“Come on, Nurrin. If you’re committed to this insane idea, we should go ahead and get started with it.”
She opens her mouth, and I stare at her, my face blank. Her eyes harden and she gives me a single short nod.
Just like that, the lines are redrawn. She’s on her side of it, where I can keep her safe. And it feels like she’s as untouchable as she’s ever been—I grit my teeth and remind myself that this is for the best.
The hallway is filled with people, all of them young enough to be apocalypse babies, all wearing that damned white I found her in.
“Oh my god,” she whispers, pressed against my side. I slide a look at her.
At least twenty Firsts crowd the hall, some looking terrified, some looking confused. One—a guy with long, dark hair pulled back at the base of his neck—looks furious. “What the hell is going on?” he snarls, glaring at the little acolyte, trying to make sense of the madness.
I almost let her. Almost walk away and leave this shit for her to deal with. It’s not our problem—and I don’t give a fuck about a handful of furious Firsts. Nurrin has other plans. Of course she does.
"Get them food and whatever else they need," she snaps, staring at the acolyte. The kid's eyes bulge. Firsts aren't normally the ones giving orders here. I shift a little, and her gaze flicks over me. Then she nods quickly, and hurries away, muttering under her breath.
I glance down at her, my face blank. "You're creating problems for us, you know."
Her tone is frosty. "Then take the ZTNK and get out of here. I'm not making you stay."
I wince as she turns away, and focuses on the small crowd of Firsts.
I knew she would be pissed that I fucked her and pulled away. Hiding behind my blank unemotional mask won’t work for long, not with her. I just have to get through this—and Nurrin angry with me isn't that unusual, in the end.
"Who the hell are you?" the kid with the hair snaps
Nurrin smiles at the gruff question, even as I stiffen. Part of me wants to break the kid's neck for his rudeness. I'm not allowed to hurt him. The instinct is prodded by that savage internal voice that the remains of our civilized society would tell to shut up. It’s the one that keeps me alive, so I don’t really give a fuck what civilization thinks. .
I rarely silence the things that keep me alive, and my gut feelings, the ones that really dislike this angry First staring at Nurrin, have kept me alive more times than I can count over the years.
I wish I could say the same for all the people I've cared for.
"I'm Nurrin Sanders, previously of Haven 8. Finn O'Malley." She nods at me, but offers no more information than that. Smart girl.
His eyes narrow even more, and then, grudgingly, "Ethan Matlock."
"How long have you been here?" she asks
"One hundred and ninety eight days," he says, "What the hell is happening?"
Nurrin's gaze slips to me, but I shrug. This is on her to answer—she let the dude out. She can handle his fun questions too.
"How much do you know about the Order?" she asks, and I step back. Most of the gathered Firsts are listening, even if they still seem absorbed in their own personal crises.
"Enough to know that they're crazy as fuck and I want to be as far away from them as I can." he says. "Much more than that is suicide for a guy like me. We tend not to care, as long as we can stay away from them."
Nurrin nods. "I understand that," she says, quietly.
Something shifts in the kid's gaze, and he straightens a little. "You’re a First," he says, a statement more than a question.
A flush is crawling up Nurrin's neck. Something I haven't seen in her since the night in 18, when she chased me into my shower.
Before that, it was because of Dustin and his bumbling, idiotic interest in her.
I grit my teeth and remind myself that I can't kill this shithead.
"I am. The Red High Priestess held this Outpost, until she was killed. Now it's held by the High Priest, and the Black sect has no interest in killing firsts. You’re free to go."
Her words are met with utter silence and then Ethan laughs. "Every sect wants us dead, Nurrin."
She nods. “But this sect wants something else more than it wants a bunch of blood on Third Day. I’m giving it to him. He’s giving me your freedom. You’ll each be taken to a Haven of your choosing. What you do—how you live—that’s up to you now.”
The Firsts are silent, staring at her for a long moment, and I touch her arm, ignoring the way she flinches away from me. They need time to process, and we have other places to be. “Nurrin, we need to go.”
She gives me a dirty look and I shrug. Just because she dislikes the truth doesn’t it make it any less valid.
“I’ll be back. And the acolytes will be getting you sorted out—you have some time to decide what you want to do next. Take a minute and figure it out.”
“And you? What are you going to do?” Ethan challenges, and she gives him a quick, darting smile.
“I’m going to do what I can to end this.”
Chapter 3. Facing Our Past
KENNY BUCHMAN DOESN’T LOOK LIKE THE SAME MAN WHO GREETED ME ON THE WHITE HOUSE LAWN, not so many weeks ago. His hair is dirty and hanging in his eyes, stubble covers his cheeks, and bruises—bright purple and blue—cover the fading yellow ones.
He looks like a man who’s been through hell, and that makes me inordinately pleased. Nurrin makes a soft noise of surprise when she sees him, and her gaze finds me.
“What happened?”
I shrug. "Kenny's life was the price I paid to find you. Omar wanted him dead before he moved against the Order and I was more than willing to help him. Especially since I knew the fucker had a hand in your disappearance."
She shivers. "But he's alive."
I nod, fury rippling under my skin. "Omar decided at the last moment that the figurehead was a good idea to keep around. I wasn't happy, but he was still giving me what I needed--you. In the end, that's what really mattered, so I let the matter drop."
She licks her lips, and I clench my hands to keep from reaching for her. Her eyes are glassy when she says, "He had a picture, of the sacrifice. The one from the Stronghold."
I know what she's talking about instantly. It's hard to forget the bloodstained blonde girl who mutilated herself trying to get away from the infected. She was drugged—all the sacrifices are, before the Order shoves them to their deaths. But in the end, no drugs are enough to kill the terror of being torn apart.
Watching her die would have been hard under any circumstances. But watching, knowing that Nurrin was destined for the same fate, knowing she was thinking the same thing as she watched that little girl being torn to pieces, that had been gut-churning and fucking horrible.
"He gave that girl to the Order," she says, and her voice is tight and violent. Furious. I touch her arm gently, and her gaze swings to me, irate.
"I want him fucking dead, O'Malley."
This is the thing that is most infuriating, and the thing that never fails to draw me in. Nurrin is a survivor. When push comes to shove, she'll always do what it takes to survive, and if that's dirty and horrid, she'll deal with that shit later, when things are safe.
But when there is a choice—when life isn't quite on the line and she can think about options, she will always champion the underdog. It doesn't matter if the underdog is already dead and turned. She'll fight for it anyway.
It's infuriating, because when she's like this, there's no reasoning with her—she's blind to the danger around her. But it always captivates me because I don't understand it.
I'm not that guy. I'm not the guy who survives, but has a good heart underneath it all. I know who and what I am—I'm a bastard. Manipulative and untrusting and impossible to work with under the best of circumstances, and let’s be honest—we haven't had those in a long ass time.
No. I'm not a good guy under a shitty exterior looking to be redeemed by an impossible situation. I'm just a guy trying t
o survive in a world falling apart, and willing to do whatever it takes to keep my promise.
I don't care who gets hurt, as long as it's not Nurrin.
She would hate me if I ever admitted it, but I’m glad that it was Collin I found infected. If I had to find one of them that way, I would always choose Collin before Nurrin.
Because it meant she didn't. He took that danger, and he eliminated it before it could threaten her.
And I miss him. The man was my partner for years, and we Walked together—I spent more time with him than anyone, including his sister
But I would kill him myself if I thought he was a threat to her.
He trusted me to do that. He expected it. And that kills a part of me. Because I knew I would. Because I embraced that savage side.
Because I would never be furious on behalf of a girl long since dead and betrayed. Never mind that the same asshole who killed that nameless girl had also kidnapped and sold her to be exterminated because of an accident of birth—that doesn’t bother Nurrin.
She's not furious because she went through hell. She's furious because someone else did.
In that moment, I understand why she's championing the East. Why she'll fight for something we can't win. Without letting myself think, I reach for her hand and squeeze it tight.
"We'll see him dead, Nurrin. Don't worry about that. I will see him dead and his head at your feet." I say, soft and intent.
She makes a startled face, and for a moment I wonder if I took it too far. Then she gives me a rare, approving smile and I know I didn't.
Omar is standing in the room, talking to Kenny. We can't hear him through the soundproof glass, but it doesn't matter. I know what's being offered.
A long syringe and needle lay on the table between them.
"Will he take it?"
"No. Not voluntarily. Kenny isn't stupid. He knows that the cure is a joke at best, and a death sentence at worst."
"But Omar," she starts.
"Omar will do whatever it takes to keep you happy. So he'll inject the serum. He doesn't give a fuck what a baby president wants." She slides me a glance, and I look at her, seriously. “I want you to stay behind the glass, and out of the way when we bring in the infect. Omar wants my help. I want you safe.”
“This was my idea,” she says quietly.
“And I’m indulging it because you want this, for whatever reason. But we’ll do it by my rules. You obey. No questions.”
Anger flashes in her eyes for a moment and then she nods. “Fine.”
I release the breath I didn’t realize I was holding, slow enough that she doesn’t notice, and I turn with her to watch the Black Priest inject our president with the cure.
Omar steps out of the room a few minutes later, and I hear Kenny screaming at him. Nurrin’s fingers are flexing and unflexing on her knife, and have been for a solid five minutes. I don’t think she’s even aware of it. “Does he know why this is happening?” she asks, suddenly.
Omar shrugs. “He thinks there’s been a restructuring of the power in the Order, and he’s a casualty of it. Close enough to the truth that I didn’t bother to elaborate on the finer points.”
Nurrin makes a choked, furious noise. Dammit.
I catch her arm as she starts to push past me, and I shake my head. “No, Nurrin. It’s not happening.”
“There isn’t a threat right now,” she protests, not looking at me.
I growl and shake her. Her head snaps back and forth and then her green eyes are boring into me, furiously. “No,” I repeat.
“Fuck you,” she hisses, and yanks herself free.
She’s in the room before I can catch her, and Kenny’s eyes widen as he stares at her, and then me, over her shoulder. He laughs, a hysterical noise. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Not what you expected, Mr. President?” she asks, her voice sticky sweet and so fake. I swallow my laugh.
“This shit was you?” he demands. “All of this for her? Why? She isn’t Kelsey!”
Nurrin flinches, and I realize, suddenly, that being compared to a girl from my past has to sting. I wonder why she’s never bothered to tell me that. Or maybe she has with her actions, and I’ve just been too fucking stupid to pick up on it.
I think that’s probably closer to the truth. Nurrin is staring at Kenny, though, and right now there isn’t a dead girl haunting me or him. There is just her, and her fury. “You remember, when we were at that fucking restaurant, and I told you that he would kill you, slowly, for hurting me?”
I jerk, startled. She hadn’t mentioned that, when she skimmed the details of what happened to her in the time we were separated.
Fear is in his eyes, something that surprises me. In all the years I’ve known Kenny, he’s never been smart enough to be afraid. But this girl has managed to scare him.
She steps closer, careful to stay out of his reach. “I lied. He won’t. But he took your power. Your presidency. And now, you’re nothing. A fucking puppet for the Order. You’ll either die from infection, or you’ll live in chains and be trotted out when Omar needs a sound bite.” Kenny pales, and she leans down, and whispers. “I fucking did that, you shit. Remember that. Remember it was the girl you sent to die who destroyed you.”
Rage flashes across Kenny’s face, and I pull her away as he jerks in his restraints. “You might have destroyed me, but who will fucking want you now? Now that my men and half the acolytes in the Outpost have fucked you. Who the hell will touch you? I may have lost everything, First, but you have lost just as much.”
Nurrin sways, the ugly words—the truth we’ve both been avoiding—slamming into her like bullets.
It’s one thing to suspect. But to hear it laid out, that plainly—to know that she was raped. I make a low noise in my throat, and jerk forward a step. Nurrin catches me as I lunge for Kenny, and her little body is a heavy weight that freezes me in my tracks. Because no matter how furious with this bastard I might be, I can’t hurt her. I won’t set her aside while I beat the shit out of him—not right now.
“Stop,” she whispers. “It’s done. We’ve taken everything that matters. And the infect will take even more.”
She looks at me, and I see myself reflected in her eyes. Not my tiny reflection—but the darkest, dirtiest parts of who I am. The savage violence that repels so many. It’s there—fury and a yawning pit that demands revenge.
And a cold, cold stare.
I know this girl. I know her because I have seen that look in myself so many times before.
I nod, and Nurrin’s body loses some of the tension. “Out,” I murmur, and she nods. Follows me out of the little cell.
“Nurrin,” I say, reaching for her.
She jerks away, her expression sharp. “Don’t,” she snaps. I go still, and then I nod. Because there is too much fear in her eyes for me to push right now.
“Stay here. I’m going to get the infect in there.”
She hesitates, and then, “Make sure it doesn’t kill him.”
I smirk—I want to ignore that order, and everything I know we’re doing. Instead, I nod an acknowledgement of her words, and I slip from the little holding room. Giving her a little bit of breathing room.
Omar isn’t far. Of course he isn’t. The bastard has never been far, when my life went to complete shit. He’s always been far enough that nothing touches him—he always comes out clean as a fucking lily.
But he’s close enough to watch the devastation, and for me to hate, when none of it hits him. It happened in Columbus and it’s happening now. His Order kidnapped and tortured her, his people raped her, drugged her so senseless, she can’t even remember it.
But Omar—he steps in after all that, with a cure and a fanatical belief, and I’m supposed to let all the shit that’s come before go, supposed to forget.
Supposed to forgive.
Claire said I would, when I got a little distance from Kelsey’s death. When I had enough time to think shit through and realize that Omar couldn�
��t have known we were walking into a slaughter, a horde that rivaled the one in New York City.
And part of me knows that—logically.
But we told him. We staked out the city, and watched the movements. We knew long before the mission was ever approved that our people were dead, and that the odds of making it out whole were non-existent.
We told Buchman, and the advisors, we told Omar and the generals. We told fucking everyone. But when they gave us our marching orders, Kelsey didn’t even bat an eye. She smiled, the little idiot. And all of her men nodded and did exactly what we knew was a bad idea, because she wanted it, and we all gave her what she wanted, and trusted each other to get her out alive.
Omar knew that. And he used it—her stubborn refusal to see danger, and our loyalty to her—to push a mission that was fucking suicide.
And she’s dead because of it.
“Ready?” he asks, and I stare at him. All that anger and years of bitterness welling in me. I nod, and some of the tension in Omar’s shoulders ease. He beckons and I follow him up a narrow flight of stairs. The air tastes different here. Cleaner. We’re topside again, and I can hear the infected screaming outside.
I don’t remember much about the trip here. I know we followed the train tracks, and Omar had one of his black priests driving my ZTNK, while I sat in a windowless van, checking and rechecking weapons.
I don’t know where we are or how to get back to 1.
I’m not used to that kind of vulnerability. If it had been anyone else demanding it, I would have balked completely.
But it’s Omar, and I might hate him, but I know him enough to know he wouldn’t trick me when taking me to my death—he’d do it honest and clean.
"Where the hell is this place?"
Omar shoots me a look. "Somewhere safe."
Cryptic bastard. I swallow my annoyance, and follow him. The little building is dirty and dusty, and I can feel the wind rattling through the shitty walls. "How have they not torn this place to shreds?"
Omar shrugs. "We don't spend enough time in here for the infects to care about it—once we’re downstairs, they lose interest because the scent is gone. Any more questions, or do you think we can get this done?"
The Future Without Hope (The World Without End Book 3) Page 12