The Dead Saga (Book 6): Odium VI

by Riley, Claire C.

  “Then why would they do it?” Aimee asked, her voice soft and full of confusion.

  I snorted out a sardonic laugh and Axe looked at me with a leery grin.

  “Because, sweetheart, the Rejects don’t fuck around. We take what’s ours or we die tryin’. Now let’s get going.”

  Aimee looked like she was going to cry again, but just as I thought she was about to blow, she sniffed and wiped at her nose and nodded for us to follow her.

  “It’s this way.”

  “Got supplies in my truck that I don’t feel too happy about leaving lying around like that,” Axe said.

  “Of course.” She looked at O’Donnell. “You remember the high road?”

  O’Donnell nodded.

  “You two can follow me. O’Donnell will bring in your truck—we’re going to have to go the long way around.”

  “Why don’t we all go in the truck?” he asked, a scowl on his face.

  “Because Aiken doesn’t let just anyone into NEO, so I need to go ahead and smooth it over for your delightful entrance,” O’Donnell snapped, and headed toward the truck.

  “Well, I am fuckin’ delightful,” he chuckled. “You got that right.”

  He took one look back at O’Donnell and turned to follow Aimee. I fell into step beside him, more than happy to be one step closer to rescuing Mikey.

  *

  The walk was long and sweaty. And there were so many bugs, damn it. I hated bugs. Little flies that nipped at my skin, making lumps appear in their wake and my skin itch. It was a good hour trundling through the trees, swatting and cursing at bugs, but we got to kill a couple of foul-looking deaders bloated with water and gasses along the way, so it wasn’t all bad. By the time we arrived at the NEO headquarters O’Donnell was already there. At least our truck was, though she was nowhere to be found.

  The gates to Haven were huge, with guards along the top who aimed their guns at us as they walked along a platform like we were prisoners of war. Inside the grounds, people stopped and stared, their gazes on us as they whispered under their breaths. The whole place was clean and tidy, organized to hell, by the looks of it.

  Aimee had stopped to talk to one of the guards.

  “You took over a street?” I said, looking around me.

  God, it was like going back three years. Storefronts were open and windows filled with items, like we could go on a shopping trip. My stomach ached in sadness and happiness all at once.

  “No, we took over a town. The place was pretty much walled in anyway—we just finished it off and moved in,” Aimee said with a smile. “I’m taking you over to see Aiken right now. Normally newbies get taken somewhere else first, but you were with O’Donnell so she’s vouched for you, and besides, you said time was of the essence, right?”

  As we walked, the storefronts slowly changed to houses and became further apart. Kids’ bikes were on lawns, and curtains twitched at windows as we walked. It was eerie and strange and kind of wonderful too.

  “Mikey was here?” I asked.

  Aimee turned to look at me. She smiled and nodded. “Not for long. He was looking for his kid, so every opportunity he got, he was out on the road. The last time he went out with O’Donnell, Ricky, and Phil, and none of them came back.”

  I tried to cover my emotions with a blank expression, but it was useless. Everything I was feeling was trembling through me like a kaleidoscope. Sadness, happiness, worry, guilt, anger. It tumbled over and over in a myriad of colors, making me feel dizzy and sick.

  “We’ve never seen the kid he was looking for, but he left the old lady—Joan. She’s annoying, so when you leave, you can take her with you. She knits a great blanket, though.”

  “Crazy Pants!” I laughed and swiped at my eyes. “She’s still alive?”

  “Barely. The old broad nearly got shot in the face for singing and waking everyone up one night. She’s not all there, is she?”

  I shook my head, still smirking. “No, definitely not, but who knows what is down to life and what is down to age? Or maybe she’s just one of those people, you know? All I know is that she’s survived this long, which is way more than most people, so I think that should earn her enough respect.”

  Aimee grinned. “We’re here.” She headed up the three steps to a huge house with a white front door. She knocked twice and then the door opened. A man stood there, his hard gaze going over us. He was a little overweight yet tall all at the same time, his brown eyes glaring down at us as he ran a hand through his unruly hair.

  “O’Donnell’s here already?” Aimee asked, and the man nodded. “Is she doing okay?”

  “As well as can be expected,” he said. “She’s just filled Aiken in on everything. It’s messed up, right?” he said, scratching at his scalp, a look of disgust on his face.

  “You okay, Timbo?” Aimee asked the man with a hint of humor. “You don’t look so good.”

  “I’m fine. Just all this talk of people eating people making my stomach a little queasy is all.” He rubbed a hand over his large stomach.

  “Ain’t making anyone sleep well at night knowing these fuckers are out there,” Axe said.

  Timbo turned his attention to Axe like he hadn’t noticed him standing there until right then. Probably would have been best, because he didn’t look happy to have him there. His jaw clenched and he squared his shoulders like he was about to tackle Axe to the ground. Though I doubt he would have managed it, because though he easily matched Axe’s height and build there was something pure and evil in Axe. Tall, broad, and bald, with beautiful black skin and the spark of a madman in his eye. And if he was with the Rejects there was no doubt that he had no hard limits. No, Axe was the sort of man that would do what it took to get what he wanted, and he’d snap Timbo like a twig within thirty seconds of Timbo tackling him.

  Aimee must have sensed this too, because she cleared her throat to get Timbo’s attention. “Guess what I scored while I was out today?” she said, poking him in his stomach.

  He flinched and swatted away her hand, but there was no aggression there, only playfulness.

  “Diet Coke.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit at all, Timbo.” Aimee pulled a battered can from her backpack and handed it to him, and his face shone with sincere gratitude.

  “This is awesome! You’re so awesome, Aimee!” Timbo finally cracked a smile, and I couldn’t help but smile back because it was so infectious. “Damn it, everything is awesome!” He laughed, kissing the dented can of Diet Coke.

  “You sound like that Lego movie,” I snorted on a laugh, and he looked at me. For a second I was almost certain he was going to break into song, but then his smile slipped, his hard look falling back in place.

  “You better go talk to Aiken,” he said, gesturing with his thumb for us to go inside.

  Aimee headed in and Axe and I followed. Timbo barely glanced at me, but he almost didn’t step aside for Axe, his arms crossed in front of him like he was a bouncer guarding the door of a nightclub. There was a big crossbow on the table by the door that didn’t make me feel any better about going inside this house without knowing all my exits.

  “There a problem here?” Axe asked with a sneer, his septum ring glinting in the sun.

  “Leave your gun at the door,” Timbo replied darkly. “No guns inside. It’s the rule.”

  “Well, I’m a big ole’ rule breaker.” Axe looked down at the gun attached to his hip before slowly looking back up with an obnoxious smile. “So I think I’ll hang onto it for a little while, big guy.”

  “I wasn’t asking,” Timbo bit out, and damn, he seemed like a big scary teddy bear all of a sudden.

  I automatically put my hand on my machete. I wasn’t sure who I was going to fight if it came to it. But someone was going to fight someone, and that normally resulted in someone dying, and that someone wasn’t going to be me. Not today, assholes! Not today. Tension rolled through the hallway and I looked between the two men, my heart hammering in my chest.

/>   “It’s all right, Timbo, I’ve got this.” Another man came out of the room to the right, a matchstick moving from either side of his mouth as he talked. “We’re all friends here. Ain’t that right.”

  Axe sucked on his teeth and smiled. “As long as my friends don’t mind me hanging onto my gun.”

  The other man held out his hand. “Name’s Aiken, friend.”

  Axe looked down at the olive branch Aiken was offering and then back up to his face. “Axe,” he said, and gave a simple salute like he couldn’t give two shits, three shits, or even a whole bowl of shits who Aiken was. Axe wasn’t there to make friends; he was there to get himself an army.

  Aiken withdrew his hand and continued to smile, and as he stared at Axe my stomach squeezed in anxiety, feeling sicker and sicker as the seconds ticked by because men were stupid and didn’t know when to back down or walk away from a fight. Especially biker men, I was coming to learn. Though that Aiken guy wasn’t exactly endearing himself to me either.

  “Okay, okay,” I interrupted. “Enough of the pissing contest, boys. Can we just get on to the part where we rescue our friends and kill the asshole cannibals, please?”

  Aiken’s gaze slid over to me, his smile widening before he threw his head back and barked out a loud laugh. He pointed at me. “I like you—”

  “Nina,” I filled in.

  “I like you, Nina. Straight to the point. I like that in a person.” He nodded, and I felt my cheeks heat. “I can respect that.”

  “That’s a first,” I mumbled.

  He chuckled again. “Come in”—his gaze slid to Axe— “all of you. We’ve got shit to talk about, right? So shall we cut the bullshit and get on with it, or shall we stand here measuring our dicks and discussing our weapon sizes?” He winked. “And make no mistake, I meant that double meaning.” He turned on his heel laughing and headed back into the room, leaving a clear message of what he expected from us.

  I unclipped my machete and reluctantly handed it over to Timbo, who nodded his thanks. I glanced back at Axe, wondering if he was going to keep hammering home the point of not letting his weapon go or just man up and go inside. His smile had fallen and a sullen but angry expression covered his face like war paint.

  He pulled out his gun and axe and held them out to Timbo, but when Timbo grabbed for them Axe grabbed him, pulling him in close until the two men were forehead to forehead.

  “I got my eye on you,” Axe grunted out. “Let’s hope I don’t need to get my axe on you too,” he chuckled, and released Timbo before striding into the room.

  “Jesus,” Aimee said, glancing back at me. “Psycho much?”

  I held my hands up quickly. “He’s not with me. I mean, he is with me, but he’s not with me.”

  She raised an eyebrow and looked over at Timbo. “You okay?”

  Timbo shrugged. “It’s like Depeche Mode said—enjoy the silence.”

  Aimee patted him on the arm and smiled, and I followed her into the other room, wondering what the hell Timbo had meant with his last comment.

  Chapter Nineteen

  We’d been battling for over an hour on the same subject, and we still weren’t getting anywhere.

  To rescue or not to rescue?

  Now that was the question.

  At least, in Aiken’s eyes that was the question. O’Donnell had already flat-out told him that she was going, with or without his approval or help, and there were at least three other people in the room that had said the same thing. At least until Aiken had said that if they couldn’t live by his rules, they couldn’t live there at all. That had shut everyone up real quick. Were all male leaders assholes? I had to wonder. I mean, maybe a society of women would be run better than that. Fairer and with less violence.

  My thoughts slid to the Savages and their army of flesh-hungry psychos and I quickly realized my mistake.

  Maybe everyone was just an asshole now.

  It seemed all hope was lost on the subject and I couldn’t help but be more than a little disappointed. But at least it looked like we were going to be going back to the compound pretty quickly. Without help, but hey, maybe we would magically stumble across another group of awesome people on the way there that would willingly put their lives on the line to rescue people they didn’t know from a bunch of crazy cannibals they also didn’t know.

  I mean, the odds were low but not impossible…right? It could totally happen.

  I must have made a noise, my own annoyance making itself verbally aware as always, because all eyes in the room focused in on me and Aiken raised an eyebrow, a slow smile rising on his face.

  “Care to share, Little Miss Snappy?” he drolled, and leaned forward in his chair like what I had to say might just be the most important thing in the world.

  I licked my lips while I thought carefully for a couple seconds—you know, really trying to put my thoughts into some sort of order that wouldn’t have me blurting out what a total dick I thought he was being for not helping us. Because I knew my bad habits, and the things I did that seemed to piss people of the most. I wasn’t stupid.

  “Well, for starters,” I started, “let me kick off with saying that I think you’re a total dick for not helping us. I mean, of all the things in your life that you could do that would make a difference, this would be it. And to not do anything”—I shook my head—“bad move, dickwad!”

  Hmm, I guess I needed a couple more seconds of thought-ordering before I opened my mouth. And maybe I should reassess my bad habits.

  Aiken was sitting in a large wooden chair, his composure relaxed like we were discussing our dinner plans and not someone else’s dinner plans. Shudder! But after my eloquently put outburst he sat up straight and stared me straight in the eye. An uncomfortable silence fell between us, a light sweat covering my brow, and just when I thought he was about to order someone to blow my stupid brains out, he barked out a laugh, smiling so much that his dimple popped in his right cheek. I rolled my eyes and he laughed some more.

  “So,” he drolled, his matchstick in the corner of his mouth, “if that’s for starters, what’s for the main course?” He smirked. “I am just dying to know.”

  “I, umm…” I couldn’t help but smile back, since he could have ordered one of his people to beat the crap out of me for being such a bitch if he’d wanted to. Or, like I had originally thought, blown my brains out. “Well, for the main course I’d like to add on a side salad of, seriously, what the hell? One of your people is there too, man! Why wouldn’t you help him?” I held his stare, even as he leaned forward again like he couldn’t quite hear me clearly. Like maybe no one had ever questioned his authority before.

  Fucking men!

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you right, Little Miss Snappy,” he chuckled, still holding my stare.

  And what the hell was the deal with that ridiculous nickname?

  I narrowed my gaze. “You heard me! This is one of your own, Mr. Boss Man. You have to help him. Hell, if nothing else do you not want to get your revenge on these people for killing—” I snapped my fingers as I stumbled over the name of their dead friend, but it still eluded me. I looked to O’Donnell for help.

  “Ricky,” she helped.

  “Ricky! Yes, do you not want to get revenge for him?! They killed him. Then they ate him.” I grimaced. “And what they didn’t eat, they sold like he was cheap cuts of ham.” I held my arms out wide, looking over each face in the room. “How can that not make you want to grab your guns and get going? And also, can I just say once again how gross this whole thing is? I mean really, just when you think you’ve seen the worst that this world has to offer, someone decides that eating people would be a good idea, for crying out loud!”

  Aiken glared at me. “You about done?” he asked, still chewing on his matchstick.

  I thought about that. I thought real hard, but his arrogance was irritating me something fierce. Everyone’s arrogance, in fact.

  “No, I’m not even nearly done. Do you think they’
ll stop? Do you think they won’t ever run into some more of your people on the road and kill them too? Maybe make some spicy meatballs out of their actual balls, perhaps?” It was my turn to raise an eyebrow then, as the men in the room visibly shrunk back at the talk of cutting off their balls. Seriously, what was it with men and their balls? I mean, I knew that they were these precious things of theirs that hung between their legs, but damn, they got all touchy when anyone threatened them. “Look, this is all of our problem, and we all need to work together and end them.”

  I finally fell silent, my chest heaving as I restrained myself from continuing my tirade. I dragged a hand down my face as I shook my head and looked at him, beseeching him to hear my words. Or at least to give a shit, or two.

  “Of all the evil people that are left in the world, these have to be the worst, Aiken,” I said softly, letting my hand fall from my face. “I implore you to help us. If not for us and not for our people, or your people, then for our future. Because evil like this doesn’t deserve to exist in our world. They’re worse than the deaders. They’re worse than the government that left us all to rot. And they’re worse than the people that have profited from the end of times.”

  I held his gaze, tears glistening in my eyes. Not tears of sadness or anger, but helplessness, because he wasn’t saying anything. No one was saying anything, and even after everything I had just said, the truth I had just spilled, no one seemed to care enough. I guess it all came down to the whole balls thing again, and no one having big enough ones to help and make a difference. I looked around the room, my arms out wide, but I was only met with uncomfortable shifting and nervous glances to Aiken.

  “That’s right, he’s the boss,” I said, pointing at him. “He makes all the decisions here, right? He chooses who lives and dies, and he’s willing to let these monsters live!”