by Sarra Cannon
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she said. “We agreed we weren’t going to use our abilities for a while. We don’t want to freak these people out. You of all people have to agree we have a good thing going here, right? Why would you risk that? Just because you couldn’t take a good enough shot to kill a rotter from fifty feet away?”
Karmen didn’t answer. Instead, she turned away and picked up a book, as if she didn’t even care that she’d put the whole group at risk.
“We have electricity here. Food. Safety. You were being selfish,” she said.
“What’s going on?” Lily opened the door and stepped inside.
“We were just discussing Karmen’s childish behavior on the roof,” she said.
“Why are you suddenly the leader of this group?” Karmen asked. “You can’t tell everyone what to do and where to go.”
Parrish took a deep breath, trying to calm her anger. Just this morning, they’d had a major breakthrough and Parrish had believed everything was going to be better between them. Why was Karmen stirring up drama now?
“Look, I’m not trying to be anyone’s leader. I just want to make sure we stick together,” she said. “If we make an agreement, we stick to it. We’re guests here and they’re being extremely nice to us, but all this can come to an end at any second, and we need to be ready to get on the road as a team. That’s all I’m saying.”
Karmen didn’t offer an explanation for her behavior. Instead, she put her headphones on and turned on her iPhone.
“Maybe you should cut her some slack,” Lily said. “You’re always causing drama these days.”
“I’m causing drama?” Parrish asked, hardly believing what she was hearing.
Lily sat down next to Karmen, a challenging look in her eyes that sent a wave of anger through Parrish’s body. Was she intentionally trying to cause trouble in the group?
“Fine,” Parrish said. “I’m going to get some lunch. I’ll be in the dining room.”
She left the other two girls in the room and stomped toward the dining area.
“What’s wrong with you?” Crash asked when she sat down next to him at the table.
Kaya had made hotdogs and baked beans for lunch, and it smelled like heaven. Parrish was starving after her busy morning.
“I tried to talk to Karmen about what happened on the roof, but she’s acting like a spoiled child.”
“And that’s any different from her normal behavior?” he said with a laugh. “It’ll be okay. I think we covered it pretty well.”
“Yeah? Well what about next time? What if we get attacked and she does it again?” She kept her voice low so no one else could hear their conversation, but she didn’t even like talking about this out in the common areas. From the way Tank had stared at those rotters, she knew he’d understood something was off. Another instance like that and they’d all be back out on the street.
Crash sighed. “I’ll talk to her again tonight when she’s had a little time to calm down,” he said. “Tank told me he was pretty impressed with our shooting skills and might be sending us out to do a job soon.”
Her heart skipped. “A job? We just got here.”
He shrugged. “Maybe we shouldn’t have done such a good job on the roof,” he said. “He told me they could really use some good fighters like us and that he had a job in mind for us. That’s all he said, but I don’t like the sound of it.”
“I don’t either,” she said. She took a bite of her hotdog, unable to enjoy the warm food under the current circumstances. What kind of job did Tank have in mind for them?
“Don’t look so worried,” Crash said. “We’ll take it one day at a time.”
“It’s one thing if he sends us out as a group of five,” she said. She looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to their conversation. “But what if he sends us out with some of the others from their group? We won’t be able to use any of our special talents, and what’s worse, we could get attacked again by those things.”
“Things?” he asked.
She stared him down, opening her eyes wider.
“Oh,” he said. “The assassins.”
“We could put everyone who’s with us in more danger than they could possibly imagine. We’ll get them killed.”
He set his hotdog back on his plate. “I’ll talk to him, okay? I’ll tell him that if we go out, we go together and alone,” he said.
“You don’t think that will make him even more curious?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll just have to tell him those are our terms,” he said. “I’ll tell him we’ve been working as a group for a while and that we have a system for how to fight together as a group. I think he’ll understand that.”
“I hope so,” she said. “Because I don’t want to be responsible for someone here dying.”
“I don’t either.”
She pushed her baked beans around on the plate.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the look in Lily’s eyes earlier. What was up with that girl?
She wanted to mention her dream from the other night, but she wasn’t sure how to bring it up. It kept nagging at her. It had meant something important. Still, she didn’t want to raise concerns about Lily if there was nothing to be concerned about. What if she was wrong about her? What if it had just been nothing more than a dream?
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Of course.”
“Have you had any more of your dreams lately?” she asked. “You know, the ones that tell you about the future? Or about the fifth? Stuff like that.”
“A few, but nothing I can make much sense of,” he said. “Why?”
“I’m not sure yet,” she said. “But I’ll tell you when I figure it out. Tell me about your dreams. Anything you remember?”
His shoulders tensed and he made a face.
“What?” she asked.
“It’s weird,” he said. “I keep having this dream about New York City. Almost every night since we left D.C.”
Her heart stopped beating for a second and she forced in a breath. “New York? Why?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t want to mention it to you, because of your sister and all. But I can’t shake this feeling that there’s someone there we need to get to.”
Tears stung her eyes. She dropped her fork to her plate. “Do you think she’s still alive?”
“I honestly can’t tell you anything more than that,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“What exactly are you dreaming about?” she asked, refusing to leave it at that. “Have you seen a girl with brown hair? Anything about a violin? Or the Four Seasons?”
He shook his head. “No, nothing like that. I haven’t seen anyone. In fact, it’s almost like I’m seeing the city through someone else’s eyes,” he said. “And it’s just bits and pieces. One night, I dreamed about a small apartment. Definitely not the Four Seasons, because it was really rundown, more like my own apartment was. Another night, I was dreaming about the sewers.”
“What do you think it means?” she asked, wishing he had more information.
“I wish I knew,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me. I thought once we got together as a group—once we found the fifth—everything would come together for me. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m still missing something.”
Parrish swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. She had to tell him, didn’t she? Even if she was wrong about the girl, Crash needed to know.
“What if you were wrong?” she asked.
He turned toward her, his eyes questioning. “About what?”
She took a deep breath, her heart racing.
“What if you were wrong about the girl? About Lily?” she asked. “What if she’s not the fifth?”
He woke just before dawn and went through his pack again, making sure he had everything he might need on his journey to Manhattan. His hands trembled as he placed the items back into the bag, one at a time.
The weather had delayed him a few days, the rain not letting up for even an hour. But the sun had come out yesterday afternoon and the boy was determined to get his start today, no matter how scared he was.
He’d felt safe in his tiny apartment. Everything was familiar here. He had mostly good memories of this place and worried that once he left, he might never be able to return. What if the Dark One found him before he could get to the others?
So far, he’d only had to fight off one person who had turned. His mother. It had been the worst moment of his life, and he wasn’t sure he’d survive having to kill another one. Much less a group of them.
The only weapon he had was a small knife from his own kitchen his mother had used to cut steaks when they’d been lucky enough to have them, which was mostly on special occasions like his birthday or a promotion at work.
His two biggest advantages were his speed and his size. He told himself that if he saw one of those things, he’d run the other way and find a place to hide. It sounded simple in his head, but he had seen what happened when someone got cornered. The zombies might be slow, but they were determined. And when they were in a pack, one wrong move could be deadly.
He pulled on the black hoodie that had been his mother’s. It nearly swallowed him, coming all the way down to his knees, but the important thing was that when he pulled the hood over his head, it completely hid his face.
If he kept his face hidden and didn’t use his powers unless it was a life or death situation, maybe the Dark One wouldn’t know it was him. If she was looking through the eyes of her undead minions, she would see him as just another human child.
She wouldn’t be expecting a child.
He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he sensed the others were older than he was. Over the past century, something had gotten out of sync with their group, and the boy had continued to be reincarnated later and later compared to the others. He must have messed something up when he’d cast the original spell.
But the Dark One wouldn’t know that. She’d be expecting him to be older, just like the others.
With the hood secured over his head, he pulled back the curtains on his window and waited for the sun to rise. He watched as the infected slowly made their way to the shadows and the cooler areas inside buildings, taking shelter from the sun’s heat. When the street was mostly empty, he climbed down his makeshift ladder of sheets and clothing and set his feet firmly on the sidewalk in front of his apartment building.
The sewer entrance was only a block away, and all he had to do was get to it without raising any suspicions.
His feet itched to run, but he forced himself to walk at a normal pace, glancing around to make sure none of the zombies had noticed him. The walk to that first sewer grate seemed to take an hour, even though he knew only minutes had passed. This was the most dangerous part of his plan until he got to Manhattan, and he could hardly catch his breath, his heart was pounding so hard against his ribs.
A groan behind him made him pick up the pace. He didn’t dare look. He knew what was back there. He could hear its feet shuffling against the pavement.
The boy weaved in and out of the mess of cars parked permanently on the street and kept his eyes on the ground, searching for the entrance to the sewers. When he passed the crosswalk, he knew he was close.
From the sound of it, he had two zombies following him now, and he was thankful for the cars that slowed them down. He picked up his pace and scanned the road. It had to be here somewhere.
Please, don’t let there be a car over it.
Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? He hadn’t even considered the possibility that a car’s tires might be parked directly over the grate. Or if a car was over it, the space underneath it might be too small for him to climb under.
Frantically, he searched the ground, praying for a way out before those two rotters got any closer. He dared a glance behind him and wished he hadn’t. They were closer than he thought, and gaining ground.
If he didn’t find it soon, he’d have to abandon his plan and run.
And then she would know. The Dark One would know where he was. She would send all of the rotters in New York after him, and God help him if that happened.
He wasn’t strong enough yet. Not without the others. He would die before he even had a chance.
He spotted the sewer grate on the ground between a news van and a fancy white car with tinted windows. The van’s tires were just inches behind the grate, but not on it. He sighed with relief and jogged toward it, kneeling down and slipping his fingers into the small holes on top of the manhole cover.
The moment he tried to lift up, he realized the most obvious fatal flaw in his plan.
It was way too heavy. He guessed the cover must weigh almost a hundred pounds. He couldn’t even begin to lift it.
Frightened tears slipped down his face as he looked up at the infected heading toward him. Their hungry moans had attracted the attention of several more zombies and now a group of more than seven was heading straight for him.
How stupid could he be? How could he not have thought about how heavy the cover would be?
He lifted with all of his strength, praying it would move, even just a little. But it was no use. The thing was made of thick metal and there was no way he was going to get it to move.
There was no way down into the sewers. He needed to think of a new plan or run back to his apartment and start all over.
But how long could the guardian wait? Losing another day might mean losing her, and he couldn’t risk that.
It was either run or fight, and he was running out of time to make a decision.
His toes twitched with nervous energy. Maybe he should run. It would give him away, but at least he would be alive. He would have a chance.
As his panic grew, a great wind began to blow. The thick, humid air cooled and the boy shivered as he looked up. Debris fluttered around him. Abandoned newspapers. Trash left out after the disease took half the city. Coffee cups.
He stood and leaned against the white car. The breeze picked up until it was so strong, it blew the hood of his sweatshirt off his head and made him squint his eyes. At first, he had no idea where it was coming from. He couldn’t remember ever feeling such a strong wind here in the city where the buildings were so tall.
When he looked at the approaching infected, though, and his heart pumped faster, the wind surged. That’s when he felt it. His connection to the weather and the cold wind that was now blowing so hard, his entire body shivered.
He stared up at the tall buildings, watching the dust and debris swirl around him. He had an idea, but it was going to be risky. Potentially deadly. But something deep inside told him he could do it.
He glanced around and finally spotted a metal staircase going up the side of one of the apartment buildings. He took off, running as fast as he could, kicking up leaves and dust behind him. He made it to the ladder in seconds, pulling a large crate underneath it. He stood on the crate and jumped up to the grab the bottom rung of the ladder. Quickly, he pulled himself up to the first of the small balconies.
When he looked down, the zombies on the street had reached his hiding place between the cars. They scratched and clawed at the news van, confused about where the boy had gone. Taking a deep breath, he continued to climb.
He’d used the fire escape stairs before when he’d been playing with some friends. His mother had scolded him for going out there, telling him it was too dangerous and he could have been killed.
She would have died if she’d seen what he was thinking of doing now. It was crazy, but it was the only way he was going to get to Manhattan.
He climbed all the way to the top floor and then scooted across a windowsill to reach another ladder that led to the roof of the building. Carefully, he balanced himself on the metal ladder and pulled himself to the very top, risking a look down to see just how high he’d climbed. At least ten stories up, but thankfully none of the zombies could climb.
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br /> A noise behind him made him spin around, his heart pumping wildly. The roof was covered with infected. He had assumed no one would be up here, but he could see the door to the rooftop swinging in the wind. Someone must have left it open.
He didn’t have time to consider the stupidity of what he was doing. He didn’t have time to be afraid. He had to run or die. The Dark One would know him, but he had no choice.
The boy bent his knees and leaned forward, getting into a runner’s stance as if he were at the starting line of a great race. He took a deep breath and connected to the wild wind that whipped around him.
He made sure he had a clear shot from this building to the next and took off, running at top speed, his feet barely on the ground. Panic shot through him as he reached the edge of the rooftop, but he had too much momentum now to stop. This was happening, whether he wanted it to or not.
At the very edge of the roof, he jumped, leaping into the air with the wind at his back, pushing him forward. For a moment, it was terrifying, but as the street below him disappeared and the rooftop of the next building was there under his feet, he realized he was not going to die. He had done it. He had jumped.
There were a few more zombies on the next rooftop, but he didn’t want to stop. He wanted to feel that weightlessness again. It was a freedom like nothing he’d ever known. He pushed harder, zooming over the top of the roof and jumping again.
He laughed and let out a loud whoop when his feet touched down on the other side.
He couldn’t believe it. Just when he’d thought there was no hope left, he’d suddenly learned to fly.
He found Tank on the roof, staring at the bodies on the sidewalk.
“Hey, man, I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he said. “What are you still doing up here? Kaya made lunch for everyone.”
“Hotdogs again?” Tank asked with a laugh, barely glancing at Crash before his eyes wandered back to the dead bodies. “What do you think was going on earlier? With that group over there?”
