Alive Like Us

by Hallows, Quinn

  His instincts told him what his mind refused to believe—they were not alone. And they were good as dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Ivan grabbed a flaming torch and plunged into the black depths of the sanctuary. Instincts, sharpened by a lifetime of war and blood, told him the monster was near.

  He held his battle axe high and heard Raj’s heavy footsteps fall in behind. “Ready, old friend?”

  Raj grunted. “To the death.”

  “I ain’t dying. Not today.”

  A shadow scrabbled across the wall and melted into the dark trusses overhead. Claws skittered over the beam, sending a shiver down Ivan’s spine.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Anne clung to his arm. “Please—”

  “It’s our best chance. The Alpha is here. If we can destroy it, the horde might scatter. Erling will be saved.”

  She pulled his arm, a delicate bird trying to compel a bear to move. “Please, don’t—”

  “Anne,” Ivan brought her hand to his lips. “Take Sanna and get out. I’ll take care of this.”

  “No.” She shook her head, her voice thick. “I’m not leaving you.”

  He glanced at Raj, who nodded, then turned towards his wife. Her dark eyes were as beautiful as the day they’d met. “Go.”

  “Come with me—”

  The beams creaked. Ivan shoved Anne away as the creature fell from the rafters, landing on all fours between them.

  Ivan looked back at Anne. Their gazes locked. She was safe. Silent tears slid down her cheeks as she pressed her fingers to her lips and then lifted them. Damn if he didn’t feel the warmth of her kiss from across the room.

  He loved her. He’d always loved her.

  The monster rose to its full height, dwarfing them all. A cross between a human and a dragon, it unfurled its leathery wings, which nearly stretched the length of the sanctuary. Ivan guessed it was female, given the cancerous necklace of growths protruding from her collarbone. She snarled, her lips peeling away from the rows of sharp teeth crowding her mouth. Though the creature was born from human flesh, Ivan saw no signs of her origins in her hairless, elongated body.

  “Ivan!” Anne sobbed.

  He ignored her. It had to be this way. Anne was no fighter, and Sanna was their only grandchild. Their future.

  Adrenaline flooded his veins. His axe felt light in one hand, while the torch burned in the other. “Over here, monster,” he bellowed, charging the Alpha. “I’m the one you’re fighting.”

  The beast jumped and landed a few inches from him. He shoved the torch into her chest with a fierce cry. Her flesh sizzled. She shrieked, leaping away. Ivan swung his axe but was too late. It cut through her arm, shattering the bone. A deep wound, but not enough to kill.

  She’s fast. Too fast. There was only one way for this to end.

  “Raj, get out of here!”

  “But—” Raj began.

  The Alpha cut him off with an ear-splitting shriek. Ivan urged Raj on with a nod. He scowled, and for a moment, Ivan feared he’d refuse. But Raj faded into the darkness instead.

  This is the only way.

  The monster flapped her great wings and lifted off. Ivan swung his axe, sinking it deep into her forearm, cracking through the bone.

  The Alpha hissed, baring her teeth. Venom arched through the air and sizzled through the metal of his helmet. He threw his axe down and scrambled to take it off. It was too late. The liquid had already eaten through the metal. He swallowed his scream as it seared his scalp. It wouldn’t be much longer.

  The Alpha’s yellow gaze shifted to Raj, who was dragging Anne toward the broken window.

  No. Ivan gritted his teeth. He had to protect them. He had to give them a chance to escape. But the venom was working its way through his skull, muddling his thoughts.

  The curtains.

  Ivan took aim and threw his torch. The flame spread over the velvet mound, devouring the dusty fabric.

  “H-Hey over h-here,” he lifted his axe, struggling to focus on the monster who’d suddenly split into two. He stumbled in her general direction.

  She watched with reptilian interest as he neared, easily dodging his clumsy swings, as if waiting for the venom to work.

  It was happening sooner than he’d hoped. His arms became leaden, his fingers fat, useless sausages that couldn’t hold his weapon. His knees buckled, and his weapon clattered to the floor.

  She lunged.

  He was ready.

  He unsheathed the dagger at his side and aimed for her temple but got her stomach instead. She shrieked, a deafening sound that put his teeth on edge. He yanked the blade upwards, gutting her. She sagged against him. The stubby horns outlining her forehead and cheekbones scraped against his skin. They were nose to nose.

  “I’ve—I’ve g-got you now,” Ivan slurred.

  She bared her teeth, and her vipers’ fangs descended. Her fetid breath washed over him. It was all over. Whether by acid or a fatal bite, he saw his death reflected in her soulless eyes. But there was something else in those opaque depths. A glimmer of recognition.

  “Cate?” he rasped.

  No. It couldn’t be. She was gone. Maybe it was his melting brain, his conscience playing a final cruel trick. Regardless, Ivan was sure that Anne’s daughter was there, buried beneath the layers of sores and scars.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The church was engulfed in flames in a manner of minutes. The fire was a living, breathing thing, a demon that leapt from curtain to curtain, scaling the walls and devouring the wooden pews of the sanctuary. If it weren’t for Kai’s manacle grip on her wrist, pulling her down the aisle, Sanna may have stayed there, horrified and grieving, until she was nothing more than flecks of ash on the wind.

  Another window exploded. Sanna ducked as glass rained down around them. The fire feasted on the sudden rush of air and doubled—tripled—in size. The immense heat and smoke stole her breath.

  Kai pulled her through the raging furnace. Heat licked her skin, and she imagined it melting like wax. They made it to the broken window, where he pushed her ahead of him. Her shins banged against the overturned pews as she scrabbled up to the opening. The frigid air was sweet relief.

  Kai gave her a shove and suddenly she was flying through space. Pain ripped down her forearm. She landed hard on the ice-glazed road and rolled to her side. Warmth trickled into the crux of her elbow. Blood. Her gaze rose to the jagged fangs of glass that lined the window. She clutched her arm to her chest and coughed, her lungs raw from the acrid smoke.

  Kai landed beside her. Soot streaked his face like warpaint. “Are you okay?”

  Before she could answer, a great splintering sound came from the church as a pillar of sparks shot into the night sky. Amber light flooded the street. She realized they were alone.

  Sanna bolted up. Where was her grandmother? Raj? Kelsey?

  A feral roar came from the depths of the fiery building as Raj barreled through the broken window, his massive body silhouetted by the red-orange flames.

  Sanna raced towards him. Anne’s limp body was draped over one of his shoulders. She was still breathing. “Raj, where’s Kelsey?”

  Raj shook his head, his expression grim.

  “What?” Sanna looked at the burning husk of the former church. The flames were cavorting up the outside walls and devouring the roof, casting a hellish red light on the rest of Erling.

  Kelsey would die in there.

  “Don’t,” Kai said, grabbing her wrist. “It’s too late. You can’t save them.”

  Sanna looked down at his tanned hand. Her coat sleeve was torn and stiff from frozen blood. And yet...the cut on her forearm was gone. She was healed.

  Her gaze shot to the church—which was now more of a fiery cavern.

  It was insane. It was suicide. It was...possible.

  She was different for a reason, and that was to help people when others couldn’t.

  Sanna threw Kai off and sprinted towards the building. The Alpha bu
rst out from the rubble with an ear-splitting shriek. One arm dangled by a grisly thread and a deep gash ran from her sternum to her hips. She circled once, then disappeared into the night.

  Sanna dove into the flames, gritting her teeth against the pain that sizzled across her flesh. She rolled on the ground, recovered, and stood. Heat blasted her as she vaulted over jumbled pews and smoldering clutter. Flames clawed at her flesh and singed her hair. Blisters bubbled and burst across her skin. She was dissolving, becoming one with the flames.

  Noxious black smoke filled the church, stinging her eyes. She stumbled onto the raised platform and cried out when her scorched fingers gripped the altar for support.

  Where was she?

  Sanna spun, searching for any sign of her. The flames moved around her in brilliant waves of yellow and gold. Her gaze caught on a dark, charred form sprawled under a fallen rafter. She raced towards it, each step a fresh, crippling agony.

  It was her grandfather. Ivan.

  The Alpha’s venom had chewed through his metal helmet and skull, all the way down to the glistening gray matter of his brain. A deep, quaking groan rumbled down from the roof.

  There was no time to grieve.

  She had to get out before the whole place collapsed. She pivoted to the broken window. A hacking cough stopped her cold. Kelsey?

  Sanna found the girl slumped under a pew and scooped her up, crying out as the rough cloth sloughed her ravaged skin. The soles of her boots stuck to the floor as she made her way to the window. To safety. To life.

  But she wasn’t going to make it. Hell had split opened and swallowed her. The throbbing, relentless ache obliterated all other thoughts. She dragged her feet, her steps fumbling. The dead weight in her arms grew impossible, weighing her down.

  “Sanna!” Kai shouted above the roar.

  Darkness fell over her. She couldn’t see, but moved towards Kai’s voice, tripping and stumbling. Kelsey whimpered in her arms.

  “Drop her! Save yourself!”

  No. Kelsey was Tess’s little sister, and Tess would’ve carved out her own heart to save her.

  Sanna fell forward, lost in the red-hot agony as the fire feasted on her flesh.

  Kelsey’s weight vanished. Sanna felt herself being lifted. Carried. The scent of evergreen and male sweat filled her nostrils, soothing her. A strange crackling noise filled her ears as her brain began to shutter, bit by terrifying bit.

  “I’ve got you.” Kai’s voice faded as a dark current swept over her, taking her far away from him and everything else that mattered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Kai sprinted from the church as a great, whooshing sound came from behind him, followed by a blast of heat. The roof must have finally given in. He fell to the ground, cradling Sanna’s limp body, and took in the enormity of her wounds. She’d stopped breathing.

  “Sanna?” He croaked, his smoke-ravaged throat burning from the effort. “Wake up.”

  He shook her. No response. Grief weighed heavy on him, an anchor dragging him further into despair. How could anyone survive such injuries? Every inch of her exposed skin was blackened. Blisters covered her hands like puffy white mittens. Even her hair had been singed to her scalp. She’d been burnt to a bloody husk.

  He should have stopped her. Endless possibilities paraded through his mind, reminding him of all the mistakes he’d made that led to this terrible moment. He held her to his chest, wishing his heart could beat for the both of them.

  I should have told her about Iris sooner. Then none of this would’ve happened.

  A woman gasped. Anne stood beside him, her sooty hand covering her mouth as she assessed the magnitude of her granddaughter’s injuries. She snapped into action, reaching for Sanna’s ankles. “We must get to the clinic. Quickly.”

  “Why? She’s not—” The words died in his smoke-ravaged throat as he stared at Sanna’s rising chest. A slight, nearly imperceptible movement that sent his inner tumult grinding to a halt.

  Kai’s focus tunneled. He didn’t know if it was day or night, or if the entire horde was at his heels. All he knew was that the girl he’d kissed in the pale morning light was breathing again.

  They gently lifted her and hurried to the clinic as fast as their awkward gait would allow. Raj followed; Kelsey slung over his broad shoulders.

  By the time they reached the quarantine yard, Kai was breathless, and his arms were jelly. Anne didn’t fare much better. Sweat streaked through the mask of soot on her face, and her dark hair was plastered to her forehead.

  “Help,” Kai croaked. His foot caught on something soft and he went down, landing inches away from a severed head, partially buried in the snow. Anne screamed, dropping Sanna’s legs.

  It was the clinic guard who’d first introduced him to Theo. His headless body was sprawled at Kai’s feet, a grisly chunk missing from his forearm. If he hadn't been beheaded, he would have become an Infected.

  There’s been a breach. The Infected could be anywhere.

  He gathered Sanna into his aching arms and continued to the clinic. The splintered front door hung from its hinges like a broken tooth. A shadow darted across the open threshold.

  Haven jumped through the doorway, clutching a bat embedded with nails. She glanced at Kai’s burden and her fierce expression melted. “What happened?”

  “The church was on fire, but she went back in to save Kelsey.”

  Theo towered behind Haven, the young guard’s blood dripping from his axe. He dropped it and met Kai halfway, his arms outstretched. “Let me help.”

  Haven’s club clattered onto the porch. She rushed over, managing to worm her way between Kai and Sanna’s shoulders, while Theo took gentle hold of her ankles.

  Raj came up the steps. “Merrick, take Kelsey in. I’ve got to get to the Lieutenant. Tell him what happened.”

  Kai glared at the other man through his good eye. “You’re not going to arrest me again?”

  “I’m fresh out of dungeons, at the moment. Besides,” his gaze flicked up to the perimeter wall. “I got bigger problems.”

  Kai cradled the girl in his arms. She was barely a teenager, her face badly burned. If she survived, she’d never look the same again.

  “Thank you for going in after them.” Raj turned to leave. “Erling won’t forget what you did tonight.”

  “We have to survive this first.” Kai carried Kelsey to the back room. Haven spotted him and broke away from the trio surrounding Sanna to prepare another cot. He set the girl down and sank into the nearest chair, exhausted. His skin felt oily with ash and sweat, and the stink of smoke wafted up from his ruined clothes.

  Those last moments at the church were a blur. He didn’t remember going after Sanna, but the image of her walking through that blazing hellscape was seared into his mind. She’d become a human made of embers—a burning, mobile corpse who collapsed a few feet from the window. Next thing he knew, he was inside, dragging her towards the opening. Raj must have retrieved the other girl.

  The snow had sizzled when Kai laid Sanna down, steam wafting all around her. The whole thing had been a waking nightmare. How could anyone survive?

  Unless...Sanna’s blood wasn’t the only thing that was different. Maybe she was something else entirely—not Infected, not exactly, but something similar. Her biological mother had been human, sure, but her father...that was still a mystery.

  Iris would know, if Sanna survived long enough to ask her. Kai looked over at the exam table but could see only her mangled feet. The rest of her body was blocked by Theo, Haven and Dr. Larson, who huddled over her like a band of witches, passing vials and potions and rolls of white linen between them.

  “None of this would’ve happened if she’d stayed in the watchtower,” Kelsey croaked.

  “That’s some gratitude. Sanna nearly died saving you.”

  “The last thing anyone here wants is Sanna’s help. This is all her fault,” Kelsey’s voice drifted, growing softer. “How many more people will have to die, just so sh
e can keep living?”

  “Wait a minute,” Kai snapped to attention. “The person who put you up to this—what does he look like?”

  “I...never saw his face. I only...heard his voice.” Her head lolled onto her chest; her eyes shuttered.

  “Kelsey?” Kai lunged forward, shaking the girl’s shoulder.

  “She’s out, man.” Theo crouched down beside him, studying her face. He pushed up her eyelid. “Probably for the best. We’re ready to start working on her.”

  Theo moved to the front of the girl, while Haven took her feet. They hoisted her up, and the stench of smoke and scorched flesh filled the air.

  Kai’s stomach turned. The room shrank to the size of a coffin as memories of the Inferno and the death and pain he’d caused threatened to overtake him. He had to get out of this place before his heart burst and the sticky tar of oblivion dragged him back to the horrors he tried so hard to forget. He stood, the ground buckling and swaying beneath him, and staggered out of the clinic.

  He doubled over the railing, gasping for breath.

  He hated hospitals. Clinics. Doctors. They made him feel small. Powerless. Like when he carried his sister from settlement to settlement, only to be turned away for not doing the impossible. Abandoning her.

  Doctors and nurses refused to touch her after they saw her blood sample. In their eyes, those few droplets of red killed Esme off long before the dormant virus ever had its chance. Their cool, detached advice still haunted him. She’s dangerous. A liability. Think about your future. There’s no guarantee she’ll survive anyway. Leave her behind.

  Theo stepped onto the porch. “You okay, Merrick?”

  Kai straightened, painfully aware of his scarred forearms, the fresh blisters on his hands, and the desperation gnawing him from within. “I’m fine.”

  The siren wailed. He turned to the wall and wondered if the horde was drawing closer, if these would be his last few hours. “I should go. They’ll need all the help they can get.”

  “Here,” Theo passed him a small jar. “For your hands.”