Love and Decay

by Rachel Higginson

  I walked the length of the building, trying to keep to the shadows. It was easy back here with the building on one side and a thick copse of trees on the other side of the pavement. Warehouse docks provided more cover and abandoned cars, either from the Resistance or other, made the place look deceptively busy.

  It felt weird to be alone. In Colombia I had ventured out often by myself. But since we’d left, I’d rarely had the opportunity to get away from my family for even a few minutes.

  I needed this right now. I needed to get inside my head and sort stuff out. I talked a lot and joked a lot, but needed time alone to figure out what was going on in my mind. I just needed to turn down the noise and let my thoughts marinate.

  I had always been like this.

  My family had always been big, so adding a few tagalongs to our numbers over the last ten years hadn’t bothered me. I was a more-the-merrier kind of guy. But I also needed space.

  And I needed to not be around every single person I knew every second of every day.

  The walking helped too. My body craved activity. I preferred to be moving or fighting or doing something to control all this jumpy energy inside me.

  For my mind to be healthy, my body needed to be too.

  I could tell I’d been sitting for way too long in there.

  I let my fingers brush against the rough concrete bricks of the building while I listened to every single thing.

  This world was so silent. So… dead. Even when there was life, it always seemed to be shrouded in death.

  While I was growing up, a place like this would have been inundated with a myriad of sounds. Cars would have been coming and going in the parking lot. Employees would have been back here taking smoke breaks or unloading semis full of inventory. Planes would have filled the sky with noise. Life would move and communicate and come and go and never stop.

  But now there was nothing.

  The woodsy area to my left had fallen eerily silent. The animals had either died or fled. The birds had disappeared. Even the insects had ceased their incessant chatter.

  Every creature was afraid of the Zombie threat.

  Or if not Zombies, then the Colony.

  It was the one thing that made hunting Feeders so easy. We could hear them a mile away.

  Or so we thought.

  The Zombies in this part of the world had apparently evolved into something worse. I’d been thinking about how they could choose to be quiet long enough to capture a kill. It terrified me. And not many things did.

  But if they’d figured out that much. What else could they figure out?

  My mind whirled. My thoughts returned to Page and her invaluable blood. Why hadn’t the scientists made a breakthrough yet? And what was it about Page that had saved her but not Vaughan?

  After that, I remembered that my little sister was still missing. And now I wanted to murder something.

  She was smart. That was my saving grace. She was too smart to get caught or eaten.

  Page was a badass of the best kind. I had full faith that she could fight her way out of anything.

  But where the hell was she?”

  In this cycle of endless thoughts, voices interrupted my solitude of silence and forced me to tune back into reality.

  I let out an annoyed sigh and prepared to turn around and head back around to the other side when their foreign words caught my attention.

  They were speaking Spanish. I recognized Adela’s blistering tone instantly. Diego spat back at her and I wanted to strangle him. Immediately. Without thought to the consequences and without regret.

  Inexcusable anger burned through me. It seared my blood and set my heart pounding. I hated Diego. But even more, I hated that he triggered this side of Adela… that he sparked her furious passion, her fire… her wrath.

  It probably made me certifiably insane that I was jealous that she was mad at someone else… but I’d stopped questioning my emotions concerning Adela a long time ago.

  It was easier to accept them so I could continue to ignore them.

  I stopped moving… making sound… doing anything that would give me away… and leaned against the cool brick wall. They were speaking super-fast Spanish, but I’d picked up enough over the last ten years that I got the gist of what they were saying.

  I stood there listening like an asshole, but I couldn’t help myself. This wasn’t me. I might be nosey, but I didn’t eavesdrop by standing in the shadows. I didn’t press my ear against a wall and stop breathing so I could hear the intonation in her voice and make sure she was okay.

  And yet here I was.

  Because just like every other time, when it involved Adela, I acted like a complete buffoon.

  She wanted Diego to back off. He was pushing her to make a decision about whether she was going back to the Territories with him, but she wouldn’t.

  This was news to me, since I’d assumed that was a foregone conclusion. She’d been waiting for ten goddamn years to get back with Diego. Why would she hesitate now?

  “What do you have to think about?” he demanded.

  “Everything,” she hissed. “I love these people. They are my family. You took me from my family twice already. I’m not going to let you do it again.”

  “Once,” he snarled. “I took you from them once. The second time, you left of your own accord.”

  “To get away from you!”

  “Adela, be reasonable. This place is not for you. Come home with me. Come back to your family. Sit by my side as my queen. I can give you anything you want. Anything you desire. It is time that you got over our past so that you can rule with me.” His voice dropped low and I could barely make out his final, “I need you, my sweet.”

  I wanted to punch something, but I wanted to hear her response even more.

  My chest squeezed tight and I thought my muscles would rip through my skin. They were too tight… too wound up.

  I braced myself for what I knew was coming. I’d heard it before.

  I’d heard it too many goddamn times.

  Ten years ago, I’d overheard a very similar conversation to this one. Only I couldn’t understand it word for word. I could just pick up on the sounds and body language.

  But it had been as clear back then as it was now, Adela loved this man. For whatever deranged reason, she couldn’t help herself.

  Sure it made me furious.

  But it also made me feel sorry for her. Diego was useful at times, but he was also psychotic. He kept Feeders in cages and ran his Territories with an iron fist. He was as likely to kill someone as he was to help them.

  I expected more from Adela. Over the years, I’d tried not to. God, I’d desperately tried to stop giving her more credit than she deserved. But I couldn’t help it.

  And then I was only disappointed when she went back to Diego every freaking time.

  The craziest part was that we hadn’t even seen him in ten years! And yet I still lost to the filthy rat bastard.

  Adela answered him and everything inside me stilled and stopped so I could here every little word, nuance and whisper. “Diego,” she said, “we’ve been here before. I left for a reason.”

  “You left because you didn’t think I could change.”

  “And you didn’t!”

  His low chuckle made me see red. “But, my beautiful girl, I did. No more drugs. No more trafficking. I’m settled. I’m only missing a queen to sit by my side.”

  She let out an angry growl and I hated that it was directed at Diego and not me. “Druglord to warlord is not different! Why can’t you see that? You’re still the same person. We’re still fighting over the same thing.”

  I tensed when Diego’s tone turned dangerous. I moved closer to the corner, readying to stop him from hurting her at any cost. “No, you’re wrong. I am a king now. I am a god. Why can’t you see that? Why are you being so difficult?”

  I strained to hear her. “This is why,” she whispered. “Why can’t you see it?”

  Rocks were kicked a
nd feet stomped over hard ground. I pressed against the wall while staying on my toes in case I needed to jump in. “So you’ve made up your mind? You’re staying? You’re making me go home without you?”

  “No. I haven’t made up my mind. I’m still thinking.”

  “And how long will you think? Huh? How long will you torture me like this?” I moved off the wall the second his voice grew threatening. He would not touch her. Not if I could help it. “You are my wife-”

  I rounded the corner just when Adela tried to wrench her hand away from Diego’s closed fist and screamed, “Because you told me I was! Not because of any choice I made!”

  “Are you all right?” My words were English, breaking through their conversation like a bucket of ice water.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Diego’s roar would have drowned out her soft question had I not been looking at her. “Leave!” he shouted.

  I turned to him and met his furious glare. “Let her go.”

  He leaned in. “This is our business, Parker. You’re interrupting.”

  I didn’t flinch because I wasn’t afraid of this man. He was a coward. He was an asshole. And he was hurting a girl I cared about more than I should. But nevertheless, I cared about her. I’d do anything to save her from this moment.

  His hand was wrapped around her wrist so tightly she was bent over awkwardly trying to relieve the tension. “You’re hurting her.” When that did nothing, I dropped my voice and let the threat seep into every word. “Let. Her. Go. Or you’re going to regret not listening to me.”

  Diego sneered at me. The corner of his mouth lifted in a cocky smirk and his eyes narrowed with disgust. “This does not concern you. Leave before I make you leave.”

  “Let her go,” I repeated, “before I make you let her go.”

  His head tipped back and he cackled obnoxiously. When he met my stare again, his eyes danced with madness. “You’re a child.”

  “I’m more of a man than you’ll ever be.”

  He dropped Adela’s hand so suddenly that she stumbled to the side. He was in my face in the next second, but I’d been ready for him. Adela’s safety concerned me more than my own, but I couldn’t protect her if I was dead.

  Or at least unconscious.

  “I respect Reagan, but I will murder you if you step between me and my bride again,” he warned.

  “The funny thing is, I don’t respect you, so if you ever lay a hand on your bride again, I will be happy to murder you first.”

  He leaned into my face. “She belongs to me.”

  My attention shifted to Adela who stood there rubbing her sore wrist. She looked terrified and jostled and more than a little pissed. But the faint light fell on her just right, making her brighter than everything else in this godforsaken world. Her long dark hair gleamed; her dark skin glowed. She radiated otherworldly like this. Like she had been given earth to counterbalance every other ugly thing.

  She was my greatest regret.

  And my biggest reason for existing.

  I refocused on Diego. “She doesn’t,” I said simply. “She doesn’t belong to you or to anyone. She’s a free bird. So unless you want to get bloody, I’d suggest you go back inside and calm your shit down. Otherwise, I’ll show you just how much she doesn’t belong to you.”

  I tapped the butt of one of my blades, holstered against my hip. Diego looked down at it and then back up at me. I’d noticed the second I saw him that he wasn’t armed.

  He wasn’t used to handling his own shit. Like he said, he was a king now. He had people to do that for him.

  He slipped back into Spanish and commanded, “Adela let’s go.”

  She slammed her hands on her hips. “Not right now.”

  “Yes, now,” he insisted.

  “Diego, do what he said. Go back inside. Calm down. We will talk later.”

  He did not like that. But he looked over his shoulder and with a menacing snarl, said, “We will talk later, my bride. Count on that.”

  He pushed past me, bumping shoulders with me in his attempt prove his machismo. I ignored him. I wasn’t interested in starting anything with Diego unless I had to.

  I’d rather he go back to Mexico and never bother me again. But Adela never made anything simple. She’d been screwing up my life for the last ten years. Why would that change now?

  I stared at her while I waited for Diego to put space between us. Her chest heaved in and out as she breathed. Her fingers trembled. Her mouth quivered. But I stayed where I was.

  Fighting every goddamn instinct inside me, I stayed put. I stayed in between her and the madman she loved.

  When I was confident he was far enough away, I let my tongue loose. “He’s super charming. I see why you waited a decade to get back with him.”

  Her eyes flashed with new fire and the masochist inside me smiled because finally that flame was directed at me. “You don’t see anything, Harrison.”

  God, I hated how she said my name. Her tongue rolled over the “r’s” and whispered the “s.”

  I hated it.

  And I loved it.

  “Really, Adela, I’m happy for you. You two make a beautiful couple. I wish you all the best. I hope you have ten little psychotic babies.”

  “Enough,” she hissed. Real pain reflected in those endless eyes.

  I regretted everything I’d said to her.

  And because of that, I said more. “When are you going back? Soon, right? Mexico can’t run itself. Diego will need to get back to all his loyal, oppressed subjects. And hey! He can’t do it alone!”

  She took three steps forward and closed the gap between us. I stood there waiting; knowing what was coming, but unwilling to stop her.

  Her hand whacked my face with a resounding smack. I flinched and took a step back before instinct kicked in.

  I pressed her against the cement wall before she could take her next breath. My hand bound her wrist and my other held her firmly by the waist. But unlike Diego, I didn’t hurt her. I only applied enough pressure so she couldn’t ignore me. But if she wanted to be free, I would have let her go.

  I would have walked away just like every other time.

  “I’m not going back with him,” she panted.

  A tingle spread down my spine and forced me to lean into her. I felt her heat. Inhaled her scent that had been imprinted on me since the first time I saw her. I watched her chest rise and fall with her heavy breaths and a trickle of sweat run down the side of her neck.

  My gaze fell to those full lips that had tortured me for over a decade. I tore my gaze from them only to be captivated by her big, brown eyes, so big and full of passion, that I could drown in them.

  “That’s what you say today. Tomorrow we both know your story will change. We’ve been down this road before, Adela. We both know how it turns out.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know anything.”

  I leaned in. I couldn’t help it. Her body owned an irreversible spell on me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she bewitched me just to torture me.

  No, I did know better. I knew enough to know that’s what happened.

  “I know you,” I argued with her. “I know we’ve done this before. How many times?”

  She shook her head. I enjoyed the blush that bloomed over her cheeks, turning her tanned skin a pretty rose color.

  “Too many times,” I filled in for her. “Too many goddamn times.”

  Her chin jerked with defiance, “Then let him have me.”

  She said that on purpose. Just to get under my skin and piss me off.

  I hated that it worked.

  I hated that it made me want to press into her until I covered every inch of her shapely body. Until I couldn’t tell where she started and I ended. Until I was kissing her… tasting her… making her realize that she was mine.

  That she had always been mine.

  That she would always be mine.

  I pushed away from the wall and from her. Her arms dropp
ed to her sides and her shoulders sagged. I sucked in a sharp breath and ignored the bereft sensation racing down my chest from where she’d just been.

  I turned around and started to walk off. “You don’t want to be out here alone, Adela. Get inside and stay near Hendrix. I won’t be here to protect you from your husband should he decide to throw you over his shoulder and haul your ass back to Mexico.”

  Her weakened voice trailed after me. “Where are you going, Harrison?”

  “Out,” I said. “To find my sister.”

  Chapter Two

  I had planned to take this mission solo.

  But just like everything else in my life, my plans were thwarted by my overbearing family. Only this time they had backup in the form of a resistance I barely knew.

  As much as it pained me to admit, they were right. I couldn’t head out alone. And so I’d agreed to take my brother, King, his girlfriend, Joss, and Miller.

  When Adela showed up at the car packing her adorable little arsenal of not-enough, I nearly became the guy I hated so much. I wanted nothing more than to pick her up and toss her sexy ass right back inside.

  Obviously I couldn’t do that. I’d spent my entire life claiming to be some kind of post-apocalyptic feminist. Girls had rights. Girls could fight. Girls could make up their own damn mind about the assholes they wanted to spend their lives with and blah blah blah.

  I thought of Page and used her as my Zen tool. “Page,” I chanted in my head. “Woosah.” I took a deep breath. “Page.” Another deep breath. “Serenity now.”

  When I opened my eyes and Adela was still there I started to count to ten. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m helping,” she said tersely.

  “No, you’re not.”

  “We need all the volunteers we can get.” I didn’t recognize the voice so I stopped looking at Adela for a moment to see who else was joining the squad.

  “Who are you?”

  He was a short, boxy creature with a flat nose and neckless. He looked like a nerdy linebacker… if there was such a thing. “Mertz.”

  “Did you say Mertz?”

  “It’s my last name. But it’s what everyone calls me.”