End of the Walker (The Walker Series Book 5)

by Coralee June

  He hugged me, and I dropped the washcloth. We stood there like a shaking mess in the freezing water as his skin cooled off. “You’re going to be okay,” I promised, though I didn’t honestly know if he would.

  The compartment under the door opened, and I turned to see that Kemper had slid a fresh change of clothes and two towels under it. I quickly went to it and helped Maverick get dressed, watching as his eyes flickered in and out of awareness. It was hard, watching such a vibrant and compassionate man slip into that state of nothing. That was the worst part of Influenza X, it claimed the mind long before it claimed the body.

  Once Maverick was lying down on the pallet, I made my way over to the glass door and started pacing. I kept glancing at the entrance to the clinic, waiting for Payne and Huxley to walk through. I knew that Huxley would get him here as quickly as possible.

  “You hungry?” Cyler asked over the intercom. My stomach was in knots, and I wasn’t sure I could actually stomach anything, but knowing the guys would shove nourishment down my throat if I didn’t say yes made me nod my head anyway.

  A protein bar was slipped under the compartment for me, and I opened the wrapper to eat. “Should we try to give Maverick something?” I asked before glancing over at his sleeping form.

  “Probably not,” Kemper said while flipping through a tattered notebook. “Once we have the cure, we don’t want anything in his stomach that could counteract it. It says here to keep his sores clean to slow the spread of infection, which you’ve already done.”

  “Does it say anything else?” I asked. This I could do.

  “Just that he needs to be hydrated.”

  Cyler slid a canteen full of water under the door, and I walked it over to Maverick. Using my hand, I propped his head up and tilted the edge of the drink into his mouth. He swallowed a few sips but started coughing, so I stopped.

  After wiping his lips clean and checking his sores for puss, I went back to the glass door and paced again. “How is the cure going to work?” I asked Kemper. Knowledge made me feel empowered, and I wanted to soak up all the information.

  Kemper set down the notebook and pointed at a machine in front of him. “This is supposed to extract the immunity from Payne’s blood. I put the sample in here, and it’ll pick out the sequence.” Kemper then walked across the room to a larger machine mounted on the wall. “This machine will develop fourteen different vaccines. There are apparently multiple formulas that will have various odds of success. Just because we have the cure in Payne’s blood, there’s still different variables. Maverick wrote down which ones would probably have more likelihood to work, so we’ll just have to...try them all.”

  That sounded dangerous. “What if he has a bad reaction to one?” I asked.

  “We don’t really have time for tests, Ash,” Cyler whispered. He already knew the dangers. Already knew that this could very well be a hopeless cause.

  “We’ll go according to probability. Start with the one calculated to be the most accurate and work from there. It’s all we can do.”

  I paced the floors more. Maybe knowledge wasn’t power.

  Chapter Twenty

  The door to the clinic slammed open, and Huxley rushed in while carrying a sleepy Payne. He was awake, but his eyes were drooped, and his body seemed lethargic. I pressed both my palms to the door, aching to be as close as possible to Payne. I gasped when Huxley laid him down on the table, and Kemper made quick work of extracting his blood.

  "Is Payne okay?" I asked Huxley. I was standing so close that my breath was fogging up the glass, and I wiped it away with the sleeve of my ratty shirt in annoyance.

  "He's a little weak, but I think that's normal," Huxley replied before walking over to me. He placed his hand against the glass before flipping his gaze to Maverick.

  "How is he?" Huxley asked. I turned my gaze back to Maverick and took in his sleeping form. His breathing had increased rapidly.

  Turning back to Huxley, I answered him. "He's not doing very well. You got here just in time," I said.

  Kemper quickly drew blood from a sleepy Payne. He put the vial into the first machine and set the timer as Patrick picked up Payne and eased him over to a nearby couch to rest some more. "It'll take fifteen minutes," Kemper said before cursing.

  Cyler was standing nearby and kept clenching and unclenching his fists. I watched Payne on the couch as he rolled over and folded in on himself in the fetal position. I wanted to go to the young boy and offer him support. It'd been so long since I'd seen him. Despite how pale he looked and the fact that he was much skinnier than the last time we saw one another, he was okay. You had to take the little victories when you could.

  Jacob was standing near the second machine, arms crossed over his chest while Patrick tried to give Payne more water. I realized then how efficiently our little team worked. We were a well-oiled machine, finding what needed to be done and acting on it. It was hard to stand there just waiting, so I went back to Maverick to track his fever. Since our cold shower, it had gone down some, but he was a raging inferno now. It almost hurt to touch him.

  When I pulled my hand back, he let out a hiss. It was almost like me touching him had soothed him somehow. So, while Kemper waited for the machine, I reached out and grabbed his hand.

  "How much longer?" Cyler asked. His voice cracked over the intercom.

  "Five minutes," Kemper said.

  In an instant, Maverick shot up in bed. I was jostled for a moment and put a little bit of space between us while staring at him. "Maverick?" I asked. I looked in his eyes and didn't see the man I loved. He was completely empty. "Maverick, it's me," I said. I couldn't tell if he was going to start being aggressive again. But I was surprised when he stood up and started staggering around the room. He walked into the wall and banged his head against it before turning around and walking the other distance. He was a Roamer. Walkers got their name because of the mindless way they roamed the streets when they were infected. The virus made his motor skills go hazy. It's how the disease spread so quickly. Their boils would burst as they walked through crowded places, infecting anyone their blood touched.

  The others saw him wandering, and I watched their expressions slip into hopelessness. It wouldn't be long now.

  How could we possibly be so close yet feel so far from the cure? My entire life had been leading up to this moment. Influenza X had claimed my family. It destroyed the empire. It stole Cyler, Maverick, and Jules’ parents from them. It waged wars. It ruined families. I couldn't believe that we had, so far, lost so much, and still, Influenza X was clinging to the last bit of love that I had and was trying to tarnish it in a last ditch effort of claiming everything I cared about.

  "It's done!" Kemper said. I watched how his fingers trembled when he removed the samples from the machine. Kemp fast walked over to the secondary machine and carefully placed each one in its designated spot. Holding the notebook up that Maverick had filled out, he started putting in gene sequences, carefully pressing each button while checking it over.

  Jacob stood behind him, and his mindspeak started listing off the different numbers he was pressing as if to double check that it was correct. All of us were silent, listening to them work as Maverick paced the room. I felt a hand on my hip as I stared out the glass door, and soon I was spun around and slammed into the partition. From the corner of my eye, I noticed that the loud noise had forced Payne to wake up from his daze.

  Maverick's breath smelled sickly, it floated over my body as he gave me an empty stare. He trailed his hands up my body, leaving trails of blood as he tilted his head to the side. I knew he wasn't seeing me. It was an X delusion, and I couldn't help but wonder what he was seeing behind that brilliant mind of his.

  "Hold on just a little longer, Ash," Patrick said. He was right on the other side of the door, ready to open it should Maverick try anything. So far, Mav just seemed out of it. He wasn't necessarily aggressive, but he had me pressed against the glass, his entire body leaning against mine as he breathed d
own my neck.

  "It's almost done!" Kemper yelled. I squeezed my eyes shut, imagining him running his hands through his blond hair and the apple orchard where we shared our first date. I imagined Maverick and me in the clinic, working side-by-side as he studied the cure. I thought of the tree house as I looked at Cyler. I thought about the showers in Ethros with Huxley. I imagined sitting in Black Manor with Patrick. I clung to each moment with my men as Maverick pressed his bloody forehead against mine.

  "Just a little bit longer, Maverick. Hang on just a little bit longer," I said. One of his blisters burst, causing a splatter of blood to cover my face. I felt it on my lips, and my lashes stuck together from the gore. “Almost there, Maverick.”

  From the corner of my eye, I watched Kemper tap his foot while staring frantically at the machine. “One more minute!” he screamed.

  I lifted up my hand and stroked Maverick’s cheek, keeping my eye on him as his chest grumbled with a growl. He swayed as I whispered reassuring words to him. “It’s going to be okay. You’re going to be okay,” I cooed.

  Maverick sunk to his knees and placed his head against my stomach. Blood smeared along my shirt as he nuzzled me. “Kemper!” I screamed as a pounding on the glass door echoed around me.

  Cyler was there, watching Maverick as he sunk entirely to the floor. I crouched down and watched the door as Kemper sprinted forward while holding a syringe. The moment it was passed to me through the compartment, I picked up the needle and shoved it into his forearm and pushed the liquid into his arm. Once the syringe was empty, I pulled the needle from his vein and watched the steady movement of his chest going up and down. “Did it work?” I asked in a shrill voice while spinning around to look at the others. “When will we know that it works?!”

  A thudding sound on the ground drew my attention back to Maverick, and I watched in horror as he thrashed. “Maverick!” I screamed. His body seized as he rolled over onto the carpet, blood spilling from his mouth as he coughed. “What do I do?” I asked as I tried to hold him down, but it was no use.

  Cyler was yelling through the intercom at me to back away, but I couldn’t. I refused to leave Maverick like this. His body finally stopped convulsing, and I watched as every muscle in his body relaxed. He almost looked lifeless.

  I checked his pulse. “His heart is faint, but he’s still alive. What if we take him to the time capsule while we test out the other cures?” I was already lifting him up by the armpit, prepared to drag him all the way to Stonewell Manor.

  “I’ve already thought of that. We’d need more of the time capsule serum, and all of it was used for Payne.”

  I sobbed as Maverick tried to breathe. This couldn’t be it. The cure had to work. What the fuck were we doing if, at the end of it all, we still ended up at some morbid conclusion? “No, no, no,” I sobbed while pressing my cheek to his chest. I listened to the steady, slow, beat of his heart and ignored the smell of filth, blood, and sickness on his body. I just wanted to hold him, just wanted to be here.

  “It could still work,” Cyler said. I glanced at the glass partition where his fist was clenched. “We don’t know how long the cure takes. Let’s wait.”

  I nodded and continued to lie down on Maverick, letting the tears from my eyes wash away the blood as I sobbed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I felt a wet washcloth rubbing along my skin the next morning. I was struggling to open my eyes and greet the new day. It was like my soul was heavy, and I couldn’t break myself away from the exhaustion and overwhelming emotions fighting to bring me back under.

  I creeped an eye open and stared at the gentle hand washing my skin with warm water. I then opened my other eye and twisted up to look at who went into the quarantine room to care for me, but then quickly squeezed them shut to try and prepare myself for the pain of knowing Maverick didn’t survive.

  I took a few steadying breaths and clenched my fists. I knew I was close to heartbreak. But when I opened them again, I nearly gasped at the sight I saw. Maverick was washing me. “Good morning, Ash,” he said in a soothing voice as he reached for my cheek and brushed the coarse rag against my lip.

  “Is this a dream?” I asked. I couldn’t believe that this was happening. Maverick was okay. We did it. We found the cure. My eyes roamed over his skin, noting the faded blotches and scabs from the sores.

  He reached for my hands and pulled me to a sitting position before gently guiding me to my feet. Pulling me over to the shower, he stripped me of my clothes and set me under the spray. I gaped at him, feeling a blend of thankfulness and disbelief. “This is real,” he replied while washing my hair. “I woke up about seven hours ago. You were pretty exhausted, so we decided to let you sleep. It gave me some time to get cleaned up and get some strength back.”

  He ran the cloth over my skin, taking care to wash every inch of my body. “You should have woken me up!” I exclaimed.

  “We tried,” Maverick answered before dropping lower to wash my inner thighs. “But you really were out of it. You’ve had a traumatic few days, Ash. I would have let you sleep longer, but it was killing me to see you sleeping while covered in my blood.”

  I scoffed. “I’ve had a traumatic couple of days? Y-you were dying, Mav,” I stuttered. He stood back up, and splatters of water covered his shirt, soaking the fabric which was clinging to his chest. I shut off the water and headed to the sink where a toothbrush and toothpaste were waiting for me. I didn’t bother drying off. Droplets of water traveled down my skin as I cleaned my teeth and stared at Maverick in the reflection of the mirror. “It’s really you, right? This isn’t some dream?” I asked before spitting toothpaste into the basin and spinning around to face him.

  He smiled at my naked body and clutched me to his chest. I shivered at the way his lips touched my ear as he whispered. “It’s real, I’m here.”

  I let out a sigh then lifted up to kiss Maverick. I was still partly shocked at how lucky we were. I poured my fears of losing him into his mouth and started unbuttoning his shirt, tracing my fingers down his scarred and scabbed skin as he went to unbuckle his belt. “I knew you were there the whole time,” he whispered against my lips before stepping out of his pants and guiding me to the tile wall. “It was strange. Like there was a wall between reality and the illness. But I always knew you were there,” he croaked.

  I wrapped my leg around his waist and rubbed our bodies together. “Where is everyone?” I asked before wrapping my arms around his back. Our movements were frantic, like we couldn’t get close enough or feel enough. We’d come so close to losing one another that I needed to prove to myself that he was actually here.

  “Back at Stonewell Manor coming up with a plan for mass production,” he replied before lacing our lips together once more. He tugged on my lip with his sharp teeth as I whimpered. Everything felt so vibrant.

  “Should we go?” I asked. I’d been so consumed with saving Maverick that I hadn’t really been helping them. I needed to hug Cyler and laugh with Patrick. I missed them. We all needed to celebrate together.

  “First, I need you,” Maverick whispered while dragging his nails along my scalp. Within an instant, his mouth was back on mine. He picked me up and grabbed my other leg. I was braced between him and the wall and his hard erection slipped easily inside me.

  “Yes,” I moaned as he bounced me up and down, in and out. It was hard to believe that he was on his deathbed just hours ago. “This cure works fast,” I said with a grunt as he nipped at my neck.

  “Luckily for me,” Maverick replied before pulling me off the wall and guiding me to a table. After sitting me down on the cool metal, he pulled me closer and continued to thrust in and out of me. “You feel so perfect. Never ever taking this for granted,” he cooed while lifting his hand to tease my nub with his thumb. I thrashed against him and let him fill me up. I was overwhelmed by the emotions of the last few days but still thankful for this time with him.

  Each stroke of his thumb was timed perfectly with his thrust
s. He pounded me harder while holding me still on the table. I nearly rolled my head back from the sensations. “So beautiful,” he whispered. “You saved me, Ash.”

  I grinned just as he flicked my clit. “Technically, Kemper saved you. I just administered the medicine.”

  “True, but I’d prefer to not be thinking about Kemper right now,” Maverick replied, deadpan. I started to laugh, but it felt hollow. I was still in shock and feeling desperate to appreciate this moment, especially since just moments before, we weren’t so sure he would survive.

  “Fair enough,” I said as he continued to pump into me. I carefully traced lines down his back, dodging the raised, healing wounds. I briefly wondered if they would scar, as some of them were pretty deep. He pressed his forehead against mine and went still. We both just sat there, connected but unmoving. I allowed him to fill me up and took comfort in that he was really here—really okay.

  “You scared me, Mav,” I said in a whimper. “When are we going to stop with the near-death experiences, huh?”

  He chuckled then started moving in and out again, his pace leisurely and slow, like he wanted to make this last as long as possible. “I solemnly swear to try and not die ever again,” he replied cheekily.

  This sex was completely unlike anything I’d ever had before. It was slow but intense. It was a connection our bodies craved like none other, a passion that couldn’t be disrupted. But even more so, it was like our souls were holding hands, reassuring one another that it wasn’t over—yet.

  His thumb was massaging me to my peak as he drove in and out, in and out. I felt myself quiver as he kissed my neck. My orgasm was like an explosion of relief. Every muscle in my body contracted and relaxed. He sighed as I went limp in his arms, then he started pushing harder and faster. With his lips parted in ecstasy and a quick grunt, he came in an instant. His eyes burned into mine with each jerk of his body. It was perfection.