Magic and Decay (10 page)

“This will be good for you,” Ryder laughed.
“Practice and what not for the future.”

Hendrix grunted something noncommittal and gripped the
steering wheel again.

Soon enough we ran into the horde of Zombies chasing
us. They spread out across the highway and to the sides of the road, sprinting
as fast as their inhuman speed would take them.

They moved so fast. I couldn’t reconcile their speed
with how my body had felt during that short time of transition.

My body had felt like mud. I felt trapped in useless
skin and brittle bones. I couldn’t imagine making that slushy, uncooperative
flesh move like this. But here they were, sprinting faster than anything I had
ever seen.

They veered toward the car in a funnel of
determination.

All for me.

 
They would
attack the rest of this group just because they were here and Zombies weren’t picky.
They would sink their teeth into anything
alive,
or
remotely alive since they ate each other.

Apparently they would even eat themselves when they
got extra hungry.

Yuck.

But I was the reason they were even more single-minded
than usual.
This damn Siren’s call.

Usually a curse, tonight it was a death sentence. If
this horde got to us, we were dead. It didn’t matter how Magical Eden and
Kiran
were; over a hundred Zombies were joining the ranks
every second. They would get to us.

Somehow they would get to us.

Our only hope for survival was to get Ryder and me to
the ocean. That was my turf. That was my playground. Those Zombies wouldn’t
stand a chance against me out there.

Nobody did.

Ryder and I slammed around in the backseat as Hendrix
did another U-turn. I collided with
Kiran’s
shoulder
and when I opened my mouth to apologize he waved me off. He held Eden tightly
to his chest and braced his feet on the floor.

“Faster,” he growled at Hendrix.

“I’m trying.” Hendrix swerved violently and took the car
off the road into the ditch.

We bounced around in the grass, dirt and rocks for a
minute or so before we made it back onto the highway. I tried holding a hand to
the ceiling to keep from getting so jostled, but nothing about my body was
prepared for this kind of ride.

“Come here,” Ryder ordered in a surprisingly gentle
voice. His arm wrapped around my waist and pulled me back into the strength of
his body.

I immediately felt anchored, tethered to home in this
foreign place.

“Almost home,” he murmured into my ear so I could hear
him over the revving engine and screaming Zombies in pursuit.

“What happens when we get home though?”

Ryder’s arm squeezed my middle and his forehead
dropped to my shoulder. He didn’t have an answer. He couldn’t tell me.

My heart plummeted to my stomach and suddenly I didn’t
want to leave the Zombie Apocalypse.

I wanted to stay here where we worked together and he
risked everything to protect me. I wanted to stay in his arms, even if that
meant running from Zombies for the rest of my life and never showering again.

I wanted to stay here.
With Ryder.

Nothing else mattered.

Ryder lifted his head and spoke over my shoulder, “We
have to get to the water. That’s the only way we can get out of here.”

“I know,” Hendrix snarled. “But right now getting you
home means that the rest of us die.”

“We won’t,”
Kiran
put in.
“We can’t die.”

“Thank you,
Kiran
!” Reagan
practically shouted. “That is just super helpful right now.”

He tried not to smirk. I watched him struggle with it,
but in the end, the smirk won. The smirk would always win.

I thought maybe the smirk controlled him. He was just
a puppet behind the smirk’s ultimate, unfathomable power.

Hendrix made a sharp turn and changed our direction.
We were now headed toward the ocean in a very general way. It wouldn’t be good
enough. Hermes wouldn’t come to me. I had to go to him. And he was miles in the
other direction.

And it wasn’t like we had a GPS that could take us
back by a different route.

“Son of a bitch,” Hendrix hissed. “Ivy, I’m sorry, but
I don’t know what to do.”

I felt despair replace fear. My heart had been
hammering in my chest, my blood rushing in my veins. The memories of that
Zombie transition crawled around in my head as if they had eight legs apiece.
My entire being resisted the very idea that Zombies could touch me again. And
yet, with every second that ticked by, it looked like my ultimate fate was tied
up in this awful infection.

I would die by them eventually. Or become one of them.

I whimpered before I could stop myself.

“We will get back, Red,” Ryder promised. “Nothing will
stop me from keeping you safe. You should know that. Whatever happens to us,
here or at home, I’m going to keep you safe.”

A small fissure of relief crackled through my near
hysteric-panic.

“Thank you,” I told him and ignored the tears pushing
against my eyes.

“Glad you two are having a moment, but I’m serious! I
really don’t know what to do! Or where we’re going! Or even if this road goes
anywhere! I could really use some freaking advice right now!”

Okay, Hendrix seemed on the verge of a breakdown.

It was at this point that Eden decided to wake up. She
jerked and then jolted upright on
Kiran’s
lap. Her
black eyes glittered in the dark night, but they met mine right away. She
seemed to take me in for a while, absorb me sitting here next to her. Then her
focus turned to Hendrix and the dark road in front of us. We’d managed to gain
some distance on the Zombies, but not much.

If we slowed down now, they would be on us in no time.

“There’s a boat,” Eden whispered. “I dreamed of a
boat.”

“Where?”
Kiran
asked as if that wasn’t the strangest declaration ever.

“Right after we crash,” she answered smoothly.

“What?” My question was made of broken confusion.

She ignored me and looked at Ryder. “Hold on tight to
her.”

“Why?” Ryder asked. He sounded truly panicked for the
first time all night.

“I already told you,” Eden smiled patiently at him.
“Because we’re going to crash.”

“Oh, shit!” Hendrix yelled seconds before Eden’s
premonition came true.

Oh, shit!
I
thought. And then we crashed.

Chapter Six

Reagan

Pain.
Pain and panic and this
loud ringing sound made me want to curl into a ball and die.

What happened?

My head swam with confusion and my stomach swirled
with a burning sickness that pushed bile up my throat and made me want to lay
back and never get up again.

Why did everything hurt?

The sound of screeching metal made me jerk in my
place. I didn’t make it far though. Something had caged me into something else.

I winced against the pain that seared through my head
when I tried to use it. Thinking was out of the question right now. And I
didn’t want to fight it, so I sunk back into a place of survival and protection.
If my mind needed to be blank right now, then by all means, be blank.

Except there was this nagging feeling of urgency that
kept pushing itself into the hazy darkness of my drowsy consciousness.

I needed to do something.

Or go somewhere, maybe?

Did someone need something from me?

More screaming metal shouted at me from every
direction. I tried to cover my sensitive ears, but my hands were pinned to my
side. I needed to see why I couldn’t move them. If I could see the problem, I
could fix the problem.

Or that was what my high school guidance counselor had
told me once upon a time.

But that had more to do with drama on my cheer squad
than being trapped in a full-body-suit of… of something.

It was time to take Mrs.
Wesslund’s
advice. See the problem. Be the problem. Fix the problem.

Or something
like
that.

That was the moment I realized my eyes were closed.
Well, I could fix
this
problem first.

I opened my eyes, which took a surprisingly forceful
amount of work. At first, all I could see was twisted metal and shattered
glass. Light brown vinyl lay to my left and that meant something to me.
Speckles of a dark liquid seemed mildly familiar, they made me feel uneasy.
Dread flared in my compressed gut and I felt desperate to move.
 

It was that tan seat cover and those flecks of blood
that snapped my reality back into place. Abruptly the confusion was gone and I
could remember everything.

I had been in a car accident and that was why I
couldn’t move. The sounds of metal shredding apart by some kind of supernatural
strength meant my new friends were trying to pry me free. I truly hoped they
were using their weirdo Magic strength to dig me out of here because I also
figured out why I felt panicked.

I felt panicked because
I was panicked
.

We’d barely started to get a head start on all those
Feeders and now I was trapped in the wreckage of our only means of escape.

“Get me out of here!” I hollered at them. My croaking
voice echoed off my small prison and I started to worry about my limbs for the
first time. The pressure of my prison constricted my chest and I felt out of
breath simply trying to make myself be heard. That was the only physical signal
I had that my body wasn’t at its finest. Everything else either felt numb or I
couldn’t move it enough to discover any damage.

More hysteria bubbled in my stomach and buzzed through
my body. I felt the overwhelming need to move something. I scrunched my eyes
closed and tried to breathe evenly. I couldn’t think about the possibilities of
what had happened to my limbs, my back… my neck. I banished thoughts of broken
bones and potential paralysis but I was alone in my prison and I couldn’t push
my fears far enough before they crept back in and assaulted my courage.

What if I had been seriously injured? I wouldn’t be
able to protect these people if I couldn’t walk. Or run. Or throw grenades at
oncoming hordes.

“We’re working on it,” Eden called back. “Give us a
few more minutes.”

“Hendrix?”

I held my breath until I heard his loud, “I’m here.
I’m not hurt.”

Oh, thank God
.
I sucked in a fortifying breath.

My heartbeat slowed down from a frantic run to a
steady gallop. A shot of peace and trust pulsed alongside my fears. If Hendrix
was all right, at some level, that meant I would be all right too. No matter
what happened to me. That was a promise he’d made to me that I trusted, that I
hoped he still meant after everything that had happened between us.

“And everyone else?” I felt a little guilty that I
hadn’t immediately thought of everyone’s safety and well-being, but it couldn’t
be helped. I cared about my life because I had the potential to keep a lot of
people safe and alive.

And I cared about Hendrix’s life because… well…
because I didn’t want to talk about it right now, so stop asking.

“We’re fine, Reagan!” Ivy’s voice sounded strong and
confident.

I didn’t know where she got all that cool, calm,
collectedness when a huge horde of Feeders were bearing down on us with plans
to rip us apart and make a buffet out of our mangled bodies, but I liked her
spirit.

She was so strong. Nothing seemed to be able to get
her down or force her to give up.

Well, except when she’d been bitten and started to
turn into a Zombie.

But, hey, who wouldn’t have been depressed when facing
those odds?

Kane
, my brain
whispered. Kane went willingly.

To save you.

And you thank
him for his sacrifice by regretting how things went with Hendrix and hoping you
can force yourself to move on.

Maybe this wasn’t reality.

Maybe this was purgatory.

I certainly deserved it.

Ugh.

Finally, the sound of tearing metal happened so close
to my face that I gagged. Thankfully, I hadn’t eaten anything today, so there
was nothing that could be thrown up.

The awful sound of metal as it ripped apart was
high-pitched and groaning, much like the Feeders, with loud protests and a
reminder that metal wasn’t supposed to be able to bend and tear like this. And
it happened right by my ears. The force of it vibrated in my bones and
scratched at my spine.

And when it stopped, the silence of the night was more
poignant than any other sound had been so far.

The cool night air hit me in my face. Drops of sweat
had formed all over my hairline and neck, but the cool breeze felt amazing. I
tilted my face toward the sky and let the gentle caress of the wind go to work
on my heated body.

I waited as patiently as I could to be dug out.

I knew Eden and
Kiran
were
struggling with their own weakness and inability to conjure up what they had a
few days, or even hours, before. But they did an amazing job of keeping us all
safe and together.

We wouldn’t be able to stay together forever, but I
was grateful we’d crossed paths and gotten to know each other. We each had a
different story to tell and a different war to fight. But we couldn’t have
survived today without each other.

Not that the day was over.

And really, I could blame this entire fiasco on Ivy.
But if I ignored those two minor details, then we weren’t doing so badly.

I liked these girls. I could easily see myself sipping
coffee with them on sunny afternoons and discussing all of our broody, serious,
alpha-male problems.

In a different world, of course.

Coffee was like the Holy Grail around here these days.
Nobody had it or could find it, but every single person would have traded
entire appendages for just one strong cup.

Me
included.

I just hoped I had appendages to trade.

Hendrix stepped into my line of sight and blocked out
everything else. He was all I could see. He was all I wanted to see. He was the
cool breeze that made it possible to breathe. He was the night sky that blinked
with millions of hopeful stars. He was the salvation that would rescue me from
this nightmare.

“Reagan.” His voice was a whisper of relief and
emotion.

He leaned into me and for a moment I thought he would kiss
me. My poor heart went into shock and stopped beating completely in
anticipation of that sweetest of feelings. I licked my lips nervously and
watched his face, afraid that if I even blinked he would disappear and this
would turn out to be a fantasy.

His hands fell to my shoulders and gripped me tightly.
I could feel his desire to touch me, to hold me, to press his lips against mine
vibrate through him. He wanted to kiss me as badly as I wanted to be kissed.

But in the end he pulled back and his lips fell to my
forehead.

Disappointment made my entire body deflate. If I
hadn’t been so firmly pinned in place, I probably would have collapsed on the
ground.

“You’re okay,” he whispered into my blood and sweat
soaked hair.

I’m not.
I
thought.
I’m not even a little bit okay
.

I grunted a noncommittal reply and tried to wiggle.
“I’m not exactly mobile though. Can you get me out of here?”

Hendrix pulled back and dropped his hands. “That’s the
plan.”

“This is what I get for staying by your side.” I meant
for that to come out teasing, but bitterness laced my words. Hendrix gave me a
fast scowl before he turned his back on me and walked away. We both knew I
meant more than the car accident. And even if I had only meant this particular
incident, it wasn’t a fair accusation to make.

He would do anything to keep me safe, even after I
crushed him.

Even after my time with Kane.

And instead of being grateful for his protection and
care, I threw it in his face and blamed him for circumstances he couldn’t
control.

It wasn’t his fault he’d crashed the car. I didn’t see
the giant crater in the road until he did. It was too dark and these roads were
too unfamiliar. Hendrix did what he could.

It also wasn’t his fault for what happened with Kane.
That was all me. I could take the blame for that one hundred and ten percent.

I just didn’t want to.

I wanted someone else to blame.

A Zombie howl sounded in the distance and I shook my
head to rid myself of the demons haunting me. Zombies were bad enough. I didn’t
need my memory-monsters attacking me as well.

I looked up at Eden, “Get me out, please.”

“Anything feel broken?”

I grimaced. “Let’s find out.”

She sucked in a big breath and then swiped her hand at
the metal casing me in. Metal tearing from metal screamed through the night. I
winced from the pain and violence to my body, but I started to feel the give.

All at once, she pried it apart and I would have
fallen into the jagged pieces except that she kept my body upright with more of
her crazy cool Magic.

She gave me an expectant look. I gathered some courage
and gingerly stepped through the debris to a clear patch of grass. My legs
didn’t give out and nothing hollered in pain or protest.

Somehow my body had remained uninjured through the
wreckage.

“I don’t think I’m hurt,” I announced.

I felt Eden’s Magic pull back. I braced myself for
something terrible to happen, but I stayed upright and no bones snapped or
crumbled.

Whew.

“Good.”
Kiran’s
gaze was fierce
and expectant. “We’re going to need everyone if we have any hope of surviving
this.”

“Surviving what?” I asked.

I didn’t need to ask. I didn’t even know why I asked.
I guessed it was habit.

But my curiosity was fulfilled as soon as the first
wave of Feeders crested the hill. We’d flown off road not fifteen minutes ago.
This particular area resembled a war zone. Buildings that lined the road had
been destroyed, crumbled to pieces of dangerous debris. The road itself had
been bombed or something. Not even a tank could make it through the rubble that
remained where smooth highway had once provided a scenic view of the Gulf.

I looked around frantically for some kind of weapon.

There wasn’t one.

Kiran
picked up a crowbar.
“This came out of the trunk,” he explained.

I nodded. Of course, it did. “I’m more of a firearms
kind of girl.”

“You’re only a firearms kind of girl when you have
firearms. Try to be flexible.”

I looked to Eden for support.

I didn’t find any.

“Do you want to complain about what you’re comfortable
with or do you want to survive?”

“I want to survive,” I grumbled.

Eden smiled at me. “I’m glad to hear that. I want you
to survive too.”

Hendrix stepped up to me. We shared a meaningful look.
I noticed he held a long piece of wood that had several nails protruding from
the end.

Yikes.

“I’m sorry,” I said after a long time.

He didn’t say anything. I could tell that he wanted to
ask what I was sorry about.
My words?
Kane?
So many other things?

For everything?

If he had asked, I didn’t have an answer for him. I
was glad when he didn’t ask.

“I won’t let you get trapped in a car again, Reagan,”
he said instead. “Stay with me.”

“I will.”

“Let’s go!” Ivy yelled as the Zombies raced down the
hill at us. “We have to make it to the water.”

I chanced a glance over my shoulder and peered through
the darkness. The moon was now high in the sky and provided enough light that
our plight wasn’t completely in vain.

A boat sat at the end of a long dock that ended a ways
past the biggest waves close to the shore. A ladder hung at the end of it and
led down to a small speedboat tied to it.

This must have been Eden’s “vision.”

If we could make it there, we might have a small
chance for survival.

A very small chance.

And like I said, first we had to make it there…

Hendrix wrapped his hand around my bicep and pulled.
That was all the prompting I needed.