Love and Decay, Kane's Law (4 page)

However, I’d never felt like this about any
of the girls that came before today. There had always been physical
or personality flaws that kept me from growing too attached. For a
night, my bed would be full and my mind too busy to dwell on the
suffocating loneliness, but in the morning I would send them away
and return to the solitary lifestyle that both haunted me and
comforted me.

While I hated the stillness and complete
silence of my house whenever I spent too much time there, I also
knew it was the safest way to live. There wasn’t a woman cooking or
bathing, but if an intruder even entered my property I would know.
I didn’t have friends to talk about the pressures of our job or
discuss another fatality, but I also didn’t have someone who would
spill my secrets or use me to get further in ranks. I separated
myself for a reason and while it was a double-edged sword, the
solitude suited me.

Until now.

Until I found the perfect companion to
complement me and my life.

Once we reached the entrance to the former
high school, I took out my keys and prepared to let the prisoners
in. This was always the hardest part for outsiders.
My father
and his trophies.
It unnerved everybody and terrified most.
There wasn’t an easy way to explain his fixation with mounting his
prizes or why we let them live to being with. This was one of the
few things we disagreed on; but he wouldn’t listen to my opinion,
so I had given up trying to convince him he was capable of having a
bad idea.

I was anxious to see how Reagan would react
to the inside. My gut told me she would recoil from them- from me.
She would find them absolutely revolting and her opinion of my
father’s wall-art would affect her opinion of me.

But it was unavoidable. There was nothing I
could do about what waited for us inside the school building except
prove to her I was at least different in that way. There wouldn’t
be Zombies pinned to the walls once we got home.

Home-
our home
.

It sounded right. It sounded good.

Warmth spread through my limbs, a fire
igniting in my lower belly. I turned to Reagan to warn her, to
prepare her for what could be traumatizing but someone called my
name from across the front lawn. I whipped around to decimate one
of the other patrols with words or fists, I wasn’t sure yet.

Three men walked over to me with grins
plastered on their stupid faces. No doubt, they’d seen the new
female and thought they had a chance to earn ownership. They were
newer men, not as young as Creed and Austen but originally
outsiders. Right now I could burn the entire lot of them. Between
Creed’s stupid comments and the hungry looks in their eyes, I could
happily set them all on fire and watch them turn to ash.

“So there were more of them?” Dennis shot a
pointed look at Reagan and waited for me to confirm. He was a
sniveling little shit that always took the morning patrols because
he was afraid of the dark and the Feeders that waited for him then.
He’d earned his spot on the patrol and my father trusted him to
lead every once in a while, but I didn’t. He wasn’t known for his
thoughtful consideration when it came to women either, another
reason to get rid of him.

“There were more,” I confirmed. “I’m taking
them in now to deal with them.”

“Just the two, then?” Dennis asked with
another leering glance over my shoulder.

I allowed myself to follow his gaze then,
just to make sure she was still there and hadn’t been magically
absorbed into Dennis’s strong, mystical realm of sick perverts. She
was whispering to Vaughan, their heads bent in intense
discussion.

This made me more furious than anything.

Goddamnit.

“She’s spoken for, so get your goddamn eyes
off her.” I took a step forward and with as much calm as I could
keep, pointed a finger at his chest. His eyes widened in surprise
as I was sure everyone’s did.

“Hey, Kane,” Dennis started immediately. His
eyes remained huge and he held up his hands as if to calm me down.
“I didn’t mean anything. I just wanted to know where you found ‘em.
She’s yours, I get that. Nobody’s trying to take her.”

I backed off a step. His assurances didn’t
calm me down and I felt the bite of fury still thrumming through my
body; but I would let him believe I could control this possessive
need to keep that girl. I brushed my hands over my pockets in an
attempt to appear relaxed and shot him a cocky smile.

“Damn right, she’s mine. You think I’d pass
up a body like that?”

Dennis cleared his throat and the rest of the
guys shifted uneasily. “You’d have to be cra- uh, er, blind to let
that go.”

It pissed me off more that he felt the need
to censor the word “crazy” than it would have if he would have just
said it, but trying to avoid the stereotype all together, I let it
slide.

“Get back to patrols,” I commanded. “I’ve got
to wrap this up.”

“Yes, sir,” the men answered in unison.

I turned around without acknowledging them
again and opened the doors to the school. Reagan and Vaughan walked
through immediately, without being prompted.

“Careful of the walls,” I warned. I tensed,
waiting for her to notice the Zombie-lined hallways. I passed the
door off to Austen who let it slam shut once we’d all entered the
building.

Reagan took her time adjusting to the dim
light, but I felt her awareness ratchet higher and higher. I
watched her face flinch and cringe as she took in the horrifying
scene in stages. Disbelief, refusal to believe, disgust, horror,
surprise sympathy, hatred, and then finally revulsion in every way,
shape and form.

In an effort to ignore the disappointment I
felt with her feelings, I ordered Vaughan sent in with the other
prisoners. “Take him in with the others. I’m taking her to my
father.” I needed to officially claim her before someone else put
in a request. I wanted to cut this off before it ever began. I
couldn’t imagine having to make a trial out of this and lose her
for however long. I wanted her with me, in my house, in my bed as
soon as I could- which meant today.

I grabbed Reagan’s arm and tried to pull her
down the hall after me. I could have explained to her where we were
going or why she had to be separated from her friends, but plain
and simple I didn’t want to. I just wanted her to obey.

She struggled against me so I tightened my
grip. She continued to fight me, and I hated that she was making
this difficult for no reason. If she would just submit, then there
wouldn’t have to be a struggle between us. Knowing that she was
mostly concerned for her friends, I stopped trying to make her go
against her will and leaned down so I could whisper in her ear, “He
will be a hell of a lot safer if you come easily.”

And that was true. She would be safer and he
would be safer. I whispered for the same reason. If Creed or Austen
picked up even a hint of what I was saying, they would gladly treat
those prisoners with less respect than they deserved. The soldiers
in my father’s army were mostly good men, if not a little bit
sadistic from the circumstances surrounding us; but mostly loyal
and determined to keep the Colony safe. But for whatever reason,
they also seemed inclined to be a little… extreme. They tended to
be ticking time bombs of rage, letting any small thing set them
off. They also tended to be a little bit twisted. They never minded
killing and I wondered sometimes if it mattered what they were
killing, or if they could find pleasure no matter the species or
circumstances. I tried not to linger over the idea that there could
be a correlation between the kind of guys that flocked to protect
my father and his town and the special type of psychotic sociopaths
that worshiped him. It would only lead me down a bad path.

“Reagan,” her friend called after her. “I
love you!”

“I love you, too,” she shouted back.

Liars.
Both of them. I could tell from
the first moment I saw them together they didn’t love each other. I
held back a snort of irritation. What was she trying to prove?

More than likely her declaration of love was
an attempt to keep her from being bedded by one of us or protect
one of the other guys in her group, one that she might truly have
feelings for.

That thought reawakened the dragon of furious
jealousy in side of me and I decided I would pay closer attention
to her and those prisoners when we walked back through.

I felt her still communicating with the
prisoners, but steeled my emotions and let her. I wouldn’t gain any
trust by carting her around like I was a caveman. She had to
willingly enter into a relationship with me- she had to walk into
this with eyes wide-open. I didn’t want her to have Stockholm
Syndrome. I wanted her feelings to be real.

And if I let her have enough time, they would
be.

Eventually, she turned around and followed me
down the hallway. She stayed in the middle of the hall and kept
glancing back and forth from one side to the other, as if the
Feeders could jump out at any moment and make her lunch.

I had resigned myself to silence when she
blurted, “They don’t smell.”

I looked down at her and realized I was still
grasping her arm in my hand. It was almost painful to let her go,
but I didn’t like the aggressive tones of possession pumping
through my blood. It was one thing to want this girl in my life, to
assume a future with her, but my concept of her belonging to me had
become almost primitive. I’d only known her for a few minutes and
already assumed she would be mine before the day was out.

I blamed my take-what-I-want lifestyle.
Before the infection, this mentality had been attributed to
professional athletes whenever a case of rape was brought against
them. They were used to getting what they wanted, and the word “no”
was perceived as more of a suggestion than anything. In their
privileged, celebrated lives, they could choose to accept it or
not.

I was that person now. Treating Reagan with
respect in every way was hard and foreign, but only because I
hadn’t been expected to treat anyone or anything with respect for
over two years- save for my parents. The girls that had traveled
through my life had been more than willing and the rest of the
Colony did whatever I said.

I enjoyed my position of authority, but I did
not like this piece of me. I was once a decent human being. And
while the definition of “decent” had evolved or de-evolved in our
case, my treatment of women didn’t have to. I was a southern
gentleman after all. I would respect this girl. I would regard her
boundaries.

I released my grip on her arm and immediately
she stumbled. I frowned at her body, wanting to reach for her
again, but determined to keep my distance. She regained her balance
and I forced my mind elsewhere.

“We’ve learned that if they don’t eat human
flesh, they don’t emit that noxious smell.” I stifled a shudder at
how my father had discovered that particular fact. He had a team of
“scientists” dissecting, experimenting and discovering all kinds of
pieces and parts of Feeders. “Scientists” was a loose term we used
to describe the old farmers that were given the task to figure out
how Zombies ticked. Men, too old to patrol, but needed something to
do; men that had spent their lives breeding pigs and cattle, who
knew the ins and outs of how their livestock thrived or died and
what animals needed to survive. They were experts in their fields,
and now their proficiency was being transferred to a new kind of
animal.

I had nothing to do with that side of our
operation, though. I found the entire thing disgusting; necessary
but revolting.

“But why would you keep them like this? It’s
cruel!” She hissed out her words, angry and disgusted.

I couldn’t help but be shocked by her
indignity, “Are you siding with the Feeders?”

“No!” She shifted on her feet and shot me a
sidelong glance, revealing her tell. She did feel bad for them!
How… intriguing. “But it’s unnecessary. Why would you make them
live through this? They’re starving and emaciated.”

“They only eat human flesh,” I reminded her.
“What would you suggest we feed them?”

“Don’t feed them anything! But don’t leave
them like this either. Shoot them. Kill them. Help solve the
problem!”

She had a point, but so did my father. This
was a difficult argument. To defeat our enemy, we had to know them.
But it wasn’t a pretty business, no matter how I dressed it up.

So I tried to flip her argument, “In one
breath you share compassion for them and in another you suggest
genocide.”

She shook her head, adamant to make her
point. “It’s not that. It’s disgust for a creature that should not
exist. It’s revulsion for humans who should know better.”

Righteous anger burned in my throat. She had
no right to judge me. I was a part of something greater than her
meager existence. We were creating civilization again- we were
ensuring that humanity could thrive again, rule this planet again.
“You’re revolted by this?” I demanded.

“Aren’t you?” She shot back.

That was enough to silence me, because at
times I
was
revolted by this- completely sickened by what my
father and his minions did. But what could I do? This was a
necessary evil. My life had filled until it was brimming with
necessary evils and it was something Reagan would have to learn and
come to accept.

I stopped walking and she immediately turned
to me. I looked down at her, drinking in her features in the
flickering lantern light. I watched as the soft light wavered over
her face, blurring her edges and creating a halo around her
body.

She didn’t understand my motives or my
behavior, but she would. My conduct with her was less than ideal,
but it was necessary. And that’s what my life had dwindled down to-
a series of ugly but essential decisions. I didn’t like the Zombies
in the hallway, and I didn’t like handcuffing a woman and
practically throwing her over my shoulder and dragging her back to
my cave. But what choice did I have?