Love & Decay, Episode 11 (6 page)

              However, this family was all about the sacrificial love thing, so maybe it was important he remind us not to hand our free will over to a sadistic family of control freaks.

              “Why doesn’t Vaughan get called out for the cuss jar, Pagey?” Nelson demanded when the surprise and shock wore off.

              “Because he used a cuss word appropriately,” Page said in a too mature tone with her cute little button nose lifted haughtily in the air.

              “One more thing.” Vaughan redirected our attention back to him- again. “I talked to Gage about retrieving some of our stuff from the van we abandoned. Sounds like, if we’re up to going after it ourselves then we have permission to use weapons and a vehicle. We just have to face the bowl again.”

              “Bowl?” Harrison asked.

              “The highway with all the cars pushed together, blocking the road and creating a death trap for us and a buffet for the Feeders hiding out there. You know, the place Hendrix fell off the roof and almost died.”

“For the record, I didn’t almost die,” Hendrix cut in sounding wounded. “I had everything under control.”

“Sure you did,” Harrison snorted. “Because your girlfriend jumped out of the van and saved your

sorry ass.”

“Cuss jar!” Page squeaked.

“That’s not what happened…” Hendrix tried but Vaughan cut him off.

“Anyway,” Vaughan said sternly. “Gage and his people call that The Bowl. Because it’s shaped

like one, or uh, half of one.”

              “Ah,” Harrison sounded insanely relieved. “I thought it was because of how it functioned. You know? You trap humans in ‘the bowl’ and gobble them up like a ‘bowl’ of cereal.”

              “Creative….” Vaughan mumbled. “Anyway, obviously we can’t make definite plans until the Allen’s and their henchmen leave. But I think that’s something we would all like to purse. Yeah? We could get our stuff back, our guns, our ammo, maybe some of our food supplies. We might actually be able to help this place out instead of just taking from Gage and his people.” We all nodded enthusiastically. Getting our stuff back sounded awesome. I missed my eyeliner. Vaughan had one last point to make, “In conclusion, Hendrix, Reagan totally saved your a- butt.”

              Hendrix opened his mouth to respond, not caring that I stood right next to him harboring all kinds of potential feelings to get hurt. This argument went beyond me. Probably it didn’t have anything to do with me. This was about brothers, pissing contests and pride. I just let it play out.

              Nelson spoke up before Hendrix could make a solid argument, “You
fell
off the top of the van! Who does that? You had one job, and that was to
not
fall off the top of the van!”

              “I had more than one job,” Hendrix finally got a word in. “If you remember correctly, I was up there to kill….”

              “And then you just landed at their feet like a moron,” Harrison continued. “Seriously, what was the game plan? Do you have any idea what the rest of us went through while you were playing Captain America?”

              “Please help me out here!” Hendrix turned to me, begging for me to intervene.

              I bit back a smile and said, “Sure, as long as you admit that I saved you from imminent death first.”

              He glared down at me, realizing he had been trapped. “Traitor,” he growled. I leaned up and kissed his twitching lips.

              “Does anyone have an issue with reclaiming all of our supplies and packs? We might not be able to get it all, but if the van is still parked where we left it, I don’t think it will be that difficult. We could scout it out first before we made any concrete decisions.”              

              “I’m all for going back. The clothes here are fine, but they’re a little low on the underwear situation.” King put in.

“No kidding,” Harrison complained. “And honestly, you can only go commando so long before everything starts to chafe.”

The rest of the boys groaned in commissary. I felt my eyebrows skyrocket toward my hairline.

“What starts to chafe?” Haley asked slowly, horror dawning all over her face.

“Everything,” Harrison winced. “Especially if you get a bad pair of jeans.”

“Good lord,” Haley laughed darkly. She shot me a look that said, “
Apparently, girls don’t have

that problem.”

King brought us back to topic when he announced, “Plus, I haven’t gotten to kill anything in a while. It will be good for me to go.”

I wasn’t actually sure that was true, but I was too tired to argue.

              “That reminds me,” Vaughan once again drew the conversation away from Parker weirdness to what was most important. “Reagan and Haley, Gage thinks a school would be fantastic. He said there’s about twenty kids that could use an education. You can use this room and we would talk about your patrol duties lessening if you were putting in time at the school.”

              “Awesome!” Haley grinned.

              I didn’t have the effort to respond. I wanted the kids I cared about to continue to learn, but I didn’t want to have to learn to care about new kids. Ugh. My heart couldn’t take the stress for anyone else. Maybe that was selfish. But I’d just nearly died…. again. The chances of Haley and I pulling together a graduating class sometime in the future had pathetically slim chances.

              Plus, there was the fact that patrol and killing Zombies seemed much easier than educating today’s youth without text books, or even a college education ourselves and we had very limited supplies. But it was probably more important to teach them the basics of reading, writing and math than delve into the details of AP classes or standardized testing anyway.

              We just needed to give them a chance at using their brain for things other than battle strategies and quick kill scenarios. And I knew that not a lot of the kids around here had been as fortunate as Harrison and King. Even Page knew how to shoot a gun. We could teach them survival skills, too, that would help them live if their comfortable refuge were ever taken away from them. They all at least needed to know how to load and fire a gun.

              “We’ll talk to Gage after Matthias leaves and start classes next week,” Haley declared. She shot me a huge, optimistic smile and then turned it on the younger side of the Parkers. “Aren’t you all excited to go back to school again?”

              Page squealed that she was and wrapped her arms around my legs. She melted my heart with her sweetness.

              Harrison and King mumbled something obscene and then ran off before Page could call them out for the cuss jar. Class dismissed.

              Page tugged on Haley’s oversized Henley and whispered something in her ear. Haley nodded patiently and then stood up to face me.

              “We’re working on something we need to go finish,” she said cryptically and then mouthed
It’s for you!
“Get cleaned up, Reags, and you can tell me more about your
Cabin in the Woods
experience with Kane the Insane.”

              “Clever,” I grinned at her. “I like it much better than Reagan the Idiot. However, there’s not much to tell.”

              “Surely you have at least three almost-kiss moments and one super steamy make-out right before Hendrix busted in and saved the day!”

              Hendrix turned to stone next to me- hard granite of tensed fury.

              “Hales,” I really tried not to laugh- honestly, I tried. “You know we don’t live in a daytime soap, right?”

              “Sure, I know that.” She grabbed Page’s hand and started walking backwards. “I know we don’t live in a daytime soap,” she gestured around the room and then pointed back at me. “It’s just
you
that brings the drama to the Zombie Apocalypse with such style and class.”

              “You’re such a b-brat,” I censored quickly.

              “You love me!” And then she was gone along with Nelson and Page.

              Also, she was right. I did love her.

              I turned toward Hendrix and threw my arms around his neck. “She was kidding. There were no almost kissing moments.” He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me hard against his chest. “Just that one make-out right before you walked in. But that was it. I swear.”

              And then all I could do was gasp and squeal because he was tickling me like crazy. I started laughing until tears pooled in my eyes and my stomach hurt from his torturous hands. I was practically screaming for him to stop, desperate to breathe again.

              Tickling was the
worst
. How could something make you laugh that felt so panicky and horrible at the same time?

              “Hendrix!” I screeched as he attacked my ribs with his skilled fingers.

              “You are going to give me a heart attack, woman,” he growled, slowing down his attack until his fingers gently stroked my sides in a feather-light touches that tickled for an entirely different reason now.

              My breathing heaved erratically in my chest and my vision blurred from the tears that had yet to fall. I let my lips curved in a secret smile meant only for Hendrix, and my hands now clutched at his chest where I had been pushing him away only moments ago.

              “Jealous?” I whispered, tilting my face up so I was in range of his beautiful lips.

              “Mmm,” he answered noncommittally. He leaned forward and brushed his mouth teasingly against mine.

              “Don’t worry, I’ll be fair.” I reached up on my tip toes and gave him my own version of a teasing kiss. “I’ll make-out with you later, too, behind a locked door, in the dark.”

              Hendrix made an animalistic sound in the back of his throat and turned me so my back was pressed into the cold cement wall. He lips descended on mine, hungry and demanding. He nibbled on my bottom lip and then swept his tongue over the same place. His hands gripped my waist, anchoring him to me, keeping them from exploring my body like he desperately wanted to- I knew he wanted to because I was just as needy to touch him.

              He pulled back a little to say, “I don’t know whether to be very pissed off or very excited for later.”

              “I never made out with Kane. You should know that!” I tried to sound offended but I was too worked up and breathy.

              “I’m not worried about you and Kane,” Hendrix chuckled against my temple and then let his nose and lips work their way down the side of my face and to my ear where he went back to work, tasting me, kissing me, loving me. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you get away with teasing me.” His mouth dropped to my neck, at which point my eyes rolled to the back of my head and I lost my battle with regulated breathing.

              “Yeah?” I whispered.

              “I’m probably going to make you pay for all this emotional damage to my poor ego.” He tugged the collar of my flannel shirt open and continued wet, hot kisses along my collarbone. My stomach literally started quivering. His voice was low, growly and vibrating with lust and desire. “Later, behind closed doors…. in the dark.”

              A throat cleared behind us.

              Oops.

              Hendrix dropped his forehead on my shoulder and groaned. “I hate other people.”

              I laughed away the sexual tension and anxious energy buzzing inside of me and opened my eyes to meet Vaughan’s steady gaze.

              “Sorry to interrupt,” he drawled.

              “You should be,” Hendrix mumbled into my arm, his breath was hot through the fabric and as soon as it cooled, I shivered.

              “I’d like to go over what happened, Reagan. I have this bad feeling Kane is going to make our lives as difficult as he can now that he’s back in his father’s company and I want to know as much about him as I can.” Vaughan looked exhausted standing there behind Hendrix. His shoulders sagged, his eyes were black and blue in the candlelight flickering from file cabinets and other tall, solid pieces of furniture that wouldn’t tip over and spill lit candles, his hair was more disheveled than usual and his beard longer. This was a man carrying a heavy burden and I started to realize that burden was me.

              Vaughan was worried or had been worried about me.

              My heart clenched inside my chest and I felt more grateful for this family than I ever had. Where would Haley and I be without them? What would have happened to us if we never would have walked into that department store?

              Our journey  would have ended at Gary’s settlement. I knew that was true. Gary would have forced us into his brothel and stripped us of our dignity and souls.

              Actually, we had like three bullets left when we wandered into that Missouri department store. Maybe we wouldn’t have even made it to Gary. Which in that scenario would have been a blessing.

              Yikes.

              I shook my head and banished those thoughts. Looking back at Vaughan, I said, “Let’s talk.”

              He nodded and led the way over to a worn couch and wooden rocking chair that creaked with every movement whenever someone sat in it. Hendrix and I took the couch and Vaughan sat a little higher in the rocking chair.

              “Start from the beginning,” he ordered gently.

              So I did; mostly for Vaughan’s benefit since I had already filled Hendrix in on all the highlights. I went over the conversation with Gage and how I thought I could help with Kane without causing too much drama. I told them about Tyler and how she was upset and supposed to get Hendrix to come help me. They did confirm that she went right to him, but the Zombies had already attacked by the time Hendrix got down there. And then I told them about the fight for our lives, running through the forest and surviving the night in the bunker.

              “So, he didn’t try anything with you?” Vaughan asked with soft eyes. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees so we could meet each other at eye level. Hendrix put his hand against my back and let me know he was here to support me.