Love and Decay: Revolution, Episode Nine

by Rachel Higginson

  After battling the infection, after feeling suffocated and drowned and nearly dead, his tight hold did the opposite of reassuring me. Claustrophobia skittered over me, clawing beneath my skin and scratching at my bones. I wanted to pull away from Miller. I needed to catch my breath. But for his sake, for my family’s sake, I didn’t move.

  “I can handle this, Tyler,” he growled in a low voice. “As long as they stay true to their word. As long as all they want to do is see Page and ask her some questions. Then I’m fine. They have nothing to worry about. And I'm more than a little insulted that you felt the need to question me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You haven’t made the greatest impression. We all want to protect Page. That’s what this whole thing is about. Don’t make things worse for us. For her.”

  His teeth snapped together so hard it sounded like a firecracker popping in my ear. “Your concern is noted.”

  “Let’s go,” Hendrix commanded, ending their argument.

  My gaze moved to my older brother’s as he spoke and I found him already staring at me. There was that concern again. His eyes wrinkled in the corners, and there was a look in them that I had never seen before.

  It was different than just a few minutes ago when he was worried about the infection and its effects on me. His gaze dropped to Miller’s arm around my waist and then back to me. “Ready?” he confirmed.

  I held his stare, hoping he could see my confidence. This was Miller. This was always how Miller behaved. Neither Hendrix nor I should be surprised or concerned. Miller knew when to back off. He knew when to behave. He didn’t always listen to his instincts, but he would for me.

  He would.

  “I’m ready,” I told Hendrix.

  He turned around and led our group through the maze of underground hallways. Reagan flanked him tightly. They didn’t glance back, but I felt their attention on me the entire walk.

  I decided to ignore them—to ignore everybody.

  I was overly sensitive from exhaustion and physical pain. I needed rest. I wasn’t fully recovered. There were a hundred reasons to feel paranoid and insecure, but I wasn’t going to let my family feed the fire of anxiety building inside me.

  I had to get through this trial.

  I had to prove that I was fully human and I had never changed.

  That was enough to worry about for now.

  Miller, the residual effects of the infection, whatever else there was to be worried about… those things could wait.

  We walked for longer than I wanted to. I was out of breath by the time we stopped, and a thin sheen of sweat coated my forehead and lower back. It was cold sweat. Not from the exercise, but from the illness.

  I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand and pinched my cheeks, hoping to add some color to them.

  “I look like death,” I whispered to Miller.

  He jerked his chin in disagreement. “You look alive. You look like life. And I’m grateful for it, Page. You have no idea how much.”

  Hendrix stepped through the door first. He disappeared for a few seconds before he reappeared, holding it open for all of us.

  Miller and I were the last to enter the room. I blinked at the low lights and the three rows of strangers sitting in the middle of an average looking room. They sat behind long tables, each holding a piece of notebook paper and a writing utensil of some kind. They stared at me as I followed my family inside. Their cold, calculating gazes never wavered as I moved carefully into the room.

  Shelving stood against the back wall and a long white board hung in the front of the room. Otherwise, the cement walls were empty and dull. A long table sat in front of the whiteboard, identical to the ones facing it. Hendrix, Reagan, Nelson, Haley and Tyler moved to sit behind it. Miller pressed his hand to my lower back again and guided me to the front of the room. He didn’t sit, so I didn’t either.

  I looked at the grouping of people I was supposed to testify to. Their mundane faces blended into a sea of harsh judgment and lives that were hard and well fought for. Tears welled in my eyes, but they weren’t from fear or sadness, they were from pure exhaustion.

  I told myself to memorize these faces, remember who they were. This was important information. They would no doubt never forget what I looked like.

  But I couldn’t make myself pay attention. I couldn’t bring myself to care. I knew that after we left this room, I would forget them all.

  But until then, I had to convince them that I wasn’t a Zombie.

  Or a hybrid human and Zombie.

  I was human. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  Easy.

  At least, it should be.

  The door opened, and two men slipped inside. The second man was overshadowed by the first, but I recognized him almost immediately. He was the reason I’d spent the night in a hunting shed fighting off Feeders and Colony soldiers and death—Micah.

  He looked completely different than that night. His face had mostly healed, except for purplish bags beneath tired eyes. He walked slightly hunched over as if he still sported broken ribs, but he was clean, and his clothes were fresh. He looked human again.

  I found myself jealous of him.

  He met my gaze from across the room and gave me a slight nod. I thought I saw relief in his haunted gaze, but I could have been wrong. The shadows in the dim room seemed to hug his features and blanket his expressions, like he’d seen too much to ever be in the light again.

  “Page.”

  My attention moved from Micah to the man that had said my name—Luke. He stood in the middle of the aisle, surrounded by his “council” on either side. Our gazes clashed, and he said nothing more, just stared at me.

  Ever since we’d stepped back into this forgotten country, Luke had been different than I expected. Whatever softness I’d imagined him to possess didn’t exist. He was a commander. A leader. He was the protector of people that would be slaughtered without his guidance.

  And standing in this room, assessing every inch of me, he was a hard wall of impenetrable stone. I held his gaze without flinching and saw the truth in those cold eyes.

  He wanted to kill me. I could see it on his face. Feel it in the air. Sense it as my skin tightened with goosebumps and the intense urge to attack blazed inside me. It clawed up my throat and seared my blood, turning my body into an inferno. A vessel made to maim… made to wound and struggle and survive... made to kill.

  It was his responsibility to protect these people, to keep this compound safe. And he would try to take my life because he thought it was necessary. He thought he had no other choice.

  But what he didn't understand was that I would never let that happen. No matter what we'd been through, no matter how connected I felt to this man, if he tried to kill me, I would kill him first.

  I let the silence simmer between us. He hadn’t asked me a question or even comment to me. If he wanted proof, let him be the one to ask for it.

  The air between us seemed to crackle and popped with electricity. The longer he stared at me without speaking, the quieter the rest of the room became.

  I felt the silence like it was a tangible thing coating my skin, pushing me under some unnamed barrier. I fought against it.

  This was a challenge. A competition. And I wasn’t entirely sure it had anything to do with the infection anymore.

  I was very suddenly playing a game I didn’t know the rules to.

  Luke released a pent up breath and took a half step forward before declaring with a steely, immovable voice, “I want to see you bleed.”

  Chapter Three

  Miller exploded behind me. “You want to see what?”

  At the same time, my brothers voiced their protests. “That’s out of the question!”

  “Not on your life, kid!”

  Luke didn’t look at them, not once. His gaze stayed pinned to mine until someone from his council spoke up. Only then did he look away, and I knew it was more out of respect for the person speaking than it was a concession to ou
r staring contest.

  “We need to test your blood,” the man confirmed. “We need to see that it runs red.”

  “Runs red?” Miller demanded incredulously.

  “As opposed to black,” I answered for them. “Where?”

  “Page, you can’t seriously be considering this,” Hendrix demanded. To the council, he said, “You can see that she’s human. Look at her! The bite happened three weeks ago. If she was going to turn, she would have turned within minutes.”

  “Nevertheless,” the man insisted, “we need to see her blood.”

  “No,” Nelson moved to my side. “No, she’s too weak. She only just woke up. You can’t ask her to cut herself open when she’s still recovering. She isn’t up for it.”

  I swallowed back resentment and the need to stand up for myself. My brothers were protecting me the way they had their entire lives. There was nothing to be upset about.

  God, this infection had left me irritable.

  “It’s a simple enough test,” Luke argued. “We’re not going to maim her. Or cause serious injury. We just need to see the quality and consistency of fresh blood.”

  “And the color,” I added. Feeder blood bled black and thick. It didn’t run red. It barely trickled in its coagulated state.

  I tried to step forward, but Miller’s hand landed on my shoulder, squeezing tightly. “Listen to her,” he growled at the room. “She clearly has no trouble understanding or speaking. She’s as human as any one of us. You’re putting her through unnecessary trauma to torture her.”

  Miller’s argument rolled around in my head, bouncing from one side to the other. I couldn’t get it to stick.

  I couldn’t get myself to believe him.

  Was I as human as them?

  I didn’t feel like it.

  I barely felt human at all.

  Nerves built inside me like a funeral pyre. The flames started at my feet, licking my calves and knees, then moving up to my waist, my shoulders, submerging my head in a fire that burned as hot as the sun.

  What would my blood look like? Would it run red? Or would it drip in thick blackish drops?

  Even I didn’t know.

  Luke’s attention moved to Miller. “Let her prove it then. Let her show us. That’s all we want. We just want to see for ourselves that she’s truly immune. And then we’ll let the matter drop. Page will be accepted among us completely.”

  Reagan snorted a derisive sound that made the council turn to each other in angered tones.

  “Have we not been civil?” someone in the back demanded. “Have we not opened our doors to you and provided for all of your needs, even when we didn’t expect you.”

  “Or expect so many of you!” another voice added.

  At this point, my family all started talking at once, throwing accusations at the council. The council countered their claims with some of their own.

  I eyed the nearest chair and imagined sinking into it, so I could rub my temples and block out the angry sounds.

  Apparently, a lot had happened while I’d been out. And none of it was good.

  Sitting down felt like defeat, so I ignored the chair and shrugged from Miller’s grip. He did not let me go willingly. But it wasn’t his decision to make.

  While my family faced off against the council, I met Luke in the middle of the room. His gaze flickered to mine, revealing surprise and something else, something lighter than I had seen in him before.

  Amusement perhaps?

  Satisfaction?

  The look in his eyes mirrored a twinge of something hot and fluttery in my belly. I ignored that out of place feeling, acknowledging that my emotions needed serious calibration.

  Maybe more sleep would help.

  Maybe I just needed to crawl myself out of this infection black hole completely.

  Holding Luke’s gaze, I thrust out my hand and spoke in a low voice so my family didn’t immediately flip out. “Your knife?”

  His eyes flashed—surprise was there again. “And if you stab me instead?”

  “Then I get your kingdom.”

  His lips twitched, and he immediately shielded his expression with that hard steeliness I was so used to. “You’d have to fight a lot of people before that happened.”

  I smiled, but it wasn’t sweet or good natured. It was cruel. Wicked. It was the embodiment of the hell I’d been through with the infection and this goddamn apocalypse since I was six years old. “Have you not learned anything yet?” Leaning in so I could smell him, so I could feel the heat of his body and forcing his face to dip toward mine, I said, “I don’t let anything get in my way.”

  He didn’t reply verbally. He pulled a short butterfly knife from his pocket and placed it in my waiting palm.

  I tore my gaze from his and turned to the nearest table. With a quick flick of the button, the blade released and before my family could protest or I could let myself worry about it any longer, I slid the edge of the knife over the inside of my palm and released healthy, human blood all over the closest councilman’s paper.

  Red blood splashed all over his notes, blotting out whatever he’d written about my family and me. Some dripped on the table around him.

  He made a big show of scooting back in his chair and raising his hands defensively as if I’d try to attack him.

  “There.” I pointed to the gathering blood with my hand that still bled. “You have your answer.” I tossed the knife on the table. Little droplets splashed in a wider circumference, making the middle council member screech and jump back in surprise.

  More hollering erupted. From my family and the council. But I had no more patience for these people. I pushed past Luke, letting our shoulders hit with more strength than I could afford to give up.

  My knees wobbled, and my stomach flipped dangerously, but I held it together until I could push through the door.

  I barely made it across the hall before I had to lean against the wall and slide to the ground. Pulling my knees to my chest, I rested my forehead on them and closed my eyes. Dizziness made my head swirl and bile rose in my throat. I still hadn’t eaten anything, so there was nothing to throw up.

  The door opened, but I was too sick to lift my head and see who it was. Although, I expected it to be Miller. Or one of my brothers.

  Instead, the scent of the person that sat down next to me was completely unfamiliar. As was his voice.

  “They do that to me too.”

  I swallowed roughly and forced my eyes open. I stared at the tip of my boot until my vision stopped swimming, then turned my face without lifting my head off my knees.

  Micah.

  I was very surprised to see him. He must have seen the shock on my face because a faint smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

  “The interrogation,” he explained, holding out a clean handkerchief. I took it gratefully, wrapping it around my cut palm. He went on, “They want to know every single detail about Colony life. They want answers I can’t give them. They won’t stop grilling me until I answer every single question. But I’ve told them everything I know. There isn’t anything else.”

  I closed my eyes again. I needed to lie down. I needed… I just needed… to be alone.

  Micah didn’t seem inclined to read my mind though, and I was too sick to tell him myself.

  “You saved my life,” he said in a quieter voice.

  I struggled and eventually succeeded in opening my eyes. “Don’t worry about it,” I whispered with the remaining dregs of my strength.

  His expression turned serious, haunted with ghosts I understood all too well. “I don’t just mean with the Feeder, Page. In the square. You saved me.”

  I tried to shrug, but it morphed, and I grimaced instead. “It’s what anyone would have done.”

  His gaze narrowed and his hand shot out to grip my forearm. “No, it’s not. Nobody else would have done what you did.” He threw a furtive glance at the still closed door across the hall, then returned it to mine, more serious than before. “I’m
under no illusions as to what they would have done had you not been with them. No matter how much I helped them before I got caught. No matter how much I risked. Even though they’re the reason I was going to die…” His voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. “They wouldn’t have done anything but watch it happen. You’re the reason I’m alive. Not only that, but you saved my life twice. I will never forget that.” His grip on my arm tightened. “Never.”

  A new set of nerves bloomed inside me, quickly growing roots and spreading through my sizzling blood like strangling vines. “We both got lucky,” I whispered to him, allowing his painful grip to anchor me to reality, even as I felt my consciousness finally slipping. “So, let’s leave it at that. Better not spread any unnecessary sentiment around about me. They’re not my biggest fans.”

  He nodded once and released my arm. He knew not to talk about it. It would only cause us both trouble.

  I believed Luke’s resistance was better than the Colony. I had to believe it. Even if I hadn’t seen much of it so far.

  Despite not agreeing with all of their practices, they were our allies.

  At least for now.

  Micah moved to stand, but there was something he needed to know.

  “Micah,” I whispered, forcing him to pause. “My family will always help you. It’s not just me. My brothers and sisters are good people. Miller and Tyler are good people. If you need anything, you’re not alone.”

  He glanced at the door to the room where Luke and his council still argued with my family. He nodded again and then disappeared down the hall.

  That was enough for me. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had no strength left. My body tipped to the side, and I let my hot cheek rest against the cool, gritty ground. Curling into a ball, my eyes closed with a finality that burned and relief whooshed through me like a sweeping wind.

  I woke briefly when my family and Miller emerged from the room. I could hear them talking about me, but I was too tired to care what they said.

  A second later, Miller plucked me from the ground, cradling me against his chest. For a second I felt that peace I’d been missing since I woke up. I felt safe in his arms. Cherished.