“What happened next?” I asked.
Harper’s gaze stayed on the floor. “I don’t know, exactly. It was chaos. I know I was bitten, but the second the zombie sank his teeth into me, one of the men pulled him away. I dragged myself under the truck to hide—” She tore her gaze from the floor as she lifted the hem of her shirt, revealing her flat stomach and the crescent shaped scar next to her belly button, old and faded from time. “It wasn’t my first bite.”
I stared at the scar, too shocked to say anything.
“You’re immune,” Emma gasped out.
Harper dropped the hem of her shirt. “I was nine the first time I was bitten. It was right after the zombies came back. I knew other people who had turned, but nothing ever happened to me.” She blinked like she was trying to hold back tears. “I got used to the idea, and everyone I was with knew, but we never talked about it. Not to anyone outside our group, especially.”
“What did the men do?” I asked, wanting to get back on topic.
“They made sure everyone had been bitten. They pulled zombies off people before they could be eaten alive, put a bullet in the heads of some of the dead while they dragged others to a new target. As our group was overcome, the men began taking the zombies out one by one until no one was left but our group and theirs. We’d suffered massive injuries, but no one had died. They wanted it that way, though. They restrained us, tied us up in a line beside their truck and waited.”
“Waited for what?” Emma whispered.
“To see if we’d turn.”
Emma and I said nothing. Kellan and I had heard this rumor at the settlement and shared it with the others, but I hadn’t really believed it could be true. Or maybe I’d only hoped it wasn’t. Either way, Harper’s story seemed to confirm all the stories we’d heard. There was a group of men out there looking for immune people, and they would do anything and everything in their power to find them.
“As people began to show symptoms, they would be dragged off,” Harper continued. “One by one, my family was pulled away, thrown into the back of the truck so they could turn and be used later.” She swallowed. “Until finally, I was the only one left.”
My heart pounded in my ears, and I asked the question I both needed to know and dreaded hearing the answer to. “What then? What did they do with you then?”
Harper shrugged. “Not much. They threw me in the cab of the truck and drove off. I was still tied up.” She lifted her hands so we could see the marks on her wrists, which I hadn’t noticed before. They were red but faded, meaning they had to be a couple days old. “From there, they took me to this place in the middle of nowhere. It was weird. Old looking. I think it was where the wildlife refuge used to be, but I don’t know for sure. I just know it was rockier there, and I saw buffalo and longhorn cattle.”
“That sounds right,” Emma said. “One time while we were out, Blake and I went there for the day. The buffalo are thriving despite the zombies. It’s like these things don’t know what to do with them.”
“They’re too big,” I mumbled, but I was still thinking about the faded scar on Harper’s stomach.
The girl nodded as she looked back and forth between us.
“What happened next?” I asked when she said nothing.
“They locked me in a room. I could hear them through the door, talking about getting more people before they headed back, only I had no idea what they were talking about.” She crossed her arms again, but this time it looked more like she was hugging herself than it had before. I now knew it was because earlier she’d been more concerned with concealing the bite. “They also talked about what to do with me in the meantime.”
Emma stood straighter while my stomach dropped to the ground.
I was a virgin. God, I hated admitting that I was a twenty-one-year-old virgin, but I was. I wasn’t naïve, though, and Emma, who had filled a role in my life that was a mix between a big sister and a mom, had done a good job of informing me of all the ins and outs of both the female body and sex. She’d also taken a day to explain human nature to me and how often, especially in a world like this, men had no problem turning to sexual violence.
Harper seemed to notice our alarm and quickly shot out, “Nothing happened. They talked about a lot of stuff.” She looked down once again. “A lot. But I got out of there before anything else happened.”
“How did you get away?” I asked.
She shrugged but didn’t look up. “They were stupid. Overly confident even. They had a stash of booze and drank too much one night. I think it was my fifth night there. I asked to use the bathroom, and when the guy led me out back, I kneed him in the groin. I took off running as soon as he was down and climbed some rocks. I found a crevice I managed to squeeze into and hid. I was there forever. Hours. A day. I don’t know for sure, but by the time I crawled out, my whole body hurt. After that, I wandered around. I walked at night and hid during the day. I had no idea where I was, but I know I was out there for five days.” She lifted her gaze from the floor and looked directly at me. “That was when I saw you and the other two men. I was hiding, and you walked right by me. Then I heard male voices, and like me, you hid. I thought for sure they were going to discover one of us, but they didn’t, and once they left, you came out. I watched you and listened, and decided you seemed okay. I followed your tracks here. It took me hours, but seeing the fence and animals was a relief. Other than the men, this was the first sign of life I’d seen in days. Only, I wasn’t sure if you’d let me in.”
Silence fell over the room. I was more certain than ever that I’d been right to let this girl inside, but I also knew Kellan and Cade had been right in their hesitation. Whatever was going on out there, Harper very well could have brought it to our doorstep.
Emma was the first to talk, letting out a deep breath before finally stepping away from the door. “I brought clothes. Why don’t you go ahead and take a shower, and we can go from there?”
Harper nodded as she looked back and forth between the two of us. “I’m safe here?”
“We’ve been in this shelter since the beginning, and no one has ever been able to get in uninvited,” I said, being sure to avoid answering her question even though I was answering her.
Harper visibly relaxed. Her shoulders dropped, and she let out a deep breath as she backed toward the shower, nodding. “Okay. That’s good.” She repeated the last two words a few times before finally pulling the shower curtain closed around her.
Emma and I were silent as she undressed, the quiet rustle of fabric echoing through the room until she kicked her clothes under the shower curtain. Finally, the shower came on, and a soft gasp followed, probably from the cold, and then there was nothing but the ping of water hitting cement.
That was when Emma turned to me. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”
“I don’t know.” My gaze darted to the shower before going back to her. “Nothing good is my guess.”
“On a scale of one to ten, how pissed are Cade and Kellan going to be?” she asked.
“Fifty,” I muttered, but I knew it was going to be way more than that.
This was bad. Potentially worse than anything we’d experienced before, and we’d lived through nine years of a zombie apocalypse. We’d been through so much that our group now numbered six when we’d at one time been twenty-three. But this was something we’d never faced, and we’d opened our doors to it, practically throwing it a party. It was like we hadn’t learned from the past at all.
“Is there a chance these guys will be able to track us?” I asked Emma, keeping my voice low.
She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and chewed on it, her eyes on the closed shower curtain as she thought it through. “Anything is possible.” She nodded to the shower. “She followed you.”
“Shit.” Emma was right, and the thought made my insides tighten with fear and dread. “Hopefully, the storm hits hard and wipes away both her tracks and ours.”
“That would be a stroke of
luck,” Emma said.
The water turned off abruptly, and an arm appeared, poking out from behind the shower curtain. Harper ran her fingers across the cement wall, searching for the towel, but she didn’t have to struggle for long. Emma was at her side in a flash, pulling the towel from its hook and holding it out. Harper’s fingers wrapped around the fabric, and it disappeared behind the shower curtain.
“Thank you.” Her voice was small, tentative.
“You’re welcome,” Emma said.
Once again, I found myself thinking about my first day here and how scared I’d been, and how sweet and gentle everyone else was with me. Jasper had taken us to his condo, Maggie had cooked us a big meal, complete with a chocolate cake—something I’d never thought I’d see again—and Emma had stayed at my side throughout the next few days while everyone else in the shelter did everything they could to make sure we were comfortable. Most of those people were long gone now, but the memory of that day was starkly vivid in my mind.
They were as much my family as my parents and brother had been, and I’d endangered them all by bringing Harper here. I hated thinking it, but it was true, and now I needed to tell them what was going on so they were prepared for what came next. It was the right thing to do, the fair thing.
After she’d dried herself off, Harper pulled the shower curtain back and stepped out. She had the towel clutched to her body, and her blonde hair hung over her shoulders in wet strands, nearly to her waist. Her eyes were still wide, but they’d lost some of the terror that had been there earlier. Now they looked more wary.
Emma waved to the pile of clothes on the chair. “We’ll step out so you can get dressed.”
Harper said nothing as she nodded.
“We’re going to have to tell the others,” I told her.
The girl nodded again, only this time her eyes grew wider.
“It’s going to be okay.” Emma’s voice was low and soothing. “Cade is going to check you over, and he’ll see that the bite isn’t new.”
“You’re not going to turn me over to those men, are you?” Harper asked.
“No, of course not,” Emma said as I spit out, “Hell no.”
Harper looked back and forth between us, her hand tightening on the towel, and then she nodded for the third time in less than a minute. “Okay.”
“Good.” Emma backed toward the door. “You can come on out when you’re dressed.”
She opened the door, giving the girl one more nod before slipping out, and I followed.
The men were all in the hall where the door to the holding cell stood open. Seeing the cold, sterile interior of the room sent a pang through me. I hated the thought of putting Harper in there. It wasn’t her fault this world was full of bad people, but we’d agreed it was the right thing to do. We didn’t know her, and as much as I believed her story to be true, we had to play it safe. It was the only way any of us would be able to relax after the last time.
“We need to talk,” Emma said once I’d shut the door behind me.
Cade’s eyebrows jumped up, getting lost under his wavy blond hair, and he looked back and forth between the two of us. “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”
Emma and I exchanged a look.
“What?” Kellan practically growled.
I had to force myself to meet his gaze, and when I did, the worry in his eyes made it impossible to find my voice right away.
I cleared my throat twice, and on the second try managed to say, “When Harper’s group was attacked by those men, she was bitten.”
Blake swore under his breath, and Cade shook his head.
Unlike the other two, Kellan was much more vocal. “Son of a bitch. This was exactly what I was trying to avoid.”
“How long ago?” Jasper asked, not bothering to look at the other three.
“At least a week ago. She doesn’t know for sure.” Emma swallowed like she was afraid to say the next words. “It isn’t the first time she’s been bitten, though.”
Silence settled over us, and the way the others stared at Emma made it seem like they had no idea what she was talking about.
Kellan was looking at me when I said, “She’s immune.”
His mouth dropped open, and some of the color drained from his face, and for once he seemed to find it impossible to know what to say. It was so unlike Kellan that it made me want to go to him, to wrap my arms around him and tell him that everything was going to be okay. I knew what he was worried about. I knew the thoughts going through his head, mostly because I’d had the same worries fluttering at the back of my mind since I’d first learned about this group. Thoughts I was doing everything in my power not to focus on.
“This is bad.” Cade’s eyes were focused on the floor, but when they flitted up, they zeroed in on Emma. Like with Kellan, I could actually see the fear in them. “I told you we should have left her out there.”
“No.” Emma’s brown hair swished around her shoulders when she shook her head. “We couldn’t leave her out there. They would have found her!”
“So?” Cade shot back. “She’s not our responsibility.”
“She’s a person,” I snapped, “and she needs our help. What kind of people would we be if we’d left her out there?”
“The kind who survive,” Kellan muttered.
My mouth was open and a retort was on my lips when Jasper lifted his hand. “No sense in arguing about it now. We brought her in, and we can’t go back in time and make a different choice.” He looked us all over. “The question we need to focus on now is what we’re going to do with her.”
Emma looked the others over before focusing on Jasper. “Exactly what we said we would do. I believe her story, but we need to use caution. She’ll stay in the holding cell until we have a better feel for her and the situation.”
Cade nodded, but didn’t take his eyes off the floor. “Yeah. That’s what we do.”
Jasper looked around. “Any objections to the plan?”
Blake shook his head, followed by Kellan and Cade. Emma and I remained motionless because Jasper already knew where we stood. No matter how scared I suddenly felt, I wasn’t going to change my mind. We couldn’t turn our back on the world.
“That’s what we’ll do, then.” He let out a deep breath as he rubbed the knuckles on his right hand. “This old body of mine is killing me, so I’m going to hit the sack. I can trust you kids to take care of this.” He started down the hall, but paused to pat Kellan on the shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”
Kellan glanced my way, and the expression in his brown eyes made my stomach tighten. When his gaze was back on Jasper, he said, “I hope so.”
“It will be.” Jasper patted him two more times before continuing.
He gave Emma a smile as he walked by, and she returned it with a strained one of her own. When Jasper reached me, he paused again, but this time it was so he could press a kiss to my temple.
“Go easy on him,” he said against my forehead. “He only wants to keep you safe.”
Jasper was moving before I could say anything, and almost the exact second he disappeared from sight, the door behind me opened. Everyone looked that way, and I spun around, coming face to face with Harper. She was dressed now, wearing clothes that looked only slightly too big for her, and she’d taken the time to braid her long hair. There was a wet spot on the front of her shirt where the twisted tendrils of damp hair rested, and once again she had her arms crossed. This time, however, it didn’t look like she was trying to cover the bite. There was no point. We all knew it was there.
“Feeling a little better?” Emma asked, her voice soft and soothing.
Harper nodded then absentmindedly reached up to pull at her braid. “How do you have hot water? Electricity?” She looked around. “What is this place?”
Emma and I exchanged a look.
Kellan was the one who answered, though. “It’s not important. What’s important now is that Cade checks you out—that bite, especially—so we can all
get some sleep. We can talk over all the details tomorrow.” He waved to the open door at our side.
Harper glanced that way, and her round eyes widened. She took a step back. “You’re going to make me stay in there?”
“It will be okay.” Emma’s voice was twice as soothing as she crossed the distance to Harper, her actions almost hesitant. Like she was approaching a frightened animal that might attack if she wasn’t careful. “It has a bed and a small bathroom, and it’s only temporary. We need to make sure we can trust you.”
Harper’s wide eyes moved from Emma to the room, and then traveled over the rest of us. “What do you think I am? It’s just me. I can’t do anything.”
“Then you’ll be out of there in no time,” Kellan said.
Unlike Emma’s, his voice was rough, his words short and his tone impatient. Whether he was tired or plain irritated, I didn’t know, but I did know he was being a jerk, and it wasn’t like him.
“Cut it out,” I hissed at him.
Kellan shot me a look, but I just rolled my eyes before focusing on Harper, putting my back to him so I didn’t have to see his expression.
“It’s going to be okay,” Emma said again, this time waving to the room. “I promise.”
Harper looked us all over one more time before giving in and heading toward the room. She paused at the threshold and stuck her head inside, looking around as she tugged on her braid nervously. She must have decided she either didn’t have a choice or that the room wasn’t as bad as she’d thought, because she finally stepped inside and took a seat on the bed.
Cade followed, kneeling in front of the bed and setting the first aid kit on the floor while Emma took a seat next to Harper. I moved, too, but stayed outside the room, watching as Cade gingerly took Harper’s arm and examined the bite. Kellan was beside me, and Blake behind him. He was quiet, watching but keeping his distance. Whether it was because of the girl or because of Emma and Cade was hard to say, though.
The Oklahoma Wastelands Series Box Set | Books 1-3 Page 12
