The Dead Saga (Book 6): Odium VI

by Riley, Claire C.

  “Your friend here was trying to steal a truck and supplies,” Shooter finally bit out. “And after all our hospitality too.”

  “We’re stuck here because of you, asshole!” Michael yelled, rising up on his knees so the barrel of Shooter’s gun pressed into his forehead. “So if you’re gonna shoot me, do it. If not, give me a truck and a gun and let us both leave.”

  “Leave?” I asked Michael, my eyes narrowed. “I thought you were going to let them try and save Mikey.”

  “I’ll save him. I don’t need this place or these men to do that. Besides, you said you trusted them, not me.”

  “Wow, well thanks for that. You know what? Just shoot him, Shooter. Get it over with, because clearly he has a death wish and I can’t talk any sense into him!” I walked further into the room so Michael could see me properly. “You won’t be helping anyone this way. All you’ll be doing is providing a bunch of sickos some extra rations of meat à la man, idiot!”

  “That’s what I told him,” Shooter agreed. He let out a long breath and pulled his gun away from Michael’s head before taking a step back. “I don’t have time to babysit you, man. Shit’s going down now, tonight, and I need to be there.”

  “Not my problem,” Michael gritted out.

  Shooter shook his head, his jaw ticking in annoyance. “If you really want to go get yourself killed, then go. Get the fuck outa here.”

  “Need a gun and a truck,” Michael bit out.

  Shooter laughed and rubbed a hand down his beard. “Fine. I’ll tell Gauge to load you up with whatever the fuck you need. But I’m only doin’ it because we wrecked the truck you’d been drivin’.”

  The two men stared at one another, both of their hard faces turning harder as they stared hatred into one another’s eyes. I was speechless. My hands on my hips as I looked between the two of them.

  Michael finally dragged his hands through his hair and stood up, his frown deepening. “Under what conditions?”

  Shooter gave another dark chuckle. “Don’t miss a fuckin’ beat, do you?”

  “So, what conditions?” Michael repeated.

  “Once you’re out, you’re out. You get yourself caught up in that crazy and that’s your problem. I won’t be risking any of my men’s lives to help you. I won’t piss on you if you’re on fire, but I have a feeling your death is gonna be hella worse than that. And two…” His eyes darted to me. “Nina stays. That’s not debatable.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, because who the hell did either of these assholes think they were debating where I go as if it’s anything to do with either of them.

  Michael looked toward me, his cold eyes licking me up and down in disgust before shifting his gaze back to Shooter. “That’s not a problem.”

  Wow, cold, Michael, I thought with a scowl.

  Shooter grabbed the radio off his desk and pressed a button. “Load up a cage for Michael, couple a guns, water, the usual. Enough for a day or two. He’s leavin’.” He slammed the radio back down so hard I was surprised it was still in one piece. “It’ll be by the gate in fifteen.”

  Michael turned and started walking away and Shooter turned to me. I didn’t know what to say to him or what to think. I had a feeling it would be the last time I saw Michael alive, and I was incapable of saving him because he wouldn’t listen to me or trust my judgment.

  “Michael?” I called his name as he reached the door and he paused fractionally before continuing to walk. “Goodbye,” I mumbled to his retreating back. I looked back at Shooter, finding him still staring at me.

  “We still good?” he asked.

  “You still going to save Mikey?” I asked, feeling irrationally angry at him.

  “We’re gonna bring down the Savages.” He shrugged in answer and I rolled my eyes. He slipped his gun into the back of his jeans and took a step toward me, his arms finding my waist and tugging my body to him. “We’re leavin’ for a meeting with the Rejects.”

  My body was rigid in his arms; tense didn’t even begin to describe it. “And I guess you want me to be the good little girl and wait here, right?”

  He chuckled darkly. “You’re a quick learner.”

  I snorted out an angry laugh and shook my head. “You never change, do you?” I tried to pry myself out of his arms, but the more I fought him the more he tightened his grip. “Get off of me!” I yelled in frustration.

  “Nina,” he said my name like a bark and I stopped fighting him, “I actually want you with me tonight,” he said. “Thought that would get your attention.” He smiled, and it was breathtaking. I couldn’t even try to hide the way his smile made me feel. It warmed me, inside and out. It made me feel human. It made me feel like a woman.

  Shooter didn’t smile often. He didn’t laugh or show mercy or pity. He wasn’t loving or considerate. He wasn’t gentle and compassionate. He was brutal and strong and determined and so many other things. So I knew how much it meant for him to smile at me like that, for the hardness to leave his eyes, just a little—just enough for something else to shine through. Something I didn’t want to think about right now.

  “You heard that Gunner is back?” he asked, and I nodded. “Still not sure if he’s gonna make it.” He held me in his grip and in his stare, completely at his mercy as I wondered where he was going with that. “I hope to God he does, and I ain’t trusted the big G with any of my hope in a long-ass time. But I hope for this.”

  “Because Amara is pregnant,” I said, filling in the missing blanks, and he nodded.

  “Yeah. I don’t think he even knows,” Shooter replied, his fingers kneading the flesh at my waist. “A man should know if he’s bringin’ new life into this world, ya’ know? It’s fuckin’ important.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that. I agreed, of course. But I also didn’t believe that it was any sort of world to bring a child into. You know, what with all the zombies and cannibals roaming around, not to mention the other murdering psychos that lingered on every corner.

  “You disagree?” he asked, and I shook my head. “Then what?”

  I didn’t want to get into it with him. Not then, not ever. I’d had no intention of ever having a child pre-apocalypse; I couldn’t imagine my mind changing now that the whole world was completely screwed.

  “When are we leaving for the meet?” I asked him instead, hoping he’d get the hint and shut up about babies and happily-ever-afters that didn’t exist.

  Thankfully he took the hint.

  “We roll out in thirty.” His hands moved from my waist downwards, toward my ass, and it took me a moment to realize what he was trying to do.

  “Oh no, that’s not happening,” I smarted, and I pulled myself free of his arms.

  He gave me that smile again, the one that made my stomach flutter, but he held his arms wide. “All right, all right,” he said, rubbing his hand along a red mark on his cheek. I was presuming it was a punch mark curtesy of Michael.

  Ughh, Michael.

  What an idiot.

  We really could have used him on this. I really could have used him on it.

  I felt like I’d gone back to the beginning of it all, where it was just me surviving alone because everyone else was dead or gone. I felt suddenly lonely. Lonely and cold all over, my heart aching with the loss of so much.

  Shooter moved over to his small sofa and sat down, pulling his cigarettes out of the top pocket of his cut and lighting one. He peered up at me through a cloud of smoke, his piercing blue gaze finding its way to mine.

  I moved to sit on a chair opposite him. In fact, it was the only chair that still had all its legs—thanks to Michael and Shooter’s fight, I presumed.

  “Tonight,” Shooter said, “at this meeting, you need to know a few things if you’re coming.”

  “All right, go for it,” I replied impatiently.

  “The Rejects aren’t like us Highwaymen. They’re as dangerous as us, but they have no limits on what they will do.” He took another drag on his cigarette and I waited
for him to continue since I could see he had more to say. Talking to me about club stuff was killing him. “There’s a reason our two groups are split like this. A reason we hate each other.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “Split, as in…?”

  He looked down at his hands, to the cigarette in between his fingers before answering, like the words were hard to get out. “As in, once upon a time we were one club. Before the dead sacks came along there was only one group that mattered: the Devil’s Highwaymen. Afterwards, when the world, and not just us, became lawless, we split into the Highwaymen and the Devil’s Rejects.” He stubbed out his cigarette and swallowed. “Drag and Nitro are brothers, and growing up they were two of the craziest motherfuckers I’ve ever met.” He laughed but it died quickly. “It became obvious pretty quickly that something weren’t right in the head with Drag. He used the destruction of this world to play on that and do what the hell he pleased. Nitro was easily led, but his heart was never in it the way Drag’s was. He’s a good man.”

  I felt like I weighed so much more than I did. Like my pockets were filled with lead and rocks and were pulling me down. The obvious guilt and sadness in Shooter’s tone told me so much more than his words did.

  “I tried to control him as best I could, but when it became obvious that he was turning the other brothers to his ways, I had to cut him loose.” He looked up at me through his long lashes, his blue eyes finding mine.

  Misery.

  That was what I saw when I looked into Shooter’s eyes.

  Utter misery.

  “It’s not your fault, Shooter,” I said, getting closer to him.

  “I should have killed him. It would have been better for everyone if I had.” He shook his head. “The things he’s done, the people he’s killed, it ain’t right, Nina, and that shit’s on me.”

  “So why didn’t you?” I asked. “Why didn’t you kill him? Surely the club would have understood.”

  Shooter stood up and walked toward the window of his office. I stood up too and followed him, one of my arms looping around his waist as I came to stand by him. It seemed like the right thing to do; to give him my support right then. He looked down at me, reaching out to hook a hand through my hair and tilt my face up to his.

  “Because I made a promise to his mom to always protect him.”

  I frowned. “And who was his mom?”

  “Her name was River, and a long time ago she was an old lady in the club. We protected her and helped to provide for her family when her old man was killed. They were both good people.” He shook his head. “Would have been ashamed to see how their boys turned out.”

  “What happened to her?” I asked, feeling incredibly sad about these people I had never met.

  “Same thing that happens to everyone in this world.” He shrugged. “She died brutally, bloodily, and begging for me to take care of her boys. To keep them alive no matter what.”

  I squeezed him tighter, wanting to make him feel better somehow.

  “She went through some shit before her old man died, and she was never really the same after that. But it was me that let her down the most. I couldn’t save her man, and then I couldn’t save her. But there’s a special place in hell for the fact that I couldn’t save her boys.”

  “Shooter,” I said his name on a whisper, hearing and seeing and practically tasting the pain in his words and wanting to offer him some comfort.

  He held up a hand to me. “I’ll take my punishment like a man, and that’s okay, I dealt with what’s comin’ to me a long time ago.”

  “What’s coming for you?” I said almost too quietly for him to hear. But he did.

  He looked away. “Hell.”

  Chapter Six

  I hadn’t met Drag yet, and from everything I’d been told about him, he wasn’t someone I wanted to meet either. Full of anger, hatred, and untamed urges to do whatever he wanted, all but encouraging others to do the same. People were his playthings, toys to do with as he wanted. And yet the way Shooter talked about a young Drag—a kid losing his father so young, and then his mother—it was like he was talking about someone different. He spoke like he was his father, responsible for him in so many ways.

  “Her old man had died when Drag and Nitro were just boys,” he continued, “but she was still family as far as the club was concerned. We looked after her and the boys, helping them out with anything they needed—money, repairs, anything. But Drag, he never really recovered from his dad dying. Something broke inside of him and it never got fixed.” He shook his head sadly, his hair hanging down by his cheeks. “Little shit was always getting into trouble”—he chuckled—“fights at school, ripping off kids for fake oxy. But as he got older he got worse. We started to think maybe something just weren’t right with him. That maybe his dad dyin’ had nothing to do with the loose cannon he’d become. That maybe that’s just how he was and I could only be glad that Axle hadn’t been around to see Drag’s fall into madness.”

  I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. Instead I listened, taking in Shooter’s past, the history between the two clubs and the rivalry that went along with it, and I thought of all the ways it could be solved. Ways in which the two clubs could live in harmony. Yet the only answer I kept returning to was that of Drag dying with the Savages. It would hurt Shooter, because no matter how much he hated Drag, he also still felt some form of responsibility for him. But that wasn’t what really worried me, because let’s admit it: a world without Drag in it could only be a good thing, going off what I’d been told about him. No, what worried me was that if we didn’t save Drag, we probably wouldn’t be able to save Mikey either, and a world without Mikey was a world without sun.

  I loved him.

  Yet I couldn’t deny my feelings for Shooter either.

  What kind of woman did that make me, I wondered.

  As if reading my mind, Shooter stared down into my face. One hand in my hair and the other snaking around my waist, he leaned down, and I didn’t stop him when he started to kiss me. Slowly, at first, and then more forcefully, until my mouth was open and our tongues were moving together, teeth clashing in a frenzy as our bodies took over.

  His hands pawed at me and my body submitted willingly. It felt so easy with Shooter. I could let go. I could just be. There was no history between us. No arguments, no mistakes. It was just him and me, and nothing in between.

  Shooter pushed me backwards until my legs hit his desk, and then his hands were on my waist, picking me up and sitting me on top of it, my machete banging noisily on the desk. I spread my legs and his body filled the gap as he invaded my space, our bodies locked together in a frenzy of arms and legs and kisses that felt too good to be true.

  His mouth left mine, moving to my neck where he peppered kisses down my throat, his rough hands holding me tightly, commanding that I give everything up. That I let go of that final thing that was holding me back.

  His mouth moved back to mine as a sharp knock on the door interrupted our panting breaths, and I pulled my mouth away, feeling breathless and wanting. He stared at me, the desire and lust burning in those blue eyes of his enough to take my breath away as he ran his thumb across my lower lip.

  The knock came again, breaking the spell, and I pushed on his chest, expecting him to fight me, but he didn’t. He stepped back from me, his eyes still holding me in place. But at least I could breathe again. Without Shooter wrapped around me and stopping me from thinking clearly.

  I needed air and space and time to think. It wasn’t right; Shooter and I were two different people. We came from two very different worlds. And if it weren’t for the apocalypse, we never would have met.

  But we did meet, my inner voice yelled at me.

  Shooter’s gaze darkened as he watched me. The knock on the door came again.

  “What?” he barked.

  Gauge pushed the door open and looked between me and Shooter, realizing he was interrupting. Though I was grateful he had, Shooter clearly wasn’t. And Gauge
didn’t look even the smallest bit fazed. Shooter finally looked away from me and I could practically feel his chains falling away.

  “We’re ready to roll, Prez,” Gauge replied.

  “All right, I’m on my way,” Shooter replied. “Get everyone ready. I don’t trust the Rejects, and if I know anything about them it’s that they’ll be coming prepared, because they don’t trust us either.”

  Gauge nodded, and with one more look between us he left, leaving me and Shooter alone again.

  “I get the feeling he doesn’t like me much,” I said when the door was closed and Gauge couldn’t hear me.

  “He don’t like anyone,” Shooter replied. “Don’t take it personally.” He closed the small gap between us. “If anything happens to me, you go to him. You hear me?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I can take care of myself.”

  “I’m sure you can, Nina. But that’s not what I’m asking. If anything happens to me, you go to him? Okay?” He looked at me seriously and I relented with a nod. Because where Shooter was concerned, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I don’t think he even understood the word. Besides, saying I would and actually doing it were two very different things. “We need to go. Before we do, you need to put this on.”

  He moved to a small chest next to the sofa and pulled the lid up before pulling out something and carrying it back toward me. He unfolded it and held it up for me to see, and I didn’t know whether to punch him in the face or kick him in the crotch first. Maybe both in a double-frenzied attack.

  “I’m not wearing that!” I bit out, staring at the ‘property of Shooter’ patch on the front of the small leather cut. I turned and started to walk away from him, but he grabbed my wrist and pulled me back, my body slamming into his. His eyes were pools of darkness as he stared down at me.

  “I told you that you need to play the part of my old lady, especially if you’re coming to this meet tonight. Well, my old lady would wear this, for my sakes and hers. Now put it on and let’s get going.” he snapped.