Love and Decay, Volume Eight (Episodes 9-12, Season Three) (6 page)

Matthias glanced wildly over his shoulder for
Miller. “You too? After all of that? After all I’ve done for you?
You’d really rather stay with these cretins than be with your own
flesh and blood?”

Miller grinned like only Miller could, “I’ve
never been happier.”

Matthias launched himself at his son while
screaming, “Why you disrespectful, little-”

That’s when hell really broke loose.

I didn’t know who shot first, but I had the
sick realization that they shot at Luke. I didn’t know what
happened to him beyond that because all of my attention followed
Matthias as he tried to murder his son.

Gun shots exploded with deafening clarity all
around me while I chased down Matthias. Miller fired two rounds and
missed before he turned around to sprint the opposite direction
from his father. Matthias raced after him.

I chased after Matthias, lifting my gun and
firing… but missing. My left arm hung limply at my side, useless
and pained. Black dots danced in front of my stinging vision, but I
would not give up until Matthias had no heartbeat.

Miller ducked into a flaming building. My
breath hitched and I stumbled. Strong arms were there to catch
me.

Hendrix.

He frowned down at me, but didn’t say
anything. The rest of his family had Matthias’s men to deal
with.

I ran after Matthias, letting another shot go
wild. I needed to calm down before I wasted all of my stolen ammo,
but I wanted him dead
so badly
.

I just wanted this to be over.

I darted through the doorway, ignoring the
searing heat of the flames and the embers that sprinkled down on my
skin, burning me with each contact.

This had been a small restaurant at one
point. Tables and chairs were overturned and there was a counter in
front to place orders.

Miller threw his body over the top and
dropped to the floor. He used the counter for cover while he tried
to shoot his dad. Matthias jumped back behind a turned-over table
to avoid his son’s bullets.

I heard a gunshot directly behind us before a
body dropped to the ground. Apparently, Hendrix and I weren’t the
only ones to follow Matthias in here.

I just really hoped it wasn’t someone I loved
because they were dead now.

Hendrix and I had the angle on Matthias. His
gaze darted to us and he fell backwards off balance. He started
shooting mid-fall before I could pull the trigger.

I felt the burn rip through my thigh. For a
second I thought my leg was on fire.

“
Son of a bitch!
” I screamed.

My vision blurred as the hottest, most
intense pain blazed through me. My breathing started to come in
short pants. I couldn’t catch a full breath. My good arm swung wide
and I pulled the trigger. My shot landed somewhere in the
ceiling.

I gritted my teeth and willed focus to return
to my muddled brain. Hendrix caught me as my body started to teeter
backwards. His forearm slipped under mine and he shot Matthias from
that position. I felt his blowback jerk through me and wanted to
puke.

He landed two shots in Matthias’s chest. I
watched it happen and prayed it wasn’t a hallucination.

Matthias flew back into the fiery wall. Agony
contorted his crazed features. Blood soaked his dirty shirt,
painting a picture of death.

Down, but not out. His head dropped back
against the wall, but his black eyes stayed with us. I watched his
hand twitch, armed with a still-useful weapon. I pointed my gun at
his body and pulled the trigger.

My bullet exploded from the barrel and buried
itself in his chest.

I aimed for his head, but my weakness and
wounds inhibited me. Still, Matthias’s chest stopped struggling for
breath and his soulless eyes were lost forever behind closed
eyelids. He stilled completely, the kind of still that only came
with death. The kind that promised he would never move again.

Despite my pain, I felt myself inhale.

It felt like it was my very first breath.

My very first breath of freedom.

I closed my eyes and slumped against Hendrix.
The heat became too much. My skin burned from the intensity of it.
Sweat poured from my skin and I stopped being able to breathe
clearly.

A huge chunk of the ceiling dropped in the
far corner and I knew it was only a matter of time before the
entire ceiling would collapse, but I couldn’t find the strength to
move.

Hendrix shifted abruptly and I winced from
the pain that shot up my leg, through my broken arm and to every
single nerve ending in my body.

“Miller, let’s go!” Hendrix shouted.

Through blurry vision, I watched Hendrix hold
me with one arm and reach out for Miller with his other. He pulled
Miller over the counter and dragged us both through the door.

We fell down the steps and out onto the
street just as the entire roof caved in. I shouted with the impact
that rattled all of the broken, injured parts of me. My vision went
black and I pushed up with my good arm just in time to dry heave
onto the dusty ground.

The building erupted in flames behind me. The
entire structure turned into a blazing tinder box. The fire
continued to spread to the buildings next to it. The whole street
burned angrily.

I had wondered if three bullets would be
enough to kill Matthias. After all of that. After everything we had
been through. After all of the times we’d tried to kill him
before.

I honestly didn’t believe it was enough.

The burning building was enough though. It
had to be.

Nobody could survive that. Not even Matthias
Allen.

I felt unconsciousness creep up on me. The
bullet lodged in my thigh hurt more than anything I had ever felt
before. The indescribable pain sickened me so severely that I felt
it in my spine.

Men continued to scream, but I was useless. I
had to give into the pain somewhat to stay awake. I had to
acknowledge it and grit my teeth through it or I would lose my
tenuous hold on reality and slip away.

Hendrix pulled me against his chest and we
curled up together right there in the middle of the street, while
the village burned and the rest of the Parkers finished off the
rest of Matthias’s men.

I needed Hendrix right now. I needed him to
hold me close to his heart and remind me that he was still alive. I
needed him to remind me that
I
was still alive.

That I was still human.

Looking at the rest of my loved ones, I
wondered if they needed the same thing.

Joy held Luke against her chest while silent
tears streamed down her face. Luke lay limply in her arms.

Was he dead?

He had to be.

When the final gunshot went off, I lifted my
head and surveyed the pile of dead bodies.

Andy moved to his family and fell to his
knees in front of them. He shoved his hand through Luke’s hair and
tipped his head so he could look at it.

I turned away. I couldn’t watch that.

Harrison and King stood over the dead men
with slumped shoulders and horrified expressions on their faces.
They each held semi-automatic rifles in their trembling hands.

Vaughan held Tyler as close to his chest as
he could while she wept onto his shoulder. He rocked her back and
forth in the middle of the street, murmuring into her hair.

Miller curled into a ball next to us and
started to cry.

My heart broke all over again. Tyler and
Miller had wanted Matthias dead as much as we did, but he was still
their father.

They had both just taken part in murdering
their father. And if we wouldn’t have won, he would have murdered
them instead.

I looked up the road and watched Haley and
Nelson sprint off into the distance.

Where were they going?

“Are they all dead?” I heard Hendrix ask
anyone who would answer.

Nobody answered him. I vaguely wondered if
that meant no, but I didn’t have enough strength to question
anything further.

I sunk into Hendrix. I held up a wet hand and
realized it had been lying on my leg. Now it was covered with
bright red blood.

Oh, my god, I had been shot
. It was
the first time I’d let myself admit that. I had only been able to
acknowledge an injury before. But now reality settled in and I
realized how dire my condition was.

“Hendrix,” I winced.

“Shh,” he soothed against my hair. “We’re
going to get you help.” His voice trembled and his body shivered
uncontrollably.

Or maybe that was my body.

“I… I…” I couldn’t think. I couldn’t make
sentences.

“Reagan,” Hendrix growled with a broken
voice. “I am going to get you help. I am going to fix this.”

I wanted to nod, but I wasn’t sure if I
managed it.

“You’re going to stay right by me,” he
continued to promise. “You’re not going anywhere.”

I blinked tears away as the huge van Andy
drove careened down the street toward us. Buildings continued to
crumble and crash beneath the weight of the flames. I felt the
tightness of my singed skin, but I couldn’t feel the heat. I
shivered instead, feeling colder than I ever had.

My mind started to wonder and I realized I
wasn’t going to die of a bullet wound or broken arm. I was going to
freeze to death instead.

The van stopped in front of us and Haley and
Nelson jumped from the front seat. Adela followed behind them,
cradling a tiny baby in her arms. Page stood right beside her,
clutching Adela’s leg. It took me a long time to remember where
that baby came from.

Shit.

Keep it together.

People started yelling again and Hendrix
tried to stand up. As soon as he moved, my stomach dipped and I
felt sickness crash through me.
Everything hurt.

I squeezed my eyes shut and hot tears leaked
out. I might have passed out after that because when my eyes opened
again, Hendrix had me cradled against his chest and was walking
toward the car.

Page’s ashen face appeared in front of mine,
her bottom lip trembling.

“Just fine,” I wheezed. “I’m fine,
Pagey.”

She turned whiter than a sheet. Apparently I
wasn’t very convincing.

Hendrix set me on a bench seat as carefully
as he could while everyone else piled in. I started to have the
worst feeling that we were forgetting something.

Nelson jumped in the driver’s seat and turned
the vehicle back on. The feeling that we were leaving something
behind intensified.

“Hendrix,” I mumbled.

He didn’t hear me.

I tried to sit up and get his attention, but
I couldn’t move. I had no strength left. Everything inside of me
was working extra hard just to keep me alive.

But still… that feeling that I had unfinished
business in this town overpowered every other thought. Even the
pain.

Suddenly it came back to me in a rush of
urgency. “Diego!”

I hadn’t said it very loud, but I had at
least captured Hendrix’s attention. “What was that?”

“Diego,” I repeated. “We need… we need to
see…” I closed my eyes and focused everything I had left in order
to say, “Alive.”

Hendrix growled out a curse, but slammed his
hand on the seat in front of him. I heard him shout, “Go back!
Goddamn it! Go back.”

Angry voices boomed through the van. I wasn’t
coherent enough to make out what they were saying. The van lurched
to a stop and the rocking motion was too much.

I passed out again.

Nausea assaulted me first, pulling me out of
the blissful blackness I decided I wanted to live in for the rest
of my life. There was no pain in that quiet place.

No agony.

I woke to agony supersized.

It hurt to breathe. It hurt to not breathe.
It hurt just to lie as still as possible and not do anything.

When I finally found the ability to open my
eyes, it was dark outside and not from the storm. It was nighttime
and we were still in the van, driving away from Diego’s burning
village and Matthias Allen’s rotting corpse.

The vehicle was completely quiet except for
the rumble of the engine and the occasional baby coo or whimper.
Hendrix’s hand gripped my good one. There was hardly any room for
him on this bench with the way I had been laid out, but he made it
work.

His eyes were closed while his head rocked
back and forth with the movement of the van, but I knew he wasn’t
sleeping. I could see the tightness in his brows and his mouth had
been turned down into a frown.

I didn’t want to disturb him though, just in
case he was trying to sleep.

I tried to shift, but I couldn’t manage to
move my body. I felt sticky with sweat and dirt from head to toe.
My entire face was slick with a thick layer of it.

I smelled something foul that I convinced
myself was already an infection.

I couldn’t look up to see where everyone else
was, but I could look down. Diego lay sprawled out on the floor
unmoving.

I bet we looked like twinsies right now with
our sweaty skin and ghostly white pallor. Although with him, if it
hadn’t been for the sweat, I would have assumed he was dead.

How he was not dead, was completely beyond me
anyway. He looked like death. I would be shocked if he made it
through the night.

See? Twinsies.

The van finally slowed as it made its way
over bumpy gravel and awful road. I started to dry heave again,
unable to hold back the sickness.

I didn’t have anything to throw up though.
Hendrix’s arms were around me in a flash as he helped me up so I
wouldn’t choke on my tongue or spit.

When he laid me back down I immediately
missed the warmth of his touch, but at least I had stopped trying
to puke.

Eventually we pulled to a stop and Nelson
turned the van off. We all sat there in stunned silence while we
came to terms with how we made it back here.