Odium
Date: 2013-09-01 07:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Post Apocalyptic; Survival; Fiction; Dystopia; Science Fiction; Zombies; Horror; Fantasy; Apocalyptic; Romance
Description: ** From USA Today Bestselling Author Claire C. Riley comes the first book in an intense, post-apocalyptic series--ODIUM. Bringing life, love and survival together for one thrilling read. ** The infection came. Humanity fell. And the world everyone knew ended. But one woman’s unwavering determination to live, against all the odds, might just be the only thing to survive this bleak new existence. When the fate of a young girl hangs in the balance, Nina sacrifices herself and leaves the barricaded city she’s living in. Despite this act of selflessness, Nina isn’t the same woman she once was. She’

By

USA Today Bestselling Author

Claire C. Riley

Odium The Dead Saga Series

Copyright ©2020 Claire C. Riley

Cover Design: Wilde Designs Elizabeth Constantopoulos

Editor: Amy Jackson

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, without express permission from the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Odium VII
the dead saga

About the book:

Book 7 in the bestselling post-apocalyptic romance series.

How can we love in a world full of death?

A year has gone by and Nina is filled with rage and grief for her many losses. Only one thing remains the same: her hate for the Savages and the desire for their death.

More bitter and broken than she’s ever been before, she wonders if she can ever find her way back to the light again. But Shooter hasn’t given up on her yet, and neither have the rest of the Devil’s Highwaymen.

Mikey, living at Haven, is not the man he once was.

He hunts. He kills. He protects…but inside he has fallen apart.

He may have survived his time as the Savages’ prisoner and come away with all his body parts intact, but they managed to carve away a more vital part of him and he doesn’t know how to get it back.

Revenge is on both of their minds, their mutual hatred for the Savages continually driving them on toward an uncertain future. Together or apart, their enemy is the same, and they both cling to the hope of taking the head of the one who stole everything from them.

Only one thing is certain now: if they are to survive this enemy, they must seek out a truth that has evaded them thus far.

But will this truth destroy them?

Only time will tell.

Dedication.

To Stacy,

Love is infinite.

It transcends the stars in the sky, the deepest depths of any ocean & the life we live in between.

You will meet again.

My heartfelt thanks for your trust.

Claire xox

By

USA Today Bestselling Author

Claire C. Riley

1.

Nina

His lips on mine are all that I feel.

All that I see.

All that I need to know.

His lips on mine are what wash away the pain, the grief, the loss.

His lips on mine wash away everything.

“Nina…”

When you think you’ve lost everything, when you’re running your bare palm across rock bottom and getting dirt under your nails and scuffs across your palm, when you’re at that place…that dark, dark place, remember to look up.

“Nina?”

His hand on my bare arm made me open my eyes and I stared up into his blue, blue eyes. Eyes that reminded me of living and dying, of breathing and suffocating. Eyes that saw me so well, despite how much I tried to hide myself from him. Despite how much I wanted to hide everything I am from him. He saw it all.

“What?” I mumbled, my voice still thick with sleep.

“You were talkin’ in your sleep again.” Shooter said it as a statement, but we both knew it was an accusation. The truth slipping out between rough sheets. Between the layers of wake and sleep.

I rolled over to my side, feeling fully alert then. Anxious about what I might have been saying. Sleep was supposed to be private. Your dreams yours and yours alone. Speaking out loud was like whispering your secrets, your fears, to anyone within earshot. It made me severely uncomfortable. I had many secrets and oh so many fears.

“Fuck,” I grumbled, rubbing my eyes as I tried to hide the panic in them.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked, his gravelly voice betraying nothing.

Snorting out a laugh, I pushed my choppy bangs out of my eyes and threw him a hard scowl. “Do you?”

“Fuck no,” he growled.

I slid myself to the edge of the bed and got out, leaving the warmth of our bed and his body behind. “Then why ask?” I retorted as I stomped my way to the bathroom and slammed the door behind me.

I shouldn’t have been so hard on him; he was only trying to help—trying to be the perfect boyfriend, or whatever he was to me. I wasn’t even sure anymore what we were. Comfortable? Definitely. Lost? Without a doubt. Clinging on to one another so neither of us drowned? Absolutely.

Inside the bathroom I sat on the edge of the bathtub and stared down at the cracked tiled floor with a sigh. My arm was hurting, the dull ache and throb at the point where it had been hacked and chopped so many times to try and stop an infection. Scar had taken my hand, but germs and my own body fighting the germs had taken the forearm. It was worse than an itch that you can’t scratch, because there was nothing there to scratch anymore. I broke my arm when I was a kid—funnily enough, it was the arm that’s no longer there—I mean, my arm’s there, but my hand isn’t anymore. Sheesh, this arm’s unlucky, but I digress. I broke my arm when I was a kid. Snapped the bone clean through when I came off my bike while riding it down a huge hill like I was invincible. It hadn’t even hurt for the first minute or two. Though my Mom had said later that I was in shock and just didn’t remember screaming so loud that I could be heard three blocks away.

I remember wearing a cast on my arm for eight weeks. My skin had stunk to high heaven when I’d gotten that stupid cast got cut off, and my arm was as skinny as a matchstick, but oh had I enjoyed scratching and rubbing that skin until my flesh was red raw.

This was nothing like that though.

I stared down at my arm—my non-existent arm—my gaze going to the bandaged stub at the end of it. The place where my wrist should have been joined to my hand. Only there was no wrist and there was no hand. It just ended below the elbow in white sterile cotton. A stub for where everything else should be.

My stomach churned, getting worse the longer I stared at the white bandage.

I felt sick, dizzy with rage and sadness and total misery. In the grand scheme of things, it was just a hand. I mean, it could have been worse; it could have been my whole arm. Or my head! Can you imagine if he would have gone for my damn head! A headless Nina…I could have been dead. I sometimes thought that dead would be better than this. I sometimes wished I was.

“You okay in there?” Shooter said from the other side of the door. His voice came from just on the other side of the wood, and I imagined him standing there, bare chested, his hands holding on to the top of the doorframe as he stared at the closed door, patiently waiting for me to answer. “Nina?” His voice was gravelly and thick. He wasn’t saying it, because he never said it, but he was worried about me.

He was always worried about me.

So was everyone else, but no one dared say it to my face.

My tongue was a serpent’s and my throat was filled with fire.

“Just peachy,” I grumbled.

I thought he sighed and then moved away from the door. He wanted to ask me more, but he didn’t want to know the answers—not really. He had a thousand questions, but he knew he wouldn’t like the answers so he didn’t ask the things that burned the tip of his tongue, that begged to be spoken. I didn’t blame him though. If things were reversed, I wouldn’t have wanted to ask him either.

I could hear him moving about the room—getting dressed, no doubt, and heading out for coffee and a nightshift report. The Rejects were still with us, most of the NEOs too, though they had to switch out every couple of days to make sure that Haven stayed protected. The Rejects, though, they didn’t really have a home anymore. They had a temporary base, from what I’ve heard, but it wasn’t a home.

So there we all were. Like one big happy freaking family. The Highwaymen men and women, the Rejects and the NEOs, all working together to hunt down and kill the Savages. To make them pay for everything they’d done to all of us. Everything they’d taken. We were enemies and friends combined into one army. We were an army of frenemies, if you will. I wondered for the millionth time what was going to happen to all of these people when we finally found and killed the Savages. Because we would, eventually. I wouldn’t rest until we did.

A shudder ran down my spine and my stomach roiled when I thought about the Savages’ caves and the things we’d found inside them. They were empty of the Savages, but they’d left most of their…stock behind, both alive and dead. It turned out the Savages weren’t just cannibals—they also liked to torture and play with their food too. The minimal survivors we had found had been put out of their misery quickly. It was the only humane thing left to do for them. Because if I thought my life sucked with my hand missing, it was nothing compared to what those people were missing.

I realized that I was digging the nails of my right hand into the top of my thigh and I stopped myself short of drawing blood, staring down at the half moon shapes I’d created.

Shooter and Gauge had set up small explosions in those caves and closed them off for good. There was no way we wanted anyone to ever have to go back in there again.

Pulling on the previous night’s jeans and T-shirt, I buttoned them up with surprising ease. Highlander had said it would get easier and he was right. It had, yet it still hurt.

Phantom pains, he called them. But they felt so goddamn real I didn’t understand how they could be a phantom.

I left the bathroom, finding that Shooter had already left to go to the clubhouse for his meeting. I should have been there too but today I just didn’t feel like it. Today I felt especially melancholy. I needed to harness the rage I knew was embedded somewhere within the core of me, and then I needed to drag it kicking and screaming toward the surface, because rage was better than this miserable existence. Rage was better than grief.

I’d lost everything, and yet I knew that I still had so much.

A sharp knock at the door drew my attention away from my moody inner monologue, and I went and answered it, finding Stormy waiting wide-eyed and beautiful as always.

“Hey, how are you doing today?” she asked, though there was no way she couldn’t tell how I was doing, by my glum expression.

“Great actually,” I lied. “I was thinking of signing up for the Devil’s Highwaymen 10k charity race. You know, I may only have one hand but at least I still have two feet. Gotta see the glass half full, right?” I snarked.

Her mouth opened and closed as she tried to come up with a reply to my bitchiness. While she tried to decide how to handle my bitter sarcasm. I hated that I’d become that woman again. The one with the too-sharp tongue and the bitter chip on her shoulder. The one that didn’t think before she spoke and turned away help because she was too angry at the world to believe that there was anyone or anything good out there anymore. It was like I’d gone back to the Nina from behind the walls. The one that was mean to teenage girls and let her friends get killed because she was too scared to do anything about it.

Only I wasn’t scared anymore, I was just fucking furious.

I swallowed and looked away, shame clawing its way up my too-dry throat. “I’m sorry,” I said with a heavy sigh, but we both knew I wasn’t really sorry at all.

I just wanted to be left alone.

I wanted to be left with my misery.

And the really messed-up part was that I really did keep wishing that it would have been my head Scar took and not my arm. I would have welcomed death with open arms. In death I would still have everything…my hand, my wrist, my Mikey.

“It’s okay.” She accepted my pathetic excuse for an apology easily, like she always did. Like everyone always did.

I wished I could be nicer to her. Hell, I wished I could be nicer to everyone—anyone! But I couldn’t be. I was just angry and sad and all chewed up inside. I had nothing left. No arm, no heart, no nothing. I was just a shell filled with turmoil and anger.

“I need to check the dressings actually, so grab your stuff and let’s get over to the clinic.”

I nodded and reached over to grab my boots, realizing, as I did every morning, that I couldn’t pick up the heavy boots with one hand. My anger flared again, but I bit my tongue that time to stop myself from losing my shit. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I grabbed my boots with my one hand and dragged them closer, sliding my feet into them. And then it was there again… the anger, the rage, the misery because I couldn’t even tie my own goddamned laces.

“Want me to do it?” Stormy asked, and my gaze flipped to her. She must have seen my rage simmering beneath the surface, because she flinched.

I pushed the laces into the sides of the boots around my feet and stood up. “No, I’ve got it covered.” And then I barged past her and out the door.

Every footstep was another step closer to losing my shit. But I wasn’t going to cry. I was going to lash out. I wanted to hurt someone—people, monsters, I didn’t really care what or who. I just needed someone to hurt like me, just for a moment. I wanted to smash and break and rage against the unfairness of everything.

Pushing open the clubhouse door, I stormed outside, the too bright sky encouraging me like it was my own personal cheerleader. If I’d had a rocket I could fire into it, blackening it forever, I’d have fired that thing without a second thought.

I could hear Stormy jogging to keep up with me, but I didn’t wait for her. I kept my pace up…in fact, I picked up the pace just to be mean, my feet moving quicker by the second, like I was trying to outrun myself and my demons.

“I’ll meet you there,” I called back to her as I passed her doctor’s clinic. Because I knew I couldn’t go inside right then.

I felt trapped and pent up. I needed to run and know that I was alive, because I felt fucking dead inside. I felt death crawling across my chilled skin like a ghost’s touch, and I welcomed it. I welcomed it so much. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t understand why they’d saved me. Why couldn’t they have just let me bleed out?

My feet pounded the dry earth over and over, until my muscles were aching and my lungs were burning, and my poor broken heart was struggling to keep up with me and all I could think was good. Die. Please, God, let me die. Let my heart quit on me right here and end this misery. Please!

I ran until my skin was slick with sweat, my hair plastered to my head, and I felt like I might be sick. I must have done twenty rounds of the complex, avoiding every single person who tried to talk to me or called my name. I avoided it all because it was all just so pointless.

But mostly I knew that I was avoiding life because all I wanted was death.

2.

Nina

The clouds moved above me, a slow avalanche of misery trying to block out the sun. Lying there and looking up at the sky like that reminded me of another time. Only then I had no idea what lay ahead of me. All of the death and misery, the loss, the love and the loss again. It was too much for one person to take in a single lifetime. Hot tears slid down my cheeks, mingling with the sweat from my mad dash from life.

“Och, you’ve got that look in your eye again, girly,” Highlander’s thunderous voice broke the silence of my misery and I turned to look at him.

“What look?” I grumbled. I was sitting behind one of the old supply sheds, my back against the dusty wooden walls.

He came over, uncaring that I didn’t ask him to share my space, and sat down next to me. He looked up and pointed to a cloud. “That one looks like—”

“Don’t,” I snapped, cutting him off. Memories of cloud-watching with another man a lifetime ago stung my heart but I pushed them away. I stood up and started to walk away.

“Och, wait up,” he grumbled, and followed me.

“Ever heard of personal space, Highlander?”

“Ever heard of blowjobs, sweet cheeks?”

I turned on him with a scowl that could cut marble and his face split into a huge grin as he started to laugh. That man never took anything seriously.

“Go eat horse shit,” I gritted.

“Fecking hell, woman, you’ve got a tongue worse than a viper on its period on ya! Don’t worry, I wouldn’t put ma’ dick near that gob o’ yours for all the gold in the world.” He laughed even harder when he saw my anger growing. Which of course made me angrier. It was a vicious circle of anger and laughter and anger and laughter. And around and around we go. “All right, all right, calm ya tits will ya, Queen B. I’ve got somethin’ for ya.”

“Queen B?” I asked with an arch of my eyebrow.

“Figured you’re a massive bitch that deserves a crown to go with it!” he barked out with a loud laugh, like he’d said the funniest thing ever. I was still confused, and my face must have shown it because he rubbed a hand down his beard and at least had the decency to look a little embarrassed. “Queen Bitch, Nina. The queen of all the bitches.”

I scowled. “Firstly, don’t call me a bitch; you haven’t earned that right yet. And secondly, hard pass on the dick sandwich, Highlander, and don’t let Shooter hear you talking like that or he’ll cut yours off and feed it to you.” I turned and started to walk away from him, but he jogged up and gripped the bicep of my good arm, swinging me back around to face him.

His dark gaze bored down on me. “I told ya, I was joking.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” I mocked. “You are hilarious. A regular comedian.”

“Och, Jesus Christ, what the fuck he sees in you I don’t know.” That time it was his turn to scowl.

I gave him a dark grin. “Looks like I have heard of blowjobs after all.”

And just like that, his thunderous look was gone, replaced with him laughing again. I rolled my eyes at him, the throb of my nonexistent arm reminding me that nothing about life was funny or good anymore.

“If you got what you want from this little exchange, then I’m going to get going. Stormy wants to change my bandages and I have the incessant desire to kick you in the balls right now so it’s probably best for both of us if I make a move.”

“I have something for you, Nina,” he grumbled sternly.

“Syphilis?”

“Nina!”

“Gonorrhea?”

“Ack, you’re pissing me off now, woman.”

“I got it,” I said with a snap of my fingers before pointing them at him. “Genital warts!”

Highlander put both hands on his hips and glared down in an attempt to intimidate me, but I rolled my eyes in mock boredom. “You can be—”

“A real bitch? Tell me something I haven’t heard before. Now like I just said…don’t call me a bitch.” My stomach growled, though through hunger or anger I wasn’t sure; every part of me felt angry these days. But what no one realized or seemed to care about was that I had to hold on to the anger. If it weren’t for the anger I’d be nothing. I’d be a puddle of nothing. So I held on to my anger and my bitterness and I lashed out at the world with my nasty, unfiltered tongue to keep myself alive. Because although I wished I was dead, I knew that I was still alive for a purpose. I needed to stay alive until I killed the Savages.

Highlander reached out with both hands, placing them on my shoulders, and looked down into my face. His expression went from irritation to sympathy in a hot second, and I hated that even more. I didn’t need his sympathy, nor did I want it.

“I have something for you, if you’ll just contain that little psycho inside of you long enough to come and take a look.”

“I mean, it’s going to be hard because the little psycho really wants to punch you in the junk right now.” I cocked my head to one side like I was assessing him, and I watched him cover his crotch with his hands.

He sighed when he saw I still wasn’t budging. “Please, it’s something you’ll definitely want.”

“Do you have cookies?” I asked.

“Cookies? No, it’s not cookies.”

“Then I don’t want it.”

Nothing like looking a gift horse in the mouth, huh.

“Where would I even get cookies from?” he asked, exasperated.

“Not my problem. You’re the one who offered me cookies.” I shrugged.

“I didn’t…” He sighed. “Fine, I’ll get you some damned cookies too if you’ll just come with me.”

I chewed on my bottom lip, my stomach grumbling loudly at the prospect of cookies. “How do I know you’re not going to try and rape or kill me?”

He laughed again, his grip falling from my shoulders. “Like I said, I wouldn’t put my dick anywhere near you. Gotta feeling I’d mentally scar the old fella,” he laughed, grabbing his crotch crudely, and I couldn’t help but crack a smile. “There she is,” he said. “Come on, Queen B, I’ll even say please if I have to.”

I finally relented with a small nod of my head and we started to walk, me following his lead since I didn’t know where we were going. When we arrived at his and Balls’s little workshop, I threw Highlander a confused look.

“Is this where you murder me?” I snarked.

“If I thought I could get away with it without Shooter blowing my brains out…” He winked. He pushed through the door with my glaring gaze on his back. “Balls, ya dirty fecker, where are ya?”

“I’m in the back,” Balls’s muffled voice shouted from the back.

I looked around Balls’s workshop as we passed several tables piled high with different equipment and items that looked like they were mid-repair. A heap of metal was in one corner on the floor, and on the opposite side was a pile of wood of various shapes. Tools lined the walls, and shelving was stacked high with various items. I squinted to work them out, noticing batteries and wiring and springs and bulbs.

Yet nothing seemed to be finished.

“Is this why the hot water stopped working?” I grumbled. “Because he can never finish anything?”

Highlander ignored my irritation, his long arms pushing the bead curtain apart so we could step through. In the back, Balls was sitting at a long wooden desk. He was wearing a welding mask and was hunched over something. Small sparks were coming from it, and he hissed under his breath and put his tool down before pushing the helmet off. His serious face flitted from Highlander to me and back to Highlander, an unspoken conversation going on.

Balls and I used to get along, but since he almost got my friend killed, I’d tended to avoid him so I didn’t accidently kill him. Of course, it was a lot harder to kill someone now that I only had one hand, so I guess he was pretty safe unless I turned into a starfish and grew it back.

He cleared his throat and stood up, gesturing to the table. “Nina, I erm, I know that you’ve been struggling since the erm, since…”

“Since I had my hand hacked off by Scar? Since I nearly died from infection…twice? Since I lost all of my friends? Since the man I loved chose someone else? Since the end of the fucking world? Yeah, yeah, we all know the sob story, Balls, get on with the show and tell.”

Balls winced. “Well, I was going to say since you lost your hand.”

I rolled my eyes. “Please don’t say ‘lost your hand.’ That’s just insulting and stupid. I didn’t lose it. It’s not a purse that I misplaced, Balls. I’m not going to stumble across it and pop it back on like, ‘oh crap, that’s where it went, silly me!’ It’s my hand. A hand that used to be on the end of my wrist and is now rotting in the ground somewhere because someone sliced it off.”

They exchanged a look and Balls continued, much to my annoyance. I was so done with that conversation. With that place. With that life. I wished I’d just give up already. Just stop breathing and quit existing. But I didn’t. I woke, I wandered aimlessly, I bitched people out, and then I slept again. It was one long, unhappy carousel ride.

“We’ve been working on something for you, is what I’m trying to say,” Balls said hesitantly. It was actually kinda funny how nervous I made him.

Highlander snorted under his breath. “It was actually my idea,” he said haughtily, because he wanted to make sure he got enough credit for whatever the hell this was.

I glowered at them both. “Is it a gun? I’d like a gun so I can kill myself and put myself out of the misery of having to listen to you two, please. Obviously not before I killed you both though.”

Highlander smirked. Balls actually looked offended. I didn’t give a shit either way.

“Well, it may have been your idea, Highlander, but without me you couldn’t have done it.” Balls dropped his mask onto the desk with a heavy thump. “You’d do better to remember that.”

“You’d do better to remember that it was still my idea, and without an idea all you’ve got is a bunch of parts and no balls!” Highlander roared with laughter and I was almost tempted to laugh too when Balls went red in the face.

I huffed out my irritation, my hand propped on my hip. “When you’re both ready, can we get to the killing part?”

Balls raised an eyebrow at me and Highlander slapped me on the shoulder. “I told you there was no killing involved.”

“Then I’m out,” I said, and turned to leave.

Highlander grabbed me and spun me back around. “Come and look before you storm off back to hell, you hellion of a woman.” He directed me toward the table, and when I reached it I stared down at the weird pile of metal and leather on it, wondering what the hell kind of torture device it was. It looked painful and weird.

“What am I looking at? All I see is brown leather and metal. Is this some weird BDSM you two are into? Shooter isn’t going to like this,” I tutted. I reached out with my good hand to pick up the item, and as I lifted it off the table I realized what it was and dropped it back down like I’d been burned. Like it was hot metal and I was cool ice and just that single touch was melting me.

I stepped back from the table, my gaze fixed on the thing as I shook my head.

“It’s custom built,” Balls said softly—too softly for him—and I turned to glare. “Don’t give me that ‘I want to rip your dick off’ look, Nina.”

“Ohhhh, but I do,” I bit back.

“It’s almost healed. A little padding and you’re good to go,” Highlander said, his voice as rough and tough as it always was. “Stop being a victim now. The narrative is getting boring.”

It was the one thing I liked about him: there was no bullshit. He didn’t treat me like I was going to break, even when I was shattering in front of him. Yet his words right then were so misplaced. Pain cut through me as bright and visceral is a knife through flesh.

“Try it on. There’s still some adjustments to be made.”

I reached out and picked the weird metal arm back up. It was a half sleeve that looked like it would strap over my shoulder and attach at the elbow. I only lost my hand, but after an infection ravaged through me after my little trip out to try to save Mikey, I lost more, and more, and more. Until eventually they chopped it off from above the wrist but below the elbow.

One good clean slice right through.

I’d passed out from the pain.

I had stayed passed out for a good couple of weeks, begging to be put back under whenever I came around. Until I eventually woke and Shooter said it was time to stay awake.

The worst had passed, and I was alive.

I was alive, and it was time to get on with living.

My life had had ended a thousand ways since this all began, but I truly felt dead inside now. And a crazy medieval contraption that mimicked an actual arm wasn’t going to change that.

I was a victim.

I was weak and helpless.

I dropped it back down and ran out of Balls’s workshop, slamming the door behind me.

3.

Nina

“Heading to church in ten, if you give a shit,” Gauge said as he sat opposite me.

I’d headed right to the food hall to get some food after leaving Balls’s workshop. I still needed to go and see Stormy so she could check my arm, but I figured I deserved some breakfast first before she got to prodding and poking me.

“I don’t,” I replied without looking up.

I loved these eggs. They weren’t like the eggs that you used to get—ten thousand hens all cooped up in a dark and horrible barn, breathing in each other’s feces, their bony feet disfigured. No, these eggs came from beautiful, well-looked-after, free-range hens. I would know, I looked after them sometimes. They were the only thing I showed affection to anymore. And I use the term affection loosely. They were still hens, after all, and I hadn’t completely fallen off the crazy wagon.

“Nina.” Gauge grumbled my name like he was a magician and my name was his magical word to make something spectacular happen.

“Gauge…” I mocked, shoveling another forkful of eggs into my mouth. God these were really, really good eggs. On a supply run a couple of weeks before, some of the bikers had traded with a family they’d met at a farm—some milk, flour, and corn in return for fixing up some stuff. They’d spent a good week there, mending fences and gates and securing the place as best they could before leaving with a truck full of goodies. I’d received a whole bag of corn just for me and my hens, and the hens had been producing some of the best eggs ever because of it.

My hens tended to live off the land, but apparently Thanksgiving was on its way and Shooter wanted to kill a couple of my new feathered friends for dinner, meaning he wanted them to be as tasty as possible. I should have cared more that he was going to slaughter some of my little hens, but I didn’t. I didn’t care about a whole lot these days.

So I selected the oldest birds of my little flock and began giving them some of the good stuff. They didn’t lay many eggs these days anyway, but what they did lay, thanks to my little corn supply, was damned gorgeous.

“He could do with you being there,” Gauge grumbled again. He, meaning Shooter. I hated it when Gauge did this—acted like Shooter was a little boy that needed his mommy to tell him everything was going to be okay, and not a grown-ass scary man that could kill someone with a single bullet from an impossible distance. Yeah, that was how Shooter got his name. He was like a sniper with a gun, only his gun could be any gun. That was how good he was. Apparently, back in the day, he’d shot some guy while skidding down a mountainside. It was impossible odds—the distance huge, the target moving—but he’d gotten a good, clean shot in and the name had stuck.

“And I could do with a million dollars,” I retorted dryly.

He raised a graying eyebrow at me and I shrugged half-heartedly.

“Not really. Money is completely useless now, so a million dollars would be stupid, but I’d take having an arm again if it’s up for auction.” I dropped my forkful of eggs to my plate and sighed before looking up at Gauge. He was staring at me… No, no, he was scowling at me, his graying beard twitching as he tried to hold his temper in check. “Do we have a lead on them yet?”

He stared at me for a beat before answering. His graying hair was messy around his face and he looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. He’d been doing everything he could to find out where the Savages had vanished to since the day we’d turned up at their caves and found that they’d abandoned them. We’d blown the hell out of those caves without even bothering to try to steal any supplies that might have been left behind, and I was glad. Everything in that place was death. Weapons carved from bone, clothes made out of skin, and food made out of our friends. It was a regular American Horror Story and I was glad when it collapsed in on itself, trapping its horrors within.

“Maybe,” he finally grunted.

He was being careful around me, choosing his words with caution. He knew how much I wanted to find the Savages and destroy them. Hell, we all did. But they had taken everything from me. They had led me down this path and I wanted nothing more than revenge before I died. I wanted it so bad I woke in cold sweats, calling out in anger as I imagined my blade slicing down the center of Aife.

Of course, that was never going to happen.

Not now that I was like this.

I picked my fork back up, shoveling more eggs on to it. “You either have or you haven’t, Gauge. It’s one or the other. You can’t maybe find someone. You can’t maybe kill someone either. When you have a definite lead, come find me. Until then, we have nothing to say.” I pushed the forkful of eggs into my mouth and stood up, picking my now empty tray up with my one hand and walking away.

“Nina!” Gauge yelled, catching up to me in three long strides. “Stop fuckin’ running.”

“I’m not running, Gauge, this is the speed I walk.”

He snorted on a laugh. “You walk like you’re running?”

I ignored him and kept going, ignoring the looks we were getting as we headed through the clubhouse grounds. In the past couple of months, things had changed around there. A lot. After we’d gotten back from our hunting expedition of the Savages’ camp, Amara had told us that they’d lost almost all of their camp. Someone had set a fire somewhere and the whole place had gone up. They’d saved everything they could and gotten the hell out of there and had found their way here.

Thankfully, Shooter had left a couple of his men behind to—and I say this with a sarcastic roll of my eyes—protect the women. The women didn’t need protection. Not any more than any other person did. But they had needed to know the way to the clubhouse.

The clubhouse had become everyone’s home now, and it had been expanded to accommodate a lot more people than previously. Though it had taken some getting used to from Shooter and Gauge, people had started to couple up. Amara and Gunner were now together—like together together. Even had their own cute little one-roomed house. They’d need something bigger at some point, because yes, Amara had finally given birth to a healthy baby girl. She was still only a month or two old, but one day she’d need her own room. I’d watched Gunner staring at both Amara and their daughter, Indigo, in awe at every opportunity for the past year.

Whatever he’d done before, he’d never forgive himself, but he knew he’d deal with that in the next life. This one was for living. And he and Amara had brought new life into it.

Personally, I thought they were insane to want to bring life into this hellhole, but each to their own I guess. I’d rather put a gun to my head than have a baby, something that Shooter and I had argued about at great length.

“It would do the club good to see you there,” Gauge grumbled from behind me, and my footsteps staggered to a stop.

I turned to face him with a disbelieving look on my face, and he shrugged because he hated that fact as much as I did.

“You gave them hope, Nina,” he said, his features hard. He shook his head and dragged a hand down his beard. “But they’re beginning to lose it.” His brows pulled down lower and I wondered how much of his pride it hurt for him to admit that.

Gauge and I didn’t have the best relationship. I mean, he didn’t get along with many people. His past was ugly, from what I’d been told, and like me, he’d lost everyone he’d ever loved.

“Maybe that’s for the best,” I said, my tone dark.

“Those men, they abandoned the Rejects not for Shooter, or me…but for you. They turned on their club and their leader because of your words. You incited a rebellion and you can’t walk away from them. I hate that more than I’d care to admit, but it’s the damned truth. They follow Shooter, they’re Highwaymen now, but it’s you that they look up to. They need to see you, Nina.” Gauge’s gaze watched my hard expression wordlessly before finally he shook his head. “Ten minutes. Just turn up, show your face—”

“Smile sweetly and pretend that everything is okay?” I sniped, my words dripping with sarcasm. His expression darkened further and I rolled my eyes at him. “You don’t scare me, Gauge, so you can quit the macho bullshit.”

He opened his mouth to speak and then stopped himself, giving another shake of his head. “You saved these men. Don’t that mean anythin’ to you?”

“Oh my God, I didn’t save anyone, Gauge! I nearly got myself killed is what I got. Butcher died, Drag died, Scar died, people were eaten, homes destroyed, Adam is apparently still missing, Phil is missing, Michael is gone, and Mikey is living his happily ever after with O’Donnell God knows where. But me, I’m barely surviving, so don’t put anything or anyone else on my conscience because it’s already overflowing.” I was barely breathing as my angry words fell from my mouth. “I don’t save people, don’t you see that? People die around me, and those men in there had no other choice than to follow Shooter because there was nothing left of the Rejects after I happily hacked off Scar’s head! They didn’t choose this any more than I did.” I threw my arm up in the air in frustration, my anger flaring even brighter when there was only one arm to lift.

“Nina,” Gauge started.

“I need to go,” I said, my words hard and solid, like something unmovable, even though inside I felt the opposite. I felt like liquid, crashing against the banks, losing a little of myself every time.

“And what about him?”

I frowned. “Who?”

“Shooter.” Gauge pulled the stub of a cigar from his pocket and lit it before holding my gaze steady in his. “He’s been patient enough, don’t you think?”

“He can let me go anytime he wants.”

Gauge laughed without humor. “You and I both know that ain’t true.”

I dragged a hand down my face. “I’m just trying to survive here, okay?” I said, my anger subsiding a little at the mention of Shooter. Because Gauge was right: he couldn’t let me go, no matter how much I pushed to try to make him. He couldn’t and he wouldn’t. He loved me and it was killing him.

“So is he,” Gauge replied. “So are all of us. I know you lost a lot—way more than just a fuckin’ arm, okay? And I know you’re hurtin’ about that. But you’re alive, aren’t you? Can’t you see that? You’re alive, and everyone is waiting for you to come through this, whether you like it or not.”

I felt the power of his words penetrating my skin like needles; they hurt, but they were also a relief in some sick kind of way. Believe it or not, being mean and angry all the time is exhausting work. I wished Shooter would give me more of the drugs that knocked me out. I wished I could go back to the day my arm was taken and I was left with a needle full of it so I could let it burn through my veins long enough to block out the pain while I blew out my own damn brains.

“Gauge! Church, now!” one of the nomads I recognized as Battle yelled out from the main clubhouse.

I looked around at him, watching as he went inside, and then I turned back to Gauge. His stance was all two hundred and twenty pounds of don’t-give-a-fuck muscle, but we both knew that was a lie. That man did give a fuck. He gave a lot of fucks, actually. Sometimes so many fucks that he was all out of fucks and Shooter had to order him to go find his woman to get fucked so he could find some more fucks to pep him back up.

It was all very fucked up.

Much like our fucked-up weird non-friendship.

“Do you really have a lead on the Savages?” I asked, trying to keep the hope from my voice.

“Yeah, but that’s not why I want you there,” he said.

I nodded. “Highlander promised me cookies earlier.”

Gauge frowned and look confused.

“I want coffee from you,” I demanded.

His cigar was all but gone. Any more and he’d burn the tips of his fingers, but that didn’t stop him from taking another long drag of it, his dark, moody gaze holding mine. When I didn’t waver in my demand, he threw the butt of the cigar away and stormed past me with a grunt of “okay.”

“Okay?” I quirked an eyebrow at him in annoyance. “Just okay? No, asshole remark? No comeback. NO telling me to go screw myself and that this isn’t a Starbucks?”

Gauge sighed and dropped his cigar butt on the ground before dragging a hand down his face. He stared at me deadpan.

“What do you want from me, Nina? I said okay to the coffee, alright. Now just...” he shook his head. “I’ll meet you over there.” He turned and walked away and I stared after him in disbelief.

Coffee and cookies, all in one day?

What sorcery is this?

4.

Nina

Shooter had barely taken his eyes off me since I’d walked in with Gauge. I purposefully sat myself at the opposite side of the room and in the corner so as not to disturb things and to keep out of everyone’s eyeline. Apparently no one had gotten the memo that I wanted to be a shadow and not in the spotlight, because people kept on turning to smile at me like I was a painting in the Tate Modern or some crap.

I’d never seen so many happy bikers before. It was a little nauseating.

“How’s the food supply doin’?” Shooter asked, his gaze flicking briefly toward Backtrack and then to me again.

It was embarrassing the way he was staring. Anyone would think we hadn’t shared the same bed last night. That we weren’t an actual thing and that I was just some woman he was lusting after and he was my crazed stalker. In fact, if he didn’t stop staring at me I was going to have to leave the room because my cheeks were getting hotter than a pan of boiling water.

“Not too bad. We raided that warehouse downtown and found a bunch of stuff that hadn’t spoiled—canned stuff. The fresh crops out back are starting to look good. The trade with that little farm proved worthwhile, and thanks to Nina’s chickens the egg stock is real good.” Backtrack glanced over his shoulder at me, acknowledging that I was in the room with a single nod. “Not to mention that Thanksgiving is coming along and she’s been fattening up some of them.”

With his stare came twenty more, and it took everything in me to not snarl at them.

“The chickens doin’ good?” Shooter asked me, and I nodded. He knew they were. We’d talked about them the previous night. He seemed pleased, the creases around his eyes lessening with his happiness that I was there and finally interacting once more. “Crank, Sketch? How’re the weapons comin’ along?”

“Good—way quicker now that everyone knows what they’re doin’,” Crank replied.

Crank and Sketch were what Shooter and some of the other bikers called nomads. They were part of the club, but they belonged to no particular charter, or something. I didn’t really understand the mechanics of it, to be honest. It seemed pretty stupid since there weren’t exactly charters anymore anyway. There was just the Highwaymen. This group of Highwaymen. The rest were likely dead. But the nomads liked to believe they were still free to roam wherever their hearts took them.

Besides all that, I liked the nomads. They were different from the main group of bikers. They didn’t seem to have the same restraints as the rest of the group, and maybe because of that, they seemed a little less burdened. Apparently they’d been working with some small pockets of people across the country, trying to help people survive.

It was admirable, if nothing else.

They’d been brought in to build up Shooter’s army against the Savages. They brought food and weapons with them, which was a great help. But better yet, they’d learned to make weapons up in those hills and had been showing others how to build and use them too.

“Finally,” Shooter said, turning his attention from me and toward Gunner, “how are Amara and the baby?” And then he smiled—a genuine, heart-warming smile.

The rest of the group quickly followed, including Gunner.

Jesus, who knew a group of big alpha males could get so excited about a baby?

“Yeah, I thought she was smiling at me yesterday, but Amara said it was just wind,” Gunner said, and everyone laughed. “I still think she smiled because she recognized my voice.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t just straight up shit herself at the sound of your voice,” Highlander said with a loud laugh that everyone copied.

Gunner, the biggest man I’d ever seen, blushed, his sad gray eyes taking in his family around him with happiness. The room erupted into laughter and he went bright red. Even I managed to find a small pocket of happiness inside of me. Of course I quickly covered it up and let the blackness fall back over me.

“All right, all right,” Shooter said with a laugh, slamming his hand down on the round table. “Let’s get to business then, shall we?”

“Super,” I said. “Are we going to talk about them now?” I asked, breaking the euphoric atmosphere.

The laughter ceased immediately, and silence descended as all eyes were back on me. I hated it, but I was deadly serious in my question. It was all well and good making sure we had enough food and weapons, and that Amara’s baby was doing well, but what about them? The Savages. The goddamned psychos that hunted people down and ate them alive. That sold human beings like cattle. That had cut chunks out of our friends and made them eat it.

“We’re getting to it,” Shooter said, a warning to his tone.

I stood up and walked forward until I stood at the table. “Finding them is the most important thing right now.”

“No, survival is the most important thing,” Balls said to my left, and I turned and glared at him. “The last time someone went up against them, they lost all of their weapons, their president, and their fucking pride.”

“Pride?” I snorted a laugh. “Pride doesn’t do you any good if you’re dead, my friend.”

“It has to be done right. We need to make sure we all survive this,” Balls deadpanned.

“Oh, you want to survive, do you? Oh, okay, and how well do you sleep at night knowing that they’re out there somewhere? Hunting people down, cutting them up and eating them! Do you sleep like a baby or are you like me and wake up every hour with a scream lodged in your throat because all you can think about is these people eating people? That right now, they’re out there with people chained up in the dark waiting to die.”

I was losing it.

I knew I was, and I really wanted to not lose it in front of these people, but it was so hard not to let go. Not to give in to the rage and the terror that lived inside me. A part of me had died when Scar had taken my arm, and to fix the hole left behind I had replaced whatever it was with the desire for revenge.

Logically I knew I hated the Savages for the disgusting things they did; I mean, who wouldn’t? Eating people kinda went against the right and wrong of everything we’d ever been taught, right? It went against society in every capacity. But I knew a lot of my anger toward them stemmed from the fact that Scar was already dead and I had nowhere to put the anger I felt toward him. I couldn’t exact my revenge. I couldn’t make him pay in the form of a slow but brutal death. I couldn’t exactly re-kill him. Highlander had made sure of that when he’d put a bullet through his brain after I chopped off his head.

So all I had to go on was the Savages.

I needed to find them and kill them and make them pay for—well, pay for everything that sucked in my life. Even if some of it was misplaced anger. It was better I kill them than myself, right? I mean, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to survive, right? And that’s what everyone kept telling me to do: survive, live, get through this, it’ll get easier… blah fucking blah.

I was still waiting for the easier part to come, because so far nothing about any of this was easier.

“I’ll go get that coffee for you,” Gauge said from his place next to Shooter.

My heart was beating heavily, my breathing erratic. I nodded and tried to get control of myself.

One of the bikers, stood up and nodded toward his chair so I sat down in it, leaning my head against my hand as I tried to stop myself from crying or shouting or freaking the fuck out completely. A couple of minutes went by and a mug was placed in front of me. I opened my eyes and looked over at a steaming cup of black coffee in awe. There was no milk, obviously, and probably no sugar either, but I didn’t care. Coffee was coffee and we didn’t come by it very often. My gaze lifted to Gauge, who was sitting back down, and I nodded a thank you.

I lifted the cup to my lips and took a long sip of it, and by God it was the best thing I’d tasted in a long time. I sighed and the tension in the room dropped a little. You’d almost be forgiven in thinking that my woman-on-the-edge routine was freaking out these big burly alpha males.

“We’ve got a lead on them, we think,” Shooter finally said when he’d decided I wasn’t about to self-combust in anger, drawing my attention back to him. “We’re going to head out tomorrow and scout some things out, maybe grab some supplies while we’re on the road too. If it’s them, we’ll come back, call for backup from the others, and then we’ll head on to the location as one big fucking gun-toting family ready to send those crazy bitches to ground.”

There was way too much for me to focus on in that sentence, so I started with the first thing.

They had a lead.

The second thing was that he had been intending to go on a scouting mission without me. I was pissed off about that, but I put it to one side for the moment because the most important thing in all of that was that Shooter was intending to call for backup from the others.

The others, meaning NEO.

NEO, meaning Aiken, Timbo, O’Donnell, and all the others that had come to our aid when we’d first set out to kill the Savages.

I should have been focusing on survival, on the fact that we might have the Savages pinned down and dead within a week, but instead, all I could think about was that Mikey might be there.

My Mikey.

My Mikey who thought I was dead and was now living his happily-ever-apocalypse-style-after with O’Donnell.

No wonder Shooter hadn’t mentioned anything to me. I wouldn’t have mentioned anything to me either, if I was him. He’d done so much to make me his, and yet deep down he knew that I would always be Mikey’s. He would never fully have me the way Mikey did, or the way Ben had. I was with Shooter, but my heart was with another man and he knew it.

“Okay?” Shooter said with a heavy sigh, his blue eyes on mine. I nodded okay, not trusting myself to speak. And he nodded back and looked to Gauge to talk about the next thing on the list.

The meeting continued, but I was only half listening to what was being said. Apparently the little scouting mission had already been discussed the day before, and plans had already been put in place.

Five people were leaving the next day, heading in the direction of the last known sighting of those Savage bitches. Shooter had picked the crew and I wasn’t one of them. I gritted my teeth, my jaw feeling tight as I looked over at him.

I wanted to go with them, and he had known that. Looking at him now, I could already tell that he was prepping his argument against this happening, but it didn’t matter. I was going whether he liked it or not.

*

“All right,” Shooter said, slamming his gavel down on the table and bringing the meeting to a close, “get the fuck out of here and get back to work.”

Everyone stood, including me, and started to file out. When I reached the door, Gauge blocked my way, looking over his shoulder toward Shooter. After a weird little back-and-forth dance and some sidestepping, I found myself on the wrong side of the door and trapped in the room with Shooter as Gauge gave me an almost sympathetic look as he closed the door, trapping me inside.

Shooter stood up and headed toward the wall of windows that partitioned the little room—or what the bikers called their Chapel—and the main clubhouse, closing them one after another to give us some privacy. As he walked, I noted how long his hair had gotten, how much broader he seemed to be; his creased shirt was stretched against his hard muscles, and his hair now reached past his shoulders. When he turned, I saw that the gleam in his eyes wasn’t there anymore either. I’d missed so much these past months, it seemed. Guilt sung a siren call inside of me, but I knew logically, other than being lost in my own physical and mental pain, I hadn’t really done anything wrong…right?

Or was I trying to convince myself that?

He frowned, his eyebrows pulling in. “I don’t have the energy to argue with you, Nina,” he said, his voice low and deep.

“So don’t,” I countered.

He walked toward me, stopping as we came face to face. His large hand reached out to cup the side of my cheek in a gentle gesture that wasn’t like him at all. He looked at me differently these days, I realized. He looked at me like I was something, or someone, that was broken. Fragile. Like one of those porcelain dolls older people used to have. I hated that, because I was anything but fragile.

If anything, I was less fragile than I used to be.

I was harder, meaner, and I just didn’t give a fuck anymore.

“You can’t come out there with me, Nina,” he said, giving a shake of his head. “You’ll end up gettin’ yourself and all of us killed.”

“Stop being so dramatic,” I started, but he let go of my face and headed back to his chair at the head of the table. I followed him with my gaze as I tried to control my anger.

“You’re too rash,” he said, sitting down and lighting a cigarette.

That was another thing I’d noticed too: he was smoking again, and he wasn’t even trying to hide it. That wasn’t the issue though. The issue was that I didn’t care that he smoked anymore. It seemed stupid now really. We were all going to fucking die anyway, right?

“You love how rash I am,” I said with a shake of my head as I tried to downplay his comment. Mainly because that wasn’t the truth. Shooter hated how rash I was.

“You’re reckless and unstable. You don’t think, you just do,” he said, his gravelly voice speaking his concerns.

“That’s how I’ve always been,” I said, practically pouting.

Shooter pushed out a chair next to him and patted it, and I should have told him I wasn’t his little dog and to go fuck himself but instead I walked over and readied to sit in the chair. Before I could sit in it, he grabbed me and pulled me onto his lap.

“Yeah, you’ve always been reckless. A fuckin’ troublemaker for sure. And yeah, I’m even man enough to admit that I love that about you. You push me, Nina. As crazy as it is, you force me to a place I’m not wholly comfortable in, but I like that about you—about us. I like that you make me see this dark and crazy world differently, even if you do piss me off.”

His cigarette was burning away in the ashtray, the smoke a thin stream in the air, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was me in that moment. His eyes on mine, his hands holding tightly to my body, keeping me safely on his lap.

“But you’re not thinking straight right now, babe,” he said with a heavy sigh. “You’re not thinking in terms of saving people from the Savages. You’re thinking you want to kill them. To punish them. You want revenge…”

“Why is that a bad thing?” I snapped, trying to free myself from his octopus grip. “Don’t you want revenge?”

“No, I want them dead. That’s different.”

“I want them dead!” I yelled.

Shooter shook his head. “No, you want them dead at any cost—that’s fuckin’ different. You’ll happily get yourself killed so long as you kill them too. That’s the difference. You’re not thinking straight, and when you’re not thinking straight, it’s not just your life on the line, it’s my men, my family that will suffer, and I can’t have that.”

I slapped at his hands. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” I hit at him again and again. “Ughhh, will you get off me, Shooter.”

“No!” he barked, the single word an order. “You’ll fuckin’ sit there and listen to me, Nina. This can’t go on—otherwise there was no reason to stop you from bleedin’ out when Scar took your hand. There was no point in wasting all those damned antibiotics on your stupid ass. Goddammit, I fuckin’ hate sayin’ this, but there was no point in any of this if you just go out there and get yourself killed, woman! You’re taking all your hate out on the Savage bitches when it’s Scar you really want to hurt. But you can’t. He’s gone. You already sent him to ground, and you need to get your shit together before it’s too late. You feel me, Nina?”

He was shouting now, but it was more than just anger in his tone, it was something deeper and more primal. Something I recognized immediately.

It was fear and pain.

He was scared of losing me, even though he knew he already had.

Each day that went by, I slipped a little further from his reach and Shooter was there grasping for me, making room on that damned door for the both of us, and all I could do was wish that he’d just let me go. Let me sink beneath the icy waves and drown in my own oblivion.

I could have said a whole lot to his comments. I could have reassured him and made him feel better somehow. I could have kissed him and promised him I would try. That I’d give it a good try and not be so damn sad all the time. That I’d do my best to live in this awful world that I couldn’t see any happiness in anymore. That I’d try for him—for us.

But I didn’t say any of those things.

Instead, when he finally released me from his steely grip, I stood up and glared down at him, anger running through me like lava through my veins.

He thinks he’s doing what’s best for me, but he has no idea what’s best for me.

“I’m going, whether you like it or not, Shooter. If you leave without me, I’ll follow you. If you lock me up, I’ll find a way out.” I stormed toward the door and glanced back at him, my hand on the handle. “And if I find out you’ve kept anything else from me again, I’m gone. Do you feel me?”

I opened the door and stormed out.

5.

Nina

I headed over to see Stormy, since I had nowhere else to be. Besides, my arm was aching and I was itching for one of those little white pills that took the sting away and dulled my brain so that the low throb was nothing but a muted buzz in the back of my mind. She said it was mostly phantom pains and that there was nothing left there to hurt anymore. The bad flesh had been cut away and my skin had finally healed enough that I shouldn’t have been feeling anything.

She had no fucking clue what she was talking about, in my opinion.

Unless you’ve had an arm or a leg cut off, then you aren’t qualified to accurately describe what someone is or isn’t feeling. Because she wasn’t there when I woke at three in the morning, the low burn in my arm making me feel like I was on my fire. I could practically feel Scar’s blade cutting through my flesh and bone. I could hear the tear of skin, the crack of bone, the slice of my muscle as it separated from my body.

I might not have felt very much when it happened, terror gripping me like the cold hard glove of the devil, but I felt it now. I felt it every day and every night. And I had no idea when, or if, the nightmare was ever going to end.

I stomped across the clubhouse grounds, my gaze on my feet; no head held high for me anymore—I was impossibly broken, both inside and out. And honestly, all I wanted, more than anything, was for people to leave me the hell alone.

I could have walked away.

I should have walked away.

But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

It was that intrinsically human part of me that still clung to hope. To life. To the desire to survive. And it knew I couldn’t on my own.

It wasn’t the zombies that killed us.

Or the psychopaths that had survived the end of days.

It wasn’t disease or viruses or infections that killed us.

The only thing that could truly kill us was lack of love.

And not just receiving it, but giving it.

And my heart was a shriveled-up pulp unable to do anything but beat steadily and pump the sludge of my blood through my body.

I couldn’t love.

I refused love.

I didn’t want love.

And yet still I lived.

The clubhouse was busy today, I noted. A couple of the bikers had reopened the workshop and had bikes and vans, cars and trucks in various stages of disassembly. I was guessing that they were fixing them, but it looked like a junkyard, with hundreds of parts scattered around. I was sure that there was method to their madness.

On the other side of the clubhouse were some of the women from the original camp. They were practicing their fighting skills with various weapons. Amara had been leading them all since I took several retreating steps away from humanity. She looked up now, her eyes catching mine. They held hope.

I felt guilty for the hope she had.

She wanted me back, but I couldn’t bring myself back from the darkness inside me.

The other women stopped fighting and were looking over at me. I was like a beacon to them. I gave them so much and never asked for anything in return. They wanted to thank me. They wanted me to join them. But how? How could I? I was one part woman and ten parts ghost. I had one foot already in the grave, for God’s sake. I couldn’t join them—I was a liability like this, with one arm and a death wish.

I hated that Shooter was right.

I looked away, my shoulders slumping forward, and I focused on my path toward the little clinic that Stormy set up for me. She moved between our camp and the NEOs. Other than the first time, I’d never asked her about Mikey—I didn’t dare. I knew that he made it. That he was building his strength back up. That he’d been beaten, starved. He was dehydrated, his body exhausted. But that was it. He had still been in one piece, and he was getting stronger now that he was at the NEO camp. I didn’t need to know any more.

Mikey wasn’t mine anymore. He was O’Donnell’s, and I was Shooter’s.

It was best for everyone.

He went to her, not me. He made his choice, and it was a good choice because I had nothing to offer him.

Maybe one day they’d have babies together—beautiful babies that would be funny like him and smart like her. They’d know how to fight and how to survive in this cruel world. He’d show them how to pick locks and how to survive in impossible situations. She’d show them how to fire a gun and how to befriend people that shouldn’t like you.

My stomach churned, my eggs feeling gross in my stomach, and I pushed thoughts of Mikey and O’Donnell to one side, because really, I had no business thinking about such things.

I pushed the door of Stormy’s clinic open and walked inside. It was cooler in there, though maybe that was just because I didn’t have a hundred eyes on me. The place used to be the office for the workshop, but it had been thoroughly cleaned—well, as much as something can be thoroughly cleaned in an apocalypse—and stripped of everything that made it what it once was. Now the walls were painted doctor’s-waiting-room white and someone had stolen a couple of the beds from somewhere. I didn’t think it was a hospital though, despite them being hospital-issue beds. No one had been to a hospital in a long long time. They were far too dangerous.

The medicines and bandages were locked away in the back somewhere. I knew this because I’d seen her pull the key out from under her blouse when she went to get me my antibiotics and such. I didn’t go in the back though. No one did.

She looked up from the book she was reading when I came in, and smiled warmly, despite me being a total bitch earlier.

“Another murder mystery,” I said, nodding toward the medical journal in front of her. “I think it was the doctor, in the library with the candlestick.”

Her smile grew, and I felt a little warm at the sight of it. “Just trying to clue myself in on how to check for kidney infections. You know, animals and humans are pretty similar, so it hasn’t been too difficult, but it’s always good to be sure.”

I nodded. “Oh, I agree. For instance, I definitely don’t need anyone squeezing my anal glands anytime soon, but those antibiotics definitely made my guts hurt.”

“That’s the pain meds and you know it,” she retorted with a smile, closing the book and sliding it to her left.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

Stormy gestured to one of the beds. “Take a seat and let’s have a look.”

I did as she said and slid myself to sitting on the bed closest the window. The sun was shining through the cracked glass and cutting sunlight across my face. It was warm, and I liked it, because I felt so cold on the inside.

She started removing the bandages on my arm and I looked away, keeping my gaze fixed outside because I had no desire to look at the mangled mess of my little stump. I looked once and it was fucking gross. Truth be known, it reminded me of dog food. It stank like dog food too.

Stormy said it didn’t look like that anymore—that it was infected at that point, but it was clean now, the bad cut away and the healthy thriving. The last round of meds did the trick. It had been a long few months.

I imagined in the old world it would be years before anyone recovered from something like this. But it wasn’t that world and we didn’t have the time to spare. So we cut away the bad, fed ourselves any antibiotics we can find, and hoped for the damn best. Lucky for me, my damn best was good enough and I was healing well.

“Another couple of weeks and we can lessen these bandages, I think—start getting some air to the skin to encourage more healing,” she said as she rubbed some cream on my stump.

I could feel her long fingers smoothing cream over my skin and I shuddered. I could only imagine what she was thinking at having to touch me. It must have been gross as hell.

The door to the clinic opened and Highlander filled the small space, his eyes roaming the room until they landed on me. I flinched under his steady gaze, like I was practically naked. My cheeks heated and my stomach soured and I snatched my body away from Stormy’s grip and reached for something to cover myself up.

“Nina,” Stormy grumbled, reaching for me again.

“That’s enough,” I bit out, embarrassment staining my voice like blackcurrant juice on a clean white blouse.

“I need to finish this. It’s important,” she snapped back. She gripped the top of my arm and pulled it back toward her.

Highlander walked toward me, his heavy footsteps echoing in the small space. Balls was behind him, and in his hands was the hideous contraption from earlier. My gaze flicked between the three of them, realizing that this was a setup.

“Nice,” I smarted bitterly, my teeth gritting so hard my jaw hurt. I lifted my chin, my nostrils flaring in resentment.

Stormy was still working on my arm, but she lifted her eyes up to me, her gaze filled with apology. I glanced down at my arm, seeing the antibacterial cream she’d risked her life to get for me a few months ago smeared over the end of my stupid stumpy arm. She was right—it didn’t look like it used to. And all I smelled was a medical smell, like disinfectant or something. Much better than the rotting flesh smell. Much, much better.

She wrapped something over the end of my stump. I didn’t know what it was because I was trying not to watch too much, but I felt the difference. This was padded and warm. Between this and the cream, it didn’t feel as sore and itchy, but I wasn’t going to tell anyone that.

Highlander and Balls stopped in front of me, their expressions as serious as nuns at a funeral.

“I don’t want any more shit from ya, Nina,” Highlander said.

“Gonna be hard, man,” I replied with a sneer.

“Try,” he said, his gaze sliding over to Stormy, who stood up and took a step back. “We good to go?” he asked her, and I scowled at all of them. She nodded and he took the contraption that Balls held out to him. “No biting, hissing and screeching while I put this on ya, understand?”

I stared at it—this thing of leather and metal. It looked like a torture device, and in a way it was. It was an attempt to make me whole again, to make me normal. But I wasn’t normal and I certainly wasn’t whole. I didn’t want that thing anywhere near me because all it was going to do was remind me of what I used to be. Of what I’d never be again.

Strong and capable.

A survivor in a bleak world.

Instead, now I was a liability.

I was weak.

I hated it and I hated me.

I hated Scar, and I hated Highlander and Balls for making me do this.

But most of all I hated Shooter, because I knew that he would have agreed to this.

Nothing was done around there without his say-so, and this was all his doing.

I shook my head, trying not to get emotional. “I don’t want that,” I said, pointing with my hand, “anywhere near me. It’s probably rife with germs and will infect my arm again.” My voice was shaking and I hated that too.

“It’s clean. I disinfected it…and you,” Stormy said, her voice soft and, once again, apologetic.

“Fuck you,” I snapped. “I’m not a child and I don’t have to wear that if I don’t want to.”

Highlander sighed heavily, like I was pissing him off. Good, I hoped I was. I hoped he got some hideous disease that made his balls shrivel up. And I hoped that when he was staring down at his shriveled-up balls he would think of me and how much I pissed him off.

“Quit bitching,” Balls interrupted, with no fucks given.

“Just try it on, Nina. What do you have to lose? Your arm?” Highlander gave a dark laugh and I gave him the middle finger. “We designed it especially for you, woman. If you hate it, fine. But just try it first.”

“And what, pray tell, do you have in the way of qualifications for designing and making such things, hmm?” I said with a raised eyebrow. “You’re just a biker with a beard.”

Highlander scowled at me. “Actually, I’m a qualified mechanical engineer and Balls here used to work in physics for some…what the fuck was that place?” He looked to Balls, who shook his head.

“You don’t wanna know, brother. Let’s just say I’m highly qualified when it comes to working out shit, and if you ever need someone to design a highly explosive weapon and kill a bunch of motherfuckers, then I’m your guy.”

I stared at them both dumbfounded, realizing that my arguments were growing thinner by the second. My gaze dropped to the torture device in question and I swallowed down the lump in my throat. Maybe it was time to admit the real reason I didn’t want to try it on.

Because wearing that would give me hope. Hope that I could be normal again. Hope that I wasn’t as broken as I thought. Hope that maybe I’d get to live…that I’d survive this monstrous thing too.

“Nina,” Stormy said, her voice soft, soothing, “let’s just try it. What’s the worst that could happen? They’ve been at this for weeks. We all have.”

I took a deep breath and found the courage that I’d buried all those months ago. My courage was dusty and full of cobwebs and it took a lot of mental pulling to drag it up from the murky depths, but it came. Eventually.

Stupid courage.

Stupid hope.

Stupid arm.

Even stupider Scar.

I wished I could go back and kill him all over again.

But I couldn’t, and it was stupid of me to keep that dream alive.

Scar was gone, but I was here. I was alive.

I had won, even if it felt like I had lost.

I dusted off my courage and looked up at them.

“Okay,” I said, my voice softer than it had been in so, so long. I was scared, but I didn’t really know what there was to be scared of. It would either be okay or it wouldn’t. No big deal, right? Only it was a big deal. This was everything. “What do I do?”

Highlander’s smile split into a huge grin. “Hold out ya stumpy little arm and let’s try this shit on, Queen B.”

I threw him a hateful look. “Your bedside manner is appalling.”

“That’s not what I’ve been told,” he said, grabbing his crotch.

“Eww, gross.” I rolled my eyes and held out my arm…sorry, my stump, shame and embarrassment flaming to life in my cheeks for my disfigurement. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“That’s what all the women say.” He laughed and winked.

6.

Nina

“Well?” Highlander said, tightening the strap over my shoulder.

For the first time ever, his expression was serious and I saw the man he was when he wasn’t being an asshole. His bottom lip was a little bigger than his top, and he had stress lines around his mouth—which I saw then because he was so close to me. He smelled faintly of sweat and oil, but it wasn’t overbearing, thankfully. I could smell the leather of his cut, and when I looked closely I could see the crude stitching around his patch.

“Nina?” Stormy said my name as she placed her gentle hands on my back.

Everyone was looking at me. Their eyes focused and intent…on me. I felt like I was under a microscope, everyone watching to see how the virus had changed. How it had mutated at the infusion of a new piece of equipment. The torture device being the equipment and me being the virus, of course.

My mouth felt dry, my stomach queasy.

I looked down at my arm, seeing the contraption attached to it, the rudimentary pieces welded and stitched together. I couldn’t tell you accurately what it was made out of, but I saw metal and leather and some kind of hard plastic that was the color of skin, but wasn’t fooling anyone into thinking it was a real arm—mainly because attached to the end of where my wrist should have been was a solid metal piece where, I guess, my hand should have been.

“Can you move it okay?” Stormy asked.

“Lift your arm up so I can check the hinges,” Balls said.

“Is it comfy? Is it rubbing?” Stormy spoke, her gaze now moving over the fake arm.

“Is it too tight around ya chest, Nina?” Highlander asked, standing back.

“Does it hurt? I can put more padding in,” Stormy said, her gaze going back to me then.

I couldn’t find my voice. My tongue lay flaccid like a dead fish in my mouth, like it had been washed up on the riverbank and the hot sun had dried out its flesh so that one little movement would split it wide open, revealing the putrid insides to the world.

“Can ya fuckin’ speak, woman?” Highlander growled, getting irritated with my nonverbalness.

“I…” I couldn’t get any words out still, and even I was getting annoyed by myself. I shook my head, my eyes filling with tears that I didn’t want to shed. “It feels fine,” I said, clumsily grasping at the thin threads of my sanity. “It doesn’t hurt,” I said to Stormy. I lifted my arm and Balls examined the underside of it. “It’s not too tight,” I said to Highlander.

I chewed on the inside of my lip, biting so hard that I tasted blood, but it was good because the sharp sting of pain brought me back to myself.

“It’s heavy,” I said, moving my arm up and down and testing it out. It creaked a little at the elbow and Balls grabbed a can of oil, squirting a little on. I moved it again and the squeak was gone. “I didn’t expect it to be so heavy.”

Highlander was doing a weird little side smirk, like he thought he did good and so he got to be smug about it. Balls hadn’t looked at my face once, his eyes moving over the different parts on my new arm.

“It’s just because you’re not used to the weight,” Stormy soothed kindly. “They made sure that it wasn’t any heavier than an arm usually is, but it will still take time to get used to it.”

I nodded an okay. It was a firm nod, like I got it and was okay with it, when in reality I wasn’t sure that I was. But I’d go with it regardless. My problem, though, was that I didn’t see what the point was. I still couldn’t do anything with it. It was still just a useless appendage at the end of my stump that was good for nothing. But then I saw Highlander reaching down into a dirty gray gym bag by his feet and pulling out another part, a metal contraption that looks like a pair of cooking tongs. He reached over to my fake arm and inserted the tongs into the hole at the end, and I heard a derisive click as it connected.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Women belong in the kitchen,” Highlander said seriously. “Thought this would help ya whip us up some burgers or some shit.”

All of my softness evaporated and I was once again Nina—the Nina that no one fucked with. The Nina that grown men like that piece of shit should cower before. My eyes narrowed to slits and my top lip turned up in a snarl.

“Are you fucking kidding me!” I snapped. I swung for him when he started to laugh, the plastic and metal connecting with his forearm with a nice-sounding bump. “One arm or not, I will punch your face in!” I yelled as he laughed more and more.

And then I was all but lost in my rage—at him, at Scar, at the whole damn world. I swung for Highlander, and when he sidestepped me and tried to move behind Balls I swung for Balls instead, because I was quite happy to take both of those bastards out.

I was panting, a light sheen of sweat on my forehead, when Highlander and Balls—both still laughing—held up their hands in defense.

“All right, all right, wee one. Tell stumpy to back off, I was only joking,” Highlander chuckled. “It was just a test, and ya passed with flyin’ colors.”

I stopped swinging and stared at him. “A test?” I snapped. “What test? Did you need some steaks thrown on the barbeque too? I swear to God I will beat you to death with this stupid thing!” I swung at him again and he grunted in pain, a grin still on his face as he grabbed me and swung me in to his body so that my back was against his chest. He held me tight to him, never loosening his grip.

“I wanted to see if you were still in there,” he said against my ear. “Thought the best way to find out would be to piss ya off, and I was right, Queen B, you’re still in there. You’re still alive and kicking, and this thing,” he said, tapping on my stupid fake arm, “is strong as shit so stop hitting me with it, not because it’s gonna break but because it feckin’ hurts.”

He shoved me forward and I stumbled, catching myself on the edge of the bed with my hand and stupid metal tongs. I spun to glare at him, my gaze going over all three of them. They all looked so happy with themselves, like they’d done something amazing.

Behold, we created an arm that holds a metal tong.

Bravo.

Give us all the accolades and awards we deserve.

“This is stupid,” I snapped. “This is useless to me! So my weapon now is a plastic stump to beat the dead with? What the hell use is that?”

I was angry—more than angry. I was filled with rage that was growing like a furnace that someone was throwing logs on. I didn’t want to lose my shit like that, but it was really hard not to.

“Calm ya little tits, Queen B, we’ve got other shit we can put on it,” Highlander said, reaching into his magic bag again. That time he pulled out a machete, and I almost cried. “Figured this would be a good place to start.”

I watched him like a lioness stalking her prey as he came closer, switching out the tongs for the machete. It clicked in my fake arm in much the same way the tongs did, only this time my arm felt heavier. Not just in weight, but by burden.

I was burdened by that machete. By these people and their kindness.

I swung my arm—gently at first, and then more forcefully—quickly realizing that to get the right amount of strength I needed to put my whole body into the swing. I didn’t have a lot of strength in my bicep and shoulder anymore, but I could work with that. I could get strong, I could fight. I could save myself instead of being a victim.

I felt powerful once more.

Like a woman coming back from the brink of death.

I was strong, like a Viking warrior—bloodthirsty and ready for battle.

“I…” I stammered, my gaze going to my arm and then back to them repeatedly.

Balls took a dramatic bow. “You’re fuckin’ welcome, Nina.” He pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and lit one, blowing out the smoke dramatically. Stormy hit him in the arm and ordered him outside, and he saluted me and left.

Stormy looked between me and Highlander before excusing herself and leaving us alone. There was nothing between me and Highlander other than mutual respect and equal dislike. I think that made us friends.

“Thanks,” I said, finally. “This.” I held up my powerful arm and almost poked him in the belly with the sharp blade.

He took a step back and chuckled. “Like Balls said, you’re very fuckin’ welcome. Ya gots ta be careful with that thing though. It’s sharp as hell and you’re not used to the reach of it yet.” He took a deep breath.

“Are you saying I have short arms?” I gasped almost playfully, and I grinned.

The grin felt strange on my face, like it belonged to someone else. I guess it did. It belonged to the old Nina, the one that died with Scar. But I guessed she wouldn’t mind if this Nina borrowed her smile for a little while.

“I can get other things to attach to it,” Highlander said, pulling out a little black book from the pocket of his cut and flipping it open. “I was thinking a mace would be cool.” He showed the pad to me, and on it was a design of a sort of club with a skull carved into the end, long spikes coming out of it in every direction. “Devil’s Highwaymen style, obviously.”

“Obviously,” I agreed.

I looked up to him and then back down at the pad, my fingers reaching out to run along the image as I tried to imagine it on the end of my arm like I was some sort of crazy medieval warrior.

“If that’s too brutal though… I mean.” He shrugged.

“No, no, I love it,” I said, the grin back on my face as I looked up at him. “You can really do that?”

“Fuck yeah, I can.”

“Wow,” I said with genuine admiration. “Maybe we could even do one on a chain, maybe, like, so I can swing it and clobber the dead with it.”

“It’s clobberin’ time!” Highlander said, a deep rumble of laughter coming from him.

I frowned, the smile still on my face, because I recognized the line but couldn’t place it. And then I remembered it. It was from a movie that Ben used to watch all the time.

Ben…

God, how long had it been since I’d thought of him?

My smile grew bigger and I felt like he was there with me. So was Mikey while I wore the machete attachment. And the club with the skull carved in it, would represent Shooter.

I realized that I wasn’t alone at all; I’d have them all with me.

“It’s clobbering time,” I said with a laugh.

“You’ll need to strengthen your arms and shoulders,” he warned, putting the notepad away. You’ll need to build your strength back up for everythin’, Queen B.” He pinched my side. “You’re a skinny wee thing. I could snap ya like a twig.”

I raised an eyebrow and lifted my arm. “Like to see you try,” I taunted, and he barked out another laugh.

“Come on, let’s go show Shooter.” He started toward the door but turned back when I didn’t move. “What’s got up ya arse now?”

“Did he know”—I lifted my arm, gesturing to the badass weaponry attached to my body—“about this? Did Shooter know about it?”

“Know about it?” Highlander scoffed. “It was his idea.”

He turned and left the room, and I stared after him in shock. I’d thought that Shooter saw me as weak and broken, someone, or something that he could now protect. I’d fought him every step of the way, thinking that he wanted me as his good little girlfriend, cooking, cleaning, and making babies, when in reality that wasn’t what he wanted at all.

Shooter wanted me strong and capable. He wanted the fierce Nina back, even if he was opposed to the very idea that women could protect themselves and didn’t need a man to protect them.

I didn’t know what to think about that. It went against the ideals that I had held about Shooter. He may have backed away from me, but it hadn’t been because he didn’t see me as his equal; it was because he was giving me space.

God, I’d gotten everything wrong. And if I’d gotten this wrong—Shooter—what else had I gotten wrong, I wondered.

7.

Mikey

I swung my knife around, slicing the deader across its bony neck and cutting it from its shoulders. The head hit the ground, bounced once, and then rolled a foot away. I walked over and stabbed it through the skull, my blade going in through its ear and out the other side. Its jaws stopped snapping immediately and I pulled the knife back out before moving on to the next deader.

“There has to be a better way to get rid of these things,” Marley grunted as he stabbed his spear through the head of a deader. The resulting splatter as he pulled the weapon back out showered him in gore, and he gagged.

“Don’t puke,” Moo called over with a laugh. She ducked underneath a deader’s outstretched arms, coming up behind it and slamming her hunting knife into the back of its skull.

Marley wiped a hand down his face to clear away the rotting gore. “I still keep thinking this is one bad trip, man,” he said, looking decidedly green.

I kicked a deader’s knees out from under it and it slammed into the ground, taking the brunt of my blade to the back of its neck. It didn’t sever the head, but it would have if I’d pushed a little further. Instead I placed my booted foot on its head and gritted my teeth as I pressed down.

The weak skull collapsed under my weight, and the soft leather of my boots was coated in graying zombie brain. I took a step back, feeling no remorse.

“That’s it, I’m gonna hurl,” Marley said, turning to the side and retching.

Moo laughed manically, raising her two knives into the air victoriously. “I win, I win!”

I grinned and shook my head. “Marley, man, I thought you were made of stronger stuff.” I tutted and stalked toward him.

He was still bent at the knees, hurling noisily as Moo came and patted me on the back. “Told you he wouldn’t last five minutes out here.”

I raised an eyebrow. “All right, all right, no need to be smug about it.”

“I’ll quit the smugness when I get what you owe me,” she retorted, holding out a hand to me. “Hand it over!”

I sighed exaggeratedly and reached into my camo pants pocket for my last remaining Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

She snatched it away and shoved it deep in her own pocket with a haughty grin. “Pleasure doing business with you, Mikey. Same time next week?”

“Fuck no, you hustled me.” I laughed and surveyed the area, making sure we’d gotten all the deaders.

“Can I go back now?” Marley asked, standing up straight.

I shook my head. “Grab a shovel, man. Dig a hole for your puke and then you can help us drag the bodies to the truck ready to drop in the pit.” Moo looked at me with hopeful eyes, and I smiled. “Go on, you’re done for the day. Get cleaned up and eat your candy bar in peace.”

She thanked me and skipped off like any other kid her age would. But she wasn’t just any kid. Moo was one serious little badass. She could shoot better than most grown men, and her knife skills were just as impressive. Her mom, SJ, did a great job with her.

The low groan of the wooden gate sounded out as Moo headed back inside, and I sheathed my knife and grabbed the first deader’s legs before starting to drag it toward the truck.

It took an hour or so to get all the bodies piled in the bed of the truck, and then I sent Marley back inside. I didn’t mind taking the bodies to the pit myself; it wasn’t far—maybe half a mile or so. Far enough away that we didn’t smell them rotting in the sun, but not so far that it took long to get there.

When I got there, I reversed the truck to the edge and then put the handbrake on before turning the engine off and climbing out. I pulled up the material around my neck so I didn’t have to breathe in the death scent too much, and then I climbed up on the back of the truck and into the bed of it. I could hear a low groan coming from inside the pit, and I took a quick look as I dropped the door of the bed so I could roll the bodies into the hole easily.

Inside the pit was a live deader…wait, that’s an oxymoron, because those things were neither living or dead, they were the living-dead, I guess. Whatever, it was there, half buried in other deader bodies. I guess it must have strayed into the hole and slowly started to sink into the putrefying depths as its feet went through the mushy, decomposing bodies. I stared down at it, feeling no sympathy or remorse, feeling absolutely nothing for the thing. It was once a human—a woman, from the looks of it—at one point. Maybe it was someone’s mom, or sister, or girlfriend. It was someone’s something, that was for sure. But now it was this thing. This non-human thing that would kill everyone and everything it could sink its teeth into.

Logically, I knew that it wasn’t its fault. That there was little reason, or point, in hating it. Or hating its kind. For one, it felt nothing—no remorse, no grief, no guilt or shame. It only wanted to eat. The woman it used to be was long dead. And so was anyone who might have known it before it became an it. No point feeling hate toward something that didn’t care, right?

And for two… I guess I covered everything in point one. Don’t hate what doesn’t care, doesn’t feel, and doesn’t deserve your hate.

Pulling my pistol out, I aimed at its head, focusing hard until I knew that I was in the right place, and then I squeezed the trigger, letting off a single round into its skull. It stopped moving right away, its bone-thin body slumping forward onto its fallen brethren.

I rolled the other bodies from the truck bed into the pit, burying the deader in more deaders, and then I closed the hatch and climbed back in my truck.

Heading back to NEO, I took the longer route and swung by the small lake about a quarter of a mile from camp. I bet at one point the place was a real haven—a total beauty spot, with its shimmering lake and tall trees lining the banks. There was even a small beach area, though it was manmade and not natural, but I bet it was still great in the summer. I bet kids would have driven out there and camped for weeks at a time, sunbathing and swimming during the day, probably drinking and fucking at night. That’s what kids did back then, whether we liked it or not. Now, though, the place was a deserted hellhole and people only went there to kill off the things that washed up on the shores and then stumbled upon Haven.

There was nothing there today, and I realized that I was disappointed by that. With nothing to kill, I might as well head home. However, I wasn’t ready for home yet. I wasn’t ready for Haven and its normalcy amongst the abnormal, a small slice of life in a world full of death.

I sighed and gritted my teeth, the two feelings warring for space inside my empty chest. Sadness and resentment clawed at me, both of them too strong to ignore.

“Hey,” she said, and I turned to see O’Donnell coming from between the trees, her gun slung over one shoulder, her cheeks smeared with dirt.

She looked beautiful in that moment—a warrior amongst the chaos. Her features were calm, as usual, but there was something in her eyes that told me she wasn’t okay.

“Hey,” I replied, wrapping my arms around her as she comes closer. I kissed the top of her head as she melted into my touch.

I wished I could offer her more than that. More than me.

I wished I could yearn for her the way she yearned for me. Instead, all I could think about is how she wasn’t Nina. How she wasn’t my one and only, but she was my one for now. That made me a bastard, I knew it did, but we do what we have to to survive, right?

I plastered my stupid fake smile on my face as she pulled away and looked up into my eyes. I pushed the hair back from her face and leaned in to place a kiss on her lips. She accepted it, like always. Even though she knew it was bullshit.

“What are you doing out here?” O’Donnell asked as we separated.

“Could ask you the same thing,” I replied. “Creeping off into the woods alone is a sure-fire way to get yourself killed.”

She laughed, but we both knew I was serious.

“Just killing strays,” she said casually, and then her gaze went across the empty lake like she wanted to say more but didn’t know how to start. I didn’t want a serious conversation though; that wasn’t who we were.

Since the Savages had almost killed me, I’d refused to be the sort of man that took things for granted. I was happy—if only on the outside; I was smiling and joking and pretending that everything was A-OK, when everything was anything but A-OK. I refused to let those psychopaths take away the man I was and destroy him. I’d never liked Drag, but I damn well respected him after what he went through. Right up until the end, he was still Drag. Cut to pieces, broken, bloody and dying, he was still a wisecracking, smartass, cocky bastard. They didn’t break him, and they wouldn’t break me.

At least, I wouldn’t show how broken I was.

I wouldn’t show how I barely slept.

How I could hear screaming inside my head every time I closed my eyes.

How the smell of meat turned my stomach sour because all I could think about was the stench of burnt flesh.

How the memory of looking through the keyhole and seeing my friend beaten to death haunted me.

“So?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Same as you—looking for strays. Just dumped the latest corpses into the pit and thought I’d come check out the lake, see if any more washed up before I head home.” I dragged a hand through my hair.

“You always do that when you’re lying,” O’Donnell said, her eyes back on me. She nodded toward my hair. She took a step closer to me, looking up into my face. “I see you, Mikey.”

I wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer. She put up a little resistance at first but eventually relented. I leaned down and kissed her mouth again, savoring her soft lips against mine. When I was done silencing her worries, I pressed my forehead against hers and closed my eyes.

“I dumped the corpses in the pit and came here to kill any strays that had washed up,” I said, repeating my last statement, “I wanted to be on my own for a while. It gets noisy in there, you know,” I added on, admitting some truth to her.

I felt her nod and I opened my eyes. She was so close that I couldn’t focus on her properly. She was a blur in front of me, our foreheads touching, our arms wrapped around one another, breathing in each other’s air.

“I got you something,” O’Donnell said, and I released her and looked at her with a frown.

She wasn’t much smaller than me, so we could look each other in the eye without me having to lower my gaze. She had a little dirt smudged against her right cheek, and when I looked closer I realize it was dried deader blood.

“Yeah? What’s that?” I asked, forcing a smile to my face.

She swung her backpack off her shoulders and crouched down before opening it up. She rummaged inside for a few seconds until she found what she was looking for and stood back up. O’Donnell was smiling, and the smile was infectious and made me smile wider.

“Hold out your hand.”

I held out my hand.

“Close your eyes.”

I closed my eyes.

I felt something drop into my palm and I frowned, trying to work out what it was.

“Open your eyes,” O’Donnell said, a smile in her voice.

I opened my eyes and looked down into my palm and saw a pack of Starburst. I smiled and tore at the wrapper before pulling one out and shoving it into my mouth.

“Damn, that’s good,” I groaned. I missed candy so bad. Like, out of everything out there that was gone, it was candy that I missed the most. Not beer or chicken wings or potato chips, but candy. I blamed my mom for my sweet tooth. It made the candy bar loss to Moo so much worse.

“I remembered you saying that they were your favorite.” She was smiling triumphantly, like a cat bringing in a dead mouse to its owner to show its love and affection.

“Thank you,” I said, and continued sucking on the candy, taste buds going crazy for the sugary treat. “I love it. I love it so much I’m not sharing it with you.” I grinned childishly and she smirked.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that they weren’t my favorites—not even close. My favorites were Jolly Ranchers. Cherry flavored, to be even more specific. I didn’t tell her that and instead I ground my back teeth down on Starburst and gave her my best grin in appreciation.

“We should get back to Haven,” she said, and I nodded in agreement, looking up and seeing that the sky had changed to a soft orange as the sun began to set.

Aiken didn’t like people being out for too long without knowing where they were. And after the mess of losing Phil and Ricky, no one was permitted out overnight. I hated it. I felt like a caged animal, trapped and bound to the walls surrounding Haven and the people within it. I’d leave—get the hell out of there—but I took from them two of their best fighters and they still came to find me and saved my life, so it was kind of my duty to stick around. So that was what I did: I stayed, I fought, I killed, I cleaned, I cooked… I did whatever I was asked because I was a good citizen of Haven now and I owed them my life.

Even if every inch of my being wanted to get in the truck and drive and drive and drive

…

8.

Mikey

Aiken flicked the wooden toothpick from the left side of his mouth to the right as he listened intently to Timbo. I knew he was listening carefully to every word said by the big man, because when Aiken was listening he looked casual as hell—leaning back in his chair, shoulders relaxed, flicking that toothpick over and over. Timbo could have been talking about the second coming and Aiken would’ve had the same posture.

“So, there you have it. Scouts have seen a decline in the zed population heading our way for the past couple of weeks. It’s like they’re heading away from us, toward something else.” Timbo shrugged and wiped his arm across his sweaty brow, and slumped back in his seat like all that talking finally wore him down.

“Or someone else,” O’Donnell piped in, and Aiken’s attention moved to her. “I’m just saying, it’s not normal for them to just pass us by. The only plausible explanation is that someone is drawing the zeds to them.”

“But why?” Timbo asked, exasperated.

“Does it matter? The fact is, we have a clear path out now. We should head out to look for those Savage bitches before we get stuck in here again.” Aimee was pacing the floor, her usual easygoing persona blown to pieces. She’d been like that for months now. With every passing day, the revenge she wanted against the Savages consumed her more and more.

I knew exactly how she felt, but I also wasn’t stupid enough to want to go anywhere near them ever again. I’d take my survival with a side order of keeping all my body parts, thank you.

O’Donnell sat up straight. “It matters. Of course it matters, Aimee, take your head out of your ass and think about it.”

“I agree with O’Donnell,” SJ said. She didn’t normally sit in on the meetings, but she and her kid Moo had been coming to more and more of them. With Phil and Ricky gone, we were down a couple of decent fighters and these two had stepped into their shoes. “I think we need to really think about what’s happening here. Think of the consequences.”

“Screw the consequences!” Aimee yelled. “They took Phil from me and I need to make them pay for that.”

Silence fell across the room as Aimee’s words settled over us like a heavy blanket. Everything in my body wanted to go to her and hold her and apologize for letting Phil get taken, but it was too far past that now. She blamed me, and I let her.

Aiken sat forward in his chair with a heavy sigh before pulling out the toothpick. “All right, all right, ladies, that’s enough.” He sighed again and stood up, walking toward Aimee. He put a hand on either arm and peered into her tired face. “I know this shit with Phil has cut you up—I know and I get it, believe me, but Haven can’t afford to lose any more of its people. There are others here, and they need protecting.”

His voice was soothing and full of compassion, and it seemed to do the trick on Aimee because she nodded and let out a shaky breath.

“I just…” she whimpered, and he nodded in agreement.

“Now I’m not saying we don’t go. I’m just sayin’ we need to think this through clearly. We rushed out last time with a half-assed plan, and look what happened.” He glanced at me and I hung my head shamefully. I wasn’t sure if he was doing it to be a dick, but purposeful or not, the small act makes me feel smaller than an ant.

Like an amoeba.

Maybe even smaller than an amoeba.

Like an amoeba’s shit.

Yeah, that’s what I was.

I was amoeba shit.

“So what are you saying?” SJ asked, her eyes locked on Aiken, but I knew she was thinking of her daughter, Moo. She wouldn’t risk her only daughter’s life, and I didn’t blame her.

“I’m saying that we get a small team together, go out on small runs to see if we can find the reason behind the lack of zed activity.” He sighed and patted Aimee’s arm before going back to his seat. “We’re going to need to do another supply run too. I’m being told that we’re running low on a lot of things, and we have Stormy heading back from the Highwaymen camp in the next week or so and she’ll need more supplies and a safe route home. We’ve got people here who need taking care of and she’s been gone long enough. So we coincide the supply run with a small scouting mission, but I don’t want anyone running off to save anyone from anything, ya hear me?”

We all nodded and he shook his head irritably. I couldn’t really blame him. Every time we left the gates we ended up trying to save someone, but it never worked out right. Someone else always died. We saved someone and we lost someone. It’d gotten to the point that if you got in a life-or-death situation we needed to start handing out DNS forms. Do not save.

“Achillies will be happy to see Stormy,” Moo said, a smile on her face.

Kid needed a bath. Dirt was smudged over her cheeks, and her hair looked like it hadn’t seen a brush in months. SJ was looking the same, and then I looked around and realized that we all were. We’d all been on such high alert that no one had really had time to wash or clean, or even eat properly. We were all a mess. NEO was a mess. We were missing three people, but you would think it was twenty for the effect their absence was having on the group.

“Those bikers okay now?” I asked. I’d heard there’d been a huge fight just before I was found. The Highwaymen and another motorcycle crew called the Devil’s Rejects had all been in some big brawl right before pulling their shit together and heading out with the NEOs to come rescue me and Phil. They’d found me causally strolling on down the highway without a care in the world. Well, barring the couple of deaders that had been on my tail for miles. Couldn’t shake them no matter what I did. Exhaustion and hunger had finally caught up with me and I was one staggering step away from crashing to the ground and letting them tear into me when O’Donnell and the huge army of people she’d gotten together found me.

O’Donnell had saved my ass. She’d somehow managed to end the biker feud and put together a small army of men and women to come and find me. She really was an incredible woman. I could imagine that Nina would have really liked her.

However, a lot of people had gotten hurt from the feud that day, apparently, but none had seen any real action with the Savages since they’d gone on the run. Stormy had stayed behind to fix everyone up. She’d almost had Aiken bring her dog Achillies to her once she’d realized that she was going to be staying for a while, but then she couldn’t do it to poor Fluffy. Fluffy was Phil’s dog and the poor thing had no idea what was going on. She’d been pining for Phil since he’d been gone, hopefully waiting by the front gate all day and night. Achillies had stayed with her the entire time.

There was something beautiful in that—in Fluffy still waiting for Phil, and Achillies waiting for Fluffy. Something almost human about their love and how neither of them would quit on the other.

It was also deeply depressing, and every day when I saw those dogs lying there waiting, I felt a stab of pain because Phil being gone was all my fault and I took 100% of the responsibility. If I hadn’t convinced them to help me look for Adam, then a whole chain of events wouldn’t have been set in motion. Lives would still be safe. Instead all I was left with was an empty hole in my chest, and when I tried to sleep the guilt filtered into it until it compressed my heart and I couldn’t breathe. People had died because of me. People had died for me. I wondered, on those dark and terrifying nights when I could still smell the rotting flesh inside those caves, how many other people had suffered because of me. What else did people lose because of me.

“Yeah, pretty much back up to a hundred percent health,” Aiken said, not really looking at me. He seemed distracted. Hell, I guess we all were these days. “So, I need volunteers for a supply run and a small, and I mean small, scouting opp.”

I raised my hand because how could I not.

O’Donnell, Aimee, and another guy I didn’t know so well, Freddy, opted to go on the mission too, and we all filed out.

“Mikey, can I grab a word?” Aiken said as everyone headed off to go get their stuff.

I turned back to him, giving a small wave to O’Donnell to tell her to get going. She looked uncertain about leaving me, so I gave her a small smile and she hesitantly took off for home. I climbed back up the steps and stopped in front of him. Aiken pulled the toothpick from his mouth, replacing it with a rolled-up cigarette.

“You want me to keep an eye out for tobacco?” I asked, nodding toward his thin cigarette.

He blew out a thin stream of smoke. “Don’t go getting yourself killed for it, but if you see some, of course.” He walked to the railing and I followed, both of us stopping to look out upon Haven.

It was evening, so most people were in their homes, though of course the platform surrounding Haven had the ghostly shapes of people walking along it and keeping watch. The evening was cool—verging on cold, even—the moon high and giving just enough light over Haven that we could practically see all the way down the main street. The air smelled of cooking—of bread baking in ovens, thanks to the solar panels—and from somewhere further down I was pretty sure I could hear music playing. If I closed my eyes right then, I could pretend that I was back home. Back before this all began.

All these years on the run and this was what I had been searching for: Somewhere safe. Somewhere I could belong. Where I had a place that meant something. With good people and something worthy of working for. Nina would have loved it there.

“I’m not a man to pry,” Aiken began, interrupting my thoughts. “Ain’t nothing to do with me or anyone else what goes on between a man and a woman, but since O’Donnell is my right-hand woman and all, I figured it wouldn’t be too much of a imposition to ask you a personal question, but of course you feel comfortable enough to tell me to mind my own damn business if you please, all right?” His lazy drawl was thicker as he spoke, and I was good enough at reading people to know that it meant he had something serious to ask me.

I frowned. “Okay.”

“Well, all right then.” He took another drag of his cigarette. “So tell me: are you going to be letting her down slowly or quickly? Because that kind of shit could mess with Haven’s security.”

I frowned harder, confused. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Aiken tutted and turned away from the street. Leaning back against the small railing, he looked at me, cigarette dangling from between his lips and a wonky smile on his face. His hair had been cut that day, and the sharp lines around the side made his face look more angular. The length on top was slicked back to keep it out of his eyes.

“Now, I know you do, Mikey, and I’ve been good enough to let you stay here—welcomed you with open arms, even—saved your life and didn’t ask for nothing in return, but I do not like liars, and I do not like people thinking they can pull the wool over my eyes.” He plucked the cigarette from between his lips and smiled widely at me, that crazed twinkle in his eye that he got when he knew someone was bullshitting him. He was good at that, and right then he could see right through my bullshit like he had his own bullshit magnifying glass. But I wasn’t ready to admit anything to him or anyone else. And I wasn’t letting O’Donnell go. She loved me. How often does a man get to say that in his life?

But more, how often would I get that in my life?

I may not have loved her back, but I did care for her a lot, and I could make that work for both of us.

“I’m not letting her down at all,” I said firmly, holding his gaze so he knew I meant it. “I’m just working through some shit in my own head.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Almost getting eaten alive twice will do that to a man.” Aiken chuckled and I laughed back, but there was no humor in my laugh because I didn’t find it funny. My stomach twisted like it wanted to hurl. Memories of almost dying. Of almost being beaten to death. Of almost being eaten alive. Of almost having limbs cut from my body… So many almosts for one man. I swallowed and somehow managed to hold my shit together.

“Sure will,” I agreed. I stood up straight. “I better get back to her, she’ll be wondering where I am.”

“If things change, I need to know,” he said, his expression completely serious, and I nodded in agreement. “That woman is smitten with you, and it won’t be pretty if things go sideways.”

He didn’t stop me when I jogged down the steps and headed off down the street, though I expected him to. I kept on walking, passing Stormy’s empty clinic and the houses lining the street. I had the urge to go up to the platform to keep watch for a couple of hours—I found it peaceful up there, killing deaders—but I didn’t do that. Instead I went straight home to O’Donnell. Because just like Aiken, she could smell bullshit a mile away too.

So that night I needed to be with her, calm the storms that were building and put her mind at rest that I was happy. That I was staying there, with her, and that I didn’t miss Nina. Not even a little bit…and that was another lie too.

9.

Mikey

“She shit in my bathtub again,” SJ said as I pulled the front door open. I was bare-chested, a pair of boxers on that had seen better days and a scruffy towel draped over my shoulders from attempting to towel-dry my too-long hair. It was reaching my shoulders now and I could just about tie it into a small band at the base of my neck. SJ pushed past me and stormed into my front room without waiting for an invitation. Probably because she knew she wouldn’t get one.

O’Donnell had already left for an early morning meeting with Aiken, so I’d hoped to grab a quick shower, some food, and have a little time to myself to clear my head of all the shit in it before we headed out on the supply run. No such luck.

“Who?” I asked, though I already knew.

SJ glared at me. “That’s the last time, Mikey. She’s your responsibility, not mine.”

I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what you want me to say, I don’t know why she keeps doing it.”

SJ glared harder and I couldn’t stop myself from smirking, even knowing that she would quite happily blow my brains out if I pissed her off too much. She might have come across as the calm and caring mother, but she had a real nasty side.

“She’s like a puppy that keeps trying to hide its shit so the owner doesn’t yell at it. Only I’m not her owner, she’s not a puppy, and it’s my goddamn bathtub she keeps shitting in!” she yelled. “I don’t even know how she’s getting in! I lock the door whenever I leave.”

“I’m sorry, I’ll speak to her,” I promised, shrugging again.

“Speak to her? Oh, no no no, Mikey, we are way beyond just speaking to her.” She reached into her back pocket and pulled out a black plastic bag and a cloth before handing them over to me. “No, you’ll clean Joan’s shit up. I’m not doing it again. I’m just not. Moo was out of diapers by the time she was nine months old, so my crap-cleaning days are long gone.”

I grimaced. “I’d rather not, SJ.”

Her eyes widened so much I was sure they were going to pop straight out of her head. “You’d rather not?! Are you kidding me right now?! Clean up her shit, and tell Joan that if I catch her in my goddamned house one more time I will kill her myself.”

SJ turned and headed back to the door. She opened it and looked back at me. “I’m not kidding, Mikey. She’s a royal pain in my ass, and her contribution to Haven isn’t worth finding her presents all over my house.” She slammed the door on her way out, and I winced as the sound reverberated around me.

I stared at the closed front door and sighed, having no intention of cleaning up Joan’s shit. Absolutely none. Hell would freeze over before I did that. Though I did believe SJ when she said she’d kill Joan if she didn’t quit with the special deliveries. Hell, I wouldn’t put it past Moo to do the deed either.

“Fuck,” I grumbled, knowing that I was going to have to do it if I wanted to keep Joan safe. I mean, I didn’t want to keep her safe. Crazy old coot was long past her sell-by date and was way more trouble than she was worth. But I’d made a promise to Nina to keep Joan and Adam safe. I hadn’t protected Adam, so I was damned if I was going to let anything happen to Joan.

Maybe it was stupid and pointless. It wasn’t like Nina would ever know; she was dead after all. But either way, protecting Joan was almost the same as keeping Nina alive within me. If I kept my promise then I didn’t have to really say goodbye to her.

*

I opened the door to the truck, more than ready to hit the road after the morning I’d had. Joan was nowhere to be found, true to her usual style when she did something like this, and I hadn’t even puked while cleaning out SJ’s tub. It wasn’t a win, exactly, but I was taking it as one all the same. You didn’t get many wins in this life, so something even remotely close to one, you grabbed with both hands.

“I want you back before nightfall,” Aiken said, his expression serious. “Anything fucks up, you get back here. Anything don’t seem right, you get back here. If you don’t think you’ll get back here before nightfall if you keep going toward your destination…guess what? You head right the fuck back here. Got it?”

“We’ve got it,” O’Donnell said, slamming her door closed.

I climbed in and did the same, checking behind us and making sure Aimee and Freddy were ready to go too. We’d decided to take two vehicles out in case we did find somewhere with good supplies. At least that way we could load up without worrying about space. And if we got separated, at least no one would be stranded out there with the deaders with no way of getting back home.

O’Donnell had wanted to drive, so I sat in the passenger seat with my gun in my hand and my eyes on the road as we pulled out of Haven and headed toward the next town over on the map. It was a good hour or two drive before we got there, with nothing but empty landscape on all sides. At least, I reasoned, the scenery might have been boring, but we’d be able to watch for any herds on all sides.

We drove in silence for much of the drive. Not much to say, and we were both keeping our wits about us to make sure there were no surprises. I spotted a couple of stray deaders that were heading one way but turned to follow us as we drove by. That made me feel better. It was predictable and definitely their usual behavior.

I wasn’t sure why there had been fewer deaders recently, but I didn’t trust it enough to be glad of the reprieve. When something like that happened, it was, as the saying goes, usually too good to be true.

As the town approached, I checked my safety again before sitting up straighter and winding my window all the way down. These little towns seemed to have popped up everywhere when the apocalypse began. I mean, they must have been there previously, but with populations less than a thousand, no one had really noticed them. Now, though, they could be goldmines when it came to scavenging because they hadn’t been completely overwhelmed by the dead and no one really paid enough attention to them to steal everything.

“Movement at three o’clock,” O’Donnell said, spotting the group of three deaders.

“Got them. They haven’t spotted us,” I replied.

She kept her pace even, driving past the ‘Welcome to Northbanks’ sign’ and heading down the main street. She pulled over outside of an old bowling alley that looked like it had been closed way longer than it had been the end of the world. But then, things didn’t weather too good out here so it could have been brand new, for all I knew.

We both jumped out as she switched off the engine and Aimee and Freddy joined us by the side of our truck.

“Let’s stick together. We need to find the pharmacy first—hopefully it hasn’t already been raided. Grocery store is second, and then we can hit anything else after that,” O’Donnell said, looking around at us all. “Prioritize what you take. We have the list that Alfie gave us, and Kelli gave us a list on what we’re short of food-wise, but of course, any food is good food so basically just grab anything and everything.”

“Let’s do this,” Freddy said with a firm nod, his bright ginger hair flickering in the sun as he bobbed his head like it was a flashlight.

Freddy was only young—barely eighteen—and he didn’t talk very much, which I found strange because when he did talk he was hella funny. O’Donnell had mentioned briefly that he’d had a pretty crappy time of it before he’d been brought to Haven, so maybe he just had nothing to say anymore. I could understand that.

We headed down the center of the street, all of us holding our guns out ready to shoot the first thing that moved, but thankfully there was nothing. A slight breeze shifted in the air and I took in a lungful of the pungent scent of death that we’d all become familiar with since the start of this living hell. Aimee glanced back at me and I nodded to let her know that I’d smelled it too.

The further we walked, the more we realized what a dead-end little town it was. With only half a dozen boarded-up stores and a few cars parked haphazardly on either side of the road, there wasn’t much there. The store signs had faded in the sun, so at each one we had to stop and take a moment to work out what they might hold within. A comic book store seemed like the most pointless thing for this town, yet there was one right at the end of the first block. I knew right away that I wanted to stop in there if I could before we headed back home, because I had—a long time ago, at least—been a huge Marvel and DC fan. It was strange how I hadn’t even thought about comic books, or how hot Wonder Woman was, in absolutely years.

I felt a little spark of the old Mikey flare to life inside me, memories coming to the surface that I hadn’t thought about in so long I wasn’t even sure they were my memories anymore.

“Hey, you okay?” Freddy whispered. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost and you’re about to ask it out for a cocktail.”

I nodded. “Yeah, yeah, just… I dunno.”

He offered me a sad smile. “Ghosts are fine, but if you see a zom you make sure to blow it apart and not share your room card with it. She may say she wants you for more than just your brains, but it’s a lie.” He winked and kept on walking. I shook my head, chuckling.

At the end of the row, O’Donnell pointed across the street to a white brick building—or at least what was once a white brick building. Now it was a faded gray splattered with brown smears that were most likely years-old brain stains. Either that or shit, but it was likely blood and brains if I was being honest. What was visible, though, was the faded green cross indicating that it was a pharmacy.

Once directly outside I attempted to look through the dirty windows to see if there was anything within, but the windows were covered from the inside with something blocking my view. Still, it was worth a shot because if we only found a handful of the things on Alfie’s list we’d be a hell of a lot better off than we were now.

“Jackpot,” I muttered, my gaze moving over to the door and checking out the lock. It was a simple two-minute lock pick, if that, and I holstered my gun and pulled out my lock-picking kit before setting to work on it.

The lock popped and I slid my kit back away before pulling my army knife out so that I was ready for whatever lay within. A gun was good when it was from a distance, but close encounters required a knife or something equally precise.

I turned the handle and pushed the door inwards. It silently swung open and the smell of stale air wafted out to us all. Creeping into the darkness, I pulled out my flashlight and held it with my left hand so I could shine it around the pharmacy. Aimee, O’Donnell, and Freddy did the same behind me and we split up, each of us heading down different aisles to make sure the place was completely clear. At the end of the row stood two doors: one that led to a back room where the drugs were dispensed for in-house prescriptions and the other I presumed was either the bathroom or maybe the staffroom. Either way, the only one any of us were interested in right then was the pharmacy and getting our hands on anything we could.

There was no lock on that door, so O’Donnell moved forward and took lead since it was her operation. She turned the handle and pushed it inwards and we waited for the scent of stale air to hit us again, telling us that inside was nothing more than boxes and packets of life-saving drugs and maybe some nicotine patches for the unlucky sons of bitches that still got the craving.

Instead, my stomach creased as the smell of decomposing flesh hit me like a slap in the face. I heard Freddy gasp from next to me, and I felt sorry for the poor kid because the last thing you wanted to do with a smell that bad was breathe any more of it in than necessary, and a sharp gasp like he just took… Shit, he’d be tasting that for days.

O’Donnell was a machine, though, and she stepped inside the room barely acknowledging the smell of decomposing flesh that hung in the air like a shit that just wouldn’t flush no matter how many times you tried.

I followed her in, lifting my shirt to my mouth and nose to cover them so I wouldn’t have to breathe in the vileness. It did little to stem the stench and I gave up after only a step or two because it was hindering me rather than helping.

Whatever was in there, it had died recently and now it was rotting.

That sounds bad, but really, that could only be a good thing.

At least it was dead.

Like real dead.

Not like those fake fuckers still wandering the streets in search of fresh meat.

At least, that’s what I hoped.

10.

Nina

“Get on the fuckin’ bike, woman.” Shooter glared at me, his eyebrows pulled down so hard it was a wonder that he could see anything.

“And how, pray tell, do you expect me to stay on this big ol’ manly bike of yours? With my goddamn teeth? I’ll cling on to you like a toothy minion as you speed around corners. Or maybe I’ll use my one good arm, my thighs of steel, and your sheer arrogance to keep myself from falling backwards and cracking my skull open, shall I?” I scoffed.

“That cut your wearin’,” he drolled, a smirk rising when my eyes narrowed on him… The leather he reminded me I had to wear while with him was still a huge issue for me. It wasn’t exactly apocalypse attire, not to mention that the words Shooter’s Old Lady were emblazoned across the back like I was his property. “It says you’re mine, right? And you know how much I look after my property, Nina,” he said with a wink.

I shook my head in exasperation. “Oh, don’t you dare even start with that again.”

He chuckled momentarily. “Just trust me, I’ve got it covered,” he drolled, not rising to my bait. He gestured with his head for me to sit behind him, but when I made no move to get on the Harley he dragged a hand through his hair and sighed angrily. I didn’t even know it was possible to have an angry sigh. Tired, sad, exasperated, frustrated, yes, but not angry. But there you have it. Shooter had just invented the angry sigh. Give that man a medal. “Now, Nina, or you’re stayin’ here, because I’ve got better shit to be doin’ than this.”

I relented because I really did miss being on his bike—the wind blowing through my hair making me forget what a hellhole this world was—and of course I did trust him. It had nothing to do with his angry sigh. Nothing at all. Because Shooter may have scared many men, but he didn’t scare me.

Once I was firmly behind him, my thighs straddling his bike and my body pressed close to his, I waited, my heart beating wildly in my chest with worry and excitement. My phantom arm ached with the desire to wrap itself around him and hold on tight, and tears sprung to my eyes because of course I couldn’t.

“Now what?” I snapped, half angry, half just so damn sad.

Shooter reached across his body with his right hand and gripped the end of my gross stump. I gasped audibly; he’d never touched it before, and the urge to pull my arm out from his grip and beat him with my stump was overwhelming.

“Death by stump” was going to be carved on his headstone if he didn’t let go of me!

“Trust me,” he growled, and I nodded because I couldn’t find my words at the moment. My head was spinning, my heart was racing, and there was the huge concern that I might puke if he didn’t take his hand off of me… And then I realized he wasn’t holding me…it…anymore.

“What is that?” I asked, trying to look around his huge body to see.

“Another little present from your good friend Highlander,” he said casually, “so you can still ride with me.”

I tugged on my arm and realized that I wasn’t going anywhere. That I was firmly locked into place—into Shooter, somehow—and I reached around his waist with my right arm and gripped him tightly, pressing my cheek to his back and forcing myself not to be that girl and cry. He’d thought of everything: a way for me to be me again, a way to fight and be strong, and a way for us to be us again; a way for me to ride with him and for us to be close.

“Thank you,” I said, inhaling the scent of leather and sweat as I pressed myself closer to him.

“I want to keep my woman with me, and like I said, you’re my woman, right?” He turned his head so he could look over his shoulder at me. “He even fitted a bar to your seat so you can grip that if you want, but I like this better,” he replied, his callused hand stroking mine as I held him tightly.

“I think I like this better too,” I replied. “But it’s good to have options.”

“No, it’s good to know where you belong. Options just fuck everything up. One path, one road, one life… That’s all we need, Nina.”

I had a feeling he wasn’t talking about the handle anymore, but I let it slide since I didn’t know how to reply to him. He was right, I guess. Shooter was my future now. Ben was gone and so was Mikey. They’d both moved on, in one way or another, and now I had to too.

“Och, look at you two. Look cute as fuckin’ buttons ya do,” Highlander laughed as his bike pulled up beside Shooter’s.

“I’ll show you cute,” I said, giving him the middle finger, and he laughed heartily. It was the infectious sort of laugh that had me laughing right back with him, and then I was pretty sure I felt Shooter laughing too, his shoulders bobbing up and down as he tried to hold it in.

“Such a sweet little princess, aren’t ya,” Highlander said, revving his engine. “Shame ya snatch ain’t as sweet. Bet that thing would bite a dick right off.”

“Only yours, Highlander,” I retorted dryly.

“Her snatch is sweet as sweet can be—it’s her mouth you gotta watch out for, brother. But that’s beside the point, because if you talk about my woman’s snatch again it won’t be that you have to worry about biting your dick off, Highlander, you feel me?” Shooter said. He didn’t wait for a reply as he pulled away, leaving Highlander in our wake and choking on our dust. I laughed as I turned my head and watched him growing smaller in the distance before finally pulling his head out of his ass and setting off along with the others.

The handful of bikes followed us out of the gates and onto the road where Shooter took a right. I pressed my face against his back again and closed my eyes to try to stabilize myself. Part of me still worried that I’d fall off, and Shooter must have sensed that. Either that or he felt how rigid my body was behind him. Every muscle fraught with tension. My teeth were clamped together and my thighs were trembling as I squeezed them.

“Need you to relax, Nina, I’ve got you. Now remember to move with me,” he soothed over the sound of the throaty bike engine. “Me, you, and the bike, we’re one, remember.” He tugged on my stump and I felt a strap under his cut move and realized that whatever he had attached me to was strapped around him. I was safe. I wasn’t going to fall. He wouldn’t let me.

He’d purposefully attached me to him to keep me safe. If I fell, he fell. Christ, that was sweet. I couldn’t be angry or irritated with the world for at least a full five minutes because of how damn sweet that really was.

I nodded and forced myself to try to relax, and little by little I did just that until it was like it used to be as I moved with him, our bodies as one with the bike. I smiled and opened my eyes, watching the world pass me in a blur of boarded-up buildings and burnt-out cars until we were out of town and onto a long stretch of dirt road that seemed to go on for miles and miles.

The knots in my chest loosened the further away we traveled. Perhaps it was the memories that were back at the clubhouse that haunted me, the memories of my life before, or maybe it was the pain I had gone through—losing a hand and then a wrist and then almost an arm is no joke. Or maybe it was just the freedom I felt with being on the bike and out on the open road. I felt free. I felt like I could breathe again. Like nothing could touch me if we just kept on going and going and never turned back. And if it had been just me and Shooter right then, I might have asked him to do that. But it wasn’t just us. There were three of his brothers with us, and that brought me back to the here and now. This was Shooter’s life, and these men were his family. They had been through so much together: hell and heaven, life and death. I couldn’t ever ask him to leave that—to leave them. That wouldn’t be fair to them or him, because I knew that if I pushed hard enough I might just convince him. I needed Shooter, I realized. In a way I guess I had always known that, but I needed him in a way that reminded me of how strong I was. That I was a desirable woman that still had a lot of life left in her, and not just a body waiting to die. But these men, they really needed him. His guidance, his leadership, his authority.

I wondered if that was why they were all so nice to me. Why Highlander and Balls had made such an effort to make me feel so welcome. Like I belonged here with them. Because they didn’t want me to take Shooter away from them and they knew I could.

“You okay back there?” Shooter shouted back to me, his large hand giving my leg a squeeze.

“Yeah,” I shouted back. “I forgot how much I liked this.”

He chuckled. “Better than sex, right? Well, almost.”

“It always comes back to that with you, huh?” I said with a shake of my head, and he looked over his shoulder and smirked, that wonky, gorgeous smirk that made my belly do a little flip and my toes curl inside my boots.

I held him tighter, thankful for the first time in so many months that I was there. That I had Shooter and I wasn’t completely alone, and maybe also because I was alive.

*

We pulled up outside a little town around an hour later. We didn’t get far in before running into a small group of deaders that were surrounding a small gas station, angrily banging their rotten hands on the glass. Flashes of meeting Mikey in a gas station just like that moved through my mind as we pulled to a stop and Shooter shut off his engine.

He unclipped my arm from the device strapped to his body and I rolled my shoulders as we both got off his motorcycle. The deaders had turned at the sound of the Harleys and were slowly shambling over to us. No one moved to do anything; instead they just stood there like big oafs and I looked between the five of us, wondering when anyone was going to set about killing them.

“Um, not to alarm you guys or anything, but I don’t think this is your fan club,” I snarked, glancing between Highlander and Shooter.

Shooter pulled a rolled-up cigarette from the pocket of his cut, and lit it before blowing out a plume of smoke. He looked at me, the cigarette still hanging from his lips and smoke curling in front of his eyes.

“So, go kill ’em then,” he said, finally plucking it from between his lips.

Highlander tapped me on the shoulder, and when I turned to look he held out the machete attachment for my arm.

“There’s too many of them,” I stammered. “I haven’t even used this before. What if I’m not strong enough?” My eyes widened as Highlander took two steps toward me and clipped the attachment in place.

“Gettin’ real close now, Queen B,” said Crank, one of the nomads, and I shot him a glare that would have frozen water.

“No shit, so go kill them,” I snapped.

Crank glanced across at Shooter and then back to me, holding up his hands in defense as he sat back down on his bike. “No can do. Big boss says you’re taking point on this.”

I swung to Shooter. “This is stupid. You’re going to get me killed! You’re going to get us all killed.”

The deaders were closer now, their growling growing louder. And my panic grew.

“Shooter! You said to trust you, now do something!” I pleaded, fear running through my veins like this was the first time I’d seen zombies.

“If you trust me, then go kill ’em, because I trust you, Nina, and I know you can. Now you need to know you can,” he said, his voice low and even like we were talking about where we were going for dinner and not who was going to dispose of the creepy zombies heading toward us.

I scoffed but didn’t say anything, instead shaking my head and staring between them all as I breathed hard and fast. I couldn’t do this, for God’s sake. There were too many. I’d never swung this thing before. What if it got lodged in one of them? What if I wasn’t strong enough to swing it? What if I missed?

There were so many possibilities of things that could go wrong, and the nice warm fuzzy feelings I’d had for Shooter only moments before vanished in a blaze of furious glory as my chin trembled.

“If I die,” I started.

“You won’t,” he replied, blowing out another mouthful of smoke.

“I hate smokers,” I snapped.

He chuckled like we weren’t under attack. “Go on,” he urged me.

I turned back to the deaders, stepping away from Shooter and the others to draw the deaders to me and away from them.

Three of them followed, though one stray—a gray, frail-looking zombie whose bony ribs I could see because it was in its underwear—continued on toward the Highwaymen. I wasn’t worried though. They could handle that one.

Rolling my shoulders a couple of times to loosen up the joints that hadn’t been used in so long, I prepared myself to kill them. I was right-handed, and it was my left that was missing, so it shouldn’t really have been too much of an issue. And yet it was. I felt off balance. The heavy machete weighed me down on one side. I felt clumsy and uncoordinated as I tried to swing it, completely missing the first zombie.

“Fuck it,” I grumbled, and pulled out my katana. I flexed my right hand and tightened my grip on it as I tried to remember my stance. I breathed and centered myself, holding my left arm low and my right arm up high.

As a deader got close I swung at its head. It didn’t go all the way through and my blade only got halfway before I pulled back because I realized I hadn’t put enough force behind the swing. I breathed out again, my gaze flicking briefly to Shooter, who was silently watching me, his cigarette now between his fingers. The gray deader was at his feet, headless, its jaws snapping uselessly.

“That’s a dangerous head, Shooter,” I grumbled.

I rolled my shoulders once more and took up my position again, taking a couple of steps back to give myself the space I needed to swing properly. And this time when it came closer I lifted my left arm and jabbed out with the machete blade right through its forehead. The deader dropped at my feet and I felt a triumphant flare in my chest as I skirted away from it and took up position again. The other two deaders followed me, arms reaching, jaws snapping, but I wasn’t scared anymore. I mean, I was always scared of them—you had to be, and you should be if you wanted to survive—but I didn’t fear them anymore.

Swinging again with my katana, I didn’t hold back, and that time I cut right through the neck, taking the head clean off with a grunt. It hit the ground with a wet slap, but I barely noticed as I used both machete and katana at the same time and sliced from left to right and right to left on the remaining deader and cut it in half. It fell to the ground in two halves and I stepped toward it and stabbed my katana through the center of its forehead for the kill shot.

When I looked back up, Highlander had done the same with the other deader before kicking the now unmoving head off into the distance. I was breathless and a little bloody. My muscles ached and my phantom arm was throbbing where the strap was rubbing a little. But I had done it; I’d killed three deaders.

“Come on, let’s see if there’s anything inside,” Shooter said, walking past me like I wasn’t Xena, warrior princess. I stared at his retreating back, my mouth open in shock.

“Is that it?” I asked, and he glanced back with a raised eyebrow, his cigarette back between his lips again. “You’re not going to say anything about that?” I pointed toward the deaders on the ground.

I was angry.

I was proud.

I was exhausted.

My pride was wounded because he hadn’t given me a high five or even said well done.

I guess I wasn’t sure what I actually wanted him to say or do, but I’d expected him to say something. Anything. But then, that was Shooter’s way. He never really made a big fuss over anything. It was black and white with him. His way or no way.

He arched an eyebrow at me. “What do you want me to say?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe ‘well done.’”

I felt stupid as soon as the words left my mouth. Stupid and pathetic.

Shooter clapped his hands together. “Bravo, you badass bitch, you get extra portions of dessert tonight and an extra portion of meat,” he said, flicking his cigarette away to grab his crotch and wink. “Now let’s go look inside and see what our little friends here were after, shall we?”

He turned and started toward the gas station again, and I stared after him open-mouthed and wanting to punch that smarmy look right off his face. Highlander slapped me on the back with a chuckle, jolting me from my fantasy.

“That was feckin’ awesome, Queen B,” he said as he continued to walk, and despite myself and the anger I felt at Shooter, I felt my chest fill with pride that at least someone thought what I had just done was amazing.

“Damn straight it was,” I muttered.

11.

Nina

The gas station doors were covered in brown and bloody prints like some really awful toddler art session, and the windows were so dirty that we could barely see inside. I slid my katana into the sheath across my back and rubbed my hand over the glass, freeing up a small circle in the dirt.

Inside everything was in disarray—shelving stripped of food, racking knocked over—but no telltale piles of bones or bodies, no blood sprays. That was a good sign. A very good sign. Not to mention that the deaders had been banging on the doors for a reason.

“Hello?” Shooter called through the glass, his fist tapping lightly on it. “Either come out or we’ll come in. Choice is yours, but if I come in I’ll be carrying out your head.” He tapped on the glass again and we all waited.

I was just about to give up, and expecting Shooter to smash in the door, when a voice called back to him.

“Are they gone?”

“The rotters?” Shooter replied. “Yeah, they’re gone.”

Another moment passed.

“Are you…are you safe?”

“Safe?” Shooter asked. “Ain’t gonna kill you unless you force my hand, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yeah, that’s what we mean,” the voice called back.

“Then you’re good to come out.” Shooter was frowning hard, staring into the darkness within.

“The monsters…they’re definitely gone?” the voice asked again, but it was getting louder now, like they were coming closer.

“Gone for real this time,” Gauge replied. “No playing whack-a-mole with ’em anymore.”

“Okay, we’re coming out.”

I stared through the circle I’d made, peering into the dark within and watching for any kind of movement. Finally, the shadows moved at the back of the store and two figures began slowly edging forward through the darkness.

“Females,” I muttered to Shooter, and he grunted in agreement. “Two of them.” I frowned, my gaze narrowing as I took in their image as they got closer until they finally came into view.

They were much like everyone else these days—bedraggled, half-starved, eyes wide with fear and dread. But there was something else there also, something beneath the surface that frightened me more than the deaders did. These people looked desperate, and desperate people did stupid things.

“I don’t trust them,” I whispered to Shooter, my gaze still fixed on the duo coming toward us. Shooter didn’t reply but I knew he’d heard me.

“What ya doin’ in there?” Highlander asked as they stood on the opposite side of the glass from us, close enough that I could take in their blank expressions.

“Hiding,” the older woman replied. She was middle-aged, I guesstimated, though it was hard to be certain because their faces were so dirty and thin. Their cheekbones were sharp and pointy like they hadn’t eaten in weeks, and dark rings circled their eyes. “We were traveling when we ran into the group of dead. My sword broke, her gun ran out of bullets.” She shrugged. “We just didn’t have the energy to fight them, so we ran in here and barricaded the door.”

“We hoped they’d forget we were in here, or get distracted and leave,” the other girl said, her hard voice not matching her weak persona.

“How long have you been in there?” I asked.

“Couple of days, I guess,” The women looked between each other and then back to me. “We kind of lost count.”

Shooter backed up from the door and we all followed suit, allowing the two women some space to come out. They both blinked against the brightness, each holding a hand up to their eyes to shield them. Their clothes were as dirty as their faces and they stank to high heaven.

I hadn’t realized, but Highlander had gone to his bike and gotten some food from his saddlebag. He handed it over to them with a warm bottle of water, and they took it uncertainly.

“Eat,” he grunted, for once his face not a picture of humor. “You’ll feel better with something in your stomach.”

They looked uncertainly between themselves again before the older woman finally took the offered food parcel and unwrapped it. She tore the homemade bread in half before handing half of it to the other woman, and they both started to eat. I would have expected them to devour it in seconds, but instead they ate it slowly, like little birds pecking at it carefully.

“Thank you,” the younger one said. “I’m Zuly.”

“Nina,” I replied warily.

The two women looked me up and down, and I felt uneasy under their intense scrutiny. Their gazes moved over my missing hand where my arm attachment was, machete still connected, and they swallowed nervously. I guess I looked real pretty these days. Faded joker smile, missing hand, arms and shoulders covered in scars. Yeah, I was real pretty.

“This is Kensa,” she replied, looking over to the older woman.

“Crank, you’re with me,” Shooter said with a jerk of his head. “Let’s go look inside.”

“There’s nothing in there,” Zuly said mid-chew.

“We would have found it if there was,” Kensa added.

“Still gonna need to take a look for ourselves. You never know what people miss.” He strode passed Kensa and Zuly, and Crank followed.

I wanted to go look inside too, but I wasn’t sure about leaving Highlander with the two women. Something about them was keeping me on edge. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t trust them, or if it was just that I didn’t trust anyone anymore. Was that how it would always be now? Would I never trust people ever again?

“Go.” Highlander grunted the single word at me, clearly sensing my unease. “I’ve got this.”

Zuly stopped chewing, her mouth still full of bread as she glanced between me and Highlander. For the first time I saw genuine fear in her eyes, and as awful as it sounds, that look of fear put me at ease.

“Okay,” I agreed, passing them both and going inside.

The darkness swallowed me whole, the dirty windows drowning out the bright daylight. I looked both ways, not immediately seeing Shooter or Crank anywhere. I pulled out my katana and headed down the first empty aisle. If there was anything left there, it was long ago rotten and unusable, inedible and just plain useless to us now.

I sighed and passed around to the second aisle, my gaze sweeping around the corner. The floor was smeared with dried blood, but there were no bones anywhere, or telltale signs of the usual slap-and-slide of deader footprints. That aisle was equally empty as the last, and at the end of it I called out Shooter’s name, feeling more confident that there was nothing and no one in there, barring us.

“In the back,” he replied, and I followed the sound of his voice to a small storeroom at the back of the store. He and Crank were rummaging through a pile of boxes, but by the looks on their faces they hadn’t found anything useful either. “Nothing but piss and shit,” he grumbled.

“Fun times,” I replied.

Crank snorted on a laugh. “Real fun. They weren’t lying when they said there was nothing here. Place is emptier than my dead mom’s brain.”

It was my turn to snort on a laugh. “Got a way with words there, Crank.” I smirked. “I’m going back outside. Something about these two makes me uncomfortable.”

“Everyone makes you uncomfortable,” Shooter grumbled.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” I eye-rolled and walked away with a scowl even though I knew he was right.

People did make me uncomfortable. People. Animals. New groups. New shoes… Okay, the last one sounds stupid but it’s probably the most important. Think about it: Wrong size shoe and you got blisters. Those blisters just got worse and worse and worse until they popped. Maybe they even got infected. Painful blisters made it difficult to walk. Difficult to run. Difficult to escape sticky situations like those of the undead variety.

So yeah, I rarely trusted new shoes.

Passing back through the small store, I could see Highlander standing outside with Zuly and Kensa. Highlander was smoking and the two women looked like they were still eating. I took the time to check behind the small counter where the cash register was to see if there was anything there—maybe a sneaky shotgun strapped underneath the counter or a sly handgun hidden—but the place had been stripped bare. Nothing but stale air and empty shelving remained. With a sigh I went back outside, glad for the fresh air. I won’t say clean air, because the stench of the dead hung heavily.

Highlander nodded at me as I came back outside.

“Nothing,” I said.

Zuly looked at me matter-of-factly. “Told you.”

“We had to check.” I shrugged and she nodded back in understanding. “So, is it just you two or are there more of you?”

Kensa and Zuly looked between themselves, looking uncomfortable. I knew that look. It said they had something to hide and didn’t trust us with the information. I could understand that. But it didn’t mean I had to like it.

“That’s how it’s going to be, huh?” I asked.

Shooter and Crank came back out looking as pissed off as I had been that the gas station was empty. Shooter glanced between us all, immediately sensing that something was amiss. His hand went to the gun at his waist.

“Easy there, cowboy.” I held up a hand. “This isn’t an episode of John Wick. They just don’t want to tell us about their people” —I glanced over at Kensa and she looked away— “or where they come from.”

“We don’t know you,” Zuly said.

“We don’t trust outsiders,” Kensa added. “No offense.”

“None taken, darlin’,” Highlander said, his gaze heated. “It takes a lot to offend a man like me, if you know what I mean.”

I quirked an eyebrow in surprise.

Crank snorted out a laugh.

Kensa looked embarrassed.

Zuly looked offended.

And Shooter—well, Shooter…he just sighed and dragged a hand down his face.

“For fuck’s sake, Highlander, we don’t have the time for this,” he grumbled, pulling out his cigarettes and lighting one.

But Highlander was like a dog who’d found a scent he wasn’t willing to let go. His attention was solely on Kensa, and when I glanced at her I noted that though she looked embarrassed, she also looked like she actually enjoyed the attention from him. I guess I couldn’t blame her. Highlander was a big, burly biker. He was broad, with a twinkle in his eye and a smile that you couldn’t ignore.

“Don’t have a vehicle you can have,” Shooter said, ignoring Highlander’s seductive gaze on Kensa, “but I can give you a little water to take with you and a couple of weapons to help you. I’d offer to drop you where you need to go, but I’va feeling you’d reject the offer.”

“Your feelings would be correct,” Zuly replied almost primly. Kensa elbowed her in the side and she sighed. “The weapons and water would be helpful though.”

“Done,” Shooter said with a nod. He looked over at Crank, sharing a silent message before Crank headed toward the bikes to retrieve the weapons and water.

I could tell that this was killing Shooter—letting these women fend for themselves and not just drag them kicking and screaming back to the clubhouse where he could protect them. I offered him a small smile, grateful that he was finally listening to me. That he was finally understanding that not everyone needed saving after all.

Was it wrong to feel proud? Because that was how I felt. I felt proud of him…for him, whatever. Maybe I felt a little proud of myself. I’d managed to change the way the Highwaymen lived and ruled. They no longer saw women as victims that needed saving. They were finally seeing us as equals.

Well, maybe that was a little farfetched.

Women would never be these bikers’ equals, but regardless, I was still making a difference.

Crank came back, handing over a crowbar and a short-handled knife plus two small bottles of water. Kensa and Zuly took them gratefully.

“For what it’s worth, we appreciate the help,” Zuly said. She exchanged another look with Kensa before sighing. “We do have a group, but we don’t let new people in anymore. Or, very rarely.”

“Och, we have our own group and a place to stay, little lady. Don’t worry about us looking for a new home,” Highlander said.

“We just…” Zuly began.

“Don’t trust people you’ve only just met,” I finished for her. “We get it. I get it.”

Zuly nodded. “It’s not my call to make. We don’t know you or your group. We’ve had people before who we let in that…well, let’s just say they weren’t good people.”

“Who the fuck is anymore,” Crank snorted on a laugh.

“True,” Kensa agreed. “We’ve all had to do things that we aren’t proud of, but there’s a difference between killing for survival and killing for pleasure, if you know what I mean.”

Shooter grunted in agreement. “I feel you. My brothers and I aren’t that kind of men, but I wouldn’t expect you to just take my word for it. I know I wouldn’t.”

“Groups are always good for tradin’ though, don’t ya think?” Highlander said, and I wanted to laugh because there was no way he was thinking about trading. The only thing that man was thinking about was the thing in his pants.

“They are,” Kensa agreed. She took a breath. “How about we meet back here tomorrow, same time, and we each bring something to trade. If it goes well…” She shrugged and sighed. “If it goes well, then maybe we can make it a regular thing.”

“How do we know you have something we want?” I asked.

“Ohhh, she definitely does,” Highlander said with a deep rumble of laughter, and Kensa blushed harder.

“How do you know we don’t?” she countered, and I rolled my eyes.

“Listen, lady, we don’t have time for the back-and-forth crap, okay. We have a lot to trade, a lot that you would want, but we don’t know if you have anything. Considering we found you starving to death, with no weapons and trapped in a gas station, well, let’s just say that you’re not winning anyone over.”

Kensa shrugged again. “Do as you please. We have things you’ll want, but I’m not giving anything up until I know what you have. As far as I know, you could be four people driving around stealing from people. No group, no home, and nothing to trade.”

“We have weapons, alcohol, canned goods,” Shooter said, being the first to offer up something. It was the only way we could move things along, and that’s the way he worked: he moved things along or he kicked them to the side. He must have sensed that they had something to offer, since he hadn’t kicked them to the side and was showing his hand.

Kensa licked her lips and I swear Highlanders chest rumbled at the sight. “Okay, we could use some of that, I guess. Well, we have water…” She glanced at Zuly and I noted the almost imperceptible shake of her head.

“We have a well,” Shooter grunted. “Don’t need water.”

“We have fruit trees,” Kensa countered, looking annoyed that her offer of water wasn’t enough.

“Any peaches? I love a nice juicy peach,” Highlander said with a damn right dirty smile.

“Highlander!” I snorted on a laugh, unable to contain it because seriously, when was the last time he’d gotten laid? The man was acting like a teenage boy in heat.

“We have a medic,” Shooter said, showing his ace card. Medics were highly sought after. No one needed to know that our medic was actually borrowed from another group and that the said medic was actually a trained vet. Best keep that to ourselves.

“We have a herbalist,” Zuly returned proudly. “And water.”

“Told you, don’t need water, but a herbalist…” He sighed.

Damn, a herbalist would be really useful. Doctors and nurses were great, but if we didn’t have any medicine, they couldn’t do an awful lot. A herbalist could help us with new medicines and what berries were poisonous. And water! Lots of water, no less. Their camp must have been close to a good source of water, but again my mind wandered back to the maps that we’d been looking at that showed no sources of water for miles around.

But they were getting it from somewhere…but where?

“You have well water. Dirty, no doubt. Our water is direct from the source. Clean, fresh. Best water you’ll ever drink.”

Shooter raised an eyebrow. “All right, that does sound good.” He stroked the hair on his chin, and looked deep in thought. “We have engineers.”

“Badass engineers,” I said, wafting the air in front of me to show the cool attachment Balls and Highlander had made me. Plus, water was a big win for them so I needed to big us up.

Kensa’s smile grew at the sight of my arm. She’d noticed it previously, but now she really had time to examine the craftsmanship of it. “Touché.”

I had a feeling that Shooter had just hit upon what it was their group really needed. And looking over at Highlander, I could see that he was as happy as a pig in shit about that.

Kensa, meet your engineer.

Engineer, meet the woman of your dreams.

12.

Nina

“Three days then,” Kensa said, giving Highlander a side glance. “Same time?”

We’d climbed back on our bikes—me securely strapped to Shooter once more—and were ready to set off and leave Kensa and Zuly to make their own way home. They said they lived a couple of miles away, but I wondered how true that was. It couldn’t have been that close, because their people would have come and found them if so, but it couldn’t have been too far away either or they would have at least asked us to take them some of the way home.

“Aye,” Highlander agreed, saluting her with two fingers against his forehead.

Shooter nodded in agreement and the two women set off through the trees beside the gas station, and we watched until they were out of sight.

“A herbalist would be good,” Crank said. “We had one up in the hills.”

“Yeah,” Shooter agreed, “maybe they could show us a few things too.”

“There’s a library in the town over. If we make a run for books they could show us the right stuff,” Highlander said, and Crank started to laugh. “What the feck are you laughing at, ya sorry son of a bitch?”

“The thought of you in a library,” Crank said, still laughing, and even I smirked.

“Feckers, all of ya. I can read, I’ll have ya know. I’ve read all the classics.” Highlander glared at Crank, who was laughing even harder now.

“The classics?”

“Aye.”

“What, like The Very Hungry Caterpillar?” Crank slapped Highlander on the back and then quickly dodged as the other man swung a fist at him.

“All right, all right,” Shooter said, “let’s get the fuck out of here.” He started his engine, his gaze still on the women that had gone through the tree line.

“What is it?” I asked, because I knew Shooter and I knew when something was bothering him.

“Just thinking about what other skills we can trade off,” he replied, and I nodded in agreement. Skill trades were just as important as physical trades in many ways, but I wondered what skill Shooter intended to trade with them.

*

We’d been riding for thirty minutes, give or take, though I’d lost track of the time as I’d settled into the ride and finally started to relax. The wind on my face, Shooter’s back against my cheek, my arms wrapped around his muscular waist. I watched the world go by in a blur.

It was all so beautiful when you saw it like this. You weren’t still long enough to see the death and destruction that lay just below the surface, hidden beneath the colors of nature that were exploding around us.

The fight for survival was clearly going better for mother nature than it was for mankind, and it made me remember looking over the wall after so many years trapped behind it and seeing the explosion of flowers and plants that had taken over the world. It had seemed like so long since I’d seen so much color. I’d been living in a world of gray and brown—pale, deathly colors of starvation and pain—and then climbing that wall and looking over into the world beyond had been like looking into some strange hallucination.

How could there be so much beauty in so much ugly?

I was still trapped in my memories, thinking of the wall and wondering what had become of those places, when Highlander pulled up beside us and lifted his hand in the air, pointing left. Shooter nodded and our mini convoy turned at the next corner. I sat up straighter, more alert as we drew close to stopping. We were heading into a small industrial area with brick buildings and warehouses on either side. Shooter drove in the middle, with Highlander flanking the left and Crank flanking the right as we pulled to a stop.

The engines shut off and the silence surrounded us. Not even a bird could be heard singing.

We all sat silent and waiting, checking all around us to see if anything, or anyone, was going to come out, but when a good five minutes had passed with nothing but stillness, Shooter nodded for us to get off the bikes and be ready.

He unclipped me from his holster and I climbed off the bike, rolling my shoulders to get the blood circulating again. My thigh muscles felt tight from sitting still for so long but I relished the ache in my muscles. This ache was one I could learn to love because it meant I was alive. I was moving. I was living. I wasn’t a victim with one hand just waiting to die. I was strong, I was capable. I was doing this survival thing, and I was winning at it. Fuck you, Scar!

“You good?” Shooter grunted.

“Yeah,” I replied with a nod of my head. “This the place?”

The place being the last place the Savages were seen, according to our scouts.

He shook his head. “Nah, we gotta stop for supplies first. Highlander needs some things.” He looked over my shoulder at Highlander who, as usual, had a grin on his face.

“Need stuff to make that badass mace you so kindly requested,” Highlander said with a wiggle of his eyebrows, and despite myself I smiled.

“I wouldn’t say I requested it, per se. I merely agreed to wield this so-called badass instrument of death if someone happened to make it.” I winked and his grin grew wider.

Crank was leaning against his bike, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He sighed heavily, pulling out a small hip flask from his saddlebag and taking a sip. He gave a hiss and put it back away before standing up.

“We ready?” he asked.

“As ready as a cat in shit,” Highlander said with a chuckle.

Crank frowned. “That don’t make no sense, brother.”

“Nothing this fuckwit says ever makes sense,” Shooter grumbled.

“Och, I’m offended, Prez!” he laughed.

“He’s right though,” I agreed.

“Fair enough, Queen B.” Highlander smirked and gave a jerk of his head for us to follow him. Everyone normally followed Shooter, but since this was Highlander’s supply run I was guessing he knew exactly where we all needed to go.

We walked down the center of the wide road. Rusted-out cars were parked on either side and looked like they’d been unusable before all of this end-of-the-world stuff had begun. I took the time to read the small, dusty signs on each of the buildings. Most of them had faded away after several years of sun and storms had beaten down on them, but a couple were still readable. Mostly the ones telling us to take deliveries around the back or letting us know that this was private property and trespassers would be prosecuted. But one of them stood out to me.

“Metal merchant?” I asked, cocking my head to one side as I looked at Highlander.

“Aye, gonna check this place out, grab a couple of things, and then hopefully send the boys back for a big supply run in a couple of days.” Highlander brushed the hair out of his face and rolled his shoulders. His grin had fallen, even though his tone was still light. “Used to get all my stuff from here, back in the day.”

He was back in his own memories, his eyes squinting up at the squat building in front of us with its faded red roof. His expression darkened further and I wondered what he was thinking about—what memory was making this normally jovial man seem so sad and distant, like he was lost in the past. Or maybe not lost, but found in the past, remembering a time when things were better.

Despite the sadness engulfing his features, I bet he would have liked to stay there in those dark thoughts and memories. In a time when things were better.

“All right, weapons ready. Be quick, be quiet, be efficient. We don’t know what’s going to be in there. Could be empty, could be filled with the rotters. So be ready for anything.” Shooter looked around at all of our faces, his cold blue eyes holding mine for a moment longer, and I knew in that moment that he was wishing—not for the first time, no doubt—that he hadn’t allowed me to come along. Despite me showing him that I could fend for myself, he hated the thought of willingly bringing me toward any kind of danger. Some things changed in life, but that never would.

Crank threw his cigarette to one side and cracked his neck as he gripped his hammer in his right hand. “All right, let’s do this then.”

Wordlessly we all headed toward the main gates. There was a big padlock on them, but a couple of swings of Crank’s hammer destroyed it easily and it fell to the ground with a heavy metallic thud. I rolled my shoulders, the throb in my joints from doing too much too soon making me look around uneasily. I really hoped the place was empty because I wasn’t sure how much more I could swing that thing. The material was beginning to rub, and the extra weight pulling on my arm was growing more and more uncomfortable.

It’s funny how that happens, isn’t it? How something can be perfectly fine one minute and then the next not. That was me right then. I couldn’t say anything though, or Shooter would know that he had been right all along and it had been too soon for me to go out, acting like we were Sid and Nancy again.

The main doors had metal shutters pulled down, and after a quick inspection, Highlander began walking around the side of the building. Around back it was just as quiet, though there were some notable dark stains on the ground that could have been oil or mud, but were more likely to be dried blood.

There was a large pull-down shutter at the back, but that one already had the lock broken off it and the shutter was lifted a foot or so, which was both good and bad. Shooter’s brow furrowed deeper as he glanced over at us all and then led the way toward it.

We stood to the left of the entrance, listening intently for any noise coming from within, but it was as silent as the rest of the place. Deathly quiet. Crank dropped to the ground and then rolled underneath and into the darkness, and we all stayed, waiting quietly to see what he reported back. After several minutes he stuck his head back out.

“Nothing that I can see,” he whispered, and Shooter nodded. Crank disappeared back inside, and one by one we dropped to the ground and rolled underneath the shutter also, heading into the darkness within.

I let my eyes adjust for a moment or two before standing up and getting my bearings as I looked around us. The place smelled of damp and mildew, and rows of racking were spread out before us. But there were no deaders, so that was a win in my book. It was hot in there, and the sound of flies buzzing was enough to turn my stomach, which was ridiculous considering some of the things I’d seen in my life, but there it was. I hated flies. Despised them, in fact. Gross little dirty poo-eaters! It was one of the worst things about the early apocalypse days: so many goddamn flies. Everywhere you went they were just there in huge swarms, buzzing around you, waiting to see when you would die so they could basically puke on you and then suck you up.

The men had started to move further into the darkness, and I followed, looking around warily. My gaze fell to a small makeshift camp that looked like it hadn’t been used in a while. There was a sleeping bag that was dirty and covered in black gore (cough) blood. Someone had been staying there at one point, but by the looks of things, it hadn’t ended too well for them.

I felt a pang of sadness in my chest at that thought. There weren’t many of us left in the world, and to see that someone had been alive—alone, but alive—so close to the clubhouse and a new form of civilization, but was now dead…well, that just sucked. That wasn’t the right word, and I knew that, but there seemed little point in searching my brain for a more appropriate word when sucked would be sufficient enough. Dead was dead and it sucked no matter which way you looked at it or what word you used.

“Nina.”

I looked up at the whisper of my name on Crank’s lips. I hadn’t realized that I’d stopped and was just staring down at the destroyed camp on the ground. Cans of food lay open on their sides, their contents long gone, blankets were dirty rags, and an old camp stove stood amongst the ruins like an offering to some long-forgotten god.

Crank came to stand next to me, the scent of his masculinity filling the air. He stared down at the ground with me, a sad sort of longing on his face.

“It sucks doesn’t it?” he said with a heavy sigh.

I didn’t have time to reply as he turned on his heel and walked away, and I followed him without word.

Because yeah, it sucked, but there was nothing we could do about it.

My footsteps resounded around us no matter how quietly I tried to walk, and as I caught up to the others, Shooter turned to glare at me. Highlander grinned like a hyena and I gave him the middle finger, which only served to make him grin more.

“Ain’t no dainty ballerina, are ya?” Highlander whispered to me, mimicking me stomping across the floor, and I couldn’t help but smirk this time.

“Shut up,” I bit out, pushing the smile away. I turned my attention back to Shooter. “Seems pretty empty.”

“Nah, there’s someone here,” he replied immediately. “That shit out there, that’s a ploy.”

“A ploy?” I asked incredulously. I looked over at Crank, who was already pulling out his spear from a sheath on his back, no questions asked.

“Aye,” Highlander agreed readily. “And they’re smart.”

“Not that smart,” Shooter rumbled. “They’re about to die. You ready, Nina?”

I nodded, holding my arm up in front of me, my machete attachment still covered in the dried blood from the earlier deaders. My heart pounded in my chest, making me feel a little nauseous. It was my first time out of clubhouse in months. I only had one actual arm, and it was only the second time using my fancy new arm contraption. And there I was on a killing spree like I was Xena, warrior princess, ready to take on the world.

“Deaders up ahead,” Crank said, making the situation ten times worse, a fresh cigarette dangling between his lips.

“Crank, Nina, you two go take care of them. Highlander, you’re with me,” Shooter ordered.

My heart just about fell out of my ass at his words, and yet I followed Crank into the darkness toward the sound of the dead. I was pretty sure I heard Highlander say “atta girl” at my retreating back, but I was too scared out of my mind to say anything in return. Besides, I was pretty sure he meant it in a good way. If not and I made it out of there alive, I’d kick him in the nuts later.

13.

Nina

The deaders looked like little kids, like eight or nine years old, but I still felt nothing as I swung my machete into their heads and their gray brain matter sloped off the edges of their skulls as they fell to the ground. If anything, I felt glad that I could finally end it for them.

A girl of no more than ten came toward me, arms outstretched, cloudy eyes unfocused, steps stumbling over her fallen brothers, and I took a deep breath and sighed before swinging my katana across her little neck. My aim wasn’t as accurate anymore—not that it had ever been amazing, but it was definitely worse after so long of no practice. My katana skimmed across her face, shaving some of her features off, and I grimaced, feeling guilty and a little grossed out.

“Dayum, Nina,” Crank said from my left. He’d replaced his spear and was using his hammer. “That was vicious.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I retorted, and took a step backwards to give myself the proper space to swing again.

She was relentless in her pursuit of me, and even with half her face shaved off and splattered down her faded flowery shirt she continued onwards in search of food, aka me. I swung again, that time with my machete, and I lodged it in the side of her skull. She paused, like I’d hit a button, and then her body sagged. I pulled my machete out and she fell in a heap at my feet.

“Jackpot!” Crank said, and patted me on the back. “Round one goes to us.”

I glared at him. “They were just kids.”

“Dead kids that would have eaten you and I alive,” he said.

He was right, and I knew he was right so there was no reason to feel angry at him, and yet I did. I felt angry that those little kids had had to go through all of that. That they were dead. That they had become tiny little murderers in their afterlife.

“Don’t think on it so much,” Crank said with a raised eyebrow.

I shrugged. “I’m an overthinker. It’s what I do best.”

His face broke out in a huge grin. “Nah, girl, you insult people in the best possible way. You make most of us quake in our boots. You fight like a warrior, you look hot in tight leather, and I bet you’re great in bed. Overthinking ain’t just the only thing you do best.” He winked and started to walk back toward Shooter, and I hated that I felt my cheeks heat from his words.

Heading back toward Shooter, I couldn’t help but feel like I was being watched. Like there were more of those dead little children hiding in the shadows, waiting for us. But the dead don’t wait, they attack on sight—but it was a small comfort.

Shooter and Highlander had been on their own little killing spree when we found them; kids again, I noted with a shudder. They were just finishing them off when we arrived, and Crank swung his hammer straight into the face of a teenage boy, smashing a huge hole in the center of his skull. Everything caved in—nose, cheeks, eyes, mouth—and I was grateful when it fell backwards, finally dead.

“Brother, you need something…” Highlander was staring at Crank. “…a little less…”

“Brutal,” I said, interrupting. “He needs something a little less brutal.”

“Agreed,” Shooter said, staring down at the thing at our feet. Crank was grinning, looking satisfied with his kill.

I wafted a handful of flies away, muttering angrily. “Not dead yet.”

“All right, Highlander, where to?” Shooter asked.

Highlander was already moving toward what I supposed used to be a reception desk where you would order what you needed. H reached the desk and picked up the small sign from on top, a quirk at the corner of his mouth as he examined it.

“Fucker finally did it,” he said, more to himself than anyone else. But then he turned to us, holding it up. “Ed was my buddy. He’d been trying to make partner for years.” He held up the name plate, which read Ed Clarke partner.

He looked at it once more before placing it back down and heading behind the desk. He shook his head, a smirk on his face as he rummaged through the paperwork. Finally, he pulled out a stack of papers and quickly scanned them.

“Aisle 34 and 19 are where we need to be.” He looked up, glancing past us toward the darkness. “We should head to the workshop too, check and see if the equipment is still there. If so, we need to grab that too when we come back.”

We all turned to stare further into the large warehouse, blackness entombing the building. It was obvious that none of us were too keen on heading back there—who knew what was hiding in the dark?—but we had no choice.

“This place had been used for a base,” Highlander said. “Ain’t too keen on heading into pitch black, my friend.”

“Maybe it was just these kids,” I said with a shrug, but I knew I was wrong.

“Nah, they were left behind for security,” Crank said. “Did you see the weapon strapped to their backs?”

“One had a mask hanging from his waistband too,” Shooter said.

“A cult maybe?” I suggested.

“Whatever it is, or was, I don’t like it. Masked, weaponized children are my Achilles heel.” Highlander pulled out a small hip flask and took a sip, and I shook my head at him, one eyebrow raised. “Och, don’t look at me like that.”

“Masked, weaponized children…” I tutted. “Since when did you realize that that was going to be the one thing to make you crumble? Was that in between bloody battles with hordes of the undead, half-starvation, and the end of mankind as we know it?” My words were serious but my tone was not.

“It was right around month nine of no sex, actually, Queen B. A sex-starved and hungry man has many epiphanies. This was my main one.” Highlander held my stare, and I couldn’t decide if he was messing with me or if he was being serious. Either way I rolled my eyes and looked away. “But we need this stuff, so I’ll face my fears. We’ll need to clear this place of anything or anyone that don’t belong here and get our boys back to retrieve the machinery.”

“Agreed,” Shooter said. He looked up toward the roof, where I noted that there were small windows along the top of the building. They’d been covered by something to stop any light from getting in, and I couldn’t help but wonder why. Who would go to the effort of doing that just to make this place even creepier?

“Okay, so let’s get going. Keep your weapons tight and be ready for anything. Dead zombie kids aren’t going to be the only surprise in there, that’s for damned sure,” Shooter said with a heavy sigh.

We set off, back into the darkness, our gazes checking all of the dark spaces where people could hide. It was a scary, scary world when you had to worry so much about other people and the zombies became the least scary thing about the end of the world.

Why couldn’t everyone just live in harmony? Just try to get along? Fight the dead, not each other? Yet that would never happen. People were greedy for power, for control, for whatever they could own. It had been a simple fact when the world wasn’t a rotting corpse, but it was even simpler now.

People wanted power.

They lusted for it.

They killed for it.

They would do anything for it.

You could dress it up as survival or as cleansing the world or whatever the hell you wanted to call it, but it was always control and power, really.

Every man ever in power would tell you the same thing. Every type of world leader, whether it be a president or an army sergeant, knew this. And if you couldn’t control it, then you killed it.

And we were no better now.

Stalking through that dark and haunted place, hunting for whatever lay within it, ready to kill them at a moment’s notice. Dead or alive, it was survival of the fittest, it was the ones who held the most power that would walk away.

A flash of something to my left caught my eye and I frowned into the darkness, wondering if I’d imagined it. I poked Highlander in the side, and when he looked over I pointed into the darkness. He nodded, his gaze narrowing as he stared between the shelving slats intently.

We reached a fork in our path: left, right, or straight ahead. Left was black—like total blackness, right wasn’t much better, and straight ahead was through a doorway that had the lock torn off it and a sign tacked to the front of it that read in crude handwriting, Door number one.

Shooter looked back at us and we all nodded in complete and total silent agreement. We wanted to see what was behind door number one.

I still wasn’t certain that we weren’t being watched; the hairs on the back of my neck told me that we were in more danger than we realized, but we were also too far into this thing to turn back.

Shooter placed his hand on the doorknob and pulled it open quickly. He had a huge hunting knife in his hand, with a large, serrated blade that was already covered in zombie goo, and he held that up now as he looked into the room beyond. A couple of seconds went by before he stepped inside and we followed blindly, wondering what the hell we’d gotten ourselves into.

Room number one was not what we expected. In a good way.

There was a huge throne—honestly, that was the only word for it—at the far end of the room. It looked like it had been built from all the miscellaneous parts that had been found there, Game of Thrones style but with less finesse. The rest of the room was fitted out with tables and chairs, beds, and racks of food and water. And we realized, all too late, that we had walked into someone’s camp. Like, we had known there were people there, but by the looks of this place, it wasn’t the amount of people that four people could take on.

And it was way too late to back up and leave.

Whispers sounded out from the shadows, and I saw little white faces darting between the shelving.

“Och, what did I tell you about weaponized children?” Highlander said in a hushed voice.

“Should have gone for backup,” Crank added.

“Fuck,” Shooter added as people came forward.

Lots of people.

Or should I say lots of kids. Either kids or dwarves.

Each one of them wore a mask. They were white, with crudely painted lines and faces across them. And each one held a long spear.

Worse, none of them looked frightened by us. I mean, it was kind of hard to tell because of the masks, but they stalked forward as one, weapons in hand and no hesitation, so I was guessing that they weren’t in the least bit frightened by us.

“We don’t want any trouble,” Shooter said, holding his hands up as he tried to placate them.

“And yet you’ve come into our home and killed our friends,” a child’s voice from the small herd came.

“We meant no harm. We thought they were going to kill us.”

I mean, they were going to kill us. They definitely would’ve if we hadn’t have killed them first, but it didn’t seem like the time to point that part out.

“This is our home.” Another child’s voice, this time followed by a hundred whispers of agreement.

“We apologize for overstepping. We came for supplies,” Shooter replied, and he sounded so calm that I found myself having a new admiration for him. My stomach was doing backflips like it was part of the Cirque Du Soleil troupe, and I didn’t trust myself to speak without my voice quaking.

Highlander was right: masked, weaponized kids were terrifying.

14.

Nina

The whispers continued amongst themselves and I glanced briefly to Shooter. He was staring intently at the herd of little masked monsters, his expression anxious.

“I’ve got my gun on me,” Crank whispered quietly, and I saw the telltale twitch of Shooter’s features that told me he’d heard. “Ready and loaded. Might buy us some time.”

“Och, not before the wee ones cut us to pieces and use our intestines as skipping ropes,” Highlander whispered back. “Vicious little pricks,” he snarled.

“Well, that’s a pleasant thought,” I mumbled.

I focused back on the masked kids, noting how several of them had come forward, and I took stock of them. They were all definitely kids of varying ages; I would say anything from five or six upwards. Each of them were wearing their crudely painted white masks and carrying handmade weapons of pointed sticks or homemade knives and bats wrapped in barbed wire. Glancing up higher, I noted several masked faces hiding in the rafters, but they were holding guns. Big guns, from the looks of it, and my heart sank. There was no way out of this without serious bloodshed. Not unless we tried to strike a deal or appealed to their childlike nature.

What is it that kids really want?

What motivates them?

Or what motivated them previously?

I wasn’t a mother. I’d never had children and never really wanted them either. The end of the world had only solidified that fact, because who would want to have children in a world so ugly and brutal? But kids were still kids, and they still craved childlike things: a parent’s love, a teddy bear, a book at bedtime, and candy.

I took a small step forward, leaving my little group to single myself out as a female. A woman. Someone less threatening than three big, burly bikers.

“Nina…” Shooter warned, but I held a hand up to him to placate him.

I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do or even if it would work, but we had no other choice—not really. We had to survive…all of us.

“We really didn’t mean to upset anyone. We were looking for parts,” I said, my voice softer, gentler than usual. Gone was the hard edge that I’d let build into it, and I tried for a more feminine approach instead of the usual biting, angry tone. “Parts for me, actually.”

Whispers came again, several heads turning to look at one another.

“Parts for you?” A girl’s voice.

“Are you a robot?” A boy’s voice.

I forced a fake laugh and smiled. “Sort of.” I held my arm up slowly, showing my attachment and its accompanying weapon.

“What is that?” This time the voice was more masculine, not a boy’s, not quite a man’s, but the early stages of manhood, for sure.

“I lost my arm…” I said timidly.

“To the biters?” Another girl’s voice.

I shook my head. “No, to a man. A bad man.”

More whispers, more head turning.

“There are lots of bad men out there,” the male voice came again.

I nodded. “There are lots of bad women too, I assure you. But we’re not either of those things. We’re like you, really. We’re just trying to survive.”

The large room fell silent. No whispers. No movement. You would have thought that they had been frozen. Turned to ice or carved out of marble. I waited, as patiently as I could. I was losing my nerve when they spoke next.

“You killed some of our family.” The girl’s voice. “They were our protectors.”

I bowed my head. “I apologize on behalf of us all. They attacked us.” I looked up as the whispering began again. “And rightly so—they were trying to protect you, we see that now. But we didn’t know. We weren’t aware they were good, like you.”

The room fell silent and then a small laugh erupted from the herd of children. The laughter grew and grew, echoing from above and below, surrounding us so loudly until I wanted to cover my ears. My heart slammed against my chest and I glanced back to Shooter, Highlander, and Crank, trying to read their stony expressions.

The laughter ended as abruptly as it had started, and I looked back to the children who were no more children than the deaders we’d just killed. They were far beyond those childlike personas now. Life and a lack of parental authority had driven these children into the mindset of something more monstrous.

“We’re not good,” the male voice came, and he stepped forward, out of the herd. He was their leader, even if they didn’t realize it. He ruled over them. He controlled them. He was their master. “Not even close.”

Who had this boy been before the end of the world, I wondered briefly. Before the deaders rose and evil infected the hearts of so many. His height and build suggested he was no more than seventeen or eighteen, but his mask hid his face from me. At the start of this apocalypse he would have been around thirteen or fourteen. What had he seen and done to get to this place with a masked army of weaponized children by his side?

“But you look after this family, right?” I replied, holding my arms out to his herd. “You help protect them. Keep them fed and safe and warm.”

He cocked his head to one side, and I imagined his eyes were narrowed behind his mask as he assessed what I was trying to do. What I was trying to decide.

“This is your family, and you’ll do anything to protect them, right?” I added.

He held a curved blade in his hand, and now he ran the edge of it along a thick piece of leather strapped on to the side of his leg, sharpening it as I spoke. He was trying to unnerve me, and it was working, but the ache in my arm and the hole in my heart stopped me from being truly frightened.

“I won’t pretend that we can look after them, or you, any better. You’ve done a marvelous job already. But we can perhaps help one another. We can trade,” I suggested, readying for the kill.

I’d noted the flies that hung in the air and the stench that accompanied them, and when I looked deeper into the shadows, I noted the animal corpses strapped to the walls. The children had been using animals for their survival. I wondered how much that could destroy a child’s mind, using their pet Fluffy as a meal.

“Pretty sure you won’t want any vegetables”—I forced a light laugh—“but we have homemade bread and cakes.”

The voices began as whispers, reaching high into the rafters until the whispers grew and grew and every child in the place was talking excitedly.

Monsters they may have been, but children they still were, deep down.

“Do you have any candy?” The girl’s voice now, and this time she stepped from the herd.

The boy turned to glare at her and I caught a glimpse of his long yellow hair behind the mask.

“A little, but not much,” I said, when in truth we had none. But maybe we could find some. We’d have to if it meant surviving.

“Do you have teddies?” a little boy asked. His height suggested no more than eight or nine, and he was skinny. So, so skinny.

I nodded. “Lots of teddies. And lots of books. And we can make cookies too,” I said, thinking on my feet.

“Got a couple of bikes too,” Crank said from behind me. “And paint. I can paint ’em up real nice for you.”

The whispers were louder now, but they were still whispers. I betted the children hadn’t used the full strength of their voices in so many years that they’d forgotten how. The thought was beyond sad.

“Enough,” the older boy said in a whisper-shout, and the talking ceased, the warehouse falling silent. “We don’t need your gifts,” he said, his tone suggesting a bitterness that came with all teenagers of that age.

He didn’t need anyone to tell him what to do.

He was a man now and would do as he pleased.

He was a teenage rebel, acting out against the adults.

I bet he was a pimply little shit with anger issues behind that mask and not the cool, calm man he pretended to be. The kids looked up to him because he was the eldest, and I wondered what would happen to each of them as they got older. Would he kill them as they reached his age? That way no one could ever try to take his power away.

I may have never wanted children, but there was no denying the maternal instinct that was growing inside me.

He lifted his knife and took a step forward, but if he thought that was going to frighten me he was going to have a shock. Little shit had no idea what I’d been through. The people I had encountered. The things I had survived. The things I had done to survive. We had all gone to some dark places in the past few years, and I had no doubt his had been a terrible time, but if he thought I was going to let him harm a single hair on my head, he was very much mistaken.

I decided to try one more time before things got bloody.

“Like I said, we don’t mean any harm to any of you. We needed some parts and we still do. We’re willing to trade you for them. Cake, bread, cookies, toys, and books as well, if you want. But we’re not leaving here without a deal to trade or taking the things we want.” I let my voice go hard at the end, the soft mother voice seeping away so he knew I wasn’t going to back down to him. He may have ruled over those children, but I was no child and neither were the men at my back.

“Tyson,” a voice whispered from the herd. I couldn’t decide if it was female or just a young male, but the tone was pleading.

Little masked monsters they may have been, but as I suspected, they were still children beneath all the horrors.

His name was Tyson. I wondered who he had been previous to all this. Tyson seemed like such a normal name for a boy. I betted that he had played football, or maybe he had wrestled. Maybe once he had dreams to go to college and find a nice girl to settle down with, but the end of the world had come and gone and he’d been forced to do unspeakable things just to survive.

“I know that you’re in control here, and you don’t need us,” I said, staring at Tyson, my gaze unwavering, as was his, “but part of survival, part of being an adult in this awful world, is knowing who is your enemy and who isn’t. It’s knowing when to kill and when to trade.”

Tyson took another step toward me. He picked at his nails with the knife, casually, trying to assert his dominance over me. I wondered what he would have done without the men at my back.

“Do you have these things with you?” he asked, casually, a fake pretense that I easily saw through.

I shook my head. “No. We have minimal things with us, a handful of food, but we can arrange a meeting time and place to trade.”

Tyson laughed, and it grew louder as he came a little closer. Step by cautious step. Slowly closing the space between us until he was three feet away and I could just about make out his brown eyes behind the mask.

“Then no trade,” he said bitterly.

“Tyson,” I pleaded, holding my arms out to placate him, but with a machete attached to one arm and a katana in the other it came across as violent and he raised his knife, the herd of children behind him going stone still. “Sorry, sorry.” I carefully sheathed my katana but there was nothing I could do about the machete. “What about if one of us stays? The others can go back for supplies, and then we can trade.”

Tyson cocked his head again, his gaze firmly on my arm. I had a feeling he was a little in awe of it. Silly boy.

Shooter was restless behind me, and I had no doubt that it was taking everything in his willpower not to drag me back to his side.

“Who stays?” Tyson asked.

I looked at the children, weapons in hand, still as statues, watching us through the narrow slits in their masks, and I knew who it had to be.

“I’ll stay,” I replied.

“Like hell you will,” Shooter bellowed as if he’d been poised, ready to strike.

“Shut up,” I snapped at him.

He closed the short distance between us, pushing in front of me. “I’ll stay. I’m the president of these people, this club. I’m in charge, so you know they’ll come back for me.”

“Shooter!” I shoved at him, frustrated and annoyed that he’d not only try to take over my deal but that he thought he could take charge of my life like that. “No—you’re needed by the Highwaymen, I’m not. I’m expendable.”

“Like hell you are,” he replied.

“Gotta agree with her, boss,” Crank said from behind.

“Neither of you feckers are expendable,” Highlander grumbled.

“We’ll take the woman,” Tyson interrupted, clearly seeing he had the upper hand. “She stays or you all die.”

“Then we die!” Shooter snarled, rolling his shoulders like he was ready for a fight.

“Shooter, for God’s sake, see some sense!” I yelled.

“Ain’t no God left, darlin’, and I ain’t leavin’ my old lady behind with these vicious little—”

I grabbed him with my good hand and tried to turn him so he’d look at me. He was like stone, but eventually he let me move him.

“You’re not stayin’,” he said, his expression as black as night. “Ain’t up for debate, Nina.”

I looked into his bright blue stormy eyes and shook my head. “You’re not risking these men’s lives for me. Out of stubbornness. Out of your innate desire to protect me.”

“And you’re not getting yourself killed because you don’t see much to live for,” he retorted.

I shook my head. “I won’t. I see now—honest, I do. My life isn’t over, it’s just different. I get it. Being on the back of your bike, killing those deaders… I see now, I promise.”

We stared at each other silently, a tangled web of anger and affection between us. We were both trying to protect the other at any costs; it would have been poetic if it weren’t for the little monsters watching us.

“The club will fall apart without you, Shooter. The Rejects are still uncertain of where they belong—they need you to show them the way,” I pleaded. “I’m nothing to them, but you are everything.”

“She’s right, Prez,” Crank said, and when I looked, he at least had the decency to look apologetic at throwing me to the wolves.

“You stay alive,” Shooter ordered me, and I looked back at him and nodded.

“I will, I promise.” I turned to Tyson quickly, before anyone could change their minds again. “Okay, I’ll stay, they’ll go and get supplies and come straight back with them. We’ll trade—the things we need for food and toys.”

It was a deal.

It was decided.

Tyson glanced up at the ceiling, where the kids were holding guns, and he nodded before looking back at me.

“For the family you killed on your way in,” he said, his head cocked to one side, and then a single gunshot sounded out loudly.

15.

Nina

I covered my head with my hands and automatically ducked, expecting death to finally come for me as the crack of the gun sounded loudly, but nothing came. My ears were ringing in my ears, my heart pounding obnoxiously hard in my chest, but I was still alive, still breathing. I removed my hands and stood up quickly.

“Shooter!” I called his name and turned at the same time, terrified of what I might see.

There was blood.

So much blood.

But Shooter was alive and so was Highlander, both of them bent over the prone body of Crank on the ground. Everything went silent despite seeing Shooter and Highlander yelling and shouting, holding their hands up as they dripped with the bright red blood of their brother.

Highlander stood up, his look terrifying enough to make my heart skip a beat. He pulled out his gun and aimed it at Tyson, his hard gaze unwavering, and Tyson, for the teenage boy that he was, stood there like a man and didn’t cower away. Shooter stood up and pulled at Highlander, yelling orders in his face, but the world was still silent momentarily as my head and my heart struggled to catch up with what was happening.

And then, like coming up for air from diving, everything came back into focus. So loud and bright that it startled me.

“You’re dead, little boy,” Highlander was snarling, his dark eyes focused solely on Tyson. “I’m gonna cut off your fuckin’ head and shove it up your arse, you wee little bastard.”

“Back off, Highlander, that’s a goddamn order!” Shooter was yelling in his face but Highlander didn’t seem to be listening, and honestly I got it, and no doubt Shooter did too. But if Highlander lost it and went all death and destruction, we were all dead and everything so far would have been for nothing.

My gaze went to Crank on the ground, and sadness gripped my heart. His handsome face was turned to the side, his eyes staring blankly into nothing, the red puddle of blood under him growing.

Was it my fault?

We’d come here so that Highlander could get parts to build things for my arm, so was this death now on my hands? Another death. Another bloodstain on my soul.

I felt sick and sad and heartbroken at the thought.

“Highlander.” I said his name, not quietly, but loudly. So loud that he heard me and his gaze broke from Tyson to slide to me. My throat squeezed tight at the pain in his eyes, and I realized that he blamed himself too. “You need to leave,” I said. “You both need to leave, now. Take Crank with you.”

“I’m not leavin’ you here,” Shooter growled, scowling at me, his eyebrows pulled low.

“Then we’ll all die right here, right now,” I stated simply, because it was the truth. Both of them were acting like there was a choice to be made, but there was no choice. The deal had been made, and we had to stick to it or face the consequences. I didn’t like it any more than they did, but it was still the only way to survive.

“They’ll kill you before we’ve even made it back to the clubhouse, Nina,” Shooter said angrily, giving a shake of his head like he thought I was stupid.

I took a step back toward Tyson and the group of terrifying masked children. “No, they won’t. I’ll be fine. Come back with a van so we can take Crank’s body back home and bury him.” I turned and headed to Tyson’s side, and the children swarmed me.

Little hands touching me, stroking me. Fascinated by my blade, by my arm, by me. I guess they hadn’t had a mother in so long they were excited to have me there, if only for a few hours.

“Nina,” Shooter growled.

I turned back to him, my composure calm despite my raging heart. “Go, and be quick. No plans, no tricks, no reinforcements. Just water, food, toys, and books. I’ll be waiting.”

“Yes, go,” Tyson said, and I realized now how old he actually was. Not a child anymore at all, but at least nineteen or twenty. He was a man, but his frame was small and his weight slender, so he pulled off the look well. I wondered if the other kids here knew this about him, or if they thought he was just a kid like them. “I’ll keep Nina busy.” He reached out to touch me and I snatched my arm away from his grip.

“Let’s get one thing straight: I will cut off your arms and legs if you so much as breathe wrong,” I snarled. “You don’t touch me, not ever. Got it?”

The fire flared to life inside me, and this time it wasn’t just anger or fury at what had just happened—it was survival. I wanted to survive this, I realized, and it was the first time that I had wanted to survive anything more than just finding the Savages and killing them. I wanted to live. I wasn’t ready to die; not just yet.

It was good to find that strength within me again, and I clung on to it like a life raft.

Tyson was startled by my sudden aggression, since I’d been the reasonable one up until now, and I watched him recoil from my violent words like he’d been slapped across the cheek by his mother. The shock wouldn’t last long though.

I looked back at Shooter and Highlander, seeing fury and rage radiating from them in waves. They didn’t want to leave me there. In fact, they would both have happily gone down in a blaze of glory, killing as many of those little monsters as they could, but it would have been pointless. A waste of life and death, blood and grief colliding to finish us all.

“Please, go,” I said, softening my tone, “but hurry back.”

Highlander’s gaze washed over the herd. “Ya touch a hair on her head, and I’ll rip ya a new arsehole, ya fuckin’ got me?”

His accent was thicker than I’d ever heard it before, no doubt his rage and grief making him lose control. Shooter was holding my gaze steady in his.

“We’ll be back for you,” he said to me before finally looking away to stare at Tyson. “And we’ll be back for our brother too. You touch his body and I’ll burn this fuckin’ place to the ground with all of you inside.”

“Don’t forget the bike,” a little girl next to me said to Shooter. “He said there was a bike.” She nodded toward Crank’s dead body. She sounded happy, excited, not terrified or sad. Not any of the normal things that a child her age should have felt after seeing someone gunned down in front of them. She was no more than eight or nine and she was already immune to the trauma of life and death.

That was probably the most frightening thing of all.

These children were our future and yet there were no real emotions in them. No empathy, no concern, no fear for the future. They were just excited by the prospect of a new bike and hungry for cake.

“Go,” I said, the word almost sticking in my throat.

Because I didn’t want them to leave me there with those monsters, those unsavable children of the apocalypse. I wanted to leave with them. I wanted to feel the wind on my face and the sun on my skin and a deader on the end of my machete. I didn’t want to be left in that dark, dark place. But it was the only possible way out.

“Go,” I urged.

Shooter nodded before taking one last look at Crank and turning away. He was strong, he understood that this had to be done, even though he hated it. If he could, he would have stayed himself, but I was right and he knew it. The club needed him. Those men needed him. They would fall without his guidance, and for that reason alone, this was the only option. Highlander followed, but I could tell it was taking everything in his body to not turn his gun on the kids. He was more reckless, and perhaps if Shooter hadn’t been there he would have died for his cause, but Shooter was his president and he had to be protected at all costs.

They left, and my heart sank as the door closed behind them.

I stared into the darkness for several minutes, the room silent around me. We were so far into the warehouse that I couldn’t even hear the roar of the bike engines, but I hoped that they made it out okay. I hoped that they were already on their way back to the clubhouse, and I hoped that they came back quickly.

My gaze strayed to Crank on the ground, and I moved toward him. No one stopped me, not even Tyson. I knelt by his side and placed my hand over his eyes, pulling his eyelids closed for the final time. He was still relatively young, no more than forty, his face still gripped by youth despite his skin being sun-bleached and tanned, despite the hard life that he’d lived. I didn’t know Crank very well—hardly at all, really—and it seemed unfair to him that I was the one to be by his side, guarding his body from brutality. He flinched, the throes of afterlife crawling back into his body, and I quickly took out the knife from my belt, rolled him onto his side, and as the first throaty growl left his throat I stuck the blade into the back of his skull and into his dying brain, killing him for the second time.

I laid him back down, closing his eyes again while trying to ignore the cloudy whites of his deader eyes. Death was ugly on us all, but on his beautiful face it seemed even crueler.

I hadn’t noticed that some of the children had come forward, but they surrounded me now, their masks tilting from side to side as they inspected me, their little dirty hands stroking my hair and touching my arm. I kept myself still, not wanting to startle any of them. These were unpredictable foes and I had no way in knowing what they would do to me. What they would deem acceptable.

“Can you read me a story?” one of them asked, though I couldn’t tell which child had spoken.

I breathed deeply, a chill in my bones at the softness in the tone. I tried to remind myself that they weren’t just children anymore, but unpredictable killers that would slaughter me at a moment’s notice and not bat an eyelash.

“Do you have a book?” I asked, my voice abrupt, and I readjusted to soften it, mimicking the one that had spoken.

The masks were creepy as hell—white but dirt-splattered, red-and-black mouthed expressions painted on each of them. I felt like I was in a Slipknot music video, but this wasn’t my claim to fame, only my claim of near death.

“No,” Tyson replied, and was that longing I heard in his tone? Oh my God, did the little bastard want a bedtime story too?

It was hard to remind myself that he wasn’t a child. That he was a man hiding behind that mask and he’d doomed these children’s souls.

I gritted my teeth and forced myself to calm down and not show my anger toward him or anyone else. To not show how utterly freaked out I was by these weird little kids.

“Then I’ll make something up for you I guess,” I said, clearing my throat. “Sit down then,” I urged, my mind scrolling back through the years to stories from my own childhood. It was hard; I hadn’t thought that far back in a really long time. I normally stopped when I got to the day the world ended. There wasn’t much point in remembering further than that, because all it did was break my heart and shatter my resolve.

But I did now.

I thought back to being a little girl in bed, waiting for my mom or my dad to read me a bedtime story. The softness of my bedspread. The scent of my mom’s perfume. The starry nightlight turning and splattering my world with soft yellow stars.

As Crank lay dead beside me, his blood drying against the concrete ground, I remembered the little girl I had once been. She seemed like a stranger to me, so far removed from who I was now. But inside she was the same—deep inside. She cared for people. She loved deeply. She hated injustice. And she loved stories of good and evil, wrong and right.

“Once upon a time,” I began, lost in time, “there was a little girl…”

16.

Mikey

O’Donnell lifted a hand up to stop us in our tracks. It stayed like that, frozen in mid-air, for several long moments before she finally lowered it and turned around to look at us.

“Nothing but dead cats,” she said, a grimace on her face.

“But the smell…” Freddy began, each word a grimace.

“Well, there’s lots of dead cats.” She hesitated. “And a dead body, but the cats ate the body and then they ate each other, and then…” She shrugged and stepped to the side so Freddy and I could see, and we both retched at the same time as we looked upon the horrific scene of a decomposing body, half eaten, and a mound of multicolored fur, slowly rotting away.

“I’ll wait out here,” Aimee said, turning and walking away, and if I hadn’t been so concerned with not breathing in the toxic scent of death, I would have laughed and taunted her for being such a wimp.

As it was, I didn’t want to open my mouth because I didn’t want the scent of dead cat and rotting corpse to infiltrate my mouth. From past experience, I knew that it was a taste unto its own and that it stuck worse than superglue. Everything you ate for the next week tasted vile, like the scent had burned itself onto your tongue, and you thought it would never go away. Every bite of food was death. Every breath was death. Every time you talked, it was death. Until finally, mercifully, your taste buds recovered and your tongue came back from the brink of death and everything went back to normal.

So yeah, I let Aimee leave with only a small grin and an eye wiggle. She scowled and I turned back to the room. At first I couldn’t quite make out what I was looking at. It seemed like a blanket had been thrown over the body to protect its dignity, but then my eyes began to distinguish the small tears down the arms, the missing fingers, the stray bits of flesh scattered across the pharmacy floor as the cats had tugged to pull away parts of the now very, extremely, one hundred percent dead person. And then there were the cats themselves, their fury little bodies all in different states of decay. Some were bloated and fat, like they had died recently and were filling up with noxious gasses, ready to pop. Others were nothing but a pile of tiny bones covered by a thin blanket of rotting fur. And eyes—there were so many eyes on top of the dead body. A mound of furry warmth with a hundred eyes staring out of it. Little sharp fang-like teeth, and googly eyes staring up at me hatefully. Withdrawn, skeletal, a death glare from the underworld as they protected their kill like we were in ancient Egypt and the body was their pharaoh.

I heard the rumble of Freddy’s stomach from behind me and I tore my horrified gaze away from the body to look at him. The kid had gone pale—like really pale, and he was pale already. Skin practically translucent, lips green. He put a hand to his mouth and turned and ran from the room, and I heard O’Donnell chuckle.

“Man, do you think they ate them alive?” I asked, turning back to look at her.

“Probably,” she replied without hesitation. “Probably brought the cats in here thinking it would be safe from the dead and then couldn’t leave, and when the food ran out, the cats turned on them. Bet it was seriously brutal too. And painful. Can you imagine the horror…the terror of going through that? I mean, death by the dead looks painful, but it’s relatively quick depending on where they start or how quickly your body goes into shock. But this…this would have been slow, and painful, and by the looks of how starved they are, it was prolonged for days.”

“Like the cats knew that to keep themselves alive, they had to keep the person alive,” I mumbled with another grimace.

“Exactly. Man, cats are seriously smart. I always thought they’d take over the world once we were gone, and well…I’m only partly wrong.”

She said it so coldly, so matter-of-factly that it made me frown. I mean, this person had died horrifically and it wasn’t like I knew them. They could have been a murderer or a priest or a hooker, for all I cared or knew, but to be so blasé about their death and the killers left behind…

“Yeah, I guess,” I said, turning to look around the room.

I took the place in, finally noting the toppled-over bottles and boxes of medicines on the shelves. There really wasn’t very much left—maybe some aspirin and some eye drops. Nothing hugely useful given the end of the world circumstances, but if there was nothing else then I’d scrape the shelves bare regardless, because you never knew what you were going to face. I was guessing that someone had already broken in at some point and stolen most of what had been in there—probably pre-cat savaging—but that didn’t mean anything: there was always more to find if you knew where to look, and luckily I knew where to look and what to look for.

A storeroom, or a delivery that hadn’t been unboxed, the contents going unnoticed in their plain brown boxes. A lockbox built into the walls or floors, holding the most valuable drugs in to prevent meth heads breaking in and stealing it.

The dead body and mound of cats were mocking me though, a mutilated pile of death and fur, and my stomach was rolling as I stared at it, noting more and more eyes staring back, different shades of fur. Small tears and bitemarks on putrid, gray flesh.

“I can’t look at that anymore,” I said, and turned my back on it, and I was pretty sure I heard O’Donnell chuckle and call me a pussy. I bent low so I could examine the lower shelves and check for lockboxes. I’d seen small towns have those before—small lockboxes built into part of the pharmacy where they stored the most expensive drugs.

I pushed the remaining bottles aside as I moved around the room, feeling O’Donnell’s stare on me the whole time, wondering what I was searching for as I examined each shelf, moving things on the floor to check that it hadn’t been built into that. I eventually found it by the corner of the man-and-cat mound. Of course I did. Wasn’t that just my Goddamn luck.

“Under here. We need to move…this,” I said with a heavy sigh. I’d gotten somewhat used to the smell, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t still smell it, just that I was pushing past it to get done what needed to be done. I also did not want to have to touch the pile of fur and bones, but knew I had to if I was going to get in that box.

“What is it?” she asked, coming over to help.

“Lockbox,” I said, trying not to open my mouth too much. “If it hasn’t been raided already it should have the good stuff in it.”

My fingers reached into the fury mass, a mixture of revulsion and delight as my hand gripped hold of a large bone, sticky goo washing between my fingers, and yet the back of my hand was brushed with silky soft cat fur at the same time. I shuddered and tried not to think about it as I reached into the mass with my other hand and found something else to hold on to. O’Donnell took the top of the mass and together we began to drag it out of the way.

Goo smeared across the floor, maggots and flies erupted from the center of the dead cats, and a stench that made even O’Donnell make a weird retching noise swallowed the room. I slammed my mouth shut and tried to take as small breaths as possible, but it was all kind of pointless because I was going to be tasting that shit for the rest of my life, never mind the rest of the week. The cats had died really recently—like within the past couple of days—hence the goo and rot; the body was maybe a week or two old, hence the stench.

Eventually we moved the pile far enough away from the hole that I could see the full combination keypad and the rotting rug that had been over the top of it and I slowly withdrew my hands from the furry goo pile. Slime and rot dripped from my hands and vomit clawed its way up my throat as a farting noise exploding from the center of the carnage, making the smell even worse.

O’Donnell eyeballed me, urging me to hurry the fuck up. No doubt she was doing those weird calculations in her head right about then on what our chances of survival were, and by the look on her face, mine were getting slimmer the longer I took. I searched for something to wipe my hands on, finding a pile of clothes under the pharmacy desk, and I dried them—for what little good it did—before moving back over to the safe. I pulled out my tools and set to work as O’Donnell stood up and searched the room for anything that might have been missed by looters the first time around.

I unscrewed the top of the compartment so I could get to the wires underneath. Of course there was no electricity to this thing anymore, so the combination lock wouldn’t work, but I could easily bypass that. I dug around in the wires, inspecting all the screws and connectors, and ten minutes later I had it open.

I was glad we’d gone to the effort too, because whoever had recently succumbed to the cat a la carte had had the good sense to lock up a shit-ton of useful drugs—antibiotics and steroids and a whole host of long-named drugs that I remembered from my thief days were expensive but never really knew what they were for. But I knew they were expensive, and really useful—at least to someone. Hopefully to Stormy.

I swung my bag around and loaded as much inside as I could, and then O’Donnell dropped her bag next to me and did the same thing, until both bags were heaving with little white boxes and bottles, and the lockbox was pretty much empty.

Standing back up, we both backtracked out of the room, closing the door behind us and finding Freddy and Aimee standing guard by the front door of the pharmacy. Freddy turned at the noise we made and put a finger to his lips, and both O’Donnell and I stopped walking momentarily before hurrying forward as quickly as we could.

Dread and curiosity settled in my gut as I peered out between the sheets of old newspaper stuck against the glass. It was faded and sunburned by the years of covering the glass from prying eyes. Most of the words and pictures had faded beyond comprehension but I could still see some of them. A new virus had been discovered. A flurry of break-ins. A new flu vaccine was being made. There was a new president. A new alliance between countries. A new war between countries. So many clues to the end of the world had been there and no one had realized. I wondered if it would have mattered. If we had seen the end coming, would we have been able to change things? Would we have even tried?

My gaze moved between the yellowed newspaper pages to the world beyond until my eyes finally landed on the small group of dead shuffling through the streets. They moved together, a collective with a goal and a one-track mind. They never strayed left or right, instead moving with purposeful steps toward something, or someone, beyond our current scope.

Aimee tapped me on the shoulder, and I was loath to look away from the dead moving through the streets, but forced myself to so I could look at her. Her face was hard, her expression stern, as she mouthed is this them?

I held her stare for a long moment before looking back out. The dead had passed us and were coming to the end of the long, wide street as they began to turn a corner. Another deader slipped out from between two buildings to join the others and I frowned, watching as its purposeful steps continued the march forward to their new destination.

My head was spinning.

My gut twisting.

Was this the Savages?

And if so, how? How were they controlling the dead, and why?

Memories hit me of my time in their captivity. Of the stench of cooked flesh. Of the screams that echoed throughout the caves as someone else was dismembered and cooked. Sickness burned in my belly and I realized, as Aimee put a hand on my shoulder, that I was shaking. My jaw clamped together so tightly that my entire face ached, and I knew that yes, this was them.

I nodded slowly, not wanting it to be them. Wanting it to be anyone but them. But the world was dark and cruel, a brutal mix of happenstance and bad fucking luck.

“Yeah,” I said, my words thick with hate and fear. “Yeah, I think that’s them.”

“It has to be, right?” O’Donnell said, sounding unaware of the terror that was currently gripping me.

“You can’t be sure,” Freddy argued. “They could just be shamblers.”

“No, they’re too organized. Too orderly to be shamblers. They’re going somewhere. They’re being drawn to something.”

I’d seen that once before—the dead controlled and led like that—but I couldn’t remember where. The years were long and tiresome, the burden of so many deaths heavy on my shoulders. A hundred faces flashing behind my eyes as I tried to recall the memory that was buried deep.

“We should follow them,” O’Donnell said. “There’s only a ten percent chance we’ll get caught. Those are good odds!”

“A ten percent chance that we’ll get caught and cooked!” Freddy said, aghast. “No, Aiken said we had to go back if we saw them. No running off and getting ourselves killed. We go back and tell him.”

“I agree,” Aimee said. “Let’s follow them.”

O’Donnell looked happy that Aimee had agreed with her, that she wanted to follow the dead to their insane cannibalistic leaders. She glanced at me, finally noting my expression. My terror.

“You take Freddy back to NEO, tell Aiken we’ve spotted a lead and we’re following it up. Get the drugs back to camp.” She turned away from me, her gaze fierce and unforgiving as she readied herself to follow the deaders into what could have been a trap.

“No,” I finally said, the single word hard and cutting, like metal through butter. “We all go back or we all follow them. No one separates from the group. We stay together.”

“It could be a trap,” Freddy said, his eyes wide and his hand scrubbing over his short red hair.

“It’s not a trap,” I replied with a shake of my head. “They’re up to something else.”

We fell back into silence momentarily, all of us wondering the same thing: what were the Savages up to?

17.

Mikey

“I’m not going back without finding out what they’re up to,” Aimee said, her mouth pinched in anger. “I’m going to make them pay for what they’ve done.”

“And they will pay—just not today. Not like this.” My voice was hard, like I wasn’t completely terrified.

But I was. Inside, my insides were shaking. And I hated the Savages a little bit more for that. For making me so utterly terrified of them. I wanted the old me back—the one that walked in somewhere, guns blazing and not a care in the world, ready to blow the zombies to pieces. But I wasn’t that man anymore. I couldn’t be after what I’d gone through. After seeing Ricky die. After seeing people beaten to death so brutally. After all the things I knew about the world now and the kind of people mankind had turned into.

I would never be that man again.

I was scarred on the outside, but inside I had been rebuilt.

“He’s right,” O’Donnell finally said, and I could tell that she didn’t want to agree with me—that in fact she didn’t at all, and if I hadn’t have been there she would have gone off and followed them without a second thought.

When I looked at her, I saw sympathy in her eyes.

Sympathy for me.

She saw me as weak, I realized with sudden anger.

I pulled out the map from my backpack and spread it out on one of the dusty display tables, smoothing out the wrinkles. Everyone crowded around as I plotted where we were and then followed the line of where the zombies were heading.

“There’s nothing down there,” Freddy said with a shrug. “Just miles of land and—”

“Mines,” I said, pointing to a small symbol on the map. “There’s mines down there.”

I looked up, my gaze catching O’Donnell’s, and she nodded in agreement. It was killing her, standing by my side and not going off to do as she pleased, but I also couldn’t understand her desire to ignore the rules Aiken had given us.

Or maybe I was confused by my desire to follow them.

I’d never been one to follow orders, yet there I was…following orders. But I’d lost so much—homes, family, friends, loved ones… I couldn’t lose anymore. I only had myself left now, and my sanity was barely holding on as it were.

“So let’s blow these fuckers up,” Aimee bit out, opening up her own backpack to reveal a stick of dynamite.

We all stepped back quickly, desperate to put as much distance between us and that thing. “Jesus, Aimee, what the fuck?”

“It’s stable,” she said, though there was no way she could know that.

“You leave that thing here or you’re walking back,” O’Donnell snarled. “I can’t believe you brought that and didn’t tell us!”

“They have to pay!” Aimee suddenly yelled, tears of anger, sadness, and frustration in her eyes. “Do you have any idea what it’s like? To be in his home? To look after his creepy little insects? To see Fluffy sitting at those gates day after day, waiting for him to come back? I caught her trying to dig her way out of NEO last week. She was trying to dig under the fence, and I thought…maybe she knows something we don’t. Maybe she senses that he’s alive out there, somewhere.” She stabbed a finger against the point on the map where the mines were. “Here. Maybe he’s here, alive, waiting for someone to rescue him.”

O’Donnell looked over at me, silently pleading with me to talk some sense into her, but my mouth was dry, my tongue sticking to the roof of it. I couldn’t speak right away because every time I tried to, I saw Phil hanging upside down and Tim beating him to death with a bat and smiling at me. I saw the blood. I heard the sickening crunch of his bones. I could smell his blood. I could hear his screams. And I tasted him in my mouth…but was it him? I wasn’t sure what were memories and what were nightmares anymore. What was real and what wasn’t was a mass of writhing evil inside of my head now.

“We need to get back to NEO, tell Aiken what we’ve found, and get these meds to Alfie. People are relying on us and we can’t let them down,” I said, ignoring her, and my own dark memories.

Aimee glared at me and I glared right back. “You don’t even care, do you? You just left him there to die and saved yourself.”

Rage consumed me. It had been bubbling and boiling deep within me for months and months. Maybe even longer.

“What did you just say to me?”

“Guys, this isn’t helping anyone,” Freddy tried to placate us, putting a hand on my chest, but I grabbed his arm and shoved him backwards roughly.

“Mikey!” O’Donnell yelled my name, but I couldn’t look away from Aimee’s indignant glare. “Back the fuck down, both of you.”

My teeth clenched to the point of pain. “I didn’t just leave him there. It wasn’t like that.”

She shook her head. “Right, because I can trust anything that comes out of your mouth.”

“Believe what you want, but I know the truth,” I snarled.

Aimee’s face broke into a bitter grin. “Is that so? You think you know the truth, do you?”

“Aimee, enough!” O’Donnell cut in, her desperate tone piercing the tension. “Shut the fuck up now!”

“You don’t know anything, Mikey.” She glanced at O’Donnell and then forcibly turned away from me.

“Because you know so much more than me?”

She looked back over her shoulder. “I know Phil wouldn’t have left you there to die. I know that he’s alive out there, somewhere. And I know that he needs me.”

I reached out and grabbed her, turning her to face me before glaring right into her face. “He’s gone, Aimee! He’s gone and you need to deal with that. I didn’t leave him there, I had no choice about anything that happened there, goddammit!” I yelled in her face.

I felt Freddy and O’Donnell pulling at me and telling me to let go of her, but I was so stuck in that moment, with her hatred pouring into me and me slowly drowning in it. Because my pool was already overflowing with hatred for myself.

Everyone was dead, and it was all because of me.

I let go of her, shoving her backwards. “I’m going back to NEO. You can all do what the fuck you want, but I’m getting these meds back to where they’re needed.”

I opened the door and looked out onto the street, seeing that it was empty, and then I left the pharmacy and headed back to my truck. I climbed in, more than prepared to set off for NEO and leave everyone behind if need be. I half expected them all to pile into the other truck, not wanting to be in one with me, but they’d all followed, and they got in silently, the seating arrangement as previous. Two per truck.

O’Donnell didn’t say a word to me, and that was fine by me. I didn’t know if she agreed with what I’d just said to Aimee or not, an right now I didn’t care.

I turned the truck around and headed back the way we had come. Hating that the Savages were so close. Hating that I was breathing the same air as them. But mostly hating myself for being too damn terrified to go after them.

*

The drive back to NEO was a silent one. No one had much to say, and if they did, they kept it to themselves. The mood was palpable as we pulled back up to NEO several hours later, the sun just dipping below the horizon as it set. The air was cooler now as we drove along the dusty overgrown path toward the main gates, the air still and silent.

A couple of stray deaders were lingering outside, and I could see Moo and someone else killing them. I wanted to go and help, to drive my blade into some skulls before dragging their bodies off to dump in the deader hole, but I knew I was needed inside. Aiken would want the full lowdown on what we had found, and I didn’t trust Aimee to tell the entire truth. If I was being really truthful, I wasn’t sure on O’Donnell either.

She’d so quickly swayed to the side of Aimee, wanting to go off with a loose plan of following the deaders that the Savages were rounding up, and see where that led her. Likely, Freddy would have gone along too. But my days of wandering off without thinking were over. I’d seen too many people be killed. I’d lived through too many near-death experiences. I’d lost too many people I loved.

The gates opened with a low groan, and I drove the truck through the gap and pulled to a stop further into base. I hadn’t even switched the engine off when doors were being flung open and Aimee jumped out. I sighed and shook my head, watching in my mirror as Freddy unclipped himself and jumped out too. He gave me an apologetic look before closing his door, and my chest ached with guilt.

I’d pushed him, and as I watched him now, I saw he was limping.

Fuck. I’d pushed him and hurt him.

He was just a kid, and I’d lashed out and now he was hurt because of me. I slammed my hand on the steering wheel and swallowed. Hating the feeling in my gut. Hating the ache in my chest. Hating so much and loving so little.

“He’ll be okay,” O’Donnell said, and I glanced up, catching her eye in the rearview mirror. I’d forgotten she was still there. “I think his pride was hurt more than anything else.”

“That’s not the point,” I grumbled.

I looked away, feeling irrationally angry with her. Like it was all her fault, when in truth, none of it was.

She leaned forward and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I know you were trying to do the right thing. I appreciate that,” she said softly, her words an attempt to soothe me. “They’ll come around. They’ll understand.”

She didn’t get it though.

She didn’t understand that that wasn’t what this was about. I didn’t care whether they came around or not. I already knew that I’d done the right thing: I’d gotten us all back alive and in one piece. There was a day when that saying hadn’t held so much worth. But after the Savages. After Drag and Ricky and Phil, and all the other madness that had happened… Getting us back in one piece had a whole new meaning and it was the only thing that really mattered.

“Come on. We need to speak to Aiken—give him the lowdown on what happened out there. Then we can go home, shower, eat, and go to bed.” She said it with a smile, her cheeks turning a soft pink as she talked about going to bed, and I knew what she meant. What she intended. She was checking every box in order to soothe me. To calm my fractured mind and heart.

And really, what man wouldn’t be calmed by that?

“I’ll be there in a minute,” I said, my voice gruff.

She was hitting all those spots on a man that quieted him and made him feel like he was still in charge.

“Don’t be long,” she said. She placed a hand on top of my shoulder, leaned in and kissed the side of my cheek.

And I was letting her.

I placed my hand atop hers and turned my head to face her before leaning in and kissing her. We kissed long and hard for several minutes, both of us lost in the moment as we let our kisses wash away the sourness of the day. When I pulled out of the kiss O’Donnell was breathless, her cheeks flushed.

“Really don’t be long,” she said with a small laugh.

O’Donnell opened her door and jumped out of the truck, slamming the door closed behind her. I watched her walk away, heading toward Aiken’s house where I knew everyone else would be now, all of them waiting for me to arrive. All of them desperate to tell Aiken what we’d seen—what we’d found.

I, however, was in no hurry.

I wanted a moment by myself. Away from the burden of responsibility that was always on my shoulders. Away from these people who looked to me for so much. Away from the woman I was supposed to love.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, resting it against the back of the seat while I allowed myself one minute of peace. Just sixty seconds to remember her, and only her. Her memory untarnished and untainted by another woman’s kisses. I was a hypocrite, I knew that, but I also knew that Nina would want me to do this. She’d want me to be happy. To live. To love. To move on from her.

So that’s what I was trying to do. For her.

To live, to love, and to move on.

Trying and failing, for all intents and purposes.

It didn’t matter that I was still unapologetically, unequivocally, in love with Nina. A dead woman who only lived in the shadows of my mind.

18.

Mikey

“It was them!” Aimee was yelling. For such a soft-spoken woman, she was always shouting these days.

Of course I’d only really known her for a few days before her world had gotten tipped upside-down and destroyed. Just another layer of guilt to add.

“They were within arm’s reach,” she continued, “I could have killed them. I could have ended this once and for all.” She was pacing, her fiery expression turning to everyone in the room as she did. “I could have made them pay!”

Aiken was sitting in his armchair, his toothpick moving from one side of his mouth to the other over and over as he calmly listened to what everyone had to say. He wasn’t making any decisions just yet, but I don’t think he quite realized the escalation of Aimee’s grief. How close she’d come to making a stupid mistake and possibly getting us all killed.

I decided, rightly or wrongly, that he should know. That it was imperative that he knew how far down the rabbit hole she was prepared to go to get her vengeance for Phil. It was a shitty thing to do, but if it saved someone’s life—maybe even hers—then it was worth it.

“She had a stick of dynamite with her,” I said—casually, as if it wasn’t such a big deal, but I knew it was. As soon as the words left my mouth, the room fell silent and everyone turned to stare at Aimee in shock. Everyone but Freddy, O’Donnell, and me. “She brought it with her and didn’t tell anyone.”

Aiken’s features immediately twisted in fury. “Goddammit, Aimee!” he erupted, standing up from his chair quickly and pointing a finger in her face. She took a step backwards, her own anger fading as his grew. “That shit is unstable. I’ve told you over and over again no one touches that stuff, and yet you took it upon yourself to take a stick out with you?”

“It was undamaged,” she mumbled, like a child being scolded. She glanced briefly to me, even more hate being directed at me. I was definitely off her Christmas card list. “I’m sorry, Aiken,” she stammered. “I just thought it might come in useful.”

“No, you didn’t think, Aimee. You just did,” he bit out.

I’d never really seen him like that—so angry, so pissed off—and my guilt grew exponentially, regretting ever opening my mouth and saying anything about the dynamite.

“You’re done for the time being. No going out. No guard duty. You stay home and you get your shit together before you get someone killed,” Aiken said. His words were calm, his tone respectful now, but there was still anger in his features.

“Please, I need to do something! I’ll stay in, but don’t take guard duty from me,” she pleaded.

“You’re done until I say so. I can’t trust you to follow orders anymore,” he barked, moving to sit back in his chair. “Get out of here.”

Aimee’s eyes were filled with tears and she looked around at us all. O’Donnell looked sympathetic, but she was the only one. SJ and Timbo both looked angry that she’d taken the dynamite, and Freddy just looked guilty, like he’d been the one to snitch on her. Aimee glanced at me as she moved to the door, the tears finally falling from her eyes.

“Watch your back,” she gritted, swiping her tears away angrily as she left.

I leaned forward as the door slammed closed and I put my head in my hands. She was never going to forgive me, I realized. It was getting harder and harder to be around these people. To live here. I knew so many of them blamed me for the loss of their people, and now with Aimee hating me so vibrantly…I definitely didn’t have any friends here anymore. Yet I couldn’t leave.

I owed these people my life.

Besides, if I left there was no way they’d let Joan stay. She was too much of a liability, and a pain in the ass to boot.

“Now that that’s cleared up,” Aiken said with a heavy sigh as he sat back down. “You got meds? Food?”

“Lots of meds,” O’Donnell said, and I lifted my head from my hands. “No food. We can go back out tomorrow though.”

She opened her backpack and handed it over to Aiken for him to inspect. He reached inside, pulling out lots of bottles and packets of medicine. We hadn’t had time to look through everything and discover what we’d actually gotten, but if I had to bet on it, I’d say it was some good stuff. Strong antibiotics, expensive medicine, back in the day.

The sound of pills rattling in little bottles echoed through the small room as he took out a couple and read the labels, nodding approvingly.

“This is really good,” he said, dropping them back in the pack and handing it over to Timbo. “Get this locked away.”

Timbo took the offered bag and put it by his side. “Do you want me to go out on the next supply run?”

Aiken nodded. “Yeah, seems we have a space in the team now.” He looked across at us all, assessing us one by one. He didn’t seem to leave Haven very often, and I wondered if that was his choice or because he was scared to leave in case total anarchy broke out if he left. It wouldn’t surprise me; people like Aimee only seemed containable by a strong leadership.

“SJ?” Aiken said her name and she looked over. “Do you think Moo is ready to go out on the road?”

A look of surprise flickered across her face. “Not without me.”

He nodded. “That would normally go without saying, but given the current situation, what with us being so shorthanded, I need to make sure that we don’t send out all of our best fighters and leave ourselves open to attack.”

SJ thought about this silently for a while. They tended to go everywhere together, and who could blame her? Moo was an excellent fighter—better than most adults, in fact. Her sharpshooting was incredible, and her hand-to-hand was as good as any. But this was SJ’s daughter, her only daughter, and if anything happened to her while she was out there in the world beyond Haven’s gates, SJ wouldn’t recover from it. And we all knew that many unexpected things could happen when you were least expecting them.

“No, not without me by her side,” SJ finally said, holding Aiken gaze steady. “I can’t risk her.”

Aiken nodded. “Understood.”

“What about Alfie?” O’Donnell said. “He can fight.”

SJ snorted on a laugh and O’Donnell turned to look at her. SJ shook her head. “If you think you can send Alfie out there and not Moo, then you have another thing coming.”

O’Donnell looked confused, but then it dawned on her. “They’re…”

“Not dating, no. Absolutely not. She’s far too young for that,” SJ said, and then she rolled her eyes. “they’re in a ship, apparently, though they’re trying to hide it from me.”

We all stared around at one another blankly, until finally I asked the burning question. “They’re on a ship?”

“No, not on a ship, in a ship.” She smiled. “It’s slang for ‘relationship,’ but they’re trying to keep it from me. Little sneaks don’t think I see what’s going on, but I see everything.”

“Isn’t that basically dating?” I asked. Maybe it was a girl thing, because I didn’t get it at all.

“Apparently it’s different, but who am I to ask questions?” She shrugged. “All I know is that where Alfie goes so does Moo, and vice versa.”

“Well,” Aiken interrupted, “normally I wouldn’t want to send our medics out on the road, but with Stormy on her way back here we’ll be covered in that department, and regardless of Moo’s relationship status we need another person for the scavenge team, so Alfie is going.”

“She’s not going to like this,” SJ sighed, but we all knew it didn’t matter.

The decision had been made and Alfie was going on the next supply run. I didn’t like the fact that we now basically had two teenage boys, because teenage boys tended to be reckless—though Freddy was the exception, I guess, and hopefully Alfie would be too because he’d be so intent on getting back to Moo. But it still didn’t bode well. Yet there was no other way around it.

“Okay, meeting over. Timbo, get the drugs locked up. O’Donnell, you tell Alfie he’s out with you tomorrow. SJ, you and Moo will be on extra guard duty shifts. Mikey, great find on the drugs today, sorry that Aimee is still so pissed with you, I hope that she dampens that shit down some for all of our sakes, but who knows. A woman can be a dangerous creature, so watch your back. I’ll try and speak to her and calm her some, but I can’t promise anything. You did the right thing by telling me about the dynamite, regardless of how she feels about that. That shit is dangerous and I’ve told everyone to stay away from it. I would have blown it up by now in a controlled explosion if it wasn’t for the fact that it would have attracted zeds from all over.”

“How about we move it?” I asked.

“No can do,” Timbo butted in. “It’s too dangerous to move. The slightest jolt could set it off, and then where would we be? I’m surprised it didn’t go off while you were all out today. Count your blessings that it didn’t. I’ll find a bigger lock for the storage tomorrow to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

I nodded in agreement. I hated that it was just there, a big pile of dangerous, unstable dynamite, but we didn’t really have any other choice, by the sounds of it.

“Okay, off you go then. Set out tomorrow morning at first light. I marked a couple of places earlier on the map—small towns like the one you just went to,” Aiken said, putting his toothpick back between his lips. “Keep your guards up for the Savage bitches. They’re up to something, I just don’t know what yet.”

“Do you think they know where Haven is?” SJ asked, a small V pulling between her eyebrows in concern.

“Ain’t seen nothing of them ‘round here, but I just don’t know. We need to be ready for anything,” he replied.

“At some point we’re going to need to head to the city for supplies. There’s only so many small towns within a day’s reach that we can get to,” O’Donnell said as she stood up. “Either that or we make it a week-long run and go further afield.”

“Well, that day ain’t today or tomorrow,” Aiken replied sternly, shutting down the conversation, and O’Donnell nodded sullenly.

We left the house and headed back out into the warm evening air. The sun had fully set, and the sky was a cloudless black canvas stretched as far as the eye could see, giving us full view of the bright stars spotted within the dark expanse above us.

“Meet you back at home?” O’Donnell said, sliding a hand around my waist, and I nodded.

She leaned in and kissed my cheek before taking off in the direction of Alfie’s home. He shared with Jamie, one of the main cooks—though I use the word cook lightly, because Jamie was more of a jack-of-all-trades in that he did a bit of everything around Haven. He fixed fences, repaired gates, cooked meals, counted ammo, trained the younger civilians in hand-to-hand combat… I was pretty sure someone said he could also knit, but I was reserving judgment on that one.

I headed back down the darkened street toward home, thinking of everything that had happened that day. Someone, at one time, had found some glow-in-the-dark paint and had painted long strips down each of the roads to help guide people home in the dead of night after guard duty, or whatever other task had kept them out into the night, and right now I used those markings as my guide toward home.

My thoughts strayed to earlier in the day, and a chill ran down my arms as I thought of how close we had been to possible Savages, and I couldn’t help but wonder how much more was out there that we were unaware of. Were they working with others? That psycho Clare had said they’d sold Phil, and we’d automatically assumed it was to the Savages, but what if it had been someone else? And why were they rounding up deaders? Did they know where Haven was? Were they planning an attack on us, or was this just their usual way of life?

The questions tumbled over and over in my mind until I had to stop walking and take a seat because my muscles were so tense that I could barely walk.

My hands were shaking, and I clasped them together in my lap, rubbing my thumbs over the backs off my hands and squeezing them together. My breath caught in my throat and my chest felt tight, like there was a noose around it, restricting my breathing.

I lowered my head and dropped it between my knees, hoping that would help to calm me down, because I had already recognized what was happening. It wasn’t the first time I’d had a panic attack, fear and dread gripping me and holding me hostage until I passed out or threw up.

“You’re okay,” I told myself over and over. “You’re okay. You’re alive. You’re here. You’re safe.”

I hadn’t told anyone about the panic attacks, or the anxiety, or the awful goddamned nightmares. There was nothing anyone could do about them, so it seemed pretty pointless to worry people. Besides, if I did, Aiken might have stopped me from going out on the supply runs and being on guard duty, and I couldn’t have that. I needed to help. I wouldn’t blame him for doing it—it’s what I would do in his position—but I also didn’t want him to.

I had a debt to repay, if I ever could.

O’Donnell and the rest of NEO had saved me. They had found where I was and they had come for me, despite the dangers. They had rounded up an army, risked their lives, and they had saved me.

I owed these people my life!

I owed them everything, and the only way I could repay them was to keep working my hardest. Keep pushing forward and trying to not fall apart. To keep protecting every single one of them. If Aiken put me out of commission I was as good as useless, and then I might as well have died out on that dusty road, letting the deaders tear my flesh and muscle from my bones.

That thought actually helped to calm me, and my breathing started to slow back down, my throat loosening up, and I finally start to take a little more air in with each breath. I sat up straight, releasing my grip on my own hands, and I lifted my chin to the starry sky above, staring into it as I took long, slow, deep breaths until I felt somewhat normal again.

Normal. Now that was fucking laughable.

I hadn’t felt normal in a long-ass time, and who knew when, or if, that would ever change. I just needed to get my shit together, clear my head a little. I’d be okay. It was all perfectly normal, all things considered. A little PTSD after being almost eaten alive—that was normal. Even more so after eating another human being. After watching them get their brains smashed in and thinking it was your friend. Listening to their screams of pain and terror, and then watching as pieces of them were carved from their body and cooked, the scent of them hanging in the air like bacon on a Sunday morning before being fed to me…

I slid off the wooden bench and dropped to my knees. On all fours I heaved violently, my stomach lurching painfully as I threw up. There wasn’t much vomit because I hadn’t eaten enough that day, but there was enough to leave a bitter, acidic taste in my mouth.

I could still taste him.

I could still feel the flesh on my tongue.

I could still smell the skin and muscle cooking.

And I could still hear my stomach growling in hunger. Desperate for something to fill it. Eager for the delicious-smelling food that wafted to me.

Heaving again, I clutched my arms around my waist. My eyes were streaming harder and harder with each painful retch, and I felt a sob build in the back of my throat.

Shaking my head, I forced it away because there was no way I was going to start crying. No goddamn way. I was stronger than that. I had to be. I balled my hand up in a fist and hit myself in the side of the skull hard. Pain ricocheted through my head and bright lights flashed before my eyes.

“I am not fucking crying!” I gritted out. “Pull yourself together, Mikey.”

This was just stress and disgust and tension and exhaustion and so many other things. It was just the force of the vomit leaving my body that was making my eyes water. I slammed my fist into the side of my head again, almost blinding myself with the bright lights that burst behind my eyes again.

I heaved and retched until I couldn’t anymore. Until my stomach ached and my throat burned, and then I forced myself to get up and sit back down on the bench and just breathe.

The world was pulsing around me as I gasped for air, and I kicked dirt over my vomit and bile before I stood up and staggered away.

As long as no one knew how fucked up I was inside, everything would be okay, I told myself.

But even I didn’t fully believe that anymore.

19.

Mikey

O’Donnell was getting ready while I drank a weak coffee on the porch of our little two-up/two-down house. Coffee was one of those precious commodities that we didn’t take for granted anymore—so much so that we watered it down as much as we could to make it last. Right now I was drinking a black watery coffee that had basically a quarter of a spoonful of instant coffee granules in it, and it still tasted like heaven.

I leaned against the railing, watching as the sun warmed the tops of the trees and the rooftops of Haven as it rose into the early morning sky. I sighed, saying a silent prayer that we didn’t run into anymore Savages today.

A shadowy figure darted between the two houses opposite and I frowned, focusing in on the shape, my heart already thumping in my chest as my hand gripped my coffee mug tighter. A long, flowy skirt danced around Joan’s ankles, and I shook my head slowly before placing my coffee mug down on the ground at my feet. I took the three small steps down the porch and headed over to her.

She was clearly up to no good, though that could be anything from shitting in SJ’s bathtub to trying to sneak more parsnips from the vegetable patch. Either way, I wasn’t up for any of her bullshit today.

“Joan,” I grumbled her name, startling her from her hiding spot behind the wood store at the side of Kelli’s house. I had filled it for her last night before coming home, making sure she had enough for when she got back.

“Mikey!” Joan crooned my name, a wide smile filling her face. “What are you doing here?”

Her white-gray hair was loose and wild around her shoulders, but she seemed completely unperturbed by the frenzy of hair about her head. Instead she smoothed down her wrinkled skirt and picked nonexistent fluff from her flowery brown blouse.

“I should ask you the same question,” I replied with a raised eyebrow.

She at least had the decency to blush. “Just checking the perimeter.”

I frowned, letting her know that that answer wasn’t going to work with me, and she laughed and leaned down to pick up her notepad and pencil from the ground.

“What’s that?” I asked as she tucked the notepad into her bra.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” she said with a tap of the pencil on the side of her nose. “Oh! My pencil. I’ve been looking for that,” she exclaimed happily, like she’d completely forgotten that she was holding it.

It dawned on me then that Joan really was completely off her fucking rocker, and getting worse by the day. I hated to think what would happen as she spiraled closer to madness. People only just put up with her bullshit as it was, but they were tiring of her, no doubt.

“Come on, let me take you back home,” I said, holding out my arm for her, and she smiled widely before hooking her arm in mine.

“You are such a gentleman, no wonder Nina loves you so much,” she crooned as we began to walk.

I glanced down at her, giving a sad smile. “Yeah, I’m sure she had many words for how she felt about me,” I chuckled, trying not to let my sadness show and keep the conversation light.

“Oh yes, she had lots of words for you,” she laughed back. “Asshole, mothertrucker, stupid man with a brain the size of a dinosaur.” She laughed loudly, and despite myself I couldn’t help but laugh back. “Dead Nina still loves you though, Mikey. You have to stay safe so she can find you again.”

She patted my arm in a motherly way as she spoke, and my smile slid from my face like melted wax.

“I told her that I was waiting for you and Adam,” she said, nodding happily, her eyes growing in clarity as she spoke.

“Dead Nina?” I asked, still frowning. “You spoke to dead Nina?” My stomach squeezed painfully at the sound of her name on my lips.

“Oh yes. A while back now, before you came back to Haven. You’d gone to find Adam and she came here with some other people—a mean man with a big axe—and she was so very sad.”

I stopped walking and turned to her. “She was here?”

“Yes. I’m not crazy you know!” She sounded offended, and I wasn’t sure how to respond to that because clearly she was crazy. She was seeing dead people, among other things. “She said everything was a mess, and I told her not to give up.”

“I think you must have imagined her, Joan,” I said, my voice gruff. “Nina’s dead, remember?”

Joan rolled her eyes. “I know that, that’s why I called her dead Nina, but she hugged me back and she said she wasn’t sure she’d ever see me again, and then she went inside with the big guy.”

“What big guy?” I asked, feeling ridiculous that I was even entertaining this idea.

“Tombo?” she said hesitantly.

“Timbo?” I replied.

Joan nodded. “She didn’t want to hear me sing though.”

“What?”

“I asked her if she wanted to hear me sing and she said no, which was rude because I won awards for my singing back in the day.” She shook her head, her forehead crinkling as she tried to remember something else, but then her face cleared of her current thought and she looked back at me with the craziness back in her eyes. “I need to go to the bathroom.”

I was lost deep in my thoughts, knowing that what Joan had just said was complete madness, and yet my heart was holding on to it like Rose to that door in the ocean, and no matter how hard I tried to let go, my fingers clutched the thought that she had been here like my life depended upon it. It was impossible, I knew that, and to believe any different made me as crazy as Joan, yet my heart thumped like it was true. Like it knew something I didn’t.

Joan had stopped walking, and she lifted her skirt up and squatted on the ground beside me. I looked down at her, confused at what she was doing until I smelled it.

“Fuck, Joan.” I gagged and turned around, taking a few steps away from her. I was about to leave and head back to my coffee when Joan came to stand by me, linking her arm back with mine again like she hadn’t just taken a shit in the middle of someone’s lawn. “You need to clean that up,” I warned, realizing that it was SJ’s house.

“Clean what up?” Joan asked, looking completely confused as to what I was talking about.

I shook my head and pulled her along until we reached her house. She let go of my arm and headed up the steps, opened her front door, and then turned around to wave goodbye.

“Where were you going?” I asked, hoping for at least one sane answer from her today.

She pursed her lips as if deciding something, and then she reached into her bra and pulled out the small notepad and came back down the stairs toward me.

“I’ve been making a list,” she announced with a nod of her head, her features serious. “I’ve been listing all the people that come and go from this place. I like to keep track of who is here at all times, because it helps me keep the voices straight in my head. I know then if who I’m talking to is really there or not.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “Did you make a note of when dead Nina was here?”

She frowned. “Well I guess I would have.”

She opened the pad and flipped through pages and pages of names and descriptions of people. small sketches that were actually incredibly accurate. I saw Timbo eating a Twinkie, Aiken smoking a cigar, Ricky standing outside O’Donnell’s house, Phil and Aimee hand in hand, and then I saw me. It wasn’t a me that I instantly recognized though; it was obviously just after I’d gotten back from the Savages. I was thin—gaunt-looking, almost; my eyes were lost and faraway. I glanced at Joan and she was smiling at me.

“I used to pose nude for a French painter, you know. He taught me how to draw. I still pose nude, would you like to see?” she offered.

“No, no thank you, Joan,” I said, my words barely making it past the lump in my throat at seeing myself so broken. “Is Nina in here?” I asked.

“I think so.” She turned some more pages and a face flashed across the paper that I didn’t recognize. “Who’s that?”

“That’s the axe man,” Joan said matter-of-factly. “He was here with dead Nina. I don’t know if he was dead though. I stayed away from him.”

I stared at the image of the man, wondering who he was. His image was too accurate to be someone fake. He looked scary as shit too. Tall, broad, a rough beard, shaved head, and a big fucking axe in his hands. He looked like he was wearing a leather jacket of some sort, but the arms had been cut off it.

She flipped another page and there she was: Nina. My Nina. And goddamn, she looked beautiful. Long dark hair flowing down her back, deep brown eyes staring off into the distance, her mouth pulled into a slight frown. I hadn’t realized I’d taken the notebook from Joan, yet I found it in my shaking hands, Nina’s image blurring as a single tear fell onto the page. In the background was Aiken’s house, and next to her were Aiken and O’Donnell. They were talking about something, and whatever it was, Nina didn’t look happy about it.

“See?” Joan said. “There’s dead Nina.”

“This is impossible,” I muttered. “This isn’t real.” I shook my head, closed the pad, and shoved it back into Joan’s hands. “Nina is dead. We both saw her go back inside. We heard the gunshots.” I choked on the last word, my throat constricting and strangling me. “It’s been over a year now.”

Joan’s smile had fallen. “I’m sorry,” she said, placing a hand on my hand. “I see dead people.”

“What?” I asked, feeling sick and dizzy. Wanting to look at the picture of Nina again, but also not wanting to see it ever again, because it hurt too damn much.

“Like in the film, The Seventh Sense, or was it The Eighth Sense? I see dead people. They move among us all the time like they think they’re alive, but they’re not. I think Nina is the same. I think she thinks she’s alive, but she’s really dead.”

I nodded. “Yeah, she’s dead, Joan.”

“That’s sad,” she said, pushing the pad back into her bra. “You’re not dead though, are you?”

I snorted on a dry laugh. “It sure feels like it at times.”

“Sometimes living is harder than dying,” Joan said, her tone melancholy. “I need to go feed the chickens now.” And then she turned and headed back up the stairs to her house. “I would really like to see that film again. If you stumble across a video store, make sure to rent me a copy of The Sixtieth Sense, please.”

She slammed the door shut behind her and I turned and stared back down the street, wondering why I felt a growing dread in my stomach. Nina was dead—I knew that and I believed it. Joan was as mad as a hatter, that was for damn sure, and yet her drawing had been a punch to the gut in its likeness of Nina and Aiken and O’Donnell.

It had seemed so real. But it couldn’t be.

This life, this world, wasn’t that fair.

It didn’t bring people back together. It didn’t let fates be entwined enough to cross paths like that. And even if it did, that drawing couldn’t be accurate. Someone would have told me by now. O’Donnell would have surely told me. Aiken, at least.

No one could keep a secret like that.

Could they?

20.

Nina

“Can you sing me a song?”

“No, read me a story!”

“No, braid my hair…”

I stared among the dirty faces of the children surrounding me, terrified and in awe of their survival skills. They had managed out there for all those years with no adults. Well, there was Tyson, who was the closest to a grown man any of them were, but he had been a child when the world ended too.

I was still sitting on the floor, my back and ass aching from sitting on the hard concrete for so long. I stretched my shoulders and glanced over at Crank again, feeling sadness in the pit of my stomach once more.

“I can’t braid hair,” I said to the little girl in front of me. I assumed she was a little girl, going from the tangles of long brown hair sticking out from the side of her mask and the slight femininity to her tone. I held up my stub of an arm, my machete still attached—or as these kids kept calling it, my robot arm. Tyson hadn’t even tried to disarm me, which I found strange, but I was glad of. Clearly he didn’t find me a threat, and that was a mistake.

“Oh.” She sounded sad and she shuffled from foot to foot, looking uncertain of herself. “Can I have a hug then?” she asked, and dear God what was happening?

I glanced over at Tyson sitting on his throne, his legs thrown over the arm while he leaned back on the other, watching us all. Some of the children were playing with my hair, fascinated with the long dark strands, for some reason. Others were talking to me, making up stories similar to the ones I’d been telling them for the past few hours. All of them whispering. Little voices, both male and female, chattering about puppies and flying unicorns and swimming in the ocean. My memories, my stories were coming back to haunt me through their hushed voices, the stories twisted and turned upside down as they included some of their own memories into them. And they were not nice memories. They were stories of parents being torn apart and unicorns whisking them off to safety. Of men snatching little girls and then turning into monsters that devoured human life. Of wild dogs who tore apart the children’s enemies, but then they all went swimming…

It was horrifying listening to the stories, more so because they all seemed so unperturbed by it all, each brutal and bloody death inciting laughter or squeals of excitement. Each victim in the story turning into a hero as they befriended the monsters.

Tyson’s mask was still in place and I wondered, not for the first time, what he looked like underneath it. Would he still be as terrifying if I could see his face? If I could make out his childlike features?

He suddenly sat upright, his gaze falling from me toward the door, and the children fell silent and moved away from me, scattering into the darkness as the doors opened and two children whose height suggested an age of around eleven or twelve came toward him.

“They’re here,” one of them said, moving into the shadows.

They were hiding like they were afraid, but I doubted that was the reason. I still wondered if I needed to hide too. Was I in danger by being there? I mean, clearly I was in danger by being there, but at least this threat—these children—I was aware of. What other threat could there be?

Tyson stood up and moved toward me. He stared at me on the floor before crouching down so he could look into my face, his head cocking to one side as he spoke. That kid had seen one too many horror movies before the world had gone to shit, that was for damn sure.

“I would suggest that you don’t draw any attention to yourself,” he warned. “Our guests aren’t as nice as us.”

Nice? I wanted to snort in laughter. I’d been sitting on the cold, hard floor for hours, my friend’s dead body slowly decaying next to me. I was surrounded by creepy little kids demanding my one hundred percent attention and recalling some of my favorite childhood memories but inserting death and gore into each and every one of them… There was nothing nice about any of that. But of course I kept my mouth shut, because loose lips sink ships and all that, and I wasn’t ready to die just yet.

I nodded, and he stood back up and moved away from me, and I watched as masked children filed behind him until there was a group. A herd of them, almost.

The doors I’d watched Shooter and Highlander go through opened and four people entered. I wondered briefly if it was going to be Shooter, but then noted the slender frames of these people. It was too dark and they were too far away for me to ascertain anything else about them, and I hated that I felt so vulnerable sitting there, but it was too late to move and hide.

Horrifyingly, Tyson held my life in his hands, I realized as the people came closer. I narrowed my eyes to try to get a better look at them, wondering who would be crazy enough to willingly come to speak to these masked feral kids.

“Do you have the water?” Tyson asked. The children around him whispered so quietly amongst themselves that I couldn’t make out what any of them were saying.

“Yes. As always, we keep our word,” a female voice replied. “Do you have our trade?”

So they were there to trade… The situation was getting weirder by the second. I could see that they were all women, and none of them looked even vaguely frightened of Tyson or the other kids. The whole thing seemed surreal, and I wondered if the kids were as dangerous as we’d first assumed, but then I glanced over at Crank’s dead body and knew that we’d definitely been correct in our assumption.

“We do.” Tyson glanced over to the left and nodded, and the crowd of children moved, scattering off into the darkness. “Two this time,” he said, and the woman looked dissatisfied.

“This one,” the woman said, glancing over at me, “is she part of our trade too?” She asked simply, as if I wasn’t even there.

I had my head lowered, but I glanced up through my lashes then, my heart pounding in my chest, more than ready to cut her head off if she came anywhere near me.

“No, this one is mine,” Tyson replied.

“Ours,” a small female voice whispered from behind him.

“Yes, ours. She’s all of ours,” more voices agreed, and a chill ran down my spine.

The woman and another person came closer, looking down at me as if I were beneath them. A pet that they might kick. Or an animal in a zoo that they might poke through the bars.

“She’s fat,” she announced suddenly. “I will trade you for her.”

My breath caught in my throat at her words too quickly for me to even comment on the fact that she’d just called me fat and no one had called me anything but skinny or tiny in years. I looked up at her sharply, her sharp, angular features coming into view.

The strange woman above me stared down, her features smooth and relaxed like she didn’t have a care in the world. Her clothes were leather and brown and her hair was long and braided down her back. She was no more frightening than any other woman had ever been, and yet she was terrifying enough for me to want to get up and run. Enough for me to not be able to squeeze a word out of my too-tight throat, and yet I didn’t know why.

“I’m not for trade,” I bit out, my eyes narrowed on her.

“She’s ours,” the children whispered desperately.

The woman was still staring down at me, her pale face exceptionally beautiful despite her creepiness. I glared up at her and a slow smile spread across her lips.

“No, she’s not for trade,” Tyson said in his best stern voice.

“I want her,” the woman argued, standing up. “I will take her with us and you can have twice as much water.”

The hushed whispers of the children filled the warehouse, some in agreement, others in disagreement. And I realized that my life was being bartered for. That Shooter and Highlander would come back and find me gone. Gone to where I wasn’t sure, but gone I would be. And then what? Then he’d blow the place apart and kill everyone inside, and I wasn’t in complete disagreement with that, but I would still be gone!

There were too many people there for me to fight at once. Too many children with weapons and nothing to lose because they held no compassion, no empathy for human life. And despite the women not having any guns on them that I could see, I knew danger when I saw it and they encompassed the word and very meaning wholeheartedly.

I looked over at Tyson, thinking of the longing in his voice earlier. He wasn’t a child anymore, he was almost a man, and a man always wanted one thing only.

“Tyson,” I said, my tone pleading, and the children gasped because I’d used his name in front of these other women. “Sorry, sorry,” I mumbled, moving away from the strange woman staring down at me and crawling over to Tyson on hands and knees. Which was incredibly difficult to do with only one arm.

When I reached his feet I looked up at him beseechingly, trying my best to not look too terrified and instead give him my best sexy gaze.

“Please let me stay with you,” I said, reaching for him, my only hand grazing over his ankle and up his trouser leg to stroke along the skin and coarse hair underneath.

I was a thirty-something-year-old woman and he was still a teenage boy on the cusp of manhood. This was wrong on so many levels, but I didn’t care; I’d promise him anything right then to make sure I stayed there and didn’t go with those women. Something about them was evil. I could feel it in my bones, even though I couldn’t say exactly what was wrong with them.

He looked down at me and I watched the slow bob of his Adam’s apple at the promise of something he’d possibly never had before but wanted so much. Probably dreamed about. Wishing and waiting for one of these masked girls to grow up so he could have his way with her. The thought made me feel sick, even if it was a practicality of life.

“She stays,” he said firmly, looking back up at the woman, his chin jutting out.

No matter what the age, or state of the world, men were still pretty damn simple when it came down to it, and I breathed a grateful sigh of relief.

The children that had left came back, dragging behind them something heavy wrapped in a dirty bedsheet. It was large, whatever it was. The dirty, gray-white cotton being pulled along the floor stretched over a lumpy shape beneath and I frowned at it, wondering what it could be and if it would be enough to appease the freak that wanted to take me with her.

She held her expression firm, a cold, calculated look on it as she turned her attention to the sheet. She was pissed off now. I guess people didn’t normally refuse her. “Open it,” she ordered.

Two of the women moved forward as the children released their grip on the sheet and moved back to Tyson’s side. The women reached down and untied the corners of the sheet and looked down at the contents. I tried to see what was inside, but the lighting was too dim and the angle was all wrong.

“This one is fat too,” the freak in leather said, sounding pleased. Her gaze skipped to me before darting back down to whatever was wrapped in the sheet as if to assess who was fatter.

And then it hit me what was wrapped in the sheet.

A human.

A person.

Male or female, it didn’t matter.

There was an actual person wrapped in that sheet… No, two people.

“The water is outside in the barrels,” the woman said, and two other women began tying the sheet back up. “You did good,” she said, sounding pleased. Her tongue darted out to lick along her lips as her gaze moved over the masked children and Tyson. “There are many of you?” she asked.

“Yes. More than you see here,” Tyson said, his voice growing hard, like he was becoming wary of her. “Many more, with guns and dogs,” he added.

She nodded, her gaze sliding over to Crank’s dead body. “This one, how long has he been dead?”

“Hours,” Tyson said.

“Did he change?”

“Started to, but she ended him first,” he said, and I knew he was talking about me.

“Shame. He would have made a nice pet for me,” she tutted. “If you find more like this, I’ll trade handsomely for them.” She pointed toward Crank to make sure Tyson understood who she was talking about. “Not just water. We have other things you might want.”

My heart stuttered in my chest and I glanced up at Tyson, willing him to keep his damn mouth shut about Shooter and Highlander. Tyson glanced down at me, I couldn’t make out his expression because of his mask, and the eyes on his mask were black holes in his face. He looked back up and I decided right there that I was going to cut him in half if he said anything. I would literally take my knife and slice it right through his testicles, up through his chest until I reached his skull.

The bag at her feet moved slightly, a grumble coming from inside as whoever was inside woke up.

“It’s time for you to leave, Aife,” Tyson said, and my ears pricked at the sound of her name.

And then it hit me who they were.

Who she was.

The only people willing to trade in humans were the Savages, or their followers.

Cannibals. Flesh-eaters. The sick bitches that I had been hunting for the past year to make them pay for everything that Mikey and I and everyone else I cared about had gone through.

I almost laughed at the irony of it all, but caught myself in time. The cotton sheet body bag moved again and a whimper sounded out from inside of it. I wondered who was inside. Were they a man or a woman? Children perhaps? Were they good or bad? Evil or kind?

Did it matter?

These were the Savages, and they were trading in humans because they were going to eat them. They were going to cook and eat whoever was in that bag.

I felt sick, a wave of nausea washing over me.

I’d imagined meeting them for so long. I’d imagined being strong and ready to attack. Prepared for the kill. Yet there I was, my body wrapped around a teenage boy’s legs like I was his concubine. I was vulnerable, weak, and alone. And I was terrified.

“Goodbye, Tyson,” Aife said with a sneer. She looked at me one last time and then turned to leave, ordering the women she was with to bring the body bag.

I watched her walk away, my heart hammering in my chest as I trembled at Tyson’s feet, praying that Shooter and Highlander didn’t turn up right then because everything would go to hell if they did.

Moments passed, the silence foreboding as we all waited silently for the Savages to leave. Finally, Tyson reached down, his fingers hooking under my chin and lifting my face to his. He watched me silently from behind his white mask, a hundred seedy thoughts no doubt going through his mind.

“I didn’t trade you,” he said.

“Thank you,” I stammered, still in shock at being so close to the Savages…to Aife, their leader.

“I didn’t tell them about the other men,” he continued.

I swallowed and nodded. “I appreciate that.”

He dropped to a crouch so that we were eye to eye, and now the angle was just right, a sliver of light hitting his mask at just the right angle so I could see the color of his eyes. Gray brown…

“Perhaps you would like to stay here with us,” he said, and if I didn’t know any better I would have thought there was hope in his voice, but surely not, because he couldn’t seriously think that I would stay there with him and his creepy little kids. He couldn’t truly believe that I would trade my freedom and a man like Shooter for this dank, dark warehouse and a virgin teenage boy with a crush.

This was all new to him, I realized. Women and relationships. He had no idea about any of it. He knew how to control these children, how to trade with monsters like the Savages, but on how to seduce a woman he was clueless.

I wasn’t sure if that made him more or less dangerous.

I still hadn’t answered him, and yet my answer lay between us as clear as anything. No, I did not want to stay with them…with him. When Shooter and Highlander came back, I would leave with them, but we’d be back another day to burn this place to the ground, killing everyone within it. These kids weren’t kids anymore. I could see that now. They may have looked like them, but they weren’t them any more than I was the same woman I had once been.

They were little monsters, deadlier than any zombie out there.

They traded human life for water.

They killed without sympathy.

They were devoid of real emotions.

Suddenly, I was all too aware of the awful situation I was in.

Tyson’s gaze dropped to my arm. To the dangerous attachment that he’d so far left me with.

“Take that off,” he ordered, standing back up. He looked across at the children, nodding at them. “Take that off her.”

21.

Nina

“Tyson,” I stammered, afraid now. “Please, don’t do this. That’s like my arm—don’t take my arm from me!” I begged, realizing how stupid that sounded. And I was whining too, which made it even worse, but I couldn’t stop myself. The thought of being separated from it was horrible. “It’s a part of me. Please.”

“It’s a weapon. It’s dangerous. You’re dangerous,” he said, obviously realizing that I had no intention of ever sleeping with him and that it had been a ploy to stop him from trading me with the Savages. He went back to sit on his throne, and I had no doubt that behind his mask he was scowling at me.

Some of the children had come closer, and their little hands fumbled with the straps of my attachment. I tried to shrug them off but I didn’t want to start a fight because clearly I would lose no matter how many of them I took out in the process. There were too many of them.

“Please don’t take it,” I begged again, pleading now, because I didn’t want them to see the useless stump of flesh underneath. I didn’t want them to take my fake arm and leave me with only my ineffective stump. I didn’t want them to ask about it, or to want to see it more closely or try to touch it. Hell, I didn’t want to see it! But this was happening, and no matter how much I begged, no one was listening. No one cared.

Tyson sat on his throne and gestured for a couple of the children to come closer. He spoke quietly to them as little fingers unfastened the leather from my body and slid it from my arm. The children talked excitedly in hushed whispers, taking turns to try it on as I sat there, half the woman I had been moments before, my stub feeling cold as the dank air of the warehouse wrapped itself around it. I lowered my head and looked down at the ground, feeling miserable and weak, tears of anger and sadness building at the backs of my eyes.

My jaw was clenched tight as I tried to hold myself together, refusing to let myself cry over something so stupid as a fake arm! I hadn’t even wanted to wear the ridiculous thing initially, and now I couldn’t bear to be apart from it. What was wrong with me?

I felt dirty and ashamed as, like I had expected, I felt the tender touches of little fingers pressing against my gross stub and whispered questions about it in my ears, surrounding me, swallowing me whole.

And all the while, Tyson sat and watched my misery, basking in it.

I closed my eyes, wishing to be anywhere but there. Tender touches sliding along my skin, over the sensitive skin on my padded stub. Little voices talking excitedly.

“How did this happen?”

“Who did this?”

“Was it the monsters?”

“Will it grow back?”

“Does this hurt?”

A sharp pain burned through my arm and I opened my eyes and pulled my arm to my chest, glaring at the children surrounding me. I wasn’t sure who had hurt me or what they’d done it with, but a blossom of red grew over the end of my stub and a small giggle erupted from the group.

“It still bleeds,” a voice whispered, and another giggle came, but I couldn’t tell from whom. Masked faces surrounded me and I felt suffocated by them. I backed away, but there was nowhere to go.

“Make it bleed again,” a voice whispered from the masked crowd.

“Yes, yes!”

They came closer and I slid further back on my ass, my body bumping into Crank, who I half expected to sit up and try to take a bite from me at any moment. But no, he couldn’t. I’d killed him. I’d put a knife through his skull and stopped him from coming back, and yet it felt like this horror movie sequence wouldn’t be complete without the unexpected arrival of a long-dead friend.

“Leave me alone!” I yelled, watching as the children flinched back from me, their shocked faces concealed by their white masks. Heads cocked to one side as they assessed how much of a threat I was to them. They weren’t used to shouting, and I had only shown them affection so far, but I couldn’t contain my anger now as they reached for me again. “Get away from me!” I screamed, the words bursting from between my lips.

One of the little girls waved a knife in front of her and hissed at me. She couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, but she was completely lost to this cruel world, a victim of the evil that grew within it. Another child copied her, and then another, until I was surrounded by hissing, snapping children brandishing weapons in my faces. Some got too close, their knives nipping against my bare skin and drawing drops of blood, and I whimpered.

“Tyson!” I screamed, not being able to find him among the white faces that surrounded me. They were coming closer, no longer happy little kids wanting to have their hair braided and a story told to them, but deadly weapons that Tyson had used to keep himself safe all these years. And now he was using them on me, as punishment. “Tyson, please!” I begged. “Make them stop.”

I could have sworn I heard him laughing, but the hissing and the snapping of teeth, the whispers in the dark as the children continued to torment me, completely aware of the terror they were putting me under, could have been sending me mad for all I really knew.

It felt like hours as they circled me, a viper pit of children trapping me within their writhing mass of deadly limbs and even deadlier blades, but eventually they backed away, slipping back into the shadows as if from a nightmare. I was curled up in a ball, my face buried against the soft folds of Crank’s leather cut, the smell of him keeping me grounded and reminding me that it would end. That Shooter would come back for me and I could go back to the clubhouse and forget this place.

“Would you like to stay with us?” Tyson asked, his voice so close that I let out a small yelp of surprise. After the hushed whispers for so long, a voice at normal pitch seemed exceptionally loud.

I pulled my face away from the smell of leather and cigarette smoke, of familiarity, and I looked up into Tyson’s masked face. I stared at him, too terrified to speak. If I said yes, I’d be stuck there with him and them, but if I said no, would the punishment start again?

“Well?” he asked, his fingers reaching out to stroke against my cheek. When he pulled his hand back, I noted the dark smear across the pad of his thumb.

One of the children came forward, close to Tyson, to whisper in his ear. And I watched his posture change, his shoulders looking tense as he sat back on his haunches, his gaze still on me, assessing me.

“Never mind,” he spat. “You’re too old anyway.”

He stood up and turned his back on me before walking back to his throne, and I had the insane urge to laugh loudly. He thought I was too old for him. The thought was hilarious. A small smile split my lips, but I forced it back as I heard the deep, booming voice of Shooter coming through the warehouse.

The doors slammed open and he stormed in. Highlander and Gauge were close behind, and each man was carrying several bags in their hands. Their gazes moved across the warehouse and found me, and I saw a flash of fury on Shooter’s face before he looked away, focusing on Tyson.

“Here’s all your shit,” he snarled, dropping it at his feet. “Nina, get over here.”

I stood up unsteadily and started to walk to him, the gap between us feeling like it was a great expanse instead of a couple of feet. Relief hit me as I finally reached him and he pushed me behind his back.

“We need our parts,” Highlander growled out, “and our brother.” He nodded toward Crank’s body.

Tyson sat silently in his chair, so still I would have mistaken him for a statue if I hadn’t felt his fingers on my face only minutes ago.

“Get what you need and go,” he finally ordered, and two small children came forward, directing us further into the warehouse with little grunts and growls, more like animals than children.

I stayed close to Shooter as we passed through some more doors, ignoring Tyson’s gaze every step of the way. Highlander and Gauge took off in different directions once we were in the other room, grabbing boxes of parts and tools and God knows what else, finally coming back with heavy backpacks and arms laden with cumbersome boxes. They gave a sharp nod of the head to Shooter.

“Let’s get out of here,” Shooter grunted, taking one of the backpacks from Gauge and throwing it over his shoulder and then lifting up a box.

The children led us back through the doors and into the main warehouse, no doubt watching us carefully in case we tried anything. I hoped Shooter didn’t have anything planned, because all I wanted to do was get the hell out of there and be on our way. Gauge slid a backpack full of parts onto his back and headed over to Crank’s dead body before leaning down and hoisting the dead man up and over his shoulder with ease.

“Where’s her weapon?” Shooter demanded of Tyson, his tone leaving no room for arguments.

One of the children came and dropped it at his feet, and he grunted at me to pick it up. I did, catching the kid’s eye as I did, and for some reason I thought she might have been smiling at me beneath her mask. I wondered, if only briefly, who that kid had been before the end had come. Who she could have been if the world wouldn’t have taken her parents, her family, her life. It was stupid to even think about it, and yet it was hard not to at times.

That little kid, standing in front of me, brandishing a deadly weapon with surprising ease, couldn’t be more than fourteen, and yet she seemed more equipped for this world than most adults. What part of herself had died to make sure she could flourish in this cruel, unforgiving world?

“Come back soon, please,” she whispered, skipping back off into the darkness.

Shooter snorted on a dry laugh and then we started to back out of the warehouse. Children came out from every dark corner, a crowd of them following in our wake. Up high, their guns were aimed down at us and there really wasn’t any reason for them not to kill us anymore; they had what they wanted, after all. Yet they let us leave. They let us live.

We passed by the tent and the sleeping bags we’d seen on our way in, past the deader bodies on the ground, and then we were ducking under the warehouse door and we were back out into the fresh air.

Night had fallen while I was inside, though it was likely to be more early morning at that point, and I suddenly realized that I was exhausted and wanted nothing more than to sleep for as long as possible. I wasn’t sure how I was going to hold on to Shooter while we rode back to the clubhouse, never mind how we were going to get back there with Crank’s body and several boxes and backpacks of parts, but I needn’t have worried.

Outside was one of the club’s trucks, and while Gauge and Highlander gently lay Crank’s body in the back, covering it with a blanket and then carefully placing the boxes around it so they wouldn’t tip over onto him, Shooter helped me into one of the seats.

He climbed in next to me, leaning over and cupping my face with his large hand briefly. I had no doubt that I looked like total shit right—black bags under my eyes, dirty bloody face, my skin pale with fear—yet he looked at me with nothing but affection and admiration.

“You good?” he asked as Gauge and Highlander climbed into the front of the truck, slamming their doors behind them.

“The Savages were here,” I said, my voice throaty and sore. I watched awareness grow in his eyes and his features tighten.

“You’re sure it was them?”

“Yes. More than sure,” I replied sternly.

“Okay.” Shooter let out a hard breath, his scowl deepening. “Did he hurt you?” he asked, and I knew he meant Tyson.

It was a hard question to answer though. I thought back over everything that had happened in the past few hours—the trauma of it all… The fear and the anxiety of the situations that I’d found myself in: almost being traded to the Savages as lunch, Tyson wanting me like that even though I was old enough to be his mom, learning the horror of what they were trading, and then being tormented by those masked children.

Yet really, the worst of it was the little kids and the realization that they were doomed. They hadn’t had a chance to be little kids at all, and they were forever damaged and changed because of Tyson, because of this world and the evilness that grew in its belly, and because of people like the Savages and what they drove people to do to survive.

I shook my head no and Shooter relaxed some. Tyson hadn’t hurt me, those little kids had—but not with their knives or their questions…not really. They’d hurt me with their hopelessness, and there was nothing anyone could do about that.

“Let’s go then,” Gauge said, handing over a small black item to Shooter. “It’s ready.”

“What’s ready?” I asked, looking between them all.

“Creepy wee bastards are gonna pay, darlin’,” Highlander said. “No one kills me feckin’ friends and gets away with it. No matter how old they are.”

Highlander was driving and he looked at me through the rearview mirror, his face a picture of rage and grief, and my God he looked terrifying. I looked over at Shooter, his face all hard edges and dangerous angles, his ice blue eyes finding mine in the dimness of the early morning.

“Ain’t no hope for the damned anyway,” Highlander said, giving me a wink. I wasn’t sure if he meant us or the kids inside the warehouse were damned, but either way I knew he was right. We were all damned.

“Shooter?” I said his name, puzzlement in my tone.

And then Shooter pressed a button on the little black box in his hand and the world lit up bright yellow and orange as an explosion sounded out behind us.

22.

Nina

The truck rambled on over crumbling roads with huge potholes and along deserted tracks, and I somehow managed to sleep through it all, only waking momentarily when I was jostled too much, before sinking back into sleep as thick as tar.

Finally, Shooter woke me with a rough hand on my cheek and I flinched, startled awake. I was still drowsy from sleep but quickly growing alert. In this world, there was no room for a slow wake. You were either asleep or you were awake, and nothing in between or you found yourself on the wrong end of a set of teeth and being eaten alive.

“We’re home,” he said, his voice gruff enough to let me know that he had likely slept a little too. I imagined that he was possibly even more tired than me, but he likely wouldn’t be able to sleep for a long while yet.

I sat up, pushing my ratty hair back from my face, and blinked blearily as I wiped at my eyes. I looked out through the side windows, noting that the early morning darkness had finally succumbed to early morning sunlight. The large metal doors to the clubhouse grounds opened and I watched as we pulled through them, passing parked motorcycles and large trucks and into the clubhouse grounds. We pulled into a space and the truck’s engine was shut off, and I heard us all sigh almost in unison as we mentally prepared ourselves for getting out and dealing with the aftermath of what had just happened. It dawned on me that I had never even asked Shooter what happened when he’d left me. What he’d told people back here and how they had reacted.

Men and women were standing around, their faces somber as we finally climbed out of the truck. I wanted to go straight to bed so I could avoid everything and everyone, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to. These people had lost their friend, and it would look exceptionally shitty of me to just wander off to bed like none of this was important. Like losing another person didn’t matter, when it did. It always mattered.

Shooter handed me my arm and I took it gratefully, wishing I could do more to help, but I couldn’t even grab a box right then. I needed to put the stupid thing back on, but I wasn’t sure how to do it on my own and I didn’t want to bother anyone by asking for help. So instead I held it limply in my hand.

Men made their way over to the truck and began helping to unload the boxes from the back and placing them on the ground, and then Crank’s body was carefully lifted out, carried by Gauge, Highlander, Shooter, and Axe. Sketch, one of the other nomads that had come in with Crank, stood by, his features solemn and grief stricken, his long dark hair loose around his shoulders.

My throat tightened watching them carry Crank’s prone body toward the back of the clubhouse, men and women following silently, and I wondered where they were taking him. Behind the clubhouse the fence had finally been fixed properly, and it looked really sturdy now. The weeds had also been cut back so that the whole yard could be seen and nothing could be hiding in it. It also revealed what was once an exercise area. There was rusted gym equipment and benches, and I could see some overflowing fruit trees also—huge red apples dangling from strong tree limbs. And also, further back, I could see what were clearly graves. They were old, the only telltale sign of what they were being the wooden crosses in the ground with names hastily written on them.

And next to those old graves was a new hole. A hole that was waiting for Crank’s body to fill it.

Tears prickled the backs of my eyes, but I gritted my teeth against them, refusing to let them fall. I barely knew Crank, but I knew he was a good man. Funny, kind, caring. He wanted things to be different. He wanted to change things. And now he wouldn’t be around to make that happen.

We stopped a bit away from the graves and the fresh-dug hole, and the men laid Crank’s body atop a stretch of fabric that was resting on top of a long piece of boarding. Gauge leaned down and took Crank’s hands, placing them on top of his stomach as if they were clasped while he patiently waited. Then he pulled the edges of the material inwards, covering his friend’s face and body from the dirt and worms that were about to cover him and wrap him within the warm embrace of the earth.

On each side of the boarding, two thick lengths of rope were tied at either end, and each man picked one up and slowly, together as one, they began to silently lower Crank’s body into the dark ground.

A woman behind me whimpered loudly as Crank’s body reached the bottom and the ropes were released and pulled back out, and it seemed to set off a chain reaction among the group. Women cried, men swiped silent tears from their rough cheeks, and as if on cue, a flock of birds flew overhead, cawing loudly.

I’d like to say that the day had turned miserable, the air chilly and the rain pattering down on us all as if the big man upstairs was crying too, but that’s not how it was. Instead, the sun shone brightly, peering out from behind a large white cloud and reflecting off the ground. The birds flew in circles, cawing, people cried, and then the sound of dirt being shoveled on top of Crank’s body polluted the air.

Shooter shrugged out of his cut and his shirt, sweat and dirt trailing down his hard chest as he covered his friend, putting him to rest, finally. His face was hard and expressionless, but when he looked up and caught my eye, I saw the pain inside him. It was vibrant and ferocious, like a feral animal with its paw caught inside a bear trap and wanting to free itself. It was clawing and tugging, chewing at his insides in a desperate bid to be free.

But it was Shooter, and he held himself together, composed and calm. He’d wait out this storm, but all hell was coming.

Shovels were taken away and dropped at the side of the clubhouse, and the men stepped closer to the mound of earth where Crank now lay buried. Balls brought over a wooden cross, and he hammered it into the ground at the head of the mound. Carved into it was Crank’s name.

Battle, one of the other nomads that I hadn’t seen much of but couldn’t exactly miss because he was such a huge guy that seemed to dominate most spaces, unscrewed the top on a bottle of whiskey and handed it over to Shooter.

Shooter held the bottle over Crank’s grave. “Been with me a long time, brother,” Shooter said. “You had my back more times than I can remember, and had this club’s back even more than that. You loved this way of life, and I hope it treated you with the respect that you deserved, brother. I hope you left this earth happier than when you entered it. I hope that you’re up there drinking whiskey with our fallen brothers. Gonna miss you.” Shooter poured some whiskey onto the grave, the alcohol mixing in with the dry earth and turning darker before he took a sip of it himself and then handed it over to Battle.

“Gonna miss your sorry ass,” he grunted, and took a sip, handing it over to Gauge.

“Dumb fuck,” he snarled, pouring some more onto the grave and then taking a sip himself.

Sketch took the bottle from Gauge and stepped forward, his face a picture of misery and raw pain. “I hope she was waiting for you, brother. I hope they both were.” He poured whiskey over the now muddy mound and then took a long drink himself. He stared down at the grave for a long moment in silence, clearly thinking about saying something else but then changing his mind. He handed the bottle over to Highlander and took a step back.

“Ya had to go and get ya’self killed, didn’t ya, for fack’s sake, brother. What did I tell ya about those creepy wee bastards?” He tutted angrily and poured some onto the grave before drinking a swallow and handing the bottle off to someone else.

A couple of zombies had somehow found themselves to the other side of the fence. We couldn’t see them, thanks to whoever had done a great job of securing it, but their scratches and groans could be heard on the other side.

Each man and woman took a turn at saying something, though those of us who didn’t really know him chose to stand silently at the edges. I had memories of Crank, but none like these people had. None that truly expressed the life he had led, both before and after the end had come. I didn’t know the man he had been—not really. I only knew the man who had tried to chat me up at the clubhouse. Who had tried to appease little kids with the promise of newly painted bikes. Who had been charming and funny, and filled to the brim with misery that only he really understood.

Yet it didn’t seem to matter to my heart.

Losing someone, anyone, no matter how long or how briefly I had known them, was horrible. It was heartbreaking, soul-stripping. No matter how many times I went through it, it never got any easier. From losing Ben all those years ago, to Emily-Rose so many years after, to the here and now and losing people I had only had brief conversations with.

It was still painful.

It still hurt.

Each death was a nail through my hands and another thorn in my crown.

I understood now though. I got it. It was all inevitable, and the darkness didn’t follow me, it surrounded me. It was everywhere I went, no matter who I was with. I wasn’t to blame for these deaths any more than I was to blame for the end of days.

They were just another step toward the inevitable ending of mankind.

I hadn’t noticed that Shooter had come to stand next to me. He took my good hand in his and I looked up at him, watching as his jaw ticked and his teeth ground together. The way the hard lines of his face seemed somehow deeper today. The crow’s feet at the corner of his eyes seemed more pronounced. The gray strands of hair in his beard seemed more blatant. This was a man that had seen even more than me. He had lived through tragedy after tragedy and was still living a legacy regardless. I squeezed his hand in mine, my gaze moving to the men and women drinking to their friend.

Axe came toward Shooter, his gaze serious. “You and Highlander came flying in and out of the clubhouse before we knew what was happening, brother. The Rejects want to make sure we’re in on any retaliation against the bastards that did this,” he growled. “Before the split, we were as one, and as one we need to be again. Let’s start with this and build on that.” He held his hand out and Shooter released mine to clasp Axe’s in his strong grip.

“Already got the fuckers; they didn’t live out the day, brother, but I appreciate the offer more than you know. Regardless, there are many enemies out there, Axe, and a united front from both of us would mean survival for us all,” Shooter said. “Would need you to step down though. Ain’t room for two prezes in this club.”

Gauge came over and handed Shooter his cut and shirt and Shooter slid them both on, pulling out his cigarettes and lighting one. He offered the rolled-up cigarettes to the other men and Axe took one, lighting it with a matchstick and then throwing it to the ground before stomping on it. It seemed like he was buying himself some time before replying.

“I know that ain’t what you wanted to hear, but a year ago you came to me and those were the terms, and a year on those terms haven’t changed,” Shooter continued, and Axe looked up at him through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “You know there can only be one prez, brother. The Devil’s Highwaymen can be one again. A united front. A united club.”

“It’s what Crank always wanted,” Gauge said, running a hand down his thick beard.

“Don’t go pulling that shit, fuckface. Guilt-tripping ain’t ever worked before,” Axe replied, but there was no malice in his tone.

“Ain’t guilt-tripping, brother. You know it’s the truth, just like every man here knows it’s the truth.” Gauge shrugged. “He left because he couldn’t stand the split.”

Shooter sighed. “Speak to your people. Make a decision. Let’s become one unit again. Stronger than ever before,” Shooter said, and Axe nodded reluctantly. “I’ll need to speak to my men too, but I have no doubt that they’ll want the same thing.”

Silence dropped between the three men and then Axe sighed and nodded. “Okay,” he relented, throwing the cigarette to the ground. “I’ll speak to them. I’ll step down if they agree, and we’ll finally unite. For the good of the clubs.” He held his hand out in front of him again, and this time when Shooter took it he pulled the other man in against his chest and they slapped each other’s backs, gruffly talking to each other. I turned a blind ear to them, not wanting to intrude on their moment, and I stepped away from Shooter, giving him the space he needed to deal with club business.

Everything was starting to go right for the Highwaymen. This was something that they had wanted for a long time now, and I could only imagine how strong they would be as a united club. Yet I couldn’t help but be sad that Crank wasn’t there to see it.

I watched as a couple of the Highwaymen left the funeral and stormed past me, their faces filled with angry resolve, and I guessed they were going to kill the zombies on the other side of the fence.

Above us, the birds continued to circle, and I looked up at them, shielding my eyes with my good hand. I frowned, wondering if they were eagles or something, because they were big—like really big. But they didn’t look as elegant as eagles.

“Vultures,” Sketch said, and I looked across at him. He’d come to stand by me, his long hair tucked behind his ears and a bottle of beer in his hand. “It’s like they knew he was dead,” he said, and I frowned, not understanding. “Up in the hills, he used to feed the vultures. Befriended them somehow, crazy bastard. Used them for scouting and shit. Followed him down here. Not sure what they’ll do now.”

We watched as the vultures continued to circle the clubhouse, giving long squawks before doing one final large circle and then leaving.

23.

Nina

I was still tired, to the point of exhaustion, yet I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep yet no matter how much I wanted or needed to. The day was bright like summer, even as autumn threatened on the periphery.

I walked out to the front of the clubhouse, my stupid arm attachment in my hand. I was unsure of my place there in that group of grieving men and women. It felt like I had been grieving my entire life. Mourning the loss of someone was second place to breathing these days, but it never got any easier.

“Nina.” My name was called and I turned to see Amara standing in the doorway of the clubhouse, her long red skirt flowing around her ankles, and her hair tied up into a bun on the top of her head. She looked almost regal standing there, the sunlight glinting off the gold chains around her wrists and neck, huge hoops hanging from her lobes, and her hands clasped around her tiny baby.

I walked toward her, and she pulled me into her arms before I had chance to speak. Another me would have pulled away and told her to calm the fuck down because I wasn’t dead and it would take more than a handful of twisted little freaky kids to kill me off, but this version of me let her arms embrace me and I molded myself to the shape of her, to her warmth and her love, because despite myself, I needed it. I really really needed it right then.

“It’s so good to see you,” she said against my hair. “Every time I see you I wonder if it will be my last, and then you return like an angel.” She kissed the side of my head, her hands rubbing up and down my arms.

“I’m hardly an angel, Amara,” I replied, giving a dry laugh.

She pulled out of the hug and looked into my face, and I thought she really saw me. “I never said you were an angel, only that you keep returning like one.” She winked at me and I gave a small laugh again, only that time I meant it. “Come inside and eat. We cooked.”

She guided me inside, and the darkness of the club embraced me with as much love as Amara had just had, and I finally felt safe. We headed through the clubhouse, the scent of alcohol cigarettes and leather hanging thickly in the air, and we went into the kitchen. Sure enough, Amara and some others had been preparing food. There were trays of the stuff, enough to feed everyone, and it felt nice, despite the somber mood and the reason for it. It felt right, like something that Crank would have been happy with.

Everyone, putting their differences to one side and coming together would have made him happy. I remembered Shooter saying that Crank had turned nomad way before the apocalypse but that he’d come home for a few years and had been an important part of club life. When the apocalypse hit and then later the club split in two, he’d left with some of the others. He’d said that at the end of the world if people couldn’t come together to protect one another, then he didn’t want to be a part of any of it. He’d remained in contact, apparently, keeping the club in the loop on things that he’d found out while on the road, but he’d never wanted to come back—not until the clubs united, he’d said.

And yet there they were, joining forces, and there he now would be, for all eternity. Everyone finally back together.

“Hungry?” Amara asked, and I nodded. “We don’t have as many ovens up and working yet here so a lot of it is cold foods—salads and such—but we have a couple of camping stoves and managed to make a huge hotpot with canned vegetables and meat from an animal that Anne caught.”

The small feisty woman I had first met back at the first Highwaymen camp came over to me and I threw my arms around her neck and pulled her close. I didn’t even realize I was hugging her until I was, and then I think I was as shocked as Amara by my overly affectionate ways. I’m not a hugger—never was—and yet that day, that was all I wanted to do: hug people and hold them close.

It felt like I had been living in a bubble for almost a year and I was now finally coming out of it. Now I could breathe. I could speak. And I was finally seeing the people around me again. I looked around the room at the familiar faces. Faces that I’d been living with but hadn’t been paying attention to, and I suddenly had the urge to cry. I forced myself not to, because I knew that once I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

“So what was it?” I asked Anne.

“The animal?” She laughed. “Coyote. It was fast, but you know me and knives.” She winked and laughed, and her cheeks turned pink. She looked happy. Like really happy.

“Yes, I do,” I laughed back, remembering her knife-throwing hobby and how useful that had come in back at the previous camp when she’d hit an intruder right between the eyes. “Maybe that’s something you could actually show me sometime.”

“It takes years of training to get this good, Nina,” she teased with a smile, and my own smile grew bigger because it was so good that she was finally appreciating her own talent so blatantly. She could have given the men a run for their money, that was for damn certain.

Amara stood at my side, and when I turned to look at her, I saw that she was looking at me affectionately. I truly didn’t feel I deserved the attention. After all, I’d done little in the past year but be awful to everyone, and I went to tell her that as my smile slipped and I thought of how awful the past two days had been.

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t ruin it for yourself. You’re allowed to be happy.”

I frowned. “Am I?” I asked, and I meant it.

She nodded sternly. “Yes.”

I nodded back, not really believing her, but honestly, I was just so tired of feeling angry and sad all the time. I couldn’t feel happiness; it was like my body didn’t recognize the emotion anymore, but maybe—just for the day, at least—maybe I could just not be angry at the world. At my loss. At the world’s loss.

It was all one and the same, really, but it all mixed itself up inside me until they were separate things. Until they were inexplicably linked and yet intrinsically different.

I swallowed and leaned into Amara as she wrapped her arms around me again. Today, I wouldn’t be angry. Today I would just be. And we’d see what tomorrow brought tomorrow.

“Well, whatever you have cooking, count me in for a huge bowl of it, because I am starving.” I forced a smile that felt completely wrong to my face. “Coyote, rat, I don’t really care, just let me eat.”

And then suddenly my thoughts went back to the Savages. Back to the person that they had carried out of the warehouse…no, two people, Tyson had said. There had been two bodies in that sheet, and they had been alive.

“Everything okay?” Amara asked, and I nodded, my thoughts elsewhere.

How long did those people have before they were slaughtered, I wondered?

How long before the Savages killed them? Or maybe they wouldn’t kill them right away. Maybe they would torture them first. Maybe they were building up their stocks, preparing for a feast, much like we were doing right then. I swallowed, feeling a little sick, and my stomach flipped in anxiety.

The thought seemed suddenly strange. That we were so similar to the Savages in our ways—we just had different tastes in food and acceptability, I suppose. We hunted and ate coyote, and they hunted and ate their fellow man.

There was something else that was bugging me, and as Amara handed me a steaming bowl of stew, I pondered thoughtfully. The food was delicious, more delicious than I could ever have imagined, and I was momentarily drawn out of my thoughts to thank the women profusely for the food. Canned potatoes dissolved in my mouth, carrots mushed between my teeth, broth slid down my throat, and the coyote meat was divine. Better than any venison or expensive steak I’d eaten in my previous life.

I slurped the last of the broth down, my belly feeling full and warm. Sleep tugged at me again. With a full stomach, how could it not?

“Do you need help putting that on?” Anne asked, pointing to my arm that I’d placed on the bench next to me.

“Please.” I nodded and I stood up.

She strapped it around my shoulder and I reached over and unclipped the machete before sliding it into the holster at the back of the attachment. It felt good now, like I had two arms again. Like I was a whole person, almost.

“You look like you need to sleep, Nina,” Amara said, and I nodded in agreement. “Let me grab you a glass of water to take with you.”

She filled a large glass with water from a huge plastic tub in the corner and then handed it to me, and I thanked her and took a sip.

We still had the trade with the other women we’d found on the road, and I thought of all the things that they had said they had to trade. I wondered, briefly, how they had gotten all those things, who had they traded with to get them.

Most things could be collected and built over time. And enough time had passed that small societies of people had popped up all over. Some thrived, others didn’t. But the successful ones, the ones with the most to lose and the most to gain, with thriving populations and supplies of food and ammo and water…they were the ones that traded.

You had to if you were going to survive. Supplies were in too high a demand, and if you had something and didn’t want to trade for it, well then if someone found out what you had, they’d just come and take it anyway. Better to trade and stay alive. Just like those creepy kids had done. They’d traded people they’d caught for water. Barrels of water.

Why was that? I wondered, a frown forming on my face.

Why hadn’t they been able to find their own water? There was a small well that we used, so there must have been others around if you looked. And if there were wells, then there was water. And if there was water then there had to be rivers or streams or…

Fresh water, direct from the source… Best water you’ll ever taste…

My head shot up and the glass of water slipped from my fingers as realization hit me like a sucker punch. The glass smashed as it hit the hard floor of the kitchen, glass and water spraying up against my ankles.

The two women we had met at the gas station, they’d said they had water. Lots of it. And I realized with absolute certainty that they were Savages.

24.

Nina

“They’re Savages,” I said, my resolve strong even as the men stared at each other like I’d gone mad.

“How can you be so sure?” Highlander said, obviously pissed off and wanting to be absolutely certain because it meant he wouldn’t be getting down and dirty with that woman he liked.

“They said they had lots of fresh water, direct from the source.” I rubbed at my temples, the start of a headache coming on. “Not to mention that back at the warehouse, those creepy little kids were trading with Savages…people for water!” I emphasized the last part and raised an eyebrow.

“Aye, but that doesn’t mean it’s the same people,” Highlander replied, but he already looked defeated.

“I hate to break it to you, Highlander, because I know how excited you were to let your freak flag high with Kensa, but if you let her give you a blowjob she’s going to be asking you for a squirt of barbecue sauce to go with it,” I said dryly.

Highlander sat back on the edge of the table with a grumble. “Ya really know how to hit a man where it hurts.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “I have a skill.”

“Knew something was off with them,” Shooter agreed. “It was the clothes. I thought they just needed showing how to skin and clean an animal properly, but the smell wasn’t animal.” His features were dark, his expression bleak. His hand slammed down on the table and the drinks and ashtray atop it bounced noisily. “I can’t believe we were so close to them. Twice!”

He stood up abruptly, his chair slamming back against the wall. Highlander looked over at Gauge and the two men exchanged a look as Shooter paced the room, his gaze far away as he began to put a plan together.

Gauge stood and pulled the map down from the wall. Various places had been circled to represent where different groups were, and my gaze lingered over the spot where Haven was. Shooter grabbed the pen and leaned over the map, one hand tracing the thin lines on it as he calculated where the warehouse and the gas station were.

There was no direct river source that we could see—no streams or lakes, but there were plenty of small towns, and they must have been getting their water from somewhere. We just couldn’t see where.

Shooter threw down his pen and it bounced across the table. “Where the fuck are they hiding?” he grumbled.

We stared silently down at the map, all of us deep in thought but none of us coming up with any solutions. It just didn’t seem possible that they could be so close and yet not leave any clues behind as to where they were.

“Was going to head to the library to grab those herbalist books today. We could swing by the city office and check the maps there. They’ll have details of water supplies and sources.” Highlander shrugged uncertainly.

“That’s actually a good idea,” I agreed. “If we can find the source, then we’ll likely find their base.”

Shooter stopped pacing and turned to face us, his ice blue eyes landing on me. A thousand thoughts flittered through his gaze before he finally looked away with a soft nod.

“Okay, Highlander and Gauge, you two grab another man and head out there today. See what you can find.” He pulled his cigarettes from his cut and lit one and my eyes narrowed on him.

“Balls and I got the radios working again, so we can stay in touch,” Highlander said. “The town’s pretty empty from what I’ve seen when we’ve passed through, but I’m going to take a truck in case there’s stuff in the library that’s been missed.”

Shooter nodded an okay, and Gauge picked the map back up before tacking it back onto the wall, and he left the room with Highlander. I moved around the table to stare at the map again, looking at where the warehouse had once been and wondering if any of those little kids had survived. And if so, would they retaliate in any way.

“I think they’re in this area,” Shooter said, circling a large area to the left of our camp and in direct reach of Haven.

“I agree. It would make sense.” I nodded, staring hard at the map as I willed myself not to start an argument with him. Not today. He’d lost so much today and truly I was exhausted from my own ordeal.

The area he was talking about featured hundreds of miles of open land—acres of forests and even some mountainous areas. It would be impossible to search. Highlander had to find those maps if we wanted to have any shot of finding them.

“So what’s the plan?” I asked.

Shooter leaned back against the table. He reached out and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me to him so that I was leaning against him, both of us staring up at the map. It should have been comforting, being in his arms, but I just felt trapped.

“It could go one or two ways. We get word to Haven about the meet with Kensa and Zuly. Aiken’s been waiting for this moment for a year now and he’s eager to finish them off. We go to the meet with Kensa and Zuly, and make them take us to their camp.”

“That’s one way. And the other would be?”

Shooter sighed. “If Highlander and Gauge find the maps, we find the camp. One team goes to the meet and the other goes to their camp. It ends the same either way.”

“And if they won’t tell us where the camp is? Or if Highlander can’t find the water maps?”

“Always so troubled with the what ifs,” Shooter said, his hand rubbing across my stomach as he leaned in to kiss my neck.

I could already tell where this was leading and I pulled away from him. He gave a little resistance until he realized that I wasn’t going to relent and then he eventually let go of me. He looked pissed, and I couldn’t blame him. We hadn’t been intimate since I lost my arm, and he was getting tired of waiting. Part of me wished he’d just go and find another woman to fuck. Who knew—maybe he already had.

“Nina…” he started, but I was already walking away.

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I’m just really tired and I have a headache.”

And I was really tired, and I did have a headache, but we both knew that wasn’t why I was really saying no to him. Why I was rejecting his advances yet again.

“Can’t go on like this, darlin’,” he said, standing up and coming toward me. His face was gentle but his eyes had a hard edge that told me he’d love nothing more than to grab me by the throat and bend me over the table and just take what he wanted.

But I wasn’t scared of him.

I knew he wouldn’t do that.

He’d control himself like he always did. Like he always had. Like he taught the Highwaymen to. I mean, he kind of had to because that was his whole club ethos.

I sighed. “I know. I just can’t right now. I need to get ready.”

He scowled. “Get ready?”

“I’m going with them, into town.”

He was already shaking his head. “No fucking way. You’re staying here today.”

I snorted on a dry laugh.

“Something funny to you, Nina?” he asked as he stalked toward me.

Shooter was over six feet tall and built like a college football player, and he towered over me as I backed up until I hit the wall. I wasn’t scared of him, but I also had the good sense to stay out of his way when he was pissed off. And at the moment he was horny and pissed off.

“I’m going,” I stated matter-of-factly.

“The fact that you think this is even an option is…”

“Can we not fight today, please?” I asked as he placed both hands on the wall on either side of me and glared down into my face. “You’re not intimidating in the slightest, by the way.”

I saw the corner of his mouth twitch and my stomach flipped as he leaned down, his face close to mine. “Now we both know that’s a lie,” he said darkly before placing a hard kiss on my mouth.

I kissed him back because not kissing him back wasn’t an option. Not only because kissing him was better than arguing with him, especially when the outcome was me still going to the town regardless, but because when Shooter kissed you it was impossible not to kiss him back. His kisses were demanding, dominating, and stomach-flipping. He kissed like every kiss was his last one. Like he was going off to war and he might never get to kiss you ever again, so he put everything he had into every single kiss. He owned you with those lips and that tongue and his absolute presence. And it was impossible not to melt into him when he kissed you.

Shooter’s hands found their way to my hair and he grabbed a handful and tipped my head back as his kisses moved from my mouth to my chin and down to my neck. He was breathing hard, and in truth, so was I.

His proximity was overpowering, and he owned me as his hands and mouth controlled my body, turning me from a hard-as-steel rock to a soft-as-butter flower. I felt the flutter of desire awaken in my belly, the first stirrings of yearning, but I pushed the feeling away, refusing it entry into my mind and my body. I didn’t want this, I told myself over and over, even as his hand reached between my legs and I groaned.

He swallowed my groan as his mouth found mine again, his hand rubbing against me through my jeans. He released my hair and reached down, unbuttoning my jeans as he continued to kiss me, unrelenting in his prowess and control of me.

“No,” I murmured into his mouth. I weakly pushed against his chest, refusing him even as my fingers curled around the edges of his cut and gripped it tightly. His strong hands began to push my jeans down my legs, his fingers finding the softness inside my panties, and I cried out against his lips. “No,” I whimpered again, turning to liquid against his touch. But he was relentless, devouring me with his expert touch and debauched kisses.

I pulled out of his kiss as his hand finally left my hair so he could reach down and unbuckle his own jeans.

“Missed you,” he said, his mouth moving to my throat to kiss its way down the sensitive skin. “You have no idea.”

“Shooter, please,” I said, needing him to stop. I was weak and pathetic and couldn’t put enough force into my words, and he continued to strum my body, soft waves of pleasure rolling through me. I pushed against him weakly, panting on the words.

“Please, darlin’, I need you,” he growled. “Need you so fuckin’ much. I’ve waited and waited, and I need you so much I can’t see straight. I can’t fuckin’ think straight. I need you, Nina.” He sounded almost pained as he spoke, and guilt blossomed in my chest that I’d turned such a strong, capable man into such a wounded animal.

The heavy chains that hung from his belt hit the ground as he released his jeans and let them fall. And then he was fumbling, kicking his way out of his boots and grabbing the edge of my underwear. I heard the soft tear of the material and felt the cold slap of air as my underwear fell away and he lifted my leg up to his waist. Heat pressed between our two bodies as he pressed at my entrance, leaning his forehead against mine as he slowly filled me.

“You’re my woman and this is how it should be, darlin’. We’re good together, you and I. So fuckin’ good together.” He groaned on the words as he rolled his hips, his hands on my hips as he slowly rocked back and forth. “Goddamn, Nina.”

I buried my face in his neck and he lifted me up off the ground, pressing my back into the wall as he held me, rocking into me, my legs wrapped around his waist. Our bodies met, combined by grief, desire, and ownership.

We were each other’s medicine in this world full of death. An intoxicating high against the backdrop of nightmares. We were one another’s penance for all the wrongs we had committed.

Shooter walked me to the table and laid me down on it, taking my body over and over, each heavy thrust an attempt at branding me, at owning me, at forcing me to be his and his alone.

I said no to him, even as I begged for more. My hand clawing at his muscular shoulder, my nails digging into his skin so hard that small bloody half-moons appeared. I cried and wished for it to end even as I implored him not to stop. His hands gripped my hips as he slammed into my body, his ice blue eyes boring into mine, filled with both love and anger, hatred and need. Like any bad drug, he wanted to give me up, but he couldn’t.

We found our equal releases, the table legs breaking from the weight of our two bodies on top, and the table creaked and crashed to the floor. Shooter hoisted me back up to his body and we rode out the waves of pleasure kissing, holding each other, loving and hating one another. Wishing we could let go even as we refused to.

25.

Mikey

I stared out the truck’s window, looking at the world beyond the glass and the thick tree line in the distance. The sun was high in the sky and we were already back with a semi-filled truck of food. We’d managed to find an old, abandoned farmhouse off grid where someone had gone canning happy. We’d stocked up on everything the house had to offer, including blankets and clothes, old boots and farm tools, and then we’d gone into the basement and had stared in amazement at the shelves of food lined up all pretty and ready for the taking.

Jars of beets, and pickles, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, corn, and carrots. Seeds, oats, nuts…everything you could ever need to survive. And someone had just left it.

There clearly hadn’t been anyone living there in a really long time, going by the fact that everything, including the sofas and beds and even the carpet, was covered in a thick layer of dust. But to leave it seemed like madness. We’d considered that maybe they’d been killed somewhere close by, but after a quick search of the house we couldn’t find any sign that blood had been spilled there.

So we loaded up the truck, stripping the house bare of everything useful and thanking our lucky stars that we didn’t need to go any further afield that day. Not even next week, with such a haul.

As we approached the gates, I saw them already opening and another truck and two motorcycles leaving. They sped by noisily and I sat up straighter and stared as they raced by, taking a good look at the men inside. I hadn’t seen most of them before, but the bald guy from Joan’s pictures was there, driving one of the motorcycles, and he eyeballed me as he sped past.

“Do you think we should we go after them?” I asked, anxiety unfurling in my stomach.

“No,” O’Donnell replied automatically. She was currently driving, her expression neutral as she faced forward without giving the men a second glance.

Freddy was in the back of the truck with Alfie, and neither one of them seemed concerned in any way, like they’d seen them before. I was guessing it was before I’d come to Haven. Another group that they hadn’t mentioned before, perhaps.

We pulled into Haven and the large wooden gates were closed behind us, and O’Donnell pulled the truck to the right of Haven where all the store buildings were. We didn’t normally drive that far in unless we’d found something good, so when she shut off the engine and we all jumped out, plenty of people had come out of their homes or small buildings where they worked to see what all the noise was.

Aiken came out of his house, jogging down the small steps and coming toward us looking pleased.

“Well, well, that was a quick day trip,” he said, pulling the toothpick from the corner of his mouth. “I do hope you’ve found us something good and aren’t just playing with my balls.”

“Oh, we’re not teasing with this haul,” O’Donnell said with a wink. I grabbed one of the doors and Freddy grabbed the other as we swung both doors open and O’Donnell pointed inside. “Ta da!”

A few gasps came from around us, and then they turned to woops and claps. Aiken stepped forward and nodded, a huge grin on his face.

“Now this is what I’m talking about.” He reached in and grabbed a jar before giving the lid a hard twist. It opened with a loud pop and Aiken reached inside and pulled out a long green bean before biting the end of it. He chewed silently for a moment before securing the lid back on the jar and handing it off to Timbo, who was standing behind him. He turned to O’Donnell. “You have outdone yourself this time.”

“I aim to please,” she laughed, her cheeks turning pink under his praise.

Aiken reached for her, pulling her in for a brief hug, his heavy arms falling around her shoulders as he smiled. “You did really good.”

Her cheeks went pinker still but she hugged him back. “Well, it was a joint effort.”

“No way,” Freddy jumped in. “It was your idea to take that shortcut. How many times have we gone down that same route and never detoured from it?”

“Too many times,” Alfie added. “Aiken’s right, you did good. You went with your gut and now we have this to show for it.”

Aiken patted her on the shoulder, smiling over at her, and I stood there watching, feeling proud and uncomfortable all at the same time.

“Who were the visitors?” I asked, interrupting the good mood of the group.

Aiken turned to me, his smile faltering momentarily before he slipped the toothpick back into his mouth and pushed it to the edge. “Old friends.”

I frowned, sensing he was keeping something from me. “Old friends I should know about?”

The crowd had begun to disperse and I was glad, because Aiken’s caginess was making me anxious and I could feel my anger building for some insane reason. I willed myself to get a grip and chill out.

“Not out here, no. Inside where business is normally conducted, sure thing,” Aiken replied. He turned to O’Donnell. “Get this put away and come and see me.” He turned and started to walk away and I stared after him, anger and irritation ready to overflow.

“Should I come or should I give you two love birds some space?”

“Mikey!” O’Donnell snapped, giving me a filthy look that showed me exactly how much of an asshole I was being. “Stop it.”

I glared at her, but my anger quickly dissipated. She was embarrassed and angry, and shame quickly filled the empty hole my anger left behind. Freddy, Alfie, and Timbo were all staring awkwardly and I opened my mouth to apologize to everyone but couldn’t get the word out.

“I think you need to take a minute and go get some space, Mikey,” Aiken drolled.

“It’s been a long day,” I said uncomfortably. “The truck just leaving,” I began.

“I’ll talk about that later at the meeting,” Aiken interrupted.

I nodded. “Okay.”

“Just go get some air,” O’Donnell snapped. “We’ll be heading inside as soon as we’ve unloaded this.” And then she turned away from me.

I nodded again and turned and left. I dragged my hands through my hair, wondering what the hell had just gotten into me, and where it had come from.

Joan was sitting on her porch as I passed, a chicken in her arms. She was holding it like a cat, and both of them looked thoroughly content. I wished I could feel some of that contentment right then; instead all I felt was a churning feeling in my gut.

“Mikey!” She waved me over and I thought about just ignoring her and walking away. I wasn’t in the mood for any of her crazy shit, but I had no doubt she’d just get up and follow me if I tried to ignore her. Or worse. God, what could be worse than her following me? Waking up in the middle of the night to find her standing next to my bed, chicken in arms? Or maybe popping up in the truck while I was driving deader bodies to the pit.

I made a sharp turn and headed back to her. “What is it, Joan? I’m pretty busy,” I lied.

“Did you get that movie for me?”

“Movie?”

“The Ninth Sense. I asked you to rent it for me. Me and Chickidoo wanted to watch it later.”

I didn’t know whether I should bother going into the complexities of there being no electricity or the fact that she was basically having date night with a chicken, but decided straight-up honesty probably wasn’t the best way forward with her today.

“Sorry, no, the store was closed,” I said.

She frowned and then stood up, coming closer, one arm holding the chicken under her arm and the other still stroking its little ginger head as she examined my face. It felt like I was under a microscope, like she was examining me and could see my lies, and I was about to come clean and just explain that we hadn’t gotten that far, that the film was called The Sixth Sense, that she wouldn’t be able to watch it even if I got it for her, and that she really needed to meet a man because instead of being the crazy cat lady she was currently the crazy chicken lady, but then she held the chicken out to me.

“Want to pet her?” she asked, and I shook my head no. Her mouth tugged as she chewed the inside of her cheek.

I glanced behind me, seeing that we were alone. “Hey, did you see who was just here?” I asked, not sure why it had become so important to me.

“I might have,” she replied cautiously, giving a suspicious glance around her. “What’s it worth?”

“You know I don’t have anything useful,” I replied. “Come on, show me your book of drawings,” I pleaded, and she gasped and stepped back, tucking her chicken under her arm as her gaze darted from left to right.

“How do you know about that?”

I sighed. Dealing with Joan was like pulling teeth sometimes: painful and unnecessary.

“You told me about it this morning. You showed me some of the pictures in it. You…you told me about dead Nina,” I replied, my words quiet.

She looked from left to right again before holding the chicken out to me. “Hold my chicken.”

I gingerly took it from her, and she reached into her bra and pulled out the notepad she’d shown me that morning and started to flip through it. She paused momentarily on one in particular, but I couldn’t see what it was before she moved on.

“Here,” Joan finally said, holding the book over to me so I could see.

It was the same man from earlier. Shaved head, leather jacket, mean expression, tattoos, only this time he was with other men just like him. Some were bigger, some had longer hair and even longer beards.

“Did they threaten Aiken?” I asked.

“Goodness, no. They came to talk about the Savages,” she replied, and I looked up at her sharply, dread and awareness filling me to the point of overflowing.

“You know about them?”

“Who?”

“The Savages?”

“Who are the Savages?”

I blinked. “You just said—”

“You’re talking in riddles, Mikey. You’re not making any sense,” she snapped, sounding irritated, and then she reared back and slapped me across the face.

“Jesus Christ, Joan!” I yelled in surprise.

It was time to get out of there and go see Aiken. I wanted to know who those men were and what they knew about the Savages. I also wanted to get away from Joan before I really lost my temper.

“Take your damn chicken,” I grumbled, holding out the fat bird to her.

She stared blankly from it to me and then back again. “That’s not my chicken, Mikey.”

“You were just holding it,” I spluttered, thrusting it to her again.

It had started to get a little stressed and began flapping its wings, little red feathers floating to the ground between us. Joan looked less than impressed.

“If you can’t look after an animal then you shouldn’t adopt, Mikey. An animal is for life, not just for Christmas.” She tutted and shook her head.

“You’re right, you’re right,” I agreed, more than ready to do whatever it took to make the conversation go away. “But could you look after my chicken? Because I’m clearly irresponsible.”

She tutted again and gestured for me to give her the chicken, taking it from me abruptly and then going to sit back down.

I swiped a hand down my short beard, wondering what the fuck had just happened, and then decided it didn’t really matter. With Joan you just accepted that shit was bonkers and never made much sense. Apart from when it did.

I turned from her before looking back with a small frown. “Was dead Nina here again?” I asked, my heart pausing as it waited for her answer. It felt like hours went by before she replied to me, and when she did, the sick feeling I’d been carrying around with me all day returned.

“No, I haven’t seen her in a long time, but if you see her will you tell her I said hi?” she replied.

I nodded, feeling stupid for even asking her about Nina and even stupider for agreeing to say hi to her if I ever saw her again.

Nina was dead.

Long dead.

And at times, it felt like I wasn’t far behind her.

26.

Mikey

“That was a damn good find,” Aiken drolled, and the room erupted into cheers.

Food stocks had begun to get to dangerously low levels. Though we still had the fresh veggies growing in the allotments, it wasn’t enough to feed all of Haven. Plus, the one thing that hadn’t changed at the end of the world was that you still had to fight kids to get them to eat their veggies. Though most of the canned and jarred stuff we’d found in the cellar of the old house had been fruit and vegetables; there had been other things too.

I was standing at the back of the room, hidden away from O’Donnell’s scowl, my mind only really half there. The other half was still thinking about the men that had just left, the pictures in Joan’s book, and the feeling of dread that had been building inside of me since we’d seen the Savages the day before.

I felt like a ticking time bomb, my timer counting down to when I would explode, no doubt destroying everything in close proximity. When that happened, I needed to make sure I wasn’t anywhere near Haven or its civilians.

I owed those people everything and I couldn’t fuck up now.

“Well, it was a group effort. If they hadn’t trusted in my instincts,” she replied good-naturedly.

In all honesty, it had been all her. We had all tried to convince her to stay on the main road because going off road was always dangerous. You just never knew what you were going to run into, so as best as you could, you stayed to what you knew—because what you knew, you could trust. At least to an extent. But O’Donnell had fought us, and thank God she had, because the house we’d found had been a goldmine.

“Well thank God those instincts of yours had been yelling at you,” Timbo said, reading my mind.

“Amen,” Aiken said, a slow grin climbing his face. “You’ve given Haven another three months of relative peace and comfort, safe in the knowledge that we have food for everyone’s bellies. Need to keep going though—keep planting and growing, keep searching for more, because it’s going to be a long, hard winter, that’s for damn sure.”

Aiken’s gaze searched the people in the room until his eyes found mine. He gave a small nod of his head, and I hoped that meant he wasn’t too pissed at me.

“Now for other news, and it ain’t pretty news, but it’s the news we’ve been waiting to hear,” he continued, and the room lapsed into silence, the happiness evaporating like we’d just been told the Easter bunny was dead. “Yesterday, a group of you spotted the Savages.”

He let the words settle between everyone for a moment as gasps and hushed voices rang out, and then he continued.

“And today, the Highwaymen came to us. They think they know where the Savages’ base is. Certainly know a way to find it.” He leaned forward in his chair, his elbows resting on his knees, before plucking the toothpick from between his teeth. “They want us to team up and fight with them.”

My heart stuttered in my chest.

This was it.

This was what I’d been waiting for.

The Savages.

It had been a long year of dark, haunted dreams. Of wanting to find them and kill them. To take the head of Aife and make her pay for everything she’d done. To eradicate the rest of her people and make sure they were never allowed to continue in their evil ways.

“We’ve been here before,” O’Donnell began, and Aiken nodded in agreement. “We all think we’ve found their base, but when we get there, they’re gone. What makes this one so different?”

“I thought you found them yesterday,” SJ asked in confusion.

“We did,” Aimee said, coming into the room, and I watched as Aiken pursed his lips in frustration at her being there, but he didn’t stop her from coming in, and I was glad. She deserved to be there as much as anyone. “We found them yesterday but there weren’t enough of us to take them on. They’re a dangerous group—possibly the most dangerous we’ve ever come across—and that’s not to be taken lightly.” She looked at Aiken as she came to stand in front of him. “I see that now.”

He nodded and gestured to an empty chair, and she sighed a breath of relief and sat down.

“And my question?” O’Donnell said, sounding more on edge than was usual for her. She was right: we had been there before, and I’d never seen her so tense about it. Normally she was just eager to get going, but not today. Today she seemed worried, anxious. Like the consequences of finally ending the Savages might be too much for her.

“The Highwaymen ran into them twice yesterday. Once they nearly took one of their group and another time they were trapped in a gas station surrounded by the dead. They helped them out of there and arranged a meetup to trade.”

A loud gasp escaped from somewhere in the room and we all knew why. Aiken held his hand up to silence the protests.

“They had no idea who they were. They just thought they’d run into another group that was willing to trade.”

A headache had started at the base of my skull, a dull thud that was slowly reaching its icy fingers up to caress my skull. I blinked to clear my vision, wishing I had a chair to sit down on. My breathing was getting faster, the room pulsing, and I forced myself to calm down.

“And the offer of trading humans didn’t give it away?” Aimee laughed bitterly, her face pinched in a grimace.

“They said they had a herbalist, among other things, but the thing that got them was the offer of water. They said they had lots of water. Now the Highwaymen have gone to the city to retrieve the city maps, hoping something on there is going to explain where all the water is coming from.” Aiken pulled out a cigarette and lit it as he leaned back in his chair, his expression serious. “Both times they bumped into them, they said they had water.”

“Their camp is near a water source,” O’Donnell mumbled.

“But there’s no big water source around here,” SJ said. “A couple of streams, wells, and the lake, but no big fresh water source that would explain it.”

“There was no explanation for the farmhouse we found today either,” I said, my voice thick and gravelly like the words didn’t want to leave my mouth. “Yet we found it. If they have water to trade, then they have a fresh water source. We find that and we find them.”

“Exactly,” Aiken agreed. “The Highwaymen are going to the meet tomorrow. The two they met won’t know that the Highwaymen are on to them and they’re going to capture them and do what they need to do to find out where their base is.”

“They won’t tell them,” I said.

“Shooter said they had men who could extract the information. He’s not too concerned. Besides, on the flipside of that, he’s hoping that the maps will show the water source.” Aiken looked around at the group.

“Who’s Shooter?” I asked, wondering why no one else had asked that question, and then realizing that they obviously all knew who he was.

“He’s their president,” Aiken replied, and I snorted on a laugh.

“Their president? Like he runs the goddamned country?” I was smirking, but inside I was feeling bitter and angry, and unnecessarily angry at this man I’d never met before.

“Something like that.” Aiken shrugged, and I stopped smirking and scowled.

“What an asshole,” I scoffed. “Can we trust him?”

“I believe so. We’ve had trades with them for a while now and they’ve always come through.” He sighed. “They’re a strong group, many more people than us. They have weapons, lots of skilled bodies. Teaming up with them to take on the Savages is our best bet, but I won’t say yes without you all agreeing. This affects us all and it’s not something I’m willing to agree to without total agreement, but we’ve searched for the Savages for a year and had no luck. Now there’s been three sightings in as many days and I’m thinking that wherever they scuttled off to, they’re out of there now and they’re looking for something. They’re building something. And I’d like Haven to be a part of decimating every last goddamn one of them.”

“I’m all in,” Aimee said immediately. “Whatever it takes.”

And I had a feeling that even if Haven didn’t come to an agreement about this, she’d be going along anyway. Phil was still missing, and until she’d seen his body, in her eyes there was still hope that he was alive. And while there was still hope, she wasn’t going to give up on him.

I couldn’t blame her. I would do the same. But she didn’t know.

She hadn’t seen the things I’d seen.

A sick feeling squirmed in my stomach, my palms turning sweaty.

“I’m in,” Kelli said with a nod.

“Me too,” Freddy said, looking terrified but firm in his decision.

The sickness in me grew as more and more people agreed to go. To help the Highwaymen. To find the Savages. To hunt them, for a change, and to end them.

“I need to speak to Moo,” SJ said firmly. “I don’t want her going, no matter what she says. Understood?”

Aiken nodded. “Understood.”

SJ turned to Alfie. “That means you have to stay here too. Stay with her.” She looked back to Aiken. “I’ll be going.”

“No,” Alfie replied quickly. “If anything happens to you, she won’t be able to cope. She needs you.”

SJ reached over and placed her hand on top of Alfie’s. “She’s got you now. You’ll take care of her for me.”

Silence enclosed the room as she patted his hand, and I pinched the bridge of my nose, my headache worsening.

“We’ll all be coming back alive,” O’Donnell said. “Between me, Aimee, Kelli, SJ, Freddy, Aiken?” She looked at him and he nodded, and then she continued to scan the room. “We’ll be absolutely fine. I mean, there’s always EJ, Jaxen—”

“And me,” I said, the words sounding strangled as they left my throat. All eyes turned to me, and I guessed that I must have been pale as a ghost and sick as a dog because none of them looked convinced. “I’m going.”

“We can talk about it later,” O’Donnell replied, turning back to the group. “I can speak to Carl and see if he’s okay to come along. I’m pretty sure he will, since Ricky and Phil were good friends of his.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I interrupted, my delirium clearing. “I’m going.”

O’Donnell let out a heavy sigh and glanced at Aiken. I frowned, wondering what the hell was going on. Did they really believe that I would stay behind? Did they really believe that I’d stay behind while O’Donnell went off and risked her life?

“Mikey—”

“Enough!” I yelled, cutting off O’Donnell as she tried to say something else. “I’m going.”

She glanced at Aiken again, her eyes practically pleading with him to intervene and do something.

He nodded and sat back in his chair. “All right, all right, I get why you’d want to go and I don’t blame you. We’re all just thinking of you, Mikey. O’Donnell and I know how hard it might be to come face to face with them again, but if you’re insistent, then so be it.” Aiken’s jaw was ticking and it was obvious that he wasn’t happy about the situation, but there was also no way he was keeping me from that place and this fight.

I looked around the room with uncertainty, feeling embarrassed, like perhaps everyone could see my weaknesses. Perhaps I hadn’t been so good at hiding my breakdown after all, and they’d all seen what a mess I was.

“We’ll be breaking into two teams so we can cover both bases,” he continued. “One group is going to go with the Highwaymen to where they think the Savages’ base is—that is if they get those maps and find that water source—and the other is going to the meet with the two women for the fake trade. Both groups are going to get plenty of action. The trade is obviously just a ploy from the Savages to capture more people, so no doubt they’ll be coming with more than anyone is expecting, but they won’t be expecting an ambush when they get there. They’ll be broken and then they’ll give up the location.”

“Why bother to meet for the trade? Why not just all head to their base?” SJ asked, frowning.

“Because if one group fails, hopefully the other will succeed,” Aiken replied.

“Besides, even if those two bitches don’t give up the location, they’ll be intending to capture and kill whoever turns up to that trade. At least this way we can make sure we kill all of the Savages,” Aimee said. She was on board with anything and everything. Her only goals were to kill as many Savages as possible and find Phil. The latter was unlikely to happen.

Aiken stood up and walked to the window, his features tight with worry, and I didn’t blame him. There were going to be casualties. That was if we really did find the Savages base this time. We’d been there before. Yet I knew this was it. This was the moment I’d waited a year for.

Drag’s face flittered behind my eyes, blood trailing down the side of his face, his arms wrapped around his middle where he’d been stabbed. And his words to me before I ended his life.

“We’re a family, a team, and the thought of losing any of my family cuts me deep, yet no matter how much it hurts, it’s a possibility, and one you have to consider before you agree fully to this.” Aiken was staring out the window as he spoke. “I want to see every one of you returning home. We’re creating a new world here, many strong groups coming together to creating a strong society. One that’s safe for all.” He turned to face us. “The Highwaymen have a new baby in their group, and it got me thinking about this world and how, if we can all get through this final battle, how the world we create afterwards might be one that would be safe for our people here to create their own families. To have their own babies.”

People were nodding in agreement, worry and anxiety on everyone’s faces at the prospect of a future with babies and children. Could we actually have that again? I wondered. It wasn’t something that I’d actually considered since Nina had run back into that warehouse. Each day had just been about survival. About getting through the next twenty-four hours in one piece. Keeping people safe. Surviving. But not about a society where there were babies and families. Not like Aiken was talking about.

The thought was terrifying.

27.

Mikey

“I want to be at the base camp,” I said, slamming my hand down on the desk. I was being an asshole again and I knew it. Yet Aiken didn’t call me out on it or give me any shit. He didn’t even bother to bring up my outburst from earlier. That was the kind of man—and leader—he was. He moved on from all the unnecessary bullshit and got down to what was really important.

“That ain’t up for debate, Mikey,” Aiken drolled in his usual laid-back manner, even though I knew he had to be feeling anything but laid back. His people were on the line, and his people—Haven, was everything to him, and he’d do anything to protect them. “You’re going to the trade, and that’s the end of it.”

A sharp knock came on the door and Aiken turned from the map on the table to glare at the door. “Come in!”

The door opened and Carl, one of the few members of Haven I really liked and considered a friend, came in, his hazel-green eyes taking in the tension in the room easily. He gave an awkward smile.

“SJ said you wanted to speak to me,” he asked hesitantly.

“Come in and shut the door,” Aiken said.

Carl clicked the door closed and turned back to us. Aiken, O’Donnell, and I had been arguing for the past fifteen minutes about where we thought it was best for everyone to go. Neither of them wanted me at the Savages’ base, which only made me want to go there more. I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t want me to go there—I knew those people, I knew what they were capable of. Not having me there made no sense, yet around and around we went, arguing about it. I felt like there was something they were keeping from me, yet they insisted there was nothing.

Aiken walked toward Carl, obviously glad to get out of the thick of the argument for a moment. That was the one thing with Aiken; he hated arguing. It was, in his words, the most primitive and pointless form of communication. I couldn’t disagree with that.

“I know you haven’t gone out there for a few months. After what happened the last time I can’t really blame you, but I have to ask for your help, Carl. Haven needs your help. I need your help. We need a strong team to go out there and we’re a couple of men down. We’re going up against the Savages and I know that you’re a goddamn good marksman, and I need that.”

A few months back, Carl had gone out on a mission and had blown a tire. The truck had crashed, and he’d hit his head before falling unconscious. When he’d woken up, the truck had been surrounded by the dead and he almost died getting back here. He hadn’t been out of the walls since.

Carl nodded and gave a small smile, though I could see the nervousness there too, and who could blame him? After coming back from the Savages’ camp, I hadn’t left Haven for six months.

“And you know I can handle myself,” Carl said.

“I’ve heard you can throw a punch or two,” Aiken agreed readily.

“Used to be a concierge before all of this, and you’d be surprised how often you needed to be able to handle yourself working in snooty hotels.” Carl chuckled briefly before sighing. “All right, I guess it’s about time I got back out there. I feel ready.”

“Really?” Aiken asked, and I watched as Carl laughed, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans.

“No, not really, but it is what it is, and it’s time.” He shrugged. “We all need to pull our weight and I want to help.”

O’Donnell and I drew closer, and I held out a hand to him and he took it, giving it a brief shake. “Thank you,” I said, and he nodded.

I didn’t know much about Carl, other than he was a nice guy who was a good shot with a bow and arrow. We had somehow always been on separate scouting teams, despite the fact that I’d been living in Haven for a year.

“He can be on my team,” I said, recognizing something in him that I saw in myself. Neither of us were the biggest men there, both medium build and height with nothing particularly frightening about us, but that didn’t make us any less dangerous. We had other skills and we both knew how to take care of ourselves. But mostly, there was just something about Carl that made me trust him. I knew that no matter what happened while we were out there, he would do everything he could to protect people, and that was the sort of person I wanted on my team.

“There’s too many on our team now,” O’Donnell said, and I turned and frowned.

“I think we should separate for this,” I said, knowing she was going to refuse but also knowing that I wasn’t going to back down on it. I needed some space from O’Donnell, especially while this was happening. I couldn’t be the sort of man she wanted me to be while fighting the Savages.

“What? Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. She turned to glare at Aiken. “Tell him that’s ridiculous.”

Aiken sighed and dragged a hand down his face. “Really don’t want to be getting involved in a domestic, O’Donnell.”

“So just tell him we’re going together then,” she bit out angrily.

“Well this is awkward.” Carl laughed awkwardly.

O’Donnell glared at him and he held up his hands in mock defense. “You’re on the other team, Carl. Mikey doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“I think,” Aiken said, interrupting her tirade as he looked between us, “Mikey and you should split up.”

“What!” she yelled, her voice so high-pitched that I worried the windows might break.

He put a hand up to silence her. “Mikey, O’Donnell is going to the Savage base camp. That means you, Carl, Freddy, and Kelli are going to the meet up at the gas station. The Highwaymen are sending some of their guys, you’re going to meet them about a quarter mile northwest from the location. It’s been drawn on the map. You follow their instructions to the letter.”

I glared at him, O’Donnell glared at him, and Carl stood looking uncomfortable. But Aiken wasn’t changing his mind. Perhaps I could have fought harder to go to the Savage base camp, but I couldn’t deny that part of me was relieved.

I’d been there before.

I knew what to expect

And I was still haunted by it.

I wanted to exact my revenge on them and make them pay for not just what they did to Ricky and Phil, or Drag, or anyone else. But I wanted to make them pay for the nightmares, the panic attacks, the fear that was lodged in my heart and refused to leave me.

The world had ended and the zombies had risen, but I had gotten up and dealt with life the best way I knew how. None of that had ever scared me as much as the Savages did.

O’Donnell opened her mouth to argue but I placed a hand on her arm and she turned to me. Her expression was fierce, and for a moment she reminded me of Nina, her defiance and fear all rolled into one to make her an unstoppable force.

“I can’t lose you,” she said, her tone soft.

“This is going to work. We’ve got them at every turn.”

She nodded, still looking uncertain. Maybe I should have put her mind at ease that I would be okay and we’d be together at the end of this, but I never made promises that I couldn’t keep, and after the last time I’d gone up against the Savages, I wasn’t about to promise anything.

“Tomorrow then,” Carl said. He gave me a brief nod of his head and turned to leave.

Aiken excused himself too, leaving me and O’Donnell alone. I needed to comfort her. I needed to wrap my arms around her and pull her in close and tell her that I would be back. That everything really was going to be okay. But I couldn’t. Fear snaked down my spine and my heart thudded heavily in my chest.

I knew that no matter what, I wasn’t coming back until I had Aife’s head on a spike. But going up against her and the rest of the Savages was terrifying. It was the thing that had haunted me for the past year. The thing that woke me when I finally did manage to sleep. Coming toe to toe was the thing that I had been dreading for the past year, and now it was finally here.

*

We pulled away from Haven in two different vehicles: O’Donnell, Aiken, Aimee, and SJ were in one of the big trucks, and me, Carl, Freddy, and Kelli were on horseback. We’d been trading pretty steadily with the Highwaymen for fuel—something they apparently didn’t do with anyone else—but since we were trying to sneak up on the Savages at the gas station, a motor vehicle seemed too noisy. Besides, I’d gotten pretty good on horseback.

O’Donnell watched me as their truck veered left and our convoy continued straight on, and I tried my best to give her my most reassuring smile, but I wasn’t convincing anyone. Not even myself.

Two hours later, after stopping to give the horses a quick break and some water, I pulled out the map to double-check the meet point with the Highwaymen. I knew it should have been nearby somewhere, so I wasn’t overly surprised when a biker stepped out of the woods that lined the road and gestured for us to follow him.

We jumped down and followed him into the tree line, only needing to walk a hundred meters or so before meeting up with the rest of his crew. A tall man stepped forward, his thick beard speckled with gray and light brown. His eyes were dark, and deep frown lines were etched into his skin.

I held out a hand to him. “Mikey. This is Carl, Freddy, and Kelli.”

The other man assessed us all and gave a shake of his head. “Aiken said he was sending some of his best people, not a kid, a woman, and a couple of boy scouts,” he grumbled.

“I wouldn’t let Kelli hear you say that again or she just might blow your head off,” Carl said with a smirk.

“I just might anyway, for being so darn cocky,” Kelli intervened, popping a hand on her hip.

The other man raised an eyebrow at her, his features staying hard and abrupt as he spoke. “Darlin’, you can blow me any time.” He looked Kelli up and down and I shook my head.

Kelli, as usual, was wearing a summer dress paired with black boots, her blond hair tied back in a plait down her back. She was, without a doubt, attractive, and that was all he’d zoned in on. It pissed me off more than it should have.

“Listen, she’s not here for a hookup, she’s here to fight. And trust me, she can fight and shoot better than most men. Don’t let her cuteness fool you. She’s a better shot than me with that rifle of hers. And Freddy, well, he grew up in this world and he’s a little badass.” I tempered my anger down, because I wasn’t there to fight those men—I was there to fight the Savages.

“Och, all of ya, just need to calm down. We’re on the same side.” A bigger red-haired guy stalked past the first man, who was still eyeballing me, and he took my hand and shook it. He looked over at Freddy and laughed. “Would ya fuckin’ look at ya, ya little red-haired bastard!”

He reached over and ruffled the top of Freddy’s head roughly, and Freddy blinked in surprise before his face broke into a smile and he started to laugh.

“Takes one to know one,” Freddy laughed back.

The red-haired guy laughed harder before looking over at another biker. “I like ’em. Bet this one’s got balls o’ steel.” He looked back at us. “I’m Highlander, that moody old bastard there is Gauge, this little shite who looks like he stopped growing when he was twelve is Max,” he said, pointing to the guy that had led us into the woods and who wasn’t short in any way. He was easily five eleven. “And the one with the shiny dinosaur egg for a head is Axe.”

The four men stared at us, with only Highlander looking happy about the situation. Gauge looked like one of the scariest dudes I’d ever seen, despite the fact that he was obviously a lot older than all of us. Max looked to be about the same age as Freddy and nodded a brief hello. But it was Axe that I was watching. Axe that I had seen before in Joan’s little sketchpad. And it was Axe that I was the most interested in.

“You’re gonna have to buy me dinner before I let you suck on this,” Axe said, grabbing his crotch crudely.

I hadn’t realized I’d been staring so intently, and I felt my cheeks heat up. “Sorry, I think I’ve seen you before around Haven. I’m just trying to place you.”

“I’ve been there a few times,” he replied, still frowning.

“On your own?” I asked.

“Why? You lookin’ for someone?”

Gauge shoved him from behind, but Axe’s body was firm and didn’t even flinch. Instead he turned to scowl at the other man.

“Shut the fuck up,” Gauge replied. “We need to get this shit show on the road. Time’s motherfuckin’ ticking and we’re not here to make friends and arrange play dates.”

Highlander clapped his hands together, a huge grin on his face. “Right then, let’s get a move on. I need to go see the woman of m’ dreams again!”

“She’s a cannibal, you sick fuck,” Gauge replied with a fierce scowl.

“Aye, that she is. Animal on the highway, animal between the sheets!” Highlander laughed.

“You’re not fucking her, brother,” Gauge growled, looking repulsed by the idea.

Highlander rolled his eyes. “Ack, I know, I’m just tickling ya balls, Gauge.” He turned to me. “Come on then, let’s be havin’ ya.”

He turned and started to stomp through the woods and Max, Gauge, and Axe followed, giving us only a brief jerk of the head. I looked across at my crew, noting how none of them seemed fazed by these men, and I wondered if it was just me that was just getting bad vibes from them.

“Let’s go,” I agreed, and we began to follow.

We held on to the horse’s reins and led them through the woods, passing between trees and over broken logs. Mother nature had turned into a wild beast that had been left untamed and unchecked for too long, and it made it difficult to get through the terrain without tripping a couple of times. The horses seemed unhappy with the situation too, but there wasn’t exactly anything I could do about it.

I spied a couple of deaders, but nothing that gave any of us cause for concern. They were mostly just dried-out bones and pale, paper-thin skin. They still sought food though, and they would have eaten us alive if given half the chance. A deader’s strength was the thing that always freaked me out the most. You’d think that in death you would be weak—all brittle, fragile bones and such—but no. Deaders had an inhuman amount of strength, and it was what got a lot of people killed.

“Two o’clock,” Gauge said, pointing toward them.

Their teeth were smashing together, their arms reaching for us as they moved in our direction. Max jogged over and took both of them out within seconds and was back in formation before I could even offer to help him.

They may have had an inhuman amount of strength, but like in any good horror movie, it accounted for nothing if you killed their brain.

We came to a small ridge where two motorcycles sat covered with tree branches, and Gauge told us to tie up the horses because they wouldn’t be able to go any further. We were heading around the back of the gas station so we wouldn’t be spotted from the road, and we were almost at the meet time. I didn’t like leaving the horses tied up because if any deaders stumbled across them they couldn’t escape, but we also couldn’t just let them go free because it could be a tipoff to the Savages that there were other people nearby, and I wasn’t about to do that.

Kelli and Freddy tied the reins to trees and the horses began to munch on the grass at their feet, oblivious to the very real danger they were in, and I felt a pang of guilt for that.

“I’ll wait up here,” Kelli said, tapping her rifle. “I’ll get a better shot.”

I nodded in agreement and then the rest of us skidded down the side of the ridge. Two motorcycles were already parked in front of the gas station with a large wooden cart piled with boxes and containers filled with various things

Highlander turned to us. “I want two men on the roof, two back here, one inside, and then two of us out front waiting for them.”

“Freddy, Carl, up on the roof,” I said, taking lead, and there seemed no way that any of the Highwaymen, barring Max, could hide up there without being noticed. I was beginning to wonder if they ate spinach for every meal, because all of those men were huge, with Max well on the way too.

Both men nodded and took off to the front of the gas station.

“I’ll stay back here in case any of them recognize me.”

Gauge nodded. “Right,” he grunted, “I heard about that. You got Drag outa their little torture dungeon in one piece.”

I felt the pull of a frown on my features as my stomach began the usual twisting and turning it did whenever I was forced to think about those caves and Drag and that sick woman...

“Not quite in one piece,” I replied, my chest feeling heavy, “but I got us out of there for all the good it did though.”

Axe grunted in agreement, his dark stare on me. “Ain’t that the truth.”

I wanted to defend myself, to say something to him about what Drag and I had gone through. How we’d had each other’s backs and how he had never, not once, backed down from Aife. How I could sleep easy because I knew that I’d done all I could to get us both out of there, and that despite Drag dying anyway, I knew he hadn’t blamed me.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say anything.

I felt the intensity and the judgment coming from Axe like it was my own conscience, and it took all I had not to shrivel up and let the anxiety and the guilt eat me away.

“Och, I guess we need to split you two pretty boys up.” Highlander smirked, running a hand through his beard.

“Makes no difference to me,” Axe said, his gaze sliding to Highlander.

I shrugged. “I don’t care either way.”

“Grand!” Highlander clapped his hands together again. “I want Max and Gauge with me out front. Max can handle himself but he looks like a tiny wee thing in comparison to us so they’ll see him as easy pickings.” Max scowled at Highlander but he seemed unfazed. “Do ya get it? Easy pickings? Because they’re vultures looking for a meal.” He chuckled and I shook my head.

Highlander, Gauge, and Max headed to the front of the gas station, and when I looked up I saw Carl and Freddy wave once to me before dropping out of sight.

28.

Mikey

We’d been quiet for ten minutes or so, Axe and I both keeping low and out of sight while simultaneously checking in every direction in case the psycho Savages snuck up on us, something that I’d been having nightmares about for the past year. Dirty fingernails reaching for the back of my shirt before grabbing me and slitting my throat. The amount of times I woke up in cold sweats after dreaming that was too many to mention. So far there had been no sign of them.

I rolled my shoulders and took a deep breath before looking up at the ridge where Kelli was hidden with her rifle. I couldn’t see her but I knew she was there somewhere, and I hoped that from her vantage point she’d be able to let us know when they were on their way without giving away her own location.

We were covered on all angles: people high, low, hidden and in plain sight. I should have felt safe and secure, but instead dread was threading through my veins like a slow-moving train.

The heady silence was making me more anxious, and I glanced over at Axe and cleared my throat. His gaze slowly slid to mine. He looked like a mean bastard. Shaved head, hard features, and hands like buckets. He was at least fifty pounds heavier than me, and from the looks of it, it was all muscle. He didn’t scare me in any way though. Not much did anymore. I’d gone up against the darkest thing there could be and I’d come away almost intact.

“What?” he asked, his gaze moving back to Highlander and Max, who were sat out front, asses perched on their motorcycles while they smoked cigarettes and talked nonchalantly like they didn’t have a care in the world. It was all an act, of course, but I still envied their freedom and the way they seemed at peace.

Axe and I were currently well hidden behind some large industrial bins around the left flank of the gas station. There was a rusted shell of a van haphazardly parked, which had at one time been dropping off a delivery before the world ended. Now it was just an empty, rusted shell of the vehicle it once was. Kind of like me. Still, it served well for somewhere to hide behind. Its wheels were large and round and gave adequate coverage of our feet from anyone who looked underneath, and the rusted metal of the doors already had holes in them from previous gunfire, giving us several nice spyholes to look through.

“They found the water maps then?” I asked Axe casually. I’d been wondering about that since setting off that morning.

While my group had headed to the gas station, O’Donnell and Aiken had gone to meet the Highwaymen to see if they had found the maps, and if so, if they had worked out the location of these Savage bitches.

Our group was merely a contingency in case they hadn’t.

We were to bring them back in one piece so we could cut and kill to get the information out of them if need be.

Axe turned to look at me. “Yeah, did Gauge not mention that?” Axe replied, his expression full of sardonic amusement that I had been purposefully kept out of the loop. “You wanting to join them on their little mining exploration?” He smirked.

“Mines, huh?” I swallowed, tremors of fear running down the full length of my spine. I remembered the deaders the Savages were herding together, and the thought of being stuck inside mines—in the cold and the dark—with deaders wandering around was terrifying.

“Yeah, seems like they like it in the cold and the dark,” he chuckled. “The opposite of hell where they belong, if you ask me.”

But I wasn’t really listening anymore. Instead I was thinking about the last time I had been in their cave prison. The heat and the darkness, the stench of decay in the air. The way the screams echoed along the corridors.

“I’d like to get my revenge on as many as possible,” I replied, my tone hard. “For me and for Drag.”

Axe’s smirk grew bigger. “Drag was an asshole but he always had a way of getting people to jump into the fire with him.” He shook his head, his gaze still on mine. “Seems he can still work his magic even when he’s dead.”

I cocked my head, pondering this. “I guess so,” I agreed.

He sighed. “I’m heading there too,” he said. “Plan is to kill these bitches and move on to their base. Burn them alive inside the place if need be. You good with that?”

I nodded, not sure at all. “And if there are survivors?”

“You think there’ll be any?”

I shrugged, thinking of myself inside those caves. I’d been alive but waiting for death. Marley had been the same when we’d rescued him. Had there been others inside? Back at Clare and Tim’s candy store I’d found Butcher carved up but alive. Ricky was better off dead after what they did to him, and Phil… What the fuck had happened to Phil?

“Yeah, there could be,” I said, my throaty whisper sounding harsher and more abrupt than I meant it to come out, and Axe’s expression quirked in amusement.

This mission was to seek and destroy. I searched myself to see if I cared about slaughtering these women in cold blood. It was different from defending yourself—this was murder; but I quickly realized that I didn’t give a damn. It wasn’t kill or be killed anymore. It was kill and be done with it, and I was good with that, but we would have to check those mines for survivors. We owed it to anyone inside that had held on this long. That had prayed and hoped that someone would come and help them.

“I’d like to come along,” I said, knowing that unless I was there, those mines wouldn’t be searched; they’d be torched or blown up and everyone inside would be left to die. That could have been me, or Butcher, or Marley, or God knew who else.

He chuckled. “I just bet you would.”

“Is there a problem with me coming?”

Axe shook his head. “No problem with me. More the merrier.” He grinned and I felt like I was missing out on some joke. Like there was some mystery that I was missing out on. “You got a map?”

I nodded and pulled the tattered, folded-up map from my pocket. It was already on the right place and Axe took a moment to look before pinching some dirt between his fingers and rubbing it in a circle on the map.

“Here,” he grunted, and I nodded and looked at the spot he had marked. I slid the map back away, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders as the paper slid within the confines of my jacket.

O’Donnell and Aiken would be pissed at me, but I’d deal with them later. And really, what did it matter if we’d already completed our mission? As long as we ended the Savages, that was what was important. And I wanted to be there for every death, every kill, every blood-soaked scream, because maybe, just maybe if I was, I might be able to sleep again.

A stick breaking loudly from the low ridge above us had me looking up sharply to Kelli’s spot. I couldn’t see her but I knew she was letting us know that the Savages had arrived. I braced myself for the anxiety to flood my senses. For the fear to clutch my heart and squeeze until I couldn’t breathe. Whenever I thought about the Savages—about coming face to face with any of them again—this was what happened. But as I watched a single horse pulling a small cart with two women at the reins turn the corner and head slowly toward Highlander and Max, I felt none of that.

I felt calm. Completely calm. Like there was nothing left to be afraid of and nothing to worry about. I was ready to face my executioners and I was more than ready to end them.

The cart and horse pulled to a stop and the two women climbed down. One of the women handed over a small bag and Highlander looked inside, bringing out a handful of herbs. Highlander and Max made small talk with the two women for several minutes, and it was obvious to anyone that Highlander was flirting with the older of the two women, and that maybe she was even flirting back with him. He placed a hand on her arm and she turned to him, giving a soft smile that should have been sexy, but all I saw was the evil in her. It was like being able to see someone’s aura, and hers was blood red and swimming in the stench of blackness. My stomach flipped as she glanced down at his hand on her arm and then back up to him before saying something to him.

“What are we waiting for?” I whispered.

“Just wait,” Axe replied.

Max and the younger of the women were talking by the cart, and he reached up to lift the material that covered the boxes and crates of whatever was underneath. They’d said they had herbs and fruit, apparently, but I knew for a fact that they didn’t eat fruit. The only thing they ate was flesh.

My stomach flipped again, like it was warning me, and I swallowed the sickly feeling that was growing inside of me. Their clothes were brown leather, and anyone would be forgiven for thinking that it was animal hide. I knew differently.

The younger woman pulled Max’s hand away and gestured to his motorcycle shyly, her cheeks turning pink. Highlander and the older-looking woman headed toward the gas station, his hand on her ass as they walked.

“He’s actually going to fuck her. Gauge is going to be pissed if he has to sit through that shit show.” Axe actually sounded impressed and maybe a little in awe of Highlander. “He’s got a stronger stomach than me.”

“And me,” I agreed readily.

Highlander and the woman went inside the gas station, and Max and the younger woman were beside the motorcycles. Max was talking and pointing out different parts of the bike, and anyone would be forgiven for thinking that the women were actually into them. That they really were there to trade and get laid and that they weren’t cannibals looking to hook a couple of fresh bodies for their barbeque.

As the thought entered my head I could practically smell the scent of flesh cooking. The sizzle of fat on coal. The smoke of charred skin. Images splashed through my mind like a horrific kaleidoscope. Flashes of the room I was in at Tim and Clare’s candy store. Flashes of the plate of flesh that I’d half eaten before realizing. The scent of meat cooking. The sound of Phil’s screams…no, not Phil, someone else. And then Ricky. Hanging in that bathtub with most of his limbs hacked off. The horrors moved behind my eyes, my stomach lurching with every one of them. I was sweating and it trailed down the side of my face as I fought to control myself.

Axe looked back at me, but I was only vaguely aware of him. My gaze was on the small cart that the two women had rolled up in, and the hand that had slipped out of the side of it to discreetly unhook the covering from it.

I quickly scanned our surroundings, noting nothing but a shambling deader in the field opposite the gas station, and I rolled my shoulders and pulled out my machete. I stepped out from my hiding spot, confident that Kelli, Freddy, Carl, and Axe had me covered from every angle, and I moving quietly toward the cart. The young woman with Max was facing toward me and I watched her eyes widen as I came into view, but Max grabbed her by the neck and blocked her airways with his forearm.

She struggled against him as he quietly fought against her. Her hands were at her waist trying to pull out her knife, but with one hard snap and twist of her head, Max silenced her completely, lowering her body quietly to the ground and then dragging her behind his motorcycle. She wasn’t completely hidden, but it wouldn’t be the first thing you spotted if you came upon us. At least not in the first five seconds.

Moving toward the cart, I watched the reaching hand tug free the string that was holding the cover on the cart. The hand moved across to the next tie, long fingers fumbling for the piece of string, and as it reached for it I swung my machete high and then dropped it quickly, slicing the hand clean off.

There was a split second of silence before a long, thin scream echoed loudly from within, and blood sprayed up against the sheeting. I stood back, letting the person within fight against the cover before finally stumbling out of the cart and falling to the ground in a heap.

It was a woman—a girl, really. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, and momentary pity swelled in my chest at the sight of her dirty brown hair tied at the nape of her neck. But then she looked up at me with eyes full of tears and her teeth bared. In another life I might have given her a chance to live, to make amends for the horrible things that she had done, but not in this one.

The young woman was still on her knees, and she stared up at me with hate and pain filling her features. Her hand gripped tightly to the wrist of her other arm as blood pumped freely. She was crying loudly, her face filled with rage, and I swung and took off her head with a single slice.

The cart shook and rocked, and before I knew what was happening more women were climbing out from underneath. As their feet hit the bloodied ground, Carl and Freddy took them out with their bows and arrows, and then from above I heard Kelli’s rifle going off several times, and then soft and final cries of pain from the tree line opposite.

Axe came to stand next to me, watching the head of the woman still twitching, the eyes blinking aimlessly, the mouth opening and closing and emitting a low growl.

“You meant business then?” he said, and when I looked over he was laughing.

I raised my machete and stabbed each of the bodies through the forehead, making sure to end each of the women once and for all.

“Yeah, I meant business,” I agreed. “Where are Gauge and Highlander with the other one?”

Axe smirked. “He’ll be fucking her.”

We walked around the front of the gas station and I could see Gauge sitting on the dusty ground outside, smoking a cigarette. He looked pissed off as he glanced around, and then stood up, meeting us by his bike.

“Didn’t even get to kill one of them,” he grumbled, throwing his cigarette to one side. “We sure there’s not more coming?”

He sounded disappointed and I should have found that funny, but I didn’t because I felt the same way. I wanted more of them. It felt good killing them. It felt good drawing blood and hearing their screams. I wanted to kill more of them, I realized with a sickening in my stomach that I gripped with both hands and held on to tightly. I felt alive for the first time in a year.

“Let’s go to their base then,” I said, a little breathlessly because the prospect of killing more of them was thrilling. “There’ll be more of them there for us to take out.”

Gauge and Axe exchanged a glance, and my gaze narrowed, wondering what that was all about, but I didn’t get chance to ask as Highlander came out from inside the gas station. He was alone and walking with a swagger that suggested he really had just fucked that crazy cannibal bitch.

“Almost ruined the moment then, boys,” he laughed. “I was balls deep when the killing started. Almost lost my old man when she went for her knife.” He laughed and grabbed his crotch. “Could have given me another minute or two.”

“I can’t believe you,” Gauge said, looking disgusted.

“Och, don’t be like that, brother. It was her idea and I was hardly gonna say no, now, was I? I figured it was her last couple of minutes on earth, she wanted it, I wanted it, so what the hell.” He lit a cigarette and blew out a long plume of smoke. “I had to say no when she got to her knees though,” he laughed. “I wasn’t having any part of me near her teeth.”

Even Gauge cracked a smile at that.

Freddy and Carl came out of the gas station, walking quickly over to us. Freddy could hardly look me in the eye and his cheeks were bright red. Carl looked disgusted.

“Next time you want to get laid on the job, can you do it somewhere we don’t have to listen to it?” Carl snapped, looking stressed out. He slapped Freddy on the back. “Poor kid almost passed out.” And just like that, his stormy expression turned to a smirk and he started to laugh.

Highlander grabbed Freddy and pulled him to his large chest before rubbing his knuckles across the top of his head. “I’m sorry, wee man, I didn’t mean to embarrass ya. But you know, it’s time for you to learn about the birds and the bees.”

Freddy was laughing as he struggled against Highlander. “I know about the birds and the bees.”

“Is that so?” Carl laughed. “Looked like you were about to—”

A gunshot sounded out from somewhere behind us. I felt the bullet fly past me and watched as the glass front of the gas station exploded, and then we dropped to the ground as the snap of a gun behind us went off again. We skirted toward the small cart for cover.

“Everyone okay?” I asked, looking around at each man. Freddy was holding his arm and blood pumped from between his fingers, his face paling.

29.

Mikey

“Shit, how bad is it?” I asked, feeling responsible for him.

“I don’t know,” Freddy gasped, his eyes wide and his face etched in pain. “It really hurts though.”

Gauge quickly pulled a small green bag from his inside pocket and placed it on the ground at his feet. He unzipped it and grabbed a wedge of clean cotton from inside. “Let me see, kid.”

Freddy let go, and blood sprayed out quickly but then slowed to just a drip. Gauge took the arm in his grip and swiped the blood away. There was a small hole in his bicep that blood was dribbling out of.

I looked up quickly over the top of the cart, seeing movement in the field opposite. The deader that had been there previously was no more, but other shapes now moved among the tall grasses. I ducked back down and looked between everyone.

“Gotta be twenty or so, at least.” My blood was pumping, my ears ringing, and the scent of Freddy’s blood was thick in the air.

Gauge was still looking over Freddy’s gunshot, his dark hair covering his face. “It’s okay, not too bad. Bullet’s still in there so we’re gonna need to get that out soon. I’m going to wrap it and stop the bleeding. Highlander, you got this?” He glanced up and Highlander, despite everything, was inexplicably still smiling.

“Of feckin’ course, brother. It’s what I’ve been waiting for.” He reached up inside the Highwayman cart before looking down at me. “That woman up there going to cover me?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, knowing that as long as she hadn’t been shot she’d do all she could.

“Right then, you two watch our boys here, Max in the cart with me loading up and Mikey and Axe, get on your feet and let’s go have some fun!”

Highlander stood up and grabbed the corner of the tarpaulin on the cart, dragging it off. It fell to the ground with a noisy crinkle as he gripped the edge of the wooden cart and quickly hoisted himself in. He reached down among the boxes and then he was lifting the biggest gun I’d ever seen onto a large black stand and clicking it into place.

“All right, ya psycho bitches, let’s fuckin’ party!” he called out, giving a loud whoop before aiming for the field and firing the gun.

Bullet casings sprayed out at his feet as he continued to pull the trigger and screams ricocheted from the field. Highlander looked down at us and smiled, and Axe reached into the cart and handed me a large black gun. I’d like to say I knew exactly what it was, but I had no clue other than it was heavy as hell.

I hoisted it up, and as Highlander’s gunfire died down, Axe and I took over. Every shot that hit a body brought me to life more and more, my fear subsiding with the need for blood and vengeance. I didn’t know who I was becoming as I slaughtered those women, but I knew I needed him to help me survive.

Axe moved around the side of the cart to get a better aim, and I inched forward. Gunfire was going off somewhere behind me, and I imagined Kelli up on the ridge alone and I prayed that she could handle whatever was happening because I knew I couldn’t get to her right then.

In the distance I saw a small horde of deaders heading toward us, drawn by all the noise, and my anxiety intensified. I aimed and fired, aimed and fired, over and over. Shots missing, shots hitting, bullets flying past me. I lost count in the end, unnerved by everything that was happening and the never-ending assault, and the fact that the undead were getting closer by the minute.

Footsteps behind me and my name being called had me turning, and I watched as Kelli, her blond hair bobbing, ran toward us. Blood was sprayed across her face and arms, her dress a mixture of flowers and blood splatter. She skidded to a stop beside me, take a brief glance at Freddy and Gauge before coming up next to me. She was breathless, hair and eyes wild, but her rifle was still held tight in her grip like an extra limb.

“Well this went a little sideways, huh?” she panted, taking aim and firing into the tree line to the right. Her rifle cracked and I knew without asking that she’d hit her target. “So many deaths,” she tutted despondently.

“I think they were expecting us,” I agreed dryly.

“No shit,” Axe replied, coming back around to the side of the cart.

Highlander had dropped down in the cart, and I would have thought he was injured or dead if it wasn’t for his loud singing coming from within.

“On the bonnie banks o’ Loch Lomond…” he crooned loudly while Max continued to pull belts of bullets from the boxes. “O’ ye’ll tak the high road and I’ll tak the low road, and I’ll be in Scotland afore ye.” His hands suddenly gripped the edge and he peered over at us all. “Got a horde heading our way, boys.” His gaze swung to Kelli and he smiled wider. “Sorry, darlin, didn’t see ya hiding there.”

“That’s okay.” She smiled back. “That horde is going to be getting bigger by the minute.”

He gestured toward his gun. “Aye, me boy here is good but he ain’t the best for aiming. Those Savage bitches are gonna be getting up, ready for round two, any minute now. What ya thinking then?”

“We’re going to have to move forward. Press them back,” I suggested. “They fall back into the horde and get themselves killed, or they come forward toward our guns and die anyway.”

A bullet whizzed overhead and Highlander dropped down, his face dropping from view before popping back up seconds later. Max was low in the cart, sweat trailing down the side of his face.

“That was close,” Highlander laughed. “All right then. I’ll get locked and loaded and cover ya while you push forward. Gauge, can ya keep cover for me?”

I glanced over at Gauge, who had just finished bandaging Freddy’s arm and was in the process of putting his kit away. His hands were bloody and he smeared them down his jeans.

“I can help too,” Freddy said. “I’m right-handed and it was my left.”

“Just keep out of the way, kid,” Gauge grumbled. “Need this done so we can get you back and get that bullet out. Moving could lodge it further into your muscle and cause more nerve damage.”

“I’ll be okay, let me help!”

“You could lose your Goddamn arm, kid!” he bellowed. “Is that what you want?”

Freddy looked depressed at the thought of not being able to help, but Gauge’s words had gotten through. Another bullet slammed into the side of the cart and wood splintered around me.

“Let’s do this,” Gauge snarled, looking furious.

Axe reached up as Highlander handed more guns down, and Carl took one and I grabbed another, slipping it into the back of my pants, and then we all turned and got into position.

Highlander and Gauge stood up first and immediately started firing into the trees and fields opposite, and then Carl filtered in behind me with Kelli heading behind Axe, and we stepped out from behind the cart, guns raised and ready to kill.

We moved forward as one, an impenetrable wall of firepower letting loose shot after shot. I could hear Highlander singing loudly again, and his machine gun erupting loudly as he pressed the trigger and held it down. Bullets sprayed overhead, all aimed in one direction as Savage zombies got back up to their feet and came toward us, unafraid of death now that the devil was kissing their black souls.

I aimed and took out brain after brain as the small horde in the field finally caught up. Screams erupted as the Savage women that were still alive either stupidly stayed where they were and became zombie food or they stood up and headed toward us, dropping their guns and raising their hands to the sky.

I pulled out the second gun from my waistband as the first gun ran out of bullets, and I took aim and squeezed the trigger.

Body after body fell, each death another stain upon my soul as I gave no mercy to any of these women. These killers. These monsters.

My gun clicked upon empty and my chest heaved as Kelli stalked past me and took out a Savage woman who was trying to crawl away. She’d been shot, and she left a darkened trail behind her as she pulled herself along the ground, coughing and spluttering as blood left her lips.

And then it was over.

They were dead.

The deaders were completely dead.

And I felt…unsatisfied.

I stalked through the long grass, searching for more. Alive or dead, I didn’t really care, I just wanted to kill. I just wanted to feel strong. To feel powerful. To not feel like a Goddamn victim anymore. Like I wasn’t still chained up in a candy store or a cave, with the scent of flesh on my tongue and fear in my heart.

A heavy hand landed on my shoulder and I turned, startled, to find Carl behind me. He raised his hands in defense.

“It’s just me, it’s just me,” he said quickly, and I lowered my gun, realizing that I must have looked like a damn psycho, stalking through the field, searching for something to kill.

“Hey,” I said, not sure what else to say.

He gestured for me to follow him and I gave one last glance around me before heading back to the gas station. As my feet moved from muddy field to solid ground, I noticed my bloody footprints left behind and I lifted my chin.

Highlander had his arms raised and was singing at the top of his lungs that he had a lust for life, and Kelli was laughing along with Freddy, who looked like shit. His ginger hair was even brighter against his stark skin and he was laughing, but the pain was still etched into his gaze.

“Need to get him back and get that out of his arm,” Gauge said, a thick cigar tucked between his lips.

“Horses got startled, but they were still there,” Kelli said. “We just need to get him back up the ridge.”

I headed over to the horse and cart that the two Savage women had come on. The horse was dead on the ground, the cart tipped over, and I kicked through the meager contents, growing angrier when I saw the large plastic box of meat and a bag of herbs. Other than that, it had been empty, just the Savage women hidden beneath the cover.

“Is that…?” Carl asked as he looked down at the plastic tub, blood leaking out of it.

“Yeah,” I replied, my stomach twisting and turning in knots. I turned back to the Highwaymen, stalking to Axe. “Let’s go.”

Axe’s face split into a slow grin and Highlander finally stopped smiling. “All right, let’s go.”

Gauge grabbed Axe by the shoulder and glared at him. “What are you doing? This wasn’t the plan.”

Axe shrugged out from his grip. “He wants to fight. Who am I to deny him that?”

Highlander jumped down from the cart and came to stand by Gauge. “Don’t be a prick, Axe, this has nothing to do with fighting. This is you trying to show Shooter one last middle finger before you fall into line, but I’m telling ya, this won’t end well for you, brother. Just let it be.”

I frowned, wondering what they were all talking about. “Listen, I know there was a plan, but Kelli and Carl can get Freddy back to Haven. I’m heading to those mines with or without you. I can fight. I can help.”

I felt my anger growing, but I tried to keep it in check. Something told me that losing my temper with them wouldn’t serve me well.

“Fine,” Gauge snapped, his face a picture of fury. “Still think this is a bad idea, but no one fucking listens to me anyway. Max and Highlander will go up the ridge with you to get their bikes. Your horses are up there, so get one and follow them back down. Axe and I will wait here with our bikes and then we’ll go together. You’ve got ten minutes and then we’re gone.”

Axe smiled like he’d won some sort of battle. Highlander and Max nodded automatically, a strange look passing between the two men. Gauge’s cigar was between his fingers and he put it to his mouth and lit it again, pulling on it until the end glowed orange and then he breathed out a mouth full of smoke.

“Hurry the fuck up,” he grumbled, and we turned to leave.

We left the gas station a bloody death bed and we climbed back up the ridge as Axe and Gauge moved through the bodies, searching them for anything useful. Highlander whistled as we climbed higher, Max moving ahead of us all to make sure the path was clear. Freddy needed a lot of help from Carl and Highlander, and sweat clung to us all—going up was harder than going down—and when we got to the top, Carl slipped out of his brown leather jacket and tied it around his waist.

Only three of the horses remained; the fourth had somehow managed to snap free of its reins. Highlander and Max uncovered their bikes, moving the branches and foliage that had been hiding them. The whole time they glanced between themselves and I watched them carefully, suddenly untrusting of them.

“I’ma need a hand getting Freddy up on the horse,” Kelli said.

Highlander and Carl helped hoist Freddy up onto the back of the horse, and I felt a pang of sympathy as he cried out in pain. I hoped he didn’t lose his arm because of this. In the old world he would have had a really good chance, what with doctors and nurses and antibiotics, but in this world an injury like that was worse than bad. Time was ticking and we needed to get him back ASAP.

“Stop squirming so much,” Highlander yelled at him. “Gauge said to keep your arm as still as possible, ya wee ginger shit.”

“Stormy is still at your clubhouse,” Kelli said, a small frown popping onto her face at the realization. “Someone needs to take me there. The job’s too big for Alfie and I don’t want Freddy losing an arm because the Highwaymen decided to keep our doctor for so long instead of allowing her to come home.”

“Och, don’t be like that. It’s not my fault, woman,” Highlander grumbled. “We didn’t keep her there, she stayed because she was needed.”

I turned and headed away from them, moving slowly, cautiously.

“Besides, we’re all needed here so there’s no one to take you to the clubhouse right now. Head to Haven, get your guy Alfie to look at him, and as soon as I get back to the clubhouse I’ll grab Stormy and have her at Haven before you can say ‘Highlander is a sexy motherfucker.’”

“Where are you going, bro?” Carl called to me.

“Thought I heard something. I won’t be a minute,” I replied as I took another step.

“Want some help?” he asked, coming up beside me and clasping a hand on my shoulder. We shared a look and he nodded almost imperceptibly. He lowered his hand and held it out for me and I took it. Carl wore a single silver ring on his hand, a dragon engraved into it. A red stone glinted from the dragon’s eye and I looked back up into Carl’s face as he let go of my hand. Go, he mouthed, and turned from me. “I’ll check this side,” he called back as he moved away.

I nodded. “Probably just the horse that broke free.”

I took another step, listening as Highlander and Kelli continued to bicker about keeping Stormy for too long and how she was important and needed at Haven. How Alfie was great, but he needed her to continue training him.

I stopped by the two large motorcycles, the keys dangling in the ignition like a dare or a taunt, and I glanced over my shoulder. Max was watching me, big brown eyes intent on my every move, his eyebrows pulled down heavy.

Carl stepped in front of him. “Hey, did you hear that?” he asked as Max tried to step around him.

“Get out of my way!” he yelled, shoving Carl hard enough to make the other man stumble backwards.

I swiped a hand over my chin and turned away from them, stepping quickly to his motorcycle and climbing on.

“Hey!” Max called behind me, and I heard him start to move toward me.

I turned the key and started the engine and it roared to life beneath me, and then I was pulling away, heading through the trees and the undergrowth and toward the mines that the Savages were hiding in.

It was time to end this.

End them.

30.

Nina

I was holding on to Shooter with my good arm, my other arm clipped to his front to secure me to him so I didn’t fall off. My face was pressed against his hard back as we rode, twisting along the broken highways and avoiding debris that was scattered across the gray asphalt.

We’d found them.

Goddamn but we’d found them, finally.

When Highlander had come back, maps in hand, my heart had frozen, glee and fear and desire building in me. Glee that we had found them, fear because they terrified me, and desire for their blood to spill.

I had braced myself for the argument with Shooter, already knowing that he didn’t want me to go, but true to his word, he agreed to let me come with him. He hated it—I knew he hated it—and yet he also knew that he either agreed or I’d find a way to go anyway.

The Savages were mine.

I was going to take them apart piece by piece.

It didn’t matter anymore if I lived or died. All that mattered was that I killed them. That I made them pay for every heinous thing they had done. I needed them to pay for the pain they had caused. Perhaps then, if I survived this, I would want to live again. Maybe I would want to become part of the future instead of barely surviving the past.

“You okay back there?” Shooter called back to me.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“We’re almost there. I’m pulling over in a minute.”

I nodded and tried to get the frantic beating of my heart under control.

We’re almost there.

The words just didn’t seem impactful enough to highlight the monumental moment.

Everything had been leading to this. From leaving Mikey to go back into that warehouse so I could save his life. To meeting Shooter and the other Highwaymen and then letting Michael leave. To finding O’Donnell and Butcher and discovering the horrors of Mikey’s situation. To then finding him, half starved, exhausted, and almost dead at the side of the highway with a deader grasping for him…

I glanced over, seeing the trucks from Haven and their people—O’Donnell being one of them.

He chose her… the voice whispered to me.

I know, I know! I wanted to call back. Because I did know. He’d chosen her, and I had accepted that long ago. My revenge on the Savages was so much deeper than that now though. It was beyond comprehension how much I despised them. It wasn’t even really to do with Mikey anymore because I had accepted his loss already, and in some ways they had brought us back together. They had given me a moment to see—to know—that he was alive, and he was okay. No, my hate for the Savages was so much more than that now.

Highlander had been right all along.

So had Gauge and Shooter and Balls.

My hate for the Savages wasn’t just because they were monsters, it was because Scar wasn’t there to punish. And I needed to punish someone. Anyone. I needed someone to know my pain. To understand my loss. And then to die at my hand because of it.

I wanted to be doing it for the right reasons, but I was only human, and my humanity was calling for my rage to be sated and my vengeance to be bestowed upon their necks.

Shooter slowed the motorcycle and then he pulled to the side of the road. The bikers behind did the same, and as a convoy we headed deep into the forest.

The Savages were in a mine about a mile from the road. No doubt they would have scouts everywhere, and that was fine. We weren’t going in quietly, sneaking in upon our enemy in the dead of night in the hopes to catch them unawares. No, we were going in guns blazing. Storming their castle and dismembering their army in one heavy swoop.

We were armed to the teeth and we were prepared for casualties—deaths and worse. But none of us seemed to care. No one had backed down from this fight, this battle to end evil, and in a way it felt like we were all fighting our own secret war inside. This was more than ending the Savages. This was our way of fighting back against every loss we had endured since the dead had risen. We had been helpless to stop those monsters, but these were our second chances. If we could rid the world of this plague upon humanity, then perhaps we had taken a small step toward saving the world from all evil.

Shooter stopped the bike, and with one quick flick he unhooked me from him. I reached behind me and pushed my stump into the waiting machete attachment. Balls had worked all night on making it so I could fix each weapon on myself. Without the metal and tools they had gotten from the warehouse, it wouldn’t have been possible. I felt a tiny stab of guilt because of Crank’s death there, and yet I was incredibly grateful all the same.

I felt rebuilt. Like a new woman. Like Frankenstein’s monster brought back to life. A new lease pumped through my veins, vengeance and fury carrying me onwards toward an end I could not possibly understand yet, and yet somehow inexplicably knew would be worth it.

Shooter pulled the folded map out of his cut and laid it on the ground, and as everyone climbed off their motorcycles and out of their trucks, they all gathered around.

“There’s only two ways in and out,” Shooter began, pointing to two areas on the map. “Course, there’s always ways that we can’t expect—who knows what damage has been done, or changes have been made—but the map shows these two ways into the site. There’s only one way, that we can see from this, into the mine.” He pointed to a circle on the map, which had already been drawn. “There’s a large lake with a small waterfall next to the first entrance into the site. We need one crew heading there to clear it so no one can sneak up on us. The other crew is heading right for the entrance.”

He stood up and looked across at every one of us, his jaw steel and his blue eyes determined. He sighed and I felt every part of that weight on his shoulders. This wasn’t easy for any of us, but for Shooter, for Aiken, for Rev and for Anne, this had to be heartbreaking. They were the leaders of their groups and they knew that this might be the last time they saw some of them alive.

The Highwaymen and the Rejects were joining back as one club after today, but for the moment they were still two clubs, two leaders, two men sending their people to their possible deaths. Axe had left Rev in charge while he went with Team A, though he assured us he’d be coming if he could.

We all knew what that meant.

Gunner had insisted that he come along, and so had the two remaining nomads, Sketch and Battle. Balls, Backtrack, and Spearhead had also come, and I saw in each of their eyes that they were ready to die for Shooter, for their club, and for this cause.

Axe had sent Rev and Nitro and three others that I didn’t know so well: Linc, Texas, and Crow. Texas was utterly terrifying in every possible way. His whole demeanor screamed nightmare. He was huge, and always scowling. His voice deep like bass. Linc, however, was the exact opposite of Texas. He was young, barely twenty-five, and tall with broad shoulders and a mop of thick brown hair that he wore slicked back. He had gray flecks in his hair that framed his face, and I found that strange because he was so young. He also wore thick-framed black glasses that had the arms taped on, and he swore that they were his last pair and panicked about breaking them on a daily basis. But mostly, Linc was—from what I’d heard—one of the kindest souls. I hadn’t heard a bad thing about the guy. He was polite, considerate, and I wondered how he’d ended up in a group like the Rejects. I didn’t really know much about Crow, other than to stay out of his way.

Aiken had come with people from Haven—some that I knew and some that I didn’t. O’Donnell was among them, alongside a woman called SJ, a man called Timbo, and a stunning, fierce-as-hell-looking woman named Aimee. And then there were my warrior women. Four of them had come along: Anne, Rachel, Lois, and Bianca. I didn’t know Lois and Bianca that well, but they seemed unfazed at the prospect of dying, and in turn, of taking life.

“Do we have any idea how many of them there are?” Linc asked, pushing his glasses up his nose.

“Honestly, no. They’ve only ever been seen in small groups,” O’Donnell said. “I will warn you all though. We saw them a couple of days ago. They were leading the dead somewhere.”

A heavy silence fell momentarily as we all considered that, and then Anne broke the silence.

“Maybe they were clearing them? Moving them somewhere else to kill?” She shrugged.

“Maybe,” O’Donnell replied, but she didn’t sound convinced.

“All right, I need two groups. One to head to the waterfalls and another to head straight to the mines.” Shooter looked around at the group of men and women before him, a frown on his face. The groups began to separate into two, and then Aiken and Shooter divided them again, splitting them so that they were equal in weight and weaponry.

I hadn’t chosen my group yet. Instead I was standing on the outskirts, waiting to see where Shooter went so I could go in the opposite one. If I was by his side, he’d be in more danger because he’d be constantly watching for me and making sure I was okay.

Shooter frowned when he saw me standing to one side, and he gestured me to come stand by him, which I did.

“You look like you’re plotting,” he said, his deep voice a thick growl.

“I am,” I agreed readily. “I need to be where you’re not.”

I waited for him to yell at me. To demand that I stay by his side. To order me to do as he said. But instead he merely replied with…

“All right.”

“Just ‘all right’?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.

“Well, it’s an all right and don’t get yourself killed, okay?” Shooter leaned over, pushed his hand in my hair, and pressed his mouth to mine. He kissed me hard and slow, taking his time over every stroke of his tongue and every move of his lips, and when he pulled away I saw an incredible sadness in his eyes.

I swallowed, glancing around us, embarrassed, but no one was watching us. “Don’t get killed either,” I said, and moved to the other group.

Shooter held my hand until the last possible moment, my fingers slipping from his grip slowly until we were parted, and then we were moving away from each other. Heading deeper into the woods, toward possible death.

“You two still going strong then?” O’Donnell asked as she sidled up to my side.

Sweat trailed between my breasts, the heat suffocating now that we were deeper in the woods. We walked with care, our gazes moving around us all constantly, checking for traps, checking for zombies, checking for Savages. Checking for anything and everything, but already knowing that we’d likely miss something because we couldn’t really know what the Savages had planned. There were so many dangers hidden away in this place, and that thought was enough to make me think smart and not rush into anything.

“Something like that,” I replied, hating her, envying her. “And you?” I asked, wondering if she and Mikey were still together. Still strong. Still in love.

“Yes, very much. I think we’ll get married,” she replied without missing a beat.

I, however, stumbled a step, her words making my muscles soften and then contract and turn to stone momentarily while I comprehended what she had just said. The words hung between us like a pendulum blade, slicing back and forth as they cut me in half, eviscerating the air between us.

“He’s asked you?” I said, my words barely audible. My stomach ached like I’d eaten something bad, and I wished she would just go away. Just leave me the fuck alone. I didn’t want to speak to her. I didn’t want to hear what she had to say. I didn’t need to know about her happy life with Mikey. My Mikey… “Never mind, it’s none of my business.”

“We’re very happy together,” she said, and the pain lanced through me, the pendulum swinging ever closer to my heart.

“Good,” I said, forcing a smile to my face. “I’m really happy for you both,” I lied. But my lie was firm and strong, like it wasn’t a lie at all but the truth. I needed it to be the truth. I needed him to be happy and for me to be…to be…I don’t know. I didn’t know what I wanted for me anymore.

“How’s the arm?” she asked, changing the subject, and I turned my head to take in her expression.

She was looking at me, her gaze skipping from my damaged arm to the ground so she didn’t trip, but it was obvious that it wasn’t a kind or caring question. It was just a way for her to show me that I was broken, and she was whole, and that was why she and Mikey worked and we never would.

O’Donnell was the better woman and I was nothing but a used-up rag toy.

A part of me shriveled up inside, and I found I couldn’t hate her anymore because I hated myself more. I hated that I was useless. I hated that I was broken. I hated that she was beautiful and whole and capable and I was just this damaged, shattered woman barely hanging on. I had been kidding myself the past few days, telling myself that I was still strong.

I felt small and feeble. Like a newborn deer, my legs felt unsteady and shaky, and I trembled with grief for myself. I would have loved nothing more than to wallow in self-pity and despair, and I would, eventually. But not now, not today.

I straightened my back and swallowed my pain. “Just super,” I replied. “I’m like Robocop or something now. They built some cool attachments and honestly, it’s probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” I lied through my teeth again, feigning happiness as I swiped the air in front of me.

O’Donnell smiled, but it was something bitter like she’d sucked on a lemon and I smiled back at her, knowing my smile was just the same. We were one and the same, O’Donnell and I. Both in love with a man we couldn’t have. One that would never truly be ours. We were strong, but broken, we were envious and full of disdain. But we still went…just like the little engine that could. That was us. We were engines, determined to keep on going despite everything that was thrown at us.

Only, maybe one day soon I’d be done. My engine worn out and ready to retire. That was how I felt now. Weary, used up, my bones and muscles creaking from overuse, straining at the corners as sinew clung on tightly to hold my body together. But how long could it really hold on for?

Battle raised his thick arm in the air and motioned for us to all stop. We did, and we crouched down as we all listened as carefully as we could. I glanced over at O’Donnell, who now had her eyes closed as she tipped her head to the side to listen harder. Her eyes opened suddenly and she looked across at Timbo and SJ.

Water, she mouthed, and they both nodded.

We looked between ourselves as we pulled out our weapons and readied ourselves to exit the trees and fight the battle beyond. I was already tired, exhaustion pulling at my aching muscles. My arm ached where the machete attachment was, still unused to the extra weight of the attachment. My head throbbed with the beginnings of a headache. Yet despite all of that, I was ready.

I wanted it over with.

I wanted it ended.

I wanted…no, needed, to move on with my life, especially after hearing that O’Donnell and Mikey were going to get married. It was time to either settle properly with Shooter or move on and let him go. It wasn’t fair on either of us to keep stringing him along.

One way or another, after today, things would change

Battle gestured for us to move forward slowly and we did, creeping through the undergrowth, avoiding the twigs that would snap underfoot as we moved closer, the sound of water flowing growing louder.

Ahead of us, sunshine could be seen through the trees, and bodies moved about. I frowned, confused at their strange movements. Nothing would shock me with these people anymore, and yet I couldn’t help but be puzzled.

I nudged O’Donnell and she looked over at me, mouthing a silent what? I tilted my head in confusion and frowned and she mimicked my gesture, looking ahead of us, her brows furrowing further.

We reached the edge of the trees and stopped in our tracks, our eyes falling upon Savage women standing with their backs to us, the stench of something rotten in the air. The waterfall was small but noisy, and it fell into a small lagoon before trailing off into a series of small rivers, several of which had obviously been carved out to control where the water went.

A cooking pit was set up with small wooden stools crudely carved and placed around it, and smoke rose from within, the scent of cooking food mingling with the stench of something foul in the air.

There was also what appeared to be a small lake with a fence all the way around it, and I guessed it was to stop the dead from falling into it and contaminating their water supply. I squinted, wishing my eyesight was better or that someone would move so I could get a better look.

And then, as if they’d heard us, the two Savage women that stood by us moved forward to talk to another woman that walked into the clearing. I stared hard at the fenced area, realizing that it was barely a trickle of water that led to the lake, and that in fact it wasn’t a lake at all.

It was a pit.

A pit filled with deaders.

I reached out and gripped O’Donnell’s wrist in my hand and I squeezed. She jerked out of my grip and glared at me and I leaned in close to her ear.

“It’s not a lake,” I whispered. “I mean, there is a lake, it’s only small and that’s further back. Look,” I said, pointing towards it.

“So what’s that then?” she asked, confused.

“It’s a pit,” I replied, turning back to look.

And now I could see it. Now it was perfectly clear. It was a pit of deaders. Hundreds of them. And the fence was to keep them in, not keep them out.

As we watched, some more Savage women came from somewhere to the left. Trailing behind them was a handful of deaders stumbling with arms reaching, desperate to catch up and sink their teeth into the nice warm flesh of my enemy. I would have liked nothing more for them to catch up, too, but clearly that wasn’t the plan. They were led toward the pit, and as they got closer two Savage women opened the fences and the deaders were pushed into the pit with long sticks before the fences were closed behind them.

The pit of zombies growled and snapped as the deaders fell on top of them and the whole herd surged forward, their franticness growing at the sight of humans so close. The Savage women paid them no mind at all, as if a pit of zombies was nothing to be worried about. My stomach tripped over itself and I couldn’t stop my thoughts from swirling in anxiety at the very dark realization that these psychos might be more psycho than we’d first anticipated. And that was a lot.

The other deaders stumbled back up to their feet, barely acknowledging that their brethren had fallen on them, and then they continued as they were—arms reaching, jaws gnashing—as the gates were closed on them again. Their new contributions to their flock were accepted.

Battle looked back at us all, his expression horrified, and I didn’t blame him.

Savages we could fight and kill. Savages could actually die pretty easily; despite them being psychos, they were only human, after all. But if those deaders got out of the pit, then we were all completely screwed. Zombies added a whole new mix to this war with the Savages, and one that I hadn’t really contemplated.

But the biggest question for me was why?

Why did they have hundreds of deaders rounded up like that?

Why go to the trouble?

Why risk everything?

Because if they did escape, those zombies weren’t just a danger to us, but to them as well.

31.

Nina

“This changes everything,” O’Donnell hissed to Battle.

“This changes nothing,” he replied back, his tone low and threatening.

She opened her mouth to speak but Timbo, a tall guy with unruly hair and a Depeche Mode T-shirt on, stepped forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Things must change. We must rearrange them,” he said seriously, but O’Donnell just glared at him. “All that I’m saying. A game’s not worth playing. Over and over again.”

I stared at him in a weird kind of awe at his weird little riddle, but fully accepting of it. Because honestly, I couldn’t agree more.

O’Donnell shrugged out from under his grip. “Enough of Depeche Mode, Timbo. Aiken wouldn’t want us to go in all guns blazing when there’s a pit of zombies there. We need to go back and regroup.”

“No,” I snapped in a whisper, and she turned to look at me. “You go if you need to, but we’re going in and finishing this, now.”

She shook her head and gave a dry, sarcastic laugh. “You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into. You weren’t there before. You didn’t see what they did, how they treat people. They’re vicious enough without a hundred zombies on their team too.”

“What, you think the zeds won’t eat them? You think those zeds are only after our blood?” Linc sucked on his teeth and tsked her. “They have as much to lose by setting those things free as we do, and now we have the upper hand because we know that they’re there and the Savages have no clue that we’re here.”

“They have a point,” SJ said. “I mean, I don’t like the idea of going in there with so many of those things close by either, but this is probably the best chance we’re ever going to get. Every day we let these people live, someone else dies. And if not today, then when?”

Her words held so much truth in them and O’Donnell knew it. She’d lost friends to the Savages. They needed to die, and they needed to die today.

“Okay,” she said, her voice hoarse like she even though she was saying the words, her throat was trying to hold them back. “But we have to make sure those zombies don’t get out of there. If they get out—”

“I’ll handle them,” Gunner said, his deep voice interrupting us all. I was startled by him speaking because it had been so long since I’d heard his voice. He hadn’t really talked much before, but since the mess with almost dying he’d been even quieter.

“God, can you stop talking all the time, Gunner!” I rolled my eyes and smirked at him, and despite the tense situation, Battle chuckled.

Gunner’s cheeks turned pink and it might have been the sweetest thing I’d ever seen. Well, at least in a long time.

“Nitro, I’ll need your help,” he said, not looking the other man in the eye.

Nitro nodded and moved closer to him, and for just a moment I wondered if it was the right decision after all. If putting Nitro and Gunner together was wise. After all, they had a lot of history. Granted, it was history that Shooter had caused. He’d given orders for Nitro to kill Gunner back when we thought Gunner was hurting Amara. He’d almost killed the man. Gunner looked down briefly at Nitro and they shared a split-second look that I couldn’t read.

“Okay, Nitro and Gunner will keep those zeds caged. The rest of us, we take out these bitches quickly and efficiently. None of them get away, you feel me?”

Anne was looking up at Battle like she’d like to feel him in various positions, but now really wasn’t the time for that.

Timbo rolled his shoulders, his heavy axe in his grip. He was standing close to SJ, and the two of them shared a look of solidarity. SJ was carrying a long thin knife which probably had some really cool name that I didn’t know. She nodded, and I could see her jaw clench as she looked away from Timbo and focused her attention through the trees.

It was game time.

Battle pulled out two knives from sheaths on his thighs. They were huge and shiny and I had no doubt that they were probably something like army issued because they weren’t the sort of weapon that you just found. “Linc, you, Nina, the big guy, and his woman go left to the lake.”

“I’m not his woman,” SJ laughed a blush rising to her cheeks, and Timbo grinned.

“Whatever. Don’t really give a damn who you do or don’t fuck. O’Donnell, Texas, and you two Joan of Arc wannabes, you’re with me.” He turned to face the clearing with the Savages and the deaders and what I was now affectionately calling the battle arena, and he seemed to give himself a moment to assemble his thoughts and perhaps his courage too before we headed out there.

Silence encapsulated us momentarily and I watched his shoulders rise and fall as he took several deep, long breaths. I gave a moment’s thought to Shooter and the rest of the team that were heading into the mines, and I silently wished them luck.

And then we were moving, quickly. And not silently.

Battle charged forward at the same time Texas and Linc and Gunner and Nitro did, roaring like you saw in those old war movies, their weapons raised as they ran, and then the rest of us were following in their paths—though I refused to roar or scream my entrance into the clearing, and lifting the machete above my head only lasted a second or two before I felt stupid.

We ran forward and my heart pounded when I saw the look of fear on the Savages’ faces.

It only lasted seconds before their expressions fell back into something more fearsome, but it was okay. I had caught their fear, tasted it with my fingers, and I was holding on to it for dear life.

They charged toward us as we all ran to where we had been instructed, and the sounds of fighting and calling out filled the air. Timbo thundered along beside me as we headed to the lake where four of the women were attempting to climb into a small rowing boat, and Timbo launched himself into the water. He gripped the side of it and began to drag it back to the shore with one hand while swinging his axe wildly with the other.

SJ pulled out a gun and took aim, and Linc waded in and swung what I could only describe as a broadsword at one of the Savage women who was seconds away from decapitating Timbo. He swung it at her legs and she screamed and fell backwards off the boat and into the water, the water turning pink around them.

I heard footsteps behind me and I turned, my machete raised, thankfully. A Savage woman with a head as smooth as an egg and eyes as dark as coal had a long thin knife in her hand and struck it toward me. My arm attachment took the blow and I swung back automatically, almost like I was backhanding her. Only it wasn’t the back of my hand that struck her, it was my machete, and she screamed wildly—an ear-piercing scream that made me feel sick. Sicker still when I realized that my machete had sliced off the front of her face.

She threw her hands up to her face and dropped to her knees as blood pumped between her fingers. The slab of skin I’d taken off stared up at me accusingly, but before I could contemplate anything else she fell forward, whimpering, her shoulders shaking.

I thought of all the things I’d heard about these people. The things they had done. Those they had killed. And I wondered how many people that woman had killed. And then I stood over her shaking body and I plunged the edge of my machete through her neck. Her body stopped twitching and I dropped to one knee, pulled out my knife from my sheath, and stabbed it through her ear, straight into her brain.

When I stood up and looked around, I saw fighting at every turn.

Blood being spilled.

Bodies falling.

Screams and cries and roars of anger.

It was a horror movie, and the backdrop was the zombies who were going insane in the pit, the scent of blood hanging so strongly in the air driving them crazy.

Gunner and Nitro were squeezing a liquid over them from bottles, but I didn’t have time to contemplate it as two Savage women ran toward me. They looked furious. Not the usually stoic expression they tended to have. No, these women looked enraged.

Linc and Timbo were still battling it out with the women on the boat, only now just one remained, and there was the crack of SJ’s gun going off every once in a while, so this was on me.

I sheathed my knife and raised my machete, blood already dripping from the silver blade. Not that the two Savage women seemed to care. They attacked front on and I planted my feet and swung with intent, the clash of my machete and one of their knives sounding out loudly. I grunted with the effort of swinging again so quickly as the other woman moved to my side and attempted to strike me.

I stumbled backwards as I dodged the blow and I willed myself to be stronger. To not be the broken woman that O’Donnell and everyone else likely saw me as. I wanted to prove them all wrong. I had to prove them all wrong.

Grunting, I gripped my machete tighter in my hand and put all of my strength into swinging at the closest Savage woman, a tall, thin redhead with long dreads down her back. I hit her in the side, and I felt my blade cut through the leather of her clothing and slide through the flesh at her waist. I pulled my weapon back out and blood sprayed the ground at her feet. Her hands went to the wound as she dropped her knife, and I took the moment to swing at the other woman.

My first hit missed, but it didn’t matter as SJ’s gun popped loudly and the woman fell to the ground. I pulled out my knife and stabbed her through the back of her head, listening as SJ shot the other woman, and then I did the same to her.

I was panting, bloody, and felt sick to my teeth from the smell and the blood and the fact that I was killing people so brutally. It didn’t matter what they had done; I was still accountable for my actions, and these actions would haunt me later.

I stumbled back up to my feet and glanced around me, seeing no more Savage women anywhere, and I frowned, confused as to how it was all over so quickly. How it had started and finished within minutes.

Flames now leapt from the pit of deaders as Gunner and Nitro set them alight. Not that it mattered to the deaders. They continued to claw and snap at the air in a feeble attempt to be free from their prison. Flames leapt across their faces, licked down their reaching arms, and scorched their bone-dry throats as they growled for death.

“Timbo!” SJ screamed, and I spun full circle until I was facing the water again, and I watched in horror as Timbo was dragged under.

SJ ran toward the lake and waded in, even as Linc grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back out.

“I’ll get him!” he was yelling in her face as I ran forward.

Timbo’s face pushed through the water and he gasped for air before behind dragged back down. He was further away now and Linc waded in deeper. The next time Timbo’s head bobbed at the surface, Linc reached down and grabbed his shoulders and hefted him up. I ran in, the water swimming around my waist like ice-cold tentacles, and I grabbed at his shirt with my good hand and helped to pull Timbo from the water.

Linc and I pulled and pulled, slowly dragging a groaning and bloody Timbo from the water and onto the shore as the reaching arms of a deader crawled toward us. I kicked at it wildly, giving a small scream and wondering why it was so short. As it came further out of the water, its hands grabbing at the sodden earth and pulling itself up, I realized that this had been the Savage woman that Linc had hit in the legs. In fact, he’d taken her legs off from just below the knees and then she’d sunk in the water and drowned.

And now here she was.

Timbo groaned and reached for his legs, and it was then that we noticed the tears in his jeans and the bloody teeth marks beneath them. SJ ran forward, a knife in her hand as she grabbed the Savage deader by the hair and held her face up so she could look her in the eye.

“You bitch!” she yelled, and then she plunged her knife through the forehead of the Savage deader and released her head.

SJ dropped to the ground beside Timbo, the shallow water soaking into her clothes, and she peeled back the torn denim from his legs, wincing at the sight beneath.

“Is it bad?” he asked. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“It’s fine,” SJ said with little conviction.

Battle and O’Donnell and Texas came over and stared down at him, all of their faces growing somber. O’Donnell had a splash of blood across her face, like a mist of red, and when she looked between me and Battle it was with pure hate.

“I told you we shouldn’t do this,” she said with scorn.

“He’s going to be fine!” SJ snapped, sounding desperate, like she needed to believe her own lie even as the truth stared her in the face.

Battle dropped to his knees in the mud and he used his knife to cut away the material so we could get a better look at the damage to Timbo’s legs. I almost wished he hadn’t when I saw the state of them. Chunks had been torn away from his calves and bloody sinew hung in clumps from the gaping holes. His legs had been ravaged. The infection was no doubt pumping its way through his bloodstream at that very moment, every beat of his heart killing him slowly, turning him into one of the monsters he despised so much.

There were only two ways to possibly save him from that fate. To give him a very slim chance of survival.

“Oh Jesus!” O’Donnell said, putting a hand to her mouth.

“It’s okay. I can fix this,” Battle said, his gaze on Timbo’s legs. “I think, but we need to be quick.”

“How? How the hell can you fix this?” O’Donnell leaned down and yelled in his face, her hand gesturing angrily to Timbo.

But I already knew what Battle was going to say before he said it. His fleeting glance toward me told me everything he wanted to do and more.

Battle pulled out another blade from one of the many pockets in his cargo pants. He fastened the leather cover on the sheath, securing the knife inside the leather, and then he hovered it over Timbo’s mouth.

“Open up,” he grunted.

“What are you doing?” SJ asked.

Timbo stared up at Battle, his widening gaze telling me that he too was rapidly putting the pieces together.

“This is really going to hurt, man,” Battle said, his gaze still locked with Timbo’s.

“What’s going to hurt? What’s happening?” SJ asked, sounding frantic. She glanced up around us, her gaze straying to me…to my arm. “No, you can’t!” she begged, her voice sounding pained. “He’ll be okay.”

She pushed away the sheathed knife that Battle was still hovering over Timbo’s face, but Timbo grabbed her arm and brought it to his lips. He kissed her knuckles gently and squeezed her hand.

“It’s okay,” he said, softly, and then he turned to Battle and shook his head. “Let me go.”

“No!” SJ cried out loudly now, even more frantic than before. She looked at Battle, pleading with him. For something. For anything. For a miracle. “Do it, please do it! Save him,” she cried, completely changing her previous decision. “Cut them off, save him!”

Timbo squeezed her hand tighter and she looked back down at him. “No. I don’t wanna live like that.”

“Please,” SJ sobbed.

Timbo had gone pale, blood loss and pain washing his features. He took a stuttering breath and then reached for Battle’s knife. Keeping the other man’s hand wrapped around it, he directed the weapon to his forehead.

“Do it quick, before it’s too late,” Timbo grunted. “I can feel it already.”

I took a step back, my back bumping Linc as I did. We shared an uncomfortable look with one another, one that said more than words ever could. Neither of us wanted to see this.

“The damage is done. And I feel diseased. I’m down on my knees. And I need forgiveness.” Timbo coughed, blood spittle landing on his lips. He looked up at SJ and smiled, his teeth tinged with blood. “Now I want release. From all this disease. Take it away.”

“Stop with the lyrics, Tim. I can’t right now, okay? I just can’t,” she whimpered.

Timbo nodded apologetically. “Those lyrics are the only way I can express myself, Sally,” he said, his features tightening. The whites of his eyes were turning yellow, a film beginning to cloud his gaze. “It’s all I have.”

“It’s not—you have so much more to give,” she replied.

“I want it over with,” Timbo said clearly, making sure we all knew exactly what he wanted to happen next. “I don’t wanna be in this cruel world anymore. I don’t wanna live and die and try. I’m tired. I wanna go home.” He coughed, pink spittle coating his chin.

SJ nodded and leaned over him, placing her forehead against his chest. “Okay, okay,” she whispered. “Okay, Tim.” She sniffed and looked up into his face. “Close your eyes now. You’ll be home soon.”

Timbo smiled and then he looked over at us all, his gaze lingering on me for a beat longer before sliding to O’Donnell. “Soap won’t wash away your shame,” he said, his smile dying as he stared at us both accusingly.

He closed his eyes and held on tight to SJ’s hand, bloody saliva trailing from the side of his mouth. His body had started to twitch, his muscles contracting and tightening as the virus took him over, and SJ glanced up at Battle and then looked away in acceptance.

I looked away then, not being able to bear to watch Battle plunge the knife into Timbo’s head. But I heard it, and not for the first time since I’d had my hand taken, I wished it was me on the other end of the knife.

32.

Mikey

“What are you doing here?” Aiken drolled in his usual manner, but his harsh expression told me he wasn’t happy in any way that I was there.

“Heard you needed more bodies on the ground, so I thought I’d roll up and help out,” I replied. “Don’t look at me like that, Aiken, we got the Savages at the gas station sorted out. It’s all good.”

I glanced around at the group of people, of which there were many. Men and women, some I knew from Haven, but most of the people I didn’t recognize at all. And then a familiar face among the many strangers stood out to me. It was the big, bearded guy I’d seen in Joan’s sketches, and he was glaring at me like he wanted to rip my head off and shove it down my own neck.

“Hey there, big guy,” I said, giving a wave and a smile. Something about that man made me angry, though I had no reason to dislike him other than self-preservation. “You sure do like looking at me.” I winked at him.

“They’re dead?” Aiken asked, clearly meaning the Savages.

“No, we decided to have a little tea party with them. Kelli is cooking them up some lunch now. I’m thinking…and this might seem a little crazy, but hear me out… I’m thinking, pecan pie.” I clapped my hands together gleefully. “I mean, we’ve missed a bunch of Thanksgivings, and what better way to introduce these psychos into our homes than by feeding them pie?”

“Mikey…” Aiken warned, a scowl on his face. “This ain’t the time.”

I held my arms out wide. “What do you mean this ain’t the time? You asked if they were dead—what kind of response did you expect from me? Of course they’re dead, why else would I hightail my way here? Though I’m not gonna lie, the pecan pie situation is still in play.”

Aiken shook his head at me, his eyebrows pulled down hard. “Told you not to come here.”

“Well, technically you told me to go to the gas station and deal with the Savages there, and I did, so now I’m here because I thought you meant to deal with them there and then come help deal with them here…” I tapped the side of my head.

“That’s not quite what I meant,” Aiken replied, his tone suggesting he was sick of my bullshit.

“Semantics.” I shrugged. “I’m here now, so let’s do this.”

“That’s Max’s bike,” the bearded biker said, and I turned my attention to him.

“Uhh, yeah, he let me borrow it.” It was a lie and he saw right through it.

He took a step forward and Aiken slammed a hand against his chest. Quick as lightning, the other bikers had pulled out their guns and aimed them at Aiken while the one that seemed to be in charge batted the other Aiken’s hand away, and for a moment I worried we’d all just start killing each other instead of the Savages.

“Shooter, I’m sure Mikey has a reasonable explanation,” Aiken said, his jaw tight with restrained anger. He wasn’t used to being pushed around and told what to do, and he really didn’t like having guns pointed at him.

“It better be a Goddamn good explanation or he’s a dead man,” growled the biker Aiken had just called Shooter. Fucking growled, like a dog.

“Honest to God, he said I could borrow it,” I replied casually. “Something about teamwork and us all in this together.” As soon as the words were out, I knew they had been the wrong ones. The air tensed even further and Shooter took another step toward me, his ice blue eyes piercing.

I should have been terrified of him, but I wasn’t. I’d gone up against much worse than him.

He laughed low and dark, venom dripping from his lips as he stared at me. “A Highwayman don’t just borrow someone his bike, and Max certainly wouldn’t borrow you his.” He looked me up and down angrily, like I was something he’d just stepped in that disgusted him.

I’d never met Shooter before, but to me, at least, he seemed like a giant asshole. Not only was he overly aggressive, but he didn’t even know me and he’d already decided that I was his enemy. In a world filled with so many villains, I couldn’t fathom someone who would choose to make more enemies.

“Listen, I can’t say why he felt the urge to help me out like this, but he did. Freddy got shot in the arm—”

“Freddy got shot?” Aiken said, his eyebrows pulling down. “Goddamn it, Mikey.”

I shrugged. “What? I didn’t shoot him!”

“You open up with him being shot, damn it, don’t just slide that it like it ain’t important.” He pulled the toothpick from his mouth and threw it to the ground.

“If it helps, the Savages that turned up are all dead, and he was the only one who got hurt.” I shrugged apologetically, though I wasn’t actually apologetic. In my eyes, it had all worked out great, all things considered. No one on our team had died and every one on the Savages had died. I was happy with that outcome. It was a shame about Freddy, but it could have been any one of us and we all knew the odds going into it, and he was okay. It was just an arm, after all. He was alive, that was the important thing. “He’s fine, it’s just an arm, Aiken!”

The biker snorted out a dry laugh and shook his head.

“What is your problem?” I bit out, getting pissed off with him now.

“You’re my problem,” he replied, his expression deadly.

“Where is he now?” Aiken said, interrupting us both.

“Listen, motherfucker, there’s more important things going on here than someone getting shot in the arm. Like where the hell my VP is and why this fucker is riding Max’s bike,” Shooter snarled angrily.

I held up a placating hand. “Calm down,” I began, only to be interrupted.

“Calm down? I should kill you where you stand,” Shooter snapped.

“Prez, if I may,” another biker said, coming forward. He slid his gun into his belt and pressed his lips together tightly. “We’re in the middle of the viper pit, and the more bodies we have to cut off the heads of these snakes, the better. So maybe we kill him afterwards?”

“Balls, you do know who that is, right?” another biker piped up, and I turned with narrowed eyes to look at him, my gaze flicking over all of the bikers currently standing behind me.

“Shut up!” Shooter roared. “All of you keep your damned mouths shut before I shut them for you. Now isn’t the time.”

He stared at each of them furiously, and I frowned even harder as I came to a realization.

These men knew me…but how?

“Where is Gauge?” Shooter said between gritted teeth, bringing me back from my suspicious thoughts.

“He’ll be here any time, no doubt,” I said. “I stole Max’s bike,” I admitted finally. Because why not? All my lying was doing was digging my own grave. “Everyone’s okay though, they all are—barring Freddy, of course. That part was the truth.”

“You shouldn’t have come,” Aimee said, finally speaking up, and I gave her the middle finger.

The corner of my mouth picked up. “And that’s exactly why I came. Seemed like everyone was trying to keep me away from the biggest fight we’d ever seen. We’re shorthanded and yet I was being sent home?” I shook my head. “That’s not right. So here I am, ready to go into the viper pit and slay these bitches with you. Now who wants to stop me?”

Silence fell around the group as they looked between themselves, coming to the conclusion that the only way to get me to leave would be to kill me. And since that wasn’t going to happen, I figured I was golden.

The shorter, tubbier man that someone had called Balls erupted into a coughing fit before finally regaining control of his body.

“Well, he’s here now,” he said.

“Yeah, isn’t he just,” Shooter replied, still looking pissed off.

In the distance, I heard the roar of motorcycles and knew that the other bikers had finally caught up to me, and I braced myself for yet another argument.

The bikes pulled into the small clearing we were standing in and Max was diving off the back of Gauge’s bike and striding toward me before Gauge had even pulled the bike to a stop.

“I’m going to kill you!” he yelled.

I believed him too.

Thankfully everyone around us decided that I was needed and stepped in his way. He didn’t take too kindly to that and shoved one of the other bikers, a heavily tattooed dark-haired man, to the ground.

Balls stood in front of me like a sentry and held up his hand.

“Move!” Max barked at him.

“Watch your tone, prospect!” Balls yelled in his face, and though Max continued to glare, he stopped trying to get past him.

Gauge had pulled his bike to a stop and now it was his turn to storm forward, his finger thrust in my direction. “I gave you an order!” he bellowed. “You think you don’t need to listen to me? You don’t need to fall in line like everyone else?”

Highlander was coming up the rear, an ear-splitting smile on his face like he thought the whole thing was funny as shit.

“We have more important things going on right now, brother,” Balls argued, his gaze going between Max and Gauge, who were now both stopped in front of him. Gauge’s eyes narrowed on Balls, a look of exasperation and shock on his face.

“I will knock your fucking teeth out if you don’t move out of my way now,” Gauge bellowed.

I glanced over at Shooter, already feeling his eyes burning into the back of my skull.

“You should control him,” I said sarcastically.

“You should control your mouth before my VP controls it for you, and trust me, I won’t stop him,” he replied.

“I don’t know why you do it to yourself, Mikey,” Aiken sighed heavily. He rolled his shoulders and clapped his hands together loudly. “All right, that’s enough! We’re here to fight the Savages, not each other.”

“That’s still up for discussion,” Gauge snarled, staring directly at me.

“The more people we have here to help, the better. Mikey says you guys killed off the ones at the meet—great. The Rejects men, Linc and Texas, said they would set off a bomb loud enough for us to hear if things went south at the waterfall, and the fact that we haven’t heard diddly or squat means—at least I hope—that things have gone just dandy there. That leaves us with just this place to tear apart.” Aiken took a deep breath and assessed us all. “Mikey, I needed you back at Haven to make sure that place was protected. You’ve gone against my orders and for that there will be consequences, but right now, we all need to focus on the matter at hand—”

“Killing these bitches,” another biker chimed in, and Aiken nodded in agreement.

“Yes, killing these bitches. So let’s put this shit to bed for now and focus on ending this.” He pointed emphatically to the ground between them and I knew exactly what he meant. I’d felt it since I’d stepped off the motorcycle.

There was a thread of evil…of something sinister and dark running through the core of this place. It made the air hard to breathe, like whatever current of evil was in the place had poisoned the air.

“Things are going well,” he continued. “The ball is, as we say, well and truly in our court. Let’s keep it that way.” He pulled another toothpick out of his pocket and shoved it between his teeth before looking us all over carefully, making sure that we were all in agreement.

And we were. Obviously.

Especially me.

“This isn’t over,” Gauge said, reaching around Balls and jabbing me in the chest.

Gauge still looked like he wanted to kill me and so did Shooter, but their hate for the Savages outweighed mine right now. The other bikers, from the way they looked at me, seemed to know me, though I didn’t have a damn clue who they were. The whole thing was weirding me out, but I was determined to get to the bottom of it regardless. No matter what the consequences. But right then, we all seemed to be in agreement that we needed to focus on our enemy: the Savages.

We were all here now to end this. And whatever happened today, no matter who lived and who died, it felt good. Like I had come full circle. This past year I’d spent fearing these women and their cruelty, but now, here, in this place seeded with darkness, my fear was gone and all I felt was the peaceful realization that by the end of today…this would be over. Finally.

33.

Mikey

We crept through the woods that led toward the entrance to the mines, calmness surrounding the group as we all concentrated on being as quiet as church mice and not drawing any attention to ourselves. There were stray deaders stumbling around the place, but someone always headed off and finished them before they’d had chance to gargle out their first “brains,” and on we pressed.

Shooter and Aiken were leading together, though neither man seemed happy about that idea since they were both natural leaders and were used to being in charge, but there was no other way to do this since neither would concede power to the other. I was just damn happy that I was there at all and didn’t care who was supposedly in charge.

Either way, I was going rogue once we got in there and the killing started.

Shooter held up a hand and dropped low and we all did the same, watching as two Savage women crossed the path just in front of us. Four deaders were right behind, trailing after them with reaching arms and snapping teeth. The Savage women didn’t seem to care at all. They glanced over their shoulders every once in a while to make sure that the deaders were still there and following, and then continued onwards.

I looked over to Axe to see what he was thinking. At the moment I didn’t trust any one of these people—Axe even less in some respects—but I at least felt that he wouldn’t bullshit me when it came down to it.

His expression was hard, a deep-set scowl on his rugged face. He was watching the Savage women with a look of pure hatred. He must have sensed that someone was looking at him, because his gaze slid from the women and moved over the group of people, slowly and surely finding its way to me. I nodded at him, one sharp short nod to let him know that whatever he was planning, I wanted in—that I was with him on this—and he nodded back.

The Savages passed by, unaware of us so close by, and the deaders snapping at their heels followed them; like donkeys following carrots, they were unwavering in their desire for their next meal. Once it seemed like things were all clear we started moving again, slower this time, more wary of how close we were to their pit of hell.

We didn’t make it much further before we had to stop again. If it wasn’t for the low growl of deaders—lots of deaders, which echoed from somewhere in front of us—the stench of death hanging in the air would have been a dead giveaway that we were as close as we could get without breaking our cover.

Shooter held up a hand and we all stopped, dropping low to the ground. Up ahead I could make out where the trees had been cleared and a camp had been set up. A couple of small fires were burning at various points throughout the camp, and a spit was set up above the flames of each one, a Savage woman turning the handle every few seconds as the food cooked. My stomach flipped, because I already knew what that food was. I snapped my mouth closed so I didn’t breathe any of it in, wishing I had a scarf that I could cover my face with. Sickness clawed at my throat, and a cold sweat broke out across my skin. Fear traced its icy fingers across the back of my neck and my mouth began to water like I was going to throw up.

Deaders were being herded into a smaller entrance to the left, and I noted the large wooden door that had been made to secure it, and decided that first and foremost that entrance needed to be sealed immediately so we could at least fight the women without worrying about the dead taking a chunk out of us.

Directly across from us were the larger, shadowed entrances of the mines. Each one had been made sturdier by aging wood built to support the entrance’s frame. I’d thought the smell of death and rot had been coming from the body parts cooking over the fires, but it was too strong, too pungent to be just that. I knew it had to be coming from within those mines, and as the realization came to me, long ear-piercing screams came from within the mines. My heart froze in my chest like it had been pierced with a dagger.

The Savage woman closest to us continued to turn her spit-roast, not glancing up in surprise at the screaming, but a small smile lifted the corners of her mouth and I would have sworn she sighed as the screaming grew louder before silencing abruptly.

I dragged a hand down my face, holding it for several seconds over my mouth to stop myself from throwing my guts up. At some point in the past year, despite knowing what I’d seen back in those caves, I’d come to think of the horrors as worse than they really could be. Like they were horrendous and made worse by my imagination, my PTSD, and the echoes of time.

But now I was here.

And this was happening.

The meat over the fire wasn’t just meat, it was an arm. Cooking slowly as it was turned over the flames.

The screams echoing from the mines were from people that were alive in there. People that were being killed as we sat out there and waited to attack.

The scent of death hanging in the air wasn’t just from the deaders those women had herded into the small caves, but were from the death that they had inflicted upon so many people. Each death hung in the air as a reminder of the lives that used to be.

People that used to live, but were now nothing more than food—sacks of body parts to be sold off to the highest bidder.

Shooter turned and looked at us, giving a brief glance to Aiken. A look passed between the two men and it felt like we were all thinking the same thing. This was one cause now, and we had to end this today. Now. No matter the consequences. My fear abated, leaving behind only anger and the need for revenge A lust for their blood and their deaths by my hand.

Shooter reached around and pulled his long hair back from his face, securing it into a ponytail before pulling out a large army knife with a serrated blade and a thick black handle. He cracked his neck from side to side and I glanced around me, noting how everyone else was preparing themselves for battle. Some swiped mud across their cheeks, others tied their hair back, others just retrieved their weapons and prepared themselves mentally. And they’d need to. Because most of these people didn’t have a clue what these women were capable of. Sure, they knew the stories, but they hadn’t lived it. Not like I had. They didn’t know the true horror of these women, these Savages, and they likely wouldn’t until it was too late.

I felt sorry for the naivety because I’d been there once myself. Only this time I was prepared. This time I wasn’t staying with these hellions and waiting to die. This time I was taking Aife’s head and I wasn’t leaving without it.

I pulled out my machete and rolled my shoulders, enjoying the weight of the weapon in my hand. The heat of someone’s gaze on me had me looking up and I saw Aiken staring at me, a worried expression on his face. He nodded and I nodded back, but there was no time to wonder what his expression was about as Shooter stood up and began to walk out of the undergrowth where we were hiding, and we followed.

A group of Grim Reapers ready to kill or be killed, because this had to end. And it had to end now.

The Savage woman turning the spit roast glanced up, her gaze calm and casual until she realized that we weren’t one of her group. That we weren’t flesh-hungry cannibals. Someone, though I wasn’t sure who, fired a wooden arrow and it pierced her between the breasts as she opened her mouth to call for help. She fell backwards, silent, dead, the spit-roasting hand falling from the anchor securing it and falling into the flames below.

We’d been spotted now, and women charged toward us, spears held high. We charged forward, a group of one that split and divided as we faced each one of the monsters head on. I ran toward the smaller mine, to close the entrance and stop the deaders from getting out. I glanced behind me as I heard feet pounding the earth, and noted that a heavily tattooed, dark-haired biker was following me.

We stopped outside the mine, the scent of deaders coming from within so strong it made me feel sick. We each grabbed the heavy wooden door and began dragging it across the entrance. A makeshift lock was on either side, and we latched the thing closed.

“Thanks,” I grunted, and then we were back off, heading into the foray in front of us. Bodies were falling and fighting. Weapons raised from each side. Spears and knives and daggers flew toward each other and the scent of blood began to fill the air.

“I remember you,” a voice came from behind me and I turned just in time to duck away from a spear that was aimed at the back of my head.

I glanced up, seeing a leather-clad woman with long hair tied in a braid down one side. “Can’t say that you stir anything up in me other than a sicky feeling like I’ve drank bad milk,” I replied. I stood up straighter and ducked out of the way of the spear again.

“You were Aife’s pet,” she cackled, her eyes glowing with hatred for me.

“Ohhhh, her,” I said, snapping my fingers. “Yeah, I remember her. Still drawing a blank on you though. I mean, you’re just one of many, right? Just another body for the firepit if you die, right?”

A bitter smile rose on her face. “I’m going to enjoy killing you.”

“I’m going to enjoy you trying to kill me.” I gestured for her to come closer. “By the way, where is Aife?” I asked.

Her smile grew bigger. “Don’t you worry about her.” She pulled a knife from a sheath at her side, and we moved in a circle around one another for a moment before I saw my moment and threw my machete across at her. It hit her in the forehead, and for a moment she just stood there like she didn’t know what had just happened. Then she released her weapons and her hands grasped at the machete now embedded in her head for a second before she dropped to the ground.

I stepped closer, picking up her knife and sliding it into the machete holder strapped to my leg before reaching down and grabbing the machete in her forehead and pulling with both hands. Blood bubbled up around the weapon as it came out with a loud sucking sound. My hands were splattered with blood now, but the sight of it drove me on. I picked up her spear, turning quickly as I heard footsteps behind me, and spearing a Savage woman through the stomach as she ran straight into it. I let go of the spear and stepped away quickly, heading toward another woman who was fighting with Axe.

I came up behind her, and using both hands I raised the machete above my head and slammed it down into the back of her skull, spattering my face with her crimson blood.

“Yeah!” Axe cheered. “That’s what I’m talking about!”

“You owe me one,” I grunted as I put my foot on the Savage’s back. Her body was still twitching as I gripped my machete in both hands and pulled it out of her head. Axe swung out with his heavy axe and smashed it into the face of another woman that was aiming her spear at me, and he laughed heartily when I flinched.

“And now we’re equal.” He grinned, like this was the best thing he’d ever done in his life. “Let’s buddy up and dismember these sickos together. I’m hungry to tear them apart.” He held out a hand for me to shake, and I stared down at it.

I wanted to feel disgust and sickness, but all I felt was sweet relief that I didn’t need to do this alone. As another woman was slain, her body falling to the earth and the soil absorbing her blood like a sponge, I shook Axe’s hand.

We turned to choose our next victim, watching as Shooter held tightly to a Savage woman as Gauge slit her throat, blood spilling down her front. He dropped her body, and as her hands clasped her throat to stem the blood flow Gauge raised his foot over her head, pressing it into the ground. She probably would have screamed if it weren’t for the hole in her throat. I looked away, turning my attention to Aiken as he ran toward two women that had been with our group who were fighting a Savage woman. The Savage was outnumbered, but she was strong—much stronger than both of those women.

She reached for the first woman, a shorter woman with a shiny black head of hair, as the other woman did some awesome kung fu kick against her. It was all a little too late though, as the Savage woman gripped the sides of the shorter woman’s neck and snapped it in one quick movement. She dropped the body to the ground and grinned at the other woman, showing teeth that had been filed to be sharp and cat-like.

The other woman cried out and lashed out with her fists instead of her blades, and the Savage woman grabbed her. I wanted to run over and do something, but Aiken had just gotten there and it was already too late as her neck was snapped alongside her friend’s.

Aiken had a sharp blade in each hand and he spun them around, his gaze fearsome. The Savage woman didn’t look bothered by his weapons or his strength, though, and the fear that had vanished slowly began to ebb back in. Axe patted me on the shoulder and I turned away from the brutal fight between Aiken and the Savage woman to look at him.

“This way,” he grunted, gesturing with his head toward the mines.

I followed him, leaving Aiken to fight his battle alone.

34.

Mikey

We ran for the entrance to the mines, diving inside and narrowly missing being hit with a flying spear. Inside it was dark, the scent of death like poison. It reminded me of the caves all those months ago, and I had to force myself not to turn and run, and instead face whatever lay in there.

The air was hot and stuffy like thick sludge that was hard to swallow. The walls were made of compacted earth and stabilized by wooden frames every couple of feet. A string of aged light bulbs were pinned along one wall but were no more use than any other electrical item now, so the Savages had pinned lit torches along the wall every few feet, meaning that there was also smoke to contend with. The passages were narrow and the air grew thicker as we crept deeper inside, the cries from outside and inside mingling until it was just one long chorus of pain.

Dark patches stained the ground, and I tried not to think about what they might be or where they had come from. I could already feel my pulse quickening, the stress of panic and anxiety building within me as the all too familiar setting chilled me to the bone.

A sudden and ear-splitting scream sounded out, followed by a long moan. I stopped and staggered to one side, as if the moan had been a punch to the gut. Axe turned to watch me, a scowl on his face that looked even more fearsome because of the shadows that curved traced across his features.

“You good?” he asked, his gaze flicking left and right to make sure no one was creeping up on us.

Another wail of pain sounded out and then I was deafened by my own blood pulsing through my ears, the rapid throb and pulse of my heartbeat over and over and over. I swallowed, knowing I needed to get myself together, but every time I tried to stand I felt dizzy and sick, the world spinning.

Axe shook his head, looking pissed off. He pointed the way we had just come. “Get out of here, leave me to handle this.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m okay, I’ve got this,” I said, my words practically a slur as I tried not to puke. The scent of decaying meat was so heavy that I could taste it.

“Nah, you’re done,” he replied, his voice filled with gravel.

I watched as the shadows behind him grew darker, the edges of my vision blackening as I struggled to get air into my lungs. The screams continued, the scent of death and dying, of rotting fat and decaying bones heavy in the air. It was too much. It was all too

Goddamn much.

Get a grip.

I gagged and retched on bile. The shadows deepened behind Axe and I gasped, desperate for air in my lungs. The image of Aife flashed behind my eyes when I closed then. The teeth, the leather, Drag’s last words hanging heavy in my heart.

Pull yourself together.

The ache of fear and the tremor of terror gripped my muscles, freezing them in place. The more I tried to fight it, the worse it got. Like every other panic attack I’d ever had, I had to let this pass.

Breathe. Just breathe.

I had to accept this for what it was and then I’d be okay. I’d get through this. I had to. Because I hadn’t come this far just to come this far, and Aife couldn’t get away with what she’d done. She had to pay.

Make her pay. Make them all pay.

Drag’s voice sung out in my head and my throat opened up, air finally sucking down into it. I closed my eyes, taking long breaths of the stale, vile air. I hated it—the taste on my tongue, the screams in my ears—but instead of fearing it, I let it fuel me, pushing me on for vengeance. I opened my eyes and the corner of Axe’s mouth quirked up in a smirk.

I pushed away from the wall quickly, shoving him to one side as a spear skimmed past us both and drove into the wall opposite. He spun in surprise and I lifted my machete and gave out a war cry, the decaying air filtering into my lungs and driving me onwards as I slammed my machete through the head of a Savage woman.

She fell to the ground, her blood splattering my face. I gagged on the taste of her blood in my mouth, spitting the vile taste onto the dusty floor at my feet. I clasped my knees and forced myself to calm the hell down before I got myself killed. Axe slapped me on the back.

“That’s one to you,” he grunted, and I looked up and let out a dry laugh and he smirked. “Come on. I know what you’ve been through, but you can’t let it control you. You have to control it or you’re already dead, Mikey.”

He was right and I knew it, and I forced the air in and out of my mouth, ignoring the taste on my tongue and the sounds that filtered in from side pathways, and when I felt more under control of myself, I stood up and nodded.

“Come on then,” I replied, my voice hoarse.

We followed the sounds of screaming and moaning. The closer we got, the more terrified I felt and I wondered if I should have just let Axe blow the place up instead of trying to kill them all. They’d die down there eventually anyway, right? So why was I really putting myself through this madness?

Did I really need revenge to get closure this much?

The sounds were loud now, too loud, and I knew it was only beyond the last corner that we would find the true nightmare. Outside of the mine was a war, but inside was hell, and Axe and I were deep in the depths of it now.

I glanced at him, but he was completely fixated on the dark corner only a few steps away. Veins popped in his neck and forehead, his jaw muscles tensing as he ground his teeth together repeatedly.

“Let’s do it,” I said as a cry of pain echoed toward us.

We followed the noise, passing around the corner and entering into a large area that had been carved out to serve as a chamber of sorts. The shadows had swallowed the edges of the chamber whole and we were currently invisible, leaving us precious moments to soak up the nightmare before us.

Only I wished we didn’t have those moments.

I wished that we had blown the place up and never gone inside.

I wished that I had never gone back there at all, and that I had just gone back to Haven with Kelli and Freddy, because this…this was worse than hell.

Men and women were strung up by their arms and legs, swinging from wooden structures that held them there. There seemed like hundreds of them, but on closer inspection there couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen. Still, that was enough. Beneath each of them were deep puddles where their blood had soaked into the earth.

There were plenty of Savages dotted about the room: some carving the flesh from already dead bodies, others cleaning bones over buckets, others hanging the flesh onto stretching racks to dry.

I gagged as a Savage woman gripped hold of a woman by her hips and carved a chunk out of her ass cheek. The woman screamed so loud I thought my eardrums would pop. She begged and pleaded for her to stop, but the Savage continued, unmoved by the pain she was causing.

She held up the flap of fat and muscle for another Savage to see. “Rump steak,” she cackled, and the other Savage laughed with her.

The woman was still crying, her blood trailing down her body as she swung around on the wooden structure. The other Savage had a large filleting knife and she dug the tip of it into the man hanging on front of her. He screamed as she expertly filleted the skin off his thigh, rotating his body as she stripped away the flesh to reveal his bloody muscle beneath.

Once done, she slapped the large strip of skin into a bucket and raised an eyebrow at her friend, who clapped approvingly.

“Touché,” she replied, sounding proud of herself instead of sick to her stomach like any normal person would be. It was like watching a Saw movie, only it was real. These people weren’t actors and actresses. They were real people who had already gone through hell, and had somehow ended up there…slowly being butchered while those sick bitches laughed about it. My stomach turned and flipped, nausea and anger fighting for dominance.

The Savage woman turned to the injured woman in front of her, trailing the tip of her knife up her stomach and between her breasts as she pondered her next move. A thin trail of blood was left in the knife’s wake, a red line like a glowing arrow up the woman’s naked torso.

“What about…” she said thoughtfully, tapping the tip of her knife against the woman’s soft breasts.

“I can’t watch this anymore,” I whispered. The rage inside me was an inferno and I couldn’t control it any longer. Axe looked anxiously back to the way we had just come, and I wasn’t sure if he was thinking of bolting or just wishing we’d brought other people in there with us, but it didn’t matter to me. I was doing this now, with or without him.

I lifted my machete and stalked forward out of the shadows. No one noticed me at first, and then, as the woman that was slowly bleeding to death spun in a circle noticed me, she let out a sob of relief.

Her eyes squeezed closed, her face contorting in pain and relief. “Oh thank God,” she sobbed loudly.

The Savage woman looked up sharply, her gaze finding me immediately, and without hesitation she ran toward me, her bloody knife in hand as she screamed, fury filling her features. I swung down hard with my machete and it skimmed off her back. She screamed again, fresh blood bursting from the injury. It wasn’t enough to stop her, though, as she turned and ran back toward me, looking even more furious.

The other Savages had spotted me by then and they came running over, their spears and knives raised as they dodged between the living and the dead dangling from the ceiling. The same look of hate was on their faces. The same expression of evil. Axe stepped beside me as the first Savage woman came at me again and I stabbed her deep in the side, feeling my machete blade tear through her flesh. She called out in pain and fell to the floor. As she tried to stand up, Axe swung his axe down onto the top of her head, crushing it instantly, the sound of bone and brain crushing loud enough to hear over the top of the screaming Savages.

Axe and I faced away from one another, but kept our backs pressed together as the Savages surrounded us like a pack of wild dogs. They looked hungry and bloodthirsty as they dove their spears in at us, some hitting, others not. Either way, we were surrounded and outnumbered. Essentially we were fucked. It seemed cruel to have let me get that far—to be so close to stubbing out those animals for me to just die. Memories of Clare and Tim’s candy store. Of Ricky carved up and dying in the bathtub. Of Butcher with an arm missing and chunks cut out of him. Of all the people those sickos had tortured and killed. Traded like cattle. It all flooded me like a tsunami until the images in my mind felt like they were going to drive me insane.

“My pet.” Aife’s familiar voice filled the tomb-like room and I almost crumpled to the ground at the sound of it. “I’ve missed you,” she said, her voice coming closer.

I looked around, trying to see between the faces that surrounded us, but the shadows were too dark and my panic too wild. The shadows seemed deeper, darker, thicker somehow, like they had tentacles that were reaching out to slowly strangle the life out of me.

Bodies still swung lifelessly in the background. Those still alive had already given up and wanted it to be over. They craved the death that the Savages were giving, but they wanted it quick and abrupt. Over in the blink of an eye.

“Can’t say I’ve missed you,” I replied, my voice sounding stronger than I felt. “In fact, it would have been better if I never saw you ever again.”

“Tut tut. You hurt my feelings, pet,” she said before laughing loudly. The Savages around us laughed too, each laugh nails on a blackboard.

“You know what you’re doing?” Axe said, elbowing me in the ribs.

“Nope,” I replied, because I didn’t. I had no idea what to do next. Or how to get us out of this. As far as I could see, there was no way out.

“Okay, keep it up then because I’m out of ideas too.” He swung his axe at a spear that got too close to him, smashing the end of it off, and a Savage dove close, snapping her teeth at him like a dog. “Fucking bitch,” he grunted, swinging his axe at her and missing.

“Have you come back to play with me?” Aife asked, her voice in front of me, beside me, behind me. She was everywhere. Just like she’d been for the past year. She was the stuff of nightmares.

I looked left and right, trying to find her. Trying to pin her down as my terror rose inside of me and I tried in vain to push it back down. The panic I’d felt when things got too much was back, and it was swelling like the ocean, ready to pull me under and drown me. And all I could think was please make it quick.

“I’ve come to kill you, if that’s what you mean,” I barked out, my voice cracking on the last word as I choked on my panic.

Aife cackled and clapped her hands. “So you have come to play!”

“Brother, we need to do something,” Axe grunted behind me, and I heard the smash and crack of another spear.

“Yes, let’s do something!” Aife said, the Savages in front of me finally parting and allowing me full view of her.

She was just like I remembered: tall, thin, long hair, leather clothes, and a look in her eye that would scare the Devil. She smiled, a wide, thin smile that split her face and transformed her from Devil to monster. It was like she was morphing in front of me, turning from a demon to something inexplicable. I knew deep down that it was in my head. That she was just a woman. Just a woman with a sick appetite for flesh and bone and pain. But the war in my heart and my head was raging, because I only saw the monster. I only saw the way her tongue slipped out between her sharp, pointy teeth. A viper’s tongue whipping back and forth, a fork at the end as she hissed. Her eyes narrowed to slits, the red glow of her pupils. Her claw-like fingers, with nails as long as knives, reaching for me.

I groaned, my heart throbbing in my chest hard enough to make me think I might have been having a damn heart attack. My grip slipped on my machete, weakening fingers loose around the handle as I bent at the waist, head dipped even as I tried to hold her gaze, too terrified to look away from her.

“Mikey, man, what the fuck…” Axe bellowed. “Stand the fuck up and end this bitch,” he ordered.

But I was done.

I was gone.

The fear.

The pain.

The panic.

The loss and the love and everything in between.

I was done for, and Aife knew it.

“Mikey, goddamn it!” Axe yelled, his stern voice reverberating off the hellish walls of the mine.

I couldn’t hear him anymore. I couldn’t listen. The scent of death clung to my skin, sinking in beneath my flesh as it bored itself inside of me like a maggot finding its way through rotted fruit. And that was exactly what I was: I was rotted fruit. I was liquidizing and turning putrid, my heart empty of love and filled with only despair.

Aife stepped closer, her wide smile growing wider as my machete fell from my limp hand and clanged loudly on the floor at my feet. I bent lower, desperate for air in my lungs, which now felt like two shriveled-up prunes in my chest.

A hand reached out and cupped around the bottom of my chin as I felt the heat of Axe’s body leave mine. I heard him grunting as he fought. The clash of weapons. The snap of bones. Blood pooling at my feet. Screams and cries. Angry and vicious.

I was going to die now, here in this hellhole. This pit of despair.

I was going to be devoured. Eaten, piece by piece. Torn apart by pointed teeth and clawed hands. Parts of me traded off to others. My bones boiled. My skin flayed.

It was time.

And the thing that struck me the most was that it had all been for nothing.

The loves and the losses.

The sacrifices… It was all for nothing.

Aife tilted my face up to her, and I focused in on her face.

I was sure at one time she was a beautiful woman. Proportioned features sat in porcelain skin with clear eyes. Plump pink lips, high cheekbones, a button nose. Yeah, Aife would have been a knockout at one time, but not anymore. Now she was evil incarnate. A writhing sack of cruelty that lived and breathed pain and destruction.

“I think we’ll keep you alive for a little longer than your friends,” she said, her words smooth as silk, like she wasn’t talking about my life. “I still haven’t had chance to play with you properly.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “Oh, how I’ve thought about you, pet.” She opened her eyes and smiled again.

I squeezed my eyes closed, breathing in and out and trying to ignore everything that was going on around me. The cries of pain, the sound of dying, the taste of blood in the air. The scent of evil so close that it was scorching my skin like acid.

“We’ll have fun, you and I, pet. Just like I had with your other friend all that time ago,” she crooned.

Drag… His image flashed in my mind. He’d been strong to the end. He’d never given up, and look where that had gotten him.

“He was fun, if not a little annoying.” Her smile fell at the memory of Drag.

Drag… He’d ordered me to make them pay.

“Aife…” I said her name, the single word a grasp for life on my dry lips.

“Yes, pet?” Her nails dug into the skin n my chin.

“Drag says fuck you.” I pulled out the knife from its sheath at my waist and reared back with it, stabbing it into her belly in one deep thrust. I felt the serrated blade slice through skin and muscle, flesh and bone, fat and blood, and then I retracted it, pulling it back out sharply before plunging it back into her.

Aife called out and attempted to stagger back away from me, but I stood upright, gripping her with my left hand and pulling her closer and stabbing her again. My knife dove into her body repeatedly. Her stomach, her chest, her heart…they all found the end of my blade, and with each stab she grunted in pain, blood spluttering from between her lips as I watched the light die in her eyes.

35.

Mikey

I released Aife, letting her body fall to the ground, surrounded by a pool of blood, her eyes staring up at me hatefully.

And then the world went mad.

The other Savages screamed and turned their attention from Axe to me. Knives and spears attacking us. From somewhere up above the earth shook with the sounds of an explosion. I thought of Aiken’s words, that the other group would let off an explosion if things were going to shit, and I knew that was exactly what was happening.

Things were going to shit.

But Aife was dead, burning in hell. It couldn’t end like this, damn it.

I turned and spun, my leg kicking out at a Savage woman that got too close to me. She staggered backwards as I dove forward, attacking her before she had chance to right herself. I’d picked my machete back up and I swung it, slicing at her neck, which made her head fall to the side with a long arc of blood. Axe moved in front of me, fighting two Savages at once, and then I saw another biker, and another, and another, and I knew the others had found us.

We all fought each Savage woman until the last of them fell. Blood and death and screams of pain echoed all around us as they fell to the dirty ground. It sounded like there was a stampede above us, the constant drone of feet marching across the ground as an army moved across the land, but I couldn’t think about that now, or worry about what was happening up there. Because right here, right now, we were winning.

More bodies fell and I stepped over a man on the floor, noting the kid whose bike I’d stolen earlier and the now empty look on his young face. Max, he was Max. He had a name. He’d lived and he’d fought and we’d win because of his sacrifice. I swung out with my machete, slashing it into the side of a Savage woman with short hair and a long scar down her face. She screamed but kept on coming, relentless in her pursuit of killing me. Like a machine possessed, she attacked and attacked, fueled by her hatred.

Balls came up behind her and grabbed her head, slicing a long thin knife along her throat, and an arc of blood flew out of the now gaping hole as he released her body and let it fall to the ground at his feet.

I was breathless and bloody, my shoulders aching as I dodged between the bodies hanging from the ceiling to avoid being speared. The spear missed me, instead ramming itself into the thigh of a man hanging there. He roared in pain, piss trailing down his leg as he spun in a slow circle. She reared back to spear me again, and this time I lashed out with my machete, my blade slamming into the wooden pole and lodging there. I pulled her close in one movement and rammed my knife up through the bottom of her jaw and into her skull. Her eyes bulged and then faded to empty.

I yanked my knife back out, a gush of blood exiting her head at the same time, and I dropped her body to the ground. My machete was still stuck in the pole and I gripped it tightly and pulled it free. When I stood back up I saw a room of hanging bodies, of corpses on the ground and bikers standing over the bodies and plunging weapons into the skulls to stop them from reanimating, and I knew it was over.

We moved through the room, taking in the people hanging from the ceiling. Most were already dead, or so close to death that they could touch it, and we ended them swiftly, putting them out of their misery. The ones that were still alive begged for death. They wanted the mercy of something other than this cruel, bleak world. They wanted their journey over with.

No matter what came next for them, whether it be heaven or hell or nothing at all. They wanted it, and I couldn’t blame them at all. We pulled them down from their binds and laid them on the dirty ground, asking them to close their eyes as we plunged knives into the backs of their skulls and ended their pain for them.

It was a mercy, I knew it, yet it felt anything but good.

When it was done, the evil and the pure dead on their way to the place after living, I stood up and looked around, feeling a mixture of relief and agony.

We’d done it.

We’d won.

The Savages were gone.

Aife was gone.

And I hoped that the nightmares would be gone now too.

*

Nina

I stepped back from Timbo’s body, feeling empty. I wanted to feel something for the man he had been, but I didn’t know him well enough to feel anything other than a flicker of sadness at the death of another human at the hands of the Savages.

SJ was crying and we stood back to give her a moment with him. The job was far from done and there wasn’t much time left to do it. Things had been set in motion and we needed to hurry up before the plan fell apart. Right now we had the advantage, but for how long was anyone’s guess.

I looked around us, taking in the death and devastation, noting the pit of flaming zombies. They still writhed wildly, but they wouldn’t last much longer. They were trapped in a pit and the flames would eventually reach their brains and kill them once and for all.

Gunner and Nitro were rounding up stray deaders that had come close and were either killing them outright or pushing them into the pit. I watched as Nitro high-fived Gunner and smiled. He looked pleased to have finally helped, to have finally done something worthwhile. He was still following orders, but at least now he was on the right side of those orders. I felt a deep sadness for him and for everything that he had gone through. He’d warred for so long, moving from group to group just to find his place, and maybe now he had.

As I thought this I watched as Gunner slapped him on the back, a smile on his face as he pulled Nitro close. Nitro’s face contorted from happiness to pain, his mouth falling open in a silent plea, his eyebrows raising. My expression hardened as I focused in on them, watching as Gunner’s arm moved back and forth repeatedly, stabbing Nitro over and over, his own smile now long gone. He finally released Nitro and placed both hands on his chest as he shoved him into the flaming pit of deaders behind him and I gasped, my hand flying to my mouth.

I staggered backwards, panic and fear swelling inside me as Gunner threw his knife into the pit and then looked up, his gaze moving to me and noting that I’d seen him. I’d known Gunner for over a year and I’d never seen that side of him, though Shooter and others had tried to warn me that he wasn’t a quiet, calm man. That he’d been a monster before Shooter had taken him under his wing. I saw it now. I saw that monster inside of him. The beast that wanted to get out, that he kept so tightly wrapped up and locked away.

I looked around me, but no one else had seen what had just happened. No one else knew, and I felt the heavy weight of that burden rest in my heart and soul. It was another dark secret. Another thing to add to my catalogue of horrors.

Gunner stalked toward me, blood and zombie gore splattered across the front of him, and I staggered back a step, bumping into Linc.

“Hey, you okay?” Linc asked, and I turned to him, my eyes wide and panicked, no doubt. “Nina? What’s up, what’s going on?”

I felt Gunner behind me.

I felt his dark presence leaching into my skin and I pushed past Linc and toward Battle, who was the furthest away. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do; I just knew I needed to get away from him.

“Nitro’s gone,” I heard Gunner say from behind me, and I snorted out a dark laugh. “Meat sacks got him. I tried to help, but…”

“It’s not your fault,” I heard a female voice say. It could have been Anne or Lois one of the women I’d helped liberate all those many months ago, and for some reason that made me stop running and turn back around.

I was stopped in my tracks, unsure of what to do or where to go. I wanted to be as far away from Gunner as possible, but I wouldn’t allow him to hurt any more of these people. Nitro might have made mistakes, but he’d had a good heart. He’d wanted to do good, even if his actions hadn’t always relayed that.

Gunner stared at me and I stared right back, my fear ebbing away like the tide and leaving behind a shore full of anger.

“Come on, we need to go help the others at the mines. It should be just through the trees,” Battle said, standing back up. He brushed his bloody hands down his dirty jeans and glanced down once more at Timbo’s body.

SJ smoothed her hand over Timbo’s face, closing his eyes, and she stood up too. She looked around at us all, her face tear-stained and grief-stricken.

“I’ll lead,” O’Donnell said, and began jogging toward the tree line opposite where we had come out.

We all followed, and I made sure to keep my distance from Gunner, still fearful of him but unsure of what to do with the information. He moved closer to me as we pressed through the trees, the heat of the day and the anxiety lancing through our muscles making it harder.

“Nina,” he grunted my name.

“Not now,” I replied coldly without looking.

“It’s not what you think,” he said, his voice quiet.

I tsked and gave him a scathing look. “It is exactly what I think,” I gritted out, and moved closer to Linc so Gunner wouldn’t try to talk to me anymore.

I would have to tell Shooter, I knew that, but I didn’t want to. Thoughts of Amara and their daughter Indigo pushed through my thoughts. Shooter would have Gunner killed immediately, no doubt, and then Indigo would have no father, Amara no partner. I would be destroying their happiness. But I had to tell, didn’t I? Gunner was clearly unstable still. Clearly a danger to everyone.

We’d been jogging through the woods for ten minutes when we noticed the break in the trees and we cut through them and out into the open. I was relieved to finally be free of the close confines of the sticky air that the forest offered. Even happier to see a scatter of dead Savages on the ground.

I could see the main entrance to the mines, and to the left of it was a smaller entrance. From the smaller entrance I could see movement behind the slatted wooden door that had been put there, the scratch and growl of deaders behind it hungry to be set free.

“No, Rachel!” Anne cried as she ran forward to where Rachel’s body lay on the ground. She was next to Bianco, another of the women I’d helped train at one point, and I felt grief stick me like a pin.

“That’s it,” Battle said, looking around us. “Can’t see any of the others.”

I knew he was assessing for casualties and trying to work out how many people we’d lost and how it had all played out. It was important, I got that, but it was also callous right now and I had the sudden urge to punch him in his nose. Lucky for him, O’Donnell shoved him in the side.

“Asshole!” she said, her tone cutting.

“Two is better than all of them,” he grunted.

“Yes, but how would you feel if those two were your friends?” She shook her head at him in disgust and then we all turned abruptly at the sound of shouting coming from in the trees.

“That’s Aiken!” O’Donnell cried out, and set off running in the direction of the shouting.

We followed immediately, finding Aiken a few feet away, sitting on the ground with his back propped against a tree as he fought off two deaders using a long spear. O’Donnell swung with her sword, taking the head off the first one. The other one turned to her, seeing her as easier prey, and she removed that one’s head just as quickly.

O’Donnell dropped beside Aiken, her hands going to his shoulder where a slow trickle of blood was coming from.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Bite?” Battle asked, and Aiken shook his head.

“Spear,” Aiken grunted.

“Oh thank God,” O’Donnell said, sounding relieved.

Battle dropped beside Aiken and pulled out a small medi kit. He opened it up and pulled out some cleaning solution and a bandage as O’Donnell helped Aiken out of his jacket.

“Savages.” Aiken winced. “Thought we had them but then another group appeared from goddamn nowhere.” He winced again as Battle squeezed the solution onto the wound. “Fight got caught up in the forest and I got separated from the rest.”

SJ looked around us. “The others, they’re out here?”

“Yeah, last I saw of them. Aimee was with me for a while but then she took off after two Savages.” He called out as Battle wrapped the bandage around the wound tightly.

“Shooter?” Battle asked, and I felt a pang of guilt because I hadn’t even thought about Shooter.

“Not sure. A couple of your guys took off into the trees though. He’s probably with them.” Aiken squeezed his eyes closed as Battle tied off the bandage.

Battle stood up, and he and O’Donnell helped Aiken back to his feet. “Can you still fight?” he asked Aiken, who rolled his shoulder tentatively and nodded. “I need to go find Shooter.” He glanced around him. “Gunner, Texas, you’re with me. Linc, O’Donnell, you two stay with Aiken.”

“And us?” I asked, gesturing to SJ, Anne, Lois, and me. I narrowed my eyes, knowing that he saw us as weak. I only had one arm and he’d seen each of the other women cry in the last thirty minutes—therefore we were no good to him. I hated him in that moment. Knowing that crying wasn’t a weakness in any way, and neither was me losing my arm. I was stronger than I’d ever been before. I’d been broken before, not because I’d lost my arm—I realized now—but because I was heartbroken. “Never mind, we’ll figure it out.”

I turned and headed back to the clearing, Anne and Lois hot on my heels. SJ had followed the others into the trees. I already knew that I was going into those mines. That was definitely where the Savages would have gone to hide, and I was going to hunt them out and kill each and every one of them and prove to Battle that I wasn’t weak and useless.

36.

Nina

The mines stank like death and betrayal. These women had betrayed their own kind. They’d turned against humans and sided with the deaders, haunted by the desire for food at any cost. The flesh of mankind only a meal to them and not a loved one.

As we sank deeper into the depths, the air grew stuffier, the stench of rot growing stronger with every step I took. Bodies lay scattered on the ground at our feet, and I was more than happy to see that they were all Savages until we came across a prone body, the patch of the Highwaymen on his leather cut.

I bent low, turning the body over, my head and heart filled with sadness and dread. It was Sketch, the nomad that had come down from the mountains to help us. I stood up, fighting tears as I wondered how many more people we would lose because of these sick, hateful bitches.

Up ahead I heard talking, and the three of us moved quickly through the tunnels. We turned a corner, coming into a dimly lit room that opened up the further in you went. Bodies hung suspended from the ceiling and blood layered the floor like a crimson carpet.

I gagged at the smell and covered my mouth as my eyes adjusted to the scene before me.

It was Mikey.

He was standing with Axe, the asshole biker that I’d grown fond of over the course of a year. Savage bodies lay all around him and I recognized the bloody battle he’d just been through, the anger and grief on his handsome features as he held his machete high, ready to kill or be killed.

“You’ve been a stain on my life for long enough,” Shooter growled at Mikey, and I shook my head, willing Shooter not to be doing what I thought he was.

“I don’t even know you,” Mikey yelled. “If it’s about the bike, I’m sorry. I didn’t leave the kid abandoned though, I knew he’d be able to catch a lift.”

“It’s not about the fuckin’ bike,” Shooter snarled.

“Prez, think about this,” Gauge said, and I was grateful that he was at least trying to stop this madness.

“Fall in line or fuck off, Gauge!” Shooter snapped.

“Gauge is right, Shooter,” Balls said, looking around uncertainly. “This ain’t right. We’ve got more important things to be killing right now. Mikey’s on our side.”

Shooter laughed darkly. “This fucker isn’t on my side.”

Mikey looked between the four men in front of him, looking confused as hell, and I knew that this was my fault. I had caused this. I had created this. I hadn’t given myself over fully to Shooter, and now Mikey was going to pay for it. I’d dangled a carrot in front of Shooter for over a year with the promise of me being his, but he’d known all along that while Mikey was alive I would never be able to let go. He knew I still loved Mikey and always would, and he was prepared to kill him because of it.

“And you,” Shooter said, pointing at Axe, “you knew what could happen if you brought him here!”

Axe grinned. “Hey, I’m on your side, Prez!” he said bitterly. “We’re all on the same team. We’re all Highwaymen now, right?”

“You little bastard!” Balls roared, and raised his weapon before taking a step forward. “After everything we’ve done for the Rejects. For you!”

“For me? You took my club from under me. You thought I was going to go quietly?” Axe laughed loudly, sidestepping Balls’s weapon.

“Balls, no!” Shooter called, but it was too late. Axe raised his weapon and Balls’s long knife clashed against the metal, snapping abruptly. Axe followed through with the knife, swinging on an upstroke into the side of Balls’s face.

Balls grunted and fell to the ground, his hand clutching his face with both hands as he cried out. Gauge stepped forward, rolling his shoulders, and swung his large hammer at Axe, who blocked it with his axe. It was all happening so quickly. A flash of metal, the clang of weapons and the grunt of exertion followed so quickly by the cry of pain.

Lois had left my side, and when I glanced back at her she had both hands over her mouth as she continued to back up, further down the dingy hallway.

“I’m sorry, I can’t…” she said.

I nudged Anne and gestured for her to follow Lois. No one should be alone in those deathly hallways. Lois turned and started to run, and Anne followed her with a last regretful glance at me.

I turned back to the room, watching as Gauge pushed his knife through the side of Balls’s head, silencing him forever and stopping him from reanimating. Axe was already dead on the ground.

I felt sick and horrified by Shooter. Two men had just died because of him. Because of his lust to kill Mikey. To stop me from pining after the man I couldn’t have. It was madness.

I bit my lower lip and swallowed. There was no choice now. Shooter had pushed my hand and I had to go out there. I had to let Mikey see me. I was terrified by what Mikey’s reaction to me would be, but there really was no choice now. There was no way on earth I was going to let Shooter hurt Mikey. I’d die first.

I stepped out into the room, coming from the shadows and moving closer to them all. Mikey’s gaze was fixed on Shooter, his face harder than I remembered, the lines around his eyes and mouth more defined. He looked broader, maybe even taller, though I knew that was impossible. He was the man I remembered and yet he was so much more too.

“Shooter…no,” I said, my voice softer than I intended.

Neither man heard me at first, both of their gazes locked in a battle for power, but then Gauge saw me, patting Shooter on the shoulder, and as Shooter’s gaze left Mikey and moved to me, he knew he’d lost me for good.

I watched as despair swarmed his features. His dread of what would happen next. His grief at losing me. His anger at his own mistake.

Mikey followed Shooter’s gaze, landing on me seconds later, his expression confused, then angry, and then relief flooded his features.

“Nina?” He whispered my name and I nodded.

I watched the slow bob of his Adam’s apple move in his throat as he tried to comprehend what was happening. I wanted to smile. To reassure him that he wasn’t crazy, that I was there, alive.

When I’d seen him half dead, staggering along the road with that deader chasing after him…when he’d gone to O’Donnell and not me, I’d thought he’d chosen her. I’d thought he’d seen me and had made his decision, and Shooter had encouraged that belief. But a year had passed, and I’d examined that moment hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. I knew now, Mikey hadn’t seen me. He hadn’t chosen one woman over another. He’d chosen O’Donnell because he didn’t know that I was an option. I’d let him believe that because I’d figured that I was broken and worthless. Unsure if I was going to live beyond the week because of my injury. I’d left him to be happy with her, believing that was what was best for him, and I’d let myself be miserable without him, growing angrier and sadder each day at his loss. At my loss.

And I would have continued that way if it would have meant he was happy and safe. But life had thrown me a curve ball, and maybe this was my second chance. Maybe this was life telling me to give Mikey a real chance to choose. Me or O’Donnell—now he really could make his own choice, and I would live with the consequences.

Mikey moved to come to me but Gauge stepped in his way and Mikey looked up at him sharply, his expression going from confusion and wonder to anger in a heartbeat. He swung out with his machete and Gauge raised his hammer to block the machete. The metal clang echoed around the room loudly and I winced.

“Move!” Mikey ordered Gauge, shoving him back, his machete pressed against the handle of Gauge’s hammer. “I said move!” he bellowed, growing frantic at his need to get to me.

“Prez!” Gauge yelled at Shooter, but Shooter was glaring at me, his love and his hatred colliding in a frenzy of emotions. “Prez!”

Shooter nodded at Backtrack and gestured for him to come to me, and I knew right away he was going to drag me out of there. Take me away from Mikey so I didn’t have to watch them kill him. Because if Shooter couldn’t have me then no one could, right?

“Don’t do this, Backtrack,” I pleaded, watching as Gauge and Mikey continued to fight, Mikey growing even more frantic as he watched Backtrack coming toward me. “Shooter, stop this!” I pleaded.

Backtrack at least looked guilty as he lunged for me. I ducked under his arm and swung back to kick him in the bottom of his spine. He called out in pain and turned back to me and I swung my machete at him, stopping an inch before his face. He froze and I froze, both of us knowing how easy it would have been to kill him. Backtrack’s eyes went wide and he held up his hands and turned and stormed toward Gauge and Mikey.

“Gauge, stop this,” I yelled at him as I grabbed his arm with my one hand and tried to avoid stabbing him with the weapon attached to my other. “Please, I’m begging you.”

Gauge reared back and shoved me off of him and I flew backwards, landing on the bloody ground. I fumbled to get up, my hand touching body parts and gore. Mikey raised his arm and punched Gauge right in the face, his fist colliding with Gauge’s nose. I heard the crunch of bone as I stumbled back up to my feet.

“Don’t you fucking touch her!” Mikey yelled furiously.

“You’re a dead man!” Gauge yelled, pointing at Mikey, blood pouring down from his nose and over his mouth. He swiped at his noise and beard, shaking the droplets of blood to the ground before rolling his shoulders.

I ran to Shooter and grabbed his arm. “Shooter, stop this, please, I’m begging you.”

He turned his cold blue eyes to me, his face a mask of hard stone. “You’re mine, remember? You swore to me.” He grabbed my biceps roughly and shook me. “You’re my old lady, Nina.”

I nodded in agreement. “I know, I remember, Shooter, I remember. But not like this. I won’t be with you like this.”

His stony expression cracked and I saw his pain beneath the anger and panic. “You haven’t been with me all along, Nina. You’ve always been with him.”

His voice was hard as stone, his pain so visceral that I felt it all the way to my heart. I nodded, tears filling my eyes. I couldn’t lie anymore. There was no point when he so clearly saw the truth that I had been hiding from him all along. A year had passed, but no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t love Shooter like I loved Mikey.

Gauge and Mikey were on the ground now, in a full-on brawl as they fought with fists, their weapons long discarded. Backtrack looked uncertainly at me and then started making his way over to them, the murderous look on his face showing me his intention.

“I’m sorry,” I pleaded with Shooter. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to love you, I did. But you can’t force love. You can’t make someone love you. It’s either there or it’s not.”

Shooter sneered at me, his once beautiful face now ugly and full of hate for me. The eyes that had looked at me with love and adoration were gone, replaced by his distaste for every word I said.

“I do care about you, Shooter. I do, I swear, but…” I couldn’t finish the words off, and it didn’t matter because he already knew.

I cared for Shooter, but my heart belonged to Mikey.

“I fuckin’ rue the day I met you,” he snarled, his hand reaching out to grab me by the chin. He gripped it tight, his hand like steel around my jaw as he leaned in and pressed an ugly kiss to my lips and then shoved me back from him with a single hard thrust. I stumbled back, shocked and saddened, surprised by his total disdain for me. “I gave you everythin’,” he bit out.

Mikey was back up on his feet, Backtrack and Gauge circling him like wolves. Dead bodies hung from the ceiling, blood dripping from their still warm bodies. This place was covered in gore and death everywhere I looked. It was a nightmare, a devilish horror movie in the making, and the final scene would be the death of either Mikey or Shooter.

“Stop it!” O’Donnell screamed as she ran into the room, her panicked gaze taking everything in. It made no difference though and she ran to my side, hate on her face for me. “What did you do?”

There was so much hate in this place. So much hate and death and anger. I felt dizzy with it. Sick to my stomach of the killing. Of the deaders. Of the Savages. Of man against man and woman against woman. I needed it to stop.

I looked behind me and saw Highlander, Battle, Aiken, Aimee, Linc, Texas, SJ, and some other faces I knew but didn’t know the names of. All of their despair and anger was directed at me. Or so it felt. And I felt utterly alone and totally helpless.

“Shooter,” I said, the words a plea on my lips. I stepped closer to him. “Don’t kill him, please, I’m begging you.” I reached out, placing my hand on the side of his face. “You’ll kill me.” He jerked back from my touch, but I recovered myself and moved closer, pressing my hand to his cheek again, seeing the pain behind his anger again. “You’ll kill me, Shooter. I’m begging you not to do this.”

“You’re killin’ me too, Nina,” he choked out, tears shimmering in his eyes.

I’d never seen Shooter cry, or even come close to it in our time together. I’d seen him lose brothers and have to rebuild his home and his clubhouse. I’d seen him build a future and destroy the past. I’d seen him make good choices and bad, and I’d seen him choose good over bad repeatedly. I’d seen the guilt eat him up and I’d held him when the guilt got too much. But I’d never seen him cry.

“You’re fuckin’ killin’ me, Nina.” He leaned into my touch, the rough bristles of his beard pressing against the palm of my hand, and I let out a sob of grief.

“Please don’t hurt him,” I begged, knowing I was hurting him but having no choice. “Please, don’t do this, Shooter.”

Shooter had to listen. He had to. Because if he didn’t, the only move I had left was to kill him. And I would without hesitation if it meant saving Mikey.

37.

Mikey

She was there.

Nina was right there.

I wasn’t imagining it. She was really there, and I couldn’t get to her because those goddamn idiots wouldn’t get out of my way. Two of the bikers circled me, and to one side I saw Shooter, the bearded asshole who’d confronted me so angrily outside. And now I knew why. Or at least I thought I did.

Nina was there.

She was alive.

Alive…

And she’d been with that guy.

I looked across the room, seeing other familiar faces. Seeing Aiken and Aimee and O’Donnell. O’Donnell…from the horror in her expression, had known all along that Nina was alive, and so had everyone else.

“What the hell is going on?” I yelled, frustrated and pissed off. “Get out of my way.” I tried to get past the two men in front of me again, but they shoved me backwards, keeping me away from Shooter. Away from Nina.

If I could just get to Nina and talk to her, things would be okay. I could make sense of all of it. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew there was no sense to be made of any of it. Aiken had purposefully tried to keep me away from her. So had O’Donnell. The only explanation was that they had known Nina was alive and hadn’t wanted me to find out. From the looks on their faces, I knew I was right. Neither of them looked shocked or surprised. They looked guilty as sin and anxious about what was going to happen next.

Grief and panic and pain grew inside me and I threw my machete to the ground and opened my arms wide, because fuck it. I was done with this bullshit. I was done with being lied to. Was there no one left in this godforsaken world that I could trust?

“Come on then, kill me if that’s what you want.”

“Mikey, no!” O’Donnell cried out, rushing forward, tears staining her dirty cheeks.

“Stay away from me!” I yelled back, fury tainting my voice into something unrecognizable. “Stay the hell away from me.”

“Mikey,” O’Donnell cried out, stopping in her tracks. My name on her lips was a sin and my fury grew from small embers into a roaring fire.

“Did you know?” I asked, but I already knew the answer to my question. In truth, I guess I’d always known, because it was obvious all along that she was keeping something from me. I’d just never questioned what. I’d assumed it was something about the day she’d found me half dead on that road, but now I knew it wasn’t anything like that at all. It was that she knew Nina was alive and she didn’t want me to find out because she knew I’d leave.

She’d watched me be in pain all that time.

She’d let me stay with her, knowing that I didn’t love her.

She’d guilt-tripped me into being with her, knowing I didn’t want to let anyone else down. Knowing the remorse I’d felt for letting Nina go back into the mall and get herself killed to protect me. We’d talked about it. I’d told her about my shame and my grief, the guilt that killed me daily. And she’d used it against me to keep me with her.

There was a pounding in my ears and my throat felt dry and scratchy as I tried to control my breathing, hands fisting and unfisting at my sides as I focused on not losing it.

“I love you,” she whined, her gaze pitiful.

I shook my head at her as I dragged my hands through my hair. O’Donnell took another step toward me and I held up a hand. “Stay away from me,” I snarled between clenched teeth. It wasn’t love what she felt, it couldn’t be. Because if you loved someone you didn’t watch them be in pain, knowing that you could ease that. You gave up everything for them, no matter the personal cost. O’Donnell had kept me from Nina. She’d taken my choice away. That wasn’t love. That was obsession or infatuation or just plain greed, and I didn’t want her anywhere near me. Not now, not ever again. She’d lied to me for all that time, and the pain of that doused my lie-stained soul in bleach.

I looked over, seeing Nina with her hand on Shooter’s face, her beautiful face looking tortured as she spoke softly to him. I felt even more infuriated by that. By her touching him. Talking to him. Being near him. That bastard that had kept her from me for all that time. I was going to fucking kill him.

“Let him go,” Shooter finally said. He took Nina’s hand in his and pulled it away from his face, and then he leaned over and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to his body. I watched them intently, not giving a shit as Gauge and the other guy backed away from me.

Shooter released Nina and stepped away from her, his expression filled with grief and pain, and I felt a pang of pity for him, for what he was going through, because I’d been there and I knew that pain. The rawness of it. It spread like cancer through your body and devoured every inch of happiness that you might have. The light of the world going out at the loss of her.

He glanced over at me, hate and loathing in his gaze. His neck corded as he tried to restrain himself. I had no doubt that he wanted to come over and take my head, but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t…because of Nina.

“Prez?” Gauge said, looking somewhat relieved.

“Did I stutter, motherfucker?” Shooter glared at Gauge. “We need to go. There’s still a war going on and I want every one of these bitches in the ground before sunset.”

And then he turned and left. Gauge and the other biker gave me a quick glance, looking half relieved that it hadn’t gone any further, and then they left too.

But I wasn’t watching them anymore. I was watching Nina. My sole focus was her.

She turned to me…

Walked to me…

Pushed between the other people to get to me.

And then she was there, like she’d never been anywhere else.

Nina was in front of me, her beautiful scarred face tipped up to look at me. Her dark eyes were ringed with deep purple shadows like she hadn’t slept in years. The soft lines around her mouth from smiling were deeper, but they weren’t smile lines anymore—they were frown lines. Sadness lines. Grief lines. I reached out to her, needing to feel her beneath my fingertips to prove to myself that she was real. That I wasn’t imagining her. I wondered what things she had endured while we had been apart. What things she had seen and lived through. Nightmares and horrors, no doubt, but hopefully some good too.

Her lips parted, a small gasp escaping as my fingertips brushed against the skin on her arm. I looked down, seeing her fingers curled into a fist, soft tremors traveling beneath her skin. I looked up from where our skin was connected, up to her shoulder, across her pale throat and down the other side of her body.

She was wearing some sort of leather holder that was strapped across her shoulder and moved down her arm, and when I followed the leather lines of the holder I noticed that at the end of it was a machete. It took me a moment to work out what I was seeing, and then I looked up into her face, recognition and realization in my eyes.

“Who did that?” I asked, nodding toward her missing arm.

“Scar,” she replied, her voice so perfect. Like a fucking dream come true.

“He dead?” I asked, because I didn’t know who Scar was, but if he wasn’t already dead he would be soon.

She smirked, her apprehension fading momentarily. “What do you think?”

A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “Little badass still, huh?”

In the dim light, with dead bodies surrounding us, I saw her blush, and despite the horrific surroundings it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“You know me.” She shrugged. Her smile fell and I swallowed, suddenly unsure of everything. “Mikey…” she began, and I shook my head and scowled, silencing whatever words she was going to say next.

“Later, Nina,” I said. “Right now I just want to enjoy the fact that you’re alive. That you’re here…that I didn’t lose you.”

We stared at one another in silence, letting the world outside fade away, letting the horror hellhole we were in vanish until it was just her and me and nothing more and nothing less. Because that was all that I needed: just her.

The room had gone silent

She looked around us and I followed her gaze, realizing that everyone was leaving. I wanted to kiss her and hold her. I wanted to meld my mouth and body to hers and never let her go again. But this place was hell and our first kiss after all this time wouldn’t be in hell.

“I don’t understand how you’re here,” I choked out the words.

“I’ll explain everything,” she promised, and I nodded, because I needed to know, to understand, but right then I was just so damn grateful that she was there at all.

“We should get out of here,” I said, and she nodded that time. “Place brings back memories,” I said, glancing around me at the death but realizing I wasn’t scared of it anymore. I didn’t fear that place like I had. I wasn’t sure if it was because Aife was dead and gone now, or because Nina was alive and here.

I took her hand in mine, pleasure threading through my muscles as our hands connected and secured us together, and we headed out of that hellhole and away from the worst year of my life.

As we walked I continued to glance sideways at her, not quite believing that it was happening, that she could really be there, alive! It was a dream, a nightmare, and everything in between. But right then I didn’t care. I’d go through the past year again just to have her back with me. I’d go through anything and everything to have her with me.

As we neared the exit I heard the telltale growls of the dead and fighting beyond the exit. I shook my head free from where it was at, needing to focus so we didn’t die in that place. We were a long way off from being safe, that was for certain. The Savages, at least a good portion of them, might have been killed, but this was far from over.

Deaders swarmed the entrance, some walking right on by, content in hunting down the people outside, but a handful of them headed in toward us.

“Get behind me,” I said, pushing her out of harm’s way.

I could hear people fighting outside. Knives clashing against knives. Growls of the dead and grunts of the living that fought them.

“Mikey, I can handle myself,” she scoffed, pushing my hand away.

She snapped out a long knife from a sheath attached to her thigh and raised both that and the other arm, and as a zombie came close she stabbed and sliced and killed it and another that was right behind it. She was strong, perhaps stronger than she’d ever been, but she didn’t understand that I couldn’t lose her again. Not ever again. This time it would kill me.

“I know you can,” I grunted, pushing in front of her to kill another that came toward us with its arms outstretched.

“Then stop trying to protect me.” She shoved past me and stabbed it through the forehead.

I grinned, my heart growing bigger by the second. “But you’re just a woman, Nina, you need protecting,” I replied casually as I slammed the last deader against the mine wall and stabbed my machete through its head. “You need my protection.”

The game we’d once played, the back-and-forth of smartass remarks, was just like it used to be. Like our time apart hadn’t ever happened.

“You’re such an…”

I cut her off by grabbing her and pulling her body close to mine. Her machete hung by her side and it nicked the side of my leg as I dragged her closer, but I didn’t feel a thing and I didn’t care. Instead I focused on placing my mouth on hers and kissing her like she was the air I’d been missing for the past year.

The kiss lasted seconds before we had to pull apart and fight again, but it felt like my lungs had been inflated and my heart was thumping harder, my body more alive than it had been in years.

We were together again, at last. Just like we always should have been.

And this time I wasn’t letting her go anywhere without me ever again.

*

“I need to go there without you,” Nina said, her eyes pleading with me to understand. “If he sees you it’s all going to start again. He’ll probably kill you. Besides, you need to go and speak to O’Donnell.”

I shook my head. “No.”

There was no room for discussion on this. None at all.

“Mikey, stop being so unreasonable.”

I snorted. “Nina, the last time I let you out of my sight…”

“I know, I know, but this won’t be like that, I promise.”

I stared off into the trees. Everything was so right and so wrong all at the same time. The Savages were dead. Nina was alive. We’d killed hundreds of deaders. Put over thirty innocent people out of their misery. I should have felt total unequivocal happiness, but all I felt was anxious at the thought of her leaving. Of all the things that could happen to her while we were apart. No. Nina had to stay here by my side where I knew she would stay real. Where I could touch her skin and stroke her hair and stare into her battle tired eyes and know that she wasn’t dead at all. But alive, and here, with me.

“You need to go speak to O’Donnell,” she said tentatively.

I swung back to look at her, being struck again by her beauty. By the sharp angles of her jaw and cheekbones and the soft lines of her mouth.

“I have nothing to say to her,” I said, the words bitter in my mouth.

“If you hate her then you have to hate me,” she pressed, and I scowled. “This was my idea as much as it was hers.”

“It’s not the same,” I replied with a shake of my head.

“It is.”

“It’s not!” I yelled. “It’s not the same. I hate that you didn’t come and get me. That you let me believe you were dead. I hate that, but I hate that she knew you were alive more. That she allowed me to…” I shook my head and dragged a hand down my face, feeling sick. I couldn’t say what I wanted to say. I couldn’t bring myself to let her know about all the times O’Donnell had asked me to make love to her and I had, every touch of my hand on her body a betrayal. I’d felt like I owed it to her because she’d saved my life, but all along she’d been slowly taking mine. Stealing the air from my lungs as my heart withered.

“It’s not the same, Nina,” I said, my words choked. “And you’re not going back there to him without me by your side.” I grabbed her with both hands, my grip tight on her biceps. “I can’t lose you again, Nina.”

Nina threw herself at me, her arms going around me to hold me tight, and I held her back, breathing her in, kissing her head, feeling her beneath my lips and fingers.

She was here. My God how was she here? The realization kept on hitting me over and over.

“Okay,” she finally said. “Together or not at all.”

I pulled back to look at her, the first genuine smile on my face in years. “Agreed.”

She looked around, her dark eyes taking in the death and destruction of that place, and she looked sad and uncertain.

After the dead had been killed and the Savages slain, our groups had dissipated, leaving with barely a second glance. I wasn’t sure if they wanted to get away from me and my questions, or this place and its evil. Maybe it was a little of both. Aiken had been the only one to speak to me, letting me know that he’d leave one of the cars some of our people had arrived in so we could head back.

Head back where? I’d wondered. Where did I belong now they truth was out?

They’d loaded up our dead, and our casualties, not leaving any of them behind, and he’d looked like he wanted to say more to me but had thought better of it. I was glad. We all needed to gather our thoughts and prepare for what came next. I had a thousand questions and accusations, but there was only ever going to be one outcome to them.

I already knew that I couldn’t live at Haven anymore, not with those people that had lied to me for so long. I didn’t expect Aiken to let me stay there anyway. O’Donnell was his right-hand woman, and I had no doubt it would hurt her seeing me with Nina every day.

We looked around us, taking in the bodies and the abandoned weapons, the zombies and the Savages and the smaller mine that we had earlier pulled the door in front of to keep them inside. The door to it was nowhere to be seen now and the entrance was now a gaping hole strewn with zombie parts and heads that still twitched.

Clearly the Savages had been building an undead army to protect their camp with. But the thing about an army of the undead was that they couldn’t be trusted not to turn on you when their only goal was the desire for brains. Maybe that had been the Savages’ ultimate downfall. Or maybe it was that God had had enough of their bullshit and gave us a helping hand in finishing them off. Whatever it was, I was glad for it.

“Together, or not at all,” I said, taking her hand in mine.

She looked down at our entwined fingers, our palms pressed together tightly, and she gave me a hesitant smile and nodded. We started to walk, and as we did we passed more dead Savages and deaders strewn across the ground, blood and gore pooled beneath their skulls. No one was coming back from this.

“I hate this place,” she said, her voice soft, and I nodded in agreement.

“Me too,” I replied. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Aiken said he was leaving a truck at the top of the hill for us. It’s just through the trees.” I pointed up where I had come in earlier. Up when I had come face to face with Shooter and Aiken, unaware of the secrets they both held and what they would do to protect those secrets.

We turned and began walking away from that place, glad that it was finally over. Though I knew there was so much more to come for us both.

“Hello?” a voice called from behind us and we both froze, fear clenching in my gut. “Please, help us.”

Nina’s hand gripped mine tighter as we turned around, my eyes widening as I saw the small group of huddled people standing together. Her fingers were threaded through mine as my eyes widened.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I mumbled, taking them all in one by one. They were practically walking corpses, looking more skeleton than human. My hand went to my mouth as I gasped.

“Mikey?” Nina said my name, but I was too in shock to speak right now. Instead, I gripped her hand tighter.

38.

Mikey

“Hold on,” I called back to the people in the back of the car.

I looked in my mirror at the other people that had stumbled out of the caves. Some of them looked like they would pass out at any moment, but I couldn’t have helped them there. Men and women, a girl who looked like she was more child than woman—all of them had faced death and had somehow miraculously survived it, though there was no denying that none of them would ever be the same again. I’d only been with the Savages a couple of days, Claire and Tim even less, and I had been traumatized and haunted to the point of insanity. At least that was how it felt at times. How would they recover? How would they now live with all they had gone through? All they had seen, heard and lived… I thought of the things I had witnessed, the things I had almost done, and I knew that most of these people wouldn’t make it. They might have been saved, but they would always be trapped there.

Most of them had injuries, pieces of them taken God only knew when, and Nina and I had wrapped clothing around the worst of these injuries so they didn’t bleed out on the way to Haven, but there was only so much we could do. They needed doctors and nurses. We needed Stormy and Alfie if these people were going to survive longer than a few hours. Though, as I watched them squinting into the early evening air, dusk settling over the tops of the trees, I wondered if they would make it back at all, and worse, I wondered if it would be better in the long run for them if they died here and now.

I glanced across at Phil, his long, bedraggled hair covering half his face as he stared numbly out the window. He blinked slowly, his head drooping on his shoulders, and I wondered if it was because he was exhausted or just too weak to hold it up.

He’d been stuck inside for so long that his skin seemed almost translucent, his cheekbones jutting out painfully, like they might split through the skin at any moment. His gaze was haunted, his eyes holding so much pain that I couldn’t look him in the eye.

“Get me back to her, Mikey,” he said, his voice cracked and faint.

“I will, I promise,” I called back to him as his eyes lifted to meet mine.

Six people had stumbled out from those mines…from hell. But I wondered how many would, at least in their hearts, never leave that place. I knew a piece of me had never left.

*

“We’re here,” I said, thankful as Moo called down and then gates began to open so I didn’t have to stop.

We’d already lost one person along the way, another trauma to add to the list for everyone in the car. The person, a man, had seemed like he was sleeping. He’d slipped away without us realizing, waking only when his need for flesh had awoken in him and had begun attacking us. Then I’d had to tell them that no one could sleep. They all had to keep their eyes open.

It was cruel, but necessary.

I skidded to a stop just inside the entrance instead of heading to where we parked the cars, and as I dove out Moo was already there, giving me shit for it.

“Get your mom,” I called to her as she started stomping over. “And get Aimee, now!”

“Why?” she asked, her eyes darting to the inside of the car and the people there. “Who are they? You know we don’t let just anyone in here, Mikey. You know the rules.”

I turned on Moo, my look full of worry and anger and desperation all coiled into one. “Get Aiken and Alfie, Moo. Now. I need them all!”

I turned away from her, ignoring her smartass remark about kicking my ass, and I opened the door, helping the first person out. Nina was already on the other side of the car helping a very weak, sick looking Phil out of the car.

A couple of Haven residents had made their way over to us, and I looked between them all, wondering which of those people knew about the lies I had been told.

“Aimee!” I roared. “Aimee!” I held an arm out for a woman to cling to as she stepped out of the car, her gaze filled with terror. “It’s okay, you’re safe here, I promise.”

The Haven residents that had been watching finally came over and began to help, and from somewhere Alfie appeared, his hands going through his hair as he looked at the new arrivals. He was already bloody from fixing up the people who had come back, and now I was bringing him more. He looked at me, his eyes going wide as I gestured to Phil.

“Phil?” he said, the single word getting stuck in his throat. I nodded quickly.

Phil looked up, his head seeming too heavy on his bony shoulders. He was leaning on Nina and we all began to walk. Alfie glanced at Nina, a small frown on his face as he wondered who she was and why I hadn’t been with the group when they came back. There were a lot of questions to be answered, but none of them were important at that moment.

We guided the people to the doctor’s clinic and helped each of them on to beds and into chairs. Freddy had been lying in a bed, his arm strapped up when we got there, but he’d gotten up and tried to help settle everyone when we came in. Aiken had been there too, his shoulder strapped, and his eyes had gone wide as he watched us all come in.

“Mikey?” He said my name as a question, though it was more than just one question, it was a hundred. His eyes, like mine had, and like Freddy’s had, went wide when he saw Phil. “Jesus, Phil?”

Phil forced a smile as we helped him into a chair, his entire body creaking and groaning as it relaxed into the soft material. Aiken dropped to his knees in front of Phil, reaching for his hands.

“You’re alive,” he said. He glanced up at me as I headed to the door.

Nina looked up from helping a woman onto a bed. She made a move to follow me but I shook my head and she accepted the small gesture and continued with what she was doing.

“Get Aimee,” Phil said, tears flowing down his face. “Get Aimee, please,” he gasped, putting his face in his hands as his whole body began to shake.

I ran from the clinic, my feet pounding the ground as I ran through Haven, not stopping until I was at Phil’s house. Aimee had been there since he’d gone missing. Caring for his animals, keeping the memory of Phil alive. I pounded my hand on the door, trying the handle only to find it locked, and then pounding on it again.

“Aimee!” I yelled, pounding and pounding and wishing she’d open the door.

I heard footsteps and yelling from within, but I didn’t stop yelling and pounding on the wood until the door was flung open and Aimee’s furious and blood-speckled face looked out at me.

“What are you—” she began.

“It’s Phil,” I gasped, out of breath. Her eyes narrowed into slits. “He’s here. I brought him home to you.”

She shook her head, her eyes filling with tears, and then she went to close the door in my face. I slammed my foot in the gap and pushed it back open.

“He’s here, Aimee, and he’s asking for you. Come on!” I jogged back down the three small steps, looking back to see her staring after me in shock.

“Is this a joke?” she asked, her voice trembling, and I shook my head.

Aimee took off from the house, the door left wide open as she ran past me and through the center of Haven. She headed straight to the clinic, with me hot on her heels. I was a fast runner, but I was nothing compared to her, and by the time I got there she was already hugging Phil, tears pouring from both of their faces.

Nina glanced at me, worry and love in her eyes, and I swiped away my own tears and looked around me. Everything was finally as it should be. Phil was home, Nina was back, and we were all safe. The Savages were gone, finally. The world beyond Haven was still blanketed in death and destruction, but in this place, my small slice of Haven, I had found my part in the world.

Kelli and Carl pushed into the room behind me and I took a step back, giving everyone space to do what they needed to do. To keep these people alive. To see Phil, alive and back where he belonged.

Nina walked to me, resting her head on my shoulder as I took her hand in mine.

Nina…she was there too, and she was alive. Not a figment of my imagination, or a memory. But there, in the flesh and blood. I squeezed her hand and turned to look at her, seeing the same look on her face that no doubt was on mine, and then she smiled and everything else faded away.

39.

Nina

Thump, thump, thump…

Mikey’s heart beat steadily in his chest. The low throb reverberated against my ear as he slept, and I stared at him.

Three weeks had passed, and they had been both long and slow at the same time. We’d taken each day for what it was, a gift, and we’d taken each night slowly as we’d become accustomed to one another’s bodies again.

I was thirsty and I reluctantly slid out from under the covers and moved quietly around the bed. Mikey didn’t stir. He lay on his back, his arms behind his head as he faced the ceiling, his mouth open ever so slightly. His face looked peaceful and I smiled at that, glad that he had found that peace.

Downstairs I took a glass from the drainer and filled it from one of the big cannisters of water we had. I drank long and slow, letting the water wash down my throat and fill my empty belly. We’d have to go hunting today, I knew. We were running out of basic rations, something that I wasn’t accustomed to anymore. At the clubhouse, supplies had been plenty—and flavorsome too. Canned goods a standard, home-baked goods a necessity. It had been the same at Haven too, from what Mikey said. But now it was just him and me out here, surviving on basics.

It was all I really needed anyway—though bread wouldn’t ever be turned down, of course.

I paced the kitchen, my hand running along the surface of the kitchen counter. It was a home like any other. Like the one I used to have all those years ago with Ben. Only this one was our home. No more running. No more fighting. No fear and bloodshed. Just me and Mikey living out our lives together as best we could.

Standing by the window, I looked out at the world beyond. At how green and lush and vibrant it was. It was healthy, despite the evil that walked it, and I wanted to be like that too. I wanted to be healthy and vibrant, a shade of the woman I once was. I didn’t want to hate anymore, but despite that my heart was still filled with it.

Anger blossomed in my dreams. The resentment for the deaders, for the people that inflicted cruelty, for anything and anyone that tried to squash out my slice of happiness.

My arm throbbed, a low, dull ache, and I put my glass down and rubbed at it self-consciously.

“You’re up early,” Mikey said from behind me, and I turned to look at him. He held on to the top of the doorframe, his lean body flexing as he fixed me with one of his smiles that always made me turn to goo in his arms.

“You were snoring,” I lied.

“I don’t snore. You snore.”

I snorted on a laugh because we both knew that was the truth. I either slept hard or I didn’t sleep at all. My body had grown accustomed to getting everything it needed from three hours’ sleep per night, but it meant I sank into oblivion once my eyes closed.

He released the door and came toward me, and I wrapped my arms around him as he pulled me close. I felt his lips on the top of my head and I breathed evenly, a sigh on my lips at how right everything was, finally.

God, but it had taken us so long to get to this place. Our slice of heaven in this bleak world. It seemed almost unreal.

“You okay?” he asked, his arms still tight around me, and I nodded and breathed in the scent of him one more time, letting all that was Mikey take me away from my troubles.

I looked up at him, my face sliding along his hard chest. His eyes still held that haunted look, but it was going, day by day, fading just a little, and that was all I could hope for.

Mikey leaned down and I pushed up on my tiptoes so our lips could connect. We kissed soft at first, but it grew more insistent as the moments drew on. Urgent hands stripping the clothes from my scarred and worn body. Desperate kisses sliding along my neck and chest. Mikey lifted me with both hands, and my legs locked around his waist automatically, drawing our bodies closer together, knitting us as one as he walked us back upstairs to bed, his mouth on mine again.

*

“We need to hunt today,” I said on a yawn, my voice quiet as sleep tried to suck me back under.

“Yeah,” he replied, already drifting.

“We might need to go further. Maybe take the truck so we can try to find basic rations.” My eyes were closed, already planning which direction we’d go in.

The house Mikey had brought me to the day we got back from the fight with the Savages had been perfect: secluded and abandoned, but also adapted for protection, with fences and traps made. It had held a few rations in the cellar, canned goods and such, so we had food for a couple of days, but what little was there was quickly depleted. Mikey said there had been a whole cellar full of food when they’d found the place, and I could tell he was pissed that they hadn’t left more behind. But it didn’t matter. We had enough to get by, to see us through while we talked and got to know each other again. While we hunkered down and rested.

Our bodies were now naked and entwined. My leg flung over one of his. His arms around my thin, pale body. He kissed the top of my head again and I squeezed him tighter, not being able to get enough of him, despite being tired now.

I’d never have enough of him, I knew. A smile played on my lips at that realization.

“You keep doing that and we’ll be going for round two,” he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep but his hands already roaming up and down the slight curves of my body.

“Sleep. There’s time for that later,” I murmured back, giving another yawn. But my fingers continued to stroke up and down his chest either way, feeling along the soft grooves of his muscles. Feeling the low throb of his heart in his chest.

He grabbed me suddenly, sleep darting away from both of us as he rolled me onto my back, his body trapping me beneath it. I giggled. Giggled, like an honest-to-God schoolgirl, as he pushed my legs apart with his knees and peppered my face with kisses.

“God, I love you, Nina,” he said in between kisses, his arms on either side of my head, boxing me in.

“I love you too,” I replied, meaning every single word.

Mikey pushed into me in one slow, delicious thrust and I groaned. He captured my groan with his lips, rocking into me over and over as my hands slid up and down his back, over the arches and ridges and the raised scars on his skin.

“I’ll never get enough of you,” he sighed against my mouth.

“What about when I’m old and wrinkly?” I teased.

“Not then,” he said, his hips rocking and making me call out.

“What about if I shaved all my hair off?”

He groaned. “God, Nina…how did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That I love a woman with a crew cut,” he replied, thrusting harder. I hooked my legs around him, pulling him in deeper. “It’s like my kryptonite.”

“What about,” I laughed, and then pleasure began to build in my core, my body tightening around him. “What about…” I moaned as he swallowed my words with his mouth, kissing me long and deep. Mikey was relentless. His kisses never ending. His thrusts persistent, nudging my body to the brink of pleasure and over the precipice as stars exploded behind my eyes.

“Never, Nina,” he said, his hands cupping my face, his eyes looking into mine. “I’ll never have enough of you. Not ever. So don’t ever go anywhere without me ever again.”

“I promise,” I said, my chest feeling full.

“Together or not at all,” he said, loving my body with every thrust of his hips and every kiss of his lips.

“Together or not at all,” I agreed.

Mikey nuzzled his face into the side of my neck, kissing along my throat. Our bodies were connected, our hearts combined. And I knew I’d never get enough of him either.

With a final thrust of his hips, he called out, grinding himself into me, and I threw my head back, moaning his name. His hand ran along my throat, along the delicate skin, the pad of his thumb sliding up to rub against my bottom lip. Our bodies were hot and sticky, and I clung to him, never wanting to let him go ever.

“I love you,” he said, kisses my lips.

And I knew he meant it. I could see it in his face. Feel it in his body. And I knew it in my heart.

*

I strapped the attachment to my back and rolled my shoulders, adjusting myself to the leather. The scent of it reminded me of the clubhouse, of Shooter and Highlander. Of Balls and all the other bikers there. It was funny how I missed them all, despite being happy where I was and not wanting to go back. I felt something like being homesick, even though I felt more at home here with Mikey than I had ever felt anywhere else.

“You ready?” he asked, and I nodded, my hand patting my side for the knife in the sheath on my thigh.

Mikey leaned over and pressed a kiss to my temple. “Okay, let’s go then.”

We opened the door, turning to lock it behind us. We’d found the keys hung up in the kitchen by the back door and we’d secured the lower windows with plywood that we could slide off during the day.

Aiken had given us a truck on the promise that we traded with them if we found anything good, and we’d agreed. So far we’d only been out and caught animals for meat—a couple of squirrels and nothing worth sharing—but maybe today we’d get something more substantial. Maybe something we could share with Haven. I wasn’t sure if that was something I wanted to happen. Haven had been Mikey’s home, but it also held a lot of memories for him, and though we tried to put it all behind us, going back there was still going back. And I only ever wanted to go forward now.

Still, in a world like this, there really wasn’t any way to live without help from others, and Haven had a lot of things we needed. Perhaps one day we’d be as well stocked as them, but today was not that day.

Mikey shoved the map into the pocket of his cargo pants and turned to look at me, the sun catching off his hair and making me smile. Small splashes of gray had sprouted at the sides of his hair over the past year, and it looked good on him. He was too young to go gray, but I guess that was what trauma did to you.

We were walking today, three miles east to a small town we could see on the map. It looked to have only a handful of stores and houses. A town of no more than a couple of hundred. It was hardly a town at all. But places like that had popped up all over, and so many hadn’t even been on maps.

The roar of an engine echoed through the trees, and some birds in the trees opposite the house flew up out of their nests, scared away by the loud and obtrusive noises. Mikey’s smile fell into a hard scowl and he came back to my side as three motorcycles pulled into the clearing.

Highlander, Linc, and Gauge pulled off their helmets and shut off their engines, the sudden quietness deafening.

I reached for Mikey’s hand, finding it already reaching for mine. Highlander climbed off his bike and strode toward me, his arms wide, a huge smile on his face.

“Queen B, how the feck ‘ave ya been?”

40.

Nina

I smiled and released Mikey’s hand so I could go to Highlander, wrapping my arms around his large frame and hugging him hard. I wasn’t normally a hugger, but something about that great big oaf had turned me into one.

“I’m good, really good,” I mumbled as he picked me up and swung me around laughing.

“Aah, still weigh less than a church mouse, I see. Skinny little twig, ya needs to eat.” He pinched the nonexistent fat on my side as he dropped me back on my feet.

“Ouch,” I snapped, slapping at his hand. He laughed and pinched the other side. His gaze fell to the leather strap.

“Still good? No problems?”

I shook my head no. “It’s fine. It’s comfier the more I wear it. Had to get some cream from Stormy, though, since it was rubbing. I think after all the fighting…” My words trailed off. “Well, you know, you were there.”

“Aye, I know. I think we all came away from that a little fucked up. If all you needed was a bit o’ cream, I’d call that a win, darlin’.”

“Me too,” I said, giving him another smile.

It was so good to see him, his leather-and-smoke scent wrapping around me and taking away the homesickness I’d felt earlier. I hated that I’d missed that stupid man as much as I had.

“So…” I said with a small shrug as I let my gaze fall behind him to Linc and Gauge. Linc gave me a small wave, but Gauge stared angrily at the ground. “What’s this little impromptu visit all about? We decided against a housewarming,” I teased. “Thought it was a bit too much and we hadn’t managed to redecorate yet.”

“Och no, really?”

I nodded. “I’m afraid so. I decided I didn’t want my home filled with so many dirty, smelly men. It ruins the ambiance and the zen of the place.”

Highlander held a hand to his chest. “Och, ya kill me, darlin’.” He laughed and I laughed with him. “I washed at least three weeks ago. This scent is what turns all the women to my whims.”

I glanced behind me at Mikey, seeing his stern gaze on Gauge, his jaw ticking as he ground his back teeth together. It must have taken everything in his power not to say anything to him, and I respected him for staying up there on the porch steps.

“So?” I prompted Highlander. “It really is great to see you, but I’m not sure why you’re here.”

“Well, I bought some new attachments for your arm, for starters,” he said with a smile, and my eyes went wide with excitement at that. Since the war with the Savages I’d only had the machete attachment. I hadn’t had the nerve to go to the clubhouse and get my things. “Brought you some food too. Some of the old ladies baked you some bread and cakes and shit.”

“Oh my God, Highlander! Why didn’t you open with that? Give me the food!” I gasped in annoyance, my stomach rumbling loudly.

He chuckled and headed to his bike, opening his saddlebag and pulling out a brown paper bag and handing it to me. Linc handed him a brown leather sachet and Highlander flipped the top open, showing me the arm attachments inside before handing it to me with a grin.

“Just a couple o’ things I’ve been working on, darlin’,” he said proudly. “One that Balls had been working on before…” He shrugged, not finishing his sentence because we all knew that Balls was dead.

“It’s Shooter,” Gauge said, finally looking up at me.

My gaze slid to him, worry catching in my words. “What about him?”

Gauge looked pissed off, sad, and worried. “He’s…” He shrugged.

“He’s a little fucked up since what happened with you two,” Highlander intervened. “Thought maybe if we could check on you and report back that you were okay, that maybe it would help him. Maybe he could, I dunno…visit sometime.”

“Absolutely not,” Mikey said, coming to stand by my side.

“Mikey, it’s okay,” I placated.

“No, it’s not,” he growled. “He kept you from me. He tried to have me killed. He comes anywhere near us and I’ll fucking end him.”

Gauge stepped off his bike and cracked his neck from side to side. “Like to hear you say that again.”

“Let me say it nice and clear for you so there’s no misunderstanding of my meaning then,” Mikey snapped, stepping forward.

I placed a hand on Gauge’s chest as I stepped in front of Mikey. “Woah, woah there, Terminator, no need to fight.”

Gauge’s gaze was locked on Mikey and I heard Highlander sigh heavily. “Sorry about this, love. I never meant to bring trouble to your door.”

“It’s okay. I think it’s best you all go now though. I’m fine. You can see I’m fine. So report that back and be on your way.”

“Aye, so you are.” Highlander turned to Gauge. “Come on then, dickface, let’s get back to the clubhouse.”

Gauge and Mikey were still locked in a staring contest and I groaned and rolled my eyes. “As much as I love to see two strapping men roll around in the mud bare-chested, I’m hungry and want to eat my cake. So either get on with the side show or chill out and back off.”

Gauge’s gaze slid to me, a small frown on his face. “Haven’t missed that smart mouth,” he grumbled.

I rolled my eyes and snorted. “That’s a lie. Everyone loves my smart mouth. I make life more colorful with it.”

“That’s one way to put it,” he said, giving Mikey one last look up and down before going back to his bike.

Mikey wrapped his arms around my middle and pulled my back against his chest, placing a kiss on the top of my head, and I knew that in his own way he was showing Gauge that I was well and truly with him and we were happy. And he wanted that message passing on to Shooter. Guilt unfurled in my belly, but I didn’t stop Mikey.

Because no matter how guilty I felt, I couldn’t deny Mikey.

Not now.

Not ever again.

Linc nudged Highlander and the other man turned to scowl at him. “Stop fecking poking me, ya little shit. Say what you need to say.”

“We need directions to Haven,” Linc said, and I felt Mikey tense.

“Why?” Mikey asked.

“Need to speak to Aiken.”

“Why?” Mikey repeated.

“Club business,” Gauge snapped.

“Can’t take you there unless I know why,” Mikey said, giving the proverbial middle finger. “So tell me or fuck off.”

“We want to make a trade agreement with them. We have stuff that they may need, and vice versa. Nothing other than that. Same offer applies to you two. The more of us that work together, the safer we’re all gonna be, right?” Highlander said. “We need to make sure that what happened with the Savages doesn’t happen again. Ever.”

I nodded in agreement, but Mikey had released me, folding his arms over his broad chest. “I’ll need to speak to Aiken alone first. He won’t be happy if I just turn up with three strangers.”

“We’re hardly strangers,” Gauge snapped. “We fought together, side by side, killing those bitches. We saved each other’s lives. Battle saved Aiken’s life, if I remember correctly.”

Mikey grunted out a dry laugh. “Was that before or after you tried to kill me?”

“That was different,” Gauge replied.

“You’ve got some damn nerve,” Mikey growled.

I turned to Mikey, needing to calm the situation down quickly. I hated that the Highwaymen had brought so much anger to our door, but this could actually be a good thing. The Savages had grown so strong because people needed stuff. They needed water and food and supplies, and they had used that to their advantage. If we all traded between one another, no one could do that again. Maybe we could even find other people—other groups that might need help and might want to trade. The only way the world was going to work was if we did it together.

“He’s right, Mikey. I don’t think Aiken would mind them knowing. They have a lot of stuff that Haven could use. Haven has lots of people and supplies, and they’ll need to restock. Highlander designed my arm attachment. He’s great with mechanics. You said Haven wanted to build a water tower, right? He could help with that. They have fighters, cooks, mechanics, vehicles…”

“Calm ya tits, darlin’, let’s not give all the secrets away,” Highlander drolled with a raised eyebrow.

Mikey sighed, clearly not happy with me disagreeing with him in front of these men, but whether he liked it or not, these men, at least some of them, would always be my people. I trusted Highlander and I trusted Linc. Gauge I didn’t, not after what had happened, but Highlander would keep things okay between us.

“Fine,” Mikey agreed unhappily.

*

The gates to Haven stayed closed as we approached, and it wasn’t until Mikey climbed out of the truck and waved up at Moo, a fierce young girl who looked like she’d kick your ass if you looked at her wrong, that the gates opened.

We were directed toward the left-hand side and ordered to park the bikes and trucks there. Stepping out of the truck, I felt the familiar nerves at being there build in me again, and I looked over at Mikey for reassurance, but he was too focused on watching Gauge to notice.

Aiken, the leader of Haven, strutted toward us, his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans. Beside him was O’Donnell. She’d cut her hair short since we’d last been her, and it hung to her chin in blond waves. She was doing her best to keep her features calm, but the look of hate on her face for me was evident.

Behind them were some other people that Mikey had introduced me to when we’d been there previously—Kelli, Carl, SJ, and some others. Carl had a bandage wrapped around his head and his chin was at his chest as he watched where he walked. I only recognized him because Mikey mumbled their names, reminding me. I smiled, trying to look confident and calm.

“Mikey,” Aiken said. “You bringing guests to my door like this…” He tutted dryly. “You know how I like to be forewarned of new arrivals. We have a system in place for a reason.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, but I figured you already knew these guys and it would be okay since we’d all fought side by side.” Mikey shrugged.

“It’s my fault really,” I said, stepping forward.

“I just bet it is,” Aiken drolled, his gaze still on Mikey and effectively dismissing me. My blood boiled at his obvious rejection, and I wondered how Mikey would react. I had a short temper and an even shorter fuse, but Mikey’s was worse than mine recently. Instead of getting pissy, I sighed and continued talking.

“I told him you’d be okay about it. They want to set up a trading system and I thought that would be a good thing for everyone,” I continued.

Aiken let out a short sharp laugh. “You and Mikey getting hungry out there already, huh?”

“No, it’s not about that,” I argued, huffing out my frustrations.

Aiken pulled the toothpick from between his teeth and looked over Highlander, Gauge, and Linc. “So you want to set up a trading system, huh?” he asked, all business.

I heard the other bikers stand up behind me and I turned, watching as they took off their helmets. I hoped it was Highlander that spoke next and not Gauge, because Gauge was an asshole and would likely piss Aiken off more than he already was.

It turns out it was Carl who spoke next, shoving between Kelli and O’Donnell as he stepped forward, coming close to the bikers.

“Lincoln?” he said quietly at first, and then louder: “Lincoln, son?”

I looked between the three burly bikers and Carl. Linc stood there, frozen to the spot, his helmet falling from his fingers as he stared at Carl.

“Dad?”

“Dad?” Highlander said incredulously, breaking the silence between us all. “Who’s your daddy, son? That wee man there?” he said, pointing at Carl. And he was right—compared to Lincoln, who was all six feet of strength and broadness, Carl seemed tiny, his brown leather jacket hanging from his thin shoulders.

Carl stepped toward Linc and grabbed the other man in his arms. He held him close and then pulled back, staring into his face as if not quite believing his own eyes. His hands moving up over his shoulders, his cheeks, his hair, assessing that yes, this was his son.

“Lincoln, I don’t understand,” he said, his words catching in his throat.

Linc shook his head. “I don’t either.”

“I thought you were dead,” Carl said, his words sounding strangled. “I thought you and your mom… God, is your mom here too? Please tell me she is.”

Lincoln nodded, his smile widening. “She’s back at the clubhouse, Dad. We can go get her. We can be a family again!”

Carl pulled Lincoln against his chest and hugged him hard again. “Son, we were just apart for a little while, but we were still a family.”

Lincoln swiped at his eyes. “Yeah, Dad,” he said, the words choking in his throat.

After several long moments the two men pulled apart and Carl looked over at the Highlander and Gauge, a frown on his face.

“How did you meet these guys?”

“I thought we were done for, but then these guys found us. They took care of us both, gave us a home.”

“Aye,” Highlander said, slapping Linc on the back and almost knocking both men over, “we made him one of our own. He’s a smart little shit, if ya ask me. Loves the ladies too, if ya know what I mean.”

Lincoln turned and smirked at Highlander. “Shut up, dickwad.”

“Language,” Carl said automatically before catching himself.

I stared at him and then we all laughed.

“Your mom would have told you to watch your language I’m sure,” Carl said slowly, a smile forming before falling away. “I thought you were both gone. I thought I’d never see you again. I couldn’t get back to you. I tried! I tried for weeks, months even…and when I did, when I got there, you were both gone and there was blood...so much blood that I thought no one could have survived it.” Carl choked up, a sob bubbling out of his throat as he held Lincoln in his arms and practically squeezed the life out of him. “I wanted it to be over for me too because I wanted to be with you both, but somehow I ended up here and…”

“It’s okay, dad, you don’t need to explain. I get it,” Lincoln said. He pushed his glasses out of the way as he wiped his eyes.

“Och, look at him cryin’, makes me heart bleed,” Highlander said loudly and we all laughed.

“I can’t believe that you’re really here,” Carl sobbed. He looked Lincoln up and down. “And look at you. You’re the image of your mom, son.” Pain pulled at his mouth as he tried to hold in his tears and Lincoln pressed his forehead to Carl’s. “She’s okay, right?”

“Yeah, Dad. She’s good. She never gave up hope that you were alive and you’d find your way back to us.” Lincoln was crying and laughing all at the same time, and I felt myself tearing up just watching him. “She knew you were okay, she just knew.”

My heart felt full, like it had swollen to twice it’s normal size, my chest aching from it. Every pound against my chest bone was like a bell toll echoing out and reminding me that I was alive, and Mikey was alive, and that was something to cherish.

When the world had gone to hell, families had been torn apart, but here was a father and son, torn apart by fate and death, thinking that they would never see each other again, when in reality they were marching toward each other with every step they took.

It made me realize how damn lucky I was. How many times had I wanted to give up? To let the deaders take me? To let life take me…but I’d relented. I’d gone on, knowing that I had to, that I couldn’t just give up. And just like Lincoln’s mom hadn’t given up, neither had I. We’d gone on, unaware that out there, somewhere in that bleak world filled with pain and despair, our future and our past were striding toward us, bringing us full circle.

Mikey reached out and took my hand in his and I looked over at him, knowing my eyes were filled with happy tears. My smile widened when our eyes connected, and I moved closer to him. He slid an arm around my waist, kissing the side of my face. Breathing me in. Feeling me, real beneath his fingertips. And knowing that this was exactly where I wanted to be forever.

“I need to go,” O’Donnell choked out, and when I looked up she was walking away, her footsteps quick and her head bowed low.

Aiken glanced at her and then turned to scowl at me, giving a disapproving shake of his head.

41.

Nina

We sat inside Aiken’s home, discussing plans for the future. A trading system that would benefit everyone. A way to connect with other groups out there. We wanted to bring everyone together, to create a system that kept us all safe and fed.

Everyone had skills they could provide, whether it was teaching electronics or showing how to make bread. Doctor skills, fighting skills, designing weapons and security systems for protection. Everyone was useful; we just had to find their skill.

In each of our groups, we already had the tools for survival, and bringing us all together would only fortify that, strengthen what we already had.

I leaned against the wall, watching as the discussions took place between the groups on how they would do this, how we would stop people like the Savages from ever getting a foothold in our society again, and I felt, for the first time in years, calm.

If I were to die right then, I knew that I would be satisfied and happy.

Mikey glanced over at me, his eyebrows pulling in as he saw my expression, and I smiled at him, letting him know that I was okay. He focused back on the plans they were drawing in front of them. A list of rules and ideals to live by. The Highwaymen would need to take it back to Shooter and get him to agree to it, and I wasn’t sure what would come of that. If he was as bad as Gauge had made out, then at some point I would need to visit him and make him see sense. Try to get him to listen. Though I wasn’t sure what good that would do, I knew I would have to try.

I slipped out of the room and headed outside. They didn’t need me to help anymore with these rules; they already had enough people working on it. What was that saying? Too many cooks spoiled the broth.

I stood on Aiken’s porch and looked out at the street, seeing people walking casually, without a care in the world. Kids playing in the dirt; skipping and throwing stones as they did hopscotch. Families carrying vegetables to their homes. It all felt so perfect, and for once I wasn’t scared of that perfect. Of losing it. Of something spoiling it.

We’d gone up against the Savages and we’d won. There could be nothing worse than that out there, I was certain.

“Dead Nina?”

I smiled as Joan stopped at the bottom of the steps. “Crazy Pants!” I laughed, crying for some reason. “How the hell have you been?”

“Better than you. Did you know that you’re dead?” She shook her head sadly and I realized she was carrying a chicken in her arms.

“I’m not dead, Joan, though it felt like it for a long time.” My arm was aching and I rubbed at the muscle in my bicep. “You have a chicken in your arms,” I said, nodding toward the little ginger bird.

“I do! She lays a good egg too,” she said. “Would you like an egg?”

I shook my head and laughed. “I’m good, but thanks.”

“Your loss. They’re going to grow into really big chickens one day.” She shook her head matter-of-factly and I frowned.

“Oh no, no they won’t grow into chickens. They’re unfertilized, Joan.” I groaned, wondering how many eggs she had. “Come on, show me the eggs.”

I glanced back at the house as Joan led the way to her home, hoping that Mikey wouldn’t get worried. They had given Joan a little white house at the end of the street, and she climbed the steps, unlocking the door and letting me inside. The smell hit me right away and I gagged as I went inside, the noise almost unbearable as she quickly closed the door behind me.

“So they don’t get out,” she said, and moved past me.

We headed down the hallway until we reached a closed door. Noises came from behind it, clucking and scratching and when she opened the door I looked upon over forty chickens all wandering around what had once been her dining room.

“Oh my…” I gasped.

“I have lots of eggs upstairs in my bed too. Dirty little rooster keeps knocking the poor broads up. I only wanted an egg for my breakfast, but I can’t eat these poor girls,” she whined, and I laughed, my hand going up to my mouth as I looked around at all of the damn chickens. “I’ve had to lock him in a different room now because he gets so mad if he doesn’t get his daily dose of…you know, and my girls were tired out, dead Nina!”

Poor Joan sounded exhausted and I threw my arms around her and hugged her, a laugh still on my lips.

“I’m not dead, Joan, I’m alive. I’m here,” I said as my laughter died away.

And I was.

I was here finally. Fully alive for the first time since this nightmare had all begun.

Joan hugged me back, the poor chicken she was holding getting a little stressed as it squished between us both.

“I thought I was going mad,” she said. “I thought I was seeing things again and there was no hope for me. I know I annoy people with my kooky ways; I’m not stupid, but I’m not entirely crazy.”

I pulled back from the hug, my smile still on my face. “No, you’re not crazy,” I lied, “though shitting in SJ’s bathtub isn’t the best way to go about proving that you’re not.”

Mikey had told me about all the things Joan had gotten up to at Haven, and I was kinda glad I hadn’t been there for that. From singing loudly at all hours of the day and night and waking everyone up, to shitting in someone’s bathtub, to her chicken farm… Yeah, she wasn’t crazy. I smirked to myself.

We left Joan’s house and headed back to Aiken’s. He needed to know about the out-of-hand chicken situation going on at Crazy Pants’ house. She talked the entire time, telling me about all the things that had been going on with her, and I listened intently. Mikey found us eventually and we made our way back to our truck at the entrance, ready to go home.

“I need to go get my mom,” Lincoln said, looking between Carl and Highlander, obviously feeling torn about leaving his dad after so long apart.

“How about I bring her back with me? We’ve arranged a trade for next week anyway.” Highlander shrugged and Lincoln looked at Carl and then back to Highlander.

“That would be so good, brother.” He was grinning ear to ear and looking like he’d lost ten years and was a little boy all over again instead of a boy that had had to grow up too quickly. “I’d really like to stick around here for a bit, catch up with my dad,” Linc said to Gauge and Highlander.

“Ya think you’ll ever come back?” Highlander asked, and Linc surprised me by nodding.

“Yeah, the clubhouse is my home and the Highwaymen are my family, but my dad and I have a lot of catching up to do, and when my mom comes...” his words sounded strangled as emotion gripped him. “Besides, you could do with someone keeping an eye on things here, right?”

Highlander slapped Linc on the back and straddled his bike. “Aye, that would be a grand idea, lad. I’ll tell Shooter and hopefully we’ll be back in a week or so with some news.”

Mikey was talking to Phil and Aimee, who had joined us, and I moved to Highlander to have a quiet word with him.

“Queen B, we miss ya around the place,” he said.

“Really?” I raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

“Not really, you were a royal pain in me arse, if I’m being honest. But there’s something to say for the honesty you always gave, I’ll give ya that.” He chuckled and I smirked. “Plus I really miss the playful banter we had going on.”

“Playful banter?” I asked.

“Aye, the way you called me names and pretended to hate everyone, and I got to piss you off.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t pretending.” I grinned, before letting it fall. “Shooter?” I said. “He’s not doing so good?”

Gauge looked up at the sound of their president’s name. “That’s a motherfuckin’ understatement.”

I nodded, guilt fluttering in my chest. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt him. I never wanted to hurt anyone.”

“Apology ain’t worth shit,” Gauge growled out, and then he sighed. “But for what it’s worth, I know you didn’t.”

“Look at us, one big happy family,” Highlander laughed, and I smiled.

“If this is a happy family then I think we’re all fucked,” Gauge snapped, but I saw the quirk at the corner of his mouth and knew he didn’t mean it. “We need to get back on the road. He’ll be wondering where we are.”

“You didn’t tell him?” I asked, knowing how pissed Shooter would be.

“Told him we were going on a run for supplies. Didn’t think he needed to know where we were going,” Gauge replied.

“How are Amara and Indigo?” I asked. I’d been scared to ask about them, not really wanting to think about Gunner and what I’d witnessed him do, but I knew at some point I’d need to deal with that and make a decision.

“Aye, they’re good,” Highlander replied. “Think they both miss you though.”

“Babies just dribble and shit themselves, how can you even tell?” Gauge shrugged and Highlander and I laughed.

Finally, I sighed. “Well, good luck. Stop by the house when you come back, please. I’d like to be kept in the loop on what’s happening. I want to be a part of it, if that’s possible.”

“Ack, of course, Queen B! This is all thanks to you, after all.” He tugged his helmet on and the two men started their bikes and backed out of their spaces before slowly riding to the entrance. Moo opened the gates and they drove out, and seconds later Mikey came to stand with me.

“Ready to go?” he asked, and I nodded, slipping into the truck.

“You sure you won’t take Joan with you?” Aiken asked Mikey with a raised eyebrow.

“Everyone is useful, Aiken,” I said, leaning across the seat to look up at him.

“Not her,” he grumbled.

“Ask her about the chickens,” I laughed.

“Chickens?”

“You’ll see.” I laughed even harder.

Mikey got in and we drove to the entrance, waving goodbye to Moo as she opened the gates and we drove away.

Mikey reached across the space between us, grabbing the edges of my jeans and tugging me over to him. “Get over here.”

I laughed again, resting my head on his shoulder as we headed back home.

Home.

God, how was it possible that I had a home again? A place that really felt like home too. Not just a place to lay my head. No, this was a home with the man I loved, and a future worth fighting for. All the pain and loss hadn’t been in vain. It had been for something, and I knew that now.

The sun was setting, a soft orange glow warming the earth as it settled beneath the trees. The world was beautiful, I realized. So beautiful. Mother nature had thrived while we had been trying to survive, and I had somehow missed it. With all the fighting and the hiding and the misery, I had missed the flowers blooming brighter, the grass growing long and thick, the trees turning from orange to brown to green, each year growing stronger.

I had missed the world coming back to life because I’d been so scared of truly living, but not anymore. I placed my hand on Mikey’s thigh, my gaze outside the window. From here on out, I was determined to live each day to the fullest.

The past was the past and the future was what we made it.

The end.

Odium VIII coming 2021

Add it here:

ODIUM VIII The Dead Saga by Claire C. Riley | Goodreads

Read on for a sneak peek…

1.

Mikey.

I stood at the window looking out at the darkness beneath us. The black trees swaying in the light breeze that filtered through the forest surrounding us. I was already making plans to secure this place even more. It was safe, for now, but I knew that safety was part what you made it and the rest was down to fate. I wasn’t leaving anything to fate anymore.

Nina mumbled something in her sleep and I turned to look at her. Her long hair splayed out from the pillow beneath her head, her features tugging into a small frown. She rolled onto her side, attempting to grab the duvet and pull it over her shoulders, but it was the side that was missing her hand and so her arm flailed uselessly for a moment before finally giving up.

I walked to her, pulling the covers up over her, and her frown changed to a small smile as she fell back into a deep sleep.

God, she was beautiful, scars and all.

I’d missed her so much.

I kissed the side of her face and then went to stand by the window again. Sleep evaded me tonight; thoughts of revenge had been burrowing deeper and deeper into my soul each day. I wanted to forget it—forget the treachery of everyone’s lies, the lengths they’d gone to to keep their secrets from me, but it was hard.

Their lies had mixed with memories of my time in the Savages’ caves, blending themselves into one hateful feeling. One that kept me awake each night when I should have been sleeping, arms wrapped around the woman I loved, happy that we were together again. But the peace wouldn’t come, no matter how hard I tried.

A flash of something below made me squint into the darkness, and I leaned closer to the glass, my gaze narrowing on the spot of white in the darkness. A deer maybe, I decided when it vanished. Nothing more than that.

Deaders didn’t hide in the darkness and the Savages were dead.

What else could it be?

“Mikey?” Nina said my name and I turned from the window to look at her.

Her eyes blinked in the darkness. “Come back to bed,” she said, giving a small yawn.

“I’ll be right there,” I replied, giving one last glance outside.

Whatever had been out there was gone now.

With thanks.

As usual, I’m sure I’ll forget to thank some people so I’ll apologize in advance for that.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!

Thank you to my faithful Odium readers who have followed Nina’s journey from Odium 0.5 all the way to Book 7. Without you, this series wouldn’t be what it is. Your passion for my snarky heroine and this dark apocalyptic world I’ve created means everything to me. I can’t thank you enough. I hope Book 7 was everything you hoped it would be because Book 8 is going to blow you away!

Thank you to my friend and editor, Amy Jackson. I love and appreciate all that you do for me. You make the difficult task of editing as painless as possible, and I can’t thank you enough.

Thank you to my sister from another mister and amazing cover designer Elizabeth Constantopoulos. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you! Your friendship means everything.

Thank you to my badass PA Sarah Barton. I promise to be more organized in 2021. I mean, I’ll at least promise to try and be more organized, but you know what they say about leopards never changing their spots…

Thank you to my Street Team, Claire’s Queens. Thanks for sticking with me through the many books I throw at you two days before release. Your hustle is awesome and it is so so appreciated.

Thank you to my amazing reader group, Riley’s Rebels, and to Kelli Fisk McElreath, my admin who, no matter what is going on in her life, keeps that group going for me. I actually don’t know what I’d do without you! Thank you so much, darlin’.

About the author:

Claire C. Riley is a USA Today and International Bestselling author.

She’s a genre-jumping book nerd who likes to write about psycho stalkers, anti-heroes, and the end of the bloody world!

Gryffindor. Targaryen. Zombie slayer.

She lives in the United Kingdom with her husband, three daughters, and ridiculously naughty rescue beagle, Dogface. She loves clothes with pockets in (especially dresses), loves avocados, and was obsessed with the film Heathers when she was younger.

She is represented by Lane Heymont of The Tobias Literary Agency

Also by Claire C. Riley

Post-Apocalypse/dystopian:

Odium The Dead Saga series

Odium Origins Series

Out of the Dark

Red Eye The Armageddon Series – co-authored with Eli Constant

Thicker than Blood Series – co-authored with Madeline Sheehan

Paranormal Romance:

Limerence. (The Obsession Series)

Limerence II (The Obsession Series)

Twisted Magic Raven’s Cove

Romantic suspense/thriller:

Beautiful Victim

Fragments of Delores

Horror:

Blood Claim

MC Romance:

Ride or Die a Devil’s Highwaymen series

Nomad the Devil’s Highwaymen Series:

Crank #1, Sketch #2, Battle #3, Fighter #4, Cowboy #5

Tame his Beast Duet

New Adult Romance:

Wrath #3 the Elite Seven Series

Contemporary Romance:

Shut Up & Kiss Me

Available in paperback, eBook, and audiobook, and almost all in Kindle Unlimited!

CONTACT LINKS:

Website: www.clairecriley.com

Claire C. Riley FB page: https://www.facebook.com/ClaireCRileyAuthor/

Amazon: http://amzn.to/1GDpF3I

Reader Group: Riley’s Rebels: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ClaireCRileyFansGroup/

Newsletter Sign-up: http://bit.ly/2xTY2bx

IG: https://www.instagram.com/redheadapocalypse/

@ClaireCRiley