I flash a dirty smile and he smirks, and pushes the door open.
I'm out first, my bow up in front of me as I bring down an infect. The pack screams as they see me, and lurch into motion. They're on me fast—they've fed recently, their movements jerky and unnaturally quick. I dodge a reaching hand, and swing my bow over, releasing. The quarrel passes through smoothly, and the infect drops as it flies free to embed in the ground, covered in black brain.
A hand grabs me, and I roar, whipping my knife out and stabbing blindly at the zombie whose gotten too close. Then a solid presence is at my back, and all the shit we've been through, all the years of anger and silence, fall away as Omar positions himself behind me.
"Good?" he snaps, and I laugh, a wild, manic sound.
He grins at me over his shoulder, and we fight, the zombies coming thick and fast. One scrapes too close, and I slice down with my knife, cutting off its hand before it can get a grip on me. The infect screams and lunges forward, and my knife sticks as I drive it up into the brain from under its chin.
And there are still more behind it.
I pull my gun, and shout at Omar, "There's too many."
"Too many for you? We did this shit every day in the East."
I growl, and he laughs wildly, slicing an infect across the neck. I fire quickly, three times, and two infects fall.
There's one lunging at us still, and five more sprinting toward us. "You done, or want to stick around for the after-party?"
Omar grunts, and I grab the muzzle from my waist.
This is the tricky part—killing is easy. Bringing an infect in alive and still dangerous is a stupid fucking game to play, but there aren't a lot of options just now.
The muzzle was created by a family of morticians. After the dead started sitting up and eating the folks around them, the way we treated the dead changed. Even the dearly departed. Bullets to the head became standard. And with a new caution in most people about being around dead, funerals became a thing of the past. Morticians were quickly a superfluous thing in a world filled with shit we no longer needed.
But even in our world, a world ruled by fear of the dead, there were some who couldn't adjust. Who couldn't let go.
And there will always be someone willing to feed that.
The Clark family spent three generations caring for the dead. And when that changed, they went into business creating products to care for them. If you aren't quite ready to let go of your dead father--it's fine. Clark Company is sure to have the perfect muzzle for your pet infect, and chains to keep them contained.
It was a brilliant little business that preyed on the sick and desperate—and then one of those pet infects broke lose, and her muzzle came off. She infected fifty people in Haven 29 before she was put down.
29 still hasn't fully recovered from that massacre.
But the government seized the zombie gear, and muzzles became something we could fine tune, for our own use.
It is always better to study a live specimen, and this made that possible.
It was still dangerous as fuck, and I had always hated being part of the tag and grab.
"Ready?" I snap, and Omar grunts, whipping around and grabbing the infect. It screams and lunges at his face, and I toss the muzzle over its head. Another shriek and the infect goes crazy, bucking wildly in my grip as it tries to shake lose and do what the disease demands: feed. I hiss, and Omar catches my eye over the infect’s shoulder. "Hurry this shit up."
The infect snarls and jerks, hard. The muzzle slips, and teeth come close, too fucking close, to the Priest.
He snarls, and I yank hard on the muzzle, and it slides into place. I laugh as the lock engages, and Omar curses, letting the infect go. It lunges at him, and I grab it by the hook on the muzzle, yanking it backwards and into the Outpost.
"You know this is fucking stupid."
"I know this is the only way to get you to be my second in command."
I glance at him. "I'm not interested in working for you again, Omar. You know that."
"But your First will fight with me," he says, simply.
And it is that simple. I swallow my curse, and shove the stairwell door open. "Don't fucking count on that. She hasn't left yet, and I can still talk sense into her."
Omar shrugs. "Maybe. Maybe not. But the first step is to show you both that the disease isn't something we need to fear."
I don’t argue with him. I don’t argue with lunatics, and as much as I wish it were otherwise, that’s the camp Omar is falling into these days.
“How does this go down?”
“We’ll put him in containment overnight. Give the cure time to work into Stiles’ system.”
I nod, and follow his lead as we wrestle the furious zombie into containment. Nurrin stands on her side of the walled room, eyes cool, face blank, as we work.
Cold fear pricks my belly. She’ll be in the same building as a live infection, all night. That thought makes me feel sick to my stomach. The zombie lunges suddenly, and I tighten my grip on the muzzle hook, shoving it into containment as Omar steps out of the way. The door swings closed, and the zombie screams, furiously battering itself against the door. I stare at it for a long tense moment, and then let my gaze swing to the Black Priest.
“Even if we can’t be infected—that? That isn’t safe. You’ll never be able to convince me that facing them is anything less than suicide. And I stopped going on suicide missions years ago.”
His lips quirk. “The problem is, you never went on suicide missions. You just followed the girl. And you’ll do it again now—she’s too important to you.”
Dread hits me in the gut, and I stare at him, my eyes dead as I keep from shaking by a sheer force of will.
“I’ll kill you, if anything happens to her. It will make what happened to Kelsey look like a mercy.”
Omar’s eyes cool. “Threats have never worked on me, old friend.”
“You know me, Omar. You’ve known me longer than anyone alive, but Claire. You know I don’t make threats—and I don’t make promises unless I’m damned sure I can keep them.”
Omar smiles, and nods. “I’m counting on that.”
Chapter 4. Keeping Promises
“COME WITH ME.” I say.
Nurrin is standing at the window, staring at Kendall. I wonder what she wants to see. The cure won’t work in any way that is visible—not until we’ve actually infected him, and see how the virus in his body reacts.
“Nurrin,” I prod, my voice sharp. Her eyes snap up to mine, fury written clearly in her gaze. I smile. That’s what I need to see from her—the anger that keeps her alive.
Some people shut down under pressure and anger. But some people—people like her—sharpen with it. They get stronger. It’s why I push her.
“Come with me,” I repeat. She hesitates, her eyes wary, but I don’t offer more than that, and eventually, as I knew it would, her curiosity pushes her into motion.
“Where are we going?”
I ignore the question and head to the fourth level of the Outpost. It’s here that Holly is organizing the supplies and weapons. Getting ready for a war that all sense says is lost.
It’s also where the kitchen is, with stores of MREs and fresh produce. Cans of veg and soup and weird desserts that became popular after the end of the world. A kitchen that’s better stocked than most Haven homes. I glance at her. “What do you want?”
Nurrin’s eyes are wide as saucers as she stares at the stock. I know why—of course I do.
She’s a Haven girl—and Collin did his best to take care of her before the Haven fell. But he was a Walker, and there was never enough to go around, especially when he tended to share with other orphans in the Hive.
Nurrin never went hungry, if we could help it. But enough and excess are two very different things. I’ve been lucky—my life has always been crowded with excess. The privilege of my parents’ name, and the benefits of being Kelsey’s favorite.
The perks that came with
being the son of the plague-bringer didn’t outweigh the guilt, or the hatred people had when they found out who my mother was.
And nothing—not anything—could ever make losing Kelsey worth it.
“Anything?” Nurrin says, her voice calculating. I grin, and nod.
Ten minutes later, we’re headed back to our room. The flash of glee in her eye as she pulled fruit and soup and pudding and loaves of fresh bread from the shelves—it’s gone now. She’s withdrawn, her eyes down as we walk, almost ignoring me.
I want to shake her, but Kendall’s words are too present between us. Whatever she’s going through, I need to be quiet and allow her to process them. Even if I want to push until she breaks, sometimes, there is strength to be found in moments of weakness, and allowing those moments. So I stay quiet as we walk, following her to our small room.
The First hall is crowded, still. Nurrin goes still when she steps into the hall, and I brush up against her back. She hisses softly, and I smile, tight and amused. She dances away a step.
Silly girl. She can think whatever she likes, but this thing between us isn’t going away. Even if that’s what is safest and best—what we both want and need. I’ve been inside her now, tasted her, and heard the soft noises she makes when she’s falling apart. She’s dug her way into my defenses, and I’m not giving her up now—I can’t. And in a rare moment of honesty with myself, I will admit the truth. I don’t want to.
Nurrin pushes me, in ways no one has since Kelsey, and not even her. Because Kelsey knew me before the world stripped away all of the pretty lies. Before I realized that there was nothing but death. That is all the world has to offer.
Kelsey didn’t live long enough for me to reach that conclusion before her death. And in truth, I wouldn’t have. Her death was the nail in the coffin—the thing that stripped the last of who I was and shaped who I became.
Nurrin wouldn’t have recognized me before Kelsey’s died. Bitter and angry, but still stupid enough to believe that this could end in something other than blood.
It all ends in death. That’s all there is—it’s just a matter of how you pass the time until then. Hiding or fighting to live.
“What the hell is going on?” one of the Firsts demands.
Nurrin looks back at me, her eyes wide and a little scared. I shake my head and step back. This is her party. She wanted them free—she gets to deal with the upset people who just had their secure little box torn apart.
It’s an ugly truth of our world, that we’re happy in our little box. Even if it’s just a stopping place on the way to our eventual slaughter—because it’s familiar and it’s comfortable, and we’re creatures who value both.
A figure pushes to the front of the group, and I tense. It’s the one from earlier, with long dark hair and sharp green eyes that linger on Nurrin longer than I like. I don’t like this one. “We aren’t being told anything, First. And that’s a bad place for a group like us to be in.”
“Have you decided what you want?” she asks, shifting her bag. She doesn’t like being in the spotlight—common sense after a lifetime of hiding from the Order.
Ethan glances back at the clustered Firsts, and then looks at her. “Can we talk privately?”
My eyebrows lift, lazily, and I take the single step I need to brush against her, an arm slipping around her waist and pulling her tight to me.
Ethan looks at me, and for the first time, I think he actually registers what he sees. His lips tighten, but I don’t release her. He hasn’t earned the right to be anywhere near her and he sure as fuck hasn’t earned enough trust to be alone with her.
“No,” I say, softly. Quietly enough that only she hears the word, murmured into her ear. Nurrin twitches irritably.
“We can talk in my room, if you’d like,” she says, a compromise. I wait until Ethan gives a grudging nod, and then I steer her into our room, ignoring the mass of terrified-looking Firsts.
“What the hell are they doing?” she demands, tossing her bag on the bed. It clatters noisily, but I’m staring at the bed, and all I can think about is her. There. Naked with me.
“O’Malley,” she snaps, her voice a tart whiplash. I jerk from my thoughts and refocus on her.
“They’re sheep, Nurrin. And you just set them free. They’re wandering around bleating because that’s what sheep do.”
“Fuck you,” a sharp voice says from behind me, and I turn, flicking a glance at the First standing in our doorway. He’s glaring at me, and it pricks my interest. I don’t like the way his eyes skate over Nurrin, a little too interested. But he has more sense, and more anger than the other Firsts.
And anger might be destructive and people might hate it—but it does the job when it comes to staying alive.
“Don’t,” Nurrin snaps. “Sit your ass down.”
Ethan eyes her for a long moment, and then he perches on the edge of the desk. Smart. If he had moved toward the bed she’s sitting on, I might have broken his neck. I’m already pissed he’s in the same room as her.
“What do you think happens next?” he asks, abruptly.
Nurrin ignores him and cracks the battery pack on the soup, shaking it hard to warm the little can. She tosses one to me and I grab it out of the air. “What happens next is you go to a Haven, or you get your shit together and live in the Wide Open, or whatever the hell you think you should do. You get away from the Order and you live.” Nurrin says.
“Why?” he demands.
She goes still, the can forgotten in her hand. “Because we all deserve the right to live and die in the manner of our own choosing. The Order doesn’t get to decide that because we’re Firsts, we’re someone less, or merely here for their own use. We are people too. And we get to live the way we want—if that’s hiding behind the Walls of a Haven, or staying a few steps ahead of the horde. Whatever. It’s your fucking life. Live it.” I stare at her, and her gaze darts to me, for a moment. She licks her lips, nervously, and then refocuses on Ethan. “You aren’t bound by Walls or society or the Order. Do what you’ve never thought you could.”
Ethan stares at her. “What are you going to do?”
Nurrin blinks. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”
He shrugs, and her eyes narrow a little. “I think it has a lot to do with everything. You gave us our freedom, not the Order. You say to live in the manner of our choosing, but for so many of these people they don’t know what that is. I’m curious how you will live.”
She licks her lips, and I see the shadows in her eyes as she darts a quick glance at me, then back to the boy who asked her the question. Her face is utterly blank, and her voice is cool and distant when she answers, “I’m going to live in a way that matters.”
Chapter 5. The Only Thing That Matters
NURRIN IS LYING ON HER SIDE OF THE BED, curled away from me. She’s been quiet and remote since Ethan left the room. And with each moment of silence, my irritation strings tighter. She’s spending too much fucking time in her head, but I don’t know how to shake her out of it.
I don’t know how to bring her back to me and the moment we shared last night.
I should be glad for the distance. Should use it to step away.
Stepping away is the safe thing to do. Because at the end of the day, surviving is what matters. It’s the only thing that matters.
“I want you to go. Take the ZTNK and get out of here.” Her voice is soft but firm, and she’s rolled on her side, staring at the ink on my neck.
My hands ball into fists, and I will myself to relax. Because I can’t snap at her for being honest with me. Not when all I’ve ever asked for is honesty. “Why?”
She sits up and shoves her hair back furiously, and frowns down at me. She looks like Kelsey, angry and determined, and so damn earnest. And she looks nothing like her, because there is a world of knowledge and fear and weariness in her that Kelsey never carried. I wish I could have kept that fear from Nurrin.
"Because this isn't your fight, Finn
. It never was. I'm not your responsibility, and I won't be the reason you die."
I grin, lazily. "Do you think you could be?"
Nurrin bares her teeth, a parody of a smile. "I think that if you follow a promise made to my dead brother, you'll end up in the East, and we'll both die there."
I sit up abruptly, the joking gone. Because her words ring too heavy and full. "You know that going East will be a death sentence. Then why the fuck are you going to do it?"
She sits quietly for a long moment, and then shrugs. "Because what the hell else do I have, O'Malley?" So much bitterness. And no hope. Not a goddamned bit of it. She sounds hollow and empty, and I recognize that because it echoes in me. "I'm a girl who was born into a world of death, a girl born to die. And everyone who has ever loved me at all is dead. What the hell is there left for me to do, but to die?"
I roll, and come up on my knees, looming over her and grab her shoulders. Shake her hard enough that her head wobbles perilously. "You fucking live. You do what he knew you could do—you survive, despite every fucking thing that says you shouldn't. You keep going because you can, because he bought you more time with his death and because he would hate for you to die. Collin deserves more from you, little girl."
There are tears brimming in her eyes, and she yanks herself out of my grip, and slaps me. Hard enough that for a moment, I don't feel it, just hear the noise. And then white hot fire lights up along my face, and I smile at her, furious and savage.
"That," I murmur. "That anger is what you need. Hold onto it when you’re feeling lost and sad. And don't forget that even though Collin is gone, you aren't lost. I won't let you be lost."
Her breath catches, and I lean in, kissing her hard and fast. Her hands are in my hair, tugging, and she's crying. I can taste the tears on my lips, mixing with the taste of her, and it shouldn't be a turn on; it should make me back off and calm her down.
But we aren't like that. We've never been like that. We've always been fury and hot emotion and pushing too hard. So I push her, and she pushes back.
The Future Without Hope (The World Without End Book 3) Page 13