“What was that? I ask.
Mia and Donovan look at me, sly smiles on their faces.
“Just wait,” Mia says with a wink as if she’s in on some secret that I am not party to.
Hours go by, and the light in this windowless room seems to fade even further, and I don’t know if it is just my mind playing tricks on me or whether nightfall has crept up on us. Outside the door, we hear the low murmur of voices and the occasional laugh. The noise gets steadily louder, and suddenly, it dies out. I hear the key turn in the lock, and I’m not surprised to see the woman from earlier.
“We need to hurry,” she says as she helps Mia to her feet. “The men won’t be distracted for long.”
What exactly had she done to distract them? We cautiously step out of the room, and I notice bottles of booze strewn across the floor, and down the corridor somewhere, I hear a man groaning, and it’s not with pain. I guess I got my answer then.
“We need to go this way,” Donovan says as he leads out to the right and up a set of stairs. We run along the water station, past various pumps and water tanks. Pain shoots up my leg with every step, but I can’t let that stop me now, there just wasn’t time to rest up.
Finally, we stop next to the tank right before the water tower. The vaccine needs to be dropped inside, from there, it would be sucked into the water tower by the pumps and then sent out across London. It wouldn’t save everyone, but it would give us the best chance at fighting again tomorrow.
“Leo only turns the pumps on when it suits him. He doesn’t want the rest of the city to benefit without getting something in return,” the woman explains as we try to find a way into the tank.
Mia sighs. “Okay, what does that mean for us?”
“It means we need to get to the control room and get it up and running,” I explain, as the issue with that begins to fill my mind. Why was nothing ever easy?
“That doesn’t sound too hard,” Mia says, as she begins to climb up a rail and to the top of the huge metal tank. She locates a hatch at the top and flips it open. Reaching down, she grabs the metal canister from where it’s strapped, which is now steaming slightly, and she twists it open. The vaccine slowly drips into the tank, but that doesn’t mean anything if we don’t get the pumps on.
“It isn’t. But it is going to be fucking noisy.” Donovan gives me a look that says this is going to be a problem. The city and its dog will know what we’ve done.
The woman pipes up, so quietly at first I think I’m hearing things. “I can do it.”
Mia calls down as she clambers back down the rails. “No, you can’t. They’ll kill you.”
The woman tucks a strand of her dirty blonde hair behind her ear before taking a deep breath. “They’ll be too busy chasing you to realise it’s me. At least at first…”
Donovan places a hand on her arm, there’s a look of pity on his face. “And what about your son?”
She nods, and I know she’s already resolute in her decision. It’s the same face Hazeldine would wear when he had to make difficult decisions for Mia.
She gulps, a tear escaping. “I’ll be making a better world for him.”
“We have to rescue our soldiers anyway. We’ll do this.” Donovan tries to dissuade her.
She gives a small laugh. “Your men are being freed as we speak.”
“What, how?” I ask, looking at Donovan and Mia, who both shrug, just as clueless as I am.
“Men have a horrible habit of underestimating women,” she whispers.
Up close, I can see the faded bruises under fresh ones. Finger prints. I can also see the silvery lines of old scars covering her skin. Leo offered protection for these people only to abuse them himself. What a world we live in.
Mia pulls the woman into a hug. “We don’t even know your name.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Mia
The woman’s voice is laced with sadness like she’s forgotten who she is. Finally, in a small whisper, she says, “I’m Anna, my son is Luke.”
Donovan steps forward. “Anna, we came from Litchfield near the Welsh border. We also have a safe haven called Rosehill. Come with us.”
I can see that Donovan wants to help this woman and her child, he’s struggling with the idea of leaving them behind and at the hands of a dick like Leo.
“It’s not just me; there are a group of us who have been talking about leaving. But the time is not right. Not yet.”
“What can we do to help?” Alex asks, ever the practical one. He’s already accepted that this woman is willing to risk her life for a chance at saving her son. A slim sliver of hope is all that we can offer.
Tears are falling more freely now. “Please, take my son with you. And those who freed your men, if they stay, they will be killed.”
“What about you?”
She wipes at her cheeks, determination strong in her voice. “I will follow with the rest.”
Donovan frowns, and she smiles softly and places a hand on his cheek. “My family used to live in Shropshire.” She nods. “I know the school and the army base. I am coming for my son, I promise you that.”
We hear a shout somewhere in the water station, and panic begins to rise in my throat. We need to get out of here before Leo is alerted to our little breakout. The water pump also needs to be turned on before he realises that we’ve already put the vaccine in the water.
“Run!” Anna pleads, “You need to go back to the window you broke in through. My people and your soldiers will be there already. I need you to run. Draw them out, and in fifteen minutes, I’ll start up the pumps.”
“This is a crazy plan. It’s not going to work,” Donovan says firmly, his face grim.
“It’s the only choice we have,” Alex replies, as he takes my hand, and we begin running along a metal bridge and across to another platform before reaching the window. He helps me hang out of the window and reach across to the rusted stairs. I climb and then jump down as soon as it’s safe. Donovan and Alex are close behind me, and as Alex’s feet hit the ground, a group of people round the corner.
There’s a moment of tension and hesitation before I recognise a bloody and limping Fischer with them. Jenkins gives us a mock salute while a young man we don’t know and a woman hands us our backpacks.
Alex immediately goes into leader mode, something he did so well at Rosehill. “We need to get out of here, and you’re not going to like it, but we need to go back into the tunnels.”
“Fuck sake.” Jenkins groans.
Donovan backs him up. “With a group this size, it’s our only option.”
I look over at the people joining us, we’re now almost fifteen people, including three children, and they each have their own small bags with them and weapons drawn ready. I wonder if Leo knew his people weren’t as loyal as he thought they were.
“How’re we going to get back over the wall? I’m not able to climb,” Fischer states as she shows us her mangled leg.
A young girl with black hair and sharp brown eyes steps forward nervously. “I know a way out, it’s through a sewer, but it comes out the other side of the wall.”
Alex nods. Through the sewers it is. Great.
The girl leads us to a hidden metal grate, and we manage to lift it, and one by one, we climb inside. Donovan is up front leading the group while Alex and I make sure no one is left behind. As he drags the grate back into place behind us, I hear shouts in the camp, more voices join the noise, and when I hear a roar of rage, I know Leo has finally noticed that his prisoners have all vanished.
“We need to move!” Alex hisses, and we pick up the pace to a slow jog, but that’s when I notice his limp. There’s nothing we can do now. We needed to buy Anna time and distance.
The girl, a sixteen-year-old named Lexi, was right. We come out the other end outside the wall and close to the Underground entrance. When Alex and I emerge from the sewers, our little group is busy taking out four zombies who happened to stumble upon us. I can see more approaching, their
shuffles turning into a weird type of loping as they rush to get to us.
“Guys, we need to run. Get to the Underground entrance!” I start screaming, even though I know it’s only going to draw them to us. Right now, I don’t have any other option.
As we get to the Underground, I can hear zombies close at our heels, followed by gunshots and the shouts of Leo’s men. If Anna didn’t start that pump soon, we weren’t going to be a distraction, we were going to be dead.
Before I run down the steps to the tube platform, I glance behind us. The zombies are being drawn to Leo’s men now, the noise they’re making is more alluring, more diverting. I’m not complaining, as it gives us more time to get everyone down and into the tunnels. My mind flits back to the mutant zombie we left down there last time, but I don’t have time to worry about that now. At least this time, we would be prepared.
A huge rumble seems to shake the ground beneath my feet, and I hear Alex cheer. Leo’s men begin to turn around and head back to the camp, but it’s too late. Anna did it.
Anna and the people who stayed behind with her have taken over the control room. The vaccine was about to be spread across London and any survivors nearby would be protected. Once the other vaccines were dispersed too, most of Britain would be safe from the virus.
“Come on, Mia, we still have to put some distance between us and then rest for a while,” Alex calls, and I smile at him.
Three hours later, we set up camp once again in the dark, damp tunnels like some sort of underground goblins. Donovan and one of the Wharf Rats called James are keeping watch while the rest of us get some sleep. We’ve set up the torches like a strange light perimeter, if that creature comes near us, in theory we’ll be able to spot it quicker this time. We’re dirty, tired, and afraid, but now, there’s hope. There’s a chance we can make it through and be able to live some sort of life.
I snuggle into Alex. “So, what’s the plan now?”
He wraps his arms around me and pulls me in tighter. Without him, I never would have left Rosehill. I would have been alone. I wouldn’t have helped release a vaccine into the water.
He sighs gently, and I know it’s been weighing on his mind all night. We were now responsible for these people. Their lives were in our hands, and they trusted us. We couldn’t let them down.
Softly, he replies, “We need to get these people back to the army base and Rosehill. Then, we need to get a message to Dr. Landry about those mutations.”
I groan as I feel my eyes closing. “This hell just never ends, does it?”
He kisses the top of my head. “It will one day, just maybe not in our lifetime.”
The End
Acknowledgments
To my wonderful friends and family, you are amazing. I couldn’t do any of this without you! You push me every day to have a little more faith in my work and my ideas. My books are the result of your handholding, chats and read-throughs. You all deserve awards for putting up with me when I’m in the middle stages of writing because I know I can be a grumpy bitch. Ash, you still managed to read this when you were in a different time zone, busy being a super genius in Princeton. Thank you. J, you made sure I was still a functioning human, eating right, sleeping and balancing out my life. You even sacrificed a few hours on our ten year anniversary so I could get this done and out to Beta readers. You are my world. Beth, your kids gave me the inspiration for the virus name, ZM8AL4. They invaded our lives and completely took over, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Love you!
Tammy over at The Graphics Shed and Dominique at Dom’s Proofreading, as always you guys are superstars. You take my raw work and make it a polished gem that flows and looks beautiful. I owe you both so much. Abi over at Pink Elephant Designs – I have no words for this cover. I love it. You are one talented lady and I’m so excited that I got to work with you on this, and I’m excited for the other covers we’ve got coming up.
To Annamarie Smith & Annamarie Gardner, Sarah, Amanda, Corinne, Tracy and Jessie who are my Beta babes, thank you. Your feedback helps me fine tune my work and make it better with each release.
About the Author
AJ Everheart is the pen name of a Welsh author who lives in a world of books, computer games, and kickass fandoms with her husband and her little dog. When not binge-watching K-Dramas or reading all her favourite Indie authors, she can be found taking afternoon naps because there is nothing better than a Nana nap.
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