The Risen Series | Book 5 | Defiance

by Crow, Marie F.

  “Whoa!” Aimes holds her hands up to stop Paula. “You said you don’t become a racoon when a racoon bites you. So now we can become racoons? Because I really don’t want to become a racoon, Paula!”

  “I hadn’t thought so.” Paula’s shoulders hang. As if she’s at fault, she’s becoming more defeated with each explanation. “But when I saw what was happening to Selma, I was afraid it had started. They introduced the stronger strain without ever really knowing what the real consequences would be.”

  “Okay, double whoa,” Aimes stops her again. “What do you mean hosts infecting hosts?”

  It isn’t Paula who clarifies the choice of words. Marigold holds the arm of Ranya up for us to see. All along the greying limb are small bites. Some of the bites are clean with clear prints of tiny teeth. Others are raw, weeping something thicker than blood from the shredded flesh. Reality hits like bricks, pulling my brain into the undertow of blood-filled water. The nightmare all starts with the children.

  “Patrick, the young man you murdered, had the right idea. He was just going about it the wrong way. He thought he could keep her by using the children. Those children were not the carriers he hoped they would be, though. So, naturally, she didn’t come back to him, as he thought she would. Plus, she was already sick when he let the children bite her. You can’t cure the old sickness with the old sickness. It has to be from the improved cure.”

  “It’s not a sickness,” I correct her. “And they don’t come back from it.”

  “You’re wrong,” Marigold stands, rushing towards me to clasp my shoulders firmly. “I lost so many when it first hit. When this became our normal life, losing people left and right to what our friends and family had become, I knew there had to be a way to save them. I was right! I couldn’t save the first of them, but now, when they become sick, we don’t lose them! Not completely. I have discovered how to keep their minds, their humanity, making them safe again. No one has to die, ever again.”

  “Then why the chains?” I ask those burning eyes staring into mine.

  Marigold wilts a little. “Not everyone agrees with me, yet. Sometimes the sickness overtakes them towards the end, but Ranya hasn’t shown any signs of the aggression. I may even take her home, let them see what the future can hold.”

  “We can’t stop the spread of it. There’s too many already out there, but we can change the spread, making the sickness something we can coexist with instead of fear. The future infected won’t be what we are used to running from. We won’t have to lose our loved ones, anymore.”

  “You’ve clearly lost your mind,” Genny whispers with her shock.

  “No!” Marigold rushes to stand beside a male. “I’ll prove it!”

  The male watches her with eyes filled with a look of hesitation. His once pressed black suit shows the abuse of his death and his new life. The white dress shirt has yellowed, appearing stiff, where soft cotton once yielded a look of sophistication. He chose to dress for his death, unknowing that death for him would be never fully arriving.

  He doesn’t lunge for Marigold as I would expect him to do. He’s watching her with the same appreciation a snake has for its prey. He watches, waiting to see what this woman is going to do while plotting his plan.

  “This is Marco.” Marigold points to the man. “His little girl got sick and was taking a turn for the worse over the winter. We all knew it was only a matter of time until she would pass away. I went to him; told him I could keep her alive. I told him she didn’t have to die, and he agreed to let me take her to the barn. I saved her! I saved his little girl and she’s there now.

  When I tried to reunite them, she panicked and bit him. It was unfortunate, but the bite changed him, too. I thought I had lost him, but I haven’t.” Marigold smiles, waiting to reveal her final magic act. “Say hello, Marco.”

  “Hello,” Marco says.

  The words fall from his swollen lips like lead. The syllables are hard, almost two different words, but there is no denying what we heard. Nor can we deny the smile upon his face after saying it.

  “Nope! Nope! Nope!” Aimes is already climbing the ladder, rushing to escape what new terrors Marigold has presented to us.

  “They keep their minds!” Marigold is shouting at us. “Not just the adults, but the children, the children keep their minds! I can cure them! Death never has to take another person we love!”

  I stare from Ranya, a broken doll spread across the floor with all of the emotions to match, to Marco, who still smiles at our shock. His eyes are filled with an understanding no creature of death should be able to hold. Just the sight of them is enough to turn bowels to something loose and flowing in fear. Their sounds were already enough to stir the deepest of dread, but hearing his voice form a word, a greeting, is a different kind of shock.

  I’m the last to climb the ladder. I use every inch of sight allowed to me to watch Marco as I climb. As the height takes him from my view, I hear him again. I hear him and I know I will never be the same.

  “Goodbye,” Marco calls to me with a voice thicker than any human’s I’ve ever heard. The words almost gurgle from his throat, spilling forth with a wet thickness.

  Marigold’s laughter follows us from the house. It clings to us, haunting us with the sound of what it really means. We haven’t found a home. We have stumbled, yet again, into another hell. A hell which threatens to drag us into new depths of madness, deeper than the levels Travis had taught us. Travis had used the shots for damnation. Marigold is using them as salvation and damning her people in the process.

  We don’t speak to anyone when we arrive back to the safety of our hall. Our faces wear expressions of warnings, and no one is brave enough to try to change them. No one pauses to ask if we are okay or even offers to help us. For once, I am happy our stone-cold looks and tight lips spread apart those who would otherwise find themselves in our path.

  As I lay upon my cot with my thoughts a haunted graveyard of my past, I ache for a mother I never knew. I ache to be something small and protected, someone sung to sleep and told that monsters aren’t really real or under my bed. My heart beats in its denial. I know the monsters are real and they aren’t under my bed. The monsters are in my head and the danger they now offer is very real. Closing my eyes to escape, I still see those small fingers waving goodbye and her smile to match the warning in my heart. The screams of my past begin their nightly lullaby. As their voices join into one, I wonder what my mother’s voice sounded like as she was ripped apart in a rest area bathroom months ago.

  Chapter 32

  “You going to share where you three went last night?” Lawless sinks his body to the ground to sit next to me.

  I can feel his brown eyes picking apart every inch of me, seeking some hint as to what has made the three of us so sullen and distant today. I’ve been watching the children play in their age-divided groups, as children do. I watch the parents, wondering if they know what their children they have handed over to Marigold have become. Do they lay awake at night thinking of those souls? Or, has Marigold convinced them with her distorted words that they are safe, enjoying themselves in their new life, with their new minds?

  I cave to the feeling of needing to be fragile. I don’t answer him. Instead, I lay my head on his lap. I can feel his body tense from my action. I don’t blame him. We’ve been so touch-and-go as of late, with both of us lost in our constant mood swings, he’s probably afraid of what my moment of weakness means. Softly his hand moves my hair from my face. He touches me with hesitation, waiting to see where this mood goes before becoming invested in it.

  “What was it, Hells? Where did you go?” Lawless asks again. His voice is timid.

  “We can’t stay here,” I tell him, trying to find the words to fully paint the picture of what happened last night. “She’s turning them. She’s infecting them to experiment, to keep them alive.”

  Lawless doesn’t say anything. He isn’t toying with my hair anymore, but his body is more tense upon hearing my words
than he was before.

  “You saw the house?”

  His words pull my body upright. As my mouth becomes dry, my heart flutters in such a pattern my stomach answers it. My whole body becomes a war of shock and anxiety.

  “You knew?” I whisper it, refusing to say the accusation too loud.

  Lawless exhales a long breath, melting to the ground. He watches the clouds over us, delaying to find the right words or fighting against a memory my words cause him.

  “Paula didn’t understand why you weren’t waking up,” he begins. “She kept saying without some form of imaging she can’t know if you’ve suffered internal damage she couldn’t see. It was all a waiting game.

  “Marigold came to me. She said there was something she wanted to show me. I played along, leaving Rhett to watch over you and Paula just in case the woman had some thoughts of still removing you.

  “When we got to the house, she kept talking about a way to save you. If things were to get worse, she could save you. She took me downstairs and I saw what I imagine you saw. She told me we would never have to be without you. That I would never have to be without you.

  “I didn’t listen. I left. She told me if I told anyone, she would know and she would make sure I never saw you, again.”

  I don’t answer right away after his revelation. I let it slide into the depths of my mind, lulling over what he’s said before I say too much.

  “And now that I’m awake you didn’t think it would a good time to tell us what she really is?” My voice is still hushed, fighting to suppress the rage threatening to overtake me. “Let the others know what she’s doing?”

  He’s still searching the sky overhead, casually saying, “I thought about it.”

  Exasperated by his aloofness, I punch his arm, trying to achieve any emotion from him. “And why didn’t you?”

  He rolls to his side to face me, asking, “If I had just told you what you saw last night, would you have believed me?”

  “No,” I honestly answer.

  “You would have wanted to go see, like you did.”

  “Yes,” I answer him, again. I have a feeling I already know where he is taking me with his logic.

  “And then what would have happened?”

  “We would have been outraged and shut it down.”

  “And then what would have happened?” he echoes.

  “A fight.”

  “And then what would have happened?” He shows no delight in the tour-of-things-to-come he’s taking me down. His eyes are almost sad.

  “The high school all over again,” I answer, ending the tour.

  Lawless settles back on the ground, returning to his cloud watching. “I’ve thought about it over and over. Do I risk it? Do I just keep quiet? I keep asking myself, what would J.D. do? I don’t like any of those answers, either.”

  “Earlier,” I test my words, saying them gently, “when I asked you about how everything was falling apart? Is this why?”

  Lawless inhales sharply, knowing a nerve has been exposed to the brisk air. “I felt like a piece of shit. Here I was telling them to just do it, just do what they ask, and this whole time this old woman was smiling at me, knowing she had me.

  “They thought it was because of my worry over you, and part of it, yeah, it was. Mostly it was because I didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t the type of thing I could just pull one of them aside and talk about. It would have exploded. I couldn’t risk it with you still being down and Paula waging her own war over your care.

  “After a while, I couldn’t tell them what to do anymore. It didn’t sit well. I let them do what they wanted, go where they wanted. We fell apart because I couldn’t hold us down like I should have; I couldn’t keep them in line with anything other than the threat of what may happen to you. They took that, needed someone to blame, and poured that anger all over the other group. It was easy for them and I watched it all because it was easier than having to say the truth.”

  “So, what are we going to do?” I ask, still hushed and restrained.

  “We are going on a supply run. Queen Bitch says we need things, and no one is better at doing what is needed than our crew,” he mimics her words with a salty tone of insult before adding, “Maybe it will be a step back to where we once were.” Lawless smiles. A genuine smile of excitement as he stands. “And then we will figure out what we are going to do about her.”

  “Or Marxx will finally explode and kill us all,” I offer a second possibility.

  “Or Marxx will finally explode and kill us all,” he smirks.

  “Be honest,” I say, as he pulls me to my feet. “You just want to see your bike.”

  Lawless pulls me close. He wraps his arms around me, saying with a mischievous grin, “We had good times on that bike.”

  “We’ve had good times in my truck,” I toss back, sharing his smile and remembering the nights we were on the run.

  “Yeah. It was a little odd with your dad so close.”

  “Since when did that bother you?”

  “Since there weren’t any walls to hide behind.” He chuckles.

  “I think Peyton was more judgey than my dad. It seems my dad is used to me stepping out.”

  Lawless’ smile slides from amusement to caution. “Do you ever wonder about her? How your life might have been different if she had raised you and not Carol?”

  “No,” I answer, fully aware my classic mood swing has ruined the moment. “I wonder more about her death. I wonder how my father could have not only left his kids alone, his wife alone, but also his lover alone to face their deaths.”

  He pulls my head to his chest. He refuses to let the storm of my turbulent thoughts spiral out of control, so he changes their route. “Are you really mad at him, or have you somehow figured out a way she’s your fault, too?”

  His question is like cold water to my building fire. The anger dissolves, melting my posture to relax into his embrace. “I hate when you do that,” I tell him, with a pout of which I’m not proud.

  He chuckles and I can feel the vibration through his chest. “We’re both each other’s kryptonite.”

  “Look carefully, Genny,” I hear Aimes say in a mocking Australian accent. “Here we see the courtship dance of the passive-aggressive lovers’ species. Knowing to only come out when the situation is either dire, or just finishing another round of drama-filled courtship, we can only speculate what has brought them out today from the dark hovels they live in.”

  “Speaking of kryptonite.” I push from his arms, letting the still chilly air finish robbing me of his warmth. “What do you want, Aimes?”

  “So rude,” Aimes almost pouts. She’s putting on a show to also recover from last night. “The other meat puppets said something about going on a run?”

  Genny hasn’t offered a single word into the conversation. She’s pale, almost blueish with the many faint veins peeking through her distressed coloring. The sight of her pulls my mind back to the imagery of Ranya on the dirt floor. Closing my eyes against the memory, I force myself to return to the moment. Lawless hasn’t missed my body buckle under the weight of the mental photograph. His fingers caress mine, letting me know he’s here. I pull my hand away from his reach, crossing my arms to keep myself guarded.

  “That’s what Law said,” I keep my distance in my voice, calm and uninterested in what she’s asked.

  Aimes almost smiles in relief. “Are the sidekicks invited, too?”

  “Yup,” I answer her before Lawless has the opportunity to say otherwise. Not that Aimes and I would listen to him, but it saves time from fighting over it.

  “Oh, goodie.” Aimes rubs her hands together. “You going to come?”

  Aimes looks to the silent Genny. Genny shakes her head in a slow, dazed answer of a ‘no’. Her eyes are too wide. Her skin too pale. I don’t have to ask her to know she’s stuck in the constant replay of last night. I don’t have to ask because I was once where she is now - stuck, lamenting over it. Just like me, I know she’s s
omehow tied it back to the day she lost her family. The two are in no way related, but our minds trick us, planting that seed and we are forced to watch the blood-streaked flowers grow.

  “Genny,” I call to her. Her eyes float to me, but her face doesn’t change upon hearing her name. “Why don’t you spend the day with Paula? Keep each other company.” I suggest, firmly believing Genny is slipping into shock.

  “Did you hear him?” Genny whispers to me, as if it’s just her and I standing in this open field. “Did you?”

  Genny is asking me, not because of scientific reasons, or even over the terror of what it means that they now talk. She’s asking me to be sure she isn’t insane. She wants to know that it really happened and wasn’t just a lost moment of time she’s embedded in the already thick tomes of torment she’s been gifted.

  I nod. I won’t fray her fragile knots holding her together. I just nod, letting her know she’s not alone. Yes, I heard him, and yes, I don’t know what to do with the fact, either.

  “I think I’ll go see Paula,” Genny whispers, again. “I think I’d like to see Paula.”

  The three of us watch her wander off towards Paula’s self-established medical room. We each wear different faces with our thoughts taking us on different journeys of opinions.

  “Should we leave her alone?” Aimes is watching her with a heavy heart.

  “She’s not alone.” I walk past Aimes towards where the other ‘meat puppets’ should be waiting. “She has Paula. Paula most likely needs the company, too.”

  Aimes hears the words I don’t say. She nods, understanding I haven’t dismissed Genny, but sent her to a person who may also need someone right now. A person, just like us, who would never admit their need for someone, but yearns for the comfort.

  We didn’t have to travel far to find the rest of our family. Rhett’s frame is hard to miss the sight of in these narrow, stone-built hallways as he leads the others towards us. We merge our groups, heading for the main entrance of this fort, turned tourist attraction.