Warrior Beautiful

by Wendy Knight

Scout sighed, ready to lie, but Trey interrupted, “My family lives just down the street. She can stay with us.”

  “I’m not staying with you,” Scout said when they reached his truck. She couldn’t even remember him driving it here, but he must have, and hadn’t she come with him?

  “I know.”

  She had expected an argument. When he didn’t give her one she didn’t know what to say.

  He cleared his throat. “If things hadn’t been so ‘World War III’ in there, they never would have let us leave. We slipped through the cracks.”

  “We were supposed to be under observation.” Scout remembered what they said at the hospital.

  “I don’t think you should be alone tonight, Scout.”

  She didn’t want to be alone tonight. If this had happened a year ago, she would have clung to his side with everything she had. But she found out the hard way where depending on him got her, so she just shook her head.

  They rode in silence the entire way home.

  It was mid-afternoon, but the town was deserted. There wasn’t anyone out in the streets, no cars in the school parking lot when they drove by, no dogs barking. Scout watched with wide eyes, visualizing every zombie movie she’d ever seen. They all had this exact scene. Goosebumps rose on her arms and she twisted her hands in her lap, terror making it hard to swallow.

  Trey slowed when he pulled onto their street, crawling past his driveway. The dark, heart-crushing terror hit her again, and her hand shot out, grabbing his arm. “Stop.”

  “Scout? What’s wrong?” She didn’t answer him, just shoved her door open and sprinted up his driveway, but she heard his feet pounding behind her. She reached the front door and nearly crashed into it, surprised to find it locked. In horror movies, the front door always swung open to the touch. She frowned at it, her horror-stricken mind unable to process the closed door in front of her. Trey stepped around her, shoved his key in the lock and turned.

  “Mom? Dad?” He stepped inside, holding the door open for her, and she followed him silently, shutting it behind her. The click echoed through the house. “Liam? Tate?” Trey started to shake, his big frame trembling as they made their way through the front room to the kitchen. “No. Please no,” he whispered, falling to his knees. His entire family lay in the kitchen, unresponsive. Scout grabbed the phone and dialed 911, but she had little hope that anyone on the other end would be able to help. If she wanted to save them, she had to find the unicorns.

  Chapter Five

  “They said they would be here soon, but they’re overloaded with calls.” Scout hung up the phone, but Trey wasn’t listening. He hefted Julien — not a small woman — to his chest and carried her into the living room.

  Scout followed, grabbing a blanket from the closet as she went and then covered her. “We could take them into the hospital ourselves,” she said quietly. The house felt like a tomb, and the need to speak in hushed tones was overwhelming.

  “It wouldn’t do any good. There were so many people there we’d never get in. Do you think they’ll be okay without all the monitors and everything?”

  He puffed as he carried Tate past. Scout grabbed another blanket. “For a while, but we’ve got to take them in eventually. They’ll need some form of nourishment.”

  “In all the other cities this has hit, there was a huge outbreak at first and after the first day, it dwindled and died, almost as if it moved on. Like a virus can do that.” Trey had a harder time with Liam. He was younger than Tate, but bigger, and Trey had already carried two people.

  “I’ll help you with your dad.” Scout followed him back into the kitchen. “Also, you’re out of couch space.” Trey’s family had one of those huge sectionals and a loveseat. But all the space was taken.

  “He likes his rocking chair,” Trey said gruffly. He looked away from her, rubbing a hand across his eyes, and she wanted so badly to hold him and tell him it would be okay, to brush the hair away from his forehead and kiss away his tears. But there had been no one to kiss away her tears, a year ago. He’d abandoned her in that hospital; left her to cry alone. She turned away and grabbed Brandon’s feet. Trey lifted him under the arms and they wordlessly carried him to the living room with the rest of the family, setting him carefully in his rocker. “He’s too young to have a rocking chair,” Scout murmured without meaning to. Brandon was one of the coolest dads she’d ever met. They’d had Trey very young but unlike Scout’s surprise birth, Trey had been welcome and celebrated.

  Trey shook the blanket out and laid it over him. “Yeah.”

  Scout glanced at the door, wondering if the ambulance was coming, wondering if she could leave him here alone, wondering how she’d find unicorns that apparently only Lil Bit could see—

  “Did you hear that?” Trey jerked upright, moving in front of her.

  “I didn’t hear anything.” Scout frowned.

  Trey glanced at her sideways before moving toward the stairs, his feet silent. Scout followed him two steps and froze, turning back toward his family in indecision. Protect them, or protect Trey? But Trey was almost to the top of the stairs when she glanced up at him, so she stayed in the living room.

  “Argh!” Trey yelled from the upstairs hallway, and a high-pitched, girlish shriek nearly shattered the windows.

  I thought only banshees were supposed to make that noise! Scout thought crazily, bounding up the stairs two-at-a-time. She rounded the corner ready to fight whatever mystical demon Trey was attacking.

  “Kylin?” she gasped, skidding to a halt.

  “What is she doing here?” Kylin screeched again, making Scout’s ears want to bleed.

  “What is she doing here? What are you doing here?” Trey bellowed.

  “I was waiting for you!”

  Scout slowly retreated back down the stairs, listening to them argue. She’d heard rumors that all they did was fight, but since she made it her number one goal to stay away from Trey and everything to do with him, she hadn’t seen it.

  “Why didn’t you call an ambulance? Or call for help or something? My family is laying down there unconscious, Kylin,” Trey yelled.

  “Because I didn’t want to get infected and there’s nothing anyone can do for them anyway!”

  Oh wow. She’s a keeper, Trey. Scout went further down the stairs, almost to the front door.

  Trey followed her down the stairs, turning his back on Kylin. “You should be home with your mom.”

  “My mom is in New York. I wanted to be with you! I’m scared, Trey!”

  “We’re all scared, Kylin,” Trey snapped.

  “Oh yeah, you’re real scared. You’re hanging out with her while I’m here with an infected family and who knows when it will happen to me—”

  “My family, Kylin. My infected family. My brothers. My mom and dad.”

  Scout leaned against the door, wondering if she could sneak out without either of them noticing. She didn’t want to watch Trey with Kylin. She didn’t want to watch them fight and she didn’t want to watch them make up after. She had to get out of here.

  She had to find the unicorns.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I just panicked. I got here right before you did.” Kylin lowered her voice, until she sounded almost like she was mewling.

  Scout slid her hand around the knob and was about to make her escape when a knock banged from the other side of the door. She screamed, at least as loud as any banshee.

  “You okay?” Trey quirked an eyebrow as he leaned around her to grab the knob. Scout just stumbled out of the way, her hand plastered to her chest, before he swung the door open. “They’re in here.” Trey’s face sobered as he motioned the paramedics inside.

  The medics looked exhausted, but they got all of Trey’s family into the ambulances quickly and with no further incidence. No one “contracted” the virus and fell unconscious while they worked. “I’m going with them to the hospital. Will you wait here for me?” Trey asked after they watched the medics load his family into the ambulance.

&nb
sp; “Of course not. I’m coming with you,” Kylin said, squeezing his hand.

  “Scout?” His dark eyes caught hers, although out of the corner of her eye she saw Kylin’s face turning an alarming shade of burgundy.

  “Trey, I need to go home. I just… I need to be there.” Scout ignored Kylin.

  Trey studied her for several seconds before nodding. “Okay. I’ll come there, then.”

  “What?” Kylin gasped.

  “Come on, Ky. They’re waiting. Lock the door behind you, Scout.”

  “Wait a second, who anointed you my protector—” Scout said, but Trey shut the door in her face before she could even finish her sentence, leaving her alone in his silent, tomb-like house.

  They had both lost their families that day. They weren’t dead, of course, but if there wasn’t a cure, if there wasn’t hope, if there wasn’t some way to stop it, how long could these hospitals keep them alive?

  Scout wandered into the living room, climbed into Brandon’s rocker and curled up like a little dog. She pulled the blanket up to her chin and stared at nothing. There were so many memories in this room, this house. She had loved Trey so much — those memories were some of the happiest she had. They’d been the stereotypical perfect couple — she was on the drill team, he was a big, tough football player. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t have done for her — until the accident.

  And that was it. All those wonderful memories were overshadowed by a single painful nightmare. She threw the blanket off her, trying to escape the house before the images caught her, but she wasn’t fast enough.

  “Don’t worry, baby, we’ll get your homework done on time. I just want to stop and say ‘hi’ to my boys.” Trey’s eyes sparkled as he watched.

  “Fine. But you owe me big time,” she teased. He grinned over at her and grabbed her hand, kissing her fingers.

  “Stop sign! Stop sign!” Scout laughed as he blew right through it, but it died in her throat as the semi’s horn blasted from her right. She spun toward it in time to see the grill so close she could touch it… and then nothing.

  She woke up in a hospital two weeks later. Her parents and Lil Bit sat around her bed, pale and exhausted. She looked for Trey, but he wasn’t there. Her first words were, “Is Trey okay?” Surely, he must have died in the accident if he wasn’t there when she woke up.

  “Yes, he’s okay,” her dad answered, looking down at the floor. She should have realized something was wrong when he wouldn’t even meet her eyes.

  “When can I see him?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie, he… hasn’t been by.” Laila rubbed her hand like that could take away the pain.

  Scout waited. She called. He never came.

  Scout escaped the house, fighting tears because she refused to cry over it again, and if she was going to cry over anything today it would be her family, lost in a hospital. She ran down the driveway, sucking in lungfuls of air, not seeing Trey’s truck until it nearly ran her over. She shrieked and dove out of the way as tires squealed. “Scout? What on earth?” Trey leaped from the car and stomped to her side, lifting her out of the dirt.

  “I didn’t see you!”

  “How did you not see me? There’s no one else even awake on this entire street!” Trey’s hand on her arm shook violently. “I almost killed you — Again.” The way his voice cracked hurt, and Scout didn’t want to hurt anymore.

  She shook his hand off. “I almost killed me, Trey. Not you. I thought you were going to the hospital.”

  “They’re quarantining everyone in their homes. We were stopped two miles down the road and sent back.” He ran a hand through his unruly hair, scanning the area like he thought quarantine-enforcers were going to come popping out of the woods at any second. “Where were you going? You said you’d wait for me.”

  “You told me to wait for you. I said I needed to go home. You said you’d come there. I never okayed that, by the way.”

  Trey suddenly looked exhausted, almost on the verge of a total collapse. “Scout, please. Please don’t push me away right now.” His voice was low, and Scout wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t want Kylin to overhear him or if he was just too tired to raise it to a normal decibel.

  She crossed her arms, glaring at him. “It feels like the world is ending, Scout.” His voice was barely above a whisper now.

  “Fine. Get your little girlfriend and you can come to my house,” she snapped, spinning on her heel.

  She stalked away, making it to the next house over before she heard Kylin’s shrill voice. “What? Why?”

  “Awesome. This is going to be so much fun.” Scout kicked viciously at a rock, watching as it rolled across the road. She’d just get them settled, go up to her room, and sneak out the window. She’d done it a zillion times when she and Trey had been together. No problem.

  “It’s dinner time,” Kylin said when Scout opened the door and let them in.

  Scout glanced at the gigantic clock hanging over the mantle. Six o’clock. She’d been hoping to search for the unicorns in the daylight. If she didn’t hurry, she’d lose the remaining light.

  “Feel free to raid the kitchen. I’m going to take a shower.” That’s a good excuse. They’re certainly not gonna follow me into the bathroom. She headed for the stairs before either of her ‘guests’ made it entirely through the doorway. She stared hard at the carpet, afraid to look up and see the family pictures hanging on the wall, afraid of the pain. She practically sprinted past Lil Bit’s door, and made it to her room without breaking down. But then she turned, looked at her bed, saw Lil Bit’s stuffed puppy she always slept with. It felt like the world froze and took her heart with it, and then it shattered while she watched. Sobs rose, the kind of sobs that tore at her lungs and made her throat burn. She threw herself on the bed, buried her face in her pillow so no one could hear her, and pulled Lil Bit’s puppy tight against her chest.

  Either her attempts to muffle her sobs failed miserably and he had heard her, or he just guessed correctly, but Trey knelt on the floor next to her, stroking her hair away from her face. “Hey. Hey, it’s going to be okay. Lil Bit will be fine. She’s tough, Scout. She’ll be fine.”

  She shoved his hand away. “Why are you doing this? Why are you suddenly being so nice? Your girlfriend is downstairs, Trey. Go comfort her and leave me alone!”

  Trey sat back, and she saw the brief flash of pain before he hid it behind a mask of coldness. “I’m being nice because you don’t have anyone else, Scout. Apparently that accident made you incapable of making real friends, and I’m the only one you’ve got.”

  “That accident made me realize who my true friends were, Trey. It wasn’t the drill team. It wasn’t the jocks or the geeks or anyone else from school and it certainly wasn’t you. It was Lil Bit. She was the only one there, day after day. No one else matters but her!” Scout leaped from the bed, feeding on the anger, welcoming it because anger was so much better than hopelessness and despair. “You wanted to come here, Trey. I didn’t invite you. So go take care of your girlfriend and leave. Me. Alone.” She ended at the door, flinging it open and glaring at him until he got up.

  “Fine, Scout. One day you’re gonna realize you need someone besides yourself and you’ll regret pushing everyone else away.” He gave her a long look before he passed her, shutting the door behind him.

  Scout stayed on her feet for five long seconds before she slowly slid to the floor. “I do need someone besides myself. And she’s waiting for me to save her,” she whispered, burying her face in the stuffed puppy.

  She let herself cry for two minutes. When the two minutes were up, she pushed herself to her feet. First, she decided, she should change out of her pajamas. She wasn’t sure what, exactly, one should wear to go unicorn searching, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t comfy fleece pants and an old t-shirt. Jeans were probably okay, and a long sleeve shirt. She was allergic to dogs and cats. Would she be allergic to unicorns, too? Her hiking boots seemed like a smart idea as well. She pulled
her straggly hair into a ponytail while she crossed the room to the window.

  It opened smoothly, only squeaking a bit in protest. She shoved the screen out and set it inside, because screens were expensive. Her dad had made her buy a new one once when she’d torn the old one sneaking out of the house to see the boy currently downstairs with another girl. She glanced around, hoping for something else to delay her, but there was nothing.

  Fear tried, briefly, to strangle her — fear of falling to her death, fear of getting caught by the soul stealers or whoever enforced the quarantine laws, but mostly fear of not finding the unicorns. She swallowed, hard, forcing the fear out of her throat and somewhere around the proximity of her stomach. Before she could change her mind, Scout clambered out of the window, sliding a bit on the shingles before her boot caught.

  One thing she hadn’t considered in her brilliant plan was the fact that when she used to jump off this roof, she hadn’t had a serious, life-altering injury. Now just the thought of the jump made her back ache. She bit her lip, but there was no other way down and if she went back inside and out the door, she’d have to explain herself. And she didn’t need Trey being sympathetic that she’d lost her mind.

  She inched closer to the edge. It wasn’t that far. A hill rose in her backyard, so it wasn’t too awful far to drop. “Ugh.” She sat backward and slid over the edge, hanging by her hands until her fingers throbbed. With a surge of will she didn’t know she had, she let go and dropped to the ground. Pain instantly shot up her back and she squealed, rolling on the ground for several seconds, sure the agony would kill her.

  It didn’t, although for a few seconds she kind of wished it would have. She knelt on her hands and knees, trying to breathe normally before she could push herself to her feet. “Holy Hannah. That was less fun than I was expecting,” she groaned.

  On the horizon, the sun sank below the trees. She’d wasted too much time trying to escape out her window. Staggering away from the house like the zombies she’d been visualizing earlier, she headed for the forest. If that was the way Lil Bit had run, it seemed the smartest place for Scout to start. “How, exactly, does one find unicorns that one isn’t positive even exist?” Scout asked aloud, because the eerie silence was creeping her out.