The Last Legacy (Season 1): Episodes 1-10 (18 page)

“I want to know about you. I’ll start.” I grinned as his hands held hard onto the steering wheel. He white knuckled it, and not due to traffic. “In your room you had this cork board—”

“Stop, Lana. I’m not talking to you ‘bout anything like that.”

“Well, why not?” I glared at him and sat forward in my seat. The firm tone of his voice made me worried that he’d shut down. But I wasn’t scared of him. He could’ve done more than hurt me with words before, and he hadn’t. I trusted his character.
 

“Those people aren’t in my life any more.”

“Exactly. I’m in your life. And I want to know about your past.”

“Why? Is your opinion of me gonna change? ‘Cause I’ll tell you right now: you have the wrong ideas. I told you that first night that I was no good. You chose not to believe me.”

“Hah!” I laughed under my breath at his words. “That’s rich. I didn’t have a choice! You and your asshole brother and friends kidnapped
me
, remember. I only chose to stick with you because you were better than them. I was fine by myself at my house. Why’d you even come for me?”

“We were looting, clearing houses. We had to get food and supplies. You just got in the way, like many more before you.”

“Whatever. The game’s over. I’m napping.”
 

I fell back in the seat and crossed my arms over my chest. I purposely sat out of view of the rear view mirror so Jim couldn’t spot me. His closed off attitude infuriated me. My fingers trembled as I clenched my fists. I didn’t know him at all, and it worried me.

Tension-filled waves radiated off his back, slamming me in the back seat. The air was heavy. It attempted to suffocate me, but I didn’t let it. Anger fueled me as my heart sputtered.
 

My question wasn’t out of line. It was long overdue. I had no idea who those people were—whether he killed them or lost them, I didn’t know. I needed to hear him tell me something. To make me trust him more, he had to give it to me—just one shred of truth.

Whether he told me or not, it didn’t matter. We were stuck together. For now.
 

“They’re my dead family,” Jim said. And then silence took over.

I woke up as the car skidded to a stop. Light filtered through the tinted windows, but it was dimmed by the tree-line in the distance. The dark blue sky had ribbons of purple and pink painted on the horizon. Jim cut the ignition and then jumped out of the front seat without a word.
 

I must have dozed after he left because when I awoke again, it was pitch black. I sat up in the back seat and stretched my back. An ache had already formed near the base of my neck. I rubbed my face as I shook Scarlet’s shoulder. She sat up in the front seat with wide, alarmed eyes. When she saw me, she settled.

“Where’s Jim?” she asked as she squinted out her window.

“I think he went outside to look around.” I yawned, not rested at all despite my sleep. I cracked my swollen fingers.

“We should have saved that man,” she said under her breath. Her regular voice was swallowed by guilt, an edge to it.

“He was—”

“Save it,” she said, flicking her finger in the air and looking away. “You can pretend with Jim around, but you know what we did back there was wrong.”

“We couldn’t have saved him.” I knew that. And I knew she did, too. It still didn’t make it okay.

“Like I said, save it.”

I couldn’t look her in the eye. I grabbed my flashlight from where it lay near my feet and flicked it on so I could see better. I waved it near Scarlet and watched as she jumped out of the car, not saying anything else.

Anger crept up on me. I frowned at her retreating form. Why was everyone leaving me here? How was I the one getting shit on? I wanted to save the man, too. I knew it was awful the way he died. But I truly believed that we couldn’t save him.

I got out of the truck and followed Scarlet, shining my light to see her a little ways down the road. The car was parked in the bike lane of a small two-lane road. I looked over my shoulder as I ran to catch up with her, noting the fact that from a looter’s point of view, the car looked broken down. When I was beside Scarlet, I slowed down. She wouldn’t even look at me.

A few yards down, Jim stood in the road. He nibbled on the end of a lit cigar, the red tip glowing in the dark night. Animals chirped and scurried through the woods. In the distance, I could hear a few moans and shuffles, but it was relatively quiet.
 

“What are you doing up?” he asked as he saw Scarlet and me.

“Woke up and you were gone,” I said.

“Sorry. I just needed some air.”

“Did you look for food?” Scarlet asked him. She linked her arm with mine, hooking up at the elbow. I looked where our arms connected with a confused frown. This from the girl who just left me alone in a car, hated me for letting that man die, and slapped me?
 

“Can we go back to the car? I don’t feel safe out here,” I said as I checked behind us. Something rustled over my shoulder, and I jumped.
 

“You shouldn’t feel safe anywhere, Lana.” I could practically hear him roll his eyes. I turned around, not seeing who was following, and trekked back to the SUV, a little fire under my feet. I didn’t wait to see who was sitting where, I just got into the front seat and grabbed the door.

“Here,” Jim growled as he threw a bag in the back seat, where Scarlet was climbing in, and one over to me. I caught it easily against my chest and shined my flashlight in the bag.
Ruffles.
I moaned with delight.

“Where’d you get this?” I asked him as I popped the bag open, pressing my two hands against the sides. Scarlet already crunched in the backseat. I pulled out a large chip and stared down at it before I ate it. Drool dribbled down the front of my shirt. Scarlet chuckled from behind me as Jim got into the driver’s seat.

“There’s a convenience store a couple blocks up. Mostly looted, but I found those in a store room. Took the box.” He shrugged, pulling the keys from his front pocket.

“You roamed without us?” I couldn’t help the snark in my voice. I scooted against the window and angled my body to face Jim. He shouldn’t wander off alone in the middle of the night. He constantly hounded me for being reckless, but that was the definition right there.

“You were both asleep, and I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“Well, don’t do it anymore,” I said with a hardness in my tone. I crunched another chip, the saltiness instantly making me thirsty.
 

“Lana…” Jim chided. I glared at him, though I doubted he could see in the thick shadows of the truck. I shut up and bit into another chip, taking mini bites to savor the flavor. I ate these too fast. My stomach gurgled, but I ignored it. “I’m going to start driving again. I’m not tired.”

“You haven’t rested at all,” I said with a shake of my head.

“I can drive,” Scarlet offered, but I knew he wouldn’t let one of us. If I knew anything about Jim, it was that he needed control. I used to think I was a control freak, liking things a certain way, not wanting to rely on people, but Jim—he was a whole new definition. Plus, Scarlet admitted to being a terrible driver just a few hours ago.
 

“I’m fine. I’ll stop and rest when I’m tired.” I didn’t know what had upset him in the time I was asleep, but he acted stranger than usual—usual being the few days I knew him.
 

My stomach churned as a thought floated through my head. Was he planning on leaving again? Was I being paranoid? I couldn’t let him leave me with Scarlet, alone. I knew the outcome.
 

I reached across the console and placed my hand on his knee. I didn’t dare look up to see his reaction. But I had to reassure him that being here was worth it. I stared out the front windshield as Jim started the car. It sputtered, making a loud rumbling sound, and I hoped we were gone before any eaters wandered by.
 

He didn’t protest to my hand, so I left it hanging there. A dense fog hung over the pavement, curling in waves of white. Jim was forced to drive extra slow since the conditions were so poor.
 

About ten minutes into the drive, he slowed down to a near stop. He flipped on the low beams, igniting a few feet in front of us. There was a lump on the ground in front of the car. A dead person or eater lyed prone in the center of the yellow line.
 

Jim stopped the car and hunched over the wheel. The man in the road sat up straight and turned. He stared right at me, like he searched for me. I covered my mouth with my hand as I screamed.
 

His left cheek sunk in, broken down to the bone, dried blood across that entire side. The red eyes ran wild, but remained glued to me alone. He tried to sit up, shuffling and using his arms to push around. But he failed. He flopped over onto his side. Then he dragged himself, using just his arms to pull towards our car.
 

The deadly quiet car filled with fear. I could taste the bitterness. The man’s eyes flashed as he pulled again. His left arm snapped, his body falling over at the lack of support. My mouth fell. He didn’t look like eaters we had seen before; he was decaying, yet he wouldn’t stop coming towards us. He lacked any sense of self-preservation.
 

“Go,” I said to Jim. His midnight blue eyes met mine and I nodded. We needed to get out of there. I didn’t know how much longer I could look at that poor man, just lying there, yet still wanting to kill. Jim pressed on the gas and ran right over the eater, the tire crunching his already dead body. I jerked to the side as the truck adjusted.

Not even a minute later, two more eaters appeared in our lane. They stood, one staring into the woods, the other towards a small cottage. The first was a woman, her breasts not covered, cut and dirty and caked with mud. She swayed a little, her legs missing chunks of flesh. The man was right behind her.
 

As Jim stopped the car, the man walked into the woman in an attempt to get to us. She stumbled backwards and cracked her head against the pavement. She got right back up. Blood covered the back of her, but she refused to stop.

“I’ll deal with it,” Jim said as he threw the car in park. “I’m not risking the car getting damaged.”

The woman slammed her arm against the hood. The man pressed behind her, moaning, clawing through her to get closer. But I couldn’t hear him through the thick glass, only see his lips moving.
 

The headlights spotlighted Jim as he knifed the woman through her right ear. I couldn’t hear, only see, and it was like a dream. She fell onto the ground, out of my sight. The man grabbed onto Jim’s arm. I grabbed the passenger side door, ready to jump out and help if he needed it. But Jim wrestled the eater to the ground and stomped on his head. Luckily, the front of the car hid me from witnessing the kill.
 

Despite the death, I was relieved. I sat back in the seat and looked back at Scarlet. She shook her head and took a sip of her water. Jim was all right, and his life mattered more than the eaters.

That’s all they were. Eaters. I didn’t count them as human anymore. I couldn’t. After what I’d seen, it was obvious we were now divided—the eaters and the humans. People always say things are gray, but this was as black and white as you could get. I wasn’t sure why it took me so long to understand.
 

I turned back to the front of the car and watched as Jim wiped the knife on his jeans. The blood covered his upper thigh in crimson. I watched in silence, minus the sound of Scarlet’s heavy breaths. I sat at the edge of my seat as Jim walked around the car. He stepped out of the light of the headlights, and I lost him.
 

“Where’d he go?” I said aloud, mostly for myself. I bit my nail as I pressed my face to the window, searching for him. I couldn’t hear much of anything. I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me due to the fog.
 

The driver’s side door ripped open, crashing. I jumped backwards and pressed my back to the window.

“We need to go. Now.”
 

I widened my eyes, but was frozen in my spot, unable to move.
 

“Lana. Eaters are coming this way, a lot of them. The entire road is blocked ahead. It’s like the whole fucking town came out. We’re ditching the car. Let’s go!” he barked. I flinched. He slammed his door shut.
 

“Where are we going?” Scarlet asked from the back seat.
 

“I don’t know. We have to go, though.” My heart raced in my chest, hard thumps that moved my entire body. I grabbed the bag of food from the ground and twisted the handles so I could sling it over my back.
 

I jumped out of the car, clutching Jim’s knife to my side. An eater came at me from out of nowhere. It appeared in front of me, clawing near my face. I swung the knife up, jabbing the man right in the mouth. He gurgled as my knife lodged inside of him. I grabbed his head with my free hand and pushed it down, dragging the knife upwards. He wouldn’t die.
 

I kicked the eater on the shin to get him to fall. But his entire leg broke, snapping backwards and falling limp. I kicked the other since he still stood. This time, he fell to his knees and then onto his side. I bent down with him since my knife stuck in his face.