The Dead Saga | Book 7 | Odium 7

by Riley, Claire C.

  “It was undamaged,” she mumbled, like a child being scolded. She glanced briefly to me, even more hate being directed at me. I was definitely off her Christmas card list. “I’m sorry, Aiken,” she stammered. “I just thought it might come in useful.”

  “No, you didn’t think, Aimee. You just did,” he bit out.

  I’d never really seen him like that—so angry, so pissed off—and my guilt grew exponentially, regretting ever opening my mouth and saying anything about the dynamite.

  “You’re done for the time being. No going out. No guard duty. You stay home and you get your shit together before you get someone killed,” Aiken said. His words were calm, his tone respectful now, but there was still anger in his features.

  “Please, I need to do something! I’ll stay in, but don’t take guard duty from me,” she pleaded.

  “You’re done until I say so. I can’t trust you to follow orders anymore,” he barked, moving to sit back in his chair. “Get out of here.”

  Aimee’s eyes were filled with tears and she looked around at us all. O’Donnell looked sympathetic, but she was the only one. SJ and Timbo both looked angry that she’d taken the dynamite, and Freddy just looked guilty, like he’d been the one to snitch on her. Aimee glanced at me as she moved to the door, the tears finally falling from her eyes.

  “Watch your back,” she gritted, swiping her tears away angrily as she left.

  I leaned forward as the door slammed closed and I put my head in my hands. She was never going to forgive me, I realized. It was getting harder and harder to be around these people. To live here. I knew so many of them blamed me for the loss of their people, and now with Aimee hating me so vibrantly…I definitely didn’t have any friends here anymore. Yet I couldn’t leave.

  I owed these people my life.

  Besides, if I left there was no way they’d let Joan stay. She was too much of a liability, and a pain in the ass to boot.

  “Now that that’s cleared up,” Aiken said with a heavy sigh as he sat back down. “You got meds? Food?”

  “Lots of meds,” O’Donnell said, and I lifted my head from my hands. “No food. We can go back out tomorrow though.”

  She opened her backpack and handed it over to Aiken for him to inspect. He reached inside, pulling out lots of bottles and packets of medicine. We hadn’t had time to look through everything and discover what we’d actually gotten, but if I had to bet on it, I’d say it was some good stuff. Strong antibiotics, expensive medicine, back in the day.

  The sound of pills rattling in little bottles echoed through the small room as he took out a couple and read the labels, nodding approvingly.

  “This is really good,” he said, dropping them back in the pack and handing it over to Timbo. “Get this locked away.”

  Timbo took the offered bag and put it by his side. “Do you want me to go out on the next supply run?”

  Aiken nodded. “Yeah, seems we have a space in the team now.” He looked across at us all, assessing us one by one. He didn’t seem to leave Haven very often, and I wondered if that was his choice or because he was scared to leave in case total anarchy broke out if he left. It wouldn’t surprise me; people like Aimee only seemed containable by a strong leadership.

  “SJ?” Aiken said her name and she looked over. “Do you think Moo is ready to go out on the road?”

  A look of surprise flickered across her face. “Not without me.”

  He nodded. “That would normally go without saying, but given the current situation, what with us being so shorthanded, I need to make sure that we don’t send out all of our best fighters and leave ourselves open to attack.”

  SJ thought about this silently for a while. They tended to go everywhere together, and who could blame her? Moo was an excellent fighter—better than most adults, in fact. Her sharpshooting was incredible, and her hand-to-hand was as good as any. But this was SJ’s daughter, her only daughter, and if anything happened to her while she was out there in the world beyond Haven’s gates, SJ wouldn’t recover from it. And we all knew that many unexpected things could happen when you were least expecting them.

  “No, not without me by her side,” SJ finally said, holding Aiken gaze steady. “I can’t risk her.”

  Aiken nodded. “Understood.”

  “What about Alfie?” O’Donnell said. “He can fight.”

  SJ snorted on a laugh and O’Donnell turned to look at her. SJ shook her head. “If you think you can send Alfie out there and not Moo, then you have another thing coming.”

  O’Donnell looked confused, but then it dawned on her. “They’re…”

  “Not dating, no. Absolutely not. She’s far too young for that,” SJ said, and then she rolled her eyes. “they’re in a ship, apparently, though they’re trying to hide it from me.”

  We all stared around at one another blankly, until finally I asked the burning question. “They’re on a ship?”

  “No, not on a ship, in a ship.” She smiled. “It’s slang for ‘relationship,’ but they’re trying to keep it from me. Little sneaks don’t think I see what’s going on, but I see everything.”

  “Isn’t that basically dating?” I asked. Maybe it was a girl thing, because I didn’t get it at all.

  “Apparently it’s different, but who am I to ask questions?” She shrugged. “All I know is that where Alfie goes so does Moo, and vice versa.”

  “Well,” Aiken interrupted, “normally I wouldn’t want to send our medics out on the road, but with Stormy on her way back here we’ll be covered in that department, and regardless of Moo’s relationship status we need another person for the scavenge team, so Alfie is going.”

  “She’s not going to like this,” SJ sighed, but we all knew it didn’t matter.

  The decision had been made and Alfie was going on the next supply run. I didn’t like the fact that we now basically had two teenage boys, because teenage boys tended to be reckless—though Freddy was the exception, I guess, and hopefully Alfie would be too because he’d be so intent on getting back to Moo. But it still didn’t bode well. Yet there was no other way around it.

  “Okay, meeting over. Timbo, get the drugs locked up. O’Donnell, you tell Alfie he’s out with you tomorrow. SJ, you and Moo will be on extra guard duty shifts. Mikey, great find on the drugs today, sorry that Aimee is still so pissed with you, I hope that she dampens that shit down some for all of our sakes, but who knows. A woman can be a dangerous creature, so watch your back. I’ll try and speak to her and calm her some, but I can’t promise anything. You did the right thing by telling me about the dynamite, regardless of how she feels about that. That shit is dangerous and I’ve told everyone to stay away from it. I would have blown it up by now in a controlled explosion if it wasn’t for the fact that it would have attracted zeds from all over.”

  “How about we move it?” I asked.

  “No can do,” Timbo butted in. “It’s too dangerous to move. The slightest jolt could set it off, and then where would we be? I’m surprised it didn’t go off while you were all out today. Count your blessings that it didn’t. I’ll find a bigger lock for the storage tomorrow to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

  I nodded in agreement. I hated that it was just there, a big pile of dangerous, unstable dynamite, but we didn’t really have any other choice, by the sounds of it.

  “Okay, off you go then. Set out tomorrow morning at first light. I marked a couple of places earlier on the map—small towns like the one you just went to,” Aiken said, putting his toothpick back between his lips. “Keep your guards up for the Savage bitches. They’re up to something, I just don’t know what yet.”

  “Do you think they know where Haven is?” SJ asked, a small V pulling between her eyebrows in concern.

  “Ain’t seen nothing of them ‘round here, but I just don’t know. We need to be ready for anything,” he replied.

  “At some point we’re going to need to head to the city for supplies. There’s only so many small towns within a day’s r
each that we can get to,” O’Donnell said as she stood up. “Either that or we make it a week-long run and go further afield.”

  “Well, that day ain’t today or tomorrow,” Aiken replied sternly, shutting down the conversation, and O’Donnell nodded sullenly.

  We left the house and headed back out into the warm evening air. The sun had fully set, and the sky was a cloudless black canvas stretched as far as the eye could see, giving us full view of the bright stars spotted within the dark expanse above us.

  “Meet you back at home?” O’Donnell said, sliding a hand around my waist, and I nodded.

  She leaned in and kissed my cheek before taking off in the direction of Alfie’s home. He shared with Jamie, one of the main cooks—though I use the word cook lightly, because Jamie was more of a jack-of-all-trades in that he did a bit of everything around Haven. He fixed fences, repaired gates, cooked meals, counted ammo, trained the younger civilians in hand-to-hand combat… I was pretty sure someone said he could also knit, but I was reserving judgment on that one.

  I headed back down the darkened street toward home, thinking of everything that had happened that day. Someone, at one time, had found some glow-in-the-dark paint and had painted long strips down each of the roads to help guide people home in the dead of night after guard duty, or whatever other task had kept them out into the night, and right now I used those markings as my guide toward home.

  My thoughts strayed to earlier in the day, and a chill ran down my arms as I thought of how close we had been to possible Savages, and I couldn’t help but wonder how much more was out there that we were unaware of. Were they working with others? That psycho Clare had said they’d sold Phil, and we’d automatically assumed it was to the Savages, but what if it had been someone else? And why were they rounding up deaders? Did they know where Haven was? Were they planning an attack on us, or was this just their usual way of life?

  The questions tumbled over and over in my mind until I had to stop walking and take a seat because my muscles were so tense that I could barely walk.

  My hands were shaking, and I clasped them together in my lap, rubbing my thumbs over the backs off my hands and squeezing them together. My breath caught in my throat and my chest felt tight, like there was a noose around it, restricting my breathing.

  I lowered my head and dropped it between my knees, hoping that would help to calm me down, because I had already recognized what was happening. It wasn’t the first time I’d had a panic attack, fear and dread gripping me and holding me hostage until I passed out or threw up.

  “You’re okay,” I told myself over and over. “You’re okay. You’re alive. You’re here. You’re safe.”

  I hadn’t told anyone about the panic attacks, or the anxiety, or the awful goddamned nightmares. There was nothing anyone could do about them, so it seemed pretty pointless to worry people. Besides, if I did, Aiken might have stopped me from going out on the supply runs and being on guard duty, and I couldn’t have that. I needed to help. I wouldn’t blame him for doing it—it’s what I would do in his position—but I also didn’t want him to.

  I had a debt to repay, if I ever could.

  O’Donnell and the rest of NEO had saved me. They had found where I was and they had come for me, despite the dangers. They had rounded up an army, risked their lives, and they had saved me.

  I owed these people my life!

  I owed them everything, and the only way I could repay them was to keep working my hardest. Keep pushing forward and trying to not fall apart. To keep protecting every single one of them. If Aiken put me out of commission I was as good as useless, and then I might as well have died out on that dusty road, letting the deaders tear my flesh and muscle from my bones.

  That thought actually helped to calm me, and my breathing started to slow back down, my throat loosening up, and I finally start to take a little more air in with each breath. I sat up straight, releasing my grip on my own hands, and I lifted my chin to the starry sky above, staring into it as I took long, slow, deep breaths until I felt somewhat normal again.

  Normal. Now that was fucking laughable.

  I hadn’t felt normal in a long-ass time, and who knew when, or if, that would ever change. I just needed to get my shit together, clear my head a little. I’d be okay. It was all perfectly normal, all things considered. A little PTSD after being almost eaten alive—that was normal. Even more so after eating another human being. After watching them get their brains smashed in and thinking it was your friend. Listening to their screams of pain and terror, and then watching as pieces of them were carved from their body and cooked, the scent of them hanging in the air like bacon on a Sunday morning before being fed to me…

  I slid off the wooden bench and dropped to my knees. On all fours I heaved violently, my stomach lurching painfully as I threw up. There wasn’t much vomit because I hadn’t eaten enough that day, but there was enough to leave a bitter, acidic taste in my mouth.

  I could still taste him.

  I could still feel the flesh on my tongue.

  I could still smell the skin and muscle cooking.

  And I could still hear my stomach growling in hunger. Desperate for something to fill it. Eager for the delicious-smelling food that wafted to me.

  Heaving again, I clutched my arms around my waist. My eyes were streaming harder and harder with each painful retch, and I felt a sob build in the back of my throat.

  Shaking my head, I forced it away because there was no way I was going to start crying. No goddamn way. I was stronger than that. I had to be. I balled my hand up in a fist and hit myself in the side of the skull hard. Pain ricocheted through my head and bright lights flashed before my eyes.

  “I am not fucking crying!” I gritted out. “Pull yourself together, Mikey.”

  This was just stress and disgust and tension and exhaustion and so many other things. It was just the force of the vomit leaving my body that was making my eyes water. I slammed my fist into the side of my head again, almost blinding myself with the bright lights that burst behind my eyes again.

  I heaved and retched until I couldn’t anymore. Until my stomach ached and my throat burned, and then I forced myself to get up and sit back down on the bench and just breathe.

  The world was pulsing around me as I gasped for air, and I kicked dirt over my vomit and bile before I stood up and staggered away.

  As long as no one knew how fucked up I was inside, everything would be okay, I told myself.

  But even I didn’t fully believe that anymore.

  19.

  Mikey

  O’Donnell was getting ready while I drank a weak coffee on the porch of our little two-up/two-down house. Coffee was one of those precious commodities that we didn’t take for granted anymore—so much so that we watered it down as much as we could to make it last. Right now I was drinking a black watery coffee that had basically a quarter of a spoonful of instant coffee granules in it, and it still tasted like heaven.

  I leaned against the railing, watching as the sun warmed the tops of the trees and the rooftops of Haven as it rose into the early morning sky. I sighed, saying a silent prayer that we didn’t run into anymore Savages today.

  A shadowy figure darted between the two houses opposite and I frowned, focusing in on the shape, my heart already thumping in my chest as my hand gripped my coffee mug tighter. A long, flowy skirt danced around Joan’s ankles, and I shook my head slowly before placing my coffee mug down on the ground at my feet. I took the three small steps down the porch and headed over to her.

  She was clearly up to no good, though that could be anything from shitting in SJ’s bathtub to trying to sneak more parsnips from the vegetable patch. Either way, I wasn’t up for any of her bullshit today.

  “Joan,” I grumbled her name, startling her from her hiding spot behind the wood store at the side of Kelli’s house. I had filled it for her last night before coming home, making sure she had enough for when she got back.

  “Mikey!” Joan cro
oned my name, a wide smile filling her face. “What are you doing here?”

  Her white-gray hair was loose and wild around her shoulders, but she seemed completely unperturbed by the frenzy of hair about her head. Instead she smoothed down her wrinkled skirt and picked nonexistent fluff from her flowery brown blouse.

  “I should ask you the same question,” I replied with a raised eyebrow.

  She at least had the decency to blush. “Just checking the perimeter.”

  I frowned, letting her know that that answer wasn’t going to work with me, and she laughed and leaned down to pick up her notepad and pencil from the ground.

  “What’s that?” I asked as she tucked the notepad into her bra.

  “Nothing you need to worry about,” she said with a tap of the pencil on the side of her nose. “Oh! My pencil. I’ve been looking for that,” she exclaimed happily, like she’d completely forgotten that she was holding it.

  It dawned on me then that Joan really was completely off her fucking rocker, and getting worse by the day. I hated to think what would happen as she spiraled closer to madness. People only just put up with her bullshit as it was, but they were tiring of her, no doubt.

  “Come on, let me take you back home,” I said, holding out my arm for her, and she smiled widely before hooking her arm in mine.

  “You are such a gentleman, no wonder Nina loves you so much,” she crooned as we began to walk.

  I glanced down at her, giving a sad smile. “Yeah, I’m sure she had many words for how she felt about me,” I chuckled, trying not to let my sadness show and keep the conversation light.

  “Oh yes, she had lots of words for you,” she laughed back. “Asshole, mothertrucker, stupid man with a brain the size of a dinosaur.” She laughed loudly, and despite myself I couldn’t help but laugh back. “Dead Nina still loves you though, Mikey. You have to stay safe so she can find you again.”