Page 19 of Reanimated Ruin (Hearts In Horror #1)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Cat

“BUT DAD, I can’t leave without saying bye to Jules and Dom first,” I cried, hot, angry tears cascading down my face. “The last time I saw them, we got into a huge fight and I can’t just leave things that way!”

My father was storming around my room, haphazardly throwing things into boxes and not caring what went where. I had refused to start packing unless I could say goodbye to my friends. I don’t know why I thought today was the day my father would start seeing me as a real person with feelings, but newsflash, it wasn’t. He’d slapped me hard enough to send me crashing down to the floor and now I sit in a crumpled heap with a busted bloody lip, watching my belongings get packed up, anyway.

“Well, maybe you should have used your damn brain before you snuck out to go to a party and partook in underage drinking, Catherine,” he replied sternly. “Did you truly think there would be no consequences for your actions? That those boys would want to continue to associate with a young lady with such loose morals? I’ve told you of all the ways the devil would try to tempt you to sin. He can’t so easily sway you if you don’t go to the very places he lurks around in waiting to corrupt the innocent.”

“I told you all, he raped me! I know I shouldn’t have snuck out or drank alcohol, but I swear I didn’t want to have sex with Scott! Just because I was drunk doesn’t mean I deserved what happened to me!” I screamed up at him.

“Well, unfortunately for you, there was no way to prove it and either way it’s done with now,” he said flatly while sealing up a box full of my clothes. “Better to let sleeping dogs lie. What’s done is done and whether you like it or not young lady, we’re moving. After you let such a disgusting video of yourself be spread around, there’s no way your mother or I could ever show our faces here again. We’re leaving tonight and that’s that. So get your ass up off that floor and pack the rest of this or so help me, God, I’ll just throw it all in the trash where it belongs right alongside your ungrateful self!”

He threw the handful of sweaters he was about to pack on top of me and stormed out of the room, not even bothering to stay and see if I was going to comply. He knew I would. What other choice did I have? Funny how for proving what happened, the video wasn’t good enough evidence, but when it came to tarnishing my reputation, it was as damning as ever. One day I’ll be old enough to make decisions of my own and the first one would be to turn my back on the strangers I called my family. I’d leave and never look back without a second thought about it.

I picked myself up off the floor and headed to the bathroom to clean up the fresh cut on my face. When I looked in the mirror, I barely recognized myself, appearing to have aged five years in the matter of a week. My eyes looked like that of a corpse, dull and lifeless, which matched how I was feeling on the inside as well pretty accurately. It felt like I was bleeding out. Besides my lip, no other wound could be found, but the life force leaking out of me persisted steadily, nonetheless.

As I stared into my own empty eyes, I contemplated what I was even fighting for. If every minute of every day was going to be a struggle from here on out, why even bother? How could I ever be sure that everyone’s reassurances of ‘it gets better’ were even true? It never did.

Everything just kept getting worse and worse. I had found solace in my two best friends, but without them, my reasons for getting up in the morning every day went right back down to zero. They didn’t believe me, neither did the police or even my parents. The only reason Scott’s family even settled was to ensure the video and allegations went away for good as to not destroy their golden boy’s perfect record. So in everyone’s eyes, I was just some whore who destroyed my life and tried to take down a poor, innocent boy with me.

I rooted around the medicine cabinet, looking for something to ease the pounding in my head, and my eyes fell on a bottle of prescription painkillers. My mom had gotten them after she got surgery to fix her arm that had been broken in three different places. As far as anyone important was concerned, she was just clumsy, but I knew the truth. You can’t fool someone who witnessed the person responsible stomp on it over and over again in his work boots after he came to the house not cleanly enough for his standards.

I picked the bottle up and took off the cap. It looked nearly full, with at least fifty pills staring back at me. All it took was one more gaze into the windows to my soul, to see the dark abyss glaring right back at me, to decide I didn’t want to live anymore. Didn’t want to live a life where I’d never feel seen or heard ever again, forever silenced.

At least this way, the silencing would come on my own terms. I took them back to my room, sat on my bed, and grabbed a bottle of water off my nightstand. I thought about leaving a note but I didn’t want to waste any time. Surely my father would be back up to check and make sure I was packing once he stopped hearing me walking around upstairs.

Without another thought, I just began swallowing as many as I could at one time until there weren’t any left. It took about ten minutes to get them all down and by the time I was done, I was already beginning to feel incredibly warm and sleepy. My limbs started to feel heavy and then it spread to the rest of my body. I slumped to the pillows, no longer able to hold myself up anymore. I’d never felt so at peace before. If this is what dying felt like, I should have taken the leap a lot sooner.

“Catherine Marie, I don’t hear those damn feet packing anymore,” I heard my father call out as he started stomping up the stairs. “If you’re not filling those boxes when I get up there, you’ll be sorry!”

But I didn’t care. He could come up here and hit me all he wanted. I was dying, and I was happy and nothing could hurt me anymore.

I woke up gasping for breath in a foreign bedroom. I almost started to panic until I heard Sadie snoring from beside me and remembered where I was. The soft rumbling comforting in a way strangely enough. You’d think with all the other bullshit going on in my life, my brain would have plenty else to torture me with when I closed my eyes. Here I was, though, stuck dealing with nightmares of the very worst parts of my past yet again. It felt like every time I fell asleep they were picking up where they left off, ensuring I didn’t miss a single minute of the shit show.

It took me a few minutes to slow my breathing and finally feel ready to get up to face all that today held in store. It felt stupid being so affected by bad dreams when there were reanimated corpses running around outside, but sometimes the living were far more terrifying.

At least the infected seemed brain dead. Only one thing on their mind: bite, bite, bite. The living were calculated. The atrocities they were capable of frightened me far more. I trusted my odds against one undead man over a breathing one any day. I mean, either way Harry died two deaths by my hand, but still.

“Morning,” Sadie said sleepily when I came out of the bathroom after changing. “Sorry if my snoring kept you up. My ex always used to complain about it bothering him.”

“No worries, it didn’t bother me one bit,” I reassured her. “Rhiannon snores too, so I’m totally used to it.”

“Oh, huh,” she scrunched her face in confusion. “I just rolled over at one point in the night and you weren’t there. I thought maybe it was bugging you and you went to sleep somewhere else for a bit.”

“Oh yeah, uh, I heard Dom having a nightmare across the hall. I woke him up and then we ended up talking for a bit after then I came back to bed.”

I was relieved she hadn’t been awoken by the commotion of Jules yelling at us. I was not in the mood to have to break down the weirdness between us three when I didn’t even really understand it myself at the moment. So I also was definitely going to leave out the part about how we did a whole lot more than just talk.

“Ugh, yeah, I can imagine,” she responded, beginning to get out of bed and get ready. “That was so scary yesterday when we rushed upstairs and he was wrestling with that old lady. Thank heck you were there and thought to stab her so quick, I don’t know if I could have done what you did.”

“I didn’t really think about it. I just saw he was in danger and then I was moving,” I thought back and shuddered. “I don’t think I could handle anything happening to any of you three.”

“Well, we’re lucky to have you cause you’re a badass,” she answered with a small smile. “We should probably head down and figure out what the game plan is. I heard some gunshots last night. I don’t like being so close to the city, I feel like it’s only a matter of time before we either leave of our own free will or we’ll be forced to.”

I knew what she meant, any time I looked outside the amount of infected didn’t seem to be dwindling in the slightest. If anything, they seemed to be increasing, surely what went down at the stadium contributing to the growth. I didn’t want to be here when all the infected in the city ran out of food and started moving outwards to further add to their numbers. As much as it filled me with anxiety to think of facing Jules this morning, I knew we had to go down and start the day.

When Sadie was ready and we went downstairs, both the boys were already down there. Dom was standing by the window, looking down at the street, and Jules was in the kitchen rooting around the cabinets. On the counter they had laid out some fresh fruit, there was also a loaf of bread out and I could smell toast.

“I’m going through looking for food that will keep so we can take it with us when we leave but figured it’s probably best to eat the stuff that won’t first,” Jules said over his shoulder, continuing his task and not sparing me a glance. “Help yourself. There’s a toaster in the pantry if you want but eat up. We gotta look around this place for anything that might be useful to us cause it’s starting to look like we need to leave sooner rather than later.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page,” I responded. “Sadie and I were just talking about it and it doesn’t seem like their numbers are going to let up anytime soon. I’m not really trying to let a ton of time pass before I get to Rhiannon also, so as soon as we think we’re ready, I’m down to leave.”

“Is she coming with us?” he asked, motioning in Sadie’s direction.

“She is standing right here and can speak for herself. I don’t bite,” Sadie snapped at him, still clearly not his biggest fan. “Fuck, sorry poor choice of words, but yeah, I’m going with you guys. I don’t really want to go back to my apartment in the city. I’d feel a whole lot safer sticking together in a group, anyway. My only other option is trying to make it to my parent’s place a few states away and I’m all set on that.”

“Well, that makes things easier not having to split up the supplies,” he muttered. “If you guys don’t mind teaming up to go through the rooms upstairs, that’d be super helpful. Dom and I are gonna check the basement and garage, I’m just about done here.”

“Actually, why don’t you take Cat with you,” Dom interjected with a smirk. “I’ll help Sadie with upstairs, wouldn’t hurt to get to know our new little friend here before we take to the road together.”

I suspected he was up to something. I just hoped it was attempting to create a situation where Jules and I were forced into talking about our bullshit and not trying to get in Sadie’s pants. While I didn’t expect exclusivity out of him, I didn’t think I could stomach watching him hook up with my new friend.

Not that I thought she’d do that to me, but I didn’t know her super well. He is super hot, and I didn’t tell her anything about last night. I just had to have faith that maybe he wasn’t done with me yet and was just as interested as I was in picking up where we left off.