Page 6 of Redemption (Devil Dogs of the Apocalypse #4)

Aly

How is this possible?

Is this real?

No…

I shake my head. This can’t possibly be real. He’s dead. Jax said there was no one left alive. He went to the base when everything first started. Confirmed everyone had turned. No survivors. There were no survivors. Which means, since Darius was last seen on base, he, too, would be among the dead.

Rational, logical thinking.

Jax would be proud.

I just need to get a good look at this guy, then my brain will catch up with reality. There is no damn way he’s—

But only he called me by that name…

Not. Fucking. Possible.

This guy isn’t Darius. Couldn’t possibly be my ex come back from the dead. No... This asshole is an imposter. A charlatan. A counterfeit creep whose wandering hand is now trailing down my side to my—

My fight renews as commonsense takes hold. I kick up, my legs swinging chaotically in an attempt to loosen his grip on me, but he’s so much bigger, so much stronger than I am; his grip just tightens in response, constricting my back further against his chest.

His lips brush my ear with a clear but subdued command, as if he’s saying it through a set of clenched teeth. “Mi Alma...calm the fuck down.”

“ No.” At my refusal, he quickly puts one of his palms back across my mouth, muffling my opposition as I shake my head at the lie pressing against my back. “It can’t be you.... You’re dead….”

“No, Alessandra, I’m right the fuck here. Now listen and stop fighting me, dammit.”

I don’t listen, though, still struggling against his hold until he whispers two more words only one other person on the planet would know about. Who’d know their significance and the effect they’d have on me. “Boldt Castle.”

My hands tremble at the shared memory, causing my gun to fall from my shaky grasp and land in the tall bush next to us. Only Darius would know of our trip there. Of how we thought it would’ve been the perfect escape if we ever needed one.

If the world ever went to shit. Like it has now.

It’s him...

Or, maybe, he didn’t really say it and I’m just hallucinating again.

Ahh, see? Now, that makes much more sense. It’s so simple! My brain is playing tricks on me. My subconscious wishing my ex was here instead of whoever the fuck is actually holding me hostage. Darius can’t really be here. This guy’s not him. He can’t be him. There’s no way.

But what if...?

Enough.

Enough with the hallucinations.

Enough with the games.

Enough with the bullshit.

I stop thinking and just respond, using all the pent-up frustration gathering within me along with all the training and painstaking work the guys put me through.

In a swift move, I shift to the right, leaving his groin wide open for me to drop my elbow and slam it right into his balls.

He might have dodged all of my other attempts earlier, but he definitely didn’t expect that.

As he’s reeling from the blow, his grip loosens just enough to allow me the freedom to step my leg back behind his, repositioning myself at his side.

Reaching up and over his back and shoulder with my hand, I wrap my forearm around his face and yank his head back while kicking my leg against the back of his knee.

Gravity and opposing forces help my much smaller frame as this shmuck falls flat on his back, right into the mud at my feet with a heaving grunt.

I am woman! Here me roa—!

“Oomph!”

Ooowwwww.... What the actual fuck?!

One second, I’m riding high, congratulating myself on taking this douche baguette down, and in the next I’m stunned, watching the ground fly up to meet me as I fall flat on my face.

It was my intention to turn and run, not even wanting to check and see what his face looked like anymore, but this knob gobbler managed to grab my ankle and yank me down with him, his arms and legs immediately wrapping around my body like a fucking snake, constricting my back against his chest as if I’d never left.

His palm returns as well, flattening back over my mouth and halting the scream I try to release.

“Mi Alma, please, I’m begging you. Listen to me.

We need to be quiet.” He stalls suddenly and turns us, pushing my front into the damp, early morning earth as he surrounds me with his body and.

.. something else . Something large and tattered.

It covers both of us like a blanket, causing everything to get dark just as the voices return.

“Fuck! She was just here. I saw her. Clear as daylight.”

“She couldn’t have gotten far, then. Check over by those trees, I’ll check over here.”

A few seconds later, they split up, the sound of heavy footsteps getting farther away from where we’re huddled together on the ground.

I inch my shoulders up and out, trying to get away from this guy too, but I can’t move.

His weight on top of me is unrelenting, and my strength is starting to fizzle out.

I take a breath—or at least as much of one that I can with his weight crushing me beneath him—and use the time, instead, to regroup and evaluate.

Unfortunately, I find it difficult to even do that when all I can focus on is him.

The muscles surrounding me. The odd familiarity of his body conforming to mine.

The words spoken that only he should know. I take another breath.

He even smells like Darius...

It can’t be him. What are the odds? It’s just not probable.

Statistically impossible. Billions of people have died from the virus.

They either turned into flesh-eating zombies, became the flesh the zombies decided to eat that day, or died simply from complications from the infection.

How, after over a year, and with confirmation that the base had completely fallen, has he survived?

I guess I shouldn’t really be asking that question of him when I can’t even explain how my uncoordinated ass is still alive. No survival skills. No preparation. No fucking chance in hell, but here I am, overcoming one major statistical anomaly after another.

But him…

Us?

Together????

We were on opposite ends of the east coast. Him, to the south, racked-up on a military base, doing whatever the fuck he was doing out there.

And then there I was to the north, surviving my daily routine with no intention of seeking him out ever again.

That is... until the zombies decided to take over and I, after everyone else died, made the decision to abandon everything that meant something to me, to instead make the journey south to find the one person who proved I meant nothing to him.

Regardless of the fact that I walked my happy ass all the way down here to find his royal douchebaggery, the big question remains: How is he standing in front of me? Me?! Here?! Right now?!

Has he been looking for me or is this a complete accident? Coincidental serendipity.

Or... maybe we’ve finally cracked completely, officially lost all our marbles, and manifested the ghost of our sexual past to deal with our current trauma?

That’s... very likely. A lot more conceivable than him just showing up out of the blue to rescue me after years and years of literally being ghosted. Logically, after already losing half my marbles and subsequently conjuring an inner voice to rant to—

Oh, that’s me! Hello!!!!

Shut. Up. You annoying fuck...

—and now hearing about them shooting Jax and probably Hawk and Cole as well, any proper psychoanalyst would conclude I've just gone insane. Absolutely certifiably insane. The traumatic events, such as the ones I’ve lived through, can wreak havoc on a fragile mind such as my own.

I once read that people with dissociative identity disorder can sometimes manifest new alters when the mind requires it.

While I’m not saying I have D.I.D., there might be a chance my overstimulated brain randomly decided to create a new hallucination to deal with my current overly stressful situation.

Logical. Rational. Thinking.

But I can feel him.

How can I feel something that isn’t there? If one plus one equals two then me feeling him should make him real... right?

Hallucinations come in many forms, bitch. Even our selfish fuck of an ex. Let’s just sit back until you start hallucinating Hawk, Cole, and Jax. Then, it’ll all be right as rain. One big, happy, delusional family.

As I lie there in the mud, my brain short-circuits with all the possibilities and impossibilities until I’m convinced everything I see around me isn’t real.

Nothing’s real. None of it. I was right in the first place.

I’m already dead and stuck in fucking Purgatory.

That’s the only logical explanation as to how I found three absolutely perfect guys to make me feel alive again and then came to find my fucking ex-fiancé saving me in the middle of a historical garden when he’s supposed to be dead!

“Don’t worry…. Abou—“

Oh great... Now I’m conjuring music.... That’s.

.. That’s just fucking fabulous. Exactly what I need at the moment.

As if I don’t have enough other shit to worry about, now I have an everlasting MP3 player stuck on play in my skull.

It’s the absolute fucking cherry on my straightjacket-wearing sundae.

I close my eyes tightly at my auditory hallucination.

Or maybe it’s real. Who the fuck knows? Bob Marley could absolutely be standing in front of me singing “Three Little Birds” if my logic stands true and I’m in fact already dead.

Or, I’ve completely lost the plot and am currently flying over the cuckoo’s nest, once again.

Either way, being dead and singing with the King of Reggae seems more entertaining than being crazy, so. ..

“Sing on Rasta-man...”