"You're doing exactly what she wants," Troy said.
Alicia had been death-gripping the radio, repeating the same thing over and over and over, as if it would make a difference.
"I don't believe trying to appeal to this woman's conscience is the way to go about it. She can't have one. You've been at this all night—"
Alicia continued as though she hadn't heard him, speaking over and through Troy's attempts at reason, her right foot braced against the middle of his chest in a not so subtle effort to keep him on his side of the car and away from the radio. Troy hadn't bothered to remove the boot as he didn't want to freak her out any more than he already had by telling her what happened.
"If she hasn't bitten yet. She isn't going to." Troy wouldn't if it were him. Not that he would bother making a game out of what he was doing or had been doing in the past. He'd seen and bestowed his own torture since all this happened and this is precisely what this was.
How long was he supposed to let this go on? Now that Troy was aware that Nick was out there, possibly alive, it felt like they were wasting time and barely scratching the surface of this woman's agenda.
Troy placed a hand on Alicia's foot and slid his fingers just beneath the hem of her right pants leg. The air in the car changed and he could feel her consideration being ripped away from what she'd been doing to focus on him. Unlike last night when he'd kissed her and she'd reacted at once and with violence, this time she was just confused.
"Did you hear me?"
She frowned and drew her leg back, removing it from Troy's chest and as far away from his touch as possible, briefly disturbing her one-sided conversation with static air.
She wasn't crying, but she looked hella close.
All it would take was one word, and that word came in form of a voice Troy hadn't wanted nor suspected he'd hear for a very long time if he could help it. From the look on Alicia's face, nor had she.
Despite her mother's heartfelt pleading she didn't press the speak button and Troy could see a variety of emotion playing on her face. Devastation, fear, nervousness and something that looked oddly like disgust. Up until that point Troy hadn't realized that she too had a falling out with her mother. She looked pale, like she might be sick. She shot up in her seat, tossing the radio onto the dashboard as she spun around and flung open the driver's door, promptly vomiting.
That was the last reaction Troy had expected.
He darted a look down both sides of the street and the house ahead to make sure a skin muncher wasn't going to crawl up on her and bite her head off – not that she didn't partially deserve it – and reached for the radio.
He pressed talk. "That you, Madison?"
There was a pause after the other boy's request, and Martha slowed down to hear better, taking the radio closer to her ear again.
There had been a time when they enjoyed radio shows with Hank. It brought back some warm feeling, but mostly, it made her curiosity tickle. Her sharp mind picked at every word in search of what she could use. Any information counted. Words mattered. That never changed.
"Troy?" the woman named Madison responded, disbelief and anger palpable in how she spoke his name. "What happened? Where is Alicia and Nick? I need to speak to them. Are they okay? What is going on there with you? Let me help."
Her outburst wasn't what Troy expected and nor was it what he didn't. The confession time they'd shared a couple of weeks ago had come very close to ending a lot of things, more importantly, his life, if not for Nick Troy would have taken his last breath under that bridge and Madison wouldn't have thought twice about it.
She didn't actually.
Alicia sat with her hands buried in her hair, unable to bring up anything but air and weak smelling bile since she hadn't eaten in over eighteen hours. Maybe more.
Troy set the radio aside on the dash since the decision to answer had been completely useless and moved to retrieve a soda from the back. He popped the tab, took a sip and tapped it against the top of her shoulder.
"Your sugar's low."
Alicia wordlessly reached up to take it and slurped at it.
Troy helped himself to one of the five candy bars remaining and tried to ponder their next course of action.
"She hates you," Alicia said after a while, straightening up, tears freely falling from her eyes, drying on her cheeks in sleek lines that drew a path through the dirt caked on her face.
"Seems to be a Clark family privilege."
She closed her eyes and took a deeper sip of the sweet drink.
"Are you going to talk to her?"
"And tell her what? That Nick's out there somewhere being held captive by a crazy lady or possibly dead? I-I can't do that," she reasoned, voice breaking, the words near inaudible as she stared through the dash.
"I get it."
"No," she interjected, sounding forlorn and lost. "No one does. No one gets it."
In truth, Troy didn't. He had no idea what was going on with those two but if he were to wager a guess, he'd say that it was something close to disaffection or neglect. You didn't have to be a genius to know and see that Madison spent eighty percent of her time fawning over Nick despite her cries of 'my children this, my children that!'.
"Okay," Troy said and scoffed more of the chocolate, speaking around it. "So, what? You're going to ignore her and hope she goes away? You know these things have a four to six mile radius. It means she's here. Close."
It meant they all were, crazy lady too but how to find her – and him – was the issue.
"We could use her help. Any help. The more eyes we have the road looking out for him the better."
Alicia looked as if she was seriously considering it.
Troy reached for the radio and handed it to her, if anything good had come from the last few minutes it was that Madison seemed to have grounded the girl and knocked her into reality.
She took it and brought it to her mouth, letting it rest against the side of her face like a cool cloth, her eyes falling closed as she worked up the courage to speak again. And then, she did.
"I'm fine, Mom."
Martha hemmed, slightly surprised that the girl answered.
"Where are you, Alicia?" Madison jumped in. "Please, tell me, we can find you. It's gonna be okay, baby. Alicia, what happened? Where's Nick?"
Martha had to laugh. She would certainly like to know where Nick was. She had a good idea. A solid idea. But until she had her hook in him, she was wondering. And it was a nice kind of wonder, an anticipation she hadn't felt for a very long time. Emotions faded away like ads in the stores' windows – once bright and colorful, now dead and bleak. Only now, she felt something. And rode it while it carried her.
Alicia glanced over at Troy, as if now she was expecting his input. He'd already said all he could and had as much idea as she did about where to go with all of this.
"We're in Mammoth," she said and swallowed thickly. If Troy were a betting man he'd say she was very close to throwing up again. "I—I can't speak to you over the radio, but, uh… if you can, we can meet you in town. The gas station."
Troy was amazed she didn't tell her the church where they'd holed up the night before.
She released the talk button and twisted in her seat again, sitting her head out the door, her free hand going to her hair to move it out of the way of her mouth as she began to dry heave.
Troy gave her a minute while they waited on a response.
"You want me to drive?"
There was a short burst of static, then the male voice tuned in. "Alicia, it's Strand. Our batteries are down to nothing. If you mean the Mammoth east of Phoenix, it's right down our way, we'll be there soon. Don't go anywhere. Over."
Martha pushed the switch to talk and sang quietly: "My Nicky is over the ocean, my Nicky is over the sea…"
She was smiling. Ahead, she saw the place she was thinking about. She pulled to a curb and killed the engine, took her stick and stepped out of the car, Nick's radio at her cheek. "My Nicky is over the ocean, Oh bring back my Nicky to me." She laughed and emitted an exaggerated sigh. "You're not going to see him again. You are weak, Alicia. Run to your mommy and forget you had a brother. He will forget about you. He's stronger now. And you will never be."
She tossed the radio on the passenger's seat, closed the door and strolled away and up the road.
"Come with me, Nick," she said, her voice soft and luring as ever. "I'll take you home."
She was turning, walking away now. Nick wanted to call out and ask her to wait, but his voice wouldn't come. Grunting, he got up on unsteady feet and pushed on. He walked like the heaviest drunk in town, but was still getting one foot ahead of another, and saw her lead the way, sunlight playing in her hair turning it to gold.
"Come on, Nick."
There was a car parked at the shoulder of the road. A blinding glare reflected from its hood. She went for it and climbed inside. Nick wanted to stop her, fearing it might be that woman's car, but no sound came. His tongue refused to move, caked to the roof of his mouth. He mutely approached the car, braced his hands against its roof and jerked them back, hissing. Like a frying pan on a stove. He peeked in, saw nothing moving, and yanked at the door.
Wheezing, a mummified face snapped its teeth at him from the passenger's. For a moment, Nick thought it was Gloria. The dead was strapped to the seat, reaching its dry hands at him, clawing at air in front of his face. There was nothing useful around the teeth-snapping mummy, no bottles, no weapons. No gas in the tank, either. The keys dangled uselessly from the ignition. Whoever was driving that car and its unlucky passenger, was gone from the scene. He reached a hand to unlock the trunk, but something moved in his peripheral vision. He jerked back from the car and stilled, listening.
There was something in the distance. Maybe an engine. He knew he could be wrong, but the cold trickle of terror streamed through his spine. Nick dashed back into the bushes off the road, tripping and crawling and rolling behind the best cover he could find right away. He stilled there, breathing in sand, shivering as his heart was about to bust from overworking.
"Come out, Nick!" a voice called from the road. He couldn't see through the shrubs, but he recognized it.
She'd found him.
"I know where your sister is," the woman called, strolling languidly with her stick measuring the way like she were on a pilgrimage. "I can go get her instead. Or I can make you stronger. You can choose, but choose now. Your choice is short, but eternal." She laughed. "I'm turning back now, or you come out. I know where you are, Nick. You can't run away from me. Not now. Not anymore."
Something was squeezing Nick's head from the sides. Two invisible hands pressing on it, blood flushing in his ears. He barely felt getting up. It was like watching your car tumble while you're behind the wheel and out of control. The world behind the windshield turns and twirls, and you just sit there until the light goes out.
Gloria stood beside the car, smiling. Her face was fresh, clean, no dark circles under her eyes, no dirt on her summer dress, her hair clean and brushed. She smiled wider, holding out her arms to hug him.
Nick shuffled to her until the scenery began to wobble, and he felt the ground shift beneath him. There was no pain as he hit the asphalt. Just confusion and not a solid thought in his head.
Gloria hovered over him, smiling. Then her face turned black, her teeth white as she cackled.
"I got you, Nick. I got you. You did good. Really good."
The image blurred and drifted off into the dark that swallowed him.
Alicia sat up and shook her head ferociously, the both of them absorbed and listening to the woman sing her appalling song and ramble. Troy gave her the 'I told you so' look which she disregarded.
"Wait! Please, wait! Please! Where is he? Tell me! PLEASE TELL ME!" Alicia yelled into the receiver.
The crazy lady had left the building and Alicia had crumbled. She began to cry. Hard. An exact imitation of what had happened the night before, only this time Troy knew better than to try and comfort her.
He climbed out of the passenger side and walked over the driver's.
"Scooch," he commanded, voice low and civil. She looked up at him, swiping at her eyes, trying to dry away what he'd already seen and knew he would continue to see as long as her brother was gone. Troy felt it, too, felt that loss and fear, but his body refused to respond in the same fashion. With the same weakness. He'd barely cried for his father and Jake and felt like he didn't have that ability anymore, not since he'd lost his mother—not since before even then. He could hardly remember when last he'd done it.
Alicia stared up at him and then eased out of the front seat, pushing him back a step as she got out, slowly walking around the other side of the car, moving as if she were a convict on death row.
As soon as she settled, Troy got in beside her and reached into the back again, removing another chocolate from the back, graciously extending it toward her this time.
"If you're going to be dealing with Madison, you might want to get a little more energy."
He leaned to the side, picked up the cool drink she'd deposited outside next to her miniscule vomit spot and held it out to her as well. She accepted both.
He pulled the door closed, waiting on her to do the same and slowly guided the car in direction of the center of town again, at the gas station where the male voice had said they would be waiting.
"Are you there, Alicia?" Martha asked into the radio, pulling the car door closed, and glanced in the rearview mirror at Nick – he was out cold on the backseat of her police cruiser.
She started the engine and pulled from the curb.
Troy hadn't reached the end of the road when the crazy lady clocked in again. Alicia dove for the radio, scarcely hesitating as she pressed the talk button. "I'm here, I'm here!"
Troy stopped the car and tapped at her shoulder to grab a stitch of her focus, mouthing, "Tell her you can be stronger."
She frowned as she attempted to read his lips, frustration and doubt clear on her face. "I want to be stronger."
Martha burst out laughing. She pressed on the accelerator, speeding up, shot a glance at Nick again. He wasn't stirring, but she knew he still had time.
"You sound like you have a potential, honey," she responded to the girl on the other side of the line. "Do you? Can you be stronger for your brother? Or is it your mother you want to run to and be weak until this world takes you out? Which one will it be?"
"I can, I can be stronger for him," she insisted without hesitation, playing along with the woman's charade without even knowing what she was actually hinting at. "I—I'll do anything."
Martha considered it, smiling to herself. She steered off the road and parked in front of the diner. Killed the engine.
"What does it mean to be strong, Alicia?" she asked the radio. "Tell me what it means, and maybe you can be with your brother if you can be as strong as him."
Color drained from Alicia's face, her eyes widening as if to say 'you got me into this, help me'. "What do I say?"
Troy inhaled and scratched the side of his head, replaying everything she'd said over the course of the last hour. There had to be some semblance of expectation in there somewhere, something we could use.
"Troy," Alicia murmured insistently. "Troy, please."
This was the first time she'd directed any of that desperation at him as a person and for the first time it was beginning to feel as though they were in this together and not just Troy trying to talk at her.
"She kept saying that we're making each other weak, that we've made each other weak. Nick, you, me. I can't see how she can mean that for anything other than the fact that we're moving around together. Maybe she means to meet you alone?"
Alicia sucked in a breath and mulled it over.
"Are you sure?"
"No," Troy answered honestly, shrugging. "I could be entirely wrong."
She thought of what else she'd said, the last stitch of information she'd offered about Nick. He'd been weak in the past but there were times, times when clarity set in, that he was so strong she'd envied him.
"Strong is fighting, strong is being able to push on despite any adversary and trusting that you're making the right decision for yourself," she supplied, pressing on the talk trigger, releasing it and a breath she'd used to say all that in one.
The pause the girl took was rather long, Martha estimated. She had time to park, pull Nick out of the cruiser, open the back of the truck and get a bottle of water from one of the boxes piled inside.
She was unscrewing the bottle when Alicia came back with her answer.
Martha left the bottle next to a still unconscious Nick, and attended the radio.
"That's a good one, Alicia," she approved. "Make a choice, then. Be strong for your brother, or be weak with your mother. If you need your mother's help, you're weak. Choose, child. We shall speak later. I'll see if Nick will speak to you. But he only will if you're strong enough, Alicia."
She put the radio down and kneeled by Nick's side, pouring some water over his face, sweeping it cleaner from dried blood he had put on it. The denim jacket he had soaked in the dead's blood she had left on the road. He didn't need it for where they were going.
A pleasant coolness spilled over Nick's face, coaxing him back up to the surface. He could see the white flickering sky through the veil of water as he swam up. A dark spot to the side – Abigail. Just another few feet and he could breathe in some air and see his mother on the yacht's deck watching the water like a hawk. Alicia would be behind her, arms folded, like the little mother's soldier she was.
Nick gasped, his eyes snapping open, but there was no Alicia or Abigail rocking on meek waves.
The black woman smiled at him, so deceptively tender he felt a bit sick in his soul. His body was pretty sick to begin with.
"We have places to be," she said, pulling Nick into a sitting position by his jacket. He leaned against the side of the car. It was indeed the police one.
She laughed, seeing Nick's hungry stare at the bottle, and pulled it away, screwing the cap on. She moved out of his sight, then returned with a small gin flask. She uncapped it and put it to his lips.
"Drink this."
Nick did. It stung his mouth and lips, it made him cough and gasp for air. His body needed water so desperately it rejected anything but. She managed to pour a third of the bottle in him. When Nick was breathless and panting, she let him be for a few moments, then demanded he get up. She helped him into a huge truck. He lay down among piles of boxes, feeling nauseous and shivering from cold and heat exchanging places every other second. His awareness balanced on a string, then tripped and fell back into the pit.
Troy could see that Alicia wanted to ask her what her name was but before she could the woman was gone and the line dead. He wondered if her mother had heard all of that. He suspected not. If she did Madison would have hijacked the conversation with threats and worsened the situation even more than it already was. She had that knack, skill that Troy hadn't suspected until he began hanging out with Nick– until he shared his past – and she stabbed him in the back. She played Troy then and given half the chance she'd do it again. Their last encounter had proved that. He couldn't trust her and never would again.
"Alicia?"
She was silent next to him, thinking, wheels turning as she tried to gauge what to do and whether or not she should risk meeting up with her mother. Troy got it. If they did, how would she know?
Madison.
Alicia would tell her to stay back, assure her that she had things under control and Madison would guarantee her that she understood or convince her that she could do better, blow them and him out of the water.
Or just Troy. He was fodder in Madison's eyes.
"We should—" she began, her voice drifting off as she left the sentence unfinished, looking to Troy again with that imploring gaze that sought his advice or the ability to tell her what they should do. Her continued need was so new to him that he had to pause, to make sure he was actually seeing what he was seeing and that this wasn't some hazy high from a lack of nutrition.
"I'm scared. I'm scared for him," she admitted, unable to keep the tears or break from her tone.
"So am I," Troy added, recognizing that it was true.
"What if I make the wrong choice? What if she doesn't call? What if I go to my mother and he dies? What if I don't go and he dies? What if he's dead already?"
Troy tapped a finger against the key in the ignition, temporarily unable to meet her gaze. It wasn't often since the world had changed that he'd found himself feeling scared and helpless. He'd only experienced it twice and both those times Nick had been the center. Troy appreciated the long lost sentiment the first time, but now, now he loathed it and felt completely incapable of dealing with it. He couldn't control when it came up, and like in those times things got out of hand, it consumed him and slowed things down to an agonizing pace.
"What does your head say?"
Troy knew what her heart screeched, he'd heard it all night and possessed a clear picture of their past. She looked at him for a long moment, brows furrowed, her features softening in a way he'd never seen directed at him before. Troy couldn't even begin to speculate what she was thinking.
"We should find power. We should charge the radios."
"Where?"
Alicia swayed her gaze to the road ahead and then to the left, the houses we'd intended to check before.
"Here."
Troy nodded and eased the car into reverse, carrying them back to the house he'd broken in before. He hadn't seen a generator or anything inside that could be labelled as such but then again, he hadn't looked properly and been single-minded in his resolve.
He turned off the engine and climbed out, guiding Alicia around the back of the house once she'd gathered their few possessions and headed inside.
While Nick was out once again, Martha collected more bottles with clean water, a few bottles of beer and some snacks from the boxes and stuffed them in the cruiser's truck. She took the chains and the handcuffs from the kitchen, dumped them at the cruiser, then checked on Nick.
He didn't wake up as she dragged him out and back to her car, but she didn't need him to.
Once he was secure in the back of the cruiser, his hands cuffed together behind him, his legs chained together and with the handcuffs akin to a hogtie, she settled behind the wheel and pulled out.
The diner disappeared behind in the dust. She hummed a song for a while, then picked the radio and tried it.
"Have you picked yet, Alicia? Be weak under your mother's skirt or be strong with Nick? What is it going to be?"
Troy stepped into the house and flipped a switch on the first light he found. It didn't come on.
"I'll check the breaker. Keep an eye. Grams wasn't alone." He gestured to the corpse he'd bludgeoned earlier, setting their bags down on the couch before heading in search of the basement.
He found it with no problem.
He pushed open the door, rapping the end of his pipe against the wall, listening for any response from below, any sound that there was dead down there and slowly descended, feeling his way in the dark with one hand.
Alicia stared at the woman at her feet and moved to cover her face with the blanket she'd found strewn across the back of the settee. She wasn't typically sentimental as the last few months has desensitized her to certain pictures but given the call she was waiting for it felt appropriate and natural to sympathize with what she must have gone through before succumbing to the final walk.
She said a prayer over the woman, hopeful that she was at peace – more harmony than could be found in the living at present – and straightened, jerking as if struck when the familiar woman's voice broke through the silence. She hadn't expected her to call so soon. She answered immediately.
"I want to be strong like Nick."
Martha laughed. "Good choice. Then I want you to do something for that. Are you ready for some travel? Just you and that other young man, Troy. Or just you alone – I don't mind."
Alicia pushed away from the chair and moved in search of her companion.
"Troy!" she called in a panic, temporarily releasing the talk button and then she was back to the woman with a more or less controlled question. "Where do I need to go?"
Troy scrambled back upstairs and appeared at the top of the landing out of breath. He'd taken a slipping dive twice and nearly sprained his ankle on stair in need of some serious TLC.
The question was in his eyes.
"She wants us to go somewhere. Maybe to Nick."
Troy nodded and shuffled past Alicia to collect their belongings.
"Just know this, girl," Martha specified, "your boyfriend Troy is the only one you can take with you. Is that understood?"
Alicia didn't even grimace at the notion of Troy being called her boyfriend, in fact, the impasse seemed not to bother her as he was sure it would have in a casual setting that didn't depend on Nick's life.
"Understood," she supplied. "You know so much about me. About us. What's your name?"
Troy walked out ahead of her and guided her back to the car.
"That doesn't matter, honey. What does is that you listen while I tell you what to do. I hope you have a nice car with enough gas, because if you travel on foot, your brother might run out of time.
"Take the Interstate 10, and follow it all the way to Texas. As soon as you're there, Nick and I shall expect your call to tell you what to do next. Have a nice trip."
She put the radio on the dashboard and hummed a tune.
Troy tossed the stuff through the open back window, popped the lever on the trunk and made quick work of filling the car with fuel from one of the two jerry cans they'd thrown together the night before.
Alicia waited in the passenger seat and gestured for him to hurry.
Texas was a fifteen-hour drive away and that was only if they found place to stop and fill up or didn't have a tire blowout on the way. Troy pitched the empty can into the back of the trunk and slammed it shut.
"Can I speak to him? Can I speak to Nick?" Alicia asked as they pulled away from the side of the road, leaving everything behind them aware that the radio wouldn't last that long and that they'd have to turn it off for the journey and that the disconnection was going to eat at what remained of her soul.
Her mother wasn't even in the picture anymore.
"You didn't expect her to answer, did you?"
Alicia shrugged and set the device down on the dashboard.
"You should turn it off completely."
"What if she calls us back?"
"She doesn't have a bleeding heart. She won't."
Alicia stared at the radio, mentally beckoning the woman to contradict Troy.
"We're not going to be able to stop and find a place to charge it. Besides, she was specific, she said we were to call her when we get there and we can only do that if we have the power to do so."
"What if this is all a ploy? What if she is sending us there as a distraction?"
"That would be idiotic on her part, wouldn't it? She's got the upper hand."
"No, but maybe we were close to wherever she's keeping him and she's trying to throw us off her scent. You said these things only have a certain mileage they can reach. We know she's in the area. What could she possibly want from us, from Nick, in Texas?"
Troy didn't know the answer to that and nor could he wager a guess.
"So, what, you want to go back and check every house on the block? She also said we don't have much time."
Which was why, while he waited for her answer, Troy didn't slow down or try to stop. Alicia scrubbed her eyes furiously. A selfish part of Troy was grateful that the crazy lady hadn't given him the proposition. He wouldn't know what to do either and the fact that Alicia kept looking at him as if he did was beginning to seep in like molasses. He wanted Nick back as badly as she did but he didn't want a poor decision and the loss of his life—if he were to make the wrong one—to sit on his conscience and choke him. It was hard enough with Jake locked in there.
"I don't know what to do," Alicia mumbled from beneath her hands.
"We drive," Troy said, one hand remaining on the steering wheel while the other moved to turn off the radio. She looked up, her hands sweeping down her face, pausing beneath her chin as if to hold it up.
"Okay," she agreed after a brief moment of wayward contemplation.
Conversation died and twenty minutes into the drive Alicia fell asleep. Now that she was disconnected from the only thing that had been keeping her going all night and with no means to resolve it, her brain had finally shut down. Troy was thankful for that as he didn't want to suggest something that should have been a natural decision. If they were going to do this drive, she was going to have to take over at some point and get them there safely—and in one piece—she was going to have to be lucid.
Not for Troy but for Nick.
Next time Nick woke up, his limbs were asleep, his wrists hurt from the bracelets – this time they were locked behind his back. The chain from his bound ankles snaked to the handcuffs. He was in the backseat of a car, and through a dirty glass striped with metal bars, he saw the mane of dreadlocks and her bulky shoulder. She was humming some merry tune as she drove.
That police car. It was hers, after all.
Nick wasn't hurting as much in his gut, anymore, but the feverish feeling lingered. His bones still ached, adding to the pain symphony he could barely withstand. He tried to shift, but it didn't do any good. He was lightheaded and nauseous, every muscle and bone hurt, and he was back with his lovely crazy companion.
Life's getting better, Nick thought sardonically.
He didn't want to alert her to him being awake, so he tried his best to shift to a more comfortable position and closed his eyes again. The car's rocking didn't help the nausea, but somewhere along the way of her humming with the engine running, Nick managed to drift off again.
It was a nice patch of time blessed with no visions.
When he came to, she was hovering over him, her dreadlocks touching his chest. She pulled back and out of the backseat; Nick glimpsed a syringe. His arm was so numb he didn't feel the injection.
A flash of ire burst in him, but he had to hold it back, bite on it and hold until he could open his mouth without obscenities pouring out.
"Where are we going?"
"Possibly to see your sister," she informed with a cheerful smile, bent to see Nick through the open door. "Wouldn't you like that, Nick?"
A much thicker needle, one of icy terror, pierced his solar plexus. He couldn't allow that. He couldn't help her get her hands on Alicia. Nor could he say anything provoking. It was so hard to think straight he almost groaned in frustration.
She studied him. "Do you like it better with me?" Laughing.
Nick chuckled. "Oh, I think I'm having a Stockholm syndrome running wild here."
She laughed, hard and cheerful. There was none of the cackling he'd heard so much of before. At this moment, as he looked at her, he saw who she used to be. He wanted to get to know that someone and possibly coax her forth.
"You're a sweet-talker, Nick. But the chain stays."
She produced the gin flask again and gave him more. In the end, she showed mercy and allowed a gulp of water to wash it down.
When she started driving again, Nick was fading back into the mist of high.
Two and a half hours into the drive Troy stopped, killed a straggler who'd weaved too close for his liking as he got out and used the last jerry can.
Alicia didn't wake.
They drove another three hours and stopped outside a gas station just off the highway. It was the fourth. It would have been so easy to stop at every one, to check for supplies, but given the time constraint he wasn't willing to risk it and didn't think she'd appreciate that either. Troy knew wherever Nick was he didn't.
Alicia woke when Troy fixed the machine's hose to the side of the car and began to fill it.
"Where are we?"
"Tuson. Vail."
"You let me sleep."
"You needed it."
"How long have I been out?"
"Give or take five hours. How'd you sleep?"
She scrubbed the heel of her hand against her bloodshot eyes. "Like shit."
She popped the handle on the passenger door and eased out. Troy reached in through the side of the open window, unfurled the cloth he'd wrapped around the knives in Mammoth and grabbed two. He handed her one—which she took—and leaving the machine to fill the car, headed inside. He grabbed a basket that had been tipped at the door as he'd done in the liquor store. It was easier. If the dead happened upon you, at least you had more chance of a recovery than losing all your supplies. Unfortunately, it didn't look as if there was much left for them. The place had been just about picked clean.
"Looks like we got here too late. Even the disinfectants are gone," Alicia commented.
"You sure they even sell that here?" Troy asked, smiling slightly.
"Does it matter?"
Troy walked over to the fridges, opened the glass doors and pushed aside the shelves that held of the drinks in the past so that he could get into the back where they stored the extra drinks for stock. That, too, had been scrubbed to the bare minimum. He found three grimy bottles of cranberry sparkling water that had escaped the incursion and hidden itself beneath a broken cardboard. He dusted them off and dumped them into the basket. When he stepped out, Alicia was nowhere in sight and had wandered into the depth of the store, probably in search of a restroom she could make use of. Troy grabbed a couple magazines and the last of the hard candies that had been left at the bottom of one of the dispensers on the counter and set them beside the water.
"Alicia?" he called softly, moving toward the back of the store.
"In here. It's clear."
That she knew of anyway. Troy walked into the back and pushed open the office door. She was rummaging around in the drawers of the desk, papers strewn all about, and a telephone hanging from the wall off the hook.
"What are you looking for?
"A key. I uh… I need to—"
"Pee," Troy finished, smirking as her face colored.
He put the basket down on the floor and walked further down the small narrow hallway. There was one door that branched off to the outside and another with the untidily scrawled restroom on it. He knocked. No sound came. He raised a booted foot and delivered a hard kick to the bottom of the door. It opened with ease, only it wasn't empty; inside, seated on the closed lid of the toilet was a man in overalls, his brains decorating the back wall. Alicia had slipped out of the office and stood beside Troy, her hand immediately going to her shirt to pull it up and over her nose to block out the overpowering stench.
Troy didn't believe that was a smell you could ever get used to.
"Well," he said as he backed away, retrieving the basket. "I'll meet you outside."
Alicia looked at him and then at the corpse on the toilet, considering, trying to gauge how badly she needed to use it and found that her body absolutely refused to let it go, the pressure becoming even worse.
Troy exited the store with the basket and dropped it into the backseat on top of their weapons.
By the time Alicia emerged, he'd filled the car and the two jerry cans and was waiting for her from inside the driver's seat.
"How'd it go?" Troy asked, amused.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"You sure? We've got eleven hours to kill."
Alicia raised her right hand and flipped him the bird. He grinned and turned on the ignition, quickly guiding them back onto the highway and for their next destination.
The car wasn't moving when Nick woke up. Everything was rocking on invisible waves beneath and around him, but the engine was dead. No one was in the driver's seat.
Half his body was numb, the other hurting. He would kill for a gulp of water, but the idea of eating something made his stomach churn. He recognized the high still lingering – it must have been just around two hours most of sleep. It probably counted, but didn't quite feel it. He felt like a rusty mechanism with every bolt unscrewed loose. The gin she had been giving him with no food to back it up was contributing greatly. Nick wished he knew her reasons, but maybe – and that was a quite scary idea – there were none.
He thought of trying to sit up and have a look through the windows, but found that moving with your limbs chained and numb was not an easy task for a bag of unscrewed bolts. It seemed like the sun had set, and the sky was turning purple on its way for its nightgown.
We're going to see your sister. Wouldn't you like that, Nick?
Fear raked its bony fingers through his nerves as her words echoed in his head. It made him wonder what that would mean for Alicia and whether there was any way to prevent it. Not that thinking about it and getting more scared was going to help anything. It wasn't going to get him out of the chains once again, and he needed that chance. Especially if the night was coming. A desert at night was a much better place to wander than the same setting under a blazing sun.
But he had to earn his way out of this police car. The doors wouldn't open for him, unless his captor did it. Nick sighed and kicked the door, then again. She emerged behind the window like a bad dream. But the door opened.
"You calling?"
"Nature's calling. Been a while."
"I'm afraid there's no casserole to offer you, Nick."
"Oh, come on. I don't think I can do anything stupid when I can barely stand and my bladder's busting. Please."
She considered, then reached in to him, fumbling with the chains. She freed his legs and pulled him out by the lapel of his jacket. They were parked off the road, the car neatly placed behind a bush so it was hard to spot it at night from the highway. There was a bonfire a dozen yards away in the shrubs.
She unlocked one bracelet, then stood back a step, not intending to leave him to his chore. When Nick looked at her expectantly, she clicked her tongue.
"Not happening. I bet you know why."
Nick chuckled and unzipped his pants. He needed to go so bad he no longer cared if anyone watched. It even hurt a little when he finished. As he zipped his fly, the temptation to dart off was burning him like hellfire. The rational part of him knew very well he wouldn't go far. She didn't seem all that athletic, but Nick's legs were trembling, and he felt like shit, both high and hungover. There was no food in him to carry him far away from her to have his freedom back. And an attempt would probably rob him of his next decent way of relieving himself.
Hating himself, her and everything, Nick obediently let her cuff his hands behind his back again. When she picked up the chains, he had to try: "Please, there's no need for that. I can't get out of the car, anyway."
"We'll see," she said, dumping the chains on the shotgun seat, then pushed him into the back and closed the door.
Nick watched her stroll toward the fire, then lowered back on the seat, staring at the ceiling. It felt more comfortable with his legs free, but the trap was still locked. More so than Nick liked to admit.
It had been three hours since Troy filled up the last time and they'd already decided that they wouldn't be stopping, that they'd drive through the night and by morning they'd be in Texas.
All they didn't know was if she'd be there to greet them.
"Want me to drive?" Alicia asked from where she sat reclined in the passenger seat, eyes closed but unable to fall asleep again. Troy couldn't tell if that had to do with the dead guy she had to pee around or her brother.
"Soon."
The car's engine had begun to run hot—not entirely as of yet—but it was there, tempting the gauge, and although Troy wanted to push it, he'd tried to temper the pace to keep it from overheating. It wouldn't help them or Nick if the engine blew out and they were forced to find another vehicle. There was nothing on this highway apart from darkness, more darkness, the dead and a big nothing, nothing Troy could see past the headlights.
That would put a severe crank in their schedule – Troy's schedule.
He'd been hopeful they'd pass something with a means for getting water for the car when a distinctive pop shattered the silence and started listing the car. Troy removed his foot from the gas, allowing it to slow naturally, and kept a hold of the wheel as he guided it to the edge of the road, refraining from going off it completely as he might have when the world was full of traffic.
"What was that?" Alicia asked, using her elbows to push herself into an upright position.
"We blew a tire."
At least, that's all Troy hoped it was.
He twisted off the ignition, reached up to flip on the overhead light inside the car and cast a look around before getting out.
"Don't suppose you found a torch while you were looting that office?"
"Sorry," Alicia said, grabbing at the lever beside her chair to pull it back into position, her hands moving beneath the seat as if she'd only now thought to double check. Troy crouched beside the back wheel on his side, letting his hands run along the rubber, index probing to check the pressure and seeking the weakness. He later found the problem on the passenger side but couldn't tell what had caused it.
He straightened up, moved to the back and patted at the trunk.
"Open her up."
Alicia stretched over the seats to where she knew or speculated the tab was and tugged it. Once unlocked, Troy flipped the lid up the rest of the way, removed the two jerry cans and anything else that was in his way as he searched for the flaps that would remove the fake bottom. He was in the middle of it when a collective groan drew his attention from behind and another from in front of him somewhere.
"Alicia, I'm not alone out here."
She stopped her hunt and got out of the car, knife in hand, effortlessly picking up on the dead's call. They couldn't see them yet or make out their numbers but it was apparent that the noise from the tire bursting had set some trouble in motion. Appreciatively, Alicia wasn't stupid enough to try and feel her way into trouble, choosing to hoover at Troy's side while he removed the platform. There was a spare tire, a jack and its accompanying tire iron. Whoever had owned the car before them, thankfully hadn't been in a position that forced them to use it. As far as Troy could tell, the tire was in good condition. He freed up the jack and went to the side of the car, using his hands to gauge where it needed to be on the tar in order to lift the car.
It wasn't easy.
He would literally kill for light, more light, more than the dim orangey shadow while illuminating the inside of the car helpfully, only seemed to add to the shadows outside.
"You ever done this before?"
"As a born and bred farm boy, a popped tire was bi-weekly prerequisite."
"Right. Stupid question."
It wasn't that stupid, Troy had never done it blind. Hell, if he thought they had an option, with the impending groans looming so close he'd have suggested they abandon ship and start walking.
"Pray I don't lose the nuts."
"You mean you haven't lost yours already?" she retorted.
"Ha-ha," Troy deadpanned, cursing the groan the steel gave as it hoisted off the ground. Once secured in place, he started on the lug nuts, putting all his strength into it and finding it to be quite easy.
Alicia, on the other hand, didn't have it as easy as the dead had made their slow trek and appeared, practically on top of them, showering them with a spray of blood as she hammered away at his or her soft head. No sooner she'd gotten the first down, did a second and third arrive. Troy stopped mid-way to help but they could still hear more out there in the near distance.
"How much longer?" Alicia asked, grabbing the bodies, moving them out of the way of where Troy was working and out of the way of the car for when they finally got back on the road.
"If we're lucky ten more minutes."
He had again busied himself with the last nut when a hand shot out and cupped his face, smearing something across it that he knew wasn't water and inadvertently got on his tongue.
"God!" Troy cursed disgusted, spitting, using his forearm that wasn't covered in grease to try and wipe the blood from his eyes. "What is it with you and your brother trying to make me look a chainsaw massacre victim?"
"You don't like the fresh scent of death?" she asked, disappearing and returning to smear even more onto Troy's back and arms.
"Not particularly," he grunted unnecessarily, setting aside the tire iron, slipping the last lug into his pocket along with the rest before removing the wheel. "Especially not in my mouth."
"Whoops," she muttered, anything but remorseful. Troy could almost see her smile.
He stood, picked up the tire and launched it off into the darkness away from the road. There was no way they were going to be able to get it fixed and it would only take up space. He removed the new wheel from the trunk and struggled to ease the steel through the holes, becoming increasingly frustrated every time it slipped.
"Help me, hold this," Troy commanded, blindly reaching for Alicia's wrist in the dark, pulling her down to her knees beside him. She didn't complain, and the process swept by quicker.
While Troy removed the lugs from his pocket and tightened them in place again, she stood, keeping guard despite the thick disguise she'd put on their faces, alert as one after the other the dead crawled past—a herd—lured now only by the sound of Troy's continued working. When a stray got to close and she thought they may fall on top of them, she killed them, driving the blade in through their chins as if to mercifully euthanize them, being careful not to draw any more attention to herself than was necessary.
Troy understood that fear.
When he was finished and sure the wheel wasn't going to fly off while they drove, he reset the jack, collected their tools and jerry cans and quietly put them into the trunk.
With the dead all around them, they didn't speak.
Once inside the safety of the car, Troy turned off the overhead light, instructed Alicia to roll up the windows where the dead could reach in to snag them and started the engine, quickly pulling away. Thankfully the car shot like a dream, snagging a couple knees of the dead until they were out of the small sea and back in the clear and on their way.
Oddly, the woman didn't seem to need any rest or sleep. Whenever Nick dozed off and came to, she was either driving or making short stops for supplies or toilet runs. He wondered what for a supernatural drive had her going for over a day with no slumber breaks. Had she found some energetics stash or maybe gave herself a shot or two from the baggie? He doubted the latter, but her stamina gave Nick an eerie vibe, nonetheless.
She barely spent an hour at the fire. She returned before Nick could nod off again, and they were back on the road. She was humming to herself again, steering confidently. She might have been on this road before. She certainly knew where she was going.
They made one more stop before the dawn. She opened Nick's door, unlocked a bracelet and ordered him to take off his jacket. He did, and she cuffed him back before locking the door. She was somewhere in the dark behind the car, there were some faint sounds that could come from a walker. Nick couldn't make out anything through the dusty windows aside from an impression that it was a small town around them, and eventually lay down again. Shivers were back, withdrawal was settling in. It seemed to be coming sooner now, as if he had been continuously using for years. He was back where he started three years ago, and it almost did his brain in with frustration. She nulled all the torment Nick went through when the world fell. He'd have to start over – IF he was going to get a chance like that at all – and he wasn't looking forward to any of it.
Deep down, it made Nick want to just die. Dying was easy. He wanted easy. For fucking once.
He didn't notice his consciousness slipping away, but when he came to, the sky was the lightest of blue with shades of pink. Right after the sun's 'I'll be right out'. The first rays were already touching the rocky valleys on either side of the road. It was no longer an Interstate – more like a small highway. There was nothing but the desert around.
She brought Nick to a small house sitting in the middle of nowhere. A walker or two were scratching at the closed door upstairs, but she wasn't bothered. She set Nick on a chair in the living room, gave him more gin, a little bit of water, and put a ready syringe on the coffee table.
"Now we wait," she announced, sprawling on the couch, her arms spreading along the back of it as if she was about to watch her favorite soap opera after dinner. "Your sister must be close."
"And then what?"
"All in its time, Nick." She glanced around the room and lingered on a painting behind him. A ship in a stormy sea. Her face turned dreamy for a moment.
"What did you do, you know, before… all this?"
She smiled wider, the dreamy look remained and deepened subtly. "I was a teacher."
It explained things. The sharp attention and unmistakable interpretation that came from experience of reading people on the daily.
"Why drug me?" Nick asked. Her eyes darted to him from the ship battling the ocean on the painting, and whatever peaceful thought she was having was replaced with her habitual ironic smile.
"Because you wanted it. I gave you what you wanted to make you stronger."
"We both know how much of a bullshit this is. I didn't keep it for myself. In a world like this, it's as useful a currency as any. We'd met people still dealing in it, and it was a nice coin to keep around for such."
She raised her eyebrows faking surprise. "I'm sure you convinced yourself of that, but your eyes, Nick, the way you looked at it said otherwise. I've seen my share, I know it all. I also know you need to hit the rock bottom to rise back up, Nick. I'm sure you know it, too. I can see you do. You were strong. But now you can become much more."
Nick mulled it over. "So what you're saying is, you're trying to help."
Her smile slipped off so quickly Nick didn't even catch that instant. She leaned forward slowly, her elbows coming to rest on her knees. "I don't. Help. I. Don't. Help."
He studied her, heart hammering against his ribs. He could see he was onto something, but a small part of his mind, ever alarmed and paranoid, screamed terror because it was sure he wouldn't like what he might have found. He swallowed with effort – there was no spit left, he was drying out like a fucking mummy – and went against his cornered-animal instinct. "You make people stronger. You said it yourself."
She made no reply, just watched him with that thunderstorm cloud of an expression on her face.
"Making people stronger means doing them a favor," Nick continued, as his pulse accelerated even more, making it hard to breathe. It was like the biggest ominous hunch ever, and he was consciously walking over it toward his doom. But he couldn't stop himself. He didn't think he really wanted to. It was akin to a stupid rush you get from your first glorious high. You know you can't fly but stopping yourself from trying is as impossible as turning back time after you jump. "Doing them a favor means helping them. You're hel—"
She was like a striking cobra; Nick never saw it coming. It was like magic that exploded into a colorful fireworks of vicious pain spilling over his torso. One moment, she was glaring at him, and the next – her stick she had left across the coffee table, was in her grip and its pointy end buried in his side. Turning slowly like a skewer in a roast pig.
"I. Don't. Help."
Red and black roses were blooming all over Nick's vision and around her face, like it was some spoiled and burning videotape. He released the breath he choked on in a grunt, then another as she twisted the stick once more for good measure, making sure her statement was heard.
"Then…" Nick struggled as the pain was blinding him, driving him out of his head, but he stubbornly couldn't let it go. Maybe the drug was the problem, after all. "Then what… what are you… doing?"
She yanked the stick out, eliciting Nick's scream. There was no smile for him, anymore. He had crossed the line.
"I'm this world now, and I make them stronger, or make them be no more."
Nick had nothing to say to it, and she got up and left, bringing her stick with her outside. Nick slumped in his chair as little as the chains allowed and tried to not pass out. His heart was pulsating in his whole body, too rapidly, too loudly, and his side was soaking with liquid heat.
Troy and Alicia changed drivers way past the halfway mark and filled up on gas for what Troy had calculated would be the last time before they hit Texas. If it didn't, the jerry cans would pick up the slack. Alicia didn't hesitate to match his speed now that they'd found some water to add to the engine to keep it cool and the remainder of the drive had been smooth and uneventful.
That was, until they started the approach of Texas and a box inked with her name had caught her attention.
And it had to be for her, right?
She whipped Troy out of his semi-state of sleep as she jumped out, removing it from its spot on the side of the road, confused at first when she found nothing to be inside it and then saw the second message.
She handed Troy the box through the open window.
As ominous as this whole thing was and how big a risk they'd taken, this was the first sign to indicate that they'd made the right choice and that this bitch had kept her end of the bargain.
They'd travelled with them.
Troy squished the box between his hands when they started driving again and threw it back out of the window, helping Alicia as they looked for any signs to point them toward Eldorado. A choice that might have had a joke attached to it if they weren't actually heading there in search of golden hope. Troy still couldn't figure out what the woman possibly needed from them though, especially out here, and why use Nick as leverage? Was it a coincidence or something else? For someone who'd pulled them all the way out here, she had to have some kind of organization ability. It was also possible she wasn't as mentally challenged as Troy had thought.
"There it is!" Alicia all but cried, sitting on the edge of the seat, index finger pressed to the windshield as if Troy couldn't read the big sign himself. There were a few other cars in the lot when they pulled in, most that looked abandoned and others that just looked questionable. She leapt out again without bothering with the ignition, forcing Troy to twist off the key and to scramble out after her.
"Take it easy," he chided, seeing her eyes fixate ahead like a lion zeroing in on a gazelle.
He looked around, trying to gauge if there was anyone sitting in one of the cars parked out front and found there to be none. He retrieved their weapons again and the radio, clipping the latter to his waist.
Alicia took the knife Troy offered her and started ahead while he picked up the rear. There were undead nearby but none that they came across as they entered. At least not as they expected. Alicia stopped moving, frozen, gaze glued to a figure with a familiar looking head of hair and a jacket.
"Nick?" Alicia asked hollowly, her voice picking up in anguish, becoming louder and louder until she captured the attention of the dead and he started shuffling toward us. Troy let the door swing shut behind him and stepped in front of her to protect her, to see what she was seeing, a whirlwind of emotion sweeping through him as he took in the damage to the dead's face, the horror of what he must endured.
"No," she murmured, the word fusing into one sickening mantra that was barely audible for a moment and amplified when Troy stepped forward to meet the skin muncher halfway and drove his knife into his skull. He dropped, and so did she, as if they were connected and their lives had drained together.
Troy couldn't believe it, couldn't believe she'd made them drive all this way only to deliver him to them dead.
Anger took a hold of Troy, a nasty hold that knew when he found that woman he'd bestow her all kinds of torture, all kinds of experimentation he had visited on the Mexicans and hadn't considered before. She'd suffer – like Alicia was suffering – like he had clearly suffered. Alicia crawled the short distance toward the body, tentatively reaching out to touch the dead's pants leg, yanking her shaking hand back as if she feared him, feared the truth, and then forced herself to grab the corner of his jacket as an anchor. Not to pull him closer but to pull herself closer.
Troy couldn't watch, he couldn't deal with his own feelings, let alone the anguish radiating off her, remainder in part of how he'd caused his brother's death and how Troy had to put him down.
He'd saved her from that.
Troy scanned the diner and walked away from Alicia to make sure Nick was the only dead and that there was no one else they had to worry about.
Was she still here? Watching their reaction from a dingy corner?
God, Troy hoped so.
He searched the diner, checked every corner, every room, until eventually he returned to the main dining area. Alicia was sitting up, next to the body, tears dry on her face, bloodied paper towels in her hands.
"It's not him," she said, sounding numb and as if she couldn't believe it.
Troy joined her beside the man, crouching to get a good look at the body and found that there were a lot of dissimilarities between the two to back up her statement. The hair for one—at least what was left of it—the height and the weight. They'd been wound so tight and so worried that when they'd seen him, seen the jacket, it had been enough to set things in blind motion and crushed them.
They'd both just reacted.
Troy could see a faint 'call me' scrawled on each of his cheeks.
"Fucking Bitch," he snarled, watching as Alicia continued to affectionately wipe the blood from pseudo Nick's hair, a mocking representation and apology and what she wished to do for her brother.
He unclipped the radio from his pants, turned it on and pressed the talk.
"We're here. Where is he."
