Page 4 of Genesis (Alter Arlo #2)

HE’S ALL I’VE GOT LEFT

ZADE

He lay there bleeding and broken, and I stood over him with another gun aimed at his face. Trembling from rage and shame, I squeezed the trigger just a little bit, testing to see if I’d feel regret over it.

I threw up instead.

“Get the fuck up, Dire!” I yelled at him, unable to kill him now that I’d promised my brother I’d take care of him. “Get up!” I kicked him right where the bullet had entered the side of his body.

I couldn’t be here anymore. I needed to get the fuck away from this goddamn lake. Movement. I needed movement to stop my mind from dipping into the depraved thoughts of what they were doing to my sister’s body. Thirteen. She was fucking thirteen. But I knew…

“Get the fuck up, Cadoc!” I kicked him so hard he rolled off the dock and sank into the lake.

With the gun still pointed at where he splashed, my heart beat faster than my chest could handle when he didn’t surface. Was I killing him or not? If he was going to die, I wanted it to be by my hands, not the warm embrace of the lake Zan rested in.

“Fucking fuck!” I jumped into the water and dove down to get him.

It wasn’t too deep, but Cadoc got pushed under the dock, his body hitting the slats from the bottom.

I wrapped my arms around his not-yet-dead body and dragged him to the surface with a gasp.

He didn’t breathe in, so I fucking smacked him in the face. “Wake up!”

He choked, sputtering water all over me. “Zan.” He reached for me.

Anger. “Fuck you, Dire. You aren’t dying today.”

“Oh,” he muttered, going limp.

I shoved him away and swam to the shore, letting him fend for himself.

How pathetic was it that I had no one in this world except the man I hated most?

The man who gave my twin the life he deserved and then let him die by mistaking his intentions.

Cadoc Dire was all I had, and I didn’t even want him.

I feared being alone more. I feared breaking my promise to Zan more.

Without speaking, we repacked all our shit, made sure our guns and clips still worked, ate something from his pack, and barely kept it down.

When we were packed and ready to go… somewhere, we both stared at Amelia’s backpack on the beach.

I’d packed most of it for her, but had she put something personal inside? Could I touch it?

Cadoc grabbed it and walked away. He waved at the lake like a madman, and just as I was scoffing at that, I nodded at the lake behind his back.

I’ll be back for you, Zan. I don’t know when, but I’ll visit.

We didn’t talk for two days. We walked until we found a settlement in an old industrial area.

We scoped it out but decided not to go there because the guy running it seemed batshit crazy.

There wasn’t anything said about it. The guy in charge killed a few people for show, and then he lit a chemical fire and got all his people high as fuck.

As much as I craved that high, Cadoc had looked at me and I’d looked at him, and our shady eye conversation landed on the same conclusion.

We kept walking.

On the fourth day, I stopped dead in my tracks. Cadoc stopped with me, and the two of us listened to a familiar sound.

“Dirt bikes,” he said, his voice hoarse from cigarettes and lack of use.

My crew? What were the odds? Anyone could have a dirt bike out here, but… we were still close to where I’d last seen them.

He crouched down, peering through his scope to track the area of the sounds.

Knelt down beside me, I looked at the top of his head, wondering how in the fuck out of everyone…

we were the only two left. We were the least deserving of life, and maybe that’s why we were still here.

Cockroaches, both of us. It didn’t stop me from being jealous of Zan, though.

Ever since he met Cadoc, he earned happiness, and I hated that Cadoc was the one to give it to him.

Such an asshole, but everything my brother loved.

I’d wanted someone to look at me the way Cadoc looked at Zan ever since the first time I saw it.

Anger and rage had burned me up at that look.

Jealousy and resentment that Zan got to feel it while I continued to suffer in silence.

I hated Cadoc for it, but I also wondered why he hadn’t looked at me like that.

Why Zan? Why didn’t anyone ever pick me?

“ Punisher skulls,” Cadoc said, pulling me from my mind. My fists unfurled. “It’s your crew.”

Relief washed my legs out, making me collapse. “Fuck.” I caught myself on Cadoc’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”

I walked out of the treeline, waving my hands in the air to signal my crew. I didn’t have my Punisher hoodie on, but I hoped they’d still recognize me. “Sully! Andi!” There were at least six of them riding together. Fuck, it’d been too long since I’d seen them. “Sully!”

I kept walking into the open, hoping no sniper was going to pick me off. Or maybe I just didn’t care either way. When I looked back, I noticed Cadoc still knelt in the brush with his eye pressed to the scope.

“You coming?”

He shook his head.

“Dire.”

“Just go. They don’t like me. They won’t come if I’m there and I’ll keep an eye.”

The bikes slowed down, turning in our direction, so I nodded at Cadoc and kept walking to the gravel road. I’d tell them Cadoc was with me and everything would be fine.

“Holy fuck! Zade?” Andi gasped, throwing her helmet to the ground. “Finally! We’ve been looking for you for weeks, asshole!” She jumped at me, throwing her arms around me in a tight hug.

I hugged her, bumping knuckles with Sully behind her back. “Hey, man. Been a while.”

“No shit. We got… shit happened.” My heart reminded me it was broken. “Everyone okay?”

Sully shook his head. “We lost Jax. Fucking shrapnel from an explosion…” He made a slicing motion over the side of his neck.

“Jesus.” Death was never far away in this world. “Everyone else is okay?”

“Yeah. Where’s Zan?” Andi asked.

My heart reminded me it was dead. “Uh, Cadoc is with me.” I turned around to find him.

Gone. My pack and Amelia’s pack were sitting there with a few extra guns, but Cadoc was gone.

The dead heart in my chest felt weird. It felt .

Now that I was safe with my crew, Cadoc knew he couldn’t be the one to protect me like Zan wanted.

He left because he couldn’t bear to be around me.

I couldn’t stand being near him either, so I didn’t know why my heart was racing.

“Zan?” Andi asked again.

Still looking at the spot Cadoc had knelt, I said, “Dead. My sister, too. And my dad.”

All gone. Just like Cadoc now.

“Shit,” Sully cursed. “Fuck, man. I’m so sorry.”

Sympathy would kill me, so I wiped my nose and looked at Sully. “You have somewhere safe to stay?”

“The bombings died off a week ago. No planes left. They snuffed each other out and now it’s just a bunch of smaller rebel groups and outlaws in the grey area,” Sully said. “But there are a few bigger communities. Red River is down by that old chemical plant.”

“Yeah, we saw that one. You staying there?” I asked them, trying not to think of Zan. And Cadoc.

Andi shook her head. “We were going to stay in Pike Valley, down by the end of the river, but… we’ve been staying in Genesis.

Used to be Branshaw. Some guy named Dante is running it, and he seems alright so far.

” Andi squeezed my arm, and I refused to look at her.

“Come on. It’s safe. You can… feel shit in safety. ”

“Genesis!” I shouted to the forest, hoping Cadoc would hear it.

The rest of the crew took bikes back to Genesis to warn them they were bringing someone new, but Sully stayed back to walk with me. He left his bike leaning against a tree and said we’d come back for it later, and that my old bike was still in the shed we’d left it in.

“So, the wars are over here?” I asked. “We’ve been around, but we haven’t… we got injured. We’ve been kinda out of it.”

“Heavy bombs and foot soldiers about a week, week and a half ago, but they dwindled down.”

“Yeah, we were on the cliffs by Synner’s Lake when a bunch of bombs got dropped.”

Sully offered me a joint, and I sparked it up in hopes it’d shut me down or make me feel something other than anger and despair.

“Yeah, after that, a few planes got shot down, and then… I dunno, things got quiet. Each community kind of guards the perimeter of the grey area, and there are a ton of smaller groups, well-armed and dangerous, keeping the military out of here. But to be honest, no one is really trying to get to us yet. We’re mostly just fighting with each other.

” He took the joint from me. “Where have you been?”

“My dad had us in a bunker by the lake. But I had to get my sister out of there.” Would she still be alive if we’d stayed?

“Anyway, it looked like that area got bombed, and then… Amelia… Amelia got shot straight through the head by a stray bullet.” I coughed to hide my cry.

“She’s gone, man. Everyone is fucking gone. ”

“I’m sorry.” Sully handed the joint to me. “What happened to Zan?”

He killed my dad and lost his life in the process.

Stabbed my dad straight in the heart, but didn’t back away quickly enough.

A knife slipped through his ribs like butter, deflating his lung and bleeding him out.

Cadoc had gotten there and caught him before his body fully hit the ground, and I’d been a step behind him.

“You said you were going to tell Zade! You said you’d wait for us!” Cadoc cried over his dying body. “You said you’d wait!”

And if Cadoc had figured out that Zan wasn’t with me just one minute sooner, he’d still be here today.

He planned that murder with Zan, and the two of them were going to do it together, but he made Zan ask me first. According to Cadoc, Zan wanted to ask me alone, and that’s the only reason he’d given Cadoc the slip.

Cadoc was a pushy, possessive asshole, so he’d followed behind, and when he saw me, his eyes widened in shock.

“Where’s Zan? Where the fuck is Zan, Zade?”

That’s when I knew something was seriously wrong. Cadoc had always been nonchalant and casually light-hearted despite his upbringing, and the panic on his face and anguish in his eyes sparked all my senses into overdrive. We ran. We ran to the cliffs.

We were too late.

“My dad killed him.” I inhaled the weed, waiting for it to lighten my mood. “And we were too late to save him. Cadoc… Cadoc was too late.” Tears dripped down my cheeks, and I let them fall unbothered.

Sully didn’t comment on that, and we walked the rest of the way in silence. This silence felt different from Cadoc’s silence, and no matter how many times I looked behind me, he was never there.

Would I ever see him again?

Was he killing himself right now?

Should I be saving him after he let Zan die?

“That’s Genesis,” Sully said.

Up ahead, a single-lane highway led to a city with a downtown core. Half the skyscrapers had been damaged or blown up, but enough of them stood out like jagged teeth against the darkening sky. The border of the city was still open, but I could see tall walls being built surrounding the perimeter.

“They’re reinforcing one section of the city.

Trying to make it a safe haven in the grey area, but it’ll take time, and there are people coming to threaten that every day.

The groups are getting smaller and smaller each day, and it honestly seems like people are just trying to settle wherever they can.

People are sick of running. Bunch of smaller camps out there, and even some people who just holed up in a farmhouse or something.

I’m sure everything will settle at some point, and then we’ll start fighting with each other if we can’t make an alliance of some sort. ” Sully shrugged.

“Why here? Why’d you pick this city?”

“Because on the day we found it, someone was trying to overtake it. This fucking crazy ass lunatic just… single-handedly killed them all. He was… fuck, he was crazy, but he had knives and guns and he killed like thirty people all by himself. We just stood there watching, and then Dante, the guy who runs this place, said that’s the kind of protection we’d get if we could help out around here. ”

“Who was the guy?” Jesus, kind of wish I saw that.

“No idea. But Dante gained a bunch of new weapons from those dead bodies, and then he kind of hired our crew to find their stronghold. We found it to the east and brought back all their supplies, weapons, and vehicles. It’s been alright ever since. How long has it been since we saw you?”

I shrugged. “A month or a month and a half, maybe. I don’t know. My dad went crazy and I needed to stick with my sister.”

I looked behind us and saw a vehicle approaching. I pulled a gun, but Sully made me lower it. “That’s Dante.”

This guy pulled up and stopped, getting out of the SUV to talk to us. He greeted Sully by name and then looked at me. Sizing me up. Bet he saw all my pain and drank in all my heartbreak because I knew for a fact I wasn’t emitting anything else.

“Who’s this?”

“Zade. He runs our crew. I told you about him.” Sully looked at me. “He’s here now.”

“Been through some shit?” Dante asked me. I nodded. “You’ve got a good crew. They've been helping me a lot. You’ve got a place here if you want it, Zade.”

“Thanks.” I looked down the road—one direction led to a safe place and the other led to the unknown.

“Want a ride the rest of the way?” Dante asked.

Night was creeping in, but something didn’t feel right. It had nothing to do with Dante or Genesis. It had everything to do with the heart in my chest that was dying and reviving, depending on the minute.

Amelia, gone.

Dad, gone.

Zan, gone.

Cadoc… still out there.

“Zade?” Sully asked.

I tightened the straps on my pack and met Sully’s eyes. “You go.”

“Zade, come on. You’re barely hanging on. You need a break.”

“I know where you are now. I need to find Dire. When I find him, I’ll come back. I promise.” I looked at Dante. “If that’s okay with you.”

Dante nodded and handed me a map from the front of the SUV. “Here. Come back when you find him.”

“Zade, are you sure?” Sully asked. “You don’t even like him.”

I handed him Amelia’s bag, asking him to keep it safe. “He’s all I’ve got left.” And I made a promise to my dead twin.