by Kyla Stone
Nadira crouched next to him. “Here.” She held out a spoonful of the foul-smelling prefab meat.
He turned his head away. He refused to accept their pity. They’d made it clear how much they loathed him. Not Nadira, his mind whispered. She’d been kind to him from the beginning, which only worsened his shame.
“You need to eat,” Nadira said softly.
Willow narrowed her eyes. She tugged the same pair of gloves on and off, over and over. “What are you doing?”
“Feeding him.”
“He doesn’t deserve to eat.” Silas stood at the counter near the back door, systematically dismantling and cleaning the rifles.
“We can’t let him starve,” Micah said.
“Everyone knows you’ll let him go the first chance you get,” Silas said to Micah. “You’re soft because he’s your brother.”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
“That has everything to do with it.” Silas smirked. “Family first, right?”
Every word they spoke struck Gabriel like a lash. He bowed his head, fighting off his anger. He deserved this. But Micah didn’t. But because of him, Micah’s every move was suspect. He endured the contempt meant for Gabriel.
“We’re giving him food that should be used for the rest of us.” Willow slapped her gloves against the table. “It’s a waste of resources.”
Micah glanced at Willow with a frown. “You don’t mean that.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. “Don’t tell me what I think, Micah! You know what he did. Everyone here knows what he did.”
“I know what he did,” Nadira said very quietly. “He and his people killed hundreds and sank the Grand Voyager. They unleashed a bioterrorism weapon on American soil.”
Gabriel winced. The girl in the yellow bathrobe hovered in front of his vision, so young and innocent, her face accusing. You did this. You killed me. Pain slashed through him, making him wish he could claw his own traitorous heart out.
“He murdered my sister and my mother!” Willow hissed, unable to contain her anger.
Nadira blinked. She tucked a strand of dark hair into her headscarf. “Yes. And he killed my best friend. Everyone in this room lost someone. He is a prisoner. He will be held accountable for his crimes. But that doesn’t give us the right to starve him or treat him like an animal.”
“He is an animal. And no one should ever forget it, not for one second.” Willow shoved out of her seat and stormed out of the kitchen into the backyard, slamming the back door behind her. Micah and Finn scraped back their chairs and went after her.
Silas slouched in his seat and stared at Gabriel with hard eyes. “She’s right. You’re a waste of resources. Someone should take you out back and put you out of your misery.”
Gabriel jerked his chin. “Then do it!”
“Maybe I will.”
If he couldn’t do it himself, maybe someone like Silas would do it for him. If he could provoke Silas into the anger he recognized boiling just beneath the surface. Silas was angry—at what, Gabriel didn’t know or care. What did an elite have to brood about? But maybe he could use that anger to serve his own agenda. “What are you waiting for? You all talk, then? Just as I thought. You’re nothing but a spineless worm.”
Silas slammed his fist into the table. He leapt to his feet and lunged at Gabriel. Before anyone could stop him, he punched Gabriel in the face.
Pain exploded behind his eyes. But he didn’t flinch. In a terrible, twisted way, it felt good. That was easier than he’d thought. He leaned forward, goading Silas with a twisted smile. “You don’t have the guts.”
Silas punched him again. Gabriel’s head snapped back against the wall.
“Stop it!” Nadira tried to grab Silas’s arm, but Silas pushed her aside. The plate fell from her hands, shattering against the kitchen floor.
“That’s for Amelia, you gutter rat!” Silas spat.
Gabriel flinched. The pain splintering his face wasn’t enough to prevent the stab of guilt in his gut or the wretched ache of his heart. Amelia was in one of the back bedrooms, scrubbing herself clean. Only she wouldn’t be able to get clean.
Gabriel had seen how that diseased man coughed directly into her opened mouth. Any hope the others held out was futile. She would get sick and then she would die. Nothing and no one could stop it.
A memory pierced him—her lips on his, her hands tangled in his hair, her hesitant, trusting smile. How she looked at him like he alone could save her.
Shame burned hot in his chest. He needed to hurt. He needed to hurt badly, until the pain stole every agonizing thought away. “Just do it, you bastard!”
“I—should—kill—you!” Silas smashed his fists into Gabriel’s nose, his right cheek, his jaw, over and over.
“Silas Hunter Black!” Elise sprinted in from the living room. “Stop that right now!”
Then Jericho and Micah were suddenly in the room, dragging Silas off him. Silas sat back on his haunches, breathing hard, his knuckles bloody. He stared at Gabriel in sullen fury.
Gabriel grinned at him with red-stained teeth, blood bubbling over his lips from a cut in his tongue. His lip split, pain lacerating his face. He spat a globule of blood on the floor. “That your best shot?”
“That was just practice. You wanna go another round?”
“Get out!” Micah turned on Silas, his voice rising. “I’ll take your shift. Go!”
Silas gave an insolent shrug and climbed to his feet. “I don’t know why someone hasn’t killed you already.” He wiped his fists on his pants, grabbed one of the cleaned rifles, and sauntered into the living room.
Micah looked at Gabriel, his mouth working like he wanted to give him a piece of his mind, but couldn’t think of what to say. His expression was pained, his mouth taut.
Gabriel couldn’t bear to see the condemnation in his brother’s eyes. Dark rage filled him. To Gabriel, anger always tasted better than the bitterness of despair. He lifted his cuffed hands and gestured at his wounded face. “You want a go, too? Have at it.”
A shadow crossed Micah’s face, anger mixed with something else. Not hatred, but sadness. Just us, always. Not anymore. Never again. It struck Gabriel like a blow worse than any Silas landed.
Micah turned away from him and spoke to Nadira instead. “Do you need help?”
Nadira squatted on the floor. She wiped the spilled meat and shards of ceramic with a hand towel. She smiled demurely up at Micah. “I’ve got it. Don’t worry.”
Micah strode out of the room without speaking a word to Gabriel. What did he expect? He deserved it. He deserved his brother’s hatred, Amelia’s, everyone’s. He deserved pain, despair, and death. He deserved all of it.
For several moments, Nadira worked silently. Then she tossed the towel in the sink and brought him another plate of food.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” he said even as his stomach knotted at the heady aroma. Even prefabbed chunks of tasteless protein sounded good if you were hungry enough. He rattled his handcuffs. “As you can see, my hands are tied.”
Nadira knelt beside him. “You have two choices. I can spoon-feed you, or you can hold the plate with your hands and slurp it up.”
He wanted to refuse it, to willfully choose starvation as his punishment, but he was too weak. His body’s hunger and need overwhelmed him.
He grabbed the plate roughly from her hands and brought it to his lips. The food tasted delicious. He didn’t care that it was prefab. He gulped it down as fast as he could, ignoring the stinging in his lips.
Nadira stared at him. Her eyes were huge, dark as the girl’s with the yellow bathrobe.
“What are you looking at?” he snarled. He closed his eyes, and still he couldn’t un-see that little girl’s glassy, haunting eyes.
“You need to find peace in your soul.”
He wanted to stew in his own misery, to succumb to the howling darkness inside his own soul. “Go away.”
“You can have forgiveness, if you want it
.”
Forgiveness didn’t exist for the likes of him. He knew that. He wouldn’t be deceived, not anymore. “Thanks for the meal, but I don’t need a damn pep talk.”
She dabbed a napkin against his bloody lip. He jerked his head back.
“My parents are Muslim. Before all this happened, I wasn’t sure what I believed.” Her voice was soft, almost shy, but there was no hesitation in her words. “But I know this much is true. Allah forgives all sins.”
“I doubt it.”
“It’s true. And I’m praying for you.”
He snorted. “Don’t pray for me. There are plenty of better things to waste prayers on.”
She touched her hijab reverently. “My mother taught me no prayer is ever wasted. And no soul is beyond hope. Anyone can seek and find redemption. It takes time and effort and sincerity, but it’s waiting for you.”
He clenched his jaw. “The only thing waiting for me is punishment, and death.”
She sat back and wiped her brow with the back of her arm. “Punishment and redemption are two different things. You can have peace even in prison, even in front of a firing squad.”
“Who says I want redemption?” Almost against his will, he glanced at her. Her gaze was like Amelia’s—it stabbed straight through to his ugly, blackened heart. She was sincere, her goodness obvious in every line of her delicate face—but she was wrong.
There was no redemption for him, and there never would be.
15
Micah
“Did you hear that?” Micah asked.
Next to him, Finn and Willow paused to listen over the buzzing insects and birdsong. “An engine,” Willow said. “Loud. Not electric.”
“More than one,” Silas said from behind them.
Micah glanced at the bruises and cuts marring Silas’s knuckles and looked away. Gabriel’s face looked worse, his left eye swollen shut, his lip busted, and several purple bruises darkening his bronze skin. Silas was a cocky jerk, but Micah couldn’t fault him for punching his brother. Micah had fantasized about doing it himself more than once.
“Motorcycles,” Horne said. “We should talk to them.”
That didn’t sound like a great idea, but he said nothing. He wasn’t in charge. Jericho knew what he was doing, even if Horne was an impulsive hothead.
“If it’s another military transport, maybe they’ll stop this time.” Elise adjusted her backpack. They found one for each person in their scavenging, although most were the size of school packs and weren’t even full. They found enough food and water for two days, maybe three.
They’d hiked parallel to the highway for four hours since departing the town of Mayfield at dawn. No one bothered them in the night, though Micah doubted anyone slept well.
He spent his watch hunched on the couch next to the window, peering anxiously into the darkness, trying to discern movement amongst the shadows. He saw something move a few times, his heart bucking in his chest, but it was just stray dogs skulking behind cars and around the corners of several houses.
Amelia and Benjie stayed a safe distance behind the group. Neither showed any symptoms yet. The virus was supposed to be fast-acting, wasn’t it? Virulent and deadly. Maybe they’d still make it.
The engines roared closer. It sounded like they were coming from two different directions.
“We don’t know whether they’re hostiles or friendlies,” Jericho said. “Based on previous experience, my best guess is hostile.”
“We’re shooting blind here,” Horne argued. “Maybe they can tell us about the state of the FEMA camp and how Macon is holding up. And where we can get some damn transportation. The more information we can gather, the better. I’m going—you can join in if you feel like it.”
Jericho sighed. “Silas, Micah, and Finn, come with me. I’m tying the prisoner to a tree. Elise, keep an eye on him.”
“I want to come.” Willow stepped forward.
Jericho shook his head. “You have no weapon and no training.”
Willow pointed at Finn. “Neither does he.”
“His size is his weapon.” Silas thrust his bruised fists into his pocket and smirked at her. “You’re the size of a housefly.”
“Screw you.”
Micah gave Willow a sympathetic shrug. It was safer for her—for all of them—if she stayed behind. He shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his thumb, adjusted the rifle sling digging into his shoulder, and joined Silas and Finn. Horne tried to take the lead, but Jericho moved swiftly ahead of him.
They crept through the trees and scrub brush. They were on a small hill, above the highway. Jericho gestured for them to sneak the last dozen yards on their hands and knees, and then their bellies.
Micah pushed aside a thorny bush and looked through two slim birch trees.
A dozen motorcycles were parked in the center of the westbound lane. None of the bikes were autodrive. Bikers were the type who believed they controlled their own fate. Two of the motorcycles swerved in front of a white pickup and forced it off the road.
The bikers were hulking, even from a distance. A few wore face masks and gloves, but several didn’t. They wore furs across their shoulders—like the thugs at the Stuff ‘N More store.
These bikers wore mostly dog pelts: a couple German Shepherds, a Doberman, a Bull Mastiff, one that looked distinctly wolfish, and another that had to be a leopard pelt. He didn’t have time to wonder where they’d found a leopard—the zoo?—before the men were on the move.
Several of them sprinted to the truck, forcing open both doors. They dragged out two men, a woman, and a girl who couldn’t have been older than twelve, all wearing masks.
One biker—the one with the leopard skin—shoved the people to their knees in a line in front of the truck’s front fender. Micah sucked in his breath, his grip tightening on his gun.
The bikers tore open the tarp covering the back of the truck and dumped out backpacks, blankets, and a solar stove. They took it all, laughing and shoving each other.
The German Shepherd and Doberman came around the front, gesturing at the woman and girl and grabbing at their hair. Hatred welled in Micah. These guys were thieves and bullies. Predators.
Micah stiffened. On his left, Finn let out a gasp. Micah watched in horror as the German Shepherd dragged the girl to her feet and yanked her toward the waiting bikes.
The woman wailed. The man rose to his feet as if to protect the girl. Doberman, Wolf, and Leopard leveled their guns, shouting for him to stand down.
But he didn’t. He lunged for German Shepherd. Leopard’s gun bucked. The man crumpled.
Micah jumped to his feet almost without thinking, rage blinding him. How dare they attack innocent people? It wasn’t enough to steal from them—the monsters had to kill them, too? Those people needed help, they needed—
Jericho swore and grabbed him from behind, yanking him down hard. Micah’s breath was knocked from his lungs as Jericho shoved him against a tree trunk and covered his mouth with one hand. “What the hell are you doing?”
“They need help!” Micah forced out.
“You can’t save them.”
Horne’s face went white. “Don’t be stupid. You’ll get us all killed.”
Micah tried to wriggle from Jericho’s grasp, but the man was too strong. Jericho released his hand from Micah’s mouth. “Are you good?”
Micah nodded bitterly. There was nothing good about this situation. Nothing at all. In that moment, he hated Jericho with all his heart.
Jericho let him go but kept his hand on Micah’s backpack. Micah rolled back onto his belly, gasping for breath, his shoulder aching. He peered down at the road.
Most of the men were on their bikes, their engines idling, waiting for German Shepherd and Doberman. They put the woman on Leopard’s bike, in front of him. Her hands were zip-tied behind her back, a black sack tugged over her head. Her shoulders quaked—she was weeping.
German Shepherd and Doberman wrestled with the girl. She was sm
all, but she kicked and flailed and shrieked like a banshee. She was brave, braver than Micah’s own group lying here, watching and doing nothing, like pathetic cowards.
Outrage burned in his veins. His finger twitched on the trigger. He could kill them. He wasn’t a good shot yet, but surely his rage alone would guide his bullets to pierce straight through the center of their black hearts.
The girl shrieked and gave a wild kick, striking German Shepherd in the face. He stumbled back, losing his grip on her waist.
She landed hard on her side but was up in a heartbeat, sunlight glinting on a blade in her right hand. She lunged headfirst at Doberman, stabbing at his side.
Micah couldn’t tell how deeply she’d wounded him. Doberman whirled with a roar of pain, seized the girl by the neck, and shot her point-blank in the chest.
Micah reared back, stunned, his mind reeling. No! No, no, no! That didn’t happen. It didn’t, it couldn’t have. But it did. One second she was there, on her feet, kicking and screaming.
The next second, she was on the ground, not moving. The bikers sprinted to their motorcycles, gunning their engines as they took off in the opposite direction, tires squealing.
Be good, be brave. His mother’s dying words echoed in his head. Micah bucked out of Jericho’s grasp.
He leapt to his feet and plunged down the hill, dodging trees, tripping on roots, scrambling up again, his heart raging in his chest, a desperate prayer on his lips that the girl was okay, that the bikers wouldn’t bother to look back as they roared westward, already dim specks on the horizon.
He ran across the highway and knelt over the girl. Her dirty blonde hair fanned out beneath her head, only a small red dot marring the lime-green T-shirt covered with those glowing phosphorescent flowers. She stared up at the sky, gasping, her lips tinged purple.
Maybe she would be okay. Please, God, make her be okay—
Something wet touched his knees. The blood came from the exit wound, leaking out from beneath her left side. He grabbed her hand. “Hold on, okay? We’ll get help.”