The Dead Saga (Book 4): Odium IV

by Claire C. Riley

  Tears fill my own eyes as I realize how similar we are. One small change, and perhaps I would be her and she would be me. And there it is, there’s the truth of the matter. There’s nothing I can do for this woman. She made her choice, her bed, she chose her side, and now she has to live with it and die with it. She chose wrong. Because she would kill me without a second thought. She would have to, to protect her kids.

  So if I let her live, then I’m dead. It’s not a choice—not really. I’ve come too far to die like this, here in this dark corridor, while my friends die on the other side of that door and Mikey drives Adam and Joan to safety. Because it will all have been for nothing if I die—losing Mikey, him hating me. There will be no point in it, because Fallon will still be hunting him. He’ll still be in danger and so will my friends. It’s not a choice at all.

  “So am I,” I say, my voice thick and broken with anger and sadness and guilt. And then I squeeze the trigger. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. But I’m not, not really. I wouldn’t change the outcome, because that change would mean my death, and I don’t want to die. Just like she didn’t.

  I stagger backwards, my hands shaking, a cold chill running through my soul. Whatever happens next will be my decision to live or to die with. This woman’s death isn’t like the others, and I deserve whatever comes with that.

  I step farther away from her, heading toward the doorway. I can see it now: the light is shining from underneath, and the gunshots and screaming are still going on from behind it. I stand in front of the door, and I make peace with whatever God might still be up there. I don’t pray to live, and I don’t pray to die. I just pray for forgiveness. Because at the end, surely that’s all we can ask for—forgiveness. We don’t deserve any more than that. Humans are monsters, and we live and die by the gun. That’s our cross to bear, and bear it we will.

  I slowly push the door open for the second time, seeing the fighting and death going on behind it. Everyone is too busy fighting for their own survival to even notice me—or perhaps they thought Shantell would take me out, so they weren’t worried.

  I see Fallon hidden behind a bench near an overturned ice-cream stand. He lifts his head and shoots across at Mattie, but misses, and then he ducks out of the way as Mattie returns fire. I take a deep breath and then I run toward him, with bullets firing all around me. I raise my arm, my aim steady and true, and I shoot round after round after round at him.

  He sees me too late, his eyes narrowing and widening all at once, and then his expression is pained as my bullets hit him and his body jerks backwards and he grunts in pain.

  I dive to the ground as I reach him, and then I drag myself behind the bench, crawling over to him with my gun still clenched in my hand, ready to shoot him again if I have to. He stares up at me with unblinking eyes, blood bubbling out of the wounds in his chest, a small trickle of blood escaping from his mouth as the last breath of air leaves him.

  I sob as he dies—a single sound that leaves me unexpectedly. It’s not sorrow I feel, but gratefulness. It’s over; he’s over. Whatever comes now, surely I’ve given Mikey a better chance.

  Fallon was filled with so much rage and fury, but you wouldn’t think it to look at him now. His face is calm, smoothed of the angry lines that normally cursed it.

  He looks at peace, I decide.

  In the end, his death wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t anything but a bitter man being shot and killed, and it seems perfect for him. Fitting, almost. We all want to die knowing that we did something great, but he did nothing. Yet he could have, and that was the real tragedy of the situation. He could have done so much good—something that his family would have been proud of. But he chose wrong, like so many others. Regardless of everything did and everyone he killed, I find myself still hoping that in death he sees his wife and children again. At least just once. Because it was the pain of losing them that drove him to his insanity. He must be made accountable for the things he did, but I wish this small act of peace on him, if no other.

  I look up as a shadow passes over me and I fire upwards at whoever it is, but my gun is empty so it clicks uselessly. I glare up into the face of a woman who looks so similar to Shantell—the woman I just killed in the hallway—that I gasp in horror. This new woman stares down at me, her mouth pinched in anger as she looks between me and Fallon.

  She aims her gun at me and I wince as I wait for the death that I so truly deserve. But it’s not me that she shoots, it’s Fallon. Her bullet finds its way through his head, embedding itself in his brain and stopping him from returning. I look from Fallon’s body back up to this new woman, wondering whose side she’s on and thinking that it’s possibly mine. Could she have been like Shantell—just another pawn in his game? Someone that he controlled and made to do his bidding? She shot him instead of letting him return and attack me. That must count for something, right? Surely that means she’s a good guy—girl, whatever. Surely that means that if she was on his side, she’s not now.

  Hope swells in my chest. It’s not too late to catch up to Mikey. If I get up now, I can go get to him. We can be together, we can leave together, and head for Ben’s parents’ cabin like we planned. We can still do this.

  And then she swings her gun down at my temple and knocks me sideways. I blink as the blackness encroaches on my vision and I feel myself being moved. Blinking doesn’t clear the fog, or stop the ringing in my ears, so I give in to the ache and I close my eyes.

  Well, at least I know whose side she’s on.

  Bitch.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “God, that hurt,” I cry out, one hand clutched to my temple, the other slapping away at the hands that are grabbing at me.

  This other woman is still dragging me into the circle that’s been formed. It parts as I get close and then she’s sliding me across the smooth marble floor of the mall, through blood and spent bullets and into the group I call my friends. I crash into Melanie’s side with an oomph and she and Mattie help me to sit upright.

  The room spins, the circle of people surrounding us bleeding into one another as I try to focus, but blood has fallen from the cut that Miss Bitchy Pants just made above my eye. It’s dripped into my eye and is now stinging and making it even harder to focus. I use my sleeve to wipe it away, and then I press the palm of my hand against the cut to try and stem the blood flow.

  A growl of deader sounds out from somewhere and the woman who just dragged me away from Fallon’s dead body turns to the man next to her.

  “Take care of that, Steve,” she says, her gaze still on my little group.

  He nods and leaves the circle, the gap closing almost instantly.

  “Do you have any idea who you just killed?” she finally says after several tense moments of glaring at us. I open my mouth to answer but Melanie gets there first.

  “A cocksucking asshole,” she says and spits on the ground at her feet. She snorts out a laugh, and since she’s playing the hard-ass bitch card, I decide to join her and I laugh too.

  What? If I’m going to die now, at least I’ll go out laughing.

  “Wrong answer,” the woman replies.

  The group parts and Steve comes back to her side. He leans over and whispers something in her ear which makes her look even angrier.

  “Santa Claus?” Melanie calls out sarcastically. She turns and looks at me. “Nina, did you just kill Santa Claus?”

  I’m in so much shock that Melanie is even making a joke with me, and the tenseness of the situation that is almost palpable, that I laugh again.

  “No, I did not kill Santa Claus,” I snort out. I wince as my head throbs when I move it. “Damn, that really fucking hurt, lady.”

  The woman doesn’t look impressed by me or Melanie, and she takes a step forward. She crouches down so that we’re all eye level, and I notice that her gun is in her hand, my blood still on the barrel.

  “It was supposed to,” she says, looking directly at me. “You just killed Fallon, my partner, our leader. Now you’re going to
tell me where Mikey is so I can kill him.”

  “Like hell I am!” I grind out.

  She smiles. “And then, when I’ve got him and I’ve killed him in the most wondrous way in front of you, then I’m going to kill all of your friends here. And then, and only then, will I kill you. Slowly.”

  She doesn’t even flinch as she speaks, as if killing all of these people means nothing to her. At least with Fallon he had a rage hidden in his depths that drove him forward. Her drive is just insanity. Revenge, cruelty? I’m beginning to regret my decision to kill Fallon, and in my nervousness I spout the first bullshit that comes into my mouth.

  “These guys aren’t even my friends,” I chuckle darkly.

  “Really?” she replies.

  “Really. Especially her.” I point to Melanie. “She’s a total bitch. And she has terrible taste in shoes. I mean, look at those things, they’re not even real Doc Martens.” I roll my eyes exaggeratedly.

  “You are as useful as tits on a bull, Nina!” Melanie screeches.

  The woman stands up, ignoring both Melanie and me. “You will tell me. Fallon and I had a plan, and I’m going to fulfill it for him.”

  “I won’t tell you shit,” I say with a smirk. “Who do you think you are, anyway? So what that you’re Fallon’s crazy girlfriend? Why does that mean you have to be as big an asshole as he was? Can’t you be your own woman? And make your own plans?” I shake my head, my gaze skipping over everything around us as I desperately try to think of a way out of this situation.

  “My name’s Ashley, and you should be very careful what you say to me. And for the record, I liked his plan,” she says.

  “Well then you are as big an asshole as he was,” Mattie says from the other side of me. “Because he was a murdering son of a bitch!”

  “Word!” Melanie agrees, fist bumping him.

  “Fine,” Ashley says, “I’ll kill your little pregnant friend over here.”

  I laugh. “Like I give a shit what you do to her.” I glare at Jessica, who looks heartbroken by my cruelty.

  Ashley shakes her head and turns to look at her people. “Can you believe this shit?”

  I glance sideways at Melanie, seeing through her façade. She’s just as scared as I am, and just like me, she’s being a mouthy bitch to help get her through it.

  “These people just killed our leader. They killed your friends,” Ashley continues, walking in a circle around us all, her gaze on her people. “They let Mikey get away, again. But look, I’m a forgiving person, and despite what they say, I’m not as crazy as Fallon was. Because yes, I think we all know that things got a little out of hand with him.” She’s stopped in front of me again, her back toward me while she speaks, but the fact that she’s not aiming that gun at my head doesn’t make me feel any better.

  “We should kill them all,” Good ol’ Steve says. And I want to smack him around the head and tell him to shut up. “Make them pay for killing Fallon.”

  Ashley turns to look down at us again, her gaze still cold and hard. “I agree.” She aims her gun at me and I freeze, my heart pausing in my chest.

  Melanie rises up to her knees. “You’re such a total ass-fucker, lady! You think you’re as badass as Fallon was? That you can gain the respect that he got from these assholes? You’re not even fucking scary! My shit is scarier than you, you fuck-nugget!”

  Melanie is yelling, and honest to God I want to tell her to pipe the fuck down and let it go, because I’d rather it be over like this than any other hellish way, but I can’t find my voice.

  My words are stuck in my parched throat, my tongue flaccid in my mouth. The more I think of words, the more they evade me. All I can see is the barrel of the gun, aimed at me. Will it hurt? I wonder. Will I feel my life end? Or will it be gone before I can even register?

  “Hey, Ashley, did you ever go to a rodeo when you were a kid? Because there’s so much bullshit coming from your mouth that I’m wondering if you might have caught some weird form of mad bull disease!” Melanie is still going on, still raging and yelling and throwing such insults at this woman that I shouldn’t be surprised when Ashley pulls the trigger and it’s not me that ends up with a bullet through her brain, but Melanie.

  But it is a surprise and I can’t stop myself from calling out for her. “Melanie!” I turn to her, grabbing for her before she hits the ground.

  By the sounds of it, I’m not the only one reaching for her. Michael is behind me, and he has turned around and is helping me lay her down. Our eyes meet, pain flashing between us. Zee is there also. He looks a mess—a legless mess, if you will. I recognize some of the other faces too, but I don’t have time to ponder over them.

  “All right, all right, everyone, eyes on me!” Ashley calls out with a loud whistle to get our attention back to her. “Let’s make this perfectly clear to you all: you should be scared of me. Have I made that obvious to you yet? Or do I need to give you another example of my cruelty? I’m okay with killing every one of you.” Her gaze skips to me. “Except you, of course. I have something special in mind for you.”

  None of us say anything, and I think that’s what she’s been waiting for. There’s no more cockiness, and no more outbursts from any of us. Though there’s no big surprise there, if I’m being honest.

  “So I tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to lock you up and leave you all to discuss my offer between yourselves. Got it?” She smiles now, a cold smile that is worse than any sneer that Fallon ever had. “In fact, I think you four would make a great team, so how about you discuss business while I take my anger out on these good people of yours here.” She turns to Steve. “Take them away.”

  “Mike,” Steve yells to another man wearing a Washington Redskins hoody. “Grab the other guy,” he says. “Shane, you get the pregnant one.”

  All three men come forwards and grab each of us before dragging us away. None of us fight them, because well, what’s the point? We’ve just seen what happens when you fight back. And Ashley just said that she wasn’t going to kill us just yet; she needs us. Or at least me. So for now we’re relatively safe. As I’m dragged away, I look at Melanie’s body and feel even more guilt than previously. I shouldn’t have encouraged her to mouth off. I should have calmed her down, but instead I made it all worse.

  Steve and his merry men throw us into a storeroom. The room’s actually quite big, and I’m glad because I can’t even bear the thought of looking at Jessica right now, never mind having to sit near her. She and that demon spawn in her belly are what got me into this mess. It’s what got Nova killed. This is her fault, at least partly. And right now I need someone to blame.

  Jessica slides herself down the wall until she’s sitting with her legs out in front of her. She’s sobbing and using her sleeve as a tissue. Mattie goes over to comfort her, and I’m glad he does because I’m fit for screaming at her. I turn and look at Michael, who’s still watching the doorway where Steve and the other Forgotten members just went.

  “Hey,” I say, not really knowing how to open up any sort of dialogue with him. His sister had come with me, and now she’s dead. There’s no fancy way of dressing that up that isn’t going to come out lame and still make him angry. It’s two for two now. When I first met him he’d had two sisters, and now he has none. He’s going to hate my guts.

  “Hey,” he finally replies.

  “How’ve you been?” I ask, deciding almost immediately that it was probably the worst way of opening up a conversation with him. “I uhh, I mean, this is shit, right?”

  He turns and glares at me. “Yeah, very shit. So, Nova...” He swallows as if bracing himself. “I saw her.” He jerks his head toward the door. “I saw her get shot.”

  Is it bad that I feel some wave of relief? Probably, but I feel it all the same. It means that he knows it isn’t my fault that she died.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry. There was nothing I could do,” I say quietly.

  He nods. “I figured. It’s how she would have wanted to go out…fig
hting.”

  “It was,” I agree. “I’m still sorry.”

  He nods again but doesn’t say anything, his gaze falling to the ground at our feet.

  I decide to ask the million-dollar question, since no one’s being particularly forthcoming with the information and I’m desperate to know how the hell the Forgotten even found them. I turn and look at our ragtag group, just Michael, Mattie, Jessica and her demon spawn, and me. But there had been many more of them. And they’d had a shit ton of weapons too. How did it all crumble and fall? How did it come to this?

  “What happened?” I ask, looking back at him.

  “They must have been watching the base, and they followed when they saw us all leaving. I noticed them when we were about halfway here, but they kept back, never getting too close. We tried to shake them loose, but they’d blocked the road ahead. I was driving, took our truck off road, made a nice little chase out of it, and prayed that I didn’t hit a ditch. Made it here a couple of hours ago, but they’d followed us.” Michael cracks his knuckles, his forehead creased in frustration. “We didn’t stand a chance. There was too many of them.”

  “I’m sorry,” I reply, trying not to imagine how it all went down—the death he witnessed as his friends had been killed in cold blood. And now his sister is dead too.

  “So you keep saying, Nina,” he replies. “So where is he?” Michael looks at me, his scowl deep.

  We’re at a stalemate, because I’m not going to tell anyone where Mikey is—no matter who gets killed. It isn’t that Mikey’s life is worth more than everyone else’s. It’s that every death up to this point will have been for nothing if I give him up.

  “I have no idea,” I reply, holding Michael’s gaze.

  If he believes me or not, he doesn’t let on. Instead he lets out a dry laugh and turns away from me. He paces the floor in front of the door, and I sit down after a quick search of the room, discovering nothing of help to any of us. I sit opposite Jessica and her large, swollen belly, and I know what’s inside her. She looks at me several times, the question on her lips, but she never has the guts to ask me and I’m not going to give it up to her for free. My anger at her has increased beyond what’s normal, and there’s no going back from it now. I hate her for what I lost, who I lost. Not just Mikey, but Nova. Once again, I lost a friend. Someone I trusted. How many more times am I going to have to go through this, I wonder?