Love and Decay, Kane's Law (5 page)

The Feeders had taken almost everything else
from me, so the decisions I could control were what I lived for…
even if that made me seem like a bad guy. Deep down, I knew that my
choices and actions were for the
good
of humanity, that my
choice to keep Reagan was for her
own
good
. If I had
to prove that to her one day at a time for the rest of my life, I
would. But I was the good guy here. She just didn’t know it
yet.

“My dad is going to ask you a lot of
questions,” I told her. “It’s better if you answer… all of them.
And if you answer them truthfully.” I wouldn’t let my father hurt
her, but if she made this easy, I wouldn’t have to step in either.
This could go smoothly if she let it.

Her big, dark eyes narrowed on me, revealing
her contempt. Her words bit at me with the acid she poured into
them. “Is this how you treat everyone that stumbles on your
settlement? You handcuff them and order them around? Are you going
to let us go at some point? Or enslave us? Or eat us, like you
said?”

I didn’t bother explaining to her that we
usually treated outsiders much worse. I hadn’t even bothered to
strip search her, although it was my right if I wanted to. But I
would be lying if I said I didn’t love seeing her fire come roaring
back to life. I suppressed my smile and ignored the hatred and
bitterness radiating off her skin like a supernatural power.

“We don’t actually eat people,” I deflected.
“And we don’t have slaves.” Not in the true sense of the word.
Everyone who worked here wanted to be here.

‘So then why am I handcuffed?” Her words were
a growl, her body so tight I thought maybe she could snap it in
half if she bent at the wrong angle.

But all I saw was
challenge
.

And that excited me more than anything had in
my whole life.

“It’s temporary,” I assured her. She didn’t
believe me so I continued, “We’re taking precautions. You could
have been bitten. You could bring the virus to us.”

“We didn’t even know this was here,” she
ground out. She was lying. She’d proven earlier that she knew there
was a town here. I let her have this one though, memorizing her
face in the middle of her lie, how her eyes flicked downward, how
her shoulder bounced up reactively, how she pulled in the corner of
her bottom lip. These were her tells and I would know now when she
lied to me again. “You found us,” she reminded me, “not the other
way around.”

“And can you imagine what that is like for us
day in and day out?” At least this part was true. I wouldn’t lie to
her. I would be better in this aspect and justify my actions.
“People wandering through? Potentially carrying a virus or
stumbling upon us and hoping to relieve us of our food and guns? We
have a permanent settlement here, we have to protect it.”

Her entire body quieted at my argument. I
made sense and she knew it. “You don’t need to treat us like
prisoners. You didn’t need to separate us.”

“Was that your boyfriend you were with?” I
demanded. I knew that it wasn’t, but this was another test. The
very words started the low simmer of envy through my body. And even
if I knew that Vaughan wasn’t hers, either of the other prisoners
could be. She was protecting one of them by pretending something
with Vaughan, and that idea, the notion that she would shelter
someone else from
me
enraged me like nothing else. When she
didn’t respond I explained the situation clearly for her, “His
brothers showed up late last night, sneaking around our camp. They
had my little brother with them- my rebellious, tenacious,
disobedient little brother with them. And then we find you and
your… boyfriend this morning. You’re obviously in the same
traveling party. You obviously knew they went ahead of you last
night.”

She flinched at my accusations, but tried to
hide her guilt with a deflecting question, “How did you know they
were brothers?”

I let her have this, knowing my points had
silenced the bulk of her ire. “It’s fairly obvious by their looks.”
I rolled my eyes, more at my efforts not to call her out on all of
her lies than anything else. “And even if it wasn’t, they carry the
same gun. I made an observant guess.” She didn’t respond. She
pressed her lips together and looked up at me with a helpless
furrow in her feminine brows. I sighed and explained, hoping to
ease the tension between us, “I’m not trying to be the bad guy. But
I will protect what’s mine.” What I didn’t say out loud though, was
that it was her now- she was mine.

And I would protect her even from
herself.

She met my steady gaze and promised, “Me
too.”

I nodded slowly, understanding her loyalty.
But I also knew that she would transfer those adamant feelings to
me soon. “Do not leave my side,” I told her. “Do you understand?”
She didn’t reply and I felt an urgency to force her to agree with
me. I could protect her, I would keep her safe. If she ran from me,
what waited for her in the rest of the Colony was unthinkable. And
I would be forced to murder anyone that so much as looked at her.
“I will say this once for your benefit and I will not say it again.
This camp is low on women. But we have an abundance of men. And we
do not share our women. Once you belong to a man… he keeps you. You
might not like me, but what is inside that room is worse. Stay by
my side.”

She still didn’t respond, but I saw
understanding dawn in her expression. And then defiance. That
goddamn rebellious spirit reared up and she tilted her chin as if
to say “screw you.” Hot fury matched her stubborn attitude and I
had the strongest urge to grab her arms and shake her until she
promised me obedience. I swallowed down the curdling frustration
and clenched my fists at my sides. I wouldn’t let her shake me; I
wouldn’t let her make me lose my control. I wasn’t the guy that
threw tantrums when he didn’t get what he wanted. I waited. I was
patient. And I would be those things with her- most of all I would
be them
for
her.

Still, just to hammer in the point, I warned,
“Just tell me that you at least understand what could happen to
you. At least make me feel somewhat confident about taking you in
there.”

Dangerous emotions flashed across her face
and her biceps flexed with the effort to do me physical harm.
Finally she said, “Why should you feel confident when I can’t even
feel my fingers anymore?”

That was it. I couldn’t keep my cool with her
unreasonableness. I turned around and yanked open the door, eager
to take my frustration out on something. I held the door for her,
swallowing against the frustration boiling in my throat. I could
feel my dangerous temper rising to scalding levels, but there was
this undercurrent of excitement that rippled and shook my usually
steady core. My feelings were habitually expectable, and even if I
felt the extremes of the spectrum- whether intense joy or blind
fury- I could count on them to stay with me a while. With Reagan
though… there was this bewildering unpredictability that moved
through me. I never knew what she would say next or how I would
react. I couldn’t seem to feel one thing around her; instead a
torrent of inconsistent emotions flashed like strobe lights in my
body, making my head spin until I felt dizzy and off-balance.

So even though I wanted to be furious with
her, when she walked by me, I teased her instead, “Don’t say I
didn’t warn you.”

I followed her into the room my father used
as his courtroom. The normal grouping of people occupied the seats
on the tiered levels, men who were under the impression my father
listened to their opinions, his grouping of trusted
ex-framers/scientists and two men on probation that were making a
play to join patrols full-time. There were a few women scattered
around the room, either because their men had dragged them along or
because they had an issue to discuss with my father. My parents
held court at the front of the room where they would stay for
another hour and a half before moving on to other duties. My mother
visibly relaxed when our eyes met and I was warmed by her concern
for me. I glanced around the room in search of Miller, but my
father must still be holding him in the back.

That was bad news for Miller.

If only he would listen to me- then my father
would stop punishing him. Miller and my sister Tyler had a place in
our Colony, but both refused to play by the rules. My father had
been somewhat of a tyrant before the infection, now…. They just
needed to listen, or they were both going to end up seriously
hurt.

While Reagan walked ahead of me, I paused at
the circulation desk to talk to Lyle. I had him note the additional
two prisoners and mark them in the log book. I made sure he noted
that the female would stay with me. Once the notation was clearly
marked to my satisfaction, I started to ask him if my father had
decided what he would do with the other prisoners when the man
himself called my attention.

“Kane?” he demanded. He hated being left in
the dark, and Reagan standing in the center of the room had to be
confusing for him. He would put a bullet through my foot if I made
him wait too much longer. “Who is this?”

I played this as casually as I could. My
father would pick up on my interest immediately. This was the first
time I had ever brought a girl in front of him. For him, this would
be equal to me standing on one of the rooftops in the center of
town and shouting out my intentions for mating Reagan- that’s how
serious this was. But, my father was not without enemies, and by
proxy, I also had a collection of men who would easily slit my
throat if they could get away with it. Or maybe I was paranoid… it
didn’t matter though. These assumptions, whether real or
fabricated, were necessary to keep me alert and alive. I needed to
keep Reagan close without giving anyone a reason to target her or
assume I now had a weakness.

“More wanderers in the woods,” I answered
levelly. “We found them close to the edge of the forest.”

“Any connection to last night?” My father
asked.

“Yes.” That was all I needed to say.

Understanding lit my father’s gray eyes and I
felt the moment clarity hit him. This was my girl. The girl I’d
been waiting for. The girl I had started to believe didn’t
exist.

He watched Reagan in the perceptive way he
had, the one in which he could take in a person, see them entirely,
know their strengths, weaknesses, fears and hopes. In a moment, he
could instinctually know whether to trust a person or wait for them
to betray you.

I was a little surprised when he didn’t
confirm my pick. He seemed to hesitate with her, like he couldn’t
decide whether to hate her or accept her into our Colony. It made
me nervous. Experience told me I’d made the wrong decision if my
father didn’t approve; but instinct and desire made me stick to my
decision.

This girl was right.

She was right for me.

Suddenly my dad called for my brother.
“Samson, go get Miller.” Samson- one of my father’s henchmen-
immediately obeyed and an uncertain ping of nervousness hit me in
the gut. Was he going to overrule my decision? This was
my
choice. He wouldn’t tell me “no.” But if he did… then what? “Make
introductions, Son,” he commanded.

I decided to take that as a good sign. I
looked down at Reagan and realized she had never formally
introduced herself. In an effort to make her more comfortable, even
though I knew I wasn’t scoring points with my father, I said, “We
came straight here. I don’t even know her name.”

“Think she’ll be as difficult as those boys
last night?” he laughed easily. The prisoners last night refused to
give us their names, and I could feel a test in his words. The
question was… was he testing me or her?

“She’ll tell us,” I promised. “She just got
done explaining to me that she’s not our enemy. If she’s not an
enemy, then she’s our friend. And a friend wouldn’t withhold a
simple detail like that.”

I could tell by her face I would pay for that
mischief later.

I couldn’t wait.

“Reagan,” she answered evenly. “My name is
Reagan Willow.”

Reagan Willow.

Reagan Willow.

Reagan… Willow…

The name sounded poetic in my head,
beautiful, enchanting and for some reason untouchable.

“Reagan.” I let the name roll of my tongue,
loving the taste of it as I said it aloud for the first time. “This
is my father, Matthias Allen and my mother, Linley.”

Reagan held my parent’s steady gazes but
didn’t reply with polite manners or any other way. I bit back a
smile as I watched her defy Matthias Allen with silent resolve. She
had no idea who she was pissing off or the horrible repercussions
she could bring down on herself. Still, she was fascinating to
observe. Like a storm on the horizon- you could see the danger, the
destruction that played with the skyline; it hadn’t touched you
yet, hadn’t invaded your world but it was coming. You knew the
storm was headed for you, waiting until the moment it would absorb
you into its wild, torrential jungle and make a mark on your
life.

I should be pissed she was treating my mother
with so much disrespect.

But I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I
couldn’t wait to see what she did next.

Finally my father broke the silence first-
not something he was known for- and asked, “Where are you headed,
Reagan Willow?”

“South. Past Mexico,” she answered.

Lies. I could see her tell, sense her
half-truths. The corner of her bottom lip disappeared behind her
teeth and her shoulder bounced once with the cadence of her
words.

The room reacted exactly like it should have,
with amused disbelief. Nobody went past Mexico. Not since the
infection had taken over and spread like wildfire through that
region.

My mother seemed concerned, which meant she’d
picked up on my decision for Reagan. She grew attached quickly. She
was probably already plotting a church wedding with our limited
resources. “You’re not serious?”