstairs and she went down. I had longer to go than she did, so by the time the first floor door banged behind her I was completely freaked out in the dingy stairwell while each footstep echoed off the cavernous ceiling and my shadow warped into a monstrosity that flickered in the candlelight.
The top floor was mostly empty, except for the unit used as Kane’s holding cell and Gage’s personal unit that was obviously empty at the moment. I was no less freaked out as I weaved my way through the narrow hallways in search of Kane than I had been in the stairwell.
Even though we were allowed out back for baths and I had been added into the rotating guard schedule, I missed natural light. We lived most of our lives here in darkness with only candles or the occasional flashlight to light our way. I felt like a vampire, or some kind of cave creature that preferred to nibble on spelunkers.
The guards heard me coming from a ways away and were waiting for me when I approached.
“Are you Reagan or Tyler?” a middle-aged man with a sawed-off shotgun asked as I approached.
“I’m Reagan.”
“Thank God
,” he groaned. “He’s been a real pain in the ass today.”
I walked three more steps and came face to face with a beaten, battered and pissed-off Kane. His eyes were shadowed by the lack of light and I couldn’t see the unique shade of gray or the intense hardness I could feel radiating off him. His mouth pressed into a thin line when I appeared in front of him and his arms were immediately straining against his plastic ties.
“I’ve been here an entire week, Reagan,” Kane snarled at me. “And I haven’t seen you once.”
A shiver raced down my spine sending goose bumps rising all over my skin. Too possessive. Too familiar.
I pasted on a cocky smirk and forced pretend bravado into my movements. I couldn’t let him see just how much he intimidated me. He would pounce on that- use it to his advantage and my demise.
“Are you alive?” I asked in an obnoxiously patronizing voice.
He grunted something that sounded like, “Yes.”
“Then I’ve held up my end of the bargain.” I walked into the empty storage unit that consisted of three cement walls and a garage-style door that was currently and probably permanently rolled up. Candles lined the walls on the floor and Kane was sitting in a comfortable looking recliner in the middle of the space while three armed men stood near enough to touch a gun barrel to his temple if needed. His hands were laid out in front of him, bound with plastic ties- the kinds you had to cut off. He smelled, he was filthy and he didn’t look any less beat up than when I’d seen him last. Pushing away some surprise sympathy I goaded him just a little bit, “And look, by default, you’ve held up your end of our bargain.”
He glared at me and got his own dig in. “But you’re here now. And it’s going to be difficult to keep your distance while you’re bathing me.”
I swallowed against the rising bile lodged in my throat and sent him my own death-stare. I guess he was right about that. It would be hard to keep my distance.
Chapter Three
I walked next to Kane while the guards led us out of the building through a back staircase that led to the rear entrance. This door was next to a mechanical, sliding door big enough to back a moving truck into. Like the lobby, this unloading space was huge and could hold a lot of people, but it was less inviting and more empty-feeling; although it was not even close to being sparsely decorated. Gage used the large space as storage for everything that had been cleared out of the units when they first converted it to an apartment complex.
We walked through all kinds of trinkets, antiques, baby things and outdated clothing before we got to a solid steel door with about six different locks lined up on the right side. One of the guards pulled out a set of keys I’d seen passed around to whichever guard was in charge of the current shift and set about getting us outside.
While he worked through his numerous keys, I introduced myself and learned that the three men were all in their mid-forties. Two of them had been here since before Gage showed up and one had arrived three months ago. Their names were forgotten almost as soon as they’d given them to me. I felt bad, but I was too wrapped up in Kane’s overshadowing presence to pay real attention.
There was a secret-ish entrance out the back of the perimeter wall. A door, carved in the stone, with as many locks as the steel door by the loading dock, only this one was camouflaged to match the stone. I’d used it only three times to go down to the creek for two baths, and once to wash out some clothes.
The men walking with us, nodded in greeting to the guards walking around the back grassy area, but didn’t attempt to draw them into conversation.
“Do you have a weapon on you?” One of the guards asked me when the door was unlocked and ready to be pulled open.
I pulled out a handgun from my large cargo pocked near my calf. I checked the clip, clicked off the safety and nodded. “And a knife.”
“Good,” he grunted. “We’ll stay close enough to call for help, but we won’t have the normal protection.”
“Should we wait?” Unease rushed through me at the idea of spending time in these woods without the normal circle of armed weapons. Gage split up bathing between women and men every three days. So the women would bathe one night, the men the next and then the third night we would wash clothes. Whenever it was time to get into the creek, Gage would assign a group of about twenty to make a protective circle while we were occupied in the creek and then twenty of us would take their place while they bathed. It wasn’t exactly an army, but it made me feel better about getting near-naked in the middle of an Oklahoma forest.
“Nah.” The guard yanked open the door and held it open for us. “There’s just one of him; it won’t take long.”
“Besides,” another put in. “You’d have a hard time finding anyone willing to risk their life for him.”
Kane snorted at that. “To credit your own stupidity.”
“What was that?” the third guard demanded at the same time he shoved Kane in the back with the butt of his rifle.
Kane stumbled forward and I reached out instinctively to steady him with two hands on his bicep. He winced when I grabbed his cut and I immediately let go.
Cursing under his breath, he looked up at me and met my startled gaze in the soft afternoon light. “Thank you.” His voice was a low rumble and infinitely gentler than before.
“I didn’t realize your arm still hurt that bad,” I looked back at the forest floor where patches of rich summer grass mingled with dead leaves and broken branches. We’d been lucky with a relatively cool summer so far, but temperatures were definitely heating up and in my long sleeved t-shirt and jeans I was starting to sweat.
“I’m fine,” Kane returned his attention to the makeshift path in front of us.
“Did they…. Has someone….” I wasn’t exactly sure how to ask him if someone had looked at his injuries. After they’d taken Kane away and we settled into the activity room, Gage had sent a former doctor to look at my head wound. I assumed they did the same for Kane; but I’d never bothered to ask.
Feelings of cruel hope they’d let him suffer and humanitarian sympathy that they hadn’t been as callous as me warred inside my head.
“They made sure I wasn’t dying,” he answered dryly. “But by now I probably have an infection. I haven’t had a bath in over a week.”
I laughed before I could stop myself, “I can tell.”
Kane swiveled his head my direction, surprised by my good humor. “You could have come to me a lot sooner, you know. I would never hurt you, Reagan.”
“And while I appreciate that,” I started magnanimously.
But Kane cut me off, “Stop right there. I’m too exhausted to hear the rest of that sentence.”
I laughed again, surprised by his sarcastic sense of humor. “You’re so cranky today.”
He laughed, too, and said, “I promise I’ll be in a better mood after I get a bath.”
We finally reached the creek and the guards spread out and turned their backs to us. I looked at Kane and winced. There was no normal way to go about this. I just had to hope Tyler had already spilled the news to Hendrix and he was on his way to save me.
I clicked the safety back on my gun, pocketed it and then dug around in the bag one of the guards provided. It generously contained a change of clothes, shampoo, toothpaste and a toothbrush, a comb, and deodorant.
I held up the stick of Old Spice antiperspirant and thought about that for a moment. One day humanity was going to run out of deodorant. Sure, we’d been lucky so far to be able to keep it stocked. But one day all of it was going to be gone.
And then what?
Did anyone need stronger incentive to solve the Zombie problem than that?
I mean…. imagine. Could even the Parkers, in all their glory and hotness remain the gods among mortals they were if they smelled like sweat and BO constantly? That was an honest question. Could they?
Oh no, and what about me? I would never be able to rely on just looks in those dire circumstances. Damn it.
Goo
d thing I loved Hendrix no matter what he smelled like. I just had to hope he felt the same for me.
Wait a second, did I just say love?
I loved him?
I loved him.
I did.
It took imagining him smelling like a sewer to finally admit that I felt that way, but I did.
“Hey,” Kane called me back to him tenderly. “Where did you go?”
I struggled to swallow and met Kane’s warm gray gaze, wrestling with the epiphany still flipping cartwheels inside my head and in my stomach.
Shaking my head slightly to gain perspective I admitted, “I was just thinking about deodorant. And what it will be like when we run out.”
Kane chuckled at my admission but chose not to get drawn into a conversation about the decline of civilized society and the implications no deodorant would have on the demoralization of humanity as a whole.
I didn’t blame him.
“Can you help me with my socks?” Kane asked, sounding almost humble.
“Sure,” I agreed. He had kicked off his boots, so I leaned over and peeled back his filthy socks. Ick.
Even before Kane ended up in solitary confinement, Tyler and I had never cleaned or disinfected the lower half of his body. His socks were plastered to his gritty feet and smelled god-awful.
“Geez, you smell as bad as they do.” I coughed against the repugnant smell and tried to hide my watering eyes.
“Trust me, I’m aware.”
I grunted a reply and then started to strip the rest of his body. I was keenly aware how intimate we were like this, even with the three other guards standing nearby.
I bypassed his pants and went for his t-shirt. When Kane came into custody he was topless, so this must be a gift from Gage. Well, it was ruined now. And even more so when I used my hunting knife to cut it off. I threw the jagged scraps into a pile with his socks and went about removing the relatively clean bandages.
Someone had been taking care of his wounds, so at least they were clean. That allowed me to have some relief.
I hated that I was scared of Matthias’s retaliation for how Kane was treated, but I couldn’t help it. He was scary. And like Gage had said, we didn’t have the resources to go to war with The Colony. Kane needed to cooperate with Gage.