New Release – The Dead Don’t Fall
New Release – The Dead Don’t Fall – Dead Generations Book #4
I couldn’t be happier to share this exciting news with you all.
Back in 2019 when I began working on this series, I had no idea where it would take me. But I’m so glad I stuck with it, because Dead Generations has become so very special to me. I love these characters, Ian and Adam, and I’m so proud of the story I’ve been able to tell with them.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the ride so far. I know it’s been a wild one, but I hope you’ll stick with me for the rest of the series, only two more books to go!
Thank you for your support! It means the world to me. 
Below is the first chapter of The Dead Don’t Fall. You can find the rest of the book at the links below. Enjoy!
The Dead Don’t Fall
By Anne Russo
Chapter 1
November 2017
Early morning and the diner was nearly empty of customers. A few scattered patrons, truck drivers, sat alone in open booths. A few more posted in various spots around the counter. Their eyes were heavy as they stuffed in mouthfuls of
eggs and swigged endless cups of coffee. Occasionally they turned to take in the sunrise through the plate glass windows. Fiery shades of red and orange, spectacular as the sun rose over flat, dusty plains.
Adam sighed and reached for his mug, his second cup, in fifteen minutes. He grimaced at the taste of burned, bitter coffee grounds, and added more sugar. Across from him, Ian raised an eyebrow but said nothing, going back to his omelet.
Adam observed him, fascinated, as he cut his food into bite-size pieces, dabbing his lips after each mouthful as if he were at a fancy dinner party. His eating habits were likely a holdover from meals with Katherine, scrutinizing his every move. Still, such fastidiousness seemed strange from a man six-three, covered in scars and sporting an extra day’s worth of stubble. Which, if Adam were to admit, he loved the way it looked, loved how it scratched his bare skin raw when they made love. Adam’s cheeks burned as he squirmed in his seat, impossibly hard in seconds.
“What is it?” Ian sat his fork next to his plate and looked him over.
“Nothing. I’m just feeling anxious.” Adam pushed around the mushy oatmeal he’d ordered.
Over a week had passed since they’d fled the mansion, leaving behind a pile of bodies in a blazing inferno. It already felt like a lifetime ago. They’d crossed the Texas border the night before, rising earlier this morning to make time. Ian planned to be in El Paso by the evening at the latest. There, Adam hoped to find their friends, safe and sound, waiting for them. After that, Adam cared little about what happened next. He left the rest up to Ian, who kept reassuring him he had a plan. Yet Ian seemed less and less sure every time he said it.
“Do you really trust this person? Gael?” Adam worked up the nerve to ask Ian last night as they fell asleep.
“What’s that?” Ian sounded sleepy as he traced a lazy line across his cheekbone.
“How do you know him?”
Ian scoffed. “I’m surprised you haven’t asked before.”
“He’s an old boyfriend, isn’t he?”
“No, not a boyfriend,” Ian sighed. “It lasted a week when I was twenty. I haven’t seen him since.”
“He’s going to help us get new identities?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Are you sure he’ll remember you?”
“Yes.”
Adam snorted. “It must have been some week.”
“He’s Hector’s cousin. I met Hector and Kalifa through him.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, it’s quite the story,” Ian’s voice drifted away as he spoke. “Remind me to tell you about it later.”
“Okay,” Adam returned, his eyes growing heavy.
Finally, they slept, Adam for once not troubled by nightmares. Nightmares that had plagued him far too frequently in the last several months. Adam suspected Ian had nightmares, too. He seemed to cope with it by staying awake until near dawn. So, it surprised Adam when Ian fell asleep quickly. He slept four hours a night, if that.
“Adam?”
Ian said his name as if he’d been calling him for a while, getting Adam’s attention.
“Yes?”
“I asked if you wanted something else?” Ian’s eyebrows knitted with concern. “You’ve barely eaten a thing.”
“I’m not hungry,” Adam said and gulped more of his coffee instead.
“I don’t blame you.” Ian glanced at the soggy breakfast on Adam’s plate. “Are you sure that’s even edible?”
Adam laughed out loud, surprising himself.
Ian returned his grin. “Really, though, try to eat. You need to get your strength back.”
Adam sighed, ready to argue again that he wasn’t hungry. His stomach was too twisted, too full of nerves to eat. Besides, Adam didn’t need Ian to point out he was still far too thin. He’d lost not only weight but muscle definition and while Adam had always been slender, he was skin and bones now. Adam saw it in Ian’s eyes when he undressed. The sadness when confronted with the reminders of what they’d done to him while they were apart.
“Maybe I’ll grab a muffin for the road.”
The worry on Ian’s face subsided. He glanced into his empty cup. “More coffee?”
He shrugged. “I’m good if you are.”
“We’d better head out. I’ll take care of the check.”
They’d found money in various stashes around the mansion, cash Ian put aside over the years. The rest of Ian’s money Katherine confiscated when she discovered their plans to run away. Still, they’d found close to fifty thousand, which they divided and hid in the trunk of their car. They’d also taken Katherine’s jewelry, which they planned to sell off later. More than enough to start new lives under new names, free from their dark pasts.
Adam nodded. “I’ll be right back. I need to use the restroom.”
On his way, he passed a young couple in a booth. A small child seated beside a young woman, and the child’s enormous blue eyes, tracked Adam as he passed. Adam caught traces of the parent’s conversation. A heated argument about having to stay with his mother. This was his fault. He was the reason they were broke and stuck in Texas, having to play nice with a mother-in-law she despised.
Adam pushed open the door to the men’s room. The bathroom was blissfully empty but grimy and unkempt. Adam took a second to appreciate the silence, but with silence came the memories. Adam squeezed his eyes shut, his palms sweaty as he banished the memories to the back corners of his mind. A
dusty hidden crawl space reeking of decay, and overrun with secrets. There, he kept the worst of them; but they remained, threatening to spill over without warning.
Adam did his business quickly, not wanting to spend more time than necessary in this filthy bathroom. Crude graffiti covered its sad off-white walls. The floors were sticky and covered in used paper towels from the overflowing trash can in the corner. Adam shuddered, horrified they’d eaten here.
Adam washed his hands with the scant soap remaining, doing his best to avoid his reflection. The bags under his eyes coupled with the pale, thin line of his lips frightened him. His was the face of a man haunted by hungry ghosts.
He left the bathroom and made his way to their table, pulled from his dark thoughts by a commotion near the front counter.
“Sir?” a waitress said, frantic and concerned, wavering a touch into total panic. “Sir? Are you all right?”
An enormous crash followed as if the contents of the entire counter came off, clattering to the floor. A heavy thud, as something or rather, someone large hit the floor.
“Dear God!” the waitress gasped. “Somebody help him.”
Adam dashed towards the counter in record time to find an elderly man, one of the diner’s truckers, on the ground. His hand clutched to his chest, struggling to rise as his skin turned the sickening color of ash.
The waitress and several diners hovered nearby, trying to figure out what to do as the man fought to rise. His wide-eyed stare was one of abject horror as he heaved and gasped for one more breath. It didn’t look like he’d get it.
Adam pushed aside the waitress, the curious bystanders, and went into doctor mode. “Did someone call 911?” he shouted to the waitress, who startled at the sound of his voice but rushed to obey.
The man on the ground tried again to stand. Adam laid a steadying hand on his arm, urging him to lie back. The man’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling, blind-white, as his body slackened.
Adam dove into action and started chest compressions, but despite each slight inhale and exhale, the man was already gone. The victim of a massive heart attack. A widow maker. The type of cardiac arrest that hits hard, fast, and deadly.
Over Adam’s shoulder, a dark shadow loomed in his periphery, swooping in fast. Ian yanked him to his feet, pulling him away.
Adam turned, shoving him off, but the wail of sirens racing up the street stopped him in his tracks. Ian’s face was a maelstrom of conflicted emotions. Chief amongst them, though, was anger.
“Is he going to die?” The waitress dropped to her knees in front of the dying man.
No one, not even the most talented doctor in the world, could save this man, but that didn’t stop Adam from wanting to try. He hated Ian then, especially when Ian dragged him through the crowd before he could answer. Ian tossed a twenty onto the counter as he slammed Adam through the glass doors and out
into the parking lot.
Ian flung open the passenger side door and hurled Adam into his seat. Two police cars and an ambulance flew into the parking lot, skidding to a halt beside them. They ignored Ian getting into the driver’s side as they dashed into the restaurant,
medical bags in hand. Police chatter followed them as they pushed their way inside the building.
Ian didn’t so much as glance at Adam as he put the car into reverse and peeled out of the lot. Tires squealed as he righted the car, pushing the speedometer up to sixty in his efforts to get away in a hurry.
For the rest of the morning, Adam refused to speak to him. Fine by Ian. He was pretty pissed off himself. Still, the tension in the car grew until Ian didn’t think he could take another second of the silence. Ian jerked the wheel, skidding the car to
an abrupt stop.
Adam threw him a dirty look, an expression somewhere between not now, and you have no idea what you’re in for.
Ian shut off the engine. Silence crept into the space between them as Adam turned away, flinching when Ian placed his hand on his shoulder. The gesture stung.
Ian cleared his throat, trying to stay calm. “You shouldn’t
have done that.”
Adam whipped around in his seat. “You’re right. I probably shouldn’t have, but I’m sure as hell not going to watch someone die.”
“Yes, you are. You have to.”
“I’m not you, Ian. I can barely live with myself as it is.” His voice grew quiet, dropping into a whisper. “Don’t you get that? I have to balance the scales.”
“You can’t,” Ian said. “Not anymore. So stop playing God.”
“Taking lives. Saving lives. You play God, too, you know?”
The fierceness of Adam’s gaze turning Ian’s spine to jelly. “You’re right, but getting us across the border in one piece is the only thing that matters now.”
Adam opened his mouth but shut it, tossing his head against the headrest in frustration.
“Unless you want us to go to prison for the rest of our lives. No more fucking heroics. I mean it.” Ian reached across the seat for his hand as Adam looked
away. It surprised him when Adam let him hold it. “I’m trying to protect you.”
“I know.” Adam wasn’t looking at him, but out the window instead. The tiny ranch-style houses in the distance. Rows of them, the backyards full of swing sets and trampolines. Signs of everyday life and normal families, worlds away from their own.
“I can’t afford to care about other people, just you and me. That’s it.”
Adam turned to him. “Our friends?”
“Of course, I didn’t mean them,” Ian answered quickly.
“You want me to forget, pretend I’m—” He shook his
head. “Never mind.”
“No, I don’t want that.” Ian ran his fingers through Adam’s hair. It had grown longer, curling around his ears and brushing against his collar. It made him look younger, more innocent. “I’m sorry.”
A dark shadow crossed Adam’s features, his mouth twisted with disappointment. A gesture, however brief, which reminded Ian of the woman neither of them would ever escape, though she was dead and gone.
“Stop saying you’re sorry,” Adam said, knocking Ian’s hand aside. “Just drive. I’ll get over it,” he added, in a voice that told Ian he wouldn’t.
They pushed through the rest of the drive with only another stop along the way. Adam insisted he wasn’t hungry, but Ian turned in at a roadside deli, anyway, buying them each a sandwich and a coffee. Ian stared Adam down until he’d eaten at least half of the turkey grinder in front of him.
Adam tried not to let his nagging irritate him, further souring his already bleak mood. The one growing darker the farther they got from the diner and closer to El Paso. While excited to find their friends, meeting another of Ian’s former lovers wasn’t as thrilling of a prospect. The fallout from his tangle with Brandon Cleary was still fresh in his mind. If Ian was so concerned about his thinness, he should take it up with Brandon.
You’re being irrational. He hasn’t seen this man in over a decade. So what in the world do you have to be jealous of?
Once full dark, they finally caught signs for El Paso, another fifty miles to go. As if sensing Adam’s nervousness, Ian took his hand, rubbing his knuckles in a way Adam found both comforting and annoying. Still, he didn’t move his hand away,
only squeezed it tighter.
Once off the highway and past the city, Ian drove towards the edge of town. A place where the lights of downtown met the stars of the desert. Beautiful, barren, and quiet, save the hum of insects. Gravel crunched under their tires as they pulled into the lot outside a rundown motel shaped like a horseshoe. The
centerpiece, a kidney-shaped pool, murky blue in the moonlight.
Ian shut off the engine, turning to him. “Wait here.”
Adam frowned. “Why?”
“Because. I don’t know what I’m walking into. Humor me.”
Adam opened his mouth to protest, but Ian stopped him with a firm kiss. “I’ll be back in ten minutes. Less,” he insisted.
Adam didn’t enjoy waiting in the car, like a little kid or the family dog, but the worry lines around Ian’s eyes and mouth gave him pause. He looked exhausted, worn to the bones. Adam didn’t want to add any more stress to the situation since the air between them was still electric from their earlier argument. He nodded as Ian kissed him again and climbed out of the car. He made sure he had his piece loaded and ready before sliding it into the back of his jeans.
****
Want to read more? Check out the buy links below for a detailed synopsis and CW warnings.
