Strain

by Amelia C. Gormley

  Closing his eyes, Rhys focused on keeping his breath quiet and steady. When he opened them, he felt like he had that day in the chapel when he’d made up his mind he was going to die. Everything around him was sharp and vibrant. Gorgeous, really. The greens of the leaves and underbrush had never been so vivid, the fallen leaves mulching the turf never so aromatic. There were so many different tones of brownish-black and gray in the bark of the trees, and the wind was crisp and clean.

  Jacob’s harsh voice carried through the woods. “Where’s Rhys?”

  “Fort Vancouver.” Joe sounded calm. Unconcerned.

  “Bullshit! He may be a pansy-ass faggot, but there’s no way he’d stay behind with his boyfriend in danger.”

  “You nearly crushed his windpipe. Last I saw him, he was struggling to breathe. I think Xolani might have had to intubate him before we left. He could be dead now for all I know.”

  Silence fell, punctuated by Jacob’s furious panting. Rhys barely dared inhale.

  “I think you’re lying,” Jacob snarled finally. “Walk. Back the way you came. Stay in front of me like a good meat-shield.”

  Rhys refused to move as the sound of footsteps shuffling through the fallen leaves and undergrowth receded. Then his head thudded back against the tree, and he allowed himself to hyperventilate for a moment.

  When the sounds of Joe and Jacob’s passage had faded, Rhys dared to peer around the tree, listening. Of course, just because he couldn’t see or hear them any longer didn’t mean Jacob wasn’t still close enough to pounce on him. Rhys rose and stepped around the tree, nearly tripping over his fucking gun.

  Jesus. He propped the rifle against the base of the tree. He wouldn’t be able to move quietly with it, and he wasn’t sure he trusted himself to use it without hitting anyone else. His best hope now to help Joe and Gabe and Xolani was to sneak up behind Jacob if he could. Drawing a calming breath, he unsnapped the sheath at his hip and drew out the knife Xolani had given him, flinching at the soft hiss as it scraped against the leather. It seemed absurdly loud to Rhys’s ears, but there was no one else near to hear it.

  He inched forward, staying low, hopefully remaining out of Jacob’s peripheral vision. Stopping behind a tree, he heard Jacob jeer. “Guess you weren’t lying after all. Hear that, Gabe? Your little faggot boyfriend couldn’t even be bothered to come after you.”

  He couldn’t hear Gabe’s answer, but knowing Gabe’s mouth, Rhys was positive it would enrage Jacob. Sure enough, Jacob bellowed in response, and Rhys took the opportunity to dart to the next sheltering tree, pausing again.

  “So what?” Gabe taunted when it was quiet again. “I’m dead anyway. Go ahead and shoot me.”

  “Or maybe I’ll just drag you back to Fort Vancouver while the Rot eats away at you so that fucking pervert can watch you die!”

  When Rhys dared a glance around the trunk, he could see Jacob, the barrel of his gun swinging between Xolani, Joe, and Gabe. Too far, though. Rhys had the visual but not the range. Dropping low, he crept forward again.

  “He must have gone the long way around, evading scanner range!” The shout came from the road, and another voice responded. Darius and the rest of the squad. No doubt they’d heard the shotgun blast. Jacob shouldered Joe’s assault rifle and fired a spray of bullets blindly into the trees, drawing alarmed yells.

  “Down! Get down!”

  “Stay back! I’ll kill them!” Jacob screamed. “Keep your fucking distance!”

  Jacob’s shout was followed by another round of bullets, and in his mind, Rhys could see one of those blind shots finding Darius where he lay on the highway up the embankment from the greenbelt. Taking advantage of Jacob’s distraction, Rhys darted forward, letting the knife slip through his fingers so that he held it by the blade. With that perfect perception, when everything was so clear, he saw Gabe’s eyes widen as he caught sight of Rhys moving in behind Jacob.

  Jacob saw it, too, but the knife had already left Rhys’s hand before he could turn. It flipped end over end, just like he’d practiced, hurtling toward Jacob’s exposed back. It was both a terrible miss and the luckiest throw Rhys had ever made. He’d been aiming for the expanse between Jacob’s shoulder blades.

  What he got was a kidney.

  Jacob’s knees buckled, and Xolani moved with inhuman speed as he completed his turn toward Rhys, his gun forgotten in his shock. The hideous crunch of shattering vertebrae filled the clearing, and Jacob fell to the ground, his head nearly twisted off.

  “All clear!” Xolani shouted, then turned to Rhys, panting. Her eyes burned with the same primal battle fury he’d once seen in Kaleo’s. And in Darius’s. “Where’s Kaleo?”

  “Dead.” Rhys slumped against a tree as the rush of adrenaline began to fade, leaving him shaking. Darius and Titus burst into the clearing, half sliding down the embankment from the road, followed by Toby, then Gina, Jamie, and Bailey. Darius’s avid gaze assessed Rhys, but he didn’t approach.

  “Status?” he demanded instead, and the bestial rage in Xolani’s eyes began to bleed away.

  “Fucker got Kaleo. Everyone else is fine. The hostages are stable for now. They’ll need to be quarantined away from the other civvies when we get them back to base.”

  “Is that really necessary where I’m concerned?” Gabe’s mouth twisted in a rueful smile.

  Rhys shook his head in adamant denial. “You don’t know you’re infected, Gabe!”

  “It’s okay, Rhys.” Gabe gave him a pitying look. “Tia and I knew what we were doing when we refused to let him fuck us. I don’t mind.”

  Rhys’s eyes burned with tears he couldn’t shed as he looked back and forth between Xolani and Darius. “Do you have to— Does it have to be— Can we—”

  “We can wait.” Xolani squeezed his shoulder. “Not too long or he might go catatonic. But until he starts showing symptoms. Or decides he’s ready, whichever comes first.”

  Gabe nodded gratefully. “I wouldn’t mind a few days to catch up.”

  “All right, people.” Darius cleared his throat gruffly. “Let’s lay Kaleo to rest. We’ll camp at the ranch tonight, head back to base tomorrow.”

  As everyone went into action, Rhys felt eyes upon him. He turned to see Joe standing there, staring at him intently. After a moment, Rhys nodded his understanding, and Joe turned away.

  Rhys watched the glow from Kaleo’s funeral pyre dance on the wall while first watch secured the house and settled in. It was becoming a familiar sight. Downstairs, those who weren’t on watch were toasting Kaleo, courtesy of the well-stocked liquor cabinet they’d found. Rhys had declined to join them, however. He sat with his knees drawn up to his chest in the bedroom where Xolani had settled Gabe. A stirring from the bed drew his attention from the flickering of the firelight to Gabe, who rolled over, rubbing his head as though it pained him.

  “You’re actually here.” He blinked at Rhys. “I thought maybe I had hallucinated it.”

  “I’m here. For now.” Rhys sniffed. “It’s weird. I’ve been wanting to talk to you for a month and now I can’t think of anything to say.”

  “Start by telling me why you’re not one of those guys yet.” Gabe flapped a hand in the direction of the door. “Back when we were on our way to Fort Vancouver, I thought that’s what . . . I mean, Darius said . . .”

  “Darius explained that?” Rhys was grateful for the darkness that disguised his blush.

  Gabe rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, when I just about tried to deck him. I assumed they were doing something awful to you at night.”

  Instead of being mortified, Rhys found himself laughing helplessly, rolling his head against the back of his chair. “Well, um . . .” He scratched his scalp awkwardly, unsure how to answer.

  “So it hasn’t worked?”

  “No.” He closed his eyes with a slow sigh. “I think a week or two back, I gave up hope that it would. Now I’m just waiting for the Rot to begin so I can die. And praying I don’t become a monster like Jacob.”

&
nbsp; Gabe snorted bitterly. “You and me both.”

  “Yeah, well, we just might end up checking out together.”

  “Don’t do that.” Gabe’s voice was sharp. It was filled with that same gruff, tough affection he’d used in the past to bolster Rhys’s spirits back when they’d been boys together. “You’ve still got a chance. I don’t, and that’s okay. I feel like every day since I left the monastery years ago has mostly been spent waiting to die anyway. But you might still make it.”

  Rhys looked away. He hadn’t realized it until now, but he’d spent his time at the monastery after Gabe had run away waiting to die as well, knowing that sooner or later Jacob or Father Maurice would kill him or drive him away, which would have the same effect. It wasn’t until the revenants had attacked that he’d found any hope of living.

  “Why did you leave?” He couldn’t help the plaintive note that crept into his voice, lost and unsure, like the confused boy he’d been the day he’d learned Gabe was gone. He’d needed Gabe so damned bad back then. “I mean, you almost kissed me, and then you were gone, and I always wondered if I— If it was me—”

  “What are you talking about?” Gabe gave a soft gasp of incredulous laughter. “You almost kissed me!”

  Rhys stared at his shadowed profile in disbelief for a moment, echoing the laugh. “Really? Is that how you— Oh God! Is that why— Was it me?”

  “No. No!” Gabe tried to push himself up on the bed, groaning in discomfort. Rhys uncurled from his chair to assist, propping pillows behind him. “It was like— I never gave it any thought, you know? You. In that way. I always assumed someday it would be Cady when she grew up, and I knew Jacob and Maurice would give me a lot of trouble over that, but that was okay. But then that day in the shed . . . suddenly there was this other possibility, and then Maurice saw us and started yelling and saying horrible things about us and all I could think was that if I stayed, we’d do it again, and it would be a hundred times worse than if I was with Cady. They would make our lives hell. They would kill us, or make us want to kill ourselves, or drive us out.” He plucked at the dusty bedspread. “I couldn’t think of any other way to keep that from happening, you know?”

  “It was awful after you left.” Rhys’s eyes began burning again, and he blinked until the feeling went away. “I needed you. You were always the brave one.”

  “Only when it came to sticking up for others.” Gabe shrugged. “I couldn’t deal with all that aimed at me. I don’t know. I think sometime around when the plague began, when we were just kids, everything stopped making sense and never started again.”

  “Guess it doesn’t matter.” Rhys stared at the flickering light on the wall again. “I just always wanted to know.”

  A long, silent moment dragged on before Gabe drew a shuddering breath. “They said my parents weren’t at the monastery when they found you?”

  “No.” Rhys gave him an apologetic look. “They left to find you and never came back.”

  “What about Jeff?”

  Rhys bowed his head, thinking about Gabe’s quiet little brother, who’d never really recovered from the loss of his family. “I tried to look after him as much as I could. He, um, he was killed when the revs got Cady and Father Maurice.”

  “Are you still . . . um, with the Jugs? Are you still trying to get infected?”

  “No.” Rhys wished he felt as complacent about it as he sounded. “There’s really no point to that anymore. Only with Darius.”

  “Oh?” There was an expectant lift to Gabe’s voice. Rhys refused to look up.

  “Yeah. He’s just— He’s been good about trying to help me live. They all were.”

  “Thought you said there’s not much point to that now?”

  “Well, there isn’t, I mean, I’m either infected by now or I’m not. If I’m not, I’m dead, and if I am, once I’m a Jug, he won’t need to . . .” He fell silent, his hands twisting in his lap.

  “You know, it’s okay to fall in love with someone who isn’t me.”

  Rhys’s head snapped up. Gabe’s blue eyes twinkled, and for a moment he was the same cocky smart-ass who had always taken it upon himself to lift Rhys’s spirits. Rhys shook his head, though, his smile fading.

  “It was never about love. It was about self-respect. I fought it for a long time because I didn’t want the only sex I ever had before I died to not mean anything, especially when it was already something I didn’t have a choice in. Then it didn’t feel meaningless anymore, and it was okay. Better than okay.”

  Gabe didn’t comment, and Rhys sighed.

  “I’m not sure there’s much point in loving anyone in this world, the way it is.” His chest ached as he thought of the tenderness with which Darius had touched him that first time after his illness, how they’d lain together and simply kissed for what felt like hours. It was better that Darius was too hard a man to fall in love. Not when he’d have to kill Rhys any day now. “It’s probably better just to . . . to matter a little, until you die or they die. Just a little. Then they burn your body and go on with trying to survive.”

  Gabe gave him a disgusted look, anger simmering in his eyes. “If that’s the best you can expect, why bother? What’s the fucking point of trying to live at all?”

  “I don’t know if there is one. We just have to try anyway. Maybe we hope sooner or later we’ll find the point.”

  “That’s such bullshit.” Gabe glared at Rhys. “I don’t buy it. You wouldn’t have said that four years ago when I was still at the monastery.”

  Rhys’s eyes began to burn, and he quickly looked away, focusing on the ripples of firelight and shadow cast on the wall again. “Maybe you’re right, but it’s just better to look at it this way now.”

  “What’s better about it?”

  Rhys pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until the stinging stopped. “I just— I don’t want to . . . care about someone like that when I’m going to die in just a few days or weeks. I think I can handle dying, but not if I feel like there’s something worth living for that I didn’t have enough time to experience. It wouldn’t be fair. And besides—”

  Sympathy softened Gabe’s expression. “Besides what?”

  Rhys bowed his head. “I don’t want Darius to have to kill me knowing I—” To his humiliation, his voice cracked, and Rhys cleared his throat. “It’s just better this way.”

  Gabe stared at him for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “All right.”

  Rhys smiled bravely. Suddenly he was tired, and older than his age, and unspeakably sad. “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Actually, I think I need to rest some more if we’re going to get on the road again tomorrow. Do you think Xolani might have something for my headache?”

  “I’ll go find her and see. Do you want me to stay here with you?”

  Gabe smiled and shook his head, waving him away. “No. Just send Xolani in if she’s still awake, please?”

  After he located Xolani, it took some searching, but Rhys found the bedroom where Darius had stowed his pack. Darius wasn’t there, though. Rhys heard him somewhere in the house, talking about watch shifts with Toby. He dropped his rucksack in the corner beside Darius’s and kicked off his boots, flipping over the mattress on the bed to minimize the dust before he curled up on his side to wait.

  Sometime in the night, he came half-awake to feel a body behind him, lips on the back of his neck, hands pulling at his clothes. He turned blindly, seeking the kiss he knew would be there, lifting and wriggling to get free from his pants as the last remnants of sleep fled. He rolled Darius onto his back and let himself explore with hands and mouth as Darius had once encouraged him to do, and then indulged in a long-overdue lesson on sucking cock.

  As they began the journey back north across the high desert of eastern Oregon, opting to return to the boats and the river rather than risk the mountain passes this close to winter, Darius continued fucking Rhys as fiercely as he had begun, as if he could compel Rhys’s cells to accept the A
lpha strain by force of will. As if he could drive out, with the bruising grasp of his hands and the punishing thrust of his cock, the corruption they both knew was spreading through his body.

  And Rhys begged him for it, as Darius had once assured him he would. The more certain he became that he was dying, the more he craved Darius’s penchant for brutality. He wanted to pack every memory he could make into the days he had left, every sensation he could feel from a life he’d barely had a chance to live.

  He didn’t know if Darius understood that, but even if he didn’t, he still managed to deliver exactly what Rhys needed.

  A week or so after they recovered Gabe and Emmy, the Jugs made camp in a high school gymnasium, where they would stay for several days while Emmy recuperated from her abortion. All the entrances were barricaded save the one they controlled, which meant he and Darius could go off to the locker room, away from the others, for a little more privacy.

  The tile on the walls was cracked and chipped. The varnish on the bench Rhys bent over blistered and flaked off under his hands. Everything was covered in a decade’s worth of dust and cobwebs. And everywhere else they went was the same. Crumbling, abandoned bars, abandoned offices, abandoned hotels, abandoned homes.

  The haunting and haunted remnants of an abandoned world.

  And in Darius’s arms each night, when reason returned and they lay together, drained and weary, Rhys decided there was something inescapably beautiful about the fact that they made these memories in ruined places.

  They were maybe three days from the river where they had stowed the inflatable boat when Rhys emerged from the tent he shared with Darius one chilly morning to see Gabe seated by the coals of the fire, staring at something in his lap. When he looked up, Rhys could see his eyes were red and swollen.

  “What is it?”

  Gabe swallowed and pulled down the neck of his shirt, revealing a bruised patch of skin just below his collarbone.