Chapter 20 #2
“I didn’t know you were sick until Dez brought you to Woodhaven. We knew Lin was treating you. We knew where you were. If I wanted you dead, I could have had you killed then.”
It was bullshit.
Dez never left my side.
He would have killed them first.
Also, I preferred to be conscious when he finally went off the deep end. I would never pretend it didn’t fill me with leg-kicking glee to have the heart and protection of someone like Dez.
“I don’t mean just me,” I went on. “I mean all the deaths you could have prevented in Sanitation.”
“The people we could treat, we did. Those with the infection…yes, we euthanized them, but there were no other options. Cerner and I are not the monsters you’re making us out to be. Even the dissenters, the rebels…don’t you think I knew they were escaping?”
“Then why not just let them go?”
“Image, Larke. Image. We’re not the only camp out here fighting for resources, and if Totten looks like the place where uprisings and other bullshit won’t be tolerated, that makes us strong.”
“Or you’re turning Totten into you,” I argued. “You haven’t learned a thing. Instead of looking strong, be strong. Take care of your people. Earn their trust and loyalty by being an actual leader rather than cosplaying as one.”
He didn’t comment.
By now, I’d expected Dez to show up when he didn’t see me at the gate. Although I had the knife, Neal was bigger. If a scuffle broke out between us, even if I won, I wouldn’t walk away unscathed. The last thing I needed was to be injured if the situation above ground was still what it was.
“I must say, this isn’t the way I thought this confrontation was going to go,” I said.
“What were you expecting?” he asked. “A fight?”
“A bullet, at least.”
“I don’t want to kill you, Larke.”
“Well, I’m leaving Totten. You’ll get to keep your empire.”
At least, what was left of it.
Based on the number of gray people I’d seen, I wasn’t sure what would be waiting for me once I left.
“You don’t have to do that,” Neal insisted. “Just stay out of my way and stop organizing people against me. We can find a way to make this work.”
“I’m still leaving.”
“It’s not safe out there.”
“I won’t be alone.”
“About that...do you know where Cerner is?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Do you know if he’s dead?”
“Not sure how I would know that.”
Dez could handle himself, and he wouldn’t care if I told Neal the truth, but I wasn’t going to snitch on my husband. Plus, it was self-defense. Technically, it was Dez’s definition of self-defense, but it was still a justifiable use of force in defense of a third party.
Me.
“I think it might be Ronan,” Neal said. “I think I got it in my head that I could control all of these Special Ops guys. That same night, Ronan and Cerner had a less-than-stellar exchange. Cerner wanted to use you as a means to essentially control Dez, and Ronan warned him not to mess with you. After Cerner went missing, one of the Class Fours told me that they saw Ronan following Cerner the night of the argument. It’s how Ronan operates: he plans, follows, and then executes. ”
“Maybe Cerner should have listened,” I pointed out. “He probably showed up at my place that night with bad intentions, and Ronan followed him.”
The remaining pieces fell into place.
One morning, I woke up thinking how nice it was that Dez had cleaned my place for me, not once considering that the smell of bleach was a result of a mess he’d made.
For all of Neal’s “I’m this way because I had a toxic father,” my sister was murdered. Her death nearly tore my family apart. Then, Dez’s story was on a completely different tier of tragic.
Most people had something to overcome, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t hold Neal accountable.
For every Neal, there was at least one Dez.
There were those who perpetrated and those who strived to avoid placing others in the powerless positions they were forced into.
If we gave everyone with trauma in their pasts the green light to do evil, the world wouldn’t last another decade.
Plus, Dez was still lethal.
He was still a product of his trauma.
However, he opted to use his lethality in a less universally destructive way.
“I’m serious about you not having to leave,” Neal said. “Things are different now. It’s not safe out there—”
He gasped.
I aimed my flashlight, and we both looked down at the same time.
An Infected lay on the ground behind him, one bony hand wrapped around his leg, its teeth deep in the flesh just above the back of his foot.
When Neal’s brain registered what was happening, he screamed and dragged his foot away.
I crouched, jammed the knife into the Infected’s forehead, and prayed that was enough to kill it.
Dr. Okoro had mentioned brain deterioration.
To me, that meant it was possible that the brain remained a vulnerable organ.
The Infected went motionless.
Distorted groans echoed against the tunnel walls.
“How’d they get in here?” Neal asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We have to go.”
I raced back to the hatch, tucking away the knife and flashlight. When I realized I was alone, I glanced over my shoulder to find Neal staring at his foot.
“Matthew!”
His eyes met mine.
As if on autopilot, he limped over. The door had tightened due to the arm that got lodged between the seam, and I didn’t know what waited on the other side, but it had to be better than what was on its way.
“Help me pull,” I ordered.
“Larke, am I gonna die?”
“You will if we don’t get out of here.”
“Don’t leave me.”
“Uh, I one hundred percent will. Trust me.”
I opened the hatch.
Outside was still pitch black.
“Larke, please.” He wrapped an arm around my waist. “I don’t want to die.”
“Then let’s get the hell out of here.”
He tugged.
I went stumbling toward him—almost. A harder tug, from a large hand curled around my forearm, dragged me in the opposite direction, out of the tunnels and into their grasp.
“Ronan?”
Dez looked down at me, brows narrowed. “Who?”
“Hey, baby! I’m so happy to see you.”
“We’re going to talk about that later.”
Neal cried out.
Another one of the Infected had grabbed hold of him, aiming for his forearm with its mouth. The smell of the Infected’s mouth wafted up through the hatch like a sewage pipe.
Dez groaned.
Then, the Infected’s head went from whole to half. The same happened with those closest to Neal, the sound of the bullets ricocheting off the walls.
Neal scrambled out onto the grass.
Dez slammed the door shut.
I took in our surroundings as best as I could, and so many bodies covered the ground that I didn’t need light to make them out. I started to ask Dez what had happened, but he set me down, snatched the flashlight from my pocket, and shined it in my eyes.
“Dez, I’m okay. No bites, no scratches.”
“I have to see for myself.”
He checked every inch of my body.
When he dragged down my shorts and panties and pushed aside my bra cups, I started to protest—until I noticed Neal, still on the ground with his leg bent, holding his foot and sobbing.
So, I didn’t say a word.
Once he was satisfied, Dez rearranged my clothing, sighed, and pressed his forehead to mine.
“Did you find anything?” I quietly asked.
“No, but it wouldn’t have mattered. I would have taken you with me. Even if it was your corpse or you were one of those things, I would have kept you by my side, next to me.”
I wanted to break down.
Collapse into his strength.
But I needed my own for a beat longer.
“Let’s go before whoever did this,” I gestured to the lifeless bodies, “comes back.”
“Larke, I did this.”
I scanned the area again. I’d known he was dangerous, but this was something else entirely. This was a separation of the mind from the man. This was what the heart could do.
Still, all I asked was, “And you’re okay?”
“I’m okay,” he reassured me. “As long as you’re okay, I’m okay.
When I showed up and saw what it looked like out here, I was afraid you’d gotten caught up in this.
I had to clear the area to make sure nothing stopped me from getting to you.
But then I started thinking about it, and something told me you would head for the tunnels. And when I heard your voice…”
He kissed my forehead.
His heart beating against my palm matched mine in a near-perfect rhythm. This had surged way past love. At this point, we were obsessed. Maybe too obsessed. We needed to be able to move on if something were to happen to one of us; however, I was no longer sure that I could.
“Dez, we can’t live like this.”
He scooped me up off my feet and headed for our now wide-open exit. “There’s no other way to live, Larke. There’s no way to live, for me, without you.”
I looked back.
Totten’s shadowed outline loomed behind Neal, and the wails of his agony rode the wind.
I wasn’t sure whether Dr. Okoro had shared what he’d discovered with anyone else.
Still, none of us had ever seen one of the infected return to anything resembling a functioning human.
Even if a cure did arrive, it wouldn’t be tomorrow.
Neal had no hope.
“Do we end it?” I asked.
Dez half-glanced over his shoulder. “For Neal, you mean? No. With men like that, at their core, there’s a desperate denial of vulnerability.
Their biggest fear is their own mortality.
In the end, we all die the same way, and facing that can be more painful than dying itself.
They’re forced to realize that the things they put into place to protect their egos and hide their insecurities do nothing to please the Reaper.
When death comes? When it’s ready? We all become dust and dirt.
Going quickly can be a blessing, but there are those who, in my opinion, deserve long-term suffering.
And it’s not because I think they’ll ‘face’ the misery they’ve caused.
I just like the idea that, in their final moments, they’ll go out frightened, helpless, and in a shitload of pain. ”
The darkness swallowed the outline of the camp.
Neal’s cries grew weaker until they disappeared.
“Hopefully, Totten will learn something,” I said. “I hope it faces its ugliest truths, its harshest secrets. Hopefully, once it does that, it’ll come out better than it was.”
“But, for us, that won’t matter,” Dez added. “I’d rather put the chances of a better outcome, a better fate for you, Larke, in the hands of someone who loves you more than he loves himself.”
I set my head on Dez’s shoulder.
Still, in that moment, I felt sorry for Neal.
Sometimes, evil was selfish, vindictive, and malicious. Other times, evil was simply broken. At the end of the day, however, it didn’t matter. The best course of action would always be for evil to die.
In this arc of my life, Neal had played a minor part.
This season was always supposed to be about me and Dez.
I’d focused so much on the villain that I’d found myself disappointed when Neal turned out to be an average, flawed human.
However, my story was allowed to have heroes who scoured entire complexes to find me.
Heroes who nursed me back to health, stayed by my side, and allowed me to rest. Heroes who brought me peace, kept me safe, and loved me.
Deeply.
“We have a little walk before we get to the van, but it’s not too far,” Dez said.
I secured my arms around his neck. “I can walk.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Okay, then. How long do you intend to carry me?”
“Not sure. Ask me again in about thirty years or so.”
I smiled. “I love you.”
“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
“I said, I love you.”
“All that gunfire messed up my hearing. One more time?”
“I love you, Dez. Forever and ever. And always.”
“Is that why you thought it was Ronan who came for you?” he asked. “Did you think I wouldn’t? I must be slipping if you’re already losing faith in me.”
I kissed the side of his neck and traced the line of his jaw with my index finger. “I’m sorry, baby. To be fair, you were the one who sent him, and he did an excellent job. He aced his assignment. I walked away with not a scratch on me.”
“Did he touch you?”
“He cupped my chin to check—”
He started to turn around, and I squealed and held him tighter, as if that would have made a difference. Then, he laughed, gave me a little squeeze, and groaned. If he was feeling anything similar to what I was feeling, that groan also held relief.
And joy.
“I love you, too, Larke,” he said.
“Forever and ever?”
“And always."