RecruitZ (Afterworld Series) (14 page)

“It seems your prying has gotten you into trouble, silly girl,” she began. “If you’d only left well enough alone.”

Brenda began pacing in front of me, taking only a few steps at a time, her arms fastened behind her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I spit out.

“There’s no point in being coy with me.”

“I’m not.”

Brenda let out a deep breath. “I liked you so this makes it extra painful on me.”

“I’m sure it does,” I replied flatly.

“And Preston. I never would have guessed. Although my hunch tells me that he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time, but my boss didn’t want to hear it.”

I glanced over at Preston, his body swayed only slightly from the breeze, but his eyes remained closed.

“Whatever you think I’m involved with—”

“Quiet,” she yelled, taking two steps toward me. She leaned over, and her face was only inches from mine. “You have made some people—my bosses—very angry, and it is my job to make them happy again. You understand?”

I narrowed my eyes at her and gathered as much liquid as I could inside my mouth.

“Well?” she asked again.

I smiled and then puckered, releasing a shot of spit on her face. Not very polite but what can I say?

Her expression fell as she wiped the spray off her face. She removed a syringe from her back pocket and I began to squirm.

“Maybe you should’ve thought things through before you spit on me,” Brenda said, tapping the syringe. “But, nonetheless, this will get us the answers we need. And then we’ll see where we’re at.”

She jabbed the needle into my neck, pushing the serum into my body. I sat calmly in the chair, my eyes not leaving Brenda as she tossed the syringe onto the concrete floor.

There were no windows in the building so I had no idea what time it was. It felt like it was night, but I had no idea if it was or not. I took a deep breath in and began to feel very relaxed. I slouched in the chair slightly as my shoulders released the tension that had built up. The room wasn’t spinning, but I was as I looked around.

“Why did you come to Shackles?” she asked.

That was an easy question.

“To find a place full of creeps, and I lucked out,” I replied, smiling.

“What do you mean by creeps?” she asked.

Wasn’t it obvious?

“Scumbags. You know people who prey on—” I forgot what I was saying.

Brenda’s face flushed with anger and I had no idea why. I thought she wanted me to be honest.

“What makes you think you’re better than others, Rebekah?” she asked, glaring at me.

I glared back.

“I don’t.”

“What was your intention the night you went to the zombie pit?”

“I wanted to see what the zombies looked like, and I hoped to run into Preston again.”

Oops! I did? I glanced at Preston. His eyes were still closed.

“What do you mean what they looked like?” Brenda took a step closer.

“To see if they were normal.”

“And were they?”

“As normal as zombies can be,” I said.

Did I just lie?

“What did you think about our collection?”

“I thought about how every single one of them used to have families that loved them.”

“Did you think that about Payback?”

“You mean Peter?” I asked.

“Who is Peter?” she questioned, a sardonic smile spreading across her lips.

“My brother-in-law and he deserved better. That’s what I thought about him.”

“Tell me about your husband, Gavin,” she continued.

At the mention of his name, a deadly mixture of anger and sadness began pumping through my veins. I wanted to hurt her. No. I wanted to kill her.

“There isn’t much to tell,” I hissed. “He apparently kept things from me, and I now question everything about him, about us.”

“Like what?” she pressed.

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be so angry at him. I wouldn’t be questioning things between us now, would I?” I hissed. I saw a twitch of a smile on Preston’s lips and my pulse quickened.

“What did he do for a job?”

“He went to school. He was an assistant researcher. I wouldn’t call it a job.”

“What did he research?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” I confessed.

Another shadow of a smile surfaced across Preston’s face, and a new surge of adrenaline pumped through me. I had to get us out of here.

“Why wouldn’t you know that?” she huffed, more to herself than me.

“Clearly, you weren’t listening to my answers. He kept things from me.”

Brenda was obviously agitated. She crossed her arms and scowled at me.

I scowled back.

“You wanted to see if our zombies were normal?” she asked, after a few moments of silence.

I nodded.

“Well, I think I’ll give you the opportunity to find out for yourself,” she laughed and signaled to the men to move me. Preston’s eyes opened slightly as he watched them prepare me, and then he closed them.

They turned me around, and my heart sank when I saw a cage exactly like the one I saw at the pit. They wanted me to fight one of theirs.

“We wanted to arrange a bit of a family reunion. Actually, I didn’t originally approve of this, but the bosses felt it necessary. I’ll admit once you spit on me, I decided I supported the get-together.”

As the two men dragged me to the cage, my entire body felt like I was in a crushing tidal wave. The room spun around me, and I wasn’t able to catch my breath. My arms and legs wouldn’t function. Every bone in my body felt as if it had already been crushed.

“Boys, open it up,” she hollered, glancing behind her at Preston. His eyes remained closed.

They hauled me up the steps, untied me, and opened the gate, tossing me inside. My body hit the mat with a painful thud. I slowly crawled to the opposite side and attempted to climb up the links to stand. That was when I saw all of the cuts on my hands and arms. What had they done to me? Why didn’t I remember?

“I will not fight him,” I said, staring at her as I leaned against the chain-link.

“Then you will die,” she said.

“She’ll die either way,” the man muttered, who was still gripping the stun gun tightly.

“What do you think you’ll prove by dying at the hands of your brother-in-law?” she asked, coming close to the cage. Her head was at about the height of my knees. I cursed the protection of the fence in between us. How I would love to knee her right in the nose.

“It’s about standing for something,” I whispered.

Brenda started laughing. “And what exactly is it that you stand for, my dear?”

“The truth,” I said, my head lolling to the left. The stinging pain in my cheek was only getting worse as I continued to stand. If my hands and arms were this damaged, I couldn’t imagine what my face looked like.

“I think it’s about time we start the show.”

The two men left the warehouse, while Brenda grabbed a chair and positioned it far enough back from the ring so that she wouldn’t get dirty. I slid down the fence and tucked my legs into me. Wrapping my arms around my knees, I noticed a lump under my skin. Pressing my thumb over the mound, I glanced down briefly and noticed a pale red glow just under my flesh. What was that?

“It’s do or die,” Brenda said, clapping.

My cheeks were hot with anger as I thought about what laid ahead. The people surrounding me were truly evil, and if they’d take this much time with someone as inconsequential as me, I didn’t want to imagine what they were capable of on a larger scale.

I heard the clanking of chains against the concrete as the two men walked my brother-in-law toward the ring. My heart rate pumped rapidly, and my ears were ringing with terror. I watched Peter slowly shuffle toward the gate, being roughly pulled and tugged toward the opening. He looked different than the first time I saw him. His flesh was beaten up more, like maybe the other fights hadn’t been as kind as the first one he won.

“This is going to be great,” Brenda said, laughing.

The two men detached the chains and pushed Peter into the ring. I glanced briefly over Peter’s shoulders and saw Preston. He was watching me closely. I also saw both men slowly walking backward from the ring, unaware of how closely they were standing to Preston. My eyes landed on the one with the stun gun. Preston followed my gaze to the man and nodded.

I turned my attention back to my brother-in-law, waiting for him to attack. I pressed my back against the chain-link and felt it digging into my skin. Apparently, I wasn’t any luckier than Preston. The tenderness of my skin made me cringe, but I didn’t take my eyes off the zombie in front of me.

A red light flashed and Peter lunged at me. I dodged out of the way as Peter crashed into the side of the cage. He got up and immediately came for me, his mouth gaping and hands outstretched. I kicked him in the gut, pushing him back into the chain-link. Ridiculously, I hoped for a flicker of recognition as he bounced against the cage. None came.

I wrapped my fingers through the cage and rapidly began to climb. My hands worked at a speed I didn’t know possible as I lifted my body quickly. Just as I was almost out of reach from Peter’s clutching hands, my foot slipped. Peter grabbed my ankle and tugged me so hard my hands slipped from the cage, but I was able to grab onto another rung. As I frantically worked my foot away from him, he held on tighter and brought it to his mouth. In one swift motion, I whipped my knee up toward my chest, which released my foot from my shoe, leaving Peter clasping onto the empty shoe. It took him a moment to realize there was nothing in the shoe—no flesh—which gave me enough time to climb up the cage a couple more feet. He threw the shoe to the mat. I watched it bounce and knew how close I was to slipping into his grasp. He grunted and sprung up slightly on the balls of his feet. His hands alternated between clutching empty air and twisting onto the fence. Zombies weren’t supposed to get frustrated, but I felt like that was what I saw. I scrambled up a few more slots, not taking my eyes off of Peter, when I noticed his birthmark was missing. He had a small strawberry birthmark on the back of his neck and it was gone. Not a trace.

That didn’t make any sense. My mind ran over various scenarios and none computed. He was my brother-in-law. It was Peter. It looked exactly like him. Exactly. But he was missing part of him. My eyes ran over his hair, Peter’s hair! His eyes, nose, lips, they were all Peter’s features. It had to be him. There was only one way to find out if it was really Peter or not, his tattoo. He had a raven inked into his skin on his eighteenth birthday.

Hanging above his head, I dangled my arm over his head, fastened to the cage by only my left hand. Circling my hand over him, I whispered, “Peter give me a sign it’s really you.” He continued grasping at my hand so I kicked out my free leg, attempting to distract him. He lunged at my shoeless foot just as I grabbed his tattered red shirt. I ripped the material right off his shoulder, revealing solid grey flesh and nothing more. There was no tattoo.

I had seen what these creatures could do to one another and to humans. I couldn’t let myself fall into his clutches. I climbed up to the top of the cage, but the two men took a step forward away from Preston. I glanced at Preston and realized he wouldn’t be able to do anything unless I relieved the men’s fears. I descended a few feet down the chain-link and saw the two men relax and take a step back. Preston would be able to reach them. They were, no doubt, worried about getting dirty. I shivered at the thought and continued to stare down at the zombie. I would no longer refer to this stranger—or replica—as Peter. This wasn’t my brother-in-law. I steadied my breath and considered my options for survival. If I jumped down, feet first and toppled him, I might have a chance of crushing his neck. Might have a chance. That wasn’t certain enough.

I glanced at Brenda who looked to be getting very frustrated at the lack of action. I couldn’t help myself and waved at her, catching Preston as he sprung to life. He hooked his feet over the head of the man with the stun gun and twisted his body so that the rope cracked the man’s neck. Preston unhooked his feet, and the man dropped as the other man attempted to stop Preston, but it was too late. Preston had already lodged his feet into the man’s head. He hit the floor, his head smacking against the concrete.