by M. J. Haag
“Is it just me, or is it quieter than usual?” Zach asked.
“Way quieter. Think Drav will mind if I shoot him in the thigh if he tries to stop me this time?”
Zach looked less than amused with my attempt at a joke. However, Drav didn’t stand in the street, blocking our way. We made it to the wall without a single fey sighting, which was weird even this early in the morning.
The regular group of humans waited along with a very healthy number of fey, including Thallirin, who stood apart from the rest. For a change, the big grey fey wasn’t watching me. He was staring at the ground like he wanted to fight it.
Ryan saw us and jogged our way.
“Glad you could make it. We’re just about to leave.” He lowered his voice. “I don’t think you’ll have any problems anymore.”
The fact that even Ryan knew made my insides churn sickeningly.
“Great,” I managed.
He nodded and called out to the group that we could head out. Zach walked with me to the fey. They were strangely quiet and quick to avoid eye contact with me. It reminded me of how students behaved when not wanting to get picked by the teacher.
“Would you mind carrying me?” I asked one at random.
He grunted and held out his arms like I was supposed to jump into them.
“Dude, don’t be a dick,” Zach said irritably. “Just pick her up and carry her.”
The fey gently picked me up, said a quick apology, and started over the wall. He ran like I was on fire. I’d been kidding about hoping they’d treat me like damaged goods. Actually being treated like that hurt my feelings more than a little by the time we reached Tenacity. The fey didn’t drop me or anything, but I’d never been placed on my feet faster. With a last apology, he backed away, his gaze averted.
Zach came over to stand by me.
“They’re acting weird,” I said.
“Um…don’t they always?”
I rolled my eyes at Zach, glad that at least he wasn’t making a big deal out of it, and waited for Ryan and Matt to do their usual meet and greet to find out how many others would be joining us. Matt called out three names. That was it.
“You’re letting fear starve you,” I called. “My family had pizza the other night and spaghetti with garlic bread last night. The food is out there for those brave enough to find it for themselves.”
Someone said, “Fuck it,” then several more people stepped forward.
“I hope this is worth it,” a man said, looking at me.
“Me, too. I really want some chips this time.”
I used the ladders along with the rest of the humans to get out to the trucks and took my usual spot as co-pilot for Garrett.
“Morning,” he said. “Hope you brought your hand warmers. It feels colder today.”
“I have four,” I said, patting my pocket. “Enough to keep my toes nice and toasty. It’ll be a sad day when I run out.”
“We’ll find more.”
He started the truck and rolled along behind Ryan’s vehicle. When I glanced out the window, I caught a fey watching me, but he quickly looked away. I sighed and leaned back into the seat.
“How does it work? You living at Tolerance?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the fey want all the girls for themselves. I would have thought they would see you as competition and kick you out.”
“They see me like another Ryan. They accept him because he’s Mya’s family. They accept me because Angel claimed me as her family. Shax very briefly thought I was making moves on Angel, and let’s just say I will never horn in on any woman a fey has his heart set on. Truly terrifying,” he said with a chuckle.
“So, what does that mean for you? You’re supposed to just resign yourself to a life alone?”
He grew serious.
“I hope not. But thinking of that possibility always helps me understand how the fey probably feel. And there’s a lot more prejudice against them than me.”
I looked out at the fey running alongside the trucks and immediately spotted Thallirin. As always, he was a bit apart from the rest. Was the thought of a life alone why he’d been so overbearingly stalkerish? On the tail of that thought, I couldn’t help but wonder, “Why me out of all the other women in the two safe zones?” What about me had made him think I would be the solution to a lifetime of loneliness?
The ride to Harrisonville took a lot longer because we needed to go around to the west side. My butt was numb by the time Garrett pulled to a stop behind Ryan’s truck.
“About time,” I grumbled.
“We’re not there yet,” he said. “Watch this.” He cut the engine and slipped the gear into neutral.
Fey lined up behind the truck in front of us and started pushing it forward.
“Stealth mode,” Garrett said before our truck started moving, too. “Pulling the trucks up to the houses after we’ve been spotted is dangerous. Driving in right away is dangerous. Both make too much noise. This is a hell of a lot quieter, gets the trucks closer for immediate loading, and gets us out faster when we’re done.”
“Hey, no justification needed on my end. It’s a smart idea.”
I kind of felt bad for the fey who had to push the huge trucks, though. My gaze went to Thallirin, who was in front of us. Unlike the other fey, whose strain was visible because they wore no shirt, or wore something that barely fit, Thallirin was covered by a large jacket that went to his hips. Though he was probably working just as hard as the rest, there was no view of rippling muscles to show it off. I briefly wondered why.
We rolled right up to the first house, turning so that the passenger truck would be the first one out and the soft-sided supply trucks would be closest to the houses.
An infected came around the side of a house at a run. One of the fey intercepted it and pulled its head clean off. I’d never get used to the ease with which the fey decapitated infected.
“Be careful out there,” Garrett said softly before easing his door open.
I did the same and lightly jumped down. Zach jogged past me with a nod and joined six fey who broke off toward one of the houses. I moved to the grille of the truck then climbed my way to the roof for a better view.
It was weird being in the trenches and seeing the scavenging as it happened. Fey and humans alike worked in tandem, going from house to house, clearing the supplies and bringing them back to the trucks. It wasn’t completely noiseless, but there was nothing that I thought would draw attention.
Soon the immediate street was clear, and the groups moved deeper into the neighborhood.
I glanced at Thallirin and the five other fey who remained with me. They watched the houses and the yards, keeping their backs to the trucks as they continually moved.
Several streets away, I watched a fey jump from a low roof to one of the two-story buildings. A lookout.
Knowing he would spot anything coming at us from straight ahead, I focused on the houses to our right and left. Everything was quiet, and supplies continued to trickle our way as the teams cleared more houses. I was pretty sure I even spotted a bag of potato chips in one of the bins. A small and very quiet happy dance may have occurred at the sight.
From the corner of my eye, I thought I caught the reflection of a face in an upstairs window. When I looked, there was nothing there.
I didn’t doubt what I’d seen, though, and made a small “hst” sound to catch the fey’s attention.
“Brenna?” Thallirin said softly.
“Second story. Window on the end. Maybe nothing,” I said, trying to be as brief and as quiet as possible.
He looked at one of the other fey, who went into the house. Knowing the fey would deal with whatever he found, I refocused and studied the other homes around us. Farther down, something moved in another second story window as well. I wasn’t the only one to see it, though. A fey went running off.
I frowned and glanced at the remaining four fey. Why did I feel like the infected were thinning
the herd?
A thump of noise came from the original house, and I looked over to see the fey holding up a head in the window. Making a face, I turned away.
My gaze caught on the bay door of the garage next to us. The twelve-inch gap wasn’t a big deal. People did that all the time for cats to come and go as they pleased. It could have been like that when we pulled up, and I just hadn’t noticed. Yet, the undisturbed snow line in front of the door said otherwise.
As I stared, a hand appeared, its pale fingers grasping the edge of the door.
“Infected,” I said softly.
Another hand appeared then another.
I lifted my bow. That’s when I noticed that the garage door two houses down started to lift. I swung my head and saw the same on the other side.
“Stay on the roof, Brenna,” Thallirin said.
The doors flew upward all at once, and infected poured out. I fired arrow after arrow, aiming for the eyes. Some shots killed. Some blinded. Both worked, but not quickly enough. Infected swarmed the fey and rushed the truck. Giving up on protecting the fey, I focused on protecting myself as the infected started to climb the sides and the hood of the truck.
With growing fear, I fought to keep up with their advance. There were too many infected. I couldn’t shoot fast enough.
A roar shattered the silence. Deep and raw, it stopped all movement for half a second. I didn’t look to see who was making the sound. Deep down, I knew.
Thallirin.
From the corner of my eye, I caught an eruption of bodies and blood to my right. I barely registered the devastation or its source as I nocked, drew, aimed, and released again and again. As my arrows found their marks, my targets would fall back from the truck, only to make room for the next ones. As a whole, they climbed higher, clearing the hood and reaching for me.
The truck lurched under my feet at the same time I heard the squeal and crunch of metal. The front bumper swung through the infected on the hood, knocking half of them back to the ground. The infected it missed didn’t look to see what was happening but rushed for me. I never stopped firing as I stepped back from the cab, trying to give myself room. The canvas of the soft-sided truck slightly gave under my foot but held.
I stepped back and up again, onto the first support, relentless in my determination to live. I retreated onto the soft canvas again.
One second, the roof was holding; the next, it ripped. My right foot went through. Hands closed around it. I screamed, struggling to pull free as the canvas ripped further. The bow slipped from my hands.
Thallirin roared.
The truck tilted and started to fall to the side, taking me with it as teeth bit down on my calf. I cried out and watched the blood-soaked pavement rush toward me.
Chapter Eight
Thallirin appeared before I hit the ground, pulling me free and taking off at a run. He jumped onto the roof of a car, the metal buckling under his weight, launched us onto the roof of a ranch house, then landed on top of a two-story home.
The moment he set me down, we both clawed at my leg. The first layer of clothing was torn and bloody. A choked sob escaped me, and I started shaking violently as Thallirin continued to peel back layers of material. It was hard to see anything until he exposed my reddened and unbroken skin.
I stared at the two crescent-shaped indents for several long moments then fell back against the shingles and looked up at the pale blue sky.
I’d been bitten.
“Holy fuck,” I said shakily.
If not for my layers, I would be changing already. Morphing into a mindless meat-sack. No. I’d be headless. Dead.
Sitting up, I looked at the skin again, disbelief and relief making the marks seem surreal.
A tremor underneath me drew my attention from the bite to Thallirin, who knelt in the same spot, still looking at my leg. He was shaking hard enough to send snow sliding down the roof.
There was a torn bit of earlobe on top of his head—it wasn’t his because it wasn’t grey—and a general coating of gore covering him. I remembered the explosion of bodies and bloody bits and then the bumper. He’d been trying to get to me, I realized.
He lifted his gaze from my leg to my face.
If I’d thought him cold and angry looking before, I’d been wrong. He was dark with rage and barely keeping his shit together. But was that rage directed at me for being bitten or at the infected?
Before I could decide, he grabbed the back of my head, his steel fingers holding me in place, and set his forehead to mine. For a heartbeat, I thought he was going to try to kiss me and that I’d need to throat punch him. But, he didn’t. Instead, his shuddering exhale warmed my face before he closed his eyes.
It took a moment to realize that he wasn’t mad at me or trying to make a move. He was scared and probably just as relieved as I was that the bite hadn’t broken the skin.
Below us, the fighting continued, infected calling out to one another as they tried to overcome the few fey guarding the precious trucks, our only escape route.
“They need you,” I said.
“You need me.”
His words were barely more than a rasp, and in them, I heard a pain so deep I wanted to cringe away. Yet, at the same time, I wanted to comfort him. Him. Thallirin, my stalker. The guy who obsessively watched over me and just saved my life because of that deep obsession. The same guy who was acting like losing me would have been the end of his world.
I couldn’t wrap my head around any of it, and I knew we didn’t have time for me to try.
“I swear I’m not leaving this roof,” I said. “There’s too many infected down there and not enough fey.”
He pulled away and stared at me for a very long moment as groans and squishy noises continued to assault us.
“Take the snow and wash your face. Now.”
The calm, slow way he said it tripped my panic switch. I looked down at myself, noting the goo on my clothes. I was covered with transferred goo from being carried, a risk we both knew he’d needed to take to keep me alive. And, looking at the mess on his face, I realized what I probably had on my forehead, too.
I grabbed a wad of snow and rubbed it over my face.
“Did I get it all?” I asked with my eyes closed.
“Again,” he said.
I repeated the process twice more before he said I was clean.
“They can use ladders,” he said, standing. “Yell for me.” Then he jumped off the roof into the mess of infected and started thinning the herd.
A weird feeling settled in my stomach, and I wasn’t sure what to think. The depth of his infatuation was scary in its intensity because I had no doubt that he’d abandon his fellow fey to get to me again if I called out for him.
I watched him fight, viciously ripping off head after head. He was a machine. A monster. But, the kind I’d want with me in just this situation. He kept the infected from reaching the house and helped his brothers determinedly fight the horde.
I couldn’t say how many infected there were. The creatures were smart, though. They kept trying to get to the truck engines now that I was out of reach. The one I’d fallen through lay on its side with the hood open and fluids spilling onto the ground.
The infected not trying to gut the trucks were swarming the fey, who worked tirelessly, ripping off heads. I lost sight of Thallirin twice under their numbers and felt a twinge of worry, mostly for my fate if something happened to him.
Abruptly, the infected started to flee like someone had called a retreat. One minute, the street was filled with a writhing mass of bodies; the next, it was empty.
The fey looked around and at each other.
“What do you see, Brenna?” Thallirin asked.
I stood carefully and looked around. The infected were gone, leaving only trampled snow in their wake.
“Nothing.”
He looked at one of the other fey.
“Use the roofs and find the others.”
The fey hopped up onto a buildin
g and took off at a run, jumping from house to house, following the path that our group had left. Below me, the fey started moving the infected bodies to the side, clearing the road. They righted the truck, and I wondered if it could be fixed.
Thallirin jumped to another roof and used the snow to clean off what he could. The rest of the fey took turns doing the same.
I stayed where I was, face stinging with cold, safely freezing my ass off on the roof. I could feel Thallirin's gaze on me as we waited.
It didn’t take long for everyone to show up. Most of the fey were carrying totes of supplies. The ones who weren’t loaded down with totes carried the humans.
“What happened?” Ryan asked.
“Infected trap,” Thallirin said. “Brenna’s on the roof.”
The fey carrying Ryan set him down and jumped up by me.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
“Yes, please.”
Under Thallirin’s sharp eye, the fey held me gently as he delivered me to the blood-soaked ground and left me beside Garrett. Around us, the fey loaded the trucks in a flurry while Ryan and another fey checked the engine the infected had tried to destroy.
Someone gave me a new, clean jacket to switch into, as well.
“How did they spring the trap?” Garrett asked.
“They were hiding in the garages. On this street and on other streets, I think. They all came out at once. It was crazy. How did they know to be here? And why wait so long to come out?”
“They’re getting smarter. They saw our pattern and set a trap. Disable the vehicles and our means of escape, and we’d be easier targets.”
The idea that the infected were getting that much smarter made me a little sick.
Zach came over and stood on the other side of me.
“Was there any trouble where you were?” I asked.
“None,” Zach said. “It was creepy how quiet it was.”
“We’ll need to be smarter next time,” Garrett said.
Dreams of becoming infected and of lying in wait to eat Zach and kill my mom plagued me all night. I gave up trying to sleep and rose well before dawn to make breakfast. Steaks and biscuits were ready by the time Zach emerged.