Cash's head felt full yet somehow relaxed. Thoughts jumped around his mind uncontrollably, moving so fast that if he didn't say one out loud he'd forget it and have to move on to the next. The headache he had before was completely gone and the bruises and cuts he'd freshly acquired were completely numb. Somehow everything seemed less important, as if this moment was the only thing he really needed. He knew it wasn't true. Although he liked the feeling it gave him, he hated the idea of being so happy while his family could be in danger.
"How did you meet Tabb?"
Rory asked randomly as he tied off the end of the cloth around Cash's head. He'd pretty much fixed Cash up, washing the blood away and covering the wound with a piece of cloth he'd ripped from his clothes. He didn't mind doing these things, the drugs made him feel like he should be moving anyways.
"I moved to his school in Junior year and he was the only guy with enough balls to talk to me."
"What? Were you as scary then as you are now?"
Cash's lips sported a goofy grin as he held his beer between his legs.
"I didn't think so, but Tabb always told me I intimidated everyone I was around. He used to say it was my aura."
He chuckled at his own words, staring at the river below them with fond eyes.
"I don't even know what that means."
Rory shrugged, taking another sip.
"So you knew each other before everything happened?"
"Not really. We didn't get to know each other until everything changed."
"To be honest with you, he doesn't really seem like your type."
"And what would my type be?"
"I don't know? Someone who could kick your ass if you got out of line maybe?"
"You've just been lucky enough not to get on his bad side. He's too sweet to be mean to anyone he doesn't know well enough."
There was a pause of silence, both of them just basking in the feeling of numbness before Cash decided to continue their small talk and get to know the other better.
"What about you?"
Rory lifted an eyebrow as his pupils, now blown wide by the drugs, met Cash's.
"What about me?"
"You and Jude? Is that not a thing that's going on?"
Rory's calm demeanor quickly changed, a defensive expression taking over his face and his ears burning a deep scarlet.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
He took a frantic sip of his beer as Cash stared at him expectantly.
"Come on. The way you look at him? The way he looks at you? If you two aren't dating then their must be some-"
"Would you shut up? You don't know what you're talking about."
Rory's voice was much sterner than Cash's playful attitude. The dark headed man chuckled at the soft spot he'd found in his new friend.
"Fine."
Cash followed the dirty blonde's actions and tipped back his beer, finishing it off.
"Another,"
He held his hand out and Rory slid a second bottle between his fingers without question.
"Where were you the day everything ended?"
"Yeah, that's way less depressing than talking about your love life."
Rory rolled his eyes.
"I'm serious. How did you end up taking care of Kyle's little brother?"
Cash shrugged,
"He was with Violet when I found her. By accident I'm sure, she'd never brought him up before then but... I'm glad she did. He's my family."
He took a sip of his beer,
"What about you?"
"It was a school day. I overslept. As soon as I saw what was going on I took my little sister away from our idiot parents and ran."
Rory's grip on his bottle tightened at the mention of Alaina. If he hadn't of taken her away from their parents would she have lived? He was the cause of her death, so he couldn't help the thought from crossing his mind.
"I found Kyle and the guys not too far from my house, fleeing from some type of riot in the middle of town."
Cash nodded to show he was listening, but his eyes stayed glued to the gorgeous waterfalls below them.
"So your sister..."
"She died a week ago."
Rory was silent for a long moment and then,
"I was high the day she got bit."
It was the first time he'd said it out loud, the first time he'd really acknowledged it. It felt freeing to get off his chest but it also reminded him what a shitty person he was.
Cash's brows knitted and he quickly looked over to the shorter man. He didn't know what to feel. Anger? Sympathy? He couldn't really say any words of comfort because in the end, it really was Rory's fault.
"I'd taken from a pharmaceutical we came across and lied to the group. I didn't think it was a big deal. I mean Ezra was always drunk, why shouldn't I be able to relax?"
"What did you take?"
"Oxys, hydros, xanaxs."
He sighed.
"Really struck gold with the benzos... For a while I couldn't feel anything. The guys just thought I was always cheerful but... she knew."
He wanted to cry. He felt the heaviness behind his eyes, the pain in his chest, but the drugs that flowed in his veins kept him numb. It was as if all of his pain and anxieties were trapped deep down inside screaming to be released but they were kept prisoner so Rory could feel good for just a few short hours. So, instead, he stared at the flowing water, unblinking and unfeeling.
"With everything we'd grown up with, there's no way she didn't."
He chugged his beer in record time, coughing when he pulled the empty bottle away.
"Slow down dude, we already took those pills. There's no way you should be throwing back beers like that."
"Or what? I'll die?"
He asked in a sarcastic tone before grabbing another beer from the box and opening it lazily.
"Yes. You'll die, is that what you want? To go kamikaze and leave everyone who cares about you behind?"
Cash spat in a hard tone, a skeptical look on his face. Rory only shrugged, before rolling his head to the side, his small smile contrasting with Cash's scowl.
"You don't have to worry, I'm suicide proof."
Cash didn't seem to find this joke as funny as Rory did.
"Oh, come on Cash, lighten up and pull the stick out of your ass. For one night you don't have to lead a group, you don't have to worry about Ollie and Violet and Tabb-"
"Except I am worried about them."
Rory rolled his eyes before lifting his beer to take another sip.
"Aren't you worried about Jude?"
Rory paused, the bottle in his hand halfway to his mouth. The scrawny boy flashed through his head, the gash on his head bruising. He would be okay, right?
He tipped back his beer,
"I'm too high to think about what might be happening to the others."
He finished off the bottle and threw it over the edge before reaching a hand back into the box and grabbing another.
"Can I ask you a question?"
Cash asked, watching Rory crack open his fourth bottle.
"You just did, but shoot."
"Do you think the bunker is real? Or like, really gonna work out?"
Rory shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly as he took a sip.
"Probably not."
"Yeah."
Cash agreed, his voice sad compared to Rory's mellow attitude.
"That doesn't... bother you at all?"
"Not really. I mean, this is the apocalypse, you have to always expect the worst. But you also have to try to stay optimistic so you don't kill yourself."
"Seems contradicting."
"It is."
He took a big gulp of his beer before wiping his mouth. Those uppers had his mind going a hundred miles an hour, thoughts coming and going like bullet trains in his brain. Yet, that oxy had him feeling like he could fly.
Without any kind of warning a loud rustling came from the forest to their right. Cash quickly got to his feet, stumbling on his way up, and lifting his gun with an unsteady hand.
"Chill out, it's probably just a squirrel or something, it's a whole ass forest-"
"Drop you're weapon!"
A feminine scream echoed in the air, proving Rory wrong. A petite girl fled from the forest, a machine gun tight in her grip. Rory's eye grew wide in surprise.
"On your feet!"
She yelled, cocking and aiming her gun.
Wait a minute.
Rory's brows knitted as he looked over the girl again. He knew her. He had to. She was so familiar...
Unlike Cash, Rory took his time finding his feet as he examined her. Her dull brown hair was pulled up in a bun and out of her face except for the few short strands that covered her forehead. She wore a dark red jacket and blood stained jeans.
"Heidi?..."
Rory couldn't help the name that slipped from his lips. She quickly moved her gun from Cash to Rory, her brown eyes wide.
He could tell she had lost weight due to her loose clothes, although her skin was still riddled with pimples and bumps just like in high school.
Cash took a slow step forward but she stopped him with a shot next to his feet. He lost his footing, almost falling to his ass but steadying himself last minute.
"I said drop it dumbass! Do you want to die??"
In the blink of an eye someone was grabbing Rory from behind, wrapping a hand around his chest and holding something sharp against his throat with the other.
Heidi was momentarily distracted by the sight, giving Cash a chance to grab the brunette by the neck and push the barrel of his shotgun to her head.
"Let him go."
The girl holding Rory hostage had a short bright red bob, her blue eyes holding Cash's browns with an intenseness that made his heart skip a beat.
"Only if you come with us."
"How about you go fuck yourself."
Rory held his hands up in surrender as she pushed the knife deeper into his jugular, inhaling sharply as a small speckle of blood dripped down the blade.
"I said, let him go now!"
Cash commanded in an angrier tone this time, his shotgun pointed directly at Heidi's head. Her nails dug into the skin of his forearm wrapped around her neck, although her expression remained blank and fearless.
Heidi slammed the back of her head into his, a loud 'oof' escaping his lips. She stomped on his foot before ramming the bud of her gun into his stomach causing him to quickly loose his balance and fall to the ground. Cash cursed the drugs in his veins for making him so fucking weak. She pointed the barrel of her machine gun to his forehead, his eyes wide with fear and defeat.
"Heidi."
The red head called the girls name with a stern voice.
"We're not killing them yet."
Heidi growled rebelliously before snatching Cash's weapon and removing her own gun from its threatening position.
"Fine."
Cash and Rory walked ahead of the two girls, each of them pointing a gun to the boy's backs, leading them where ever they pleased.
"This is your fault."
Cash growled quietly in Rory's direction.
"And why is that?"
"If you hadn't forced me to take those stupid pills I could've fought back. We both could've fought back and overpowered them-"
"They have a machine gun, I'm pretty sure we couldn't win."
"We had a shotgun-"
"Yeah, the shotgun that you gave up. You could've shot her when you had a chance!"
His whisper was harsher now, anger bubbling up inside his chest at the blame Cash was putting on him.
"I didn't force you to do anything! You could've said fuck off and you know that!"
"If I would've shot her you would've had your throat slit. Is that what you want? You know what, I'm so sick of yo-"
Cash was hit roughly in the back with his own shotgun, causing him to stumble to his knees.
"Would you two shut up. Jesus Christ, boys are so stupid."
"I haven't seen you since high school Heidi, the least you could do is give a decent hello. No need to be such a bitch."
Rory spoke up in a light hearted tone, winking at the brunette and earning an annoyed groan.
"Shut up. We're almost there."
Red demanded as she pushed Cash the moment he was back on his feet.
"almost where?"
Cash asked before he almost tripped face first over a large rock hidden in the grass.
"Jesus!"
How was Rory having such an easy time? While Cash was struggling just to walk in a straight line the other was strolling casually through tall grass and thick branches. He couldn't lie, it pissed him off beyond belief.
"Blindfolds on."
Heidi roughly stopped him in his tracks with a hand on the back of his neck.
"Blindfold?"
Before he could even get the question out a thick piece of cloth was pulled over his eyes. His hair getting knotted into the tie in the back of his head.
"Really?"
"Keep walking-"
"Well I would but I can't see shit-oof!"
He was pushed with hostile hands, falling face first to the ground and eating dirt along the way.
"Cash?"
Rory called his name in a concerned tone. Cash could only assume they'd covered his vision as well. He spit the dirt from his mouth and shook it from his hair,
"I'm alright."
One of the two girls gripped onto his arm and yanked him to his feet ungracefully.
"Now walk."
Cash had lost track of how long they'd been walking. To be honest he'd lost track a long time ago. Heidi had to keep him on a straight path because he kept swaying back and forth.
The sound of feet stomping on wood alerted him, his head quickly lifting at the sound.
"Lift your feet."
He did as told but almost missed what he guessed was a porch. There was the sound of a creaking door and then old music playing in the background. His brows knitted.
Another door was opened and closed, the music dying behind them, before they were stopped in their tracks.
The blindfold was yanked from his head, an annoyed 'ouch' leaving his lips as his hair was pulled out of his head with it.
He examined his surroundings finding nothing but a dull hanging lightbulb and what looked like never ending stairs. Rory stood beside him with a clenched jaw as he stared down into the dark.
Heidi and Red poked at the boys with their weapons before they took an uncertain step down the stairs.
Cash was waiting for a gun shot.
To hear that Rory had been killed and he'd be next.
That had to be what this was.
They were going to take their supplies and then leave them at the bottom of the stairs to rot.
He wouldn't get to tell Tabb what happened. What if he was looking for him? Even worse, what if he found him? What if he and Rory had been rotting at the bottom of these stairs for weeks before Tabb found them?
He couldn't let that happen.
He tried to steady his breathing as they got closer to the bottom. His eyes stayed glued to his feet as he planned his next move.
He needed to grab the machine gun or die trying.
He took the second to last step off the stairs, preparing to attack with all the strength he had left-
"Cash?"
Cash's brown eyes widened at the sound of his name, his heart stopping in his chest.
He lifted his head to meet wide, worried forest eyes and wild blonde hair. Tabb stood against a brick wall, his arms hanging uncomfortably high above his head by chains and his ankles tied together painfully tight.
"Tabb!"
Cash ignored the girls yells to stop as he ran towards the man, gently running his hands under Tabb's eyes to catch his tears. His face was completely black and purple with bruises, his wrists blood red.
He was covered in blood and dirt and all Cash wanted to do was wipe it away and tell him that everything would be alright. He was here now and nothing else was going to happen to Tabb under his watch.
"I thought you were dead."
Tabb sobbed,
"They said you were..."
He couldn't even finish his sentence through his relieved tears.
"Hey..."
Cash smiled brightly, even under these terrible circumstances he couldn't help the joy that washed over him at seeing Tabb alive.
"I'm going to get us out of here."
He kissed Tabb's busted lip, the blonde chasing after him as Cash pulled away.
"Everything's going to be okay."
Cash felt something hard hit the back of his head, the room instantly spinning around him. He fell to his hands and knees in attempt to fight the sleep overcoming him.
Tabb's scream echoed somewhere in the background as he was hit again and then again before everything went dark.