Love and Decay: Revolution, Episode Ten

by Rachel Higginson

  The only consolation I had was that at least Matthias couldn’t turn me into a Zombie.

  I was already halfway there.

  Chapter Four

  We were handcuffed with zip ties and thrown in the back of a car. A man squished into the backseat with us, keeping his weapon trained at our heads. Another slid into the driver’s seat, and another turned around in the passenger’s seat with a second gun aimed at us. They were worried we’d try to escape, but I was too concerned about memorizing every single detail of the settlement as we traveled through it.

  We drove on smooth, empty streets. We didn’t pass another car, or even abandoned cars pushed to the sides like every other road we’d ever been on. People walked outside to watch us drive by but they didn’t wave or act friendly toward Matthias’ parade of guards. I did notice a few flags hanging from houses or poles in front of businesses. They were simple enough, large black rectangles with COLONY stamped in red across a strip of horizontal white. In smaller letters, the motto, Be better. Live Better, was printed in that same ominous crimson.

  We were taken to a huge house in the middle of the settlement. The protective wall stretched high over the city and was visible in every direction. An effective cage now that we were firmly in the hands of the enemy.

  The property had a giant rot iron fence running around it as well. A wall within a wall. The top had been wrapped thickly in barb wire. Armed men and women stood like statues stationed every few feet.

  We were let in through a motorized gate that opened when the driver waved at the guard stationed there. I counted seconds and checked out more barbwire as we drove through. Escape wasn’t impossible. Difficult for sure. But not impossible.

  The trailing cars followed us through, taking the driveway behind the house to a paved area where everyone parked. We were ordered to get out, which wasn’t easy with our hands tied behind our backs. My fingers itched to grab the blade still tucked into the back of my pants. But I needed to wait, to bide my time until I could be sure we could get out. Or if it was going to be death, then I’d wait until I could inflict the most amount of harm and death and destruction.

  Matthias was nowhere to be seen at this point. I tried to count all the people guarding us and the house, but more kept popping up. They were everywhere.

  Along the fence. Around the trimmed yard. On the roof. Inside the doors of the house. Evenly spaced down the hallways. In the kitchen. Probably in the toilets. Everywhere. Matthias was so protected that I had to wonder if his perfect settlement wasn’t as peaceful as it seemed.

  We paused in what looked like a common room. A silver-haired man dressed in all black stood up and greeted the original toad that had been in charge of us.

  “Who are they?” The older man asked as if he had the right to know.

  “Prisoners,” Toad responded, sounding as though he were reporting to a superior. “Boss wants them alive.”

  The older man looked at us, gray eyes glinting with interest. “It’s true then. This is his son?”

  The toad frowned, clearly unhappy that word had traveled so quickly. “So he claims to be.”

  “I’ll take them,” the older man volunteered.

  The toad turned his glare on him. “Boss said for me to—”

  “Barry,” the other man said calmly.

  It was enough. Barry backed off. I tried not to be impressed with this man’s unquestioned authority.

  “He’ll hear about this, Tennison.”

  Tennison turned his back on Barry. “I’m sure he will.” To Miller and me, he said, “This way.”

  I had no reason to feel relieved. If Barry the Toad was scary, then surly Tennison had to be worse. But for some reason, I felt comforted with the older man in control. Barry seemed like a loose cannon, anxious for us to disobey so he could accidentally murder us. Tennison at the very least wouldn’t lose his shit and shoot us for the fun of it.

  At least, I hoped not.

  We walked to the back of the house, and I memorized as many details as possible. The windows were open, and the cool breeze lifted gauzy curtains around long, arched windows. Eye-catching works of art hung on striped, wallpapered walls. Delicate antiques adorned flawless cabinets and tables. Haunting music played somewhere in the house. My memory stretched and reached until I came up with the word “classical.” Once the word was there, more memories surfaced. Symphony. Violin. Waving arms holding a thin, white stick.

  My parents had loved music. Our house had been filled with it before the infection. But now my heart ached at the sound. I wanted more of it. I wanted it to fill my head and my blood and my ears until this pinching feeling in my chest went away.

  Tennison opened the door to the basement, and I had the strongest urge to fight him. I wanted to stay where the music was. I needed to stay where there was hope I could escape, and light and fresh air.

  Don’t make me go underground again.

  I bit down on instinct and feral impulses. We stepped into the stairwell, and the music faded and then disappeared. My hope dwindled to anguish. I would kill Matthias Allen just for that. For giving me the gift of music after so very long and then taking it away from me.

  The house was less than inviting downstairs. Gone were the delicate decorations and lush living space. In their place, we faced gray cement and barred cells. A guard stood at attention when we stepped onto the floor. I squinted in the dim, dank area to see several cells lining either side of the open basement, several of them already occupied.

  Tennison walked swiftly to a nearby cell and slid open the door. He gestured at Miller. “Inside.”

  Miller hesitated. “She stays with me.”

  Tennison didn’t even flinch. “She does not.”

  Miller’s fury suffused the room, making the airtight with his aggression. “She stays with me, or my father will hear about this.”

  I didn’t miss Tennison’s amused smirk, but he erased it quickly enough. “When he returns, you’re welcome to talk to him.”

  Miller’s smile was less kind. “Oh, I’m planning on it.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I whispered to him. And I would be, even if I had to redefine the meaning of the word fine.”

  Miller looked back at me, regret and fierce remorse darkening his eyes. “We won’t be here for long,” he promised.

  “I know.” One way or another, Matthias wasn’t planning on making us permanent residents. Either because he was going to kill me or trade me for my family so he could kill them. As for Miller… I didn’t know how to predict what would happen to him.

  I didn’t want to.

  I chose to believe King and Harrison would make a way out for us.

  Miller stepped inside his cell, and the door slammed shut behind him with a deafening slide of metal against metal. My pulse kicked beneath my skin, leaving me feeling angry and scared and defeated all at once.

  “This way,” Tennison ordered, and I had no choice but to follow him to the back of the dungeon.

  We passed haggard looking people, beaten and broken, lying limp in the middle of their sparse cells. They barely looked up at me when I passed, barely acknowledging that there was any life left in them.

  The deeper into the basement we walked, the harder it was to tolerate the smell. Body odor, blood and waste permeated the air. It smelled like death and rotting Zombies, and I swallowed down a gag.

  Tennison opened a cell at the very back of the room, waving his hand for me to enter. I jumped at his low voice, not expecting a question from him. “Your friend is truly Miller Allen?”

  I turned on my heel and stared at him, not offering a response. He didn’t deserve one. He waited patiently for a long time until it was obvious I wouldn’t answer for Miller.

  “That makes you the Parker girl, then?” he pressed.

  I still didn’t answer. They would have to start the torture portion of the day before I reacted to any of their questions.

  “I thought you were a myth,” Tennison whispered so softly I a
lmost didn’t hear him. He held my glare with unflinching gray eyes.

  His comment was so out of place, I spoke before I could think better of it. “Flesh and blood.”

  “Aye,” he nodded. “I see that.” Leaning forward, he tapped a metal bar and said, “But not for much longer if you remain here.”

  I stared at him trying to figure out if that was a warning or a threat. I couldn’t tell. Barry the Toad had been easy to read. His half-cocked thoughts were obvious and plain and about as original as a rock. This man was something different, something craftier. Something slier.

  And that made him infinitely more dangerous.

  Taking a step out of the way, I let Tennison slam the cell door shut and lock it. He stood on the other side, still, poised and utterly calm. I found myself moving back another step. He freaked me out in the worst way.

  I couldn’t read him. He was too quiet. Too in control. At first, I’d found his presence comforting, but now I wondered if he was the exact brand of psycho Matthias loved most of all—the kind that would slice you to pieces without breaking a sweat.

  “There’s a bucket in the corner,” he finally said. “If you need it.”

  I glanced back without thinking and gagged. It had been used before. Many, many times. And nobody had bothered to clean it out.

  My eyes scanned the floor, noting the dark spots in varying shapes and sizes. Blood no doubt. I ignored the huge one in the corner, as if someone had just curled up there and bled out.

  God, what had I gotten myself into?

  To Tennison, I said, “I’ll be fine.”

  He nodded. “I’m sure you will be.”

  Turning his back to me, he casually walked back the way we’d come, the small entourage of guards following him closely.

  Once they were gone, I let out a shivering breath. Silence descended but not in a pleasant way. The absence of sound betrayed my ears, and I started imagining a ringing sound. Quiet at first, but not for long. It clanged and screamed in my ears, deafening me with its ferocity. I recognized the panic and tried to breathe through it, but my conditions were bleak. The people in the cells surrounding me hadn’t moved yet, not even after Tennison disappeared.

  I walked back to the cell door, testing the strength of it with my shoulder just for something to do. It didn’t budge. It didn’t even rock.

  My wrists burned where they were tied together, my skin starting to rub raw against the plastic. I tried for my knife, but my hands were in a difficult position, and I ended up stomping in a frustrated circle without making progress. More panic bit at my skin, turning me hysterical with the need to have my hands free and be out of this dungeon and house and freaking settlement.

  “Page?” Miller called from down the line, his voice a balm to my rapidly beating heart.

  I steadied my voice and replied, “I’m here.”

  “Quiet!” the guard snapped.

  And so we were, trapped in a prison of silence and fear. Matthias could leave us down here for hours, days… years, and I wondered if my family would ever be able to find us?

  I dropped my forehead against the cool metal, inhaling rust and grime and despair. “How are we going to get out of this one?” I whispered to myself.

  The guy next to me started laughing. And laughing. And laughing. He laughed long and hard, sounding absolutely deranged. I moved to the far wall needing to be away from him and that awful sound. He laughed so hard I thought he was going to hurt himself.

  Finally, the guard intervened. Stepping up to the cell he ordered the guy to be quiet. When he didn’t immediately obey, the guard pointed something at him and pulled a trigger. I screamed expecting it to be a bullet, but whatever it was had been attached to wires. The prisoner jerked at the impact, the senseless sound dying on his lips as he started to shake and convulse and foam at the mouth until he just stopped moving altogether.

  “Did you kill him?” I gasped.

  The guard looked at me and grinned. “It’s a Taser,” he explained. “Would you like to try it?”

  I made myself meek and small, pressing against the far wall.

  He winked at me. “Maybe later then?” He walked back to his post whistling and swinging that evil Taser in his meaty hands. The guy in the next cell over twitched and moaned, but didn’t get up again.

  Holy shit. This was officially bad.

  ***

  Hours later, my wrists were raw and sore, but free. My throat ached from needing a drink of water, and I’d given up and peed in the bucket. Or near the bucket—somewhere in the dark corner of the cell where I hoped no one could see me.

  I had stood for as long as I could before I finally had to give up and sit on the floor near the cell door. I needed to save whatever little energy I had left, and this was the least disgusting place. That’s where Matthias found me, curled over my bent knees with my back against metal bars and my butt numb and cold.

  Sparing him one glance over my shoulder, I noted that he was without his chair, although he leaned heavily on a cane. He breathed shuddered with every exhale, as if it took all of his effort to stay standing. And his arms trembled, making his cane wobbly and unsteady.

  If it weren’t for the entire army he kept around him at all times, he would be so easy to kill, I admitted to myself.

  I wanted to stare at him longer, learn all of his weaknesses and vulnerable spots. I wanted to glare him down and let him see how strong I’d become. While he’d been wasting away into a shell of his former glory, I’d been doing the opposite. I’d spent the last decade becoming a weapon, a killer.

  I was no longer the little girl that needed her big brothers to protect her. I was fierce and dangerous and beyond capable of ending his pathetic life.

  Sneering at my boots, I forced my attention away from him, refusing to let him see my face.

  After a very long minute, he let out an impatient sigh and said, “I’m going to kill your entire family, girl. Don’t you have something to say to me?”

  Hiding the flinch of fear, I dug my nail into the hem of my jeans, picking at it casually and refusing to respond to him.

  “Ah,” he tsked. “The silent treatment. You still believe you can escape and so you’re keeping your secrets to yourself.” His feet shuffled closer, and his walking stick tapped on the ground in a way I hadn’t thought him capable of a minute ago. “That won’t last long here. Soon, secrets are traded for things like food, water… sleep. Maybe even medical attention depending on how juicy your information is. Ask your neighbors. I’m sure they’d love to tell you how things work around here.”

  Matthias slapped his cane against the bars of my neighbor’s cell. The weaker man, whom I thought had still been unconscious, whimpered in response. When Matthias hit the cell bars again, the prisoner shrieked a keening sound that resonated through the basement, bouncing off walls and burrowing into my head. A sick feeling roiled through me, and I discreetly hugged my knees tighter.

  “I knew you would come back,” Matthias went on as if nothing had happened. His voice lilted gently, thick with that drawl Tyler sometimes had. My memories of his voice were always of him shouting or threatening. It was disconcerting to hear him sound like this. And it was worse somehow. Scarier. “I should have hoped you would die down there. The lot of you. But in my heart of hearts, I just knew you’d come back. I just knew you wouldn’t be able to leave well enough alone.” He leaned one shoulder against the cell, so it was like we were having a private conversation. I just continued to stare at my shoes. “It’s mine, you see. I’m sure you’re too young to remember the earlier days, but I fought long and hard for every damn inch of this country, and I’ll be damned if your family walks back onto my soil and tries to steal it from me. I should have killed y’all a long time ago, but now will have to suffice. I’m sure it will be no hardship on my part.”

  I rolled my head so I could look up at him and ask innocently, “How will you kill them if you can’t find them?”

  He grinned down at me, the sight
crooked and unnatural. The dim lighting cast most of his face in shadow, and the parts I could see were mangled with scars and puckered skin. “But I won’t have to find them, darling. They’ll come looking for you. All I have to do is wait.” He looked away from me, his gaze focusing on the back wall. “Hell, if I’m lucky they’re already here. Isn’t that how y’all travel? In a pack? They’re already out there, in my city. My wolves will find them. Sooner or later I’ll get ‘em.”

  Lies bit at my tongue, desperate to get out. Maybe I could convince Matthias that they were already dead, that it was only Miller and me left. Maybe I could give him false information and send him down to Mexico for Diego’s army to take care of. Maybe, maybe, maybe… I forced my voice to remain steady when I suggested, “Maybe they’ll find you first.” It wasn’t a lie or even a threat. It was my sincere hope.

  Matthias’s gaze flashed back to mine, his black eyes glinting with promise. “Well, now. If you could find me, I guess they can too?”

  He started to back away from the cell, and I hurried to my feet, not wanting him to think that I was a coward. Yes, I was scared, but I was also determined. Fear wouldn’t keep me from my goal, it would feed the fire that fueled my intent. I needed to end Matthias Allen because I was so afraid of him. Because an entire country of people were so afraid of him.

  I wrapped my hands around the bars and leaned into them. “This won’t end the way you think it will.”

  He smiled again. “If I’ve learned anything in this world, kiddo, it’s that it never does.” Apparently, we agreed on something. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go welcome my son home.”

  “I hope he kills you,” I snarled.

  Matthias turned his back on me and said, “I hope he tries,” as he walked toward Miller’s cell.

  I swallowed back a lump of sadness. He sounded so much like Miller at that moment that I wanted to scream.

  This was my fault. We were here because of me.