There is. “She’s a First, and they are the Order,” I say, and he slows. Nods, watching me. I let out a slow breath. “What do we do first?”
“We empty the armory.”
Chapter 13.
Defenses
In the Haven, we had a very simple strategy for surviving: walls large enough to keep out the infected, use zom repellant to keep them away, and hide if the walls are breached, in bolt holes that were meant for short term use. Hale Halls in the more affluent homes.
Hiding has never been an effective strategy. That we lost so many Havens so quickly proved that.
Maybe that’s why the Holdout hasn’t fallen. Because they don’t hide. The alarms that would send the Havens into a panicked bolt for the closest Hatch are met with a kind of calm that makes my teeth clench. There is no panic. Just a quiet practical efficiency—as if this is just another day in the Holdout, and gathering food and weapons before evacuating is as normal as digging a garden in the backyard.
Fuck; for all I know, it is.
All I know for sure is that the soldiers are broken into two groups—one guiding the citizens toward the bridge and the others pouring into an armory.
“Every citizen between the ages of sixteen and forty is required to serve in our defense force,” Josiah says. “We couldn’t hold the city without help from everyone. Of course, there are some exceptions to that. But most able-bodied people serve. And then, my people are dedicated to it. That’s all we do.” He grins at me as we step into an armory that looks almost medieval. “And we’re very good at our job.”
For a moment, all I can do is stand and stare at the weird assortment of weapons.
And I realize something.
As fucked up as life is and can be in the Havens, we kept our shit together. It changed—everything changed—when the zombies rose. But we still had life. Commerce. Trade. There were still massive factories that pumped out the cutting edge in anti-infected killing machinery.
And for all of that, we are still losing the fucking war.
I pick up a small glass bottle, and shake it. A girl near me yelps and snatches it from me, tucking it into a pocket. “Are you fucking insane?” she snaps.
“Johnston,” Josiah says, a soft croon, and she flushes, muttering as she falls away.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s loaded with shrapnel. Coins mostly—so many fucking coins. Little mixture Sylvia cooked up—not sure what, but if you mix them, the damn thing makes a pretty little fire cloud.”
I frown at him. “Why? Fire doesn’t kill them.”
“No, but it slows them down. And I don’t need them dead—sometimes distracted will do the job. For a time, anyway.”
He nudges past me, pocketing a few of the fire bombs, and I follow him. On the back wall of the armory is an assortment of sharp metal objects, make shift knives.
“What you’ve built here—it’s incredible.”
Josiah nods. “It is. And we’re going to do everything we can to keep it safe. Now don’t be so fucking maudlin. We’ve things to kill.”
He whistles sharply, and even I know it’s an order; his people react instantly. “Come on. Our post will be the bridge.”
“Where are they going?” I ask.
“To the Keys.” I make a startled noise and Josiah laughs. “O’Malley. The people you see here? It’s a fraction. The Holdout isn’t this little city—it’s what we’ve built on the Keys. That’s what we’ll protect.”
Chapter 14.
Waiting
By noon, the city is empty, the last few people clearing the bridge. Nurrin is pacing behind me, and I can feel the tension in the Firsts and in my unit.
“I don’t understand why we don’t fall back. If we can.”
I twist and look at Kenny with disgust.
“Because I don’t want to live on the island the rest of my life. And because fuck you,” Josiah says, his voice even and pleasant. Parker, standing at his side, laughs, a noise that dies almost as soon as it’s born. Kenny flushes, and I can see the outrage brewing there, the argument forming before he says it.
“Don’t,” Nurrin says, lazily. “Borrowed time, Kenny. You should sit back and accept that you don’t mean anything anymore—you never did.”
“Fuck you, Ren,” he snaps. “I’m still the fucking president.”
She laughs. “Of what, you stupid little shit? We’re not in your West. And you’ll be lucky if you see tomorrow, much less 1.”
He swallows hard, pales, and shakes his head. “Omar won’t let you kill me. He swore—”
“Omar needs me far more than he’ll ever need you,” she answers, glancing past the sandbag barrier to the empty city. “I’m really not a fan of the whole quiet dead thing.”
Josiah shrugs. “Sorry. It’s not my favorite thing either, First. Sylvia has a theory that with the decrease in food source, they had to adapt to hunt successfully. And the virus is very adaptable.”
It makes sense.
An explosion to the north jerks my attention back to the empty city, and I glance at it, going tense.
“We should be holding the front lines,” Ethan says, taking a step toward the explosion.
“We do as we’re told. This isn’t our territory, and they know the best way to hold their city.”
“How do we know that?” Kenny snaps. “This could be a fucking death trap.”
“Why the fuck is he here?” Parker demands, finally. “We could put him with the others on the island and actually be able to focus.”
“Kenny stays with me.” I say, emotionlessly.
Parker makes a dismissive noise. “I don’t follow your orders, O’Malley. I follow his.”
I move instinctively. Because the infected are coming at us and the waiting is setting my nerves on edge, because everything feels perched on the edge of something—because Park has been questioning my authority since I got here and I’m fucking tired of it. My gun is at his head, a punch dagger shoved up under his chin.
“The fucking president stays with me. Until he’s dead.”
“If you want him dead, we can do that easily enough. No need to inflict him on us first,” Park answers evenly, as if a knife isn’t digging into his throat.
I smile, ice cold and fucking insane. “What’s the worst thing you can think of? So fucking bad you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemies?”
Parker’s eyes go wide, and I laugh, stepping back. “Kenny is mine—has been since he touched Nurrin. How and when he dies has been my choice. And I’ve chosen.”
“Back off, O’Malley,” Josiah says, his voice low and tense. I haven’t heard him sound like that before, and that, more than anything, is what backs me up.
I flash an unfriendly smile and say, “Kenny stays.”
Parker makes a furious noise, and Josiah says his name, sharply. They exchange an angry look, but Parker backs down, stalking away.
“You have to know I can’t allow you to kill him.”
I look at the man who, in another world, would have shared my life. Grown up down the hall from me. Vied for Da’s attention and stolen hugs from Mother, and gotten into shit in high school—a brother. It stings a little, that we will never have that. That the infection took that from us, along with so much else.
“If Parker was kidnapped. Abducted, tortured. Raped. Watched his brother die, and was deliberately infected. If you found him in a cage, beaten and starving. So fucking feral that you almost didn’t recognize him—if you could see every fucking bruise every time you closed your eyes, the fucking shape of another man’s hand on his skin. If that happened to him, what the fuck would you do to the ones responsible?” I ask, my voice very soft.
Fury flares in Josiah’s eyes, and he bares his teeth, a feral expression. I nod, relief making me dizzy. “Exactly.”
He stalks away and I ignore the feel of her eyes on me as I return to watching the city.
The waiting is driving me insane. A part of me wants to fire up my bike and
go find the fight. But the better part of wisdom says to follow the plan Josiah has laid out.
“How did you know Park was important to him—that they were together?”
I glance at her.
She’s wearing a tight-fitting shirt, a corset of fitted metal that is made for practicality more than the unexpected sexy way it cups and cradles her curves. A weapons belt hangs low on her hips, and steel-toed boots wrap around her legs, all the way to her knees before they give way to leather pants.
She’s gorgeous and so fucking deadly.
And mine.
“How could you not?” I ask. “He looks at Park the way I look at you.”
Her eyes go wide, and for a moment, I think she’ll respond. That everything between us will finally be acknowledged.
We hear the gunfire first.
Part 6 The Ruin of the World
*
We all of us deserve to choose. How we live and how we die.
Nurrin Sanders~
**
What is the only thing that matters?
Finn O’Malley~
Chapter 1.
The Lie of Hope
Hope is what fucks us up. It’s why we keep going, every day, despite everything that says we should give up. The infected scream at our door, and twenty years into an apocalypse that will never end, we still cling to our illusions of hope.
Standing here, on a bridge between the world I’ve known and the one Josiah has built and killed to protect, I stare at the boy who changed my life. Ripped me from the false security I’d bought, shoved me into danger, and taught me to be strong enough to survive.
He’s got a tiny smile on his lips and a rare raw vulnerability in his eyes, and it hits me hard.
Hope isn’t what kills us. And it’s stupid, so fucking stupid to trust anyone.
But it’s who we are. We can’t fight it. We never could. Hope is what drove Emilie Milan’s parents to medicate her, what drove every person to swallow Synthrix. What pushed Sylvia Cragen to create it. It pushed my brother every time he made a stupid decision that kept me alive.
It’s driving me today.
And it has always driven Finn O’Malley.
Chapter 2.
Battle for the Holdout
The vanguard is smaller than the force we left behind. As they hit the bridge, vaulting over the sandbag barrier, I catch Park doing a head count, his eyes bleak as he ticks off who didn’t make it back.
“Report,” Josiah snaps.
“The horde was thinned by the swamp. Maybe an eighth didn't make it through. We took out more with the firebombs and hand-to-hand combat. Some made it through the traps. They're following us. We lost ten.”
“Twelve,” Parker corrects.
The soldier pales, and swallows hard, a sick look coming over his face. “Twelve. But the damage to Holdout was insignificant. We’ll hold.”
“Good. Get across the bridge and take your positions,” Josiah orders, and the soldier snaps off a salute before he follows the rest of his unit across the bridge.
“We're going to hold the bridge alone?” Finn asks, a hopeful grin on his face. Of course he would want to do something insane and risky.
Josiah gives him a fierce grin and the infected burst out of the city, slamming into the wall of spiked poles, scrambling at it. It takes an effort to not flinch back from the silent desperation in them, but I manage, and line up my bow.
“Wait,” Park murmurs, and Josiah whistles. There's a hissing whirl, and a small glass ball goes flying.
Fire erupts when it lands and the infected screams as shrapnel explodes from the firebomb. Five more land in quick succession and Park nods, his bow swinging up and arrows flying. Putting them down as fast as the bombers distract them. Some ignite, consumed by the fire as they go down.
For a heartbeat, I think we're winning this fucking thing. We're holding the line, the infected on the far side of the pike wall, and I let out a giddy laugh as my arrows find their marks, killing as fast as I can.
And then the line breaks.
It happens with a startling suddenness, the zombies crashing through their dead and the wood, and one screams, breaking the silence as they pour forward, through the bottleneck of the broken wall.
“Fall back!” Josiah screams, and I stare, shocked. This isn't how it was supposed to go. This isn't how it's supposed to end. Not trapped like a fucking rat, not a stupid little Haven girl waiting to die on an island.
“Fall back, Nurrin,” Josiah screams again, but it's distant, and I make a broken noise that I will hate myself for later. The infected are streaming forward, and I realize, too late that they're too close. Too—something grabs me roughly, throwing me back, and I scream as I feel the zom resistant material of my shirt jerk and rip, torn by broken fingers clawing for my skin. Too fucking close.
“Get her the fuck out of here,” Ethan yells, and I feel familiar arms as I roll to my feet, wrapping around me as the stench of the infected hit me. Too close, too close. Ethan is in danger, and panic spikes through me.
Ethan is standing where I was, and I scream. He fires into the face of the infected closest to him and twists, finding my gaze. “GO!” he snarls, and without giving me a chance to argue or fight him, Finn heaves me up and runs.
“No!” I scream, “Stop! Put me down, you bastard!”
Finn doesn't hesitate, ignores my frantic blows on his back, and I watch Park hesitate.
He moves almost in slow motion as he twists at the hips and the world has stopped moving. Everything is so fucking clear and impossibly slow.
The infects are on Ethan, and I see the blood spraying as he swings that long knife I gave him a few days after I was bitten. He was the only one besides Finn who refused to leave me. Who visited me and reminded me when everything seemed so fucking bleak that I was still human.
The blood is spraying. Black, tarrish blood that reminds me of when Collin died. And bright red—the blood that I know comes from my friend. “Ethan!” I scream, and Finn's grip on me tightens as I thrash in his arms.
He turns, and I see him smile, wild and wide and so fucking heartbreaking.
A gun fires, and his body jerks, a hole forming in the middle of his forehead. He starts to fold, but the dead are holding him up, tearing him apart even as he's gone. Park is running again, and I know that I should be grateful. No one deserves to die like that.
Not the First that I saved from the Order, saved from this very kind of death.
Tears are blurring my eyes and I'm aware that I'm still screaming, a hoarse wordless noise that sounds like the dead, still fighting Finn as he carries me to safety. I should stop, but I can't.
Ethan is dead. And it's my fault.
Chapter 3.
Falling Apart
“If I put you down, will you calm down?”
“If you don’t put me down, I will shoot you,” I say. Finn makes a dismissive noise, but he lowers me to my feet and I scramble a few steps away, and throw up.
All I can see is Ethan as the zombies tore into him, that fucking bullet ripping into him.
I’m falling apart and I don’t have time for it. But the rest of them give me the time I need to drag myself back together, circling me and conferring while I shiver on my knees over a rank puddle of vomit. “We need to get across,” Josiah says.
“And then what?”
“We hold. That’s what we do, O’Malley. We don’t need to defeat the dead to survive.”
There’s a moment of silence and I scrub my face, wiping away my tears as I straighten. Finn is standing near me, and he shifts, giving me a searching look. Wordlessly demanding. Silently supportive. I nod, and shove my hair back. “So we retreat. How? The bridge is down.”
“We downed it,” Park says, and I flinch. It might have been mercy—fuck, I know it was mercy, but he killed my friend and that’s a big fucking hurdle to get past. “The rope bridges. Now.”
Already, we can hear the pounding feet behind us. Two thin rope passage
s hang between us and the far side of the bridge, maybe ten yards away. Josiah’s people are already on the other side, and Finn shoves me, gently. “Go.”
“Finn,” I say, terrified suddenly.
A rare unguarded smile twists his lips, and he leans down, kissing me quickly. “Right behind you, Ren. Go.”
I go.
Chapter 4.
Finn’s Justice
I’m halfway across the bridge when I hear the scream, and everything in me wants to turn around to see why, but I force myself across before whipping around.
“Finn,” I breathe, stunned.
Kenny is lying in the middle of the bridge as Josiah and Park retreat with the last few soldiers. Finn stands over him, watching the infected.
His hands have been chopped off and he’s unconscious, lying in a pool of his own blood as Finn watches the dead approaching.
“Finn,” I scream and he nods. Kicks Kenny, hard. He mutters something, and then he bolts across the bridge, and my stomach twists, painfully, as the bridge bounces and sways under his weight. As soon as he’s clear, one of Josiah’s soldiers cuts the rope ties and the bridge falls away. An infect plunges into the ocean with it. I’m barely aware of it—my gaze is on Kenny as the zombies tear into him, a wet ripping sound that makes me smile.
“What the fuck?” one of the soldiers breathes. “What the hell was that?”
Finn gives him an arrogant smile. “Justice.”
Josiah stares at his brother for a long moment before releasing a breath. “Ok. Everyone to their stations. Let’s dig in.”
“What happens now?”
“We pick off what we can, and we wait.” Josiah says. “They’ll go dormant and we’ll clear out the Holdout. But until then, we’re safe.”
I swallow my first response. That the retreat and fallback strategy might just be brilliant. Look to Finn. “You know there’s going to be hell to pay for killing him.”
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