She gasped, “Where?”
“In the freezer.” He nodded his head in that direction.
“The freezer we’re planning on spending the night in?”
I couldn’t see her face clearly but I felt her eyes narrow on Hendrix and his offensive words.
“The very one,” he said seriously.
“Hell no,” was her reply. “Let’s go Miller.”
Miller sauntered over to her without a care in the world. He obeyed her every word- which was endearing since I’d seen the same thing from Page. But it was also annoying since Tyler could in no way stack up to any of the Parkers and their survival instincts.
“Where are you going?” Hendrix asked, trying not to laugh.
“We’re going to wait outside,” she explained simply. My mouth gaped open- she could not be serious.
“There are Feeders outside,” I finally reminded her.
“I’ll take my chances, thank you very much,” she snipped back.
Oh, no. I dug deep- like center of the Earth’s core kind of deep- for patience and understanding and…. empathy. But even in my vastest most benevolent stores of emotion, I could not come up with anything to offer this girl.
“If I have to fight the rats, you have to fight the rats.”
Hendrix’s arms tightened around my waist as if he actually needed to restrain me. I wasn’t going to fight this girl- at least not physically. Now… pushing her into the freezer, armed with her glossy black hair and her manicured fingernails was an entirely different thing.
“What’s the problem?” Vaughan asked sounding truly confused.
Before she could get a word out of her pouty mouth I explained for her, “Tyler doesn’t want to face the rats. She wants to wait outside until we’ve done the dirty work for her.”
“Outside?” Vaughan exclaimed. “Are you crazy?”
“No, I’m not crazy!” she hissed. “You are all crazy! Why did you pick a place to stay the night with rats! I’ve already dealt with Zombies today! I haven’t had a bath in four days! You are forcing me to shoot at things and I’m hungry! So no, I don’t want to deal with rats! I’d rather take my chances with the Zombies! This never ends!”
Her voice ended on a shriek of anger. She was visibly shaking. I could make out her trembling petite form in the dark and my anger relented; but only because I could finally see how afraid she was. She had been mostly sheltered from this entire aspect of life until four days ago when all she had wanted to do was escape that awful town and her suffocating prison. I couldn’t expect her to catch on to advanced survivor tactics in the short time she’d been allowed. And I was just as disgusted and terrified of the rats as anyone, so I really could see where she was coming from.
Vaughan on the other hand….. could not.
“It never ends?” He took a step toward her and growled out his rhetorical question. “Of course it never ends! We are fighting for our lives, Tyler, not taking a vacation! Of course it never ends! How could it? And those rats?” He waved his arm behind him, gesturing toward the freezer that I would be forced to face in just minutes. “Those rats are the least of your problems if you even think about walking out that door!”
“Oh yeah?” she countered. “Who’s going to stop me?”
I waited for Vaughan to come back with something like, “I am,” or some kind of threatening response, but he never said anything. He just stared down at her while she glared defiantly up at him. His hands flexed and clenched at his sides and his breathing picked up a little. But he never answered her question. Finally, with a frustrated shouty growl he turned around and stalked off, muttering something about a, “spoiled, impossible woman.”
Tyler then turned on her heel and stomped off in the opposite direction.
I looked up at Hendrix with a furrowed brow and concerned eyes. He just smiled down at me, all goofy and big and then gave me a kiss on the forehead- another kiss on the forehead.
I was starting to be concerned that he was confused about where my lips were located.
“Come on, killer, it’s time to go play Rat Busters,” he laughed and let go of me.
“Was that another joke?” I asked trying to stifle my laughter- not at his lame attempt at humor, but at the fact that he was actually trying to be funny.
“I can be funny,” he huffed, sounding genuinely offended.
I really laughed then because he was being funny now and in my most patronizing tone I assured him, “Of course you can be.”
“Here,” Harrison pushed items into our hands as soon as we were standing with everyone else in front of the huge, walk-in freezer.