The Break Free Series Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Fitch, E. M.

  "Stop!" Kaylee shouted, her breath coming fast as anger boiled up in her stomach. "We can't fall apart. Not now. Emma's right. There's too much to do, too much going on. We're hurt, all of us. Sick of this, sick of the infected and the hunger and the pain. But we have to stop shouting!"

  Emma locked eyes with her sister, her breathing evening out. "I want to get rid of my scar."

  “Get rid of it? What do you mean? How?”

  “You saw what happened,” Emma continued, ignoring Kaylee's confused words and the way Andrew glared from where he was perched, shoulders tense. “He knew. Danny saw it and he knew. Anyone else we meet will know too. They’ll either kill me on the spot or they’ll just kill all of us as a precaution. I need to get rid of it now or I won’t be here in the morning, no matter what anyone says.”

  Kaylee stared at the only family she had left. She knew Emma meant what she said. And moreover, she knew she was right. It had to be done before they left, before they went to find others. This was their chance. If there was a way to do it safely, it should be done. "Anna? What are our options?”

  “But, no,” Andrew started, jumping off the railing he had perched on. His eyes darted back and forth between the girls. "Kaylee, you can't be serious. Your father would never-"

  "Don't you dare use Dad against me! He'd still be alive if it wasn't for this scar," Emma hissed. "Out of line, Andrew!"

  "He'd never stand for it! And you don't need to hide it. You're immune, not infected. You're fine!”

  “She’s fine in many ways, but not all," Bill said quietly. "You know that, Andrew. Anna, what do we do?”

  Anna mouthed soundlessly for a moment, looking from Kaylee to Andrew to Bill. “Em,” she started finally and Kaylee felt her sister shift to look Anna in the eye, “I… Tonight? Now? I’m not sure what the best, how to… We don’t even have any morphine. Everything I had was in the motor home, everything. I wouldn’t even know how to go about—”

  “We have to disguise the original bite scarring permanently. It seems to me that there are two options,” Jack interrupted Anna’s rambling.

  “Both will be really painful,” Anna whispered, looking from Jack to Emma. The girl squared her shoulders, facing Anna.

  “I don’t understand how you can even think-” Andrew started, swallowing thickly. "How can you even consider doing this to her?”

  “We don't have to get rid of it completely,” Emma said, her eyes lowered, avoiding Andrew. “Just... mess with it a bit so it doesn’t look like a bite mark anymore.”

  “Like what?” Andrew bit out scathingly. “Carve you up a bit? Take a knife to your leg so you just look deformed instead of bit?”

  “Andrew!”

  “It’s what she means!” he shouted back. “It’s what you all mean! ‘Mess with it a bit,’” he sneered, pushing away from the railing and walking off the porch to a nearby tree line. Kaylee could just see the outline of him slump against a pine tree.

  “He didn’t mean that,” Kaylee murmured to Emma. Her jaw set and Kaylee knew that Andrew's words cut deeply. “Not really. He’s just scared.”

  “I don’t know if that’s the best way regardless,” Jack said, looking from Emma to Anna. “No matter how talented you might be, it still may come off as too obvious.”

  Anna was nodding. “I think so too. And I don’t know if I even could… it’s too…”

  Bill nodded. “And dangerous, too much bleeding when she may be contagious."

  "So you think—” Jack started.

  “It’s the only other thing I could think of, but the aftercare—”

  “Nothing we couldn’t find in your average house."

  "It's not that simple, Jack," Anna shook her head. She motioned towards Emma's leg. "It'll have to be a second degree for sure, maybe even closer to third to really hide it. I'd need I.V. fluid, serious antibiotics, something for pain."

  "She's right though, we need to hide it."

  "Tonight," Emma added firmly. She turned from Jack to face the rest of the group, wiping the tears off her cheek as she stared them down with grit teeth. "I'll be fine with Anna to watch me. And I've already got most of what you need, Anna."

  "That's what you've been doing?" Anna asked. Emma nodded. She disappeared off the porch, skirting around the tree line where Andrew skulked. She took a direct line then, walking to the shed on the neighboring property. She returned heaving a bag and spilled the contents onto the porch. Bottles of sterile water, an old IV bag and tubing, and clear vials of medicine all spilled out onto the warn wooden planks, flashes of orange firelight reflecting in the glass.

  "Where did you get these?" Anna asked, stooping and picking through Emma's things.

  "A couple houses and an overturned ambulance."

  "I'd still need something for pain, there's nothing-"

  "Couldn't find any," Emma answered, shrugging through obvious trepidation. "I can deal with it."

  "No, Em," Anna disagreed. "You couldn't."

  Kaylee felt her throat go dry at the thought. Her stomach swirled with a new sensation, nausea. Anna asked Jack and Bill to scrounge around a bit, see if they could find anything as she got ready. Jack nodded his consent and moments later, he and Bill had vanished into the night, calling out a warning to Andrew as they passed. Anna was left shaking her head.

  "Em, I'll do it, I will. But it shouldn't be tonight, give us some time to find something. Especially if they come back empty handed."

  "Please Anna, please tonight," Emma started, shaking her head when Anna went to interrupt. "It'd be easier to run. For me. It would be so much easier to tuck tail and run. 'Cause I know it's gonna be painful. I've waited. Three days. Knowing I have to do this. It has to be tonight. I can't... I mean I might not be able to do it if I have to wait and think about this any longer."

  “What’s the other way, Anna? How would you do it?” Kaylee questioned, sparing a glance towards her sister. Anna offered a strained smile.

  “A burn. It’s the only other thing I can think of.”

  Kaylee felt the bile leaved her stomach and rise in her throat.

  “Emma, no!” Andrew burst out, running back into the circle of light. His hair was mussed, as though he had been gripping it, and he gripped her upper arms tightly. “You can’t, this is insane!”

  “I can’t do nothing!” she said, twisting herself out of his hold. She gripped herself about the waist, hugging herself tightly as though that would hold her together. “I’ll get you all killed. It’s bad enough that I could accidentally sneeze in your face and sign your death certificate! This is something I can control, it’s something I can change, and not one of you is going to take that away from me!”

  Andrew's expression locked in shocked betrayal, but he recovered quickly. “But it’s so risky. How will we do it? The fire? What about infection?” His voice broke at the end. “It’s all for nothing if we lose you.”

  “Andrew,” Kaylee interjected. He was suffering. He spoke as though it was he that would be burned. But he was wrong to put that on her. “Don’t make it any harder. She’s right."

  “Em?” he asked, staring at her, desperation plain on his face.

  She ignored him. “Help me set up?” she asked Anna, walking away from Andrew. His shoulders slumped in defeat and he turned, grabbing fistfuls of his hair. And Kaylee looked from his retreating back to Emma, and then finally to the fire.

  Bile threatened in her throat again and she beat it down, moving towards Anna to help her prepare.

  It wasn’t long before Bill and Jack returned. Anna looked up in question, her features unmistakably hopeful.

  Bill shook his head as Jack stretched out his hand, the contents of the glass bottle shone amber in the firelight. “This is the best we could do,” he said.

  Emma breathed heavily through her nose, understanding at once. She took the bottle and broke the seal, wrinkling her nose a bit at the smell.

  “Well,” she offered through a wry grin, “bottom’s up, right?” And with th
at she took a long swig of the whiskey.

  ~

  Anna made Emma drink a quarter of the contents of the bottle and she shot some antibiotic into her arm before she settled her down by the fire. Emma's eyes were glassy and her lids drooped. Her movements were jerky and uncoordinated but Kaylee noticed her reflex of straightening her hand and then quickly clenching her fingers in a fist was intact. Emma couldn't seem to stop doing it, it was as though the alcohol induced trembling of the rest of her scared her enough to focus just that one body part.

  Andrew looked like he could have benefited from a swig of whiskey too. Kaylee had never seen him such a mess, his hair stuck up all over his head from where he had been running his shaking hands through and he wouldn't stop pacing. From the porch to the tree line, standing over Emma as she knocked back the bottle, opening his mouth and then shutting it again as he stomped away. Kaylee thought he might hit the trees and run, he looked tortured. But he didn't. And when Anna said softly, "It's time," Andrew raced to Emma's side, kneeling next to her as she willingly stretched out on the ground by the fire. Anna secured a tourniquet to Emma's bicep.

  "Make a fist."

  Emma turned her head as Anna set the I.V. in her arm.

  "I need a belt," Anna said. She had a pair of scissors and was cutting Emma's pants leg off under the knee.

  Kaylee went to unfasten her leather belt but Andrew was quicker. Anna nodded for him to place it on Emma's stomach. Emma was frowning.

  "I could have taken my pants off, you know," she slurred, staring at her cut off jeans.

  "It wouldn't have mattered," Anna murmured, "you won't be able to stand anything touching this leg for a while."

  Kaylee swallowed hard. Emma's leg shone golden in the firelight. She had shaved her legs during that hot shower that they had been offered at the power plant and her skin was smooth, marred only by an occasional freckle and the ugly indentation of teeth marks in the middle of her calf. It wasn't a large area, only a few inches across. But the light scattered across it, cast shadows that made pointed tracks down her leg.

  "What's the belt for?" Andrew's voice wavered, his eyes fixed on Emma's face. She had her eyes closed now and her breathing was deep and even. Kaylee wasn't sure, but she thought her sister may have passed out.

  "For between her teeth," Anna answered. Her back was to them, poking around in the fire. Bill was hovering over Kaylee's shoulder.

  "Budge over Kay," he said, kneeling next to her.

  "I want to help," Kaylee said, staring down at her sister.

  "You will, after," Anna said, all business now. "Right now I need strength to hold her down."

  Emma was stirring again, giggling a little, her head shaking back and forth as Bill settled himself over her knees. Anna fiddled with the I.V. bag she had hung from the railing closest to Emma.

  "Wake her up, get that in her mouth." Anna pointed to the belt still curled up on Emma's stomach.

  Kaylee rose and backed away. She felt Jack's hand rest briefly in the small of her back before he moved past her and knelt at her sister's head, his hands already curling around Emma's shoulder in restraint.

  "Hey Em, wake up," Andrew said, his tone gentle as his fingers prodded her cheek and moved her face toward him.

  "Careful, Andrew."

  Andrew didn't so much as glance up as his father's warning. He placed the leather in Emma's mouth as she frowned up at him.

  "Bite down, Em," he coaxed and Emma did.

  "Are you going to press it right to her?" Bill asked.

  "No," Anna answered, "I don't have anything solid to do that with and the wood would just splinter off on her skin. I'll use one of the logs we already have burning and hold it under her leg."

  "It'll take longer."

  "Yeah, it will," Anna grimaced, but she didn't waver. "Ready, honey?"

  "As I'll ever be," Emma slurred around the belt between her teeth. Anna nodded for Jack and Andrew to hold her arms and then gestured at Bill. Emma's leg, the one with the scarred bite mark, was propped on a log, Anna's hand secure over her ankle and holding it down. Bill took the position over Emma's thighs, locking her knee and securing her completely.

  Without any further warning, Anna brought the flame to Emma's calf.

  Kaylee's stomach seized as she watched her sister's back arch off the cracked wooden boards of the porch. Emma writhed and strained against the men holding her down and tears tracked down her cheeks as she grunted and cried out through her teeth and the leather belt. The crying turned to leather muffled sobs and Kaylee could see Emma's empty fists weakly pounding on the boards, her nails scratching off the peeling paint. Her chest was heaving with the force of her cries and Kaylee tore her eyes from Emma's wincing, tortured face to watch Anna. Because it seemed like more than enough time to erase her scars, it already seemed like hours that she was in pain.

  Emma's skin was bubbling and bright red, the muscle clenching and straining underneath, but Kaylee could still see the bite. How it was surviving the torture she wasn't sure. And then Emma went still, completely still. Her back fell with a thud to the porch floor and her limbs sagged.

  "What happened?" Kaylee shouted just as Andrew screamed "What's wrong with her?"

  Anna didn't answer which terrified Kaylee. Her eyes were trained on the damage she was inflicting and she was staunchly ignoring everything else.

  "She's passed out," Bill grunted, rising to his elbow but still hovering over Emma's legs. "Better for her anyway."

  Kaylee noticed Andrew drag his sleeve over his eyes and she felt the tears tracking unchecked down her own face.

  "Kay, I'm done here," Anna said, her voice low and heavy. "I need the water, please."

  Kaylee took a shaky step forward to pass Anna the bottles of sterile water, the caps already loosened. Anna poured them slowly over the burn, soaking Emma's leg and leaving puddles on the wood beneath her.

  "Get her wrapped up," she ordered quietly, concentrating on the ugly red skin that twisted on Emma's calf. Andrew lifted Emma's limp torso as Kaylee laid a thick blanket down. Together they bundled her up as Anna poured the last of the sterile water.

  "Call me when she wakes," Anna said, standing. "There's nothing else to do now."

  Now that the worst was over Anna looked ill, like she was about to get sick, or maybe like she hated herself. Kaylee didn't hate her. She was in awe. She did what needed to be done and she barely complained about it and still it must be horrible to do something like that to someone you love.

  Because Anna did love them. Very much. And Kaylee could barely stand to watch let alone actually burn her sister like that. Andrew looked absolutely broken. He stared down at Emma, whose sleeping features were starting to distort in pain.

  Anna got up and walked away. She'd be back, Kaylee knew, but now she needed distance. Bill stood and walked after her.

  "We should set up watch," Jack said, his hushed voice loud in the grief induced quiet of the porch. He nodded to Kaylee, letting her know he'd be there as soon as she needed him, and then headed to the tree line. The stain of blood on his shirt looked wet, he must have started bleeding again. Kaylee felt her eyes follow him watched him perch against the hood of an old sedan parked across the lawn. Then her eyes drifted down. It was just Andrew and Kaylee left to watch Emma sleep off the agony.

  ~

  "You okay?"

  Andrew and Kaylee were the only two awake. Jack lay next to Kaylee, curled on his side around her as though that could somehow protect her from the pain of watching her sister. It was the first night they didn't retreat to the attic as dawn approached, the group settling on the chairs and floor of the creaky porch to keep watch over Emma instead. Bill and Anna had returned, bringing with them some food. They divided it, leaving a can of peaches for Emma when she woke. The fire had died to glowing embers and neither Kaylee nor Andrew could bear to build it to a roar. Just the sight of it made Kaylee's stomach turn.

  "No," Andrew answered from Emma's other side. She was laying close
to him, cradled on one of his arms. His eyes didn't leave her face. She was still sleeping, or still passed out really. She only woke once after Anna burned her. If you could even call it that. Andrew had still been at her one side, Kaylee at the other, and Emma had just started crying: soft sobs that shook her small form only slightly, tears leaked from eyes that were still clenched tightly.

  Kaylee had immediately called out for Anna while Andrew leant closer to Emma.

  "Emma, Em," he had whispered. "We got you, you're going to be okay." His voice was strangled and hoarse.

  "Sit her up," Anna had ordered, sweeping in. Andrew had scooped her up into a sitting position, careful of her leg, and cradled her against his chest. She was still wrapped in the blanket and her head was listing to the side. Other than the quiet crying, she looked asleep.

  "Open your mouth, honey," Anna had said, holding two white pills to her lips. Emma hadn't responded and it took Andrew prodding her mouth open for Anna to get the pills in. She brought the whiskey to Emma's lips and that she guzzled. She quieted while still drinking, passing out as Anna was still pouring. The amber liquor dribbled out of her mouth and down her chin.

  "Are you alright?" Andrew asked, his eyes flitting up to her and then settling back on her sister.

  Kaylee worked to find an answer. "No," she finally whispered. "Andrew, I think I'm a bit messed up."

  His eyes finally met hers. "You're not."

  She shook her head slowly. "No, I am. I'm... empty. I can't feel. I-"

  He kept his gaze on her as she broke off. There were no tears, no swelling of sorrow or guilt, there was nothing. "He's gone," she continued, biting out the words. "He's gone and she's hurt and I... I-"

  "You did what you had to," Andrew supplied in the silence she left. "And the feeling will come back. It's better like that anyway, if it comes in slow trickles. Better to not feel that all at once. You're strong Kay, you'll get through it."

  Jack's arm squeezed tight on her middle, his chin burrowing into her side. She kept her eyes on Andrew. On the best friend she had had for years, the boy who cared for her still.