Love and Decay, Volume Eight (Episodes 9-12, Season Three) by Rachel Higginson Page B

able to feed him and that was
all that mattered.
    At least for right now.
    We needed a better standard of living. But
first we had to survive Mexico City.
    Vaughan urged the van over a pile of concrete
debris that split the road from sidewalk to crumbled sidewalk. He
tried to be as gentle as he could while ignoring the protests from
the engine and the scraping sound on the underside of the vehicle.
I closed my eyes and held my breath until we reached the other
side. We would not survive without this van, but at the same time
there was no way to go but forward.
    “Adela, do you know your way through the
city?” Vaughan asked. I heard the worry he tried to cover up and
convinced myself not to panic.
    Her reply was simply, “We need to find
Tomás.”
    “This is the stupidest thing we have ever
done!” Harrison growled from the backseat. “We should have looked
for another way.”
    “There is no other way,” Adela bit out, her
accent thick with frustration. “This is the only way. You
are the ones that want to get out of Mexico. If that is what you
want, then this is what we must do.”
    “And what would your plan be? What would you
have us do? Go back to America? Make us fit in with the Colony? I’m
sure they’d love to have us back, especially after we killed their
supreme leader.” Harrison was never easy on Adela. He couldn’t seem
to accept her, for reasons he refused to share with anyone. His
brothers had cautioned him about it multiple times, but he would
respond with silence and sulkiness until they gave up and left him
alone. Meanwhile, Adela constantly had to put up with his mistrust
and antagonizing teasing. He had never been anything but pleasant
and goofy to Haley, Tyler and me, but for whatever reason, he could
not make himself get along with Adela. I empathized with them
both.
    “That is not what I am suggesting,” she
hissed at him.
    She sat one row in front of him, but refused
to turn around and meet his angry gaze. I didn’t blame her.
Harrison was rarely scary, until he found something or someone he
didn’t like. Then he became one of the most intimidating men I had
ever met. And that was saying something, considering the rest of
his brothers.
    “But you are suggesting something,” Harrison
prodded. “Aren’t you? There’s something you want to say, so say it.
Spit it out.”
    I sensed Adela’s frustration build around
her. She took her time replying to him, as if she couldn’t decide
which words to use. It could have been a language barrier thing,
but I had the feeling she was trying to read Harrison and diffuse
his uncalled for anger.
    Finally, she said, “I do not understand why
we must leave Mexico. There are places we could live that would be
safe. Diego would have given us any of the houses of the men we
killed. My father’s place or Arturo’s. They would have been enough
for us.”
    The energy in the entire van deflated. It was
like someone had popped a hole in our balloon and let out a good
chunk of the air.
    “What?” Adela whispered. “What am I missing?
The cure? You really believe that strongly we will be able to find
a cure?”
    I suppressed the urge to look at Page. The
energy we had just lost started to build again. Layer by layer a
thick, buzzing tension filled the van and put all of us on
edge.
    “Yes,” Nelson finally said. “We believe we’ll
be able to find a cure. Or at least help others that are more
qualified than us to find a cure.”
    “How?” she whispered. “How can you be so
sure?”
    Nelson let out a resigned breath. Harrison
jumped in to warn, “Nelson, don’t.”
    “She’s one of us now,” Nelson challenged.
“She deserves to know.”
    “Wait until we’re out of Mexico,” Harrison
argued furiously.
    I turned around to shoot Harrison a shut-up look, only to see Adela beat me to it. “You don’t
trust me? After everything I have done for you?”
    He shot her a cruel smirk. “Not even a little
bit.”
    The rest of the Parker brothers