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

by Rachel Higginson

  One of his hands tightened at my hip, his fingers resting just above my most intimate place. His other hand stretched over my stomach, large fingers spreading almost the entire length of it. I looked down at his dirty hand, so tan against my pale, blue-veined skin. He made me feel tiny again, delicate in the center of his heavy hold.

  His thumb brushed the underside of my breast, and I gasped at the contact. My skin was extra sensitive after the disease had ravaged my body. I felt every part of him, his rough jeans against my thighs, the buttons on his flannel shirt pressing into my spine.

  Nothing felt as sharp as his thumb moving against my breast, reminding me that I wasn’t just a sick girl, but a female. I wasn’t just a victim of infection and recovery, but a woman with need and desire and so many feelings for this man that I didn’t know what to do with all of it.

  My cheeks heated as I realized how inexperienced I was, how out of my depth I’d managed to get myself.

  I didn’t even know what to do next. I knew I wanted something and I had a vague idea of what that something was… but my head was still a tortuous mess, and the only thing that kept me on my feet was pulsing instinct.

  I turned around, letting my front melt into Miller’s hard chest. Brushing my palms over his shirt, I let them move over him until I could wrap my arms around his neck. Once I was firmly anchored, I tugged on the back of his head until he gave me what I wanted.

  Kisses.

  Our mouths collided with hunger that rivaled anything unnatural I’d dreamed during the infection. This was real hunger, real need.

  Real addiction.

  We connected in a frenzied exhale. Two bodies that belonged to each other—that were meant for each other. Miller kissed me as if his mouth had been made just for me. He knew exactly how to drive me crazy, exactly where to put his hands and how to hold me.

  And he knew not to stop.

  One of his hands moved down and stretched over my ass, squeezing until I felt a twinge of pain, until it felt like his hand had seared his brand into my skin, until I felt claimed. And his mouth never stopped moving against mine, never stopped tasting me.

  “God, I missed you,” he groaned into my mouth. “I was worried about you, but I missed you too.”

  I smiled, maybe for the first time since I’d woken up. “You missed this.”

  He pulled back, letting me see the gravity in his gaze. “No, Page. I missed you. There is no one like you. Nobody sees the world like you do. Nobody laughs like you do. Nobody listens like you do. I thought I would go crazy waiting for you to wake up.”

  I brushed his unruly hair back on his forehead. “I think I did go crazy, Miller.” Truth suffused the sweetness of our moment and reality crept back into this room that had felt so safe until now. “I think something happened to me in th—”

  He cut me off with a firm shake of his head, “You were really sick. Shay and Oliver said your fever got dangerously high. They were worried about what it would do to you. But you’re okay now. You’re fine. You woke up.”

  My heart squeezed from uncertainty. I wanted to believe him. But I wasn’t sure it was that simple. “I feel different,” I whispered. “It’s not just the sickness. It’s… I don’t know how to explain it. I dreamed… I dreamed that I—”

  “You need a bath,” he said firmly, cutting me off once again. “You’ll feel more like yourself after you’ve had a bath.”

  His hands landed on my shoulders, rougher this time, firm with a different purpose. He spun me around, gently pushing me toward the wide tub. “Step in,” he ordered. “I’ll get you some soap.”

  Confusion spiraled through me. Along with something else, something that made me feel abandoned, unwanted. I stepped into the tub, letting the cool water shock my emotions out of that dark space.

  Miller wasn’t rejecting me. He was taking care of me.

  My embarrassment caused a blush to creep over my skin again, and I quickly sat down in the water, gathering the bubbles that were left to cover my chest. I couldn’t explain the quick shift in my emotions other than noticing they mirrored Miller’s.

  He went from hot to cold in a second. He had been sizzling with just as much desire as I had been. But now he moved robotically around the room, gathering everything I needed for my bath with single-minded focus.

  When he handed me a bar of soap, his gaze stayed on his shoes. He set the shampoo down on the ground and backed up three steps. I held the soap awkwardly in the air.

  Grabbing a towel and a washcloth as an afterthought, he dropped them next to the shampoo and moved toward the door. “I’m going to be right outside the door,” he explained. “If you need anything, just yell.”

  “You’re not…” I closed my eyes, feeling foolish. “You’re not going to take a bath with me?”

  A heavy silence punctuated his pause. The air in the room heated again. I felt it even in the cold water. It wasn’t much, but it gave me enough courage to open my eyes and look at him.

  And holy smokes.

  He stood in the doorway, a warrior just returned from battle, an avenging angel with death smeared on his hands and fire in his blood. His gaze had warmed again, heated until I could feel the flame in my blood.

  “Page, you just woke up. You are in no condition to take a bath with me.”

  “But—”

  “Not today,” he growled. “As tempting as you are, you’re still weak. I can’t… I care about you too much to ask that of you.” He looked down at the floor for a long moment before lifting that dark gaze to mine again. “You need to relax, and if I get in that water with you, the last thing I’ll let you do is take it easy.”

  Oh.

  Oh, my.

  “Okay,” I whispered, not sure if I was afraid or excited.

  His hand wrapped around the door handle and he tugged it open a sliver. Before he stepped out his hungry eyes moved over me, drinking me in one last time. “It will happen though, Page. Get better, and then I’ll show you how much I missed you.”

  I struggled to remember how to breathe as he disappeared through the door. Once he was gone, I sat there trying to recover from him, from the sheer, consuming force of him until goosebumps pebbled my skin and the water turned from cool to cold.

  I got to work after that, scrubbing the filth off me with a sudsy washcloth until every inch of me was red and tender. Then I washed my hair three times, needing it to feel different too, needing it to be cleansed of all sickness and bad thoughts.

  The bubbles had disappeared by the time I finished, but when I stepped out of the bath, I felt clean. I felt refreshed.

  At least on the outside.

  I wrapped myself in the towel Miller had left for me. Glancing around the room, I wondered what I should do next.

  “Miller?” I called tentatively.

  The door opened immediately. His gaze found mine and didn’t waver. “Done?”

  “Do I have anything to wear?”

  He thrust a pile of clothes through the cracked door. “Reagan brought you these.”

  My eyes watered at the sight of fresh clothes. There was no reason to cry over them, but I wasn’t exactly stable at the moment. I cleared my throat before Miller asked any questions and reached for the clothes he held.

  He gave me privacy once again, and I changed into fresh underwear, leather pants King had made me in Bogotá and a black tank top. It was my usual ensemble, and I felt even more like myself.

  Maybe Miller was right. Maybe I had just needed to get clean.

  Maybe that was the only difference between infection-induced insanity and mental clarity.

  Maybe…

  I combed through my hair with my fingers. I needed a brush, but Miller hadn’t brought one. So I settled on pulling it into a tangled braid and ripping off a thin strip of the towel to tie the ends. The wet braid dampened the shoulder of my shirt and cooled my already shivering skin. After everything though, a few goosebumps were hardly something to complain about.

  When I emerge
d from the dim room, most of my family had congregated in the hallway. My nieces and nephews weren’t anywhere to be seen. Harrison and King were also absent, but everybody else crowded together, anxious expressions studying me intently. My cheeks turned bright red with the memory of Miller and me behind that door.

  I couldn’t look at my brothers. I wanted to run back in the room and hide from their keen gazes.

  “Feeling better?” Hendrix asked.

  I stared at his steel-toed boots and tried my best to be calm. “A little.”

  “You look refreshed,” Reagan added. “That bath must have been the right medicine.”

  Doing everything in my power to look everywhere but at Miller, I nodded. “Yep.”

  Awkward silence followed, and I felt guilty for making the tension more strained. My family needed reassurance I was okay, but I wasn’t sure I could give them that yet.

  I attempted a small smile. “I don’t smell like death anymore. That helps.”

  Everyone let out a shaky, relieved laugh. Shoulders relaxed. Eyes untightened. They felt better at least. Even if I didn’t.

  “Hey, Page,” Nelson started. He stepped forward and rested a warm hand on my shoulder. “We have to ask you to do something you aren’t going to want to do.”

  Immediately, I felt sick to my stomach. I started imagining all kinds of horrific things. I pictured my brothers bringing out platters of brains to test my resolve. I imagined Reagan and Haley throwing me outside to join the Feeders that circled our new home, waiting for me. They weren’t rational thoughts. They were remnants of the madness still swirling inside me.

  Logically, I knew that.

  But the terror and disgust stabbed through me as real as anything I had ever felt.

  “Luke and his people need to see you,” Nelson finished.

  “Wh-what?”

  “Everyone’s heard that a Feeder bit you, but since you’ve been quarantined for two weeks now, rumors have started to circulate.”

  I stared at my brother. I could see the concern written all over his face, but I could also see the resignation. He didn’t want this anymore than I did, but what choice did we have?

  If I didn’t carry the immunity myself, I would never believe it was possible or that someone else had it. Even now, I wasn’t sure I believed I was one hundred percent immune.

  Although that was a secret I would never share.

  Still, I couldn’t shake the bitter feelings of frustration. I just wanted to go back to bed. In a different bed than the one I’d been confined to during my infection. I did not want to stand in front of a bunch of people and prove to them how human I was. “So they want me to sing and dance for them? Show them my scars?”

  “They want proof that you’re not a Zombie,” Hendrix answered. “You don’t have to do anything but stand there.”

  “I look like shit.”

  Reagan flinched at the harsh tone of my voice. She’d heard me curse before, so I knew it wasn’t that. The words still tasted like dirt on my tongue. It was my attitude that bugged her.

  The leftover monster that hadn’t quite been exorcised from my system.

  “You look alive,” she argued, emotion making her voice wobble. “After getting bitten a second time, that’s more than we could have ever hoped for.”

  I wrinkled my nose, but I knew she was right. I am alive. I could at least prove that. “How quickly can I get this over with?”

  “We can do it right now,” Hendrix assured me. “Everyone’s been waiting since they heard you woke up today. Then you can go rest and not have to worry about it anymore.”

  “Do I have a choice? Can I do it later if I want to?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted to hear Hendrix say it.

  He shook his head. “They need proof, Page.”

  I took a deep breath and dug for patience. “How many people live here?”

  My brothers found something else to look at besides me, so Haley stepped forward and answered, “More than two hundred. At least. We haven’t met everybody, but most are around at meal times.”

  My eyebrows shot to my hairline. “You want me to stand in front of two hundred people and prove that I’m not a Zombie?”

  “There’s a council,” Haley explained. “You only have to stand in front of the council. They’ll calm the rest of the population.”

  “Calm?” The word bounced around in my head trying to land, trying to find someplace that made sense.

  Miller stepped in front of me, pushing my brothers back. His hands cupped my neck, resting his thumbs against my jaw. “Seeing is believing, Page. Show them so they never doubt you again.”

  Somewhere in the depths of his dark eyes, I found courage. Strength. Resolve I didn’t know I had. His touch and that unwavering confidence that heated my blood and sent my insides buzzing with energy spread to me in a way that not even my family could inspire.

  “Don’t leave me?”

  His lips quirked up in a half-smile. “That is something you never need to ask me.”

  Just when I felt a seedling of confidence because Miller would be at my side, Reagan dashed all my hopes. “You can’t go in there like that, Miller. The council already doesn’t like you. You’re covered in blood and guts. That’s not going to help anybody.”

  Miller kept his gaze on me, but it hardened. “I’ll wash off then.” His head snapped toward Reagan and Hendrix. “Don’t leave without me.” When he turned back to me, he was barely softer. “I’ll be right back.”

  He disappeared into the room I had just exited, and immediately we heard bottles tossed around and water splashing into the tub.

  “Why don’t they like Miller?” I asked my brothers.

  They looked at each other, sharing concerned glances. Finally, Nelson said, “He hasn’t been the easiest to work with while you were incapacitated.”

  That didn’t surprise me.

  “Page?” Hendrix asked tentatively.

  I turned to him, but he didn’t seem to know how to follow up his thought. His silent questions swirled around us and thickened the air with growing tension.

  “It’s different from the first time,” I finally confessed. He didn’t have to ask for me to know what bugged him. “I don’t know why.”

  Reagan’s hand landed on my bicep, squeezing gently, “Do we need to be worried?”

  Do we need to be worried? What a question.

  I shrugged and asked a question of my own. “Did the fever seem different to you? Did I act differently than the first time?”

  Hendrix fell silent again, tripling my anxiety. Yes, it was different than the first time.

  “You were pretty lethargic after that first bite,” Reagan answered. “Your fever was high, and you were really sick, but you just laid still.”

  I filled in the blanks with what she didn’t say. “But I didn’t lie still this time?”

  “It was only sometimes,” she rushed to add. “It was like you would fall into fits of some kind. You would thrash and scream and fight us when we tried to help.”

  I closed my eyes, and a hundred nightmares flashed through my memories. Fits of some kind? Try cravings and bloodlust and a thirst so strong I thought it would kill me.

  The muscle beneath my left eye twitched, and suddenly I was too exhausted to stand. I swayed on my feet only to have my brothers swoop in and steady me—Nelson on one side, Hendrix on the other.

  “You should sit down,” Hendrix murmured.

  It was only then that I glanced up noticing we’d drawn a crowd. I had intended to look for a chair. I wasn’t going to fight Hendrix, not when I felt this weak. I was nowhere near fully recovered, and the bath had zapped whatever strength I had left.

  But looking at either end of the hallway and noticing strangers gawking at us—gawking at me—forced me to remember that I didn’t have the luxury of weakness. These people needed proof I wasn’t a Feeder. They wanted to see for themselves.

  Bitterness burned through me, even while the tiny, rational part
of my brain that had survived the infection argued that I would want to see too. I wouldn’t be able to hear a rumor as fantastical as mine and let it be. I would have to investigate for myself.

  So I would show them.

  Even if I didn’t feel fully human. Even if I doubted my recovery and the haunting memories of fever dreams I couldn’t shake.

  I sucked in a painful breath, ignoring the aches in my ribs and stiffness of my lungs. Shrugging my brothers off me, I stood up straighter and ignored the swirling dizziness that clouded my vision.

  “I’m fine,” I told them. “I just want to get this over with so I can go back to bed.”

  A door opened behind me, and I felt Miller’s presence fill the hallway again. The dark cloud of his stormy mood seemed to descend on us, dimming the lights and thickening the cool air.

  A chill crawled up my spine at his closeness. He had changed since I’d been infected.

  Difficult to work with?

  A severe understatement.

  His voice broke through the tension as he barked demands at the ends of the hallway. “You have places to be. Get to it.”

  Feet shuffled along the ground as the crowds that had stopped to gape at me scattered. His hand pressed against my lower back in the next second, his body heat covering my shivering body. “Assholes,” he grumbled with his cheek pressed into my hair.

  “We’re all here,” Nelson noted. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Tyler stepped forward, speaking up for the first time. “Are you sure you can handle this?”

  I opened my mouth to answer her, but it was Miller’s huff of annoyance that made me realize she wasn’t talking to me. “I’m going, Ty. There is nothing on this planet that could keep me out of that room.”

  Her jaw flexed with irritation. Or maybe concern? “Nobody’s trying to stop you, Miller. But we have to know you can handle it. Them. Their questions for Page. If you make this worse for us, I swear to God—”

  He stepped into me, one hand wrapping around my waist. I felt protected and cared for. But I also felt possessed. Owned. Miller was making a statement with his hold on me.