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  Savage

  Jade C. Jamison

  Savage

  Kill or Die…

  Nina Hardwick has had a rough life since leaving high school, but inside she is still the girl looking for a silver lining. The past several years have left their toll on her psyche, and just as she feels like she’s climbing out of a deep abyss, her life and the lives of millions of others fall into shambles as a virus overtakes the country and leaves a plague of undead armies scouring the land.

  In a desperate attempt to get away from the infected, Nina and some neighbors speed out of town, nearly killing a man on a motorcycle. When they stop to rescue him, Nina realizes that he is the one man from her past she never got over, the guy who should have been her high school sweetheart until she messed it up. But this unrequited love, Kevin Savage, says he doesn’t even remember her. Or does he?

  Nina, Kevin, and her neighbors head to the wilderness and fight to survive not only the plague but also hunger, cold, their inner demons…and even each other. Will they survive and, more importantly, will her heart?

  The rest of the world had washed away, even though I was aware somewhere in the back of my mind that the truck was still moving. I must have been staring, because he looked over at me in that snug space. His green eyes were cool, but they confirmed my suspicions. This man was definitely Kevin Savage, just older.

  He wore a black do-rag on his head, so I couldn’t confirm with his hair, but his eyebrows were reddish brown, the exact color I’d remembered his hair having been. He also had a goatee with hair the same color and several days’ growth along his jawline. The eyes were the definite giveaway, but so were the broad jaw and full lips.

  I swallowed, trying to find my tongue, and I finally pushed out some words. My voice must have sounded soft, because I could barely hear myself. “Kevin Savage?”

  His cool eyes assessed me for just a moment before he said, “Yeah.” I thought I could see a glint of recognition in his expression, but I wasn’t sure. “Do I know you?”

  I tried to smile, but I couldn’t make those muscles move. In fact, I felt some weird rush of adrenaline begin coursing through my veins, and I tried like hell to stop my hands from shaking and to keep my breathing steady. “Yeah. Nina—Davis.” I had been Nina Hardwick for more years of my life than I’d been the maiden Nina Davis, so it was hard forcing my tongue to say it. “Well, that was my name. Winchester High?”

  He nodded but his eyes were still distant. “That was a long time ago.”

  Advanced praise for Savage:

  “OMG! I. AM. BLOWN. AWAY by this book.... I expected a different kind of a book…more action and fighting but what I got was an amazing look into the souls of people. The heart of what makes us a society of good or not good people. I feel that this book is showcasing a whole new level for Jade’s writing abilities. She can write some hot and naughty rockers we all have no doubt but this book and its main character, Nina, is just so deep and inspiring. It really knocked my socks off.” – Angie, Twinsie Talk Book Reviews

  “Yes, you will get to see some zombies and there will be killing and some Walking Dead worthy scenarios...but for the most part this book is about relationships (something Jamison does well), love lost and found, the truth of what lies beneath the surface of people when they are forced to 'kill or die,' mental illness in many forms and the human basic need and strength to survive even when you feel like you have nothing left to live for.” – Sue Banner

  BOOKS BY JADE C. JAMISON

  Savage

  Substitute Boyfriend

  Finger Bang

  Quickies: Sexy Short Stories and Other Stuff

  Old House

  Then Kiss Me

  MADversary

  Worst Mother

  Fabric of Night

  Stating His Case

  TANGLED WEB SERIES

  1 Tangled Web: A Steamy Heavy Metal Novella

  2 Everything But

  Punctured, Bruised, and Barely Tattooed (companion novel)

  3 Seal All Exits

  BULLET SERIES

  1 Bullet: An Epic Rock Star Novel

  2 Rock Bottom

  3 Feverish

  4 Fully Automatic

  4.5 Christmas Stalkings

  5 Slash and Burn

  NICKI SOSEBEE SERIES

  1 Got the Life

  2 Dead

  3 No Place to Hide

  4 Right Now

  5 One More Time

  6 Lost

  7 Innocent Bystander

  8 Blind

  9 Fake

  WISHES SERIES

  1 Be Careful What You Wish For

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2015 by Jade C. Jamison

  Cover image © Jade C. Jamison

  All rights reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author. Characters and names of real persons who appear in the book are used fictitiously.

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  For Elizabeth Santiago and Kelly Findlay of Perusing Princesses (lucky me! I get to pop their zombie book cherries!)

  and Angie Stanton (always and forever my zombie cheerleader)

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Chapter Forty-three

  Chapter Forty-four

  Chapter Forty-five

  Chapter Forty-six

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Chapter Fifty-five

  Chapter Fifty-six

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Chap
ter Sixty-two

  Chapter Sixty-three

  Chapter Sixty-four

  Chapter Sixty-five

  Chapter Sixty-six

  Acknowledgements

  Note from Jade

  “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did.” ~ H. Jackson Brown Jr.

  Prologue

  “Still Loving You” – Scorpions

  HOW MANY TIMES in life have we come to a crossroad without knowing that’s what it is? How many times are we faced with decisions—and we make them—not realizing at the time that they could alter our entire life? Bear in mind that sometimes not making a decision or not acting is the same as making a decision. There are some decisions that we know are going to be life-altering…like saying no to a marriage proposal or accepting a job offer halfway across the country. Not all huge decisions present themselves that way, however. Some seem innocuous or unimportant at the time and it’s not until we look at them in retrospect that we see them for what they truly are.

  My name is Nina Hardwick. My senior year in high school, I hesitated at what was a major fork in the road, and that decision changed the entire course of my life.

  There was this boy…his name was Kevin Savage. He was absolutely gorgeous. Red hair (I’d never found that attractive on a boy before), emerald green eyes, full lips, strong jaw. He was kind of quiet too. He was a year younger too—a junior—but for some reason, he’d decided to pursue me. I was a-okay with that, because he was…well, like I said before, he was gorgeous.

  All that pursuit led to one night. He and I and a bunch of our friends were out one night in the forest above our little town, taking a walk under the bright moonlight. As I recall, we were trying to spook each other. It was just after Halloween, and with that full moon, it was the perfect time.

  Whichever friend was leading the pack was telling a ghost story, but my brain tuned everything out when Kevin wrapped his arm around my waist.

  Holy crap! I thought. Oh, my gosh! Yeah, I was a senior in high school, but I’d always been the shy girl, and I’d never had a boy put his arm around my waist. Oh, I’d held hands with boys in middle school, but it was like I’d turned into a leper in high school.

  Till that moment.

  I was in shock but my body was humming and alive. This was my assurance that the attraction was mutual. But, having no experience with boys, I wasn’t sure what to do next, so I just kept walking along, enjoying the thrill of this cute boy’s arm around my waist.

  Time seemed to stand still, but it never really does, and after sometime, we returned to the top of the hill where our cars were parked. One of my friends produced a bottle of Everclear and another friend made short work of building a fire.

  And, shortly after that, Kevin said he had to leave. He was tired and had things to do.

  I gave him a ride home and he left my car…

  And that was that.

  He was cool to me after that, and I tried to understand what I’d done wrong, why he had seemed to like me one minute and then not at all the next. It wasn’t until I was much older that I understood.

  I hadn’t reciprocated. I didn’t put my arm around him, and I didn’t make a move that entire night. I was a doe, frozen in headlights by adrenaline, doubly crippled by my lack of experience. That moment was a decision I failed to make, one that I would continue to regret for longer than I should.

  My heart ached the rest of that year…and the year after…until I (mostly) forgot about him and lived a life far apart from him. But fate has had a way of slapping me in the face all my life, and she made sure Kevin Savage was often just out of my reach but near enough to be a continual painful reminder…until the day he reentered my life and made me wish I’d never known him.

  Chapter One

  Present

  “All Hope is Gone” – Slipknot

  I SAT ON my front porch, the same one I used to enjoy a cigarette on years ago. This porch was attached to the house my husband and I bought a long time ago—over twenty years ago, actually—after we’d started our little family and moved to what was my hometown.

  So much had changed since then. He was gone now, as well as our two babies. He was in that elusive “better place” that God-fearing people talk about so much, and my progeny were both attending college. I was alone now and trying to emerge from the fog I’d been immersed in for the better part of a year. Most of the time I came out here on my porch nowadays, I was reflecting on the past several years, trying to make sense where none could be made.

  Every time, though, it simply made me sad.

  My life had been a hard one, one that I’d never envisioned for myself, one that I never would have chosen for myself if it had been offered. Yes, I’d always wanted to be strong, had always wanted to test myself, but not like that. It seemed like a cruel joke in retrospect.

  My husband and I had met as sophomores in college and married just after my senior year, spurred to do so because I was pregnant with our son. Back in the eighties, when we got married, it was harder to be unwed parents, and we’d planned on marrying at some point anyway, so we did. Our son was born in early January the following year, just before our student loan debts came to fruition, demanding monthly payments. But we were optimistic. We’d find a way to do it. We knew we wanted more than one child and we wanted them fairly close together, but it was harder getting pregnant the second time. I had our daughter four years later and stayed at home with the kids while my husband earned a decent living. We weren’t living high on the hog, but we were making ends meet. We even bought a small three-bedroom house in the suburb where we lived, intending to upgrade as my husband moved up the ranks.

  At first, we didn’t know what was happening to him. It started with a pins-and-needles feeling in his extremities, followed by loss of muscle coordination and strange muscle spasms, and I was nervous enough that I didn’t want him picking up the kids after a while. Bad enough to lose a gallon of milk in the driveway while carrying it from the car to the house. I didn’t want the same fate for my children. When Darren finally realized his condition wasn’t improving, I was able to talk him into going to the doctor. He had to undergo one test after another, and he didn’t go as often as he should for fear of losing his job. After some time, though, we realized he wasn’t getting any better, and—by the time he was alternating between using a walker and a wheelchair—I had gotten a desk job with a government agency back in my hometown and my husband resigned from his job, so we moved. He didn’t have much in the way of disability benefits through his job, but what was worse was that what was going on with him was considered a pre-existing condition by the insurance I had obtained through my new job, so we had to keep his old insurance, and it was expensive.

  We had no choice, though.

  Sometime after both kids were in school, we found out he had multiple sclerosis. The diagnosis was something of a relief, because then we knew what we were up against; we knew what we had to fight. Before, we’d been grasping at straws, praying that the next test would reveal the enemy inside his body.

  The last several years, he had intensive treatments, where he’d be hooked up to an IV for several hours at a time. They were draining, but he swore by them. Throughout all those years, I wound up holding part-time jobs in addition to the day job to make sure not only were his treatments and medications paid for, but I needed to find a way to pay the regular bills and also make sure my kids had everything they needed.

  We never had a new car.

  We rarely ate out.

  We wore used clothing, purchased from thrift stores—all except underwear and socks—and the kids usually got new shoes too. We never had more than basic cable, and all our books came from the library.

  We ate a lot of ramen and rice and beans.

  My parents and his parents helped when they could, but I hated to ask for it. As it was, they would pitch in for the occasional car repair or when something broke that I just coul
dn’t afford to have fixed, like the time the water heater in our house had to be replaced. Other times, though, I’d buy used appliances and pray they’d last until I could afford another one.

  At least moving back to my old hometown gave me the support system I needed. It was, some days, the only way I was able to make it.

  This wasn’t the life I’d dreamed of for myself. No, I was going to be an actress. I’d gone to school for it, in spite of my parents’ wishes not to. But getting pregnant just before leaving school hindered me from doing anything else at that time. Darren and I had talked about it, and I was going to get back into acting once the kids were in school. That had always been the plan, but by the time his illness had come on hard, I couldn’t even try out for a community theater play. And the problem, I discovered, with earning a liberal arts degree in something like theater is that you can’t land a job that pays really well. My day job was better than minimum wage, but it was one that didn’t require a college degree. No one gave a shit that I had charisma onstage or that I was a solid character actress. They only wanted to know if I could type at least 40 WPM and answer a phone politely.

  I could.

  So the job I got was better than a lot of jobs I could have been stuck with. I had modest benefits as well, but I wasn’t getting rich. I applied for promotions when I could and got raises with them, but we were still struggling, still scraping by at the time my husband’s soul left this earth.

  He passed just as my son was finishing his senior year in college. We’d suspected it was near, but no matter how well you think you’ve prepared for a loved one to leave the earth, you really aren’t. It was devastating. I was grateful that my son was going to be home for the summer, and I think I might have even said that to him. It was nice to have the kids around to help keep my mind off the emptiness. It felt odd to not have to do things for my husband. In a way, it was a huge relief, this vacuum left by his death, but I never would have said that out loud, especially not around my children.