Within These Walls: Series Box Set

by Tracey Ward

  “Don’t worry about it, we’ll figure something out,” Ryan tells me, sounding unconcerned. It’s both a relief and a little bit painful that he doesn’t take me up on the offer.

  “You two should get some sleep,” Trent says. “I’ll stay up and take first watch.”

  “Are you sure, man?”

  “Yeah, I got it. I’m not tired.”

  “Good, cause I’m exhausted. Wake me up in a couple hours. I’ll take next shift.”

  “You got it.”

  “I’m not tired,” I tell them, staring into the fire. “I’ll stay up too.”

  Ryan frowns at me. “Are you sure?”

  I smile weakly, nodding. “Yeah, I’m sure. I need to relax a little. Come down from what’s happened tonight. You sleep, though. You have to be tired from…”

  He grins. “Nearly dying.”

  My smile fades. “Don’t do that again.”

  “I don’t plan on it.”

  “Good.”

  “Thanks, by the way. To both of you.” He looks at Trent, his mouth going tight. “I’d be dead if it weren’t for you guys.”

  Trent shakes his head. “We didn’t do anything you wouldn’t have done for us. It’s nothing special. Go to sleep.”

  Ryan nods silently before sprawling out beside me. He’s between me and the door again, a position I’m beginning to think he’ll always take. It speaks volumes and I’m finally beginning to understand the language it’s written in. I’m not fluent yet, but I’m getting the gist of it.

  It’s not long before Ryan is snoring away. I look across the fire at Trent, giving him a small smile.

  “So,” I say softly, “how much trouble are you guys going to be in really?”

  Trent watches me for a second, his face blank. Finally, he says, “A lot.”

  I nod, hating it but knowing it’s true. I’m glad he’s willing to be real with me about it. “What can I do?”

  “Nothing. What’s done is done.”

  “I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to do this to you both.”

  “It’ll be worse for Ryan than for me. They were like a family to him. I was only there because of Ryan and Kevin.”

  “How did you all end up together?”

  He smirks. “How do any of us end up together?”

  “You don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Not any more than you do. Don’t feel bad about it, though.”

  “Which part?” I chuckle unhappily.

  “Any of it. I don’t mind and Ryan wouldn’t have done things any differently. If you needed his help, he was going to give it.”

  I frown, shaking my head slightly. I’m too embarrassed to look him in the eyes anymore.

  “I can’t understand that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I shake my head again.

  “How many times did you go back under the water for him? How many breathes did you give up? How many would you have given?”

  All of them. Every last one of them. I never would have stopped.

  I feel dizzy. Disoriented. I take several deep breathes, trying to get my bearings. Trying to find my center, my numb, but it’s been gone too long. I can’t get it back. I want to retreat into myself and hide from everything, all of it that’s not working and the things that are working too well, but I can’t. I’m in the thick of it now. I’m living life surrounded by so many more things than I realized were out there, so many more dangers than I ever dreamed of. There’s so much more to fear than just the Risen, the Colonists and the gangs. There’s so much more to gain. To lose.

  I look up at Trent, about to ask him to tell me the story of how he met up with Ryan and Kevin, even if it means I have to tell my own in return. I’m ready for that. I think I can do it. I at least want to try. But the look on his face freezes my breath in my throat.

  “What is it?” I whisper, knowing whatever it is, it isn’t good.

  Trent stares at me patiently, his weird, light eyes looking white in the firelight.

  “We aren’t walking out of here in the morning,” he replies, his deep voice vibrating through my bones.

  I swallow hard. “Why not?”

  “Because they’re coming.”

  My vision goes funny, fuzzy. I’m having trouble breathing. “No one is coming. No one knows we—“

  “I can hear them,” he interrupts me, his voice hushed and calm. “They’re not even trying to hide themselves. They want us to know.”

  “Why?” I whisper, my eyes glued on his. My ears straining to hear the evil that speaks only to him.

  “Because,” he says, his voice dipping lower. I can hear it then, behind his words. Footsteps. Slow, unhurried. Patient. “They want us to run.”

  I bite my lip until I taste blood, willing myself not to cry out. Not to jump up and run, to leave them both behind.

  “Who?”

  I hear the screech of metal over the pavement. It’s not far off. A blade being drug over the ground. A warning. A promise.

  “You know who.”

  I nod hard.

  “The cannibals.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Vashon Island

  Ali stands at the edge of the water, separated from the rest of the crowd. They’re shouting with excitement because they think they’ve won. But she knows this enemy better than most. Not all of them were there at the start. Not all of them watched the evil grow, seeding from one man, one idea, to ten then twenty then a hundred. Thousands. Tonight, this victory, it’s only the beginning of a war and that cold realization helps her understand that the life they’ve lived for the last ten years has been on borrowed time. This was always going to happen. It would always come to this.

  This was always how it was going to end.

  “They’re on the run,” Jordan tells her, coming to stand behind her.

  She shakes her head. “Tonight they are, but tomorrow…”

  “I know.”

  And he does. He was there with her at the start. He saw it all.

  “Are you hiding?” he asks quietly.

  Ali sighs. “I swore I never would again.”

  “They’re going to come looking for you soon. Once they realize the prisoners are gone.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you sure about them?”

  She chuckles darkly. “As sure as I am about anything.”

  “Sam agrees with you.”

  “That is remarkably comforting.”

  “Taylor is going to side with you too. He doesn’t believe they were Colony spies. He thinks they were idiots, but not spies.”

  “They’re just young,” she says, sounding sad and tired, “and desperate.”

  Jordan wraps his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on the top of her head of long, dark hair. She takes his hand in hers.

  “I can remember being that desperate,” he mumbles.

  “Me too. It’s part of why I let them go.”

  “What was the other part?”

  She smiles. “They knew Crenshaw.”

  He chuckles behind her, shaking her body with the movement. “Oh, Persephone. You have such a soft spot.”

  “You’re just jealous he never gave you a name.”

  “I’m hurt he named you after a woman married to the king of Hell. What does that say about me?”

  “It says you’re strong. Strong enough to endure.”

  “Hmm,” he murmurs thoughtfully, not buying it.

  “Do you think they made it?” she asks.

  “I don’t know. Maybe, if they were lucky.”

  “I lost sight of them once most of the ships were burning.”

  “It’s a beautiful night for it.”

  She grins. “For what exactly?”

  When he speaks, she can hear the familiar sound of a smile in his voice. “For smiting your enemies.”

  “You know what’s sad?”

  “Soy milk.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Jordan.”

  “It’s not
real milk, Ali. It’s imposter crap and I won’t drink it. I won’t drink a lie.”

  “Jordan.”

  “Tell me. What’s sadder than soy milk?”

  “This isn’t the first time I’ve stood in the dark with you watching the world burn.”

  He pauses, going serious. “It’s not even the second time.”

  “More like fifth.”

  “Sixth, I think.”

  She sighs heavily, turning to look up at him with watery eyes. “When will it end? When will Beth be safe?”

  “I don’t know,” he says softly, shaking his head. He lifts his hand to press it against her cheek. To wipe a stray tear away. “Probably never. Not unless—“

  “Unless?”

  His eyes drift past her to the burning boats. To the fire on the water. To the shore on the other side swarming with zombies, Colonists and gangs. To the world they outnumber. A world they could easily overrun if only given the right incentive. The right reasons. The right time.

  “Unless we end it.”

  Tearing Down the Wall

  Survival Series

  Book Three

  By Tracey Ward

  Tearing Down the Wall

  Survival Series

  Book Three

  By Tracey Ward

  Text Copyright © 2014 Tracey Ward

  Edited by Amy Jackson

  All Rights Reserved

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the author, except as used in book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, events, or incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to places or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  To die would be an awfully big adventure.

  J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

  Chapter One

  “What do we do?” I ask Trent, my voice barely above a whisper.

  In the flickering firelight his eyes watch me intently, but I know he’s somewhere else. His mind is outside the room, out on the streets, gauging the distance and weighing our options. We both listen to the crunch of feet on loose gravel, the scuff of shoes on asphalt. The drag of the blade over rough ground. When he finally sees me again, I know we’re in trouble.

  “We wait,” he tells me, his voice too loud.

  “Shhh!” I shush him violently, glancing nervously at the broken windows. So far they’re still pitch black. They may be coming, but they’re doing it in darkness.

  “It doesn’t matter, Joss. They know we’re here.”

  “So we’re just going to let them kill us? Eat us for dinner?” I demand. I sit up, going into a crouch and scanning the room for something, anything. “Screw that, Trent. If I’m going down, I’m going down fighting.”

  “If we don’t fight and we don’t run, we may be able to talk our way out of this.”

  My eyes snap to his, shocked. “Are you serious?”

  He nods slowly. The footsteps are coming closer. They’re almost here and my heart is ready to implode.

  “I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen people taken prisoner by them before.”

  “Pft,” I scoff. “They were probably saved for a midnight snack. Kept warm with beating hearts and eaten later on.”

  “Maybe,” Trent agrees with a shrug, “but what do we lose by trying?”

  I chew on the inside of my lower lip as I debate this really stupid plan. But he’s right and I know he’s right; I’m just fighting it like crazy because I don’t want to be taken prisoner again. I also don’t want to die, and I really, really, really don’t want to be eaten.

  “Okay, but you’re not doing the talking,” I finally tell him. “You’ll get us killed immediately.”

  He raises a skeptical eyebrow, but just like I know he’s right, he knows I’m right. He doesn’t fight me.

  “Agreed. But you won’t do any better. You’re not exactly Miss Congeniality.”

  “No, I’m not,” I admit reluctantly. My eyes go immediately to Ryan. “But you know who is?”

  “You better wake him fast. They’re here.”

  I pounce on Ryan, shaking him violently until he grumbles and moans, his hands flailing weakly to make me stop. But I’m relentless because I’m terrified and I know he’s our only hope. I shake him harder only to be greeted with more grumbling.

  “He’s out cold,” I say, exasperated.

  “You’ll have to—”

  “Knock, knock,” a voice sings from outside.

  A pale face appears in the broken window, grinning when he sees me.

  I nearly scream. As it is, I die a little inside—like Wesley in The Princess Bride, tethered to the machine stealing years off his life. That’s what this world is doing to me: killing me slowly one terror at a time until I’ll be the oldest seventeen-year-old ever to walk the earth. I’ll think I have years left to live if only I can keep my guard up, keep the monsters at bay, but then one morning I won’t wake up because my heart will have given out. And I won’t blame it one bit.

  The face disappears from the window. The second it’s gone, I wish it was back because at least then I know where one of them is. I can hear more people milling around outside the walls. They run their hands along the exterior, tapping lightly as they move, until the entire building feels like it’s humming. The walls are closing in on me and I’m panicking hard. My breaths are coming in short, painful gasps and my skin is nothing but a drowning victim under the sweat breaking out over every inch of my body.

  I’m scared of zombies. I’m scared of the Colonists. After the gun in my face, I’m a little scared of the Vashons. But I have never been so afraid of another living being as I am right now. I always knew I was disgusted by them, repulsed by their willingness to devour another human being like the monsters that stole everything from us all, but I never knew how deathly afraid of them I was. They’re human but inhumane. Living but dead inside. It’s a double-threat enemy I’d hoped to never face.

  Yet here they are now in force.

  “Trent,” I say urgently, not sure what I’m expecting from him. I think I want him to have all the answers and make this go away. I want him to know everything now. In fact, I encourage it. But what I get in response to my plea for God-knows-what surprises me.

  Just as there’s an eerily polite knock on the door behind me, Trent pulls a stick from the fire and lays it on Ryan’s bare arm.

  “What the f—” Ryan cries, jerking into a sitting position.

  He blinks several times, trying to clear his eyes. He looks pissed and I don’t blame him. If Trent ever tries that with me, I’ll make him eat that hot poker.

  “We have company,” Trent tells him.

  Ryan freezes as he listens to the sounds around him: fingers tapping on the building. Faces start popping in and out of the windows, some just passing by, some stopping to smile grimly before moving on. There are women in the group; somehow that makes me sicker.

  The knock sounds at the door again.

  “Who is it?” Ryan asks Trent.

  “Your neighbors,” the man outside the door answers. “We need to borrow a cup of sugar.”

  “To make their People Pies with,�
� I mutter.

  I hate to admit it so I won’t, not to anyone but myself, but I feel better having Ryan awake. I feel less certain that I’m going to die tonight.

  He frowns at me now, his warm eyes dark in the dying firelight.

  “Cannibals?” he whispers.

  I nod, my mouth tightly strung in a grim line.

  He curses under his breath then jumps slightly when the knocking starts up again.

  “Little pig, little pig, let me in,” the man sings mockingly.

  “Trent thinks you can talk to them,” I whisper to Ryan. “He’s seen people talk to them and not end up dead.”

  “Not right away, at least,” Trent corrects.

  “What do I say?” he asks incredulously. “Please don’t eat us?”

  “Maybe don’t lead with that.”

  “Lead with what then? The weather? Ask about his kids?” Ryan demands, whispering harshly.

  “Maybe start with opening the door,” I suggest.

  Ryan takes a calming breath, then nods his head.

  “Weapons hidden, give nothing away,” he mutters to us as he stands.

  Ryan, I think it’s important to note, was our reigning poker champion in prison. Even Trent, with his robot’s heart, wasn’t able to beat him. Trent has no tells, no emotional outbursts or giveaways to exploit. Ryan, on the other hand, has many, but most are lies. He’s an incredible actor—or a liar, depending on how you see it. I think it’s one of the reasons he does so well in the Arena. He has a charisma, an easy kind of charm that pulls you in and makes you trust him. Even as he’s taking all your money.

  My blood is rushing in my ears as he turns the door handle. I think someone says something from outside but I can’t hear it, not over the sound of my own fear and panic pounding in my ears. Ryan nods, steps aside, and a man dressed entirely in black walks in. He gives the small room a once-over, his eyes barely falling on Trent and I. It’s something I’m a little insulted by. He’s looking for threats but I just got passed over like I was nothing. Like I’m an office chair or a roller skate.

  The man’s skin is painfully pale. His dark hair is a shock against it where it droops over his forehead, looking clean and shiny. This is how I judge people in the apocalypse: do they have a shower and do they use it? Yes on both counts for this guy, meaning they’re living relatively well. No one showers first and drinks water to survive second.