Chapter Four

 

This could not be happening. I would not let this happen.

Kane’s arms snaked around my waist immediately. He yanked me tightly against his chest and whispered some warning about not making a scene.

Yeah, right.

I knew what this was a set up for. And I would not allow it.

I would not let this happen.

“Reagan, think about this,” Kane whispered in my ear. “If you make a scene now, you condemn them all to die. Let’s figure out what’s going to happen first.”

“He’s going to kill them.”

Kane’s logic echoed around in my head, and I got a glimpse into what his childhood was like when he explained my options, “Right now, it’s Tyler and Gage that die, or it’s every one of your friends. Think carefully and slow down. Just wait, please. Just see what the plan is. Then decide how to act.”

Gage and Tyler were pushed to their knees in front of Matthias. They were badly beat up, much worse than when we left them. Their clothes were bloody and torn. Gage’s right eye was swollen shut, and his nose had bled enough that it caked his mouth and chin. Tyler’s bottom lip had been cut open, and there was a nasty bruise that took up her entire left cheek. Her arm hung at a funny angle, and she limped. I saw Gage flinch and favor one of his sides as they shoved him to the ground.

Fear ignited inside me and burned through my blood. There were no less than fifty emotions coursing through my body, but fear screamed hotter and louder than all of them.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Matthias called out. “Your leader.”

The crowd hissed and booed and grew frenzied with Matthias’s clear disdain for Gage. I looked around incredulously at these idiots.

They had sought shelter here. They had begged and pleaded and bartered for Gage to show them kindness, and they’d taken advantage of all he had to offer. These people had nothing without Gage and yet the minute they were inconvenienced just a little bit, they allowed the enemy to walk in the front gate and take over.

They sickened me. How could they do this? How could they give up on Gage so quickly? How could they embrace evil incarnated?

They did not care.

They just wanted to be safe and kept away from Feeders.

Little did they know they had invited the beasts into their very midst. Matthias wouldn’t keep them safe from Zombies; he would thrust them into the middle of them and demand that they call on him for protection. And they would. They would cry out for their savior, the very man who’d placed them in danger.

Idiots.

All of them.

“Calm down, Reagan. If you react, he will make you suffer. He wants you to react. That’s the whole reason he’s doing this,” Kane murmured into my ear. “Don’t give him the satisfaction. Don’t give him an opportunity to punish you.”

I disagreed with Kane. I didn’t think this was all about me. I knew Matthias wanted to punish Gage for setting up his own community and for possibly enticing Tyler away. But I also knew he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. If he could punish me and hurt Gage, then he would. And he’d enjoy every single moment of it.

“This is your leader!” Matthias shouted at the riled crowd. “This is the man that left you! Left you to go carry off a meaningless crusade! This is the man that ignored you and neglected you and left you to rot and die! He abandoned you while you were vulnerable! He left you to the Feeders. When he finally decided to come back, he couldn’t even protect himself. My men found him easily and subdued him even more easily. This is not the man you want leading you! This is not the man you want to fight at your side! This man is weak! And weakness will not stop the Zombie threat!”

The crowd went wild. They started screaming and cheering and booing Gage. My bottom lashes pooled with tears that soon flowed freely down my cheeks.

I couldn’t abide by this kind of inhumanity. We’d come back to save these people… They didn’t deserve our saving. They didn’t deserve our kindness or generosity or sacrifice.

I had been afraid for them, but they’d already sold their souls to the evil of this world.

I should have been afraid for me.

For those that I loved.

Matthias quieted them with a simple flick of his hand. His hard gaze swept the crowd in every direction and he spoke in a quieter voice, “Not only did this man treat you poorly, but he thought to steal my daughter from me. He kept her prisoner here. He dragged her along with him into terrifying places and risked her life at every turn. And if that wasn’t enough, he took my son too, my baby boy.” His voice cracked dramatically, and he took a few moments to seemingly compose himself while the crowd absorbed his accusations. “This man is a monster. This man doesn’t care about your survival or the survival of the human race. He’s out for his own gain, and if you look at my daughter, then you’ll know he’s willing to do whatever it takes to further his own agenda. My baby girl wasn’t the only victim here. You were victims too. Gage exploited your needs in an effort to control you. Then he took your freedom and turned it into his own power.”

I struggled against Kane’s hold. At first I understood what he told me about pissing his dad off and that I needed to protect Haley and the Parkers. But I could not listen to this anymore. I could not hear these lies and let these people be manipulated any longer.

Matthias wasn’t finished though. I was beginning to be afraid that he would never be finished.

He smiled at the crowd around me and turned up the charm. “Thank you, everyone. Thank you for opening your doors to us. Thank you for giving us a place to stay. And most of all, thank you for giving me a way to find my family and bring them home. I am forever in your debt.”

The crowd went crazy again. They jumped forward and screamed as loudly as they could. They would draw Feeders from every direction if they didn’t quiet down, but trying to tell them that was obviously impossible at this point.

When they softened a little bit, Matthias went on. “For your generosity, I would like to give you a gift. I want to return your hospitality and give you something you’ll never forget.”

I swallowed down the bile that quickly rose in my throat and tried to turn away. Kane mistook my actions for trying to flee, and he held me more securely against his chest. I could feel the frantic beat of his heart, and I knew he was wondering what exactly Matthias was up to.

Matthias took several steps forward, until he loomed over Gage and casted his shadow all the way over his prisoner. Gage didn’t cower in front of Matthias or even look the least bit scared. However, he was still beat up, and Matthias looked more than formidable standing over a kneeling man.

“This is how I punish people who offend me!” Matthias shouted into the crowd. The cheering was more subdued this time, although some people hadn’t quite caught on yet. “This is how I treat those who would dare to treat me or my family poorly! This is how I punish those who would treat you badly!”

The crowd understood now, or at least most of them. This wasn’t just a spectacle; this was real. And this wasn’t just a show where they watched someone else get hurt. This was a threat.

This was a warning.

Sure, it was Gage this time, the leader that had in no way abandoned them. But it could be them next time. It would be anyone who stepped out of line and didn’t do exactly what Matthias said.

That was enough to keep any people group obedient. They finally began to see the nature of the beast they’d welcomed with open arms and easy compliance.

Matthias gestured to his men again, and two of them bent down to pull Tyler away.

Her hands weren’t bound and at the first contact from one of the other men, she freaked out. She clawed and scratched and hit and pounded at anything that touched her or came near. She screamed out with deep, powerful ferocity and cursed at the men trying to subdue her.

Finally, the men were able to wrestle her into their control. She didn’t give up fighting though. She kept it up and didn’t stop, even though her body had to be tired, and her voice completely gone. I fought too, but Kane was so much stronger than me, it hardly mattered.

He didn’t even pretend to struggle, just held me against him and murmured comforting things in my ear. Things that I ignored.

The crowd had enough of a reaction that my voice was lost in the sounds of shouting and bargaining with Matthias. I hated that Matthias couldn’t hear every single foul thing that flew out of my mouth, every curse and threat and insult. That he couldn’t hear my own bargaining.

Take me. Take me. Take me.

I had never thought of myself as the sacrificial kind of person, until now. I would do anything to save Gage from this impending fate. I would even give up my own life.

I didn’t think I could stomach this. I couldn’t let this go on. And I really couldn’t watch this. But Kane insisted. He would not let me go, not even to turn my head away.

“No!” Tyler screamed at her dad, and finally the crowd settled down enough that we could hear her. “No! Don’t do this!”

“Tyler,” Matthias said sternly. Tyler immediately stopped crying and shook her head. “Stop that.”

“No, Daddy,” Tyler whimpered. “Please no. Please, please, please, please no.”

“I’m not going to hurt you, Ty,” Matthias told her solemnly. “Do you know why that is?”

She shook her head while the tears flowed freely down her face. She didn’t seem capable of speech anymore. She knew what was coming.

And she couldn’t stop it.

Neither could I.

“I warned him. I told him what would happen if he took you. He didn’t want to listen and neither did you. You both have to be punished. His will be this way, and yours will know that you’re the reason this happened. You should have stayed with me. You shouldn’t have left. Then Gage would be fine right now. He would never have had to go through this if it weren’t for you.” He paused to let that sink in. Tyler sobbed hysterically and made loud keening noises. She would have collapsed to the ground if it weren’t for the men holding her up. “I hope you learn this lesson, Tyler. I hope you see how your actions have consequences, and they don’t always affect just you. Gage could have lived a very long, happy life if it weren’t for you. You destroy people. You ruin their lives. I want you to watch what you did to Gage. I want you to watch what happens when people get mixed up with you.”

I let out a scream of frustration. He was a master manipulator, and those scars would stay with Tyler forever. I prayed fervently that she wouldn’t let those words damage her any more than this moment would. There was no salvation from this.

This was the worst of the worst. This was what Matthias Allen was capable of.

Matthias gave Gage a disdainful glance and for courtesy’s sake said, “Any final words, Son? If so speak them now.”

“Tyler,” Gage said sternly, even though he couldn’t see her. She was behind him, but that didn’t stop him from speaking to her. “I love you, Ty. You’ve known it since we were kids. There’s never been anyone that can compete with you. No one that’s ever come close.” He took a shaky breath while the compound finally settled down and let him have his last moments. “And I would have done anything for you, no matter what you asked. No matter what you wanted there to be between us. I love you, Ty. And I loved Logan too. In a brotherly way. You kept us bonded all those years and there was no greater opponent that I could have fought for you. The better man between us won you. And Ty, he would have been so proud of whom you became in these last years. He would have been so awed by the strong woman you grew into.” Gage’s voice cracked and he admitted, “Because I am. I didn’t think there was a way for me to find you more beautiful or fall for you more, but then you went and grew up. I mean, really grew up. God, Ty, I love you. And that’s why this is worth it. I would do anything for you. And I think this qualifies as anything.” He chuckled at his own joke, but he was the only one. The rest of us were held in rapt silence while he finished his thoughts. “Don’t let him get to you. Don’t buy into his bullshit or let him manipulate you. You’re stronger than that. You’re better than he is. You’re so much better-”

Matthias grew tired of Gage’s speech, especially after he started to bash Matthias’s leadership qualifications. He kicked Gage to shut him up. Fresh blood exploded from his nose and mouth and sent the subdued Feeder into a frenzy. Matthias motioned to his men and they walked forward with the captured Zombie. Other men grabbed Gage and jerked him to his feet. They held his arms outright as though he was getting crucified and lugged him closer to the center of the courtyard.

Matthias gave another head nod and the bound and gagged Feeder was pulled forward. The Feeder was going bananas by now. With all this flesh and fresh life hovering around him, his sense had been forced into overdrive. He was a drooling, moaning, uncontrollable mess. He’d almost eaten all the way through his gag. His superhuman strength was impressive, but not strong enough for the handcuffs, plus a rope had been tied around his biceps pinning his arms to his back. I had to believe that was an extra precaution that would work.

The potential consequences of Matthias Allen’s punishment were unthinkable.

If the Feeder got loose…

But he didn’t. Matthias executed his judgment with the same cold-hearted precision and exactness that he did everything else. The Feeder was pushed in front of Gage and we waited while it tore through the bandana with its blackened, oozing teeth.

The gathered crowd went wild, cheering and yelling for the Zombie to “finish the traitor!” The Parkers also went crazy. They began fighting to get to Gage, to get the gunned men off their back.

It was no use. There was too many of guards and not enough of us. One guard hit Nelson in the back of the head so hard that it knocked him unconscious. Vaughan wasn’t any luckier with the butt of a rifle to his temple.

I stopped watching them before anything especially bad happened to Hendrix. My main focus had to be on Gage. He was in the most danger right now.

I screamed out, trying my hardest to be heard over the crowd. Kane squeezed me against him and buried his face in the curve of my neck.

I watched on with horrified fascination as the worst moment of my life played out in front of me.

As if it happened in slow motion, the Feeder finally chomped through the gag. Gage and the Feeder were only a foot apart. Gage had been left alone in the middle of the courtyard, kneeling and completely vulnerable to his impending attack. The ropes that held the slavering Feeder back were the only things stopping the inevitable.

The Feeder had been straining against its bonds to get to Gage. His crimson red pupils eyed Gage’s bloody face with obsessed interest.

All it once it happened. The men released the long ropes that held him in place and the Feeder flew forward directly to the buffet in front of him.

Gage’s unnatural scream resounded in the air as the Feeder tore at his face and neck. The sound of the animal’s hungry grunts and disgusting mouth noises competed with Gage’s screaming and the crowd’s crescendo of awe.

Tyler’s scream followed and mine wasn’t far behind. I wept openly at the sight in front of me, and even harder when Matthias’s men managed to pull the Feeder back, off Gage and subdue him once again.

It was over in less than a minute.

Gage slouched in the grip of the two men holding him. His body twitched and jerked from the loss of blood, the brutal, vicious attack of the Feeder and the infection.

Immediately I could tell that his lack of immunity, that Page’s miracle did not extend to Gage. He had been bitten by a Feeder and now he would become a Feeder.

That realization was worse than all the others. I had held out hope. Now that I knew it was possible, I couldn’t help but feel faith that he would survive unscathed.

Gage’s head suddenly snapped up, but there was nothing left of Gage at that moment. He was all monster.

Kane seemed momentarily stunned by the horror in front of us.

In fact, the entire courtyard calmed down, all at once.

They watched Gage go through the infection’s beginning stages while enraptured by the display of inhuman catastrophe. These people were sick.

They deserved Matthias.

I took advantage of Kane’s shock and awe and did the only thing I knew with certainty that I needed to do. I pushed off Kane’s chest, but not before grabbing the gun he had tucked into his side. He reached for me, desperately hoping to catch me. I felt his fingertips brush against my back, but I moved too quickly for him to stop me.

I was a woman on a mission and he couldn’t stop me. I wouldn’t let him. I took jumping leaps to the center of the courtyard and pushed my way to Gage.

As soon as I was close enough he started to bite at me. The man I had grown to respect and care for was gone. The man that had saved my life on more than one occasion and housed and fed us… was gone.

In his place, was a creature created by the vilest of evils.

Gage didn’t deserve this.

Gage didn’t deserve to die this way or be mounted as a trophy in one of Matthias’s disgusting cages.

Gage was a good man that had earned to have his deserving soul be given an afterlife.

I raised the gun. It was ready for me.

I pulled the trigger and the sound of the bullet escaping the barrel and finding purchase in solid flesh echoed through the courtyard with exaggerated poignancy.

Gage flew back at the impact. His eyes stared up at the sky, no longer monstrous and infected, but peacefully unseeing. He had died the moment the Feeder attacked him, but now he was free.

I had wondered before if I would have the guts to act like this, to put someone I loved out of their misery.

I didn’t have to wonder anymore.

Gage had given me so much and in the last seconds of his life, I had been able to give him my own gift.

I had been able to set him free.

When I looked back at this moment, I realized I should have tried to take out Matthias too. I had the gun in my hands and the bullets ready to fly. But this moment wasn’t about Matthias. It was about Gage and I couldn’t think beyond the horror of losing a friend… of watching an innocent man suffer and die needlessly.

The world around me blurred after that. Everything faded away into a black haze. I barely noticed the guns that surrounded me. Through the static of my brain, I heard the order to get on my knees.

The gun dropped to the ground at my feet and I fell forward, my arms raised before I landed on the compacted earth.

Matthias’s men surrounded me and trained their guns on me, but I could only stare into Gage’s sightless eyes and mourn him. Shouting raged around me. Kane stepped in front of me and argued with his father. But I was no longer there, at that moment.

I was with Gage.

I was out of this nightmare, away from this horror. I was floating on clouds and living a life free of men who killed for sport and an infection that stole lives and souls and everything good from this world.

I was in a place where nobody could touch me. Where I breathed easily and felt safe.

I had flown with Gage for only a while before reality came crashing in around me.

The harsh terror of my life returned and my lungs contracted with stifling suffocation.

Gage was now free, but I was not.

And I was in a deeper hell than ever before.

I lifted my eyes from my dead friend and met Matthias’s cold glare. He said something to me that I couldn’t understand. And I replied with a fierce, furious look that promised revenge and retribution.

When I didn’t respond to whatever he shouted at me, he stilled. His shoulders squared and his jaw set. He didn’t force me to reply or answer whatever he asked me, he let me look at him, he let me standoff with him in our silent battle of deadly threats and unnamed promises.

He swore to me that he would kill me, that he would find a way to make Kane hate me or leave me or give me up so he could finally do what he wanted to do to me. And what he wanted to do to me required unspeakable pain and agony.

I swore to him that I would take his life slowly, that I would make him suffer and feel every single second of pain he’d made others feel in the last two years, and I’d do what he did to his children over their lifetimes. I swore I would kill him. I swore that I would end his pathetic life and send him to the bowels of hell he belonged in.

When Kane finally dragged me away, the challenge had been issued, the gantlet thrown.

Neither of us could co-exist side by side. This world was too small for both of us.

And there was no way he could hate me more than I hated him.

Matthias versus me, and I was already the victor in my head.

I would win.

And I wouldn’t be nearly as generous as he had been with all of his victims.