Love and Decay, Episode One Read online

  “I didn’t kill him. The bullet probably went directly through. He could be fine,” Kane stated coolly. “Or, if you don’t cooperate immediately, I will adjust my aim. I will kill him, Reagan. Right now.”

  “This was always your plan?” I demanded in an ear-splitting shriek. “All that bullshit you fed to me about not being the person I thought you were, about not wanting to kidnap me? What was that?”

  “Truth.” And the bastard actually sounded like he believed himself. “But I don’t have time to be valiant, just now. Let’s go.”

  “No,” I spit out.

  “I will kill him.” Kane squatted down so we were eye level again. “I will end him right now.”

  “Then you’ll have to kill me too.”

  In my head, the only voice I could hear was Kane’s, although it was mingled with every sound and movement Hendrix made in his unconscious state. There was a lot of shouting in the distant background of my consciousness, but it felt muted and not a part of my personal reality. Logically, I knew Vaughan, Gage and Nelson were putting up a hell of a fight and gun shots had begun to fire in the hallway. Vaguely, I could acknowledge that conflict surrounded me- deathly and dangerous.

  But my world had shrunk down to stillness and silence. Hendrix’s gorgeous, pained face was the only thing I could see. His limp, bleeding body was the only tangible thing I could feel- not the hard, cold ground, not the sheathed hunting knife pressing into my leg, not the spray of concrete shrapnel that sliced across my face from a misplaced gunshot that hit the ceiling overhead. Through it all, Kane’s calm, authoritative voice was the only sound I could clearly hear.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, Reagan,” Kane promised gently. “I’m going to save you.”

  My eyes snapped up to meet his. “Fine, don’t hurt me. But I promise I will kill you.”

  Kane let out a weary sigh. His eyes flickered up to something behind me and he nodded sadly.

  The blow came unexpectedly from behind. A sharp, blinding pain to the back of my head, three seconds of severe nausea from an ache so fierce I thought I would throw up all over Hendrix and then a ringing in my ear, loud and final.

  Blackness came next.

  A final darkness that had nothing to do with my surroundings and everything to do with unconsciousness. It covered me with absolute finality.

  This was where I stopped fighting- not because I wanted to, but because the choice had been taken from me. This was where evil won. This was the moment in time when the bad guys got their way and I became another casualty of a war. A war that twisted into a more confusing, more deadly version of itself every moment of every day.

  A war that seemed disadvantaged and completely unwinnable.

  Well, until I woke back up.

  Then, there would be hell to pay.

  I was a survivor.

  I was a fighter.

  And I would fight this.

  I would fight for Hendrix.

  Forever.

  Chapter Three

  Movement. Vibrations. Roaring engines. Pain- thick, blanketing pain that made my stomach roil and churn in protest.

  Slowly the world started to piece together again from the dark, blank oblivion I’d been sucked into. I felt pixilated, torn into a million parts and animated boxes that didn’t fit together correctly.

  A high-pitched, muffled but frantic plea tore through my foggy mind and my head bounced on soft, springy fabric.

  I came fully conscious with the bouncing certainty I was in a vehicle and moving away from Hendrix at a very fast speed. My head felt split open in the back; tender, pounding with pain and sticky with blood.

  My hands were bound behind my back. They were tingling with lack of blood flow and my shoulders were stiff and sore. And although they hadn’t blindfolded me, I wasn’t sure I would be able to open my eyes anyway.

  The more the world seeped into my waking consciousness, the bleaker my reality became. I instantly felt naked and bare without the arsenal of my armory on me. Even my ankle knife was gone- stolen.

  Along with my dignity and freedom.

  I winced before I could hold it in and the sound echoed back and forth across the inside of my skull. Gah. So much pain.

  Those f-ing bastards.

  A muffled cadence that could have been my name sounded next to me as loud as an ambulance siren and I whimpered again. My obvious discomfort didn’t faze the ungodly honking noise at all. The volume increased and the bouncing sped up.

  Tyler. This had to be Tyler. And apparently she hated me. Or maybe wanted to kill me? Or maybe wanted me to kill her? Because I was very close to switching out my arch nemesis from Kane to her if she didn’t settle down.

  I opened my eyes- slowly- if for no other reason than to just get her to stop squeaking. The light streamed in through the tinted windows, blinding and brilliant. I slammed my eyes shut and then tried again- even slower.

  Eventually, I could hold them open, although they were filled with pained tears and swimming with dizziness. I stared at the black leather seat in front of me and willed my stomach to pull itself together.

  It wasn’t like I cared about destroying this car by puking all over it…. actually I kind of liked that idea… but much later, when I felt like I could move again without shattering into millions and millions of tiny, insignificant pieces.

  I took three deep, steadying breaths and then counted down like Vaughan. I braced myself on a weak elbow and then shoved myself up into sitting.

  My head reeled again in a violent dizziness that had me pitching forward and resting my forehead on the back of the seat in front of me. I groaned, but this sound felt more substantial than the previous ones.

  “She’s awake,” a voice I didn’t recognize announced for me.

  “I am aware,” Kane drawled impatiently. “Be still, Reagan. You’re going to make yourself sick.”

  I didn’t want to obey him, but honestly, I wasn’t capable of doing anything else. And I hated that. This head wound was kicking my ass at the worst, possible time. I had to get it together. I had to pull myself together or I would never escape.

  I took in the now-quiet car around me. We were in a bigger SUV. There were three rows of seating. A driver and Kane sat in the first row. Tyler and I took up the second row. And I had no idea what was behind me. Miller? Maybe, but he wasn’t making any noise. Another guard? More likely.

  Tyler had fallen silenced next to me, but I felt her stare boring into the side of my head. Finally, I let my head roll in place so I could look at her, but still had the cool leather pressed against my forehead for support.

  Her face looked like hell. Dried blood caked her upper lip and ran over her lips, down her chin and in long, ugly streaks across her throat. Her eyes had started to blacken in the corners and underneath her bottom lashers. Her left eye had broken a blood vessel and looked sickly and gory mingled with all the other carnage on her face.

  She looked like hell.

  And this was just the beginning.

  Her mouth was taped close and her hands were also bound behind her back. Her expression pleaded with me to do something, or understand something, but honestly my brain felt broken. I felt like whoever hit me on the back of the head had literally knocked my common sense and will to leave right out of my body. Or maybe just knocked it loose and when I’d slumped over, all of my intelligence just plopped right out of my ear in a little neat ball.

  Ugh. This sucked.

  Tyler’s eyes grew huge and kept flicker toward the seat back she was slumped awkwardly on. Too confused to understand what she was trying to tell me, I followed her gaze and saw her hands tied tightly with a zip-tie. Her fingers were crooked but rigid like claws and her pointer finger was jabbing up and down like…. like something.

  I couldn’t think.

  I narrowed my eyes and tried to focus- tried to think.

  Up and down went her pointer finger, her broken nail stabbing into the palm of her hand.

  Stabbing.


  Stabbing.

  Knife.

  She was miming a knife.

  “Where?” I mouthed while keeping my body perfectly still.

  Her eyes moved to look at the front seat and then dropped down.

  Front seat. On the floor.

  If I understood Miming Tyler correctly.

  “Floor?” I mouthed to make sure.

  She didn’t answer but her shoulders relaxed and her finger stopped clawing at her palm.

  I swiveled my head again to stare down at my tennis shoes. The frayed laces stared back at me, daring me to come up with some kind of plan to get us out of here. Where was Miller? We couldn’t leave him behind.

  Could we leave at all?

  I had no doubt Matthias wouldn’t stop until we reached The Colony and the car seemed to be going at an insane speed of the no-jumping-out-while-the-vehicle-is-in-motion variety.

  Besides, where would we go?

  It would be nighttime soon and we had no weapons.

  We couldn’t even cut ourselves free.

  Think. Think. Think. Think.

  There had to be a way out of this.

  “Give up on it,” Kane warned in that same detached, coldly familiar voice he’d lapsed into. “You’re not getting out of here, Reagan. Besides, this part of Oklahoma is swarming with Feeders. Without a weapon, you’d be Feeder-food in less than three minutes.”

  I didn’t answer. What could I say to that? “Oh, I guess you’re right. I’ll just stay here then?” Uh, no. I’d rather be Feeder-food than find out what Kane’s long term plan for me was.

  Not to mention Tyler and Miller. I was more afraid for their lives right now than I was for my own.

  I, at least, had some reason to believe my life would be spared. By the look of Tyler’s beaten, bloodied face and Miller’s unconscious body, I wasn’t so sure they had the same confidence.

  I tilted my face up awkwardly, to peek at Kane through the small space between the top of his seat and his head rest. His dark hair brushed his collar in the back and I bet it drove him crazy. He was too high strung for such a messy look. The very tips of his glasses poked out from the back of his ears and his stayed still with his vision straight ahead, out the window, fixed on where we were going and not on where we’d just come from.

  “Did you leave everyone alive back there?” I asked in a rasping, barely audible voice. My throat and mouth were so dry, I could hardly swallow. I tasted copper and defeat and I wanted to cry from the pain still pounding away at the back of my head.

  “Everyone you care about was alive when we left,” Kane replied evenly. “Maybe not conscious, but alive.”

  “Hendrix?” I whispered.

  “I shot him, Reagan. Are you asking if he was unconscious or alright? He was not conscious, and I highly doubt he’ll be alright.”

  His words were cruel and vengeful, but they were true.

  Kane suddenly whipped around in his seat and peered around the headrest so we were just an inch apart- him, looking down at me.

  “I didn’t want to hurt you.” And he had the audacity to sound sincere.

  “Let me go, Kane. I’m not yours. I don’t belong to you.”

  “But you belong to Hendrix?” he scoffed.

  I shook my head vehemently and then immediately regretted the move. When the nausea passed, I explained, “I don’t belong to anybody. I’m a human being, not property.”

  “You’re wrong.” His eyes softened and his voice dropped into that warm, familiar octave that always seemed to crawl under my skin before I could effectively raise my defenses. “You’re hope, and light. You’re challenge and a future. You’re a rare and precious commodity. And I’ve claimed you. You’re mine.”

  “What about everything you said…”

  He cut me off with a wave of his hand, “We tried it your way. Now we try it my way.”

  “My way was working,” I argued, letting the ambiguity of that statement settle over him. Had I been falling for him? No. Definitely not. I had Hendrix, for goodness sake. But I was letting Kane in; slowly he chipped away at my defenses, so steadily I hardly noticed.

  “I’m sorry, Reagan. I don’t have time for your way. I have responsibilities back home. And now I have you. It’s better this way.”

  I sat back, horrified by his words, and cut to the soul by the truth of my situation. I slammed my back into the seat, uncaring if I puked or felt more pain. I glanced around wildly for something to use to escape or do whatever it took to get me out of this car.

  There were two men in the back seat with guns and stoic expressions on their face. There was another Suburban following us and one in front of us. I recognized these vehicles. These were the SUV’s that had saved our lives in that small town just on the border of Oklahoma and Arkansas. That meant there were probably five vehicles. Maybe less? Depending on how cramped these guys liked to sit. There were at least three; that much was obvious. I knew that. Which one was Miller in?

  Well, at least I knew those helpful strangers made it to The Colony alive.

  Yeesh. Talk about mixed feelings for those people. Thanks for saving our lives that one time, but screw you for screwing us over in the end!

  I tilted forward on the balls of my feet, presumably to get into a better position, but really I just wanted to check out the front seat and floor. Sure enough, all of my weapons were at Kane’s feet. He must have taken them off me after I’d been knocked out and dumped in the car.

  I finally moved my gaze back to Tyler who looked at me like, “Well? What did you come up with?”

  Unfortunately, so far I had nothing.

  I shook my head, but just barely. How could I get us out of this? How could I get my hands free?

  “Where’s Miller?” I asked almost desperately.

  “In another vehicle,” Kane replied.

  “You promised you would leave them alone. You promised you would keep them out of this.”

  Kane swirled around again and met my accusing stare. “No, I told you I wouldn’t tattle on them. If you remember correctly, I told you to keep them out of this. I told you what my father would do. I told you it would not end well for them. Yet, you couldn’t hide them good enough, so what do you expect?”

  “I didn’t even know where they were! How did he even find them?” I demanded with a slightly stronger voice. I rubbed my dry, sandpapery tongue on the roof of my mouth but it was not good. My mouth was a cactus and probably smelled like a sewer. I would choke on my swollen tongue and that would be the end of me.

  Or did that sound too hopeful?

  Kane let out an exasperated sigh. “This wasn’t exactly fair to you, Reagan. And for that I apologize. You just weren’t prepared to play this game. You didn’t have the right tools. None of you did. None of you do. As good at staying alive as you are, you’d think some ruthlessness would have slipped in there somewhere.”

  “How did he find them, Kane?” I demanded, so tired of these games I could spit. Well, if I had any extra saliva…

  “When you’re looking for something hidden in plain sight, you don’t watch where people go, Reagan. You watch where nobody goes. Follow the place that is un-trafficked, that is avoided and where eyes don’t fall. They were pathetically easy to find. I know Gage thought he was doing a good thing, but he has so royally screwed himself, even I’m a little nervous for him.”

  “And by him, you mean his settlement.”

  “I mean his settlement.”

  “What about me? Are you nervous for me?” I asked on a whisper.

  He gave me a sad look and turned back around. “I told you not to let me find you.” He spoke at the windshield but I felt his words as if they were individual knives digging into every one of my pressure points.

  “That you did,” I mumbled. My brain puzzled itself all the way back together, but it was worse then. Sure, I could think straight, but then all I could think about was Hendrix and that stupid gunshot wound. Anxiety, crippling fear and sickening heartache all partnered
together to assault my nerves. My breathing picked up, my chest heaved with the effort to suck in oxygen. Tears flooded my eyes again. I kept picturing his unconscious body, lying in my lap. His head had been completely dead weight and blood poured from his shoulder like a cooler of Gatorade over the winning coach’s head at the end of a championship football game.

  Tyler sensed my panic and slumped her body to the side so that her head rested heavily on my shoulder. We were awkward and definitely uncomfortable like this, both propped up painfully on each other’s jabby-boned bodies; but we had each other. And that was the most comforting thing in the world.

  Shuddering sobs racked my chest and I gave into the temptation to break down- but just a little. Sure, the tough girl act worked most the time. But, Kane had invested feelings; maybe I could pull out his sympathy card with some alligator tears.

  Not that they were fake. This was a true and honest to God meltdown- potentially nervous breakdown.

  Tyler dissolved into tears next to me. Even though I wasn’t sure why. She just didn’t strike me as the kind of girl to cry in front of others. Unless maybe she had a motive. Or this terrifying road trip had finally gotten to her. Either way, pretty soon we were trembling with racking sobs and sniffling into our shoulders. Her cries were muffled behind the duct tape, her breathing started to struggle after a while.

  “For shit’s sake!” the driver groaned. “What is it?”

  Kane’s body swiveled to face us. Even though I didn’t look at him, I felt his watching, calculating gaze.

  “Help her,” I moaned desperately. Tyler really was having a hard time catching her breath now and her sobbing had turned into gasping/gagging sounds. Although, maybe my dramatics were a little over the top when I screamed, “Help her! Why aren’t you helping her! She’s your sister! Don’t you care? Don’t you care about anything anymore? You’re just a killer! Just a cold-blooded, no-heart murderer!” My voice broke dramatically on the word “murderer” and I sounded like I’d make the perfect distraught wife of a wrongly accused blue-collar, upstanding citizen, model of the community, working man who was sent to prison for life after being framed for murdering his boss in a Lifetime movie loosely based on real events.