by Kyla Stone
Her mother was gone. She’d never had a real father. She wasn’t going to lose her brother, too. She stepped in front of Silas. “Go ahead and banish him. But I’m going with him.”
“You can’t do that,” Jericho said tersely.
She glared at him, blinking the rain out of her eyes. “Watch me.”
“You may have the cure in your blood, Amelia,” Micah said. “You are the most important person in this group, maybe anywhere. Our number one mission is to get you safely to the Sanctuary.”
“I’m aware,” she said hotly. “That doesn’t change anything.”
Gabriel ran his hand over his stubbled jaw with a frown. “You don’t have a choice. I won’t let you leave.”
“You won’t let me? What are you going to do, tie me up and carry me over your shoulder like a sack of flour?” It felt good to let the anger out, to say exactly what she thought and felt. She’d spent a lifetime hiding anything that made her flawed, that made her ugly. But she didn’t care about being ugly now.
“I will not leave my brother willingly. I’ll fight you every second.” She shot a look at Micah. “You’ve seen what I can do with a syringe. Just imagine what I’ll do with a knife.”
A ghost of a smile flickered across Silas’s face, then disappeared.
Gabriel studied her with his dark, penetrating gaze, with those eyes that could reach deep into her soul. He was searching for weakness. He’d find no weakness here. She squared her shoulders. She did not flinch or look away.
Gabriel nodded to himself, as if deciding something. “If she goes,” he said, “so do I.”
Amelia flashed him a grateful look.
Horne threw up his hands. “Good riddance is what I say. Let’s rid ourselves of the terrorist and the murderer in one fell swoop.”
“And two of our best fighters.” Jericho turned to Micah, his jaw working. “Say your piece. I know you have something to say.”
Both Micah and Amelia looked at him, startled. Jericho never asked anyone for advice. He was the leader. His word was law. Anyone who didn’t like it could leave. But he’d kept them all alive a dozen times, so everyone accepted his rule, however grudgingly.
Micah cleared his throat. “We’re not savages. We can’t live like that. I refuse to live like that, killing before someone else kills me. We could have shot at their feet again. We could have wounded them if we had to, without killing them.
“Silas behaved recklessly. This boy is dead because of him. We killed two people. I can’t imagine there won’t be consequences.” He met Amelia’s gaze, his expression pained. He looked guilty himself, as if he were taking the weight of shame as his own. “We will deserve it.”
“Would you banish him?” Jericho’s voice was even, his face expressionless. It was impossible to read him, to know which way he would go. Jericho was tough, merciless when he had to be. But he also cared for Silas. Amelia didn’t know what he would do.
Micah glanced at Amelia again. She pleaded with her eyes, begging silently. But she didn’t say anything more. Her words were nails in her throat.
Micah sighed heavily. “All that being said…no, I wouldn’t.”
“Then I won’t either,” Jericho said briskly. “It’s decided, then.”
Amelia let out a breath. She was willing to leave them behind for Silas if she had to, but she felt immense relief that her challenge wouldn’t be put to the test.
Silas growled deep in his throat, the only sign that he’d even heard them. He smiled hard, his teeth pulled back from his lips, his eyes empty. His body was present, but his mind was somewhere else, somewhere none of them could reach.
“You’re just going to let Micah decide?” Horne whined. “Is he in charge now?”
“I’m in charge,” Jericho said. “And I say we need every able-bodied fighter we have to defend ourselves. We’ve dallied for too long already. It’s time to move.”
Silas turned and stalked down the empty street, his rifle over his slouched shoulders, one hand shoved deep in his pocket, leaving the group behind without a backward glance.
“He didn’t even say thank you,” Celeste said.
“He was never one for manners.” Amelia repressed a small, sad smile. This wasn’t the time for humor, not with two dead bodies at her feet. But Silas was Silas. He never changed, not even for the apocalypse.
Finn took Benjie’s hand. “Where’s he going, anyway?”
“Probably to tear the wings off some butterflies,” Finn muttered.
“I know what he’s doing,” Willow said. “I can keep an eye on him. We’ll scout a shelter for the night.”
Jericho nodded. “And food.”
“We need thick leather boots,” Amelia said. “To protect against the rats.”
Willow kissed Benjie’s head. “Stay with Mister Finn. I’ll be back.” She pulled Benjie’s inhaler out of her cargo pocket and handed it to Amelia. “Will you watch this for me?”
“Of course—if you’ll watch my brother for me.” She wanted to run after him herself, but he wouldn’t talk to her. She knew he wouldn’t. He’d only shut her out. Maybe Willow could reach him in a way she couldn’t.
Willow met Amelia’s gaze and nodded. “That’s what I aim to do.” She shouldered her rifle and jogged after Silas, a gray shape disappearing into the rain.
Amelia watched them go, foreboding settling in the pit of her stomach like a block of ice. The group was still intact, but they weren’t out of the woods.
Whether he’d meant to or not, whether he’d acted rashly or not, Silas had killed two Pyros. Somehow, some way, that was going to come back to haunt them.
6
Willow
“This place is as good as any,” Willow said.
She and Silas had spent the last two days scavenging and scouting. As the sun began to sink between the skyscrapers, they’d discovered a huge, abandoned mall. It was mostly free of infected bodies, contained a food court with some packaged and canned goods in storage cabinets, and had clothing stores galore. Best of all, there were no rats in sight.
They’d circled the massive structure, circumventing smaller shopping centers, a huge, mostly empty parking lot, and a residential street of tenement housing filled with cars to provide cover. They approached from the back. There were a few semi-trucks, one parked in front of an open loading bay.
They clambered inside and passed through the darkened warehouse into the main mall. Pale, watery light filtered through the transparent, domed roof. Shadows crouched in the dim corners of the windowless shops. The mall was vast and empty, even their whispers echoing down the silent corridors.
She caught a glimpse of herself in a trio of mirrored spheres hanging outside of a high-fashion smart jewelry boutique—necklaces that predicted your stroke risk, bangles that monitored circadian rhythms. Her knotted, ratty hair was plastered around her drawn face, a streak of dirt marring one cheek, her eyes sharp and cunning as a wild animal’s. She looked away quickly.
She shivered, her clothes soaked, glad to be out of the wet and the cold. Her scalp itched. She ran her tongue over her furry teeth, disgusted. They brushed with manual toothbrushes they’d scavenged from a convenience store, but it wasn’t enough. She would’ve traded her meager life savings for a single night of modern amenities. “I bet they have boots. And I’m dying to change my underwear.”
“It’s time to get the others,” Silas said, ignoring her lame attempt to get some kind of rise out of him.
“Not yet.” They’d barely spoken in the two days since she’d joined him, since he’d killed the boy and the old man. Willow was pretty terrible about talking about feelings, but then, so was he. The more time they spent together, the more comfortable they became with each other’s silence.
Bizarre as it was, she felt a connection to Silas. He was a world-class asshole, but he’d also taught her how to fight, how to win, how to stay alive. They’d both had to kill. They both lived with guilt like a cancer eating away at their insides. “Fig
ht me.”
His mouth curved in its usual smirk, but his eyes were sharp with regret and guilt, emotions Willow knew all too well. Silas knew he’d screwed up. He didn’t need Willow to tell him that. She knew better than anyone how it felt to fail so horrifically. He just needed someone to be near him, someone who understood.
“Now?” he asked. “You look like a drowned poodle.”
“You look worse, believe me.” She shook out her arms and tucked her chin, getting into her fighting stance. “Give me your best shot.”
Silas circled Willow slowly, throwing a few warm-up jabs. Willow deflected his blows easily. She threw a counterstrike, nailing his shoulder.
She faked another jab, intending to come at him with a cross, but he knew her too well. He blocked it and kicked simultaneously, sweeping her legs out from under her.
She went down hard, the air knocked from her lungs, sharp pain striking her elbows and tailbone. Thank goodness for the extra padding on her behind that wouldn’t go away, apocalyptic starvation diet or no.
She leapt up before he could catch his breath. She jabbed an uppercut at his face, her fist glancing off his chin.
He staggered back.
She flexed her fists as she stared at him. His face was still tense, his eyes drowning in
darkness. She needed to say something. This time, silence wasn’t enough. “What happened sucked.”
He only grunted.
Willow had killed a Headhunter at Sweet Creek Farm. She’d stabbed him, felt his warm lifeblood gushing over her hands. A part of her had hated it. Another part of her had relished the power of taking a life. She could do it again. She would do it again if she had to, in order to protect those she loved.
It would feel awful to accidentally kill a kid. But her finger had been twitching on her own trigger, too. It could just as easily have been her. “They didn’t stop. You did what you had to do.”
For a long moment, he just stared at her, breathing hard.
“I would have done the same thing. I would’ve felt guilty as hell. But our people come
first. They have to.”
He cocked his head, studying her with that cutting gaze, sharp as stone. “You really believe that?”
“Hell, yes, I do. We survived the Headhunters. We’ve heard the rumors about the Pyros. What they’re capable of. We know what kind of people are out there. We have to protect our own. That’s what you did.”
Finally, he nodded. It wasn’t in him to show gratitude or apologize. She didn’t expect
it. But when his smirk returned, it seemed happier, lighter somehow.
Which is when she attacked. She surged forward, feinted to the left, and landed a hard punch to the right side of his jaw. He stumbled back, reeling.
For a second, his expression was a mix of pained and furious, then the shadows cleared. He rubbed his jawline and spit a glob of blood on the floor. “Damn, Cupcake. I guess I’m one hell of a teacher.”
She shook out her hand, flexing her stinging knuckles. “No, I’m one hell of a student.”
His hunched shoulders relaxed. He gave her a smile—a real one, one that reached his eyes for maybe the first time since she’d met him. She smiled back.
She pointed at a department store to their left, where dozens of shiny white mannequins gleamed—their limbs contorted, their slim, flawless bodies draped with the latest fashions. They were the old-fashioned kind made of molded plastic, not the new holograms that writhed seductively, purring your name as you passed.
There were at least a hundred on this floor alone. They stood, silent monuments to…something. Rampant consumerism? Arrogant cultural something or other? She didn’t know. It didn’t matter. She just wanted to bash their perfect plastic heads in.
She grabbed a pair of diamond-studded sunglasses off one of the mannequins and stuck them on her head. “Ready to destroy something?”
“Always so demanding, Cupcake.” He flashed her a wicked grin, already reaching for his pack to seize the nail-studded bat. “But I aim to please.”
7
Willow
“What about these?” Willow asked, kicking out her leg to show Amelia her new shin-high brown leather boots.
“They look lovely.” Amelia laced up her own sleek black pair with a rim of gray fur at the knees. It was the apocalypse, and yet somehow, Amelia still managed to look spectacular.
Willow stifled a scowl. She was only five feet tall, with a shoe-size to match, but she was cursed with her dad’s thick calves. The brown boots were the only ones that fit her. Something so stupid and insignificant shouldn’t have bothered her, but it did.
Since the world had ended in early September, fall styles were on display, but most of the heavy winter stuff hadn’t arrived yet. But there were plenty of boots, jackets, scarves, and thin cotton or leather gloves to choose from.
Benjie was off shopping with Finn and the guys, giddy at being included with the adults. She felt only a slight anxiousness at not having him at her side. She trusted Finn and Micah. And Jericho, Silas, and Gabriel were excellent fighters. Benjie was safer with them than with her.
Though she was working on that. She and Silas continued to train and spar every chance they got. Every day, she grew in strength and skill and prowess. With every fading bruise, her body grew harder, more resilient. She could take a punch in the face and bounce back up again, spitting blood and ready to return the favor.
She was still short and chubby; still plain, invisible Willow. But she was tough. She could fight. She could shoot. She could kill a man if she had to. And that made all the difference.
Amelia held a cranberry-colored cable-knit sweater to her chest, frowned, and discarded it. “Where’s Celeste?”
Willow glanced around the large department store. Celeste had disappeared. They’d all been together the last few hours, wandering the stores, collecting jackets, sweaters, a change of clothes for their backpacks, and new underwear, bras, and socks.
She’d picked out a bright turquoise scarf in honor of Zia. She fingered the luxurious, velvet-soft fringe, a sudden shard of grief sliding between her ribs. Some days, everything made her think of Zia. Some days, everything hurt.
She needed a distraction. “I’ll find her,” Willow offered.
She wandered between the racks of designer clothes, purses, and sunglasses, her eyes stinging. Thoughts of her family flashed through her mind: Zia dancing and singing karaoke at the top of her lungs, doing her donkey-bray laugh; Benjie and Zia decorating each other’s hair with a bunch of tiny butterfly clips, Zia’s turquoise-tipped pixie hair standing up all over her head; her mom sipping a margarita and smiling in relaxed contentment on the Grand Voyager, the last time Willow ever saw her.
She shoved those thoughts out of her head. Zia was gone now. Her mom was gone, too. There was no time for tears while the world fell to pieces all around you. The only thing left to do was survive. And surviving, at least, she was good at.
Willow finally found Celeste behind the customer service and administrative offices, in the women’s bathroom. The large, upscale bathroom was decorated with gray slate tile and shiny chrome counters. Everything was rimmed in a film of dust.
Celeste had stripped off her pants and shoes and was balancing her leg on the lip of the sink, a razor in one hand and a bar of hand soap in the other. A half-full bottle of water sat on the counter next to her.
Willow fisted her hands on her hips. She cleared her throat loudly. “Nice underwear.”
Celeste rolled her eyes. “Thanks.”
“What are you doing?”
“What does it look like? I’m practicing personal hygiene.” She gave a haughty sniff. “Which the rest of you have obviously forgotten.”
Willow touched her snarled, ratty hair. Now that she thought about it, her scalp itched like crazy. Her whole body felt grimy. “There are kind of more important things to do in the apocalypse. Like staying alive.”
Celeste poured a bit of water over her shin, s
crubbed with the soap, and dragged the razor across her leg. “Speak for yourself.”
Part of her wanted to get out of there and return to shopping, which was actually kind of fun in a weird, disconcerting way. She’d never in her life picked out an item of clothing without regard to cost. Now she could choose anything and everything. She’d never cared about fashion, but Zia would have loved it.
She should probably leave. Celeste represented everything she despised in the elites: spoiled, clueless, self-absorbed, vain. Celeste was model-beautiful, with flawless brown skin, curved cheekbones, and perfectly arched brows. She’d grown up in luxury, in a world apart from the one Willow knew, where everyone was desperate and hopeless and starving.
Celeste always seemed to bring out everything she despised the most about herself, all the envious, petty, insecure parts. That old fear prickling at her that she would never be good enough, pretty enough, smart enough. Simply, enough.
She turned to leave. There was no reason to torture herself in Celeste’s presence. But something made her hesitate.
Celeste’s face reflected in the mirror was drawn and forlorn, wounded somehow. She looked lost. Vulnerable. Willow’s mind flashed back to the Grand Voyager, when they’d been trapped together in the water beneath the bridge. Celeste’s eyes had that same haunted look now.
Oh, hell. She crossed her arms over her chest. “No one cares if you’re a hairy ox, you know.”
“I care!” Celeste sniffed again and rubbed the back of her arm across her face. Her eyes were rimmed with red, dark circles smudged beneath them.
“Wait, are you crying?”
Celeste glared at Willow in the mirror. Her lower lip trembled. “I get it, okay? You’re the strong, fierce one. Amelia is the stoic ice queen. Where does that leave me? Nothing in my life has prepared me for this.” She waved her arms, encompassing everything, the whole damned and ruined world.
