I could see him staring at me, but I refused to make eye contact. It was something I barely admitted to Rafe, let alone a room full of people and now Daniels.
‘Attacker?’ he asked quietly.
I nodded, holding the tears at bar.
I heard his rush of breath, ‘Oh’.
Two armed agents appeared and stood at the door. Charlie came out and looked around the corridor, his eyes rested on Daniels.
‘You, inside now!’ Daniels squeezed my shoulder as he walked past me.
My back up was gone. I forced myself to sit up straight and wear my end of the world mask. I let all the life rush out me and stared at the wall, dead behind the eyes. All emotions left me; I had turned myself into a ghost. My default go to persona is bought out when I’m in a situation that emotion will hurt rather than help me. If I’m dead inside, then nothing can hurt me.
After five minutes or so, I had company again. To my right was the agent that steadied me while I put on my shoes. She didn’t look at me or acknowledge me, I was grateful.
I just about heard her speak under her breath ‘he’s an asshole, there was always something creepy about him. Charlie will have his balls on a platter, you wait’.
She carried on staring ahead. We sat there in silence for two hours. I couldn’t hear anything coming from the room behind me, I hoped Charlie would come through for me, but I didn’t know him well enough to be sure one way or the other. Daniels was in there, so I knew I had one friend on the case. The other attendees had long since left, leaving me and silent friend alone in the corridor.
She left only once and returned with a cup of coffee, she loaded it with sugar. It tasted disgusting but I drank it all the same, grateful for her effort. I was exhausted, the mental drag had taken its toll on me.
‘My office is next door, there’s a comfy sofa in there’ she nodded towards her door ‘I’ll stay and grab you when they come out’.
She gave me a kind smile and I couldn’t refuse; I was bone tired. I squeezed her hand in thanks as I got up and then made my way to my temporary sanctuary. I didn’t think I would be able to sleep, but the second my head hit the cushion I was out. It was Daniels that woke me some time later. The sun was much lower in the sky.
He sat on the sofa next to me ‘Charlie arrested him on some jumped up charges about missing documents and got a judge to sign a warrant. They found everything Peyton. The room, the bodies… I saw it, it looked like a hell hole’.
I was relieved, even though that version of himself hadn’t done anything to me, I had stopped him from doing it to anyone else. This time I didn’t need to shoot him. As much as I wanted to, I knew all too well that it ended up making me feel worse instead of better.
‘Thank you’ I whispered, unable to speak any louder.
Charlie was the next to arrive, he sat on the armchair opposite.
‘He won’t see the light of day again Peyton. I can only imagine how you feel right now and I am sorry that he was ever employed in this office’ he cleared his throat ‘now, go home. Meetings are done for today and I’ll clear your schedule for the time being’. That bastard has taken enough of my life, that stops now.
‘I’ll go home now, but I’ll see you tomorrow at ten. I’ll have a lie in but no more’. He went to interject and I silenced it with a quick hug. I was in and out before he had a chance to react. Then got up to leave.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow Charlie’, I called from the corridor.
Daniels walked me to his car and we drove in silence. It wasn’t long before I had fallen asleep again. I woke to the car door closing and Daniels was getting in with two pizza boxes and a bag of shopping. He grinned at me when he saw me staring at the pizza box.
‘I’m not good with emotional situations, but I can do pizza’ he smiled.
‘That’s good enough for me’ I took in the pizza smell and closed my eyes.
Back at the apartment, one pizza and a tub of ice cream later I wasn’t feeling fantastic. It was more sugar than I was used to and the sickness feeling took my mind away from todays events. Ben came home and Daniels followed my lead when I pretended that today was a good day. We sat around and played boardgames until I was so tired that I fell asleep right there on the sofa.
I woke in the middle of the night gasping for a drink. I was still on the sofa and covered over with a blanket. Ben, I assumed was in his room and Daniels gone. I drank a pint of water and then stomped to bed. On my bedside table was a florescent yellow sticky note and a phone. It was Bens writing and, it simply said ‘call Rafe’ and had the number below.
My stomach dropped to the floor; he must know. It was inevitable. Seeing as it’s the middle of the night there is every chance that he’s asleep. I sent a quick text to say I’m awake and okay, the phone rang before I had even put it down.
‘Hi Rafe’ I said timidly.
‘Hey, Peyton’ he sounded sad, ‘so, I heard about today. How are you?’
Tears fell silently down my cheeks, ‘well, I gave him hell; which was nice. He’s locked up for good, that too is nice. Its confusing to deal with, I mean it wasn’t him, but it was. I just never expected to come face to face with his identically evil twin.’ I lay flat on my bed and covered myself with a sheet, covering myself from the world.
‘I want to kill him for doing that to you’ his voice was deadly, ‘I saw the crime scene photos Peyton, that piece of shit deserves to die’ he then rolled of a tirade of expletives.
He was angry, very angry. I had run out of steam and let him rant it out of his system. I didn’t want to think about it anymore, I buried it deep and focused on happier things.
‘So, I was thinking that I’d like to go to the street vendors you were talking about when you get back. Do fancy taking me? I yawned, still exhausted.
He was silent for a second, reining in his anger I assume.
‘I’d love to’ a moment of silence, ‘I wish I was with you’ he murmured.
‘Me too. But I’d rather that you stopped this virus from happening again. You can’t try to fix me, then dump me back in snapper land. That’s not okay’ I chuckled. If I didn’t laugh, I would cry, as it’s a very real possibility.
‘I will not let that happen. But if worst comes to worst, at least you’ll be protected by my supreme fighting skills’ he teased.
‘I was having an off day and I’ll happily prove it to you’.
‘You can only fight me in bed because that way, one way or another we’re both winners’ I laughed sleepily.
‘I’m tired Rafe, speak tomorrow?’
‘You can count on it. Peyton I… I miss you’ then he hung up.
I fell into a dreamless sleep.
Chapter Ten
I’m late. It’s nine forty-five and right now I’m running out of my apartment and onto a busy street. I’m in luck and managed to hail a cab quickly and promised a generous tip if he got me to the office on time. I fixed my clothes and put on my makeup on the speedy journey. It was only when I was in the cab and on the move that I realized I hadn’t lost my shit in the middle of the street. Being late apparently helps me with my struggles with crowds.
The cab driver was a hell of a guy, he got me there with minutes to spare, I paid him more than I promised. After my insistence that I work today, the last thing I wanted was to be late. I wasn’t going to play the pity card. Ten on the dot and I walked into the conference. Anyone would have assumed that I timed it to perfection.
There were a few faces I recognized and a few that I didn’t. One that stood out the most was Rafe. He was sat opposite me and he smiled into his coffee, pleased by slightly disheveled, just got out of bed appearance. His tension seemed to evaporate; I think he was worried about me. Once again, I feel incredibly cared for.
Charlie began, ‘so after a few changes, we have a fresh team ready to tackle our ever-encroaching problem.’ I noticed that the idiot was also gone, I wonder if Charlie followed the complaints procedure about him.
‘We have
ruled out a potential source of the problem, the suspicious delivery turned out to be a dead end. But not to worry, we have one month left and with the help of Miss Harris here, we have ruled out many scenarios. Now, we will begin the discussions today with utilizing our civilians in the containment’.
Straight away, everyone had an opinion. They debated and argued for hours, at this rate nothing will get one. I zoned out and let them crack on, I made my point yesterday. In the end they decided that broadcasting how to put down the dead was a good idea. No shit. My irritation levels were spiking. Then they started speaking about safe zones again.
‘There’s no such thing as a fucking safe zone! I went to six safe zones and they are the most dangerous places to be. They all failed within hours or days’ I started to count them off on my fingers, ‘one; some snappers got in or someone turned and then next thing the fucking things were everywhere, two; three thousand people were holed up in a stadium making enough noise to attract every dead in the vicinity, you could hear the screams for miles. Three; someone turned on the upper level of a tower block and to contain it, the army showered it with bullets. They killed everyone inside. Four; they managed to keep quiet, no one infected came in, but they were all killed by a gang that wanted to steal their ammo. Five; ended the same way as the stadium as did six. Then you have a different problem on your hands, you now have herds of two thousand or more dead walking about and destroying everything in their path’, I took a deep breath before I went all out on my tirade ‘if you settle on safe zones then you are sending everyone to their deaths, be smart for fucks’ sake’. I couldn’t resist adding the comment at the end.
‘How did you survive?’ the woman at the end of the table asked, she sounded genuinely curious.
‘I learned to shoot and wield a knife and then fought my way out of safe zone number one and it’s a similar story for the others. I watched the tower block massacre from the road and steered clear from any power-hungry armies after that’ she still looked bemused; I suppose she would need to believe it than see it.
‘Why would an army fire at innocent civilians?’ the general asked, ‘they must have had reason’.
I got up and stormed out of the office to my bag that I left with secretary and dug out the memory cards. I had labelled each one with a major event so I would have a good idea of when. I picked out the one appropriately named ‘tower block’
Back in the room, everyone was confused by my actions, I think I need to be excused before I leave. Oh well. I grabbed Charlies laptop that was plugged into the projector and fast forwarded to the right point.
Everyone’s eyes were fixed to the screen. Dean’s uncle was holding the camera (like uncle, like nephew he was keen to capture it all on film). I was up ahead dealing with the dead that were coming at us. I heard small gasps the first few times I stabbed one in the head. We creep behind a car opposite the tower block. Someone was shouting over a megaphone that there was a breakout and they were doing their best to contain it. The soldiers were laughing and joking about another failed protection. ‘Looks like this lot are dead’ one said, another replied ‘we should just cut our losses now, they’re dead anyway’. They moved out of earshot and a minute later they were firing on the building. The camera caught the terrified screams.
I shut it off.
‘Do you see any reason in that?’ I asked the general.
The blood had drained from his face, a look around the room confirmed that all of them were just as shocked.
‘That is just one example. There are others where people ran away from the snappers because they knew the soldiers would deal with the problem for them. The soldiers died protecting them. It is hard to hit one snapper in a crowd of people’. For the most part the armies did well, but they were given an impossible task. I couldn’t leave their only impression of them being the tower block.
The general gave me a grateful nod.
Rafe was the next to speak, ‘the stadium isn’t a half bad idea’ I glared at him and he held his hand up asking me to wait.
‘The dead respond to stimuli, so set up loads of dead zones. Cut the power to the cities but leave certain places alight. Set off the fire alarms so the ringing will draw in the dead. Then deal with it. If we focus on dealing with the dead problem instead of protecting the living, then we stand a chance’.
‘That’s not a half bad idea’, the general had recovered himself, ‘I could stretch our armies to cover each dead zone. It’ll take a lot less manpower to cover one dead zone than it to protect a safe zone’.
He looked at me, ‘the initial breakouts, were they in cities or in the country?’
‘Always in the cities. If there were any incidences in the country it wasn’t broadcasted’. Whatever or whoever started the epidemic, it was very coincidental that it started in highly populated areas, where the most damage would be done the quickest.
‘Any reports of people being bitten in the days leading up to the epidemic?’ he’s onto something, I can see it in his eyes.
‘If there were any then it certainly didn’t make the news. I checked it two to three times daily, without fail’ I felt that I needed to explain why, ‘I was looking to see if the body of my friend had turned up; in hindsight that was pointless as he wasn’t bloody there anymore’.
He ignored my petulant tone and carried on.
‘If someone was bitten, but not critically injured. How long until they turned?’
‘It was pretty consistent, about twenty-four hours after the bite they died, then anywhere from seconds to five minutes and they were up’.
‘Water’, the general stated ‘if the water supply was compromised, then it would explain the suddenness of the epidemic. A group infects the supplies of major cities, within twenty-four hours there are hundreds, if not thousands of the dead waking up. Few would have gone to hospital, others would have tried to sleep it off at home, locked in their apartments’. He seemed pleased with himself.
Charlie looked at ‘team science’ at the end of the table. There are too many people for me to learn their names.
‘Is this possible?’
‘Yes sir’ Not a talker, clearly.
Charlie looked at Rafe ‘get a team on it, I want to know where and how the water systems could be compromised’, then he looked at the science team ‘there is a chance that this occurred naturally, I want you to find a way to test household water quickly. Something we give out to the public’.
With that he stood, nodded at the room and left. Everyone followed suit.
Outside the agent from yesterday was waiting for me with a cup of coffee.
She smiled as I came out ‘hey, I thought you might want this’.
‘Thanks, I’m gasping!’ I took a sip and moaned in appreciation ‘I am really sorry, but I don’t actually know your name.’ she had been really kind to me and I hadn’t thought to ask. Given the circumstances, I should be let off the hook’.
‘I’m agent Ramerez’ she smiled, ‘but you can call me Katya’.
‘Thank you, Katya, for the coffee and for yesterday’ she waived it off with her hand.
‘I’m glad you seem okay. I have to run but let me know if you need anything okay!’ with that she disappeared back into her office.
I thought about calling Ben to see if he wanted to go for dinner, but then I remembered I have no bloody phone. I’m sorting that out today.
Ben was lounging on the sofa when I got in.
‘Hey Peyton! Hard day at work?’ he ran up and gave me a hug.
‘Hey. No, it was good, productive. Umm Ben, can you do me a favour?’
‘Anything’ always eager to please these days.
‘Only drink bottled water from now on’
‘Is that something to do with your work discussions’ he raised an eyebrow at me.
‘It’s probably nothing, but humor me okay?’
‘You got it!’.
I left him to his lounging and ran a bath. My feet are killing from the heels! Poor feet
are used to trainers.
I yelled from the bathroom ‘Hey Ben! Can you order me a phone please? My cards on the side’
‘Any particular one you want?’ he yelled back.
‘A good one. With a decent sim package’
‘Helpful’ he muttered.
Then I blocked out the world around me and relaxed into the hot water.
After dinner I pulled out all my recent online purchases, I hadn’t tried many on. I may have gone overboard with the underwear. A good bra was few and far between in snapper land. Picking a house with the right bra size in it was like winning the lottery.
I was trying on a corset styled set and checking it out in the mirror when Rafe walked in. He stopped in his tracks and openly ogled me.
‘I can’t decide if I like this, it somehow makes my ass look big’ I turned to show him my point.
His eyes travelled down to my ass and his head tilted to the side, the look of longing in his eyes was unmistakable.
‘You’re no help!’ I threw a top hanging on the wardrobe door at him.
‘I would say that I’m sorry but that would be a barefaced lie’ he stalked towards me, his eyed smoldering.
He pulled me to him and then sat on the edge of the bed, pulling me down so I straddled him.
‘Your killing me… and I’m making it harder for myself’ he looked straight at my cleavage.
‘I can feel just how hard it is for you’ I teased.
‘I need to talk to you’ he said in between kisses.
Not wanting to talk I started to unbutton the front clasps of the corset, baring my breast to him. His took my nipple into his mouth and sucked on it, taking little nips that made me moan. I slipped my hand between us and started to caress him over his trousers, I could feel him already rock hard. His hands were on my waist pulling me to him and he lavished his attention on my breasts.
One of his hands slid down my side and was touching me over my underwear, he continued his ministrations until I was so wet it had gone through my panties. I undid his belt and zip, then freed him from his boxers. I didn’t need any more teasing; I was oh so ready for him. I lifted up then lowered myself onto him. He groaned, holding my hips, pressing me down onto him.
Wildfire (Book 1): Leap of Faith Page 7
