Page 15 of Reanimated Ruin (Hearts In Horror #1)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Dominic

IT WAS SITUATIONS exactly like this that had me so apprehensive about accepting when Jules said that he’d agreed with Cat to just let bygones be bygones. It felt like he was letting her get off Scot-free (pun not fucking intended) in exchange for his dignity just to have her back. As badly as I wanted that, I wasn’t willing to throw away my self respect for it.

Before when I had thought she’d simply vanished, never to set foot in Efferville again, maybe I could have settled for the no answers route. Now knowing not only had she come back but her parents had her holed up at times in the very town she abandoned us in? Now I wanted answers cause something was up, no bullshit excuses this time.

“Does it not piss you off at all that Cat regularly spent time in Efferville and didn’t bother once to try and reach out to us?” I whispered to Jules as we ascended the stairs to the upper level after clearing all the rooms on the main one.

“I honestly don’t know how to feel about it,” he murmured back. “You heard what she said about her dad not letting her leave. He’s always been a controlling piece of shit.”

“Yeah, like that’s stopped her from sneaking out in the past,” I scoffed.

“Well, maybe she just didn’t want to see us then, I don’t know,” he shrugged, like suddenly that was a good enough excuse for him. “You never know. After everything happened, it’s pretty clear he found out about the video. Why else would he have moved her away and been too ashamed to show their faces around town?”

“Either way,” I pouted, knowing I’m probably taking it too personal but not caring. “Somehow it was all easier to swallow when I thought she up and disappeared to somewhere far away. Knowing she was that close sometimes stings.”

“I know, man. It stings for me too, but having her here in front of us makes me want to do everything in my power to make sure she never leaves again. Even if that means letting my ego take a hit,” he replied.

Before I could unleash any snark in response to that, a shadow moved in my peripheral. With barely any time to react, a small elderly woman lunged at Jules from the open doorway of the dark bathroom we were approaching. I made the split second decision to tackle her to the ground before she could get her arms wrapped around him and we went thudding to the floor.

I landed on top of her, pressing her torso into the floor, but she was still thrashing beneath me and snarling like a wild beast caught in a trap. When she turned her head to snap at me, I could see her eyes had clouded over and the telltale dark veins stretching up from the visible flesh of her neck..

At this point, the commotion had drawn Cat and Sadie up to our location. When they appeared at the top of the stairs, they froze and took in the situation. Jules beside me had gone all deer in the headlights mode again, just as he had when the guy was being attacked right in front of us at the stadium.

Cat took one look at his state and raced forward, ripping the knife from his hands. She dropped down to her knees, raising the blade high above her head, then slammed it down to the hilt into the woman’s temple. The body beneath me stilled, so I quickly scrambled backwards to get away from it, then collapsed sitting up against the wall a few feet away.

“Thanks,” I said, gasping for breath with adrenaline still coursing through me steadily.

“Don’t mention it,” she bit out, still staring at the motionless form on the ground.

“I’m so fucking sorry, dude,” Jules started rambling, now suddenly free from the spell that had rendered him useless a few seconds ago. “I just froze and I couldn’t move. When I thought about stabbing...killing...a person like-”

He bent over at the waist suddenly and threw up all over the floor. Sadie walked over to him and awkwardly started rubbing his back, looking a tad uncomfortable but not being able to help herself from her apparently nurturing nature. When he finished, she grabbed a hand towel from the bathroom and handed it to him to clean himself up. She told us she was gonna take him downstairs to lay on the couch then clean up here. Cat decided to come with me to finish clearing the condo after proving herself a better suited partner for the task.

We had to find a way to get the body outside if we were going to have to wait things out here for the next few days. During the process of clearing the rest of the place, we’d noticed one bedroom had a balcony that faced the back of the building that was looking like the easiest and safest option. We quietly set to work wrapping the woman in a few blankets. While moving her, her arm flopped to the side, and I noticed the bite that must have sealed her fate on her forearm.

Even though she had been infected and tried to attack us, I still felt sadness for her. We took gentle care of her while going through the motions without saying a word to each other. It didn’t feel right to casually chit chat while handling the remains of someone who’d lost their life in such a tragic way. After we rolled her over the side of the railing, that part not gentle at all I know but it’s not like we had a choice, the sound the body made when it hit the ground attracted some infected milling about nearby so we quickly retreated back inside.

“Thanks for your help,” I finally broke the silence once we were back in the bedroom. “And thanks again for literally saving my life back there. I always knew you were tough shit, but that was crazy. How did you know what to do and execute it so quickly like that?”

Before my encounter with the owner of this condo, I had been furious with Cat, but now I was finding it hard to locate the tether to that emotion. It was hard to maintain that same energy when I was currently looking at probably the only reason I was still living and breathing.

“I saw a lot of shit before I got to the quarantine zone,” she sighed as she sat down on the bed. She reclined back on her elbows and caught her breath after the manual labor we’d just done. “When they were transporting us there, the truck stopped because there must have been infected blocking the road, so the soldiers got out. Before the shooting started, they got instructed to ‘aim for their heads’, so I just aimed for hers and figured the temple was a pretty soft spot.”

I moved to sit down on the bed as well, but took a conscious effort to make sure I was further than an arm’s reach away. Trying my very best to avoid making her feel cornered. Instead of reclining back like she did, though, I leaned forward with my arms resting on my knees. Looking down at myself, I now saw that I actually had a decent amount of blood covering my pants and shirt. I hoped there were some clothes around here I could scrounge up that would fit.

This was my last pair of clean clothes I’d packed for the weekend. I guess if we were going to be here for a while, I could make use of the washer and dryer. I looked over and her clothes were pretty bloody, too. Maybe I could get some brownie points by offering to wash hers as well. The mental image of her removing her clothes burst its way to the front of my mind, of her slowly stripping, all the while her seductive gaze never leaving mine. I swallowed thickly and tried to force it away by attempting to continue the conversation.

“So do you live here in Rotlington or were you just super lucky like us and chose the worst night possible to take a trip into the big city?” I inquired, trying to sound casual, like I was just making small talk when, in reality, I was dying to know where she’d really been all this time.

“I live here. With my parents still unfortunately, I was saving up to move out when this all happened, though. Was just about at my goal too,” she said softly, offering me a small glimpse of the truth I’d been desperately seeking. “I wanted to get custody of my little sister, so I was saving up for a good lawyer, too. You know how my dad is. I couldn’t just escape by myself and leave her stuck smack dab in the middle of the lion’s den to fend for herself.”

I could see the look of sheer hopelessness of that thought when she sat up straight and turned her body to face me. Indeed, I knew just how bad her sorry excuse for a father could be. I had seen the bruises he left on her after Jules had forced her to come clean to me after spotting them himself.

Even with the fractured state of our friendship, I knew immediately in that moment that I would do anything she needed of me to help her get to that little girl. I knew all too well about having your inner child cry out, throw a tantrum and stomp their feet, when it came to sitting aside idly watching another kid suffer a fate similar to the one you were forced to endure.

“They were in Efferville for the weekend though, right?” I asked, and she nodded. “Well, Jules and I still live there. We rent an apartment together. If you wanted, we could ride back together and maybe even go over there with you if you want. You know, just to make sure you get there safe. Who knows what the rest of the world looks like right now? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself without knowing you made it there in one piece.”

“You’d do that for me?” She asked, her eyes round with shock. “Even though you’re still mad at me? Especially now that you know I’ve been back to Efferville?”

“It’s not like I want to be mad at you.” I turned my body toward her so I could get a good look into her eyes so she’d know what I was about to say was coming from my heart. When I did, our knees connected, neither of us moved to break the small point of contact. “I want nothing more than to have you back in my life, Cat. There’s been a hole in my chest ever since you left, and I’m not saying that to make you feel guilty. I just want you to understand the scope of how profoundly I care for you. That’s why I’ve been so mad at you. For taking yourself from me. I know it’s selfish of me to expect answers from you that you aren’t willing to give me but I also don’t think you know how deep the self-serving streak in me can really go when I get my mind set on something.”

Cause that’s what I was: selfish. For wanting her, knowing damn well that my best friend was in love with her just as much as I was. Knowing that whether I liked it or not, acting on my desires would be breaking some kind of code between us because he managed to nut up and kiss her first.

While she was a person, not property to be claimed or owned, I didn’t know if I could bring myself to cross that line. Looking at her, I knew I was weak. If there ever came a time when she wanted me in the same way, I’d cave in a heartbeat. To finally know what it was like to have her lips pressed to mine, a feeling apparently so divine once you’ve had a taste, all other women lose their appeal entirely.

“You aren’t selfish,” she replied with an eye roll. “You’re one of the most generous, thoughtful people I know. You were always putting your siblings’ needs before your own. I always wanted brothers or sisters being an only child and I used to think if I ever had one, I could only hope to be just as good as an older sibling as you. Now that Rhiannon is here, I can only pray that I’m doing that well by her.”

“That’s probably one of the nicest things anyone ever said to me.” I reached out and cautiously placed my hand on her leg. She covered it with hers in return. “I don’t want to spoil what feels like a real monumental moment for our friendship recovery, but I really have been meaning to talk to you about something after your conversation with Jules. He told me how you guys proposed agreeing to let things go, meaning he’d just be okay with never getting the real story of that night. I just don’t know if that’s something I can agree to. I know he has his reasons for wanting to know, but I just have a sense that deep down there’s something to it that no one knows. I know you, you wouldn’t have stayed gone if there wasn’t a good reason. If the roles were reversed, there’s not a whole lot that could have kept me from you.”

I was bearing myself to her and opening up, feeling as vulnerable as I would if I were to open the first floor door and walk out into the horde. I’d never voiced that, not even to Jules. Didn’t want him to think I wasn’t on his side, but deep down in my soul I felt like there was more to the story. Something dark. There had to be. He’d voiced the concern himself the other night, but that was the first time he’d seen a glimpse of what I thought I had.

I’d also never been so close to admitting my feelings for her. It felt like it was right at the tip of my tongue after years of keeping it to myself, like it was starting to overflow and seep out uncontrollably whether I liked it or not. I could sympathize with Jules’s fear of appearing utterly pathetic. Here I was begging her for an explanation of how she could ever fathom leaving little old me behind in the dust.

“It’s so complicated, Dom,” she removed her hand from mine and moved her body back away, closing herself off to me. “I didn’t want to leave. Can’t knowing that be good enough? It killed me too. There is a lot more to the story, and it’s not because I don’t trust you that I don’t tell you. You have to know that, you guys were the only people I ever trusted in my entire life. My hands are just tied and there’s so much on the line, so much that you wouldn’t even be able to imagine.”

“The world is crumbling down around us. We don’t have time to waste anymore. Time for secrets or regrets. I know he told you he’d be open to not getting answers, and he’d think about it. Can you just do me one favor? Can you put some thought into being able to trust me completely? I know I didn’t take your side when it mattered the most, but I can assure you with complete sincerity that it will never happen again. If you decide that you can tell me, I can promise you I won’t tell another soul. Not even Jules. I mean, I still never told him it was you that scratched his parents’ car by accident when you crashed your bike into it. He even got grounded for a month for ‘lying’ to his parents about not being the one responsible. Not even after you left.”

I meant it with every fiber of my being. I had destroyed her trust and she’d lost complete faith in me once. I would lose everything else before I would ever let anything come between her and myself ever, ever again. She could trust that I would take this secret to the grave. I just had to prove it to her and I understood if it didn’t happen overnight. As long as she could just agree to at least thinking about it.

“I don’t know,” she murmured nervously. “I don’t want to make any promises I can’t keep.”

“I’m not asking for promises. I’m just asking you to think about it. This back and forth is starting to get redundant, if I’m being honest.” I paused for a moment, steeling myself after hearing how harsh that sounded.

It was just so hard to reel in my emotions when it came to her.

“I’ve laid it out for you, I don’t need an answer tonight. I think it’s pretty clear we’re at least stuck here for the next few days while we wait for the ‘crowd’ out there to thin out. I’m gonna go downstairs and check on Jules. You and Sadie can take a room, me and him will share the other. Before we head to bed, we should probably come up with some kind of schedule to sleep in shifts. At least one person should be awake to alert the others if something happens.”

“Okay,” she said in a small voice, retreating even further into herself.

We returned downstairs together with her trailing behind me a few steps, silence now between us once again. I thought I did a pretty good job tamping down the fiery irritation inside me this time. It was bubbling up into my throat but I was swallowing it down like shards of glass this time.

She was an impossible puzzle to solve. All I wanted was to find the right pieces to put in place so she’d finally feel comfortable confiding in me. I know she didn’t realize it yet, but there was nothing she could tell me at this point that could make me love her any less.