Love and Decay

by Rachel Higginson

  Reagan and Haley showed me where I could bathe and change in private. Someone had brought water into a small, sparse room and filled an elegant bathtub that had been transferred from a different room in the house. The tub sat in the middle of the room with useless plumbing still attached to it.

  I dipped my fingers in the clear water, hating that I was about to muddy it with blood and grime. I looked up at Haley and Reagan, surprised that the water was warm.

  “They heated it over a fire before they brought it in. We didn’t know when you’d be back, so it was warmer at first,” Haley explained.

  I shrugged. “This is fine. It’s been so long since we’ve had warm water.”

  Reagan smiled softly. “Isn’t it crazy to think we used to have it all the time? We just turned the right knob and the water came out as hot as possible.”

  I did remember. Sometimes the world before Zombies appeared in clips and glimpses. But memories of my parents were vivid. I remember my mom filling up the bathtub and testing the water to make sure it wasn’t too hot. I remember her leaning over me to wash my hair. I could picture her laughing gently while I played with bubbles and Barbies.

  I shook my head and toed off my boots. “We’ll get back there,” I told her. “We’ll fix the Zombie problem and get rid of Matthias and we will have hot water again.”

  “Is that your end goal?” Haley laughed. “Hot water?”

  I met her smiling gaze. “One of them,” I declared. “Among other things.”

  Reagan leaned back against the door and crossed her arms. “Then you’re going to have to stop running off,” she said. “Your brothers are going to go out of their minds if you keep darting into danger whenever you can find it. What you did tonight, Page… You can’t just jump in a truck and ride off to battle. At the very least you have to tell somebody! You have to make it possible for us to let you ride off to battle.”

  “So you can let me?” Familiar frustration seared through me. “That’s not fair-”

  Reagan cut me off before I could make my argument. “It’s not supposed to be fair! Nothing about this world we live in is fair. You, of all people, should know that.”

  I bit back sarcastic retorts and struggled for reason. “I, of all people, do know that, Reagan. But not for the reasons you’re thinking of. Tonight was mild compared to the rest of my life. We fought some Feeders and took care of one spy. We were well supported by Diego’s men and the Feeders are as tame and docile as they can be. Earlier today, my family surrounded me and I was nearly dragged off by cannibals and cooked over an open flame. By comparison, tonight was a breeze.”

  Reagan shook her head, tossing her dark hair around her shoulders. She’d washed it tonight, so it was fuller than usual, softer looking. “That’s not the point! You have to be honest with us, Page. If we’re going to let you fight the Colony, then we have to know what’s going on. You can’t just run off and do whatever you want. You have to trust your family to have your best interest in mind. You have to trust us to want what’s best for you.”

  “Like you trust me?” I sputtered while I peeled off filthy socks. Dirt and small rocks skittered across the red tile. “In Mexico City, King wandered off through a far more dangerous city than the Territories, while we were already at war, and went to battle with the Rat King! By himself! Nobody said anything to him. Nobody cornered him in the bathroom and lectured him on why he has to ask permission before he runs off to wage war! You’re treating me like I’m still a child, when I am not one. You have to trust me to know my limits, to know how to handle myself. You have to trust that I know myself better than you do. Otherwise my mission has failed before it ever began. I can’t fight you guys and Matthias. I can’t constantly ask you for permission while the Colony threatens to invade Mexico on a daily basis.”

  “Don’t bring King into this!” Reagan threw her hands up. “He has nothing to do with this!”

  “She’s right, Reagan.” Haley studied me, but her words rang true throughout the room. “We do give King and Harrison, even Miller preferential treatment. But Page deserves our trust too. Especially since we’re this close to the Colony and she’s going to do what she wants no matter what.”

  “Thank you,” I whispered to Haley.

  Reagan glared at her, so Haley went on. “She’s a big girl now. We did a good job with her. But there’s nothing more to do. She’s not our little girl anymore. We need to let her go.”

  Reagan growled. “I don’t want to.”

  I smiled and soon it turned into a laugh. “You don’t have to let me go because I’m not going anywhere. But I do have this mission. I have to take care of Matthias. I love you and I’ll always stay with you guys, but you have to let me do this.”

  Haley walked over and lifted her arms for a hug, but quickly dropped them. “I’ll hug you as soon as you don’t smell like death.” She smiled at me. “We are proud of you, Page. Even if we give you a hard time, we’re amazed at the woman you’ve become.”

  Reagan walked over too and smiled at Haley. “She did learn from the best after all.”

  “Yes I did,” I conceded.

  “I’ll talk to Hendrix,” Reagan offered. “See if I can’t remind him that you’re all grown up.”

  “And I’ll mention the same thing to Nelson.” Haley stepped back toward the door. “You’re lucky Miller went with you, though. They might not trust you yet, but they trust him to keep you safe.”

  Reagan waggled her eyebrows at me. “And look, they were right.”

  I rolled my eyes and shooed them out. “Miller needed me as much as I needed him. You can definitely trust me on that.”

  They both burst into laughter at that. “Oh, we do!” Reagan promised before shutting the door behind her.

  I stripped down to nothing, keeping my harness filled with weapons close by. Just in case. It wasn’t ideal to fight a horde naked, but stranger things had happened.

  Okay, maybe not. To date, I had yet to kill a Feeder naked.

  Or a naked Feeder for that matter.

  I tugged my braid loose and leaned over the tub to wash my hair first, using a small ration of soap from my pack. Then I submerged myself in the bath and quickly scrubbed the rest of me. I would have loved to soak in the warm water until my fingers were pruny and my muscles relaxed, but I had been covered in enough gore that the water turned disgusting quickly enough.

  After my body was cleaned, I used the same water- because there was nothing else, to work my clothes clean. I tried to get the blood and filth from my shirt and I used a washcloth left for me to work on my pants. But tomorrow I would need to find clean water to make any real progress.

  I left the clothes hanging over a table in the corner of the room and dressed in the clean clothes I’d brought with me. I combed through my hair and tied it into another braid over my shoulder. Satisfied that I didn’t smell like death, I left the room to find my family.

  When I opened the door, I jumped, startled by Miller’s long body leaned against the opposite wall.

  “You scared me!” I gasped.

  He didn’t seem to care. “Walk with me?”

  “Why?”

  He tilted his head toward the back of the estate. “Because I said please.”

  “You didn’t say please,” I pointed out.

  He held out his hand. I took it.

  I would always take it.

  He pulled me along until we found a door that led to a veranda off the side of the mansion. Ten years ago, the floors had been shinier, the furniture had been pristine and this veranda had been open. Today, everything was worn and aged, even if it was still clean. The veranda had aged too, but it had changed for the better.

  Vines wrapped around the wood latticing and created shade and shelter. At night, the millions of stars peeked through the open spaces of the vines, twinkling down on us and offering a minimum glow of light.

  Miller let go of my hand and leaned against the side of the house. His watchful gaze scanned the grounds bey
ond our little hideaway in search of any potential threats.

  “Tell me what happened here, Page.”

  His abrupt demand pulled the moisture from my mouth, leaving it as dry as the desert we’d just crossed.

  “What?”

  “I want to know. And you need to talk about it.”

  “I need to talk about it?” I couldn’t believe his audacity.

  His dark gaze moved to hold mine, captivate me… transfix me. “If you tell me your secret…” He gulped. “I’ll tell you one of mine.”

  My entire being perked up at the offer. “You’ll tell me something you decide or something I get to ask?”

  His lips pulled into a half smile. “Are you bargaining with me?”

  “I’m not giving this away for just anything. I have no desire to know why you hate green beans or who your first kiss was. I want something juicy.”

  His half smile turned into a full one. “I hate green beans because they’re disgusting.”

  “That doesn’t count!”

  “Fine, Page. I’ll let you ask one question and I’ll be completely honest with you. But you have to tell me why you hate this place first. What has you so spooked?”

  I tore my gaze from his and made the same search of the premises as he had. Hidden by the house and the vined veranda, I couldn’t see the back part of the property from here. But I remembered it. I could feel the steel bars trapping me inside. I could feel the Zombie breath cascading over me. I could smell them. Hear them.

  Closing my eyes brought me right back to that godawful place.

  I opened my eyes, realizing I had closed them… Miller waited for me to speak, but I could feel his impatience, his visceral need to know.

  “When I was here… all those years ago…” I struggled to control my spinning emotions and find the courage that usually came so easily. “He locked me in with the Feeders. Apparently, that was an exercise he used to train his Zombie army. Arturo would use children to test their obedience. He would send us in to the middle of their cages and we were forced to stand very still for hours. They would get close and sniff us or scream at us because they were so frustrated they couldn’t eat us. And we couldn’t move, not even an inch, because if we did, they would attack.”

  “How do you-”

  “I saw it happen,” I told him. “I watched kids my age or younger die because they couldn’t be still.”

  “But you were still?”

  “Still as stone.”

  His gaze drifted over me affectionately. “Always so brave.” I didn’t answer that because I hadn’t been brave. I had been still because it was necessary. There was no other reason. After a long minute of silence, he asked, “Page, how come you never told anybody?” He ran a hand through his hair. “God, you must have been terrified. I can’t imagine going through that… and you were so young.”

  “He’s dead,” I said flatly. “You and my brothers killed him. There was no reason to share.”

  He shook his head, but he seemed resigned. If anybody knew about keeping childhood secrets, it was Miller. Maybe he hadn’t been tortured by a Mexican overlord, but he had been abused for the majority of his childhood by an equally evil tyrant.

  “I would have listened,” he mumbled.

  I shrugged. “It wasn’t something I needed to talk about. I wouldn’t ever be back here. It wasn’t like I developed a phobia of Feeders. It’s just that… that these memories are awful. I wish I could scrub them from my brain. I wish I could just forget them completely. I survived, I shouldn’t have to remember it. You know?”

  “I know,” he whispered.

  My heart ached at his confession, because he did know. The pain behind his dark gaze promised he kept too many traumatic secrets locked up.

  “And you did survive,” Miller continued. “You’re amazing, Page. Even back then you had the most beautiful resolve. I think I’ve been in awe of you since the first time I saw you.”

  His compliment warmed me inside and out. I wasn’t used to Miller sharing anything, let alone feelings he’d had since we were kids.

  “Is it my turn?” I whispered. “Do I get to ask you a question now?”

  He nodded once. His eyes found the ground as he withdrew into himself. He was terrified of what I would say.

  I had a thousand questions to ask him, but when I opened my mouth, I surprised myself. “Why are you afraid to go back to the Colony?”

  His eyes snapped up to meet mine. He hadn’t been expecting that question either. He didn’t answer right away. In fact, he was silent for so long that I thought he had changed his mind and wasn’t going to answer.

  Finally, he took a deep breath and admitted, “I’m afraid of what I’ll find.”

  “You mean, Matthias? What he’s done?”

  “It’s more than that,” he confessed. “It’s… I’m afraid of him. I’m afraid of the control he still has over me. I’m afraid… I’m afraid that I’ll find out I’m exactly like him.”

  “You’re not.” I rushed to assure him before he even finished his sentence. I closed the distance between us and threw my arms around his neck like I’d wanted to do earlier. He smelled so good, like leather and soap and something so intensely him. I wanted to bury my nose in his neck and breathe him in.

  Instead I spoke against his heart, even while his hands dangled at his sides and he refused to hug me back. “You’re nothing like him, Miller. You’re good. So good. You’re strong and clever and loyal, but most of all you’re good. And he is nothing but evil. You couldn’t be more different. He might be your father, but he’s not your family. And you might look like him, but you are not him.” I pulled back and bravely met his stormy gaze. My stomach flipped and I could barely say the words when I promised him, “I swear it. I swear your fears are unfounded.”

  Nerves fluttered through me as I waited for him to say something. I couldn’t stand his silence, but I was more afraid of what he would say to me. I didn’t want him to argue with me.

  I wouldn’t be able to stand it if he told me I was wrong.

  I was as afraid of his truth in this moment as I was for him.

  But in the end, it was my fears that were unfounded.

  He didn’t speak at all.

  His hands finally moved to touch me, cradling my face in the gentlest caress. He stared into my eyes, telling me more secrets that I couldn’t decipher. Except this time, they felt like hope and healing and intimacy beyond words… maybe they were so deep and intense that nothing could describe them.

  I opened my mouth to say more, to assure him more… but he silenced me by covering my mouth with his.

  Instead of words, I gasped, breathing him in and letting him take control of my mouth. His tongue swept over my bottom lip and I trembled at the feel of him, at the taste of him.

  This wasn’t like when Santi kissed me and I simply memorized the mechanics of it. With Santi it had been all about exploration and sating curiosity. With Santi I had been physically present, but mentally absent, taking in everything from a clinical, exploratory perspective.

  With Miller I didn’t think.

  I couldn’t think.

  He overwhelmed everything inside me, forcing my body to react, my mouth to move. He erased coherent thought and made my mind spin with feeling and emotion and something so delicious I thought I would melt from it.

  I got lost in the feeling of him, in the subtle scrapes of his teeth over my swollen bottom lip, over the tangling of our tongues and the feel of his body against mine. He trailed his hands from my jaw to my back, wrapping strong arms around me and holding me tightly to him. I leaned into him, unable to support myself any longer.

  This was too good.

  Miller was too perfect.

  I was afraid that he would stop, that he would pull away and I would be left to figure out how to do simple things like breathe on my own and stand up by myself.

  But he didn’t do that. Instead he deepened the kiss, worshipping my mouth with his. His soft sigh of,
“Page,” was nearly my undoing. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes and I willed them not to fall. The force of emotion that he brought out of me with this one hungry kiss was embarrassing.

  I couldn’t even process how deeply I had wanted this.

  And I hadn’t even known it until now.

  In the softness of his lips and the greedy strength of his embrace, I realized I had been waiting for this moment for almost my entire life.

  I might have been too young to realize it or too immature to fathom what it was. But now I knew. Now I knew it had been Miller. It had always been Miller.

  Santi had been a weak substitute. Just a way to pass the time and teach me enough basics so that I didn’t embarrass myself with Miller.

  And yet this was more than a cataclysmic moment in my life; it was more than an event I had been counting down to and an inevitable marker of fate. Even though it felt like all of those things.

  This was also a promise. This was soothing to my soul. And a future I thought I had lost forever.

  When Miller pulled away I started to lose hope that I would have him like this. Even when I was too young to understand what it was that I wanted, I had believed I had lost him forever. And by losing Miller, I had lost the fate that was mine… the destiny that belonged to me.

  But I had that now. I’d found him.

  He’d come back to me.

  So I let him kiss me forever… for eternity. I didn’t know how much time passed as we stood there in each other’s arms, memorizing every delicious thing about the other. But I did know that it was bliss.

  Miller and I were created to kiss each other.

  We were made for each other.

  After a long time, he pulled back and rested his forehead against mine. I kept my eyes closed, afraid to open them and face reality again.

  In that moment we weren’t trapped in the Zombie Apocalypse or on the brink of fighting a deadly war. We weren’t facing internal demons or external enemies. We were just us. Just a boy and girl. We were simply stolen kisses and fluttering tummies and soaring hope. And I could have stayed in that moment for the rest of my life.