Love and Decay: Revolution Episode Nine (Love and Decay: Revolution #9)

by Rachel Higginson

  “You were dreaming,” she confirmed. A small flashlight flickered on and blinded me for a second. “Let me see,” she demanded.

  I followed her instructions and let her check me over. In the depths of my soul, I knew she wouldn’t find a tangible reason for my symptoms or have an answer for any of them. But I needed her to tell me I was fine in other ways—even if my mind was rotting. I needed her to tell me that I was on my way to recovery or that I was still suffering from the infection but that I would feel better soon.

  Even if she had to lie.

  I licked my dry, cracked lips and shifted uncomfortably beneath a fresh sheen of sweat coating my body. “Don’t let me fall asleep again.”

  Shay still sat beside me, but her attention had moved to the notebook in her hand as she furiously wrote down whatever it was she’d witnessed me do. “I’m afraid that would only make things worse. You need rest, Page. You’re still ill.”

  My fingers wrapped around her forearm and I squeezed as tightly as I could. “I can’t…” I swallowed thickly and tried to speak beyond my fear. “Every time I sleep, it’s worse.”

  “Your dreams?” she guessed.

  “The infection,” I whispered.

  She shook her head decisively, but stood up none the less, putting distance between us. “You’re getting better,” she told me. “You’re recovering. That’s why the dreams are so lucid. You’re not better yet. But you will be.”

  I shook my head too, a horrified reflection of her. “What if I’m not?”

  Her gaze moved to a serrated knife resting on her desk. It was mine. I recognized it. How appropriate would it be if Shay turned it on me after I had used it to slaughter so many Feeders?

  She looked back to me, her jaw stubborn and tight. “You are,” she argued. “If you were succumbing to the infection, you wouldn’t be sitting here arguing with me. What you’re going through Page, is the disease working itself out of your system. Not the other way around.”

  I didn’t believe her.

  I couldn’t. Not after knowing the hunger inside me, the burn beneath my flesh, the angry, gaping hole in my gut.

  But I also wasn’t willing to give up this life or my family or Miller. At least not now. I was too weak to talk myself into ending it on my own. I was too fragile and filled with uncertainty.

  It would have to be someone else that took my life from me.

  Thankfully, I knew that if I were on my way to becoming a Feeder, my family would not hesitate. They might hate what they had to do. They might not ever recover.

  But they wouldn’t hesitate.

  Miller appeared in the doorway, looking like wrath personified. The light was dim in this room, fueled only by candles and lanterns for Shay to work by. His shadow stretched long and tall, darkening the room with his presence.

  I sucked in a sharp breath at the sight of him. He must have just returned from hunting. His chest heaved with his effort to catch his breath, and his clothes were covered in Feeder blood. He hadn’t bothered to change or wash off. He barely looked human.

  Feral.

  Rugged.

  Unbelievably hot.

  My heart pounded as hard as it had in my dream. I had been waiting for him. I hadn’t realized it until now, but it was true.

  I hadn’t believed I would be okay—that all of this would be okay—until he appeared.

  He didn’t move from where he stood. He didn’t reach for me, touch me or hold me or do any of the things I needed him to. Instead, he stayed pressed against the farthest wall with a haunted, heartbreaking look in his eyes.

  "I thought you were going to die," he rasped.

  The words fell out of his mouth like a rock. A hard, cold stone that smacked the floor and my heart with a crushing blow. He jerked his chin with defiance, daring me to tell him he shouldn't have thought that. His mouth pressed into a straight line. And his eyes.

  So stormy.

  No, that was wrong. They were explosive. A volcano waiting to erupt—simmering on the surface but so very dangerous just beneath.

  I wanted to reassure him I was fine, but I knew he would call my bullshit the second I opened my mouth. And besides, I no longer had patience for bullshit. Instead, I asked, "What would you have done without me?"

  His expression didn't change. His body didn't move. He held my gaze and declared, "Burn this whole damn world to the ground."

  I believed him.

  Letting out a shaky breath, I said, “Good thing I didn’t die.”

  He finally moved, stalking across the room like a panther hunting its prey. My heart beat faster. My blood rushed through my veins. I watched him as he walked toward me, but I could only focus on his face—the hard jaw, the wild hair, the eyes that sliced through me, opening me in a way that only he could.

  Something clattered to the ground in his pursuit, but it barely registered. It wasn’t part of my reality. It was a distant sound that blended in with everything else in this room. The walls, the tables, Shay… they weren’t real when compared to Miller.

  They couldn’t exist in the same space as him.

  It was only him. Him and me.

  Then he was in front of me. His palms slid over my jaw, and his fingers burrowed through my plaited hair. He held me closely, firmly, too tightly. But I did not care.

  This man was reminding me that I was his. That he had claimed me. That nothing on this earth could tear us apart, not even Zombies and infections and death.

  “I’ll just check on some things,” Shay mumbled as she backed toward the exit. “Some other things. Things that are not in this room.”

  As soon as she was through the door, Miller’s lips were on mine. He tasted like salt and metal, and I couldn’t have tasted any better. I was sharply reminded that I hadn’t brushed my teeth in a while and I shrunk back with embarrassment.

  His hands squeezed my head and brought me back to him. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “I-I need a shower and a toothbrush.”

  His eyes flashed with fire. “You think I care about that? Goddamn, Page, do you think I would ever care about that? I nearly lost you. Again. The only thing I care about is that you taste like you. You smell like you. Filthy, dirty, covered in sweat or blood or Zombie gore, you’re still you. And I need you. Damn, I need you more than I need to breathe right now.”

  I kissed him this time. I crashed my lips into his and wrapped my weak arms around his neck. One of his arms dropped to circle my waist so he could press me against him.

  He was right. It didn’t matter what Miller looked like or tasted like, I needed him. After the infection, after being separated from him, after everything that happened in my life, I needed him.

  He kissed me like a starving man, a man hungry and desperate and beyond reason. His mouth moved over mine while his teeth bit into my bottom lip and his tongue tasted and explored.

  I quickly forgot everything I was self-conscious over and chose to enjoy him and this moment instead. He held me against him with strength that dwarfed mine, which made me feel more fragile than ever before. He wasn’t just a man. He was a force of nature that would destroy anything that tried to come between us.

  Or tear us apart.

  He had fought for me since the day I met him, and I knew that he would continue to fight for me for as long as I still had breath and humanity.

  Even the smallest sliver of either.

  When he pulled back, a choked sob worked its way out of my chest and exploded through our silence. He yanked me against his solid frame, and I breathed him in—the scent of his skin, the remnants of his recent fight, the man that he was.

  “Shh,” he soothed. “You’re okay now, Page. I have you. You’re okay. I’m not going to let you go. Not now. Not ever.”

  His words soothed the hurting pieces of me. He calmed my fears and my panic. He slowed my racing heart and whispered words straight to the most frightened parts of me.

  I hadn’t believed I would be okay. I hadn’t believed I
would ever be okay.

  Until now. Until Miller put his arms around me and promised that I would be.

  “I thought I wouldn’t survive this time,” I hiccupped against his neck. “I thought I would become one of them.”

  He pulled back so I could see the storm in his eyes again, the storm that said nothing could stop him. Nothing could make him stop.

  “I would never let that happen,” he growled. “Never.”

  I stared at him for a long moment, letting his conviction seep into my bones. “Okay,” I whispered in a tiny, breakable voice. “I believe you.”

  He nodded once, then stood up. I winced as his body heat and the strength of those solid arms left me.

  I missed him already.

  I needed him already.

  But it wasn’t a second later that he pulled me back into him, cradling me against his chest. “You need a bath,” he announced. “And so do I.”

  I buried my face against his throat, embarrassed by his words and intention. He didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he didn’t care.

  Apparently, we were taking a bath. Now.

  The hallway we walked down was empty, and I couldn’t hear much of anything over the whirring sound of generators.

  Eventually, curiosity won over timidity because I couldn’t help but look around to check out where we were. The hallways were wide—wide enough for a lot of people to come and go. Or looking at the ground where yellow lines divided it down the middle, more than one truck to travel. But we had to be underground somewhere. The walls seemed carved straight out of the earth.

  Lights flickered overhead, none of them giving off very much light, but enough that we could see. It was clean down here too. The ground was smooth and even, the air cool and crisp. That struck me as odd, even if it shouldn’t have.

  We walked for a while before Miller turned the corner and opened a door. More generators buzzing, but softer this time. Jugs of water lined one wall in all shapes and sizes. A table sat in the middle with towels and hundreds of bars of soap. And on the left side of the room lay a shallow metal basin that would serve as the bathtub.

  Miller carefully dropped me on a short stool near the tub and held my shoulders until I could sit steadily enough on my own. His hands were still covered in dried blood that had rubbed off on my t-shirt, but it didn’t matter since I planned to light it on fire and watch it burn to ash anyway.

  He went to work on the bath, filling the empty tub with jugs of water. He poured something in the water from the table of supplies that smelled like fruit and roses, and I had to close my eyes against the shockingly pleasant scent.

  I had never smelled good as whatever Miller poured into the water.

  Never.

  When I opened my eyes, bubbles were skimming across the surface of the water—not a lot of them, but enough to make me stare in awe. The light above was dim, casting shadows along the edges of the room. My heart fluttered with anticipation for a bath I could hardly sit up for.

  I should be too tired to care about Miller and what he would think of me naked. I was definitely not my best self. Wrapping my arm around my waist, I could feel how skinny I’d become. I could only imagine the state of my hair and face.

  And yet, Miller didn’t seem to notice any of those flaws.

  When I looked up into his warm eyes, I couldn’t help but feel nervous. Miller didn’t do things halfway. Every move he made was carefully planned and anticipated.

  And I very much felt the anticipation buzzing through him.

  “Where are we?” I asked while he continued to mess with the bath.

  “Kansas salt mines,” he explained.

  I closed my eyes and tried to conjure a map of the former United States—tried and failed. My thoughts stayed chaotic and jumbled. A whoosh of exhaustion rushed through me the longer I tried to force coherency into them.

  I leaned onto one hand, barely catching myself from sliding off the stool.

  Miller reappeared at my side, settling his hands on my frail shoulders, catching me before I could crumble. “Careful, Page.”

  I lifted my gaze to meet his. He seemed larger than life at this moment. A fantasy I’d dreamed up in my feverish state. He couldn’t be real. He couldn’t be this strong or solid or healthy when I was the exact opposite.

  I had always prided myself on my bodily strength. I could run fast. I could keep up with my brothers. I could kill as easily and precisely as anyone else in my family. And my mind… my mind was the center of my deepest resolve. I could trust it. I could rely on it. I could believe whatever it told me.

  Until now.

  Now, my mind was as weak as my body. If I was completely honest with myself, I still didn’t believe that Miller or that this place was real, or that I’d crawled out of the black hell I’d been submerged in during this infection.

  My mind whispered lies and manipulated my cravings. Miller had warned me about the darkness inside him, but it couldn’t be worse than the festering sickness living inside me.

  We were both broken now.

  Both lost to the ghosts in our heads and the warnings of our pasts.

  “Was I this fragile last time?”

  His jaw clenched with frustration, but his fingers moved to cradle my face in his calloused grip. “You’re always fragile to me.”

  “Not always,” I argued. Defensiveness pulsed through me.

  He dropped a kiss on my forehead. “Yes, always. I know you can take care of yourself, Page. And I know you have this immunity to the infection. But you’re still human. You still only have this one life. You could still be taken away from me by the smallest thing. A gun or blade. A Feeder that gets to do more than bite you. A sickness that can’t be cured. A strike of lightning or a million other things. You are not invincible. You can be killed. And that makes you unforgivably fragile.”

  I forced a lump down my throat and gathered my thoughts before I replied. “Are you blaming me for my humanity?”

  His eyes flashed with darkness. “Yes.” He sounded sincere.

  “You’re just as human.”

  He jutted his chin and looked away. “But you could survive it if something happened to me. It’s not the same for me.”

  My hands fell to his chest, clutching his shirt for support. “Miller… I couldn’t. I—”

  When his gaze found mine again, it burned with the hottest fire. His fingers flexed against my face and his chest vibrated with disapproval. “After all this time, you still have no idea.”

  My question tumbled from my mouth in whispered fear. “What do you mean?”

  “You have no idea what I would do for you. How far I would go to protect you. You have no idea how dangerous my feelings are for you.”

  Confused tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, but I held them back. I didn’t understand them, and I couldn’t explain my reaction to Miller if he asked. “Tell me then.”

  He shook his head, and his lips kicked up into a small smile. “I’d rather take a bath.”

  I was sure he could hear me gulp. If he’d intended to distract me, he did a great job.

  Chapter Two

  I wanted a steaming hot bath that made my skin feel raw and new. I didn’t get it, but by the time Miller had stripped me bare and helped me to the tub, my entire body blush was red hot.

  His hands skated over my skin, barely touching but leaving scorching reminders that he was here with me, seeing me in a way that no other man had. I was thankful he was behind me. I didn’t think I could handle looking at him right now.

  I had never been particularly self-conscious of my body until this moment. I had always been comfortable in my own skin. Or at least tolerant. I had never been able to judge my looks objectively. And I had no real standard to compare with. But I was generally happy with my size and looks, confident enough to ignore insecurity and self-judgment. Until this exact second, I wouldn’t have thought nakedness would ever bother me.

  This wasn’t about being naked. This wasn’t even ab
out being exposed to a crowd of people that wanted to judge me.

  This was something so much more. Something so much more invasive.

  Miller didn’t just look at me; he consumed me with his fiery gaze. Inhaled every inch of me like I was the only oxygen left on the planet.

  I couldn’t look at him, but I could feel him. I felt his body stiffen and turn to stone behind me. I felt his energy shift, and it changed the air around us. He had been careful with me before, but that cautious man was gone. Completely altered.

  He was dangerous now. Razor sharp and intently aware.

  He was a predator. A hunter.

  And I was the prey.

  His hands moved over my back, tentative at first. Not because of me, but because of him. I felt him test his strength, his restraint.

  His low hum of approval when his palms flattened against my shoulder blades sent shivers down my spine. He started to work the muscle there, massaging stiffened, underused tissue that melted beneath his perfect pressure.

  He continued to massage my back, moving to the tops of my shoulders and base of my neck, then down my arms and finally my lower back that screamed in pain at first. But not for long. Beneath his touch, my body started to feel like mine again. I started to feel like something other than wrecked and ruined.

  I let out a deep sigh that began in the middle of my chest and pushed out through my mouth. The sound fueled his confidence, and his fingers pressed deeper into my flesh, forcing my body into submission, demanding that I loosen and obey him.

  “Oh, my god,” I moaned, completely forgetting about being shy or nervous. “That feels amazing.”

  He made a sound of approval in the back of his throat. I leaned toward him, drawn in by the feeling of his hands and the magnetic connection I had never been able to ignore between us.

  His hands settled on the lower part of my back, and I let myself lean against him, resting my shoulders against his chest. He was still fully clothed, and I recognized this wasn’t fair, but I was too afraid to ask for what I wanted.

  “Page,” he whispered. “You don’t know what you’re doing to me.”

  I didn’t know what he meant, but as his hands slid over me to wrap around my hips, I figured it didn’t matter. Despite my post-infection misery, butterflies tumbled through my belly.