by Kate L. Mary
I spotted the rest of our group at the fence and took off running, desperate to get there so I could find out what was happening. Jasper was talking when I ran up, taking the lead once again, even though he’d left the decision about what to do with this girl up to us.
“What are you doing all the way out here?”
I could distinguish the girl through the darkness and crowd of people separating us. Now that she was in front of me, I saw what Jasper had been able to make out on the screen back in the control room. She was dirty, and it was more than the normal layer of dusty earth that clung to my skin after coming back from a run. It was smeared on her face and bare arms and tangled in her hair in the form of small twigs and matted clumps of dirt. Her clothes were ripped, and she had cuts all over her body, on her cheek, her arms, and her upper chest.
“I got lost.” She looked past him, her blue eyes moving over us slowly like she was trying to take in as many details as possible. “I ran and I got lost.”
“What did you run from?” Kellan asked her.
The girl’s gaze moved over him once more before settling on his face. “There were some men. They attacked my group, released zombies.” She shook her head and hugged herself tighter. “I got away, but just barely.”
Kellan turned toward Jasper. “It’s that group.”
“What group?” the girl asked.
“Some bad men. There were rumors, and then we came across them today.” Kellan paused as if thinking. “They must have been looking for you.”
The girl jerked like she’d been hit and once again hugged herself tighter. “For me?”
Kellan nodded and reached for the lock, his gaze still on her. “I’m going to unlock this, but I need you to stay where you are. Don’t move. Understand?”
The girl didn’t respond, but her head did bob once in agreement.
Kellan, as diligent as always, kept his eyes on her as he got to work on the combination. His gaze bounced back and forth between the numbers and her, and when the lock was finally undone, he focused completely on the girl while he worked to unwind the chain holding the gate closed. Even when he pulled it open, he didn’t blink. There were six of us, more than enough people to keep the girl in our line of sight, but Kellan acted like the responsibility for keeping everyone safe rested solely on his shoulders. It was why Jasper looked to him more often than Blake or Cade, especially since the Emma drama had unfolded, and probably why the others let him take the lead despite the fact that he was so much younger. Kellan was solid and reliable.
“Okay,” he said once the gate was open. “Come on in and do as we say. Understand?”
The girl nodded again and stepped through the open gate.
The wind howled, and above us the dark sky was clogged with menacing clouds. The animals, as if sensing that a storm was imminent, had taken shelter. Jasper obviously decided we should do the same, because he turned and headed back toward the shelter, waving for us to follow. Blake walked at his side, followed by the girl, and then Emma and Cade, I started to move after them, but Kellan grabbed my arm before I could go anywhere.
“What?” I shook him off.
“Hang on back.” He didn’t look at me as he redid the lock, and even when he’d turned to face me, he said nothing. He simply nodded toward the shelter and started walking.
“Why did you keep me back?” I kept pace with him, watching him out of the corner of my eye.
He didn’t look at me, and the way he frowned told me even he wasn’t sure why he’d done it. “We don’t know what she’s going to do yet. I just wanted you to stay back.”
I’d known Kellan for years, and being protective of our little family was one of his defining characteristics, but I’d never known him to stick his neck out for me over anyone else. He didn’t play favorites. Or at least he never had before.
The others had already disappeared by the time we made our way to the small shelter. I didn’t like being left behind, but stayed with Kellan while he got the door shut and made certain it was secure. The lock was automatic, but we still always double checked it before going down. These days, safety came first.
Kellan and I descended into the underground shelter side by side, not talking, not even looking at one another. His arm brushed mine once or twice as we walked, sending tingles shooting through me, and I had to work to keep my eyes straight ahead. I desperately wanted to look his way, to know if he was feeling the same things. Earlier when we were crammed together in that crevice, it had seemed like it, but with Kellan, it was so hard to tell. He could be so serious at times, so closed off, and then like a switch had been flipped, he would turn into a goofball. It was one of the things I adored about him, even though half the time it irritated the crap out of me.
Reaching the first level was a relief, and not only because I was dying to know what was going on. I had become increasingly agitated by Kellan’s presence. Even worse, the side eye he kept giving me made it seem like he knew it.
“Let’s get you a shower first, and then we can check you over,” Cade was saying when Kellan and I joined the rest of the group.
The girl, whose name I missed at some point, tightened the grip she had on herself as her eyes darted around. “Why do you need to check me over?”
Cade nodded to the cuts on her arms. “Basic first aid. These days, a little cut can be a death sentence if you don’t clean it well.”
Silence followed the statement, and I wasn’t the only one who looked toward the floor. We knew this firsthand, which was why we always made sure to have extra soap or other disinfectants stashed. Vodka worked if we could get our hands on it, or even vinegar—we made our own apple cider vinegar here in the shelter—or anything else that would kill germs.
When the girl’s discomfort didn’t ease, Emma stepped forward. “It’s okay. Cade’s a doctor.”
“Well, almost.”
Cade gave the newcomer the same shy smile and modest shrug I’d seen a million times over the years. The same one he’d given me when Kellan and I first arrived, shaken and filthy and malnourished. Even now, nine years later, the look helped whenever I felt uneasy. It was familiar and relaxing, and brought back the memories of the day Jasper had found us in Altus and brought us here, giving us a new home.
“He was almost done with medical school when the virus hit,” Emma said, beaming at him.
Behind her, Blake looked away, and my heart went out to him. I didn’t know how much more of this he would be able to take. Even if he’d admitted dozens of times that things between him and Emma hadn’t been working, seeing her with Cade—and so happy about it—had to hurt. Especially since they’d gotten together so quickly after the split.
The girl’s tension still hadn’t eased, so I pushed my way through the group until I was standing in front of her. “Why don’t we get you a shower first, okay?” I was tall and lanky, while Emma was closer to the same build as the newcomer, although more shapely, so I looked back at her and said, “Can you get her something to change into?”
Emma nodded as she walked backward. “I’ll be really fast.”
She spun on her heel and took off while I attempted to pry the girl’s arms away from her body so I could lead her into the small room at our side. She clung to herself tighter, but didn’t resist when I pulled her forward.
“We have a decontamination shower in here,” I said, pausing to flip on the light. “It’s not as nice as the ones in the condos, but it’s where we go when we come back from a really bad run.”
I gave her a tight smile, knowing I didn’t have to explain what I meant by that.
The girl paused inside the door and looked around, her arms still crossed tightly over her chest. Her blue eyes were big and round, but I had a feeling they were naturally large and their current size probably had very little to do with the fact that she was trying to take everything in.
I tried to see the little room from her perspective, but it wasn’t easy. Years ago when Jasper brought Kellan and me to the
shelter, he hadn’t forced us to shower here but had instead taken us down to his condo. In fact, I hadn’t seen this room until I’d been here for weeks. Hadn’t known about it or the holding cell. Back then, as a child of twelve who had lost everything except her older brother’s sometimes asshole best friend, I’d done little other than lie on the couch under a blanket and try to convince myself I was finally safe. After everything I’d witnessed, it had been a really tough thing to believe.
Like everything else on this level, the room was industrial. Cement floors and walls, with nothing inside except a metal chair and a small decontamination shower in the corner. It was simple. A plastic shower curtain hung on a metal ring attached to the wall, and there was a showerhead and a knob to turn the water on and off, and a drain in the floor. It was meant for emergencies, but we had a few towels hanging on hooks as well as a stash of homemade soap on the floor beneath the showerhead, which helped. It was nothing fancy. Maggie had taught us how to make it, and I’d taken over the responsibility when she died. As the baby, I hadn’t been allowed out on runs until three years ago, and even then it had only been after I threw a royal tantrum. My behavior had probably made me look like the little kid everyone thought I was, but it had made Jasper smile at me with a fatherly glint in his eyes. Ultimately, I’d been allowed out of the shelter. Even if Kellan hadn’t approved.
“You can go ahead and shower.” I waved to the little space. “I promise I won’t look, and Emma will be here by the time you’re done.”
The girl’s eyes were as wide as ever when she turned her gaze back on me. “Thank you.”
Her voice was soft, feminine and musical, and matched her looks perfectly. With her small, delicate features, full lips, and big blue eyes, she brought to mind a pixie doll I’d had when I was little. Her hair was bleached out from the sun and her skin creamy, despite the pinkish hue from being outside. I guessed her to be no more than seventeen, although she could have been younger or even older. I wasn’t a very good judge of age anymore. I’d been around the same people for the last nine years with only a handful of trips mixed in here and there.
“You’re welcome,” I said. “What’s your name? I think I missed it in all the excitement.”
The girl gave me a small, almost hesitant smile. “Harper.”
“Nice to meet you.” I stuck my hand out. “I’m Regan.”
The door opened at the exact moment Harper unfolded her arms and reached out to take my hand, and Emma froze in the doorway, her eyes wide. My hand was wrapped around the girl’s, but I had frozen too, my gaze focused on the bright pink mark on the inside of Harper’s arm. It had scabbed over but still looked angry and swollen, and there was no mistaking what it was.
“She’s been bitten,” Emma gasped.
11
My heart thumped against my ribcage, making it almost impossible to collect my thoughts. Emma and I had voted to let this girl into the shelter, and she was bitten. What the hell had we done?
“Shut the door,” I hissed.
Emma slammed the door and pressed her back to it while Harper stood with her hand still in mine, wide-eyed and terrified. The bite didn’t look recent. It was scabbed over, and Harper was still up and talking, meaning she probably wasn’t infected.
Did that mean it wasn’t a zombie bite?
I knew what a human bite looked like, but I also knew how sick people could be. They were dark and twisted, and it wouldn’t have surprised me to discover that an uninfected person had bitten this girl.
But what if that wasn’t what had happened? What if it was a zombie? We were already pretty sure she’d escaped the group that was out looking for immune people, and that the people she’d run from were still looking for her. Here she was, bitten and showing no signs of infection. No wonder those men were determined to find her. They probably wouldn’t give up until they had.
“I think you need to tell us everything,” I finally said.
Harper ripped her hand out of mine and looked between Emma and me. “It’s old. I’m not infected.”
I had to keep my voice steady when I said, “We can see that. Which is why you should go ahead and tell us the whole story about how you came to be here.”
Emma was still leaning against the door, and the way her shoulders rose and fell told me she was trying to remain calm. We knew one another, had been through a lot, and I had no doubt she had the same thoughts going through her head that I did. We might have inadvertently screwed our whole group, only not in the way Cade and Kellan feared.
Harper swallowed and focused on the floor. “It happened like I said. I was with a group, have been since the beginning, and these men came in. We know most of the little groups around here, but these guys were strangers. They were in a truck, a big one with an enclosed back. The kind that used to do deliveries.” Harper looked up. “That’s what someone said, anyway. I don’t really remember that far back.”
“How old are you?” I asked, mainly because I’d been wondering, and I wanted to keep in mind that she was only a child.
“Seventeen.”
So, she’d been eight when this whole thing started. She probably remembered very little about the way things were before the zombies.
“Go on,” Emma whispered, her back still pressed against the door.
Harper swallowed before starting again. “They were nice at first, said they were passing through and saw the smoke from our fire. They waited until everyone was outside, and when they headed for the back of the truck they acted like they had something to share with us.” She shook her head and looked back and forth between us. “I didn’t hear what it was supposed to be, I just know they made it seem like a gift. But when they opened the back, zombies poured out. A dozen, at least. We were armed, but unprepared, and the men were ready. They grabbed people and dragged them near the horde. That was when I noticed they were all wearing leather.” She focused on the floor again, frowning. “I should have noticed. It was so hot. Why would they be dressed like that?”
“What happened next?” I asked.
Harper’s gaze stayed on the floor. “I don’t know, exactly. It was chaos. I know I was bitten, but the second the zombie sank his teeth into me, one of the men pulled him away. I dragged myself under the truck to hide—” She tore her gaze from the floor as she lifted the hem of her shirt, revealing her flat stomach and the crescent shaped scar next to her belly button, old and faded from time. “It wasn’t my first bite.”
I stared at the scar, too shocked to say anything.
“You’re immune,” Emma gasped out.
Harper dropped the hem of her shirt. “I was nine the first time I was bitten. It was right after the zombies came back. I knew other people who had turned, but nothing ever happened to me.” She blinked like she was trying to hold back tears. “I got used to the idea, and everyone I was with knew, but we never talked about it. Not to anyone outside our group, especially.”
“What did the men do?” I asked, wanting to get back on topic.
“They made sure everyone had been bitten. They pulled zombies off people before they could be eaten alive, put a bullet in the heads of some of the dead while they dragged others to a new target. As our group was overcome, the men began taking the zombies out one by one until no one was left but our group and theirs. We’d suffered massive injuries, but no one had died. They wanted it that way, though. They restrained us, tied us up in a line beside their truck and waited.”
“Waited for what?” Emma whispered.
“To see if we’d turn.”
Emma and I said nothing. Kellan and I had heard this rumor at the settlement and shared it with the others, but I hadn’t really believed it could be true. Or maybe I’d only hoped it wasn’t. Either way, Harper’s story seemed to confirm all the stories we’d heard. There was a group of men out there looking for immune people, and they would do anything and everything in their power to find them.
“As people began to show symptoms, they would be dragged off,”
Harper continued. “One by one, my family was pulled away, thrown into the back of the truck so they could turn and be used later.” She swallowed. “Until finally, I was the only one left.”
My heart pounded in my ears, and I asked the question I both needed to know and dreaded hearing the answer to. “What then? What did they do with you then?”
Harper shrugged. “Not much. They threw me in the cab of the truck and drove off. I was still tied up.” She lifted her hands so we could see the marks on her wrists, which I hadn’t noticed before. They were red but faded, meaning they had to be a couple days old. “From there, they took me to this place in the middle of nowhere. It was weird. Old looking. I think it was where the wildlife refuge used to be, but I don’t know for sure. I just know it was rockier there, and I saw buffalo and longhorn cattle.”
“That sounds right,” Emma said. “One time while we were out, Blake and I went there for the day. The buffalo are thriving despite the zombies. It’s like these things don’t know what to do with them.”
“They’re too big,” I mumbled, but I was still thinking about the faded scar on Harper’s stomach.
The girl nodded as she looked back and forth between us.
“What happened next?” I asked when she said nothing.
“They locked me in a room. I could hear them through the door, talking about getting more people before they headed back, only I had no idea what they were talking about.” She crossed her arms again, but this time it looked more like she was hugging herself than it had before. I now knew it was because earlier she’d been more concerned with concealing the bite. “They also talked about what to do with me in the meantime.”
Emma stood straighter while my stomach dropped to the ground.