Love and Decay, Volume Eight (Episodes 9-12, Season Three) (4 page)

Hendrix dumped me on my side and popped up
from the desk we’d taken cover behind. Somehow in that showdown
he’d managed to grab a gun. He shot a few rounds, and then ducked
down while the gunfire spread around the room and men lost their
lives.

I joined Hendrix at the edge of the desk,
letting the thick metal shield us from the attack.

I thrust my hand in the air and fired without
looking. I doubted I hit anything but I needed them to back off
while we devised an escape plan.

I wanted to turn around and check on Tyler
and Vaughan, maybe even Diego, but it wasn’t possible at the
moment. The constant gunfire prevented it and too many men that had
to be held off.

I lifted my gun again and fired three more
rounds. When I went to do it again, my gun clicked empty.

I looked around quickly for something else to
use, but nothing was close enough. There were more dead bodies, but
I’d be shot before I ever reached them to steal their weapons.

I did see Tyler’s wide-eyed gaze though. That
was worth turning around for. Vaughan was still alive too. At least
for now.

Hendrix’s gun ran out of ammo a minute later
and I knew this was the end of it.

I contemplated standing up and making it
quick… easy. Matthias would keep me alive if he could. If he could
torture me forever, he would.

But if I ended things fast, he would never
get the chance.

Hendrix’s hand reached out and grabbed mine,
squeezing it until it hurt. “Not yet,” he pleaded. “Don’t’ give up
yet.”

“Hendrix, there’s nothing left-”

Suddenly the entire front of the building
exploded in a burst of light and fire. Thankfully we were tucked
behind a large desk that shielded us from the searing debris that
sliced through the air.

The roar of the explosion momentarily stole
my hearing. A high-pitched ringing sound blasted through my head
while my skin reconciled the heat of the blast and the whipping
wind that followed it.

Just as I started to come back to my senses,
another blast roared through the jail, knocking me back into the
bars of the cell.

I must have lost consciousness for a second
because I woke up to Hendrix shaking me. His lips moved but I
couldn’t make out his words yet. I felt sedated beneath a heavy
blanket of confusion.

My mind could pull up facts, but they were
fuzzy and disjointed. Matthias. Mexico. Diego. Hendrix.
Explosions.

Explosions that freaking hurt.

All at once hearing rushed back to my ears
and I popped up. I ached everywhere. My bones felt tired and
brittle, but I knew these explosions. I’d experienced them once
before.

Molotov cocktails.

Andy had come back for us.

When another explosion tore through the room,
my body slammed back into the bars like I was a boneless rag
doll.

I managed to stay conscious this time, but I
really wished I wouldn’t have.
Ow!

When I could see and hear again, I noticed
that this explosion had crumbled the wall directly to my right. An
exit made way to the volatile weather outside. It was twenty feet
away, but there was an exit!

The men who had managed to survive the attack
picked themselves up off the ground slowly, only to be taken out by
bullets from unseen locations.

The cavalry had arrived.

“Come on,” Hendrix urged. He grabbed my hand
and pulled me along in a squat. Tyler and Vaughan sidled up next to
us and we darted over big pieces of stucco, straight through the
hole.

No gunfire followed us. I wasn’t even sure if
Matthias knew we’d been able to escape.

As soon as we stepped into the alley, I took
the chance to look back and check out Diego. Javi’s huge, lifeless
frame slumped over him. Bullet holes riddled his back and side.
He’d died trying to save Diego and I felt a pang of sadness for the
stranger.

He had stayed with Diego to the very end.
What kind of evil warlords inspired that level of sacrifice from
their men?

Or were all lunatics this loyal?

Matthias’s men certainly weren’t ready to
give up yet.

Throwing my arm up to protect my face from
the wind, I shouted over crazy weather and popping gunfire. “I’m so
pissed I missed him! I almost had him!”

Hendrix’s strong hand landed on my back,
urging me out of the alley. “We’re going to get you a second
chance!” I lifted an eyebrow. I wanted to get the hell out of here!
Not go back in there for round two. “We have to get a weapon
first.” He pointed at a bench down the street a bit.

I knew there were guns taped beneath the seat
and more in a planter that was nailed to the side of the next
building. We had strategically hidden weapons all over this small
main street for just this purpose.

We followed Vaughan and Tyler as they hugged
the buildings and used the weather to hide our position.

I looked across the street and blinked
through the thick dust that obscured everything around me. I could
have sworn I saw Harrison perched on the same low ceiling a Colony
sniper had used yesterday, but I couldn’t be sure.

I refocused on following Hendrix. I choked on
the dust that whipped violently up and down the street. The small
pieces of gravel it picked up pelted my skin and made me wince
whenever it got my face.

Fires burned all around us, lighting the way.
I wondered if they were from Andy’s explosives, but the air smelled
like burning hair and Zombie. A roof was on fire across the street.
It was only a matter of time before the building collapse and the
fire spread.

I had never seen anything like this. I was
used to bad rainstorms and the occasional tornado. This weather was
unbelievable. Lightning flashed overhead, its long fingers
stretching across the expanse of the sky, revealing the street
around us with almost blinding intensity.

Hendrix’s hand did not leave mine. He kept me
close to his body and I pressed against him, unashamed to use his
body as a shield from the dust.

Just as we neared the bench, a bullet whizzed
by my head. I let out a scream I was not proud of and sprinted
forward. Vaughan reached it first, diving under to grab
plastic-wrapped weapons. Tyler, Hendrix and I ducked around the
side of the building. There was a slight reprieve from the storm
tucked away in the alley.

This weather was insane
. My eyes stung
and dirt and gravel layered my mouth. I wanted to guzzle an entire
bottle of mouthwash, but I hadn’t even seen mouthwash in at least a
year. And I probably wasn’t going to find it in post-apocalyptic
Mexico…

Vaughan slipped around the corner and handed
Hendrix and me a gun. There weren’t enough for Tyler, but she
shrugged it off.

“Just don’t let me die,” she told
Vaughan.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” was his gruff
promise.

Gunfire ricocheted off the corners of the
buildings as Matthias’s men pursued us. A man appeared five feet
from the alley, pointing his guns at us before a bullet pummeled
him in the back of the head. He dropped to the ground, arms splayed
wide.

“Ten!” A familiar Parker voice shouted over
the roar of bullets.

“Show off!” King hollered back.

Hendrix and Vaughan grinned at each other,
both of them proud of Harrison and his stellar aim. Even in these
nightmarish conditions. Usually we reserved that game for Zombies,
but I supposed Matthias Allen’s men were just as worthy.

I looked down at the weapon in my hand. I
needed to catch up.

“King sounds close,” Hendrix said.

Vaughan glanced at Tyler. “We need more
weapons.”

“Just one more building over, there’s more in
a window box,” I told them. I had hidden them there myself.

The Parkers nodded before turning to check
out the street. Tyler rubbed her hands over her biceps as if she
were chilled. I recognized the look of fear mingled with
determination on her dirty face.

I felt it echo in my soul.

Hendrix turned around and jerked a command
with his chin. I pulled my sweaty t-shirt over my nose, but it was
too stretched out to stay put as a makeshift mask. Tyler and I
followed the boys around the corner and the wind immediately hit me
in the face, making my feet stumble. I flailed, but kept
upright.

We had to duck our heads to make headway
against the wind. Moving forward was slow and awkward. Thankfully,
the wind inhibited everyone, not just us. The men shooting at us
couldn’t aim for anything with Mother Nature fighting against
them.

Without this rainless storm, we would have
been dead already.

We made it the length of another building and
Tyler and Vaughan dropped to a crouch in the next alley. This one
was wider than the last and our position was too exposed.

I dug through the planter, searching for
weapons I knew were just beneath the first layer of loose dirt. My
fingernails and palms came away caked with dirt. I reminded myself
not to rub my eyes, but it would be hard with the brutal wind
kicking up all kinds of debris in my eyes.

I finally found the milky plastic tarp I’d
used to wrap two more guns. I pulled it out, shook of the excess
dirt and handed the package to Vaughan to deal with. Hendrix had
already turned around to fire back at Matthias’s men. I leaned
against the building for support and hoped the prickly stucco would
help focus my aim.

Most everyone had taken cover in the alleys
that lined the street. Each building in this town had been built
separately. So far that had come in really handy for us, but not
every alley was created equally. Some of them were too small to fit
into and some of them were way too wide to offer any protection.
And now some of the buildings were on fire.

But we worked with what we had been
given.

A man started to make his way over to us.
Hendrix was busy to my left, so I took it upon myself to end his
miserable existence. Ash gusted in front of his face, blurring his
features.

I aimed carefully and waited. I didn’t want
to shoot too soon and miss altogether. He ran with a purpose as if
nothing could keep him from getting to us. My insides knotted with
nervousness. Visibility was terrible, but I knew where the head of
a man was. All I had to do was point and shoot. I didn’t need to
see his face in order to hit him.

I let out a slow breath and prepared to
kill.

Just as I went to pull the trigger a huge
bird landed in front of me. Its black wings spread wide and his
black beak opened angrily. The huge crow cawed in my face, flapping
its wings wildly. I scrambled back, staring into the beady eyes
that looked right at me.

“Holy shit,” I gasped. The crow took off as
quickly as it landed, flapping its wings in my face and fighting
against the storm.

My heart pounded in my chest. I turned back
to my gun, preparing to do damage. I fell back a second time when
the man stood above me and I realized I was too late.

He looked straight out of a horror movie with
his black, calf-length duster and a red bandana hid his face. A
wide brimmed cowboy hat covered his head, sitting low over his
eyes.

I fumbled for my gun, hoping Hendrix would be
able to shoot faster than I could get my shit together.

The guy pulled his bandana down and I flopped
back on the hard ground, deflated with relief.

Andy.

I had almost shot Andy.

I sat up quickly and pushed deeper into the
alley. Andy joined me inside and when I managed to stand on shaking
legs I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.

“I almost killed you,” I told him.

He pulled back and nodded. “I know.”

“That bird saved your life.”

He smiled gently at me. “God saved my life.”
When I raised my eyebrows and fumbled for a response, he said. “The
bird helped too.”

“You’re here.” Vaughan’s hand landed on
Andy’s shoulder. “Took you long enough.”

Andy smiled wider. “We had to go back for
supplies and such. Didn’t want to come in here as unprepared as the
first time.”

“The explosives were a nice touch,” Vaughan
grinned.

“Yeah, I’m nearly out of gasoline though. We
don’t have many left.” Andy pushed his hat back and rubbed a gloved
hand over his forehead. “Do you remember where we stashed the rest
of the guns?”

Obviously. I knew every spot. Every nook and
cranny. When you hid weapons because you knew you would die if they
weren’t where you needed them to be when you needed them to be
there, it was easy to remember those hiding places.

“There’re more across the street,” Tyler put
in. “There’re some on the other end of town.”

“We need to drive them down there,” Andy
instructed. “Get them on one side of town where we can keep them
contained. The van is that way.” He pointed in the opposite
direction almost completely black from the storm. “It’s out of
sight for now, but this storm isn’t going to last forever. We need
to get out of here while we can!”

“We’re not leaving.” The words fell from my
mouth with conviction, even though I had been thinking the opposite
thing not five minutes before. I looked around at my friends and
their wide-eyed disbelief. “At least I’m not leaving. I have to end
this. Today.”

“Reagan, if he gets his hands on you again,
he’s going to kill you,” Vaughan reasoned. “There will be no second
chances. We’re lucky to have lasted this long.”

Hendrix stepped back into the alley. “What’s
going on?”

“I’m not running anymore,” I told Hendrix. “I
want to finish this.”

He stared at me hard for a moment before
looking at his brother. “We need to help Harrison and King.”

Vaughan immediately responded and the two of
them disappeared around the corner. I held my breath, frustrated
with their fast departure… with the entire day… with every day
since Matthias Allen had overrun my life.