The guy’s eyebrows lifted. “What thing?”
“That thing,” King mumbled. “We’re in a… a famous singing group.”
The guy’s eyes went big. That was the very last thing he’d ever expected to hear. “A what?”
“No, it’s true,” King insisted. “We’re a traveling acapella singing group.”
I’d have laughed if there weren’t so many guns pointed at my face.
The spokesman turned to me. “Are you shitting me?”
“It’s true,” I said with a straight face. “We’re called… Aca-Pocalypse. You’ve probably heard of us. We’re a pretty big deal.”
The engine was loud, but I clearly heard King cough to cover his laugh.
The other guy lifted his gun again and aimed it right at me. “You think this is funny? You think this is some kind of joke?”
“Not at all,” I answered. “We take harmonies very seriously.”
He didn’t look like he believed me. And I didn’t blame him. Clearly he was smarter than he looked. “We’re taking you back with us,” he declared. The guns stayed trained on us.
“Taking us where?”
His eyes narrowed on me. “With us. That’s all you need to know.”
“But your city is on fire,” I argued. “I want to know where you’re taking us.”
“Well, we’re not taking you to the city,” he growled. He turned around and shouted for two guys to jump down and commandeer our vehicle.
My pulse jumped as I gaged how much time I had before I had to get out of here. “But where are you taking us? We’re just trying to get through, man. We don’t want any trouble.”
“Then don’t be trouble,” he grunted. “You’ll be fine. Just don’t fight us and we won’t have to hurt you.”
Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.
From the corner of my eye, I checked on Adela. She’d listened. Her body was squeezed between the front seat and the narrow backseat.
Good girl.
“You’re not going to tell me where you’re taking us? Fine. But at least tell me you caught the people that set your town on fire.”
I felt my mistake as it left my mouth. Awareness rumbled through the other side and the spokesman’s eyes widened. “How do you know someone started that fire?”
The gunmen that were supposed to take over the driving were on either side of the doors. I locked them.
“Unlock the doors,” the one closest to me ordered. He pointed his gun right at my head. I’d waited too long.
“Was it you?” the first guy shouted. “Are you the ones that started the fire?”
That right there. That was what I needed to know.
“Sorry,” I told them. “It wasn’t us.”
“Unlock the door,” the guy at my side demanded. “Or we’re going to start shooting. Maybe we’ll kill you all at once. Maybe we’ll do it one by one. Let you watch as your friends die.”
“Alright, alright.” My hand moved to flick the lock open. The gunman’s satisfied smile stretched across his face.
The moment was right. I slammed the door open, right into that smug expression. His gun flew to the side while I yanked the gearshift into drive.
Gunshots started firing as I slammed my foot on the gas. Glass shattered behind me and Adela screamed as it rained down on her. I ducked down and kept driving.
Swerving around the abandoned car, I gunned it forward to get as much of a head start as possible.
I yanked the wheel to the right and then to the left, trying to evade flying bullets.
In another three seconds we pulled ahead and out of range. They’d had to wait for their grounded men to board, giving us just the opening we needed to take off.
I turned a fast corner and ignored the expletives shouted from all directions. I strained to keep my eyes on the road in front of me, but I was drawn to the rearview mirror every ten goddamn seconds.
At first it was to count everyone and make sure nobody was shot. Miller, Joss and King were just now lifting their heads off the truck bed to see if they were safe yet. But it looked like they’d miraculously gotten away without a scratch.
So far.
“Everyone okay?” I shouted inside the cab.
“Fine!” Adela squeaked from the floor.
“Peachy,” Mertz squeaked.
I turned to him. “Did you think we were going to die?”
“I still think I’m going to die!” he shouted back.
That made me smile. For a half second.
The roar of the chasing engine overpowered ours. I glanced in the rearview mirror again and found them gaining ground.
It had been a bad idea to incite them, but I’d gotten the information I needed.
If they thought, even for a second, that we were the ones that had set the fire that meant they didn’t have the people that actually set the fire.
That meant Page was still out there.
That meant that we just had to find her. Rescue here. Get rid of the truck behind us. And survive.
So basically, just another day in the neighborhood.
Chapter Three
Gun shots rang through the air as they tried to do lasting damage to us.
“Stay down!” I yelled at the people in the back. My brother threw his body over Joss and Miller hung onto the wheel well while I continued to swerve like a crazy person.
They pursued relentlessly. I realized this could last all day… for as long as it took for one of us to run out of gas.
I did not have time for this shit.
“Hold on!” I shouted over everything and hoped that they could hear me. I gave them three seconds to take my advice and then I slammed on the breaks.
Tires squealed under my truck and the truck behind me. The moment slowed down and moved frame by frame.
I struggled to hold onto the wheel as the other truck turned sideways in an effort to keep from hitting us, but still slammed into us.
My airbag deployed and my hands flew from the steering wheel. I let out a shout of pain as burns shot up my forearms and across my chest. The truck spun around and then around again. The world dipped into crazed chaos with screaming and screeching and sounds that didn’t make sense.
When we finally came to a stop everything was eerily quiet. Well, except for the ringing sound clanging through my head.
I shook my head.
Then shook it again.
Something dripped into my eye. I swiped at it and noticed my fingers were red with blood. Shit, that was from my head.
“Harrison!”
I shook my head again. Why did my arms hurt?
Goddamn, they burned like a bitch.
“Harrison!”
All at once the ringing stopped and reality punched me in the face.
“Adela,” I said.
“Are you okay? You’re bleeding?” She glanced behind her. “We have to go! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I shook my head again. It hurt. God, that hurt. “I’m fine.”
She pulled out a knife and held it over her head. For a split second I thought she was going to murder me. But the scariest part was that in my fuzzy head, it made sense.
I thought, of course this is the moment she stabs me. In the eye. Why wouldn’t she?
But instead, she plunged her knife into the deflated airbag hanging all over me. Some of the burning sensation lifted from my body- but not much.
I glanced down at the powder covering my chest and arms. “Holy shit, that hurts!”
“What did you say?” She pushed my shoulder. “You have to drive now. Harrison, drive! Now.”
I stomped on the gas and the engine revved beneath me. We lurched forward and it took several seconds too long for me to right the truck and get it going again.
I was facing the opposite direction from when I’d started. I pushed on. I didn’t want to head back toward town, but I also couldn’t take the time to turn around.
We’d figure something out later.
I realized I should be surprised that the truck still ran. Metal screeched behind us and my brain slowly processed that we were dragging something. That something was slowing us down and making our trip more difficult, but I’d worry about that later.
Looking over at the wreck, I gathered their truck had taken the brunt of the collision. They’d slid sideways and hit us with the driver’s side door. The entire cab was bent in and crumpled. Men that had been standing in the back now littered the pavement, all in various states of alarm or unconsciousness.
Some were holding bleeding heads.
Some weren’t moving at all.
Someone lifted a gun and shot at us as we passed, but the majority had lost their guns in the collision.
I hoped the crushed driver’s side meant they couldn’t drive after us. I gunned the gas and watched the rearview mirror for a long time. I took as many turns as I could, always moving in random ways to keep them from catching up with us.
But I never saw them again.
Finally, after thirty minutes where I was certain there was no one following us, I took inventory of my crew.
Mertz was slumped over in the passenger’s seat. His head was bleeding onto the window, but his chest was rising steadily up and down. Adela sat in the middle seat behind me, with her right hand on Mertz’s seat and her left resting on my shoulder.
She was the only reason I could keep moving forward. That one small gesture was the only thing keeping me grounded right now.
My head pounded and my skin burned like hell. The airbag powder had apparently given me some kind of chemical burn.
Which was more obnoxious than it was life-threatening, but still… uncomfortable.
In the review mirror I could see Miller, Joss and King moving around back there. None of them was moving quickly or easily… but they were moving.
That was all that mattered.
“You guys okay back there?” I hollered and then immediately regretted it.
King lifted a weak thumb’s up. The other two ignored me.
But they were alive.
“That was brilliant,” Adela said in my ear. I felt her lips at my lobe, her hand on my chest. “Harrison, that was amazing.”
Damn, her accent could bring me to my knees. I searched for sanity somewhere in my muddled brain, but with her this close, being this nice to me, it just wasn’t possible.
“Don’t go with him, Adela.” My voice was too loud. My tone an embarrassing plea. I hadn’t meant to say any of that.
Instead of pulling away, she kissed my cheek. My chest tightened and thoughts bumped into each other in my broken head.
She pulled away, sitting back down. But her hand stayed on my shoulder.
What did that mean? Was that a yes?
Or a goodbye?
Goddamn.
My thoughts drifted to the first time I’d ever been open with her about my feelings. I had been nothing more than a kid. Eighteen and cocky as hell.
“You’re here for me,” I had told her. Like an idiot.
She hadn’t even been able to look me in the eye when she said, “I love another man, Harrison. I will always love him. I’m not here for you. I’m here for me.”
Rejection had burned like nothing I’d ever felt before. And yet I still wanted her. Even after she told me she loved someone else… I’d still think of nothing besides her.
My instinct was to write her off and avoid her at all costs and look on her with disgust. But that reply… that, “I’m here for me” had planted respect and admiration.
I had never been so in awe of a woman before… so completely amazed.
So I decided, that if I couldn’t have her, if I couldn’t get her to see me, I’d hate her instead.
If she thought she was here for herself and no one else, than screw her. And I hoped she’d die alone.
Our relationship had only grown more complicated.
We’d gotten to know each other through stolen, secret moments and harsh, public ones where we’d fought and called each other names and hurt each other.
One time I’d kissed her. Only a year after she’d told me she loved someone else and I’d realized that someone else was Diego.
We’d been up late in the commons and I’d leaned across the couch and kissed her. I’d been so hungry for her; I hadn’t been able to eat anything else. I’d been starved for those lips. Her touch. For her to see me and know me and forget everything else.
And everyone else.
She’d kissed me back, just as greedily.
And then she’d told me that it didn’t change anything. That she still loved Diego.
Part of me wanted to argue that she could love more than one man, but the louder, more dominant part of me didn’t believe that.
I wanted her for myself.
I didn’t want to share her with anyone, let alone a psychotic warlord.
So I’d decided to hate her even more.
She chose Diego time and time again and I wasn’t going to keep falling for her.
If I’d learned anything from my brothers it was that love wasn’t split up into different pieces. Love was whole, completely… healthy. It made a person better, not worse.
It made life better. Not worse.
And yet, Adela and I were nothing but toxic for each other. I was man enough to admit that.
I could admit my faults in this.
Besides, what I had with her wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted what my parents had. I wanted what my older brothers had. And because the end of the world sucked ass and everyone felt like they needed to be a goddamn couple, even Page and Miller were getting their shit together. And I was left on my own. In love with a girl I couldn’t even stand half the time.
How was that fair?
Sharp pain lanced across my eyes and I shut them momentarily. When I opened them I slammed on the brakes wrongly thinking I was about to hit a pedestrian.
Only this was the apocalypse so there weren’t pedestrians.
Sure enough, it was a Feeder that had darted out in front of me. It turned its head at us and hissed through blackened teeth.
I contemplated running it over, but messing up the truck more than I already had might get us stuck out here. Instead I watched it sniff the air and turn toward us fully. Then it sniffed the air again and decided there was something better in the woods.
It took off loping across the road and into a wooded area where I lost it in the tangle of trees and branches.
“What was that?”
I jumped, surprised that the question had come from Mertz.
“I didn’t realize you were awake,” I told him.
“My head hurts,” he groaned.
“Mine too.”
“There’s another one!” Adela exclaimed.
I followed her outstretched finger and sure enough, a Zombie crossed the road down the road.
“What is this?” I asked. “Zombie crossing?”
“There must be something in those woods.” King’s voice came through the back window that had been shot out during the car chase.
I turned around to ask him his opinion when I noticed how close we were to the burning city. “We’re just to the west of Allentown,” I said. “I can see the smoke.”
King turned around to check. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that if Luke and Page never made it back to their car and the Colony didn’t pick them up anywhere… that they had to run somewhere, right?”
“You think that’s where those Feeders are headed?” Miller’s voice boomed from the back.
As if to prove my point, a Zombie screeched through the early morning, shattering the still silence around us.
“If they rescued that contact, he could be hurt. He could be bloody. Mertz, you said he was going to be beaten to death, right? That implies blood.”
“Lots of blood,” Joss added.
“Not to mention any one of them could have been hurt at any time,” King added. “I think you’
re right, Harrison. I think we follow those Feeders, we find Page.”
“Or other hurt people,” Mertz added. “They could take us straight to the Colony. This could be a trap.”
I shared a look with my brother. “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “We have to go check.”
“We can’t leave the truck,” Mertz argued. “What if those Colony soldiers come back? They’ll know we’re in there. They’ll find us.”
“That’s a chance I’m willing to take,” Miller declared. He jumped over the side of the truck and landed with the grace of a kitty cat.
“He’s right,” King said. “We have to at least check it out.”
“There could be a hundred Feeders in there.” Mertz was clearly terrified, but he was also still shaking from the collision. I wasn’t sure if he was up for this.
And yet, we couldn’t leave him here by himself either.
“Like he said, that’s a chance we’re willing to take.” I looked him in the eye. “This is our sister, man. A hundred Feeders or the Colony or hell, an army of Bigfoots is worth fighting to get her back. You get it?”
“We’re going to die.”
I smiled at him, hoping to reassure him. But by his flinch, I realized the smile didn’t help.
“We’re not going to die. Trust me.”
He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. “That’s the thing. I don’t trust you.”
I laughed because I thought he was joking. Then I realized he wasn’t. “Come on, now,” I grinned at him. “I’m a Parker. God loves us best.”
I jumped down from the driver’s seat for no other reason than to end the meaningless conversation. It didn’t matter what Mertz did, but the rest of us were going after those Feeders. I didn’t have time to candy-coat this for him.
King stepped up next to me. “God loves us best?”
I shrugged. “Don’t tell me you haven’t thought it before.”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “I can honestly say that I haven’t.”
I patted down my chest, sides and back to make sure all my blades were present and accounted for. I turned back and waggled my eyebrows at my brother and friends. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go see if I’m a liar.”
I saw bloodlust reflecting in everyone’s eyes. Even Mertz. We knew we were walking into a fight. But this was what we signed up for.
Love and Decay Page 23
