“We’re leaving,” Hendrix told him.
The kid laughed. “I hope so.”
Hendrix tilted his head with confusion and added, “And we’re not going with you.”
“Well, I was hoping I would be going with you. Especially after I saved your asses.”
Nelson lowered his knife. “Who are you?”
The kid finally realized we didn’t know who he was, so he lifted his hand, waving something black. “I’m the one that radioed in for the road sand. I’m the one that got the resistance to move their asses and intercede.”
“Road sand?” Harrison asked.
Followed by Hendrix’s, “Resistance?”
The kid quirked an eyebrow. “Road sand.” He pointed to the metal mats in the middle of the road. “I forget the technical term for them, but that’s what we call ‘em. They’re like quicksand. Only for cars and such.” He waved the thing in his hand once more. “And I called the resistance to get over here. Y’all are either very lucky or very unlucky.”
A problem I’d been trying to figure out since the start of this thing.
The kid took a breath and continued. “Y’all are the Parkers, right? Am I wrong about that? I thought…” He paused to count us. His fingers moved around our group while he mentally calculated how many of us there were. “Damn, there’s a lot of you. But I could have sworn you were the Parkers. And Luke said to look out for the Parkers, so that’s what I was trying to do.”
“Luke?” I stepped forward, lowering my weapon. “You know Luke?” Sure there was probably more than one Luke in the world. But only one on the entire planet that would be looking for us.
The kid smiled, relieved we finally connected. “Yes! Luke. I knew it. I knew you were the Parkers. Holy shit! This is awesome!”
“So who are you?” Nelson had lost his patience. And I didn’t blame him. The longer we stood here, the more likely we were to get caught.
Again.
“Here’s what happened. It’s crazy that you showed up last night. And in that damn hole. We only came down this far south because one of the runners said that Diego had left the Territories. So Matthias wanted a patrol along the fence. Well that’s fine and all, but we’ve got a long stretch of fence to patrol. So we’ve been taking shifts. I just happened to be on last night’s shift because Tony had the stomach bug and he couldn’t get off the damn toilet. So there I was on a shift that wasn’t mine, when Feeders set off the alarm. And what do you know, when we go to check out the Feeder problem, we find the freaking Parkers instead! How crazy is that!”
We all stayed silent as we tried to process this guy’s explanation.
He took our silence as proof we understood, so he went on while the rest of us tried to keep up. “What’s even crazier is that this was one of my last shifts. I was going to defect, you see. I was headed back to Kansas within the next few days. But Luke wanted me to stick around for as long as I could. But things were getting dangerous. More than I was particularly comfortable with. I knew I had to get out and I knew it had to be fast before I ended up on one of those blocks in the center of the city. So I’d already radioed Luke and told him to come get me. So not only do you show up on the one night I’m patrolling, but Luke already has men out here to throw a diversion in the way and get you free.”
My eyes widened while he spoke. For as hard as he was to understand I realized we had been up against a whole lot more than we’d realized. Even after we crossed the border, none of us had been ready for the crisis ahead.
“Y’all! You’re here!” The kid continued to grin at us like we were the answer to all of life’s problems, when really he’d solved a whole bunch of ours.
“We should go,” Hendrix decided.
The kid sobered some. “We should. There’s a rendezvous spot a few days from here. They’ll be expecting us.”
Nelson sighed, “I have to ask this for my own peace of mind. Is this a trick of some kind?”
The kid tipped his head back and laughed. “I’m wondering the exact same thing. I guess we’ll both find out.”
That didn’t make anybody happy, but it was the best answer we were going to get from him.
Hendrix stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Hendrix by the way. And I’m going to drive. But you’re welcome to give me directions to the safe house.”
The kid eagerly shook Hendrix’s hand and grinned like a lunatic. “Hendrix Parker. I can’t believe it. I’m Ripley. It’s so nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Hendrix finished. “Ripley, sit up front with me and tell me where I’m going.”
Ripley bounced on his toes, looking very excited to be given the honor.
The rest of us piled in the back of the truck, except for Diego and Harrison, who announced they would be riding with Ripley to help him remember the right way to the safe house.
The rest of us crammed into the back of the truck, barely fitting. I had to sit on Miller’s lap, but even that wasn’t comfortable for him because his legs kept falling asleep.
I didn’t know if Hendrix was trying to drive like a maniac or if it was the nature of the road and the accident in front of us, but it wasn’t long before I’d decided to never ride in a car again. My stomach churned and a headache crept along my brainstem and temples.
I turned and lay my head against Miller’s chest. He was dirty and exhausted, but I didn’t care. I just needed his touch right now… I just needed him to hold me against him and never let me go.
“Page,” he murmured against the top of my head.
I drowsily looked up at him, feeling the drain and exhaustion from last night and the day before. Miller’s hand splayed over my spine and he held me close.
“I guess we’re closer to Luke and his resistance than we thought,” he murmured.
“Isn’t it amazing?” I let out a weary sigh. “After tonight, I’m not sure we could have just stumbled around the States and found them. This is so much better.”
“You’re too trusting, Page Parker.” He laughed, but I didn’t hear humor in his voice. And when I looked up at him there was a hardness in his dark eyes… a resistance that seemed out of place for the last several days.
“Yeah, amazing…”
“We’re almost there, Miller. We’re so close.” My eyed drifted shut without my permission. They were just too heavy to hold open for a second longer.
Besides that, Miller’s soothing touch and warm body helped lull me to sleep. The adrenaline had finally rushed out of me and I felt like a skeleton version of the badass I usually was.
Even though my eyes were closed and my body had started to relax, my thoughts still spun with things I needed to do and say. “Be nice to Luke,” I mumbled to him.
“What was that?” He leaned down so my lips brushed his ear.
It was loud in the truck with all of the people and the roar of the engine underneath us, so I wasn’t surprised when he couldn’t hear me.
I tried to stir up enough energy to help him out, but the longer I lay there the farther away they slipped. “Be nice to Luke,” I said more confidently.
His warm chuckle rumbled through me. “What makes you think I wouldn’t be?”
“The darkness,” I whispered. I was too far gone to realize what I’d said or how defensive it could make Miller. I was too close to sleep to feel anything real like embarrassment or shame. “Don’t let the darkness win, Miller.”
Before Miller could reply I finally slipped into complete slumber. With my head nestled on his chest, his strong arms around me and finally out of danger, I didn’t stand a chance. I curled one arm around him, holding onto him in my sleep.
In my subconscious I hadn’t realized I’d said those thoughts out loud. In my sleep, I didn’t think Miller had responded to them.
But if I’d stayed awake for just a minute longer… if I had been able to see his reaction or listen to his whispered promise, I would have realized that Miller had no intention of ever being nice to Luke.
And Mil
ler had never once believed that he could stop the darkness.
In Miller’s mind, the darkness had already won.
Episode Seven
Chapter One
It was dark again by the time we got there. Feeders and damaged road made our journey difficult and epically uncomfortable.
By the time I crawled out from the back of the truck, my legs ached and my butt was numb. I stumbled around on the dirt road until my ankles were mobile again and the roaring in my ears had died down.
I lifted my gaze from the ground and found the remnants of an old fashioned barn in front of us. So, the safe house was less of a house and more like ruins from a world passed away. But there it was. The resistance.
The revolution.
Luke and everything he had to offer.
My insides tangled in knots as I attempted to breathe through my rising panic. Suddenly, nerves crippled me. I had been perfectly fine all day… all year… all of the years before now. I had pictured this moment since I was a little girl.
I had dreamed about it.
Fought for it.
Sacrificed for it.
But now that it was here??? I couldn’t face it.
I had always pictured meeting Luke in the daylight. The sun would be shining and he would run out towards me, sweeping me up in his arms and hugging me so tightly I couldn’t breathe.
After all, I had built him up to be this hero in my mind. He fought the fight we couldn’t. He demanded the revolution we had been unable to inspire.
He was actually working against Matthias, while I had never done anything but think about it.
Luke was everything I wanted to be, but now that it was time to meet him… I was scared.
And rightfully so.
Ripley jumped down from the truck cab and stretched his gangly arms over his head. He shook his shaggy hair and made a funny sound as his cheeks filled with air. When he caught me staring at him, he winked and smiled.
He was likeable enough. I hadn’t had much of a chance to get to know him since I’d been imprisoned in the human spaghetti bowl in the back, but whenever we’d stopped or fought over the past thirty-six hours, he had been an active, valuable asset to our group.
“This is the safe house?” Harrison demanded, as he joined Ripley on the ground. At Ripley’s enthusiastic nod, Harrison added, “This looks neither safe nor like a house.”
Joss let out a long sigh. She’d come to stand next to me and I could feel the judgment radiating off her.
I gave her a sideways look. “It’s not exactly the splendor of Mexico City.”
She tugged at the black scarf she kept tied around her neck. “You’re right about that.” She breathed another long sigh. “But I gave it up for a reason. This is what I chose.”
I suppressed a smile. “You don’t sound certain about that.”
It was her turn to give me an assessing glance. “You don’t either.”
My stomach clenched with uncertainty and I turned back to the shadowed barn. I didn’t like that she barely knew me and could read me so easily.
I needed to at least pretend the confidence I’d felt back in Bogotá. Like Tyler always said, “Fake it, till you make it.”
“I just want to get the kids someplace safe,” I told Joss. “This doesn’t exactly look like the stronghold of safety and civility I was hoping it would be.”
Ripley’s low whistle pulled our attention to him. He walked toward the barn with hands raised out to his sides and weapons strapped to his back where they would appear the least threatening.
The barn walls, or what remained of them, rattled in the night breeze. The sky was clear overhead, shedding moonlight on the rusted roof. The walls had been stripped in places, by weather or man, and the wind sang as it rushed through the open places.
The drive had remained dirt and gravel, but the yard surrounding the barn was overgrown with tall grasses and brambles. My heart hammered wondering about what kind of things could hide away in there.
If Luke and his men weren’t here, then for sure there would be a horde of Zombies waiting to ambush us.
Or Matthias’s men.
Or monsters and demons and the boogeyman.
That was just the nature of this barn- almost cliché in the way it stood so ominously and forbidding.
In the way, it threatened every one of my expectations and assumptions.
A high pitched whistle answered Ripley’s initial call. Ripley stepped forward, cupping his mouth with one hand, “I’ve got a delivery,” he hollered. “Did someone order a package of Parkers?”
There was a thick moment of silence where nobody made a sound. Even the wind quieted down to highlight how still everything became.
The leaves stopped rustling. The tall grass ceased its swishing. The entire world ground to a halt while two different parties from two very different sides of the world prepared to meet face-to-face.
As quickly as everything stopped, everything started again. The obscure blackness from the barn shifted with life until it became shadows of men and women. Only the hazy outline of them appeared at first, making them look like winged demons trying to cross the veil between this realm and another. But as they moved closer to us, weapons raised and guards up, they became the shapes and figures that made the most sense.
Humans, not demons.
Men and women, not zombies.
Dangerous. Lethal. Filled with purpose and revolution and… hate for the tyrant they sought to bring down.
I recognized him immediately. Not because I remembered his face or had been able to picture what he would look like all grown up.
Instead, it was in the way he carried himself. In the way his shoulders pushed back and the muscles in his arms flexed and tightened. It was in the lines of his jaw and the way his mouth slashed across his face in a determined frown.
Mostly though, it was in those eyes. It was in the way they swept over our group with quick calculation and lasting judgment. It was in the flicker of intelligence and flash of understanding.
It was the way he found me only seconds after I had found him.
His eyebrows lifted with subtle acknowledgment and the corners of his lips kicked up with disbelief. “You came,” he stated so simply.
It could have been an insult. After everything it had taken to get my family to leave Colombia. After the relentless hardship of our journey. After getting caught only hours after crossing the border…
Luke’s words could have been taken badly.
But they weren’t.
There was a depth of pain and understanding in those two simple words that declared how deeply he understood our sacrifice. His baritone voice rasped over the words as if he had to drag them from his lungs and push them out of his mouth. His gaze deepened with understanding. His expression grew grim and optimistic all at the same time.
As his hands started to shake, he dropped his arms to his sides, lowering his weapon, then dropping it to his feet. And his mouth. Those full boy lips lifted in a smile that held the very limits of relief and gratitude and hope.
Before today I had always imagined us crashing together in the middle of a big crowd. I’d seen the way my brothers opened up their arms for the women they loved and caught them. I watched as Hendrix would catch Reagan as she flew through a crowd and launched herself into my brother’s arms. I’d witnessed Haley search desperately for Nelson until she finally found him and then she’d throw herself at him, trusting that he would catch her… that he’d never let her fall.
I even remembered how Vaughan would hold Tyler’s gaze and simply open his arms for her to collapse into.
I’d seen it over and over again as I grew up. They were memories ingrained on my mind… images I could never forget.
And so for whatever reason, I’d applied those memories to Luke.
After all these years of separation and letter writing and anticipation, I’d expected us to fly together and wrap our arms around each other violently.
I’d expected the wind to be knocked from my lungs and tears to cling to my lashes.
I’d expected my hands to shake and the very foundation of the world to tremble in this grand reunion.
But that didn’t happen.
And when I realized I’d been waiting for it to happen, I couldn’t remember why I’d wanted it to. I barely knew Luke. He was still a stranger after this last decade.
I barely remembered him before we were separated and now… now it had taken serious detective skills to spot him in a crowd.
It seemed to be the same for him. His eyes had searched my family and friends, looking for me. I had known it. I had seen his gaze scan each face, determining if he could decipher the little girl he’d once known in the aged lines and matured features.
Finally, his focus fell on me. But it wasn’t at all like I’d imagined. Instead, he moved toward me slowly. His arms at his sides, his mouth slightly ajar.
He stopped just a foot away. I could sense the electric charge in the air, the tangy taste of metal on my tongue. My heart pounded in my chest and my blood rushed with aggressive excitement.
Luke.
After all this time… Luke.
“It’s you,” he rasped just above the whisper of the wind.
I nodded, suddenly aware of everything around me. I felt my family press in, my friends watch on with open-mouthed curiosity. I felt the tickle of the breeze dance through my hair, tossing the loose strands. I sensed his people watching with just as much fascination.
All of my senses perked up and paid attention.
My lips smiled as the words jumbled in my mouth trying to make sense out of each other. “It’s you,” I echoed.
He swallowed audibly as if he had something to be nervous about. I wanted to scream and dance and shout that we’d finally found him… that we had finally reached the end of our journey, but I couldn’t force my body to do what I wanted it to do.
His hands fell awkwardly on my shoulders and then ran down my biceps until he could wrap his arms around my waist and pull me in for a real hug.
His body pressed against mine and I inhaled this new Luke smell that I had never smelled before and laid my head on a shoulder that felt too hard and too different and too… brave for me.
Love and Decay Page 13
