by Angel Lawson
“Stop being so dramatic. I’m aware of the current situation out here. I track everything. I have data.”
Did I mention this was going to be a long trip?
“Do you even know where we’re going?” I ask. “Do you have a plan at all?”
She turns and gives me an incredulous look. “Of course I have a plan.”
“Great!” I exclaim with false enthusiasm. “Care to share it with the rest of the class?”
“We’re headed north, to a town called Catlettsburg. It’s in eastern Kentucky, on the Ohio River.”
“And what exactly is up there?” As far as I know we have zero connections with that part of the country. No family. No memories. Although it’s not like I’ve really been privy to my sister’s private life over the last couple of years. If so, maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation right now.
“Well if you must know, during my time at PharmaCorp I had a partner—the original lead scientist. We worked very closely together when I first arrived. He taught me everything I know about the inner workings of a lab outside of a university setting. When I was asked to take more of a leadership role over the Department of Defense contracts—”
“You mean biological warfare,” I interject.
“Yes. The bio-warfare was the primary contract and Avi was not enthusiastic about the program.”
“Sounds like Avi is pretty smart and maybe you should have listened to him.” She gives me a hard look, not amused by my comments. “Okay, so we’re headed to his house.”
“Not just his house. His town.” She sits next to me on the bed. The mattress squeaks from our combined weight. “Avi is the one that prepped the building for an eventual crisis. He created the energy and plumbing systems, managed the food and supplies. He designed the armory and R&D departments. He’s a scientist of survival. He knew one day the end would come. He just didn’t predict we—or rather, I—would be the one to start it.”
There’s little regret in her voice—I’m not sure she’s capable of it any longer, or if she ever was. But there is a hint of longing on her face and it’s clear this man, Avi, is important.
“So we’re going to his town.”
“Yes. He picked the location specifically based on its survivability.”
“Does he know we’re coming?” I have no idea if she has the means to communicate with the outside world. Honestly, I don’t know much about my sister anymore.
“We have an open invitation.” She glances at me.
“What?”
“He does have one stipulation.”
“Okay. What is that?”
“I can bring in the vaccine—he has inoculated the town already. I sent him the first successful batch months ago. Even before we vaccinated ourselves at the Fort. But he will not allow any other genetic alterations or study to be done.”
“Well, good. I certainly don’t have a problem with that.” I frown. “Do you? You don’t have some kind of evil plan lined up do you?”
I’m only half-joking.
Jane doesn’t think it’s funny. “No, Alexandra, I don’t. But for the sake of transparency, you should know that Avi isn’t aware of the Hybrids or the war building in the south. He has no idea what I’ve done or what we may be forced to do to stop it.”
That’s when she breaks. She cracks right in front of me. Her strong exterior shattering into a sobbing mass of emotion. The sister I knew and grew up with appears before me and I blink, as though she’s not real.
“Jane?” She doesn’t reply and I do the only thing I know how. I wrap my arms around her and pull her into a hug.
“It will be okay,” I tell her, stroking her hair. It’s a lie and I don’t know why I say it. She deserves worse.
“He’ll hate me.”
“Maybe.”
She looks at me accusingly, red eyed and with a runny nose. “That’s not helping.”
I sigh and take both of her hands. “You screwed up, dear sister. And there’s no more hiding behind Fortress walls pretending otherwise. The journey to your little town is going to be hard. Brutally hard. We may not even survive and if we do, I suspect seeing Avi is going to be even more difficult.” Another round of sobs wracks through her. I sigh. “But I’ve got your back and I’ll fight for you every step of the way.”
She nods, and I step into the bathroom, where I find the most fantastic thing ever. A box of tissue. I hand it over and she takes an extravagant number, four at once, and I roll my eyes at her cluelessness.
“Wha?” she asks, nose stuffed and running.
“I have so much to teach you.” I take the box back before she can use them all. “But I guess that’s what sisters are for.”
*
After my talk with Jane I feel the need for a bath, so I head down to the clear, green lake. Walker agrees to stand guard and I take tiny baby steps into the freezing cold water slowly, until every part of my body is submerged. I’m still dressed in my prison uniform, not for modesty but because large swaths of the fabric are stuck to my skin, dried there with blood and fluids from my escape. My hands are stained a dark red and I can still feel the hot blood as it oozed out of Cole’s wound.
Even lost to the Hybrid virus, he saved me. I don’t know where to put that information.
The cloth loosens once it gets wet and I strip down and scrub myself clean with a bar of fresh-smelling soap from the bathroom. They have a whole basket of cleaning products the owners must have picked up at hotels around the country. I use three tiny bottles that smell like lavender on my hair alone.
I feel as greedy as my sister with the tissues.
Later, night falls, and we gather around the long wooden table. Jackson’s rabbit, plus two cans of corn and one of peaches in thick, sugary juice make our meal. The owner must have had a thing for candles because there are dozens, and instead of risking a fire we draw the curtains and eat by flickering candlelight.
“What’s the plan?” I ask, licking syrup off my fingers. “Because we can’t stay here long.”
All afternoon I tried to picture the United States map and figure out the best way from here to eastern Kentucky. All I know is this lake isn’t in the right spot to connect directly to the river, which means we’ll be moving forward on foot. Green says as much as he gnaws on the leg bone of the rabbit.
“So we’re walking?” I ask, looking at the Fighters.
“I brought some additive and a spare battery that may help us get a car moving,” Jackson says.
“Has the gas gone bad?” Jane asks, thinking about this for the first time.
“At the Fort, the fleet crew maintained the vehicles, keeping batteries and gasoline clean. Out here everything’s been sitting for a while. We should be able to get something working. We definitely don’t want to travel over the Appalachians on foot.”
“Does that work for you?” I ask Walker, who’s been uncharacteristically quiet.
“Yes. First thing we’ll search for a vehicle but, I agree, we need to leave as soon as possible after that. We need more distance between us and the Hybrids.” She stands and takes her plate to the sink out of habit. There’s no water other than from the lake. She quickly adds, “I’ll take first watch,” before heading out the front door.
I jerk my chin at Green. “You have a map?”
“In my bag.”
My sister watches our exchange. She’s been silent since we spoke earlier in the day. I don’t have the energy to deal with her right now. “Can I look it over? Or we can look it over together? I like to have my route well planned.”
“Good idea.” He hops up and goes for his bag; it’s as worn and battered as my own.
I feel a sense of gratitude that Jane thought to bring my pack. There’s not much inside except the family things I’d carried this whole time and a couple of spare pairs of clothing. I’d used most of the space for the food I brought for Devin and his family. But the family pictures and our mother’s wedding ring is in that bag and it’s all I have left.
Green and I spread his map on the coffee table, using a couple of candles for light. We figure out the fastest route, then the safest, then a third in case the first two are blown to hell.
“How much time have you spent in the Death Fields?” I ask him. I know from seeing Erwin’s map at our last meeting that most of the north is not cleared of the Eaters. That’s probably the best thing Jane, and even her Hybrids, did for the south. They cleared out so many of the infected and rounded up the survivors. It made a difference. Unfortunately their motives weren’t so great for the rest of society.
“I spent six months out there in the beginning—before The Director’s Fighters came through my little town.” His face takes on a familiar pained expression. “It was a hard six months. I thought the people would rally together.”
“They didn’t?”
He shakes his head. “I watched my brother get killed over bag of sugar.” He touches his chest. “Shot in the heart by the woman that taught my Sunday school class.”
“That’s awful.”
“People just didn’t know what to do. It was like their biggest fears coming true.” He leans back on the couch. “I think it hurt the religious folks the most. They kept waiting for God to come down and save them. When he didn’t, they panicked.”
I never had the luxury of blaming God. I knew the name and face of the person behind this. I knew the virus was the result of science and not a greater force. Humans did this for very human reasons—the one Green just described: fear. I glance across the room where my sister still sits at the kitchen table. Her plate of food is uneaten. We make eye contact and she looks small and uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry about your brother,” I say to Green.
“Yeah, he was an asshole but he was family, you know?”
I nod and sense Jane get up from the table and disappear into the bedroom. The door closes with a soft click. Looking back at the map I mutter, “Trust me, I understand.”
Chapter 2
Finding a suitable car in the apocalypse is harder than you would imagine. Especially near the lakefront. People stuck close to home—near their TVs and internet access—waiting for the end of the world to come. They didn’t, apparently, drive to their lakefront cabins to wait it out. They should have.
We need something big enough for the five of us and our supplies, and we all agree sitting in the back of a pick-up truck during the winter isn’t something any of us want to do. The first two appropriate cars he finds have dead batteries and not enough gas to make it worthwhile. Jackson keeps trying, though, and we comb the garages one by one until he finds one that seems like a possibility.
Green and I cover Jackson and Walker as they work on the vehicle. It’s a four door truck with a camper on the back, tucked behind a storage facility. Two full cans of gas sit on a shelf near the back and Jackson pours the additive inside.
Jane stands among us like an odd thumb. Her boots are too shiny and her weapons useless and mishandled. She sits on the step of the cabin and lets the rest of us do the work. I’m not sure how long the others will tolerate this behavior but I know I’m already annoyed.
When Green and I are a safe distance away I ask, “So really, what do you think about my sister?”
His eyebrow lifts. “The Director.”
“You do know she’s not directing anyone or anything anymore, right? There was a coup.”
“What should I call her then? Ms. Ramsey?”
“You may want to start.” From what Jane told me, Avi isn’t going to be into her title anyway. Plus, it’s a giveaway if we encounter any enemies. “You didn’t answer my question.”
He glances over his shoulder to make sure we’re alone. “Truth? She’s scary.”
I laugh, covering my mouth to muffle the sound. “Scary? She can’t use a weapon. She’s never even faced an Eater before. There’s nothing she can do to you.”
“I guess she’s just intimidating. Like that smart chick from science class in high school that is three steps ahead of the rest of the class and the teacher.” He gives me a look. “You were probably that girl once upon a time, too, so you don’t get it.”
I ignore the semi-compliment. “She’s a genius, like, freaking smart as hell —who is incredibly fallible. She needs people to stand up to her more than you realize. Don’t call her the Director anymore. She needs to learn how to be part of a team—not the fake leader of this one.”
A scream pierces the late morning quiet and Green and I are on the move, running through the leaves toward the house. Walker and Jackson meet us at the front steps, guns raised.
Jane is gone.
“Where’d she go?” Walker asks, eyes everywhere but particularly on me.
“She was just here.”
“Well, she’s not now.”
Another cry comes from near the lake and we run down to the shore. Jane stands on a wobbly dock with two Eaters moving toward her on the walkway. A boathouse door is open halfway down the lawn and more Eaters spill out of the narrow opening. They stumble and push their way past one another, focused on one thing: attacking us.
Angel Lawson Books
The Death Fields:
The Girl Who Shot First
The Girl Who Punched Back
The Girl Who Kicked Ass
The Girl Who Kissed the Sun
Creature of Habit Series:
Creature of Habit (Book 1)
Creature of Habit (Book2)
Creature of Habit (Book 3)
The Wraith Series:
Wraith
Shadow Bound
Grave Possession
Urban Fantasy
The Lost Queen
Vigilant
Contemporary Romance:
FanGirl-A Girl Who Shot First Companion Novel
For the Win
