“Sorry,” he says with a wry grin. Something tells me he isn’t sorry at all. He’s getting adjusted to these new reflexes of his, and I can imagine it could make him feel powerful. It could even become addictive.
“I did what you said,” I say, gesturing to the mess surrounding us. “I looked for anything we might need, but seriously, I don’t know what you expected. This is a room full of clothes and personal effects. It’s not like there’s a secret stash of medical equipment or batteries or extra mechanical parts.”
Ellis shakes his head sadly. “That wasn’t what I meant.” He looks down at what I have cradled in my arms, and I can practically feel his gaze on the pendant hanging around my neck. He gives a nod, and I know that this was exactly his purpose for sending me down here. To say farewell to everything we’re leaving behind. “Sunset will be here soon, and we’ll have to leave straight away. We don’t have much time.”
“Why the rush?” I ask. “I mean, besides all the bloodthirsty Shredders out to get me.”
He turns those jet eyes on me, and I have to resist the urge to cringe. “The city is on fire. We’ve been lucky so far; the wind isn’t blowing it this way, and there’s a dry riverbed slowing its spread, but this city is nothing but a pile of tinder. It’s only a matter of time.”
Fire. Great. As if the world isn’t hot enough. How long can a fire burn? As long as there’s fuel for the fire? Across the country in all directions, all the way to the oceans?
I let Ellis lead the way up the stairs. I can feel the temperature difference as we ascend, warm and getting warmer, as the sun beats down at us from directly overhead. Without power in the compound, the air conditioning is out, though I seem to be the only one affected by the heat. Sweat beads along my hairline and upper lip, but Ellis appears perfectly comfortable. I try to remind myself not to be jealous of the perks to being a monster.
Ellis follows me around like a bodyguard while I pack up medical supplies from the hospital. Shredders march up and down the hallways with armloads of gear, and each and every one of them watches me with hunger in their eyes. I would be a fool to ignore it. Luckily for me, it seems they’re willing to follow their orders… for now. I am currently their only hope for a cure. I am also, however, their only meal option.
As the day wears on, everyone’s movements become hurried. I can’t help but feel the same ticking deadline with every beat of my heart. With frenzied movements, I finish packing everything I think I could possibly need for an evacuation.
If what Ellis said is true, then this whole compound is nothing but a tomb. We have no choice but to put our blind faith in Howell. Is it too soon to regret that decision?
Ellis helps me to drag all the supplies to the garage where the Shredders are loading every available vehicle with gear. I’m not sure how far we need to go, Howell has been very tight-lipped about this evacuation plan. It’s the only thing keeping him alive right now, so I can’t really blame him for holding his cards close to his chest.
I scan the crowd in the garage, waiting for the sun to set, but there’s one person I don’t see. Lori.
“Hey, Ellis, have you seen Lori?” He’s been by my side all day, but with his enhanced hearing and vision, maybe he’s picked up on something I’ve missed.
He shakes his head, and then wordlessly follows me as I wander back out into the hallways in search of Lori. When it comes to not leaving anything behind, she’s really the only thing that matters.
6
Lori
It’s time to leave. I know this instinctively, without even looking at a clock. In the background of my mind, I can’t help but be aware of the sun’s progress across the sky. Without windows, even with my eyes closed, I could still track its course. And even if it weren’t for that, I would just need to watch the Rippers zipping around the compound to know that we’re approaching sunset.
What started as a slow trickle of Rippers carting stuff through the hallways, quickly turned to a flood as the newly turned monsters caught on to what was happening. It brought to mind watching an anthill when I was a kid. All those tiny insects scurrying back and forth from the crumbs of food I left for them on the ground.
Survival instinct at its finest. Eat and sleep, fight and flight.
Jose, however, hadn’t wanted to survive. He looked ahead and compared his future to what he’d left behind and decided it wasn’t worth it. I can’t blame him, not really. I’ve been considering that option ever since I opened my eyes to the horror that is my new life. That doesn’t stop me from resenting him, nonetheless. I wish he hadn’t dragged me into it.
Where does all this leave me, I wonder. Besides sitting here in the dirt, I mean. I’m back in the garden, those soldiers long gone after their feast. The smell of fresh blood still lingers in the air, but if I try hard enough, I can keep my focus on the loamy scent of earth beneath me, the crisp apples, the algae in the pond, and green growth from the garden. Already the plants are wilting in the growing heat without the cooling fans running, and soon it will be nothing more than a distant memory of the life once held within.
The damaged door swings open behind me, and with it comes the distant lick of smoke on the breeze. The fire. The city is slowly burning to the ground and it’s all my fault. My history of death and destruction goes on and on…
“Lori?” my mother’s voice calls from behind me. “I knew I would find you in here. You always loved the garden.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
She ignores me and comes to sit beside me in the painted darkness. “We don’t have to talk.”
She’s my mother. She knows I’ll never be able to stand the silence. I do my best to resist the temptation. My mother is preternaturally still beside me. She doesn’t fidget, her chest barely moves as she breathes. Me, on the other hand, I have to clench my hands together to stop from tearing at my own skin.
Finally, I reach my breaking point. I should be proud of myself, I made it a whole 30 seconds. I swivel around to face her, blowing out a breath that sets my scraggly hair to swinging. “How can you stand it?”
She doesn’t look at me, her eyes focused instead on the distant edges of the orchard. “How can I stand what?”
“This!” I say, gesturing wildly to the world at large. “This existence! Not just turning into a killer in order to survive, but surrounding yourself with other killers. It’s…”
“Unbearable? Infuriating? Unfair?”
“Yes! Yes to all of those things! I don’t understand how you could have asked for this. Did you know what you were getting into?”
She turns her head just enough to regard me from her peripheral and takes a slow breath before answering. “Yes, I knew. Your father did some work in the lab, and he told me about what they were working on.”
“Gah! Do you know how that sounds? You’re so damn selfish! Don’t get me wrong when I say this, but it was your time to die. I was devastated when you ‘died,’” I say, using air quotes. “You think I wanted to lose my mom? No, of course not. But in making this decision, you ranked the value of your own life above others.”
“You say this as if you wouldn’t have made the same decision.” She gives me a look, and I fall silent. This is the mom stare. The one where she dares me to contradict her when we both know the truth of it. Until faced with that kind of impossible decision, life or death, no one can say what choice they would make.
And the fact that I’m still here says something about my choices.
Mom finally heaves a sigh and breaks eye contact. “I didn’t want to die, Lori. Is that so hard to understand?”
I think of Jose and his acceptance, his determination to end his life rather than dive headlong into the darkness, and you know what? I find him a whole lot easier to relate to than my own mother.
When I don’t say anything, she clears her throat. Her voice is still hoarse from the cancer that once weakened her human shell. “You know, when you’re staring your mortality full-on in the face, your re
lationship with death changes.”
“This might surprise you to know, but I’ve faced certain death a few times now.” Starved, burned, choked by lunatics with split personalities, dropped down an elevator shaft, hunted by Rippers on multiple occasions. Running for my life seems to be the perpetual state of things these days.
But she’s shaking your head. “Sudden death is one thing. It’s quite another to feel the life slowly being sucked from your body. Wasting away, the cancer eating me from the inside out, nothing but time to contemplate what waits for me on the other side. I was balanced on that precipice between life and death. Staring down at my own mortality and knowing I was going to fall. I would’ve done anything to escape my fate.”
“Like sell your soul to the devil?” I spit.
“Oh, come on, it’s not like that.”
“Really? Do you have any idea the company you keep? Even if you didn’t care about the hundreds of people within this compound, as prepared as you were to sacrifice them all… what about Dad? They killed him. They ate him!” I see something flicker in her eyes, but it’s there and then gone in the blink of an eye. “And me? Your own daughter… I killed those people, Brent… my brother.” I choke on the words, tears leaking from my eyes and trailing down my cheeks. I may not remember the details of what I have done, but you can’t dispute the evidence.
Brent is gone, and it’s all my fault.
“Like you said, maybe it was just their time to die.”
I hate that she’s throwing my own words back at me. “There’s a difference, Mom, between a natural death and a violent one.”
She gives a little scoff. “You act as if violence is a new occurrence in this world. But it’s not. For as long as humans have walked this earth, murder has existed. Anger, jealousy, self-defense; no matter the reason, the act of taking a life is as old as time.”
“So, you’re just carrying on tradition? Is that your reasoning?”
Her eyes shine like steel. “I don’t need a reason.”
We glare at each other in the darkness. I have no clue how this gaping chasm has opened up between us. We used to have so much in common, but even though we’ve both become Rippers, I feel like we’re not the same breed of monster.
I’m saved from this awful conversation by the door opening once again. No need to look to see who it is, the scent says it all. Kenzo.
I brace myself for the wave of hunger to hit me, but it’s not as bad this time, more manageable. I don’t know if I’m just more prepared for it, or if it’s because I’m staring at my mother and I will do anything I can to distance myself from her. I refuse to disregard the value of life. Kenzo is worth more to me than just a way to sate my thirst.
“Lori?” he whispers cautiously. “It’s almost time to go.”
There’s a beat that passes between all three of us, and I can almost see the precipice that my mother was talking about, that cliff, staring down at death. That edge is always there, no matter how close we are to tipping over. Kenzo just happens to be a little more fragile than the rest of us right now.
And I don’t like how aware of that my mother seems to be.
Finally, she stands and brushes the soil from her threadbare pants, as if that bit of dirt mattered to her overall appearance. She smiles once at me and her teeth flash in the emergency lights from the hall. “Don’t be late. We’ve got somewhere we need to be.”
Kenzo moves aside to let her pass, but as soon as she’s gone, he takes a cautious step into the garden. I can see Ellis lurking behind him, no doubt ready to take me down if necessary. How did this guy get assigned to Kenzo duty? Is it simply out of loyalty to his old friend? Does he still adhere to the military rank and see Kenzo as his superior?
But as Kenzo sidles closer, another question comes to mind. How does Ellis stand being so close to him without succumbing to the urge to tear into him?
“Lori?” Kenzo is practically whispering, and I notice that his eyes are vacant. He can’t see me in the dark.
“Yeah. I’m here.”
Kenzo alters his course to move in my direction, his Ellis shadow moving with him. “Are you coming? I… didn’t want to leave you behind.”
His words carry so much more than what they appear to at first glance. I find myself chuckling darkly. “Still want to marry me?”
A surprised smile comes to his face. “If you would have me.”
“You always deserved better than me, Kenzo. Now more than ever.”
I turn my nose away as he lowers himself to the ground beside me, taking the place my mother had been just moments ago. Somehow, I prefer this new tension over her failed attempts at repairing our relationship.
Yep, insatiable hunger over awkward parent chat. Sounds about right.
It also makes this longing easier to bear somehow.
Kenzo turns toward me, trying to make out my details in the gray twilight. “Please tell me you’re coming with us. You’re the only person that matters to me.”
“Is there really a chance at a cure?”
His pause is too long. He doesn’t want to lie to me, but when he does speak, I can’t hear any untruth in his voice. “Maybe. I have to believe there’s a chance, or what’s the point of all this?”
A chance. Is that enough?
Kenzo shuffles in the dirt until he’s facing my direction. “Lori, I know what you’re going through. Not firsthand, obviously, but I’ve been studying Shredders for years. I’ve seen this virus take down the strongest soldiers, reducing them to little more than animals. The mere fact that we are having this conversation right now should tell you how strong you are. You can do this. You can resist the monster. Please, you have to try.”
Can I? I feel like there are two of me living within my skin. The monster, clawing at me from the inside, begging for me to kill Kenzo, to drink from his veins. The other me is just a girl. I’m not stronger than a soldier. I am, though, maybe more stubborn.
Can I retain my humanity through sheer force of will?
Kenzo rises to his feet, moving slowly as if to avoid startling a skittish wild animal. I guess that’s what I’ve been reduced to now. But then he extends his hand to me, eliciting a hiss of warning from Ellis. “Will you come with me? I… I need you. Please.”
I turn to look at this man, regarding him slowly. He’s no longer dressed in his scrubs and lab coat. He’s not wearing a uniform, either. Instead, he looks relaxed in casual clothes. Even though he looks like a new man, there’s something familiar and comforting about him.
Kenzo isn’t afraid of me. He sees me as the girl I used to be. I’m not sure if that’s the safest option for him, but that trust tingles through me and ignites something within my core. It’s fuel for my fire, all but extinguished by the Ripper inside me.
Maybe… just maybe… I can hang on a little bit longer.
I ignore Kenzo’s outstretched hand as I stand. I don’t have that much faith in my self-control. I keep my movements just as slow as Kenzo did, sensing Ellis’s ready stance in the shadows. “Okay,” I say. “Let’s go.”
Kenzo lets his hand drop back to his side, but he’s smiling in relief. “Great. Perfect.” There’s nothing perfect about this whole situation, but the way that his shoulders relax almost make me believe that it could be.
Ellis and I let Kenzo lead the way back toward the garage. For the second time, I am preparing to leave the compound. God, please let me never lay eyes on these walls again.
7
Lori
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this certainly isn’t it.
The last time I fled the compound, it was amid a hail of bullets, complete chaos, and almost certain death. My dad and brother and I were running away from a life living under the military’s thumb, chasing the dream of a better future.
And this time? This time, it’s even more of a nightmare.
I feel a shiver run down my spine as I survey the garage before me. It’s packed with monsters… and I’m one of them. There wil
l be no bullets this time, no scorching sunshine threatening to burn my skin straight off. Though I’m not sure I can rule out the certain death part. At the very least, starvation is a very real possibility. If not, you know, cannibalization. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way the Rippers are eyeing each other.
The craziest things can be done in the name of survival…
I need to draw a line, one I’m not willing to cross no matter how desperate I get. I think of the way Kenzo looks at me, the faith he has in my strength. I don’t want to become that thing I dread the most. I don’t want him to look at me in fear.
“Let’s roll out!” my mother calls from her place at the front of the pack. The rolling garage door is still open from when Jose tried to take his own life, and I throw one last look over my shoulder in the direction of his final resting place. I hope this whole place burns to the ground. It would be a more suitable end, a funeral pyre fit for a king.
The trucks rumble to life and begin to move forward, one by one.
“Is this everyone?” I ask, frowning. As many of us as there are, it’s very clearly not the entire compound population in the garage.
Ellis shakes his head slowly. “Some have chosen not to come,” he said guardedly.
“But… the fire,” I blurt out. “When the fire comes, it’ll kill them.”
He nods, and I deflate. Right.
There aren’t enough trucks for everyone, not even with the reduced numbers, so the cavalcade is flanked by a row of Rippers on each side. Even though they’re all far from human, a lot of them are still clearly ruled by their human instincts. Those are the newbies, I guess. Those men and women clutch guns across their chests. As if they aren’t aware that their own bodies are now a more efficient weapon than the rifles themselves. Can’t wait to see them try to hook a claw through the trigger guard.
I’m still shaking my head at the amateurs when Ellis steps up to my side. “I know,” he says simply. “There’s no way they’re all going to make it.”
The Shade Chronicles | Book 2 | Predator Page 5