Page 11 of Genesis (Alter Arlo #2)

NEW BEGINNINGS

CADOC

Refusing to think about the clusterfuck of a mistake we’d almost made in a grief-stricken drug stupor, I stood next to Zade and looked at Genesis up ahead.

Genesis. What a biblical word for a bullshit world. New beginnings, eh? Yeah right.

“We’re doing this, Enge?” I cringed at the nickname, but I needed it. I needed to call him something to put some distance between us. “You’re sure?”

“We can always leave if it’s shit,” he said, shrugging. “We need…”

Yeah. Space. Time. Other people. Tasks to do that didn’t involve being glued to each other’s side. I could still watch out for him inside those walls, but he didn’t have to know it all the time.

Without saying anything, I walked forward before I could chicken out.

We had some guns, our packs, a few sets of clothing, knives, and a carton of cigarettes, but that was about it.

Maybe we’d be able to settle down a bit in there, come to terms with the lives we’d lost and the version of life those losses left us in.

I didn’t want Genesis. Then again, I didn’t want anything.

I wished for death in a lake so I could be with him again, but a promise kept my feet on the soil and a gun in my hand.

The cigarettes were good distractions, and even though my habit had kicked up from a few a day to a pack a day, it was all I had left, so I’d revel in it.

It might not be suicide, but chain-smoking was an active step towards death, and that felt reassuring.

I lit one as we walked the final distance.

Our feet scuffed along the single-lane road, skipping over potholes and craters in the pavement every now and then.

Zade said nothing, but his sighs got quieter the closer we got.

Instead of being the saddened twin of a dead brother, he took hold of his anger and used it as armour.

Wrapped in it, we neared the newly constructed gate of this walled-off city.

A sign above told us the name, spray-painted in terrible script.

He’d enter Genesis as anger embodied. I’d enter Genesis as a man chasing death.

“Um, who the fuck are you?”

We both took a step back. A scrawny, confrontational bitch full of attitude and sass was not how I’d planned my day. Her nails were cat claws and her hair was bubblegum pink, and if I was honest, she looked like a tramp in a tight purple mini dress. Who wore that shit since the bombings?

“Dante invited us,” Zade told her.

“Who the fuck are you?” I threw the question back at her.

She scoffed, rolling her eyes like she was better than me. “Rosie goddamn Wilson. That’s who. Remember the name, boys. I’ve got my eyes on you.” She rapped her nails against the metal doors, and they swung open on her prissy demand.

Oh, I’d remember her name. I’d remember her bitchy attitude, too. Whatever her role was here, I wanted to knock her from it and put her in the dirt where she belonged.

I looked past her swaying ass and clicking heels, taking in the sight of Genesis. A ruined but still standing city in the middle of the grey area. Red River behind us and Pike Valley ahead. People busied themselves erecting the rest of the wall, and some were cleaning up the streets and buildings.

“We had a bit of a health scare when we first took this place,” Rosie gave us the tour, but I was already tired of her voice. “Something wrong with the water. Finnegan fixed it and Dante got rid of the dead.”

Zade looked at me, ready to flee if there was something wrong with this place. It suffocated me already. “Are we allowed to leave whenever we want?” Zade asked on my behalf.

“Leave now for all I care.” Rosie flipped her hair. “It’s not a prison. If you offer something valuable, Dante will treat you right.”

“You offer him your cunt?” I asked her.

Her sneer was vicious. It made me respect her more. “Don’t make the mistake of underestimating me, dickhead.”

“What if we have nothing to offer?” Zade asked.

“As long as you aren’t killing citizens, he’ll let you stay.

Maybe give you a job you can handle.” She looked at Zade, her nimble fingers squeezing his bicep.

“I’ve got something you can do, handsome.

You look like you’d be killer at hate sex.

” She winked, and I stifled the first real laugh of my new life.

We kept walking until we got to a highrise in the centre of the former downtown core. I didn’t want to go up there, but I had no real reason why.

“Zade. That’s Cadoc,” Zade told her.

I hated him giving my name away, but my eyes were distracted by some dipshit trying and failing to get an assault rifle to work.

After he fucked it up three separate times, I snatched it from him and smiled at the handgun he pointed at my face.

I unclogged the chamber, slipped it apart, and put it all back together again.

Clicking the safety off and lining it up, I fired a single round.

A sign that read ‘Lawson and Family Inc’ slipped from its chain bracket, crashing onto the street below. I handed the idiot his rifle.

He sized me up, and I waited for him to finish, not giving a single fuck what he thought of me. Rosie cleaned her nails with a grin on her pink lips, and Zade just looked bored and angry.

“Damn. Alright.” This guy slung the weapon over his shoulder. “You know guns?”

Better than anything. All forms of weapons.

“Dante,” he introduced himself, and Zade swore beside me, remembering who he was. “Welcome to Genesis. Looking for someone who knows their guns. Up for it?”

His right hand sat in the cool air between us. “What’s the pay?”

“A room, food, and relative safety.”

Good enough. I shook his hand. “Cadoc Dire.” Didn’t like the grip of his shake, but I’d analyze it later.

“And Zade, right? Your crew has been waiting for you.” Dante looked at him. “Let’s get you settled and then I’ll take you to them.” He looked at Rosie. “Radio me if Finnegan leaves his office.”

With a nod, Rosie slunk into the shadows with more grace and stealth than I thought possible in those heels. I’d keep my eye on her.

We each took an old office as our room, wanting to be on the same floor of the high rise. Maybe if we found this place safe enough and I learned to trust our surroundings, I’d move to a different floor just to get the fuck away from Zade for a bit.

Settled in this new room on the thirteenth floor, I sank down against the wall and stared at the space.

A mattress on the floor was the only bedroom-like thing, but it was more than we’d had over the past month.

I hated it here. I hated the sense of community, the belittled feeling of being beneath a leader, and the walls surrounding me.

I hated the highrise with only one way down, and I hated the distance from Synner’s Lake.

It’d take too long to walk there for a quick visit, but I’d steal a dirt bike or something eventually.

Mostly, I hated being here because Zan wasn’t.

He’d like this place, which made me not want to belong here without him.

Protect my brother.

Yeah, Zade was the only reason I closed my eyes, gun in hand, and tried to sleep enough to support his choice to be here. I’d protect him. Even from his goddamn anger.

As my throat burned with the grief I’d been avoiding, I hated this place even more because it gave me a private, protected place to feel it.

The morning brought an improvement in Zade.

Reunited with his crew, I watched from a table across the mall cafeteria that apparently got used for some meals.

He smiled, looked happier, leaned on Andi and Sully and the guys, and finally felt safe enough to let go of a bit of that anger.

Not all of it, but some. He wasn’t alone anymore.

He had his friends, his crew, his ride-or-die buddies from the old world, and now he could begin anew with them in this world.

He ran that crew—had run it since he was ten—and it’d do him good to be a leader again.

They picked him, and it was time he remembered that.

“Lovers?” Dante slid into the chair opposite mine, sliding a plate of pasta and some bread across the steel-top table for me.

“No.”

“Brothers?”

I picked up the fork and dug in. A hot meal was a hot meal. Wouldn’t even care if he’d poisoned it at this point.

“He’s safe here, Dire. You can let your guard down.”

Never. “What do you need?”

“Up for a job?” Dante asked. He was friendly enough, but he had a chip on his shoulder I couldn’t place.

Bit sketchy, but maybe it was just stress.

“There’s a cargo container hidden in the bush a few miles out.

It’s full of medical supplies and dry food.

Was from a relief camp that barely lasted a week. ”

“Okay?”

“We’re going to get it tonight. Was going to use Zade’s crew to scout ahead and clear the path so we could tow the container back behind a truck, but we’re sitting ducks as we haul it out of the bush and hook it up. Can you shoot as well as you assemble those guns?”

Long-range wasn’t my specialty, but I was still pretty fucking special at it. I nodded, eating another mouthful of pasta.

“So, you up for it then?” he asked.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Why? Enge says you have some madman who can kill thirty men on his own.”

Dante looked at his plate, avoiding my gaze. “Arlo. Arlo Thorne. Yeah, but he’s… not available tonight.”

Shifty. Shady. Didn’t fucking trust him. “Alright.” I’d go on this job to keep an eye on Zade. All the better if I got a good read on Dante.

I grabbed Zade’s Punisher hoodie on the way out of the mall, pushing him against the side of the building. “Yeah?” I asked him for confirmation he wanted to stay.

“Yeah.”

I let him go.

“Dire, wait.” He grabbed my wrist and my body burned. “One word from you and I’ll leave. Together, alright? No fucking matter where it is. You hate me and I hate you, but…”

But we were stuck together for life because of a promise and a lake.

“See you at this job tonight, Enge. Better not be high for it.”

He swore at me, but it felt alright. He went one way, and I went the other.

Genesis. New beginnings, I guessed. We’d see.