The Dead Saga | Book 7 | Odium 7

by Riley, Claire C.

  “I think I like this better too,” I replied. “But it’s good to have options.”

  “No, it’s good to know where you belong. Options just fuck everything up. One path, one road, one life… That’s all we need, Nina.”

  I had a feeling he wasn’t talking about the handle anymore, but I let it slide since I didn’t know how to reply to him. He was right, I guess. Shooter was my future now. Ben was gone and so was Mikey. They’d both moved on, in one way or another, and now I had to too.

  “Och, look at you two. Look cute as fuckin’ buttons ya do,” Highlander laughed as his bike pulled up beside Shooter’s.

  “I’ll show you cute,” I said, giving him the middle finger, and he laughed heartily. It was the infectious sort of laugh that had me laughing right back with him, and then I was pretty sure I felt Shooter laughing too, his shoulders bobbing up and down as he tried to hold it in.

  “Such a sweet little princess, aren’t ya,” Highlander said, revving his engine. “Shame ya snatch ain’t as sweet. Bet that thing would bite a dick right off.”

  “Only yours, Highlander,” I retorted dryly.

  “Her snatch is sweet as sweet can be—it’s her mouth you gotta watch out for, brother. But that’s beside the point, because if you talk about my woman’s snatch again it won’t be that you have to worry about biting your dick off, Highlander, you feel me?” Shooter said. He didn’t wait for a reply as he pulled away, leaving Highlander in our wake and choking on our dust. I laughed as I turned my head and watched him growing smaller in the distance before finally pulling his head out of his ass and setting off along with the others.

  The handful of bikes followed us out of the gates and onto the road where Shooter took a right. I pressed my face against his back again and closed my eyes to try to stabilize myself. Part of me still worried that I’d fall off, and Shooter must have sensed that. Either that or he felt how rigid my body was behind him. Every muscle fraught with tension. My teeth were clamped together and my thighs were trembling as I squeezed them.

  “Need you to relax, Nina, I’ve got you. Now remember to move with me,” he soothed over the sound of the throaty bike engine. “Me, you, and the bike, we’re one, remember.” He tugged on my stump and I felt a strap under his cut move and realized that whatever he had attached me to was strapped around him. I was safe. I wasn’t going to fall. He wouldn’t let me.

  He’d purposefully attached me to him to keep me safe. If I fell, he fell. Christ, that was sweet. I couldn’t be angry or irritated with the world for at least a full five minutes because of how damn sweet that really was.

  I nodded and forced myself to try to relax, and little by little I did just that until it was like it used to be as I moved with him, our bodies as one with the bike. I smiled and opened my eyes, watching the world pass me in a blur of boarded-up buildings and burnt-out cars until we were out of town and onto a long stretch of dirt road that seemed to go on for miles and miles.

  The knots in my chest loosened the further away we traveled. Perhaps it was the memories that were back at the clubhouse that haunted me, the memories of my life before, or maybe it was the pain I had gone through—losing a hand and then a wrist and then almost an arm is no joke. Or maybe it was just the freedom I felt with being on the bike and out on the open road. I felt free. I felt like I could breathe again. Like nothing could touch me if we just kept on going and going and never turned back. And if it had been just me and Shooter right then, I might have asked him to do that. But it wasn’t just us. There were three of his brothers with us, and that brought me back to the here and now. This was Shooter’s life, and these men were his family. They had been through so much together: hell and heaven, life and death. I couldn’t ever ask him to leave that—to leave them. That wouldn’t be fair to them or him, because I knew that if I pushed hard enough I might just convince him. I needed Shooter, I realized. In a way I guess I had always known that, but I needed him in a way that reminded me of how strong I was. That I was a desirable woman that still had a lot of life left in her, and not just a body waiting to die. But these men, they really needed him. His guidance, his leadership, his authority.

  I wondered if that was why they were all so nice to me. Why Highlander and Balls had made such an effort to make me feel so welcome. Like I belonged here with them. Because they didn’t want me to take Shooter away from them and they knew I could.

  “You okay back there?” Shooter shouted back to me, his large hand giving my leg a squeeze.

  “Yeah,” I shouted back. “I forgot how much I liked this.”

  He chuckled. “Better than sex, right? Well, almost.”

  “It always comes back to that with you, huh?” I said with a shake of my head, and he looked over his shoulder and smirked, that wonky, gorgeous smirk that made my belly do a little flip and my toes curl inside my boots.

  I held him tighter, thankful for the first time in so many months that I was there. That I had Shooter and I wasn’t completely alone, and maybe also because I was alive.

  *

  We pulled up outside a little town around an hour later. We didn’t get far in before running into a small group of deaders that were surrounding a small gas station, angrily banging their rotten hands on the glass. Flashes of meeting Mikey in a gas station just like that moved through my mind as we pulled to a stop and Shooter shut off his engine.

  He unclipped my arm from the device strapped to his body and I rolled my shoulders as we both got off his motorcycle. The deaders had turned at the sound of the Harleys and were slowly shambling over to us. No one moved to do anything; instead they just stood there like big oafs and I looked between the five of us, wondering when anyone was going to set about killing them.

  “Um, not to alarm you guys or anything, but I don’t think this is your fan club,” I snarked, glancing between Highlander and Shooter.

  Shooter pulled a rolled-up cigarette from the pocket of his cut, and lit it before blowing out a plume of smoke. He looked at me, the cigarette still hanging from his lips and smoke curling in front of his eyes.

  “So, go kill ’em then,” he said, finally plucking it from between his lips.

  Highlander tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned to look he held out the machete attachment for my arm.

  “There’s too many of them,” I stammered. “I haven’t even used this before. What if I’m not strong enough?” My eyes widened as Highlander took two steps toward me and clipped the attachment in place.

  “Gettin’ real close now, Queen B,” said Crank, one of the nomads, and I shot him a glare that would have frozen water.

  “No shit, so go kill them,” I snapped.

  Crank glanced across at Shooter and then back to me, holding up his hands in defense as he sat back down on his bike. “No can do. Big boss says you’re taking point on this.”

  I swung to Shooter. “This is stupid. You’re going to get me killed! You’re going to get us all killed.”

  The deaders were closer now, their growling growing louder. And my panic grew.

  “Shooter! You said to trust you, now do something!” I pleaded, fear running through my veins like this was the first time I’d seen zombies.

  “If you trust me, then go kill ’em, because I trust you, Nina, and I know you can. Now you need to know you can,” he said, his voice low and even like we were talking about where we were going for dinner and not who was going to dispose of the creepy zombies heading toward us.

  I scoffed but didn’t say anything, instead shaking my head and staring between them all as I breathed hard and fast. I couldn’t do this, for God’s sake. There were too many. I’d never swung this thing before. What if it got lodged in one of them? What if I wasn’t strong enough to swing it? What if I missed?

  There were so many possibilities of things that could go wrong, and the nice warm fuzzy feelings I’d had for Shooter only moments before vanished in a blaze of furious glory as my chin trembled.

  “If I die,” I started
.

  “You won’t,” he replied, blowing out another mouthful of smoke.

  “I hate smokers,” I snapped.

  He chuckled like we weren’t under attack. “Go on,” he urged me.

  I turned back to the deaders, stepping away from Shooter and the others to draw the deaders to me and away from them.

  Three of them followed, though one stray—a gray, frail-looking zombie whose bony ribs I could see because it was in its underwear—continued on toward the Highwaymen. I wasn’t worried though. They could handle that one.

  Rolling my shoulders a couple of times to loosen up the joints that hadn’t been used in so long, I prepared myself to kill them. I was right-handed, and it was my left that was missing, so it shouldn’t really have been too much of an issue. And yet it was. I felt off balance. The heavy machete weighed me down on one side. I felt clumsy and uncoordinated as I tried to swing it, completely missing the first zombie.

  “Fuck it,” I grumbled, and pulled out my katana. I flexed my right hand and tightened my grip on it as I tried to remember my stance. I breathed and centered myself, holding my left arm low and my right arm up high.

  As a deader got close I swung at its head. It didn’t go all the way through and my blade only got halfway before I pulled back because I realized I hadn’t put enough force behind the swing. I breathed out again, my gaze flicking briefly to Shooter, who was silently watching me, his cigarette now between his fingers. The gray deader was at his feet, headless, its jaws snapping uselessly.

  “That’s a dangerous head, Shooter,” I grumbled.

  I rolled my shoulders once more and took up my position again, taking a couple of steps back to give myself the space I needed to swing properly. And this time when it came closer I lifted my left arm and jabbed out with the machete blade right through its forehead. The deader dropped at my feet and I felt a triumphant flare in my chest as I skirted away from it and took up position again. The other two deaders followed me, arms reaching, jaws snapping, but I wasn’t scared anymore. I mean, I was always scared of them—you had to be, and you should be if you wanted to survive—but I didn’t fear them anymore.

  Swinging again with my katana, I didn’t hold back, and that time I cut right through the neck, taking the head clean off with a grunt. It hit the ground with a wet slap, but I barely noticed as I used both machete and katana at the same time and sliced from left to right and right to left on the remaining deader and cut it in half. It fell to the ground in two halves and I stepped toward it and stabbed my katana through the center of its forehead for the kill shot.

  When I looked back up, Highlander had done the same with the other deader before kicking the now unmoving head off into the distance. I was breathless and a little bloody. My muscles ached and my phantom arm was throbbing where the strap was rubbing a little. But I had done it; I’d killed three deaders.

  “Come on, let’s see if there’s anything inside,” Shooter said, walking past me like I wasn’t Xena, warrior princess. I stared at his retreating back, my mouth open in shock.

  “Is that it?” I asked, and he glanced back with a raised eyebrow, his cigarette back between his lips again. “You’re not going to say anything about that?” I pointed toward the deaders on the ground.

  I was angry.

  I was proud.

  I was exhausted.

  My pride was wounded because he hadn’t given me a high five or even said well done.

  I guess I wasn’t sure what I actually wanted him to say or do, but I’d expected him to say something. Anything. But then, that was Shooter’s way. He never really made a big fuss over anything. It was black and white with him. His way or no way.

  He arched an eyebrow at me. “What do you want me to say?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe ‘well done.’”

  I felt stupid as soon as the words left my mouth. Stupid and pathetic.

  Shooter clapped his hands together. “Bravo, you badass bitch, you get extra portions of dessert tonight and an extra portion of meat,” he said, flicking his cigarette away to grab his crotch and wink. “Now let’s go look inside and see what our little friends here were after, shall we?”

  He turned and started toward the gas station again, and I stared after him open-mouthed and wanting to punch that smarmy look right off his face. Highlander slapped me on the back with a chuckle, jolting me from my fantasy.

  “That was feckin’ awesome, Queen B,” he said as he continued to walk, and despite myself and the anger I felt at Shooter, I felt my chest fill with pride that at least someone thought what I had just done was amazing.

  “Damn straight it was,” I muttered.

  11.

  Nina

  The gas station doors were covered in brown and bloody prints like some really awful toddler art session, and the windows were so dirty that we could barely see inside. I slid my katana into the sheath across my back and rubbed my hand over the glass, freeing up a small circle in the dirt.

  Inside everything was in disarray—shelving stripped of food, racking knocked over—but no telltale piles of bones or bodies, no blood sprays. That was a good sign. A very good sign. Not to mention that the deaders had been banging on the doors for a reason.

  “Hello?” Shooter called through the glass, his fist tapping lightly on it. “Either come out or we’ll come in. Choice is yours, but if I come in I’ll be carrying out your head.” He tapped on the glass again and we all waited.

  I was just about to give up, and expecting Shooter to smash in the door, when a voice called back to him.

  “Are they gone?”

  “The rotters?” Shooter replied. “Yeah, they’re gone.”

  Another moment passed.

  “Are you…are you safe?”

  “Safe?” Shooter asked. “Ain’t gonna kill you unless you force my hand, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Yeah, that’s what we mean,” the voice called back.

  “Then you’re good to come out.” Shooter was frowning hard, staring into the darkness within.

  “The monsters…they’re definitely gone?” the voice asked again, but it was getting louder now, like they were coming closer.

  “Gone for real this time,” Gauge replied. “No playing whack-a-mole with ’em anymore.”

  “Okay, we’re coming out.”

  I stared through the circle I’d made, peering into the dark within and watching for any kind of movement. Finally, the shadows moved at the back of the store and two figures began slowly edging forward through the darkness.

  “Females,” I muttered to Shooter, and he grunted in agreement. “Two of them.” I frowned, my gaze narrowing as I took in their image as they got closer until they finally came into view.

  They were much like everyone else these days—bedraggled, half-starved, eyes wide with fear and dread. But there was something else there also, something beneath the surface that frightened me more than the deaders did. These people looked desperate, and desperate people did stupid things.

  “I don’t trust them,” I whispered to Shooter, my gaze still fixed on the duo coming toward us. Shooter didn’t reply but I knew he’d heard me.

  “What ya doin’ in there?” Highlander asked as they stood on the opposite side of the glass from us, close enough that I could take in their blank expressions.

  “Hiding,” the older woman replied. She was middle-aged, I guesstimated, though it was hard to be certain because their faces were so dirty and thin. Their cheekbones were sharp and pointy like they hadn’t eaten in weeks, and dark rings circled their eyes. “We were traveling when we ran into the group of dead. My sword broke, her gun ran out of bullets.” She shrugged. “We just didn’t have the energy to fight them, so we ran in here and barricaded the door.”

  “We hoped they’d forget we were in here, or get distracted and leave,” the other girl said, her hard voice not matching her weak persona.

  “How long have you been in there?” I asked.

  “Couple
of days, I guess,” The women looked between each other and then back to me. “We kind of lost count.”

  Shooter backed up from the door and we all followed suit, allowing the two women some space to come out. They both blinked against the brightness, each holding a hand up to their eyes to shield them. Their clothes were as dirty as their faces and they stank to high heaven.

  I hadn’t realized, but Highlander had gone to his bike and gotten some food from his saddlebag. He handed it over to them with a warm bottle of water, and they took it uncertainly.

  “Eat,” he grunted, for once his face not a picture of humor. “You’ll feel better with something in your stomach.”

  They looked uncertainly between themselves again before the older woman finally took the offered food parcel and unwrapped it. She tore the homemade bread in half before handing half of it to the other woman, and they both started to eat. I would have expected them to devour it in seconds, but instead they ate it slowly, like little birds pecking at it carefully.

  “Thank you,” the younger one said. “I’m Zuly.”

  “Nina,” I replied warily.

  The two women looked me up and down, and I felt uneasy under their intense scrutiny. Their gazes moved over my missing hand where my arm attachment was, machete still connected, and they swallowed nervously. I guess I looked real pretty these days. Faded joker smile, missing hand, arms and shoulders covered in scars. Yeah, I was real pretty.

  “This is Kensa,” she replied, looking over to the older woman.

  “Crank, you’re with me,” Shooter said with a jerk of his head. “Let’s go look inside.”

  “There’s nothing in there,” Zuly said mid-chew.

  “We would have found it if there was,” Kensa added.

  “Still gonna need to take a look for ourselves. You never know what people miss.” He strode passed Kensa and Zuly, and Crank followed.