by Skye Malone
And she’d saved his life.
He couldn’t understand it. From what he gathered from Hayden, she’d known Lindy for years. The Order trained to spot ulfhednar, learning everything down to the musculature and body language cues that most of his kind found impossible to hide. So Lindy must have known what her friend truly was, and thus by all rights should have killed her on the spot. Admittedly, Hayden was unbelievably good at hiding, but…
Order.
He felt like the world had flipped upside down.
Keeping an eye to her, he led Lindy across the small room. Old cushions filled the space, laid out like beds, though there were more of them here than survivors now.
It didn’t take a genius to guess why, given the haunted looks he’d seen on the humans’ faces.
But beyond the door on the far side of the tiny room, a larger space waited, a common area the survivors seemed to use for meals and gathering away from whoever happened to be trying to sleep. There were only four of the humans left now, a motley assortment of folks from all walks of life, hunkered down in a subbasement and only leaving to scrounge food. In the hours since Lindy passed out, he’d barely left her side to find out more from them, speaking to the humans only enough to establish that the group would be reasonably safe for Lindy—no one planned on running to the Order, and damn well no one was coming near her. But they’d seemed just as cagey about him as he was about them, and if nothing else, he couldn’t leave Lindy unconscious and undefended.
Crises did strange things to people. Some shut down, some worked together, and some stabbed everything and anything in the back, just in case it’d help them survive.
The wolf paced, growling. He’d meant it when he told Lindy no one would touch her. He may not understand this—hell, if he’d possessed an iota of sense, he probably should have been running for the hills—but the idea of abandoning her now made the wolf inside him go even more insane. The damn beast was worried for her. Chew-through-the-walls worried over her, but really, so was the man.
She looked bloodless. Cold in a strange way that had nothing to do with the winter chill. The arousal coming off her a few moments ago had been the strongest flash of life, of normal, he’d seen from her since she woke up, and may the gods help him for how much he and the wolf wanted to take her up on that, ludicrous as it would be.
But when she’d first opened her eyes, she hadn’t even appeared surprised she passed out. If anything, she seemed like she knew it would happen. Her expression had been resigned but pained, as if she’d lost a struggle but known she would. Yet, she’d helped him and Yasmeen despite that fact.
And despite the fact he’d bet money whatever happened was still hurting her now.
He turned back to the door, pulling it open. Something was still very wrong with Lindy. His gut was screaming it and his wolf wanted to tear it apart, even if he didn’t have a clue what it was.
But, gods help him, she was Order. He’d say that was fucking wrong enough.
The survivors looked away from their quiet conversation at a folding table when he came in, and he could see the caution on their faces when they spotted Lindy. The wolf inside him growled instantly at the sight, and he bashed it down. They had every right to be nervous.
Whatever sane part of him remained was too.
“Lindy,” he started. “This is Yasmeen, Anthony, Julia, and Eloise.” He nodded toward the four people seated at the table.
“She safe to be in here?” Anthony eyed Lindy from beneath his stained baseball cap. A burly man with red splotches on his skin and a ragged beard, he sat with his thick arms crossed over his coat like he was passing cold judgment on the world from his folding chair.
Yasmeen cast him a tight look, but her dark eyes didn’t leave Lindy for long. Like the others, she wore an assortment of mismatched clothes, whatever they each could find to keep them warm. Despite the heavy layers, though, everything about the young woman seemed hard and sharp, from her cheekbones to her clipped words when she spoke, as if everything in her had been honed down to iron determination just to survive. “She saved my life.”
“Doesn’t mean we should let her too close.”
Wes’s temper flared, but Eloise spoke before he could. “The girl obviously isn’t one of them, Anthony.” The thin, gray-haired woman braced herself on the table as she rose to her feet. “You can see it in her eyes.”
Limping slightly, the woman crossed the room and reached out to take Lindy’s hand.
Wincing, Lindy pulled back before Eloise could touch her. “I don’t want to hurt you. I’m sorry.”
Eloise nodded. “See?” She looked back at the others. “Now would one of the ghosts say that?”
Anthony frowned and adjusted his crossed arms with a discomfited shrug.
“Ghosts?” Lindy asked warily.
“That’s what they call the Order,” Wes wetted his lips, not sure how much to explain of what he’d gleaned from the humans. How much she obviously might already know. “They said they, um…”
“They take people,” Yasmeen filled in.
Lindy looked over at her.
“They give everyone a choice. Swear your soul to their ‘cause’ or get turned into one of those zombie creatures.” Yasmeen eyed Lindy like she was on the fence about having her here, despite what she’d said to Anthony. “My brother tried to join last week. He thought he’d survive it. Just tell them he was on their side to give me and my parents a chance to get away.” Her jaw muscles jumped and when she spoke, her voice shook. “There wasn’t anything left when they were done with him. That green power they have, somehow it knew he wasn’t really with them, and it burned him alive. I managed to run when the rest came for us, but my parents…” She turned away, looking choked up.
“Out there now with the rest of them,” Anthony muttered. “Just another body for the horde.”
Near him, the teenage girl, Julia, whimpered and hugged her arms to her chest as if trying to hide inside herself. Her brown hair was a tangled mess, and an old bruise discolored her cheek green and yellow like an unripe strawberry. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old, and Wes could only imagine what she’d seen. The entire time he’d been here, she hadn’t taken her eyes from the floor and never said a word.
“Is that what they tried to do to you, dear?” Eloise asked, bending slightly to catch Lindy’s eye.
Lindy swallowed hard. “Um…”
“She look burned up to you?” Anthony made an irritated noise, shoving up from his folding chair. “This was a mistake. We don’t know what the hell this girl is. You never should have brought them back to—”
“We don’t leave people to die!” Yasmeen snapped. “You agreed to that. You don’t like it, you can get out.”
Anthony’s red splotches darkened, but for just a heartbeat, Wes caught a flicker of fear in his eyes.
“We won’t hurt anybody,” Wes said into the tense silence. “It’s like I told you. We just need to get Lindy back on her feet and then find a car.”
Anthony snorted. Wes’s brow drew down.
“That’s going to be a little difficult,” Eloise said apologetically.
“Why?”
The older woman looked to the others.
“None of the cars work,” Yasmeen said. “The, uh, ‘Order’ made sure of that. Messed up the engines or laid traps in all of them. They booby-trapped all the houses, too. Everything blows up if you’re not careful. We were able to take some stuff from the kitchen at the Runza before they got it as well, but—”
“That’s a fast-food place nearby,” Eloise explained at his confused expression.
“But the markets are overrun with zombies,” Yasmeen persisted. “Anywhere that doesn’t stock food or supplies, they don’t care much about, but grocery stores, houses, anything we need to actually stay alive…”
“But they haven’t found this place?” Lindy asked, a wary note in her voice.
He understood the feeling. If things were as bad
as they described, how was this place untouched? Surely the Order would have considered humans would hide out in this enormous brick building.
Yasmeen glanced at Anthony.
“School was built in the nineteen-twenties,” he admitted grudgingly. “Had a couple renovations since. Old boiler room and some storage areas got sealed off till the school district could afford to haul all the old junk out, but no one ever did. And if you know your way in…” He shrugged a shoulder as if indicating the space the group now called home.
“He works here,” Yasmeen added.
“Used to. Not like kids’ll be starting class again anytime soon, will they?”
Yasmeen turned away, grimacing, while Eloise looked sick and Julia closed her eyes like she was trying to hide. Anthony shifted his weight, his sarcastic expression fading into a flicker of remorse.
“So there aren’t any cars?” Lindy pressed.
Their discomfited expressions deepened.
“What?” Wes asked.
“There’s downtown,” Yasmeen admitted. “The place is practically made of parking garages, and we’ve seen a few cars driving out of there. But getting to them is impossible.”
Lindy looked between them. “Why?”
“’Cause they’ve got the whole goddamn thing overrun, that’s why,” Anthony snapped. “Zombies everywhere. Ghosts too, patrolling every damn hour of the day. The bastards know we need a car to get far enough from here to stand a fucking chance, so we figure they’re leaving the working ones there as bait, just so as we can get ourselves killed trying to reach them.”
“Going there is suicide,” Yasmeen agreed. “The road passes over two bridges, and while the first isn’t so bad—just a little stretch across a frozen creek—the second one is long and has train tracks beneath it. There’s no cover at all, so no matter which way you try to cross, you’re totally exposed to the monsters on the other side.” She shook her head. “We don’t know how much longer we can make it here, but… downtown isn’t an option. I’m sorry.”
“Well, now, hang on a sec,” Anthony countered as if something had just occurred to him. “If she claims she’s not one of them, why not have her get us through?”
Wes’s wolf was instantly on alert. “That’s not—”
“I can’t fight them,” Lindy protested tightly.
“Why the hell not? You stopped them out there, right? You want a car or don’t you?”
“I can’t,” Lindy insisted.
“Now how do you expect us to believe that, huh?” Anthony started toward her, pointing a finger at her face. “If you—”
Wes put himself between the big man and Lindy, and Anthony stopped. “That’s enough.” Wes could hear the growl in his own voice, and it was difficult to control. The wolf was snarling inside him, rabid with fury that this guy might try to touch her. “She said she couldn’t.”
“If she isn’t working for them, then why—”
“Because it hurt her, you idiot,” Yasmeen interrupted.
Anthony scoffed. “She’s still standing. That’s a damn sight better than your brother—”
Yasmeen shoved to her feet, her chair scraping loudly on the concrete. “Don’t you dare bring him into this.”
The big guy’s mouth moved, frustration twisting over his face. “We’re going to die here! She’s the best damn shot we have at—”
Wes took a step forward. “She said no.”
Anthony drew himself up, fury reddening his face to the shade of an apple. His nostrils flaring, he stared at Wes as if trying to figure out how to force them both to do what he wanted.
The wolf stretched under Wes’s skin, even if his body didn’t move a muscle. Without a word, he met the man’s eyes, knowing what the blustering bastard would see.
Humans weren’t that different from prey, not to his wolf. And prey knew when they were looking at a predator.
Fear flashed in Anthony’s gaze.
“I-I think there’s something I can do.”
Lindy’s voice was more tentative than anything Wes had heard from her before, and his wolf raged at the sound. Fuck this bastard for scaring her. Fuck the Order too. He’d kill the whole fucking lot of—
Wes made himself turn away from Anthony, though his ears still listened for any sound of the asshole trying to attack. If the man valued his life, he wouldn’t push this.
Anthony didn’t move.
“What are you thinking, dear?” Eloise asked carefully.
Lindy shifted her weight, her face so bloodlessly pale, it speared pain straight through his fury. “I…” She swallowed hard, and her eyes twitched toward the walls like she was seeing something through them. “I think… maybe… I can tell where they are.” She looked back, her eyes meeting his, something heartbreakingly sad in her gaze, and his heart ached to hold her and take the pain away. “I think I can get us past them.”
Anthony harrumphed. “Well then—”
Wes’s eyes snapped back to him, a growl threatening to curl his lips. The man blanched and took a step back.
Drawing a breath and fighting to calm down, Wes looked back at Lindy. “You sure you can do this?”
She hesitated and then shrugged. “I’m not sure there’s another choice.”
He grimaced.
“Okay,” Yasmeen said into the silence. “I guess we’re following you, then.”
13
Lindy
Somewhere inside Lindy, fear fluttered like a moth lost in the darkness, but she couldn’t tell if it was her own self-control or what the Order had done to her that kept her from reacting to it. Deep down, she knew she was probably panicking. Maybe even screaming in terror. But from the outside, she was pretty sure she didn’t look like she was reacting at all.
And that only made the little moth flutter harder in the dark.
The others packed up quickly, loading what they could into a mismatched assortment of multicolored backpacks before pushing aside a wall panel and shining their flashlights out into the dark. Beyond the makeshift door, another room waited, this one clearly in better repair. Eggshell paint covered the cinderblock walls and cartoonish signs warned of the dangers of touching hot pipes. By the far wall, a metal stairway led up to a closed door.
She drew a slow breath of the cold air. Even though the survivors didn’t appear to have a heater, their body heat in that smaller space had kept it warmer than here. Warily, she glanced around, but somehow, she knew no one besides their small group was in the room with them.
The shadows whispering in her mind were sure of it.
A slight tremor rolled through her. She wasn’t certain the figures shambling along the edges of her mind were the draugar. Nor was she convinced the lighter ones, the ones that slipped and slithered like electric eels through the darkness, were the Order. But as the others had been talking, she’d felt the figures moving in the distance, collecting here, leaving there, and she’d wondered.
Was it possible? Was she really picking up on them?
Her trembling grew worse, but no matter how her fear battered around inside, it couldn’t bring to her eyes the tears she wanted to cry. But maybe the tears didn’t matter anyway. She and Wes couldn’t stay in that crowded collection of hidden rooms forever, and the survivors were clearly desperate. Hell, she was too.
Every second she waited was too long.
She climbed the stairs, watching the closed doorway above, but nothing burst out at her. No sound came but the soft clank of their footsteps, and when she reached the top and gingerly eased the door aside, only an empty hallway lined with mustard-brown lockers met her eyes. Dim light carried from the distant glass doors along the length of the corridor, reflecting dully from the speckled tile, and the smell of old smoke mingled with the scent of chalk dust on the chilly air.
Hoisting her bag a bit higher on her shoulders, she started down the hall. Empty classrooms lined the corridor, their desks arranged in neat little rows as if simply waiting for the students to arrive. Cheerful decora
tions dotted the walls, smiling suns and clouds and flowers, while posters exhorted students to do their best and be kind.
Swallowing hard, she locked her attention on the glass door ahead, feeling like a ghost herself, haunting a bizarre mirror world. And maybe, on the other side of that mirror, the kids were in their classrooms. Maybe, in some other reality, they were laughing and smiling and doing all the things the merry posters said.
Instead of lying dead in the frozen ruins or stumbling and snarling somewhere beyond these brick walls.
Shuddering, she continued on. When she reached the glass door, she took a moment to study the snowy street beyond the ash-covered panes, but nothing stirred in her mind. Cautiously, she inched the door open.
The world was as silent as ever.
“Which way?” Wes murmured behind her, and she cast a quick look back to see him regarding the burly asshole, Anthony.
The big guy eyed her with equal parts caution and satisfaction, and it made her skin crawl. “Left. Back to the main road, and then due east.”
“Are you, um, sensing anything or… whatever?” Yasmeen asked her.
Lindy hesitated and then shook her head. Unable to meet the eyes of the others for long, she hurried down the steps.
The neighborhood was eerily still, and snow crunched beneath their feet as they walked away from the school. Keeping an eye to their surroundings, she avoided lumps in the snow that might have been bushes or corpses or something worse. The cold weather had thinned the smoke in the air, and it didn’t seem to sting her eyes like it had in Mariposa.
Though maybe there was another reason for that.
She gripped the straps of the backpack and ordered herself to focus. Rust-red marks scored the doors and walls of the houses around them: runic commands for summoning the draugar, for controlling them, for setting alerts that would trigger if anything entered the buildings. Beside a blue bungalow, she spotted the wreckage of a car, its frame a warped mess of charred metal. Debris impaled the house walls. Twisted shapes that might have been corpses still sat inside.