Thicker than Blood (42 page)

Moving to come closer, I put my hand up.
“Stay where you are,” I gritted out, my heart rate spiking.

Pausing, he raised his hands in a defensive
gesture. “Don’t be like that,” he said with a chuckle. “We had fun,
didn’t we?”

“Fuck you,” I snarled.

He laughed again, his tongue darting out to
run slowly across his lower lip. “Right here?” he asked, then took
a small step forward, his smile growing wider and infinitely more
menacing. “Or right here?”

“Again, fuck you,” I spat.

“You look a little beat up, you sure you can
handle me right now?” He took another small step forward.

My hand went for my gun, whipping it out from
behind me and aiming it at his chest. “Take another step, asshole,”
I growled. “And it’ll be your last.”

He chuckled again, entirely unfazed by my
bravado. “What’s a man got to do to catch a break with you,
Wildcat?”

Keeping my gun trained on his chest, I didn’t
respond. There was nothing left to say. He’d gotten what he wanted,
and now it was time for him to pay up.

“Where’s my truck?” I finally asked. “Where’s
everything you promised?”

His smile fell away, his dark eyes growing
even darker. Sighing heavily, he shoved his hands deep into his
pockets. “I’ve got it,” he said.

“Where?” I snapped.

“What’s the rush?” He cocked his head to one
side. “You got places to be?”

“I’m leaving,” I said. “Tomorrow. First
thing.”

Why I was trusting him with this information,
I didn’t know. But what choice did I have? If the truck wasn’t
ready, if he didn’t have what he’d promised me, we wouldn’t be able
to leave. While my winnings had been plentiful, they wouldn’t last
us for any real length of time.

His dark eyes narrowing, E took another
cautious step in my direction. “You sure that’s wise? I know what
went down tonight, what happened with your girl. According to
Jeffers, your man is indebted to him. You try and leave before that
debt is paid, it ain’t gonna end well for any of you.”

He was only three small steps away from me
now, his chest only a hairbreadth of a distance from the barrel of
my gun. I was nearly trembling at his proximity, and from the
unreadable look on his face. This man was a wild card, his dark
eyes unreadable, his cryptic words, his carefully calculated
actions all pieces of a puzzle that didn’t seem to fit
together.

“We’re leaving,” I said, hoping I sounded
stronger than I felt. “And I want everything you promised me inside
the truck and ready for us by morning.”

He grinned. “You giving out orders now?”

“I’m the one with the gun, E,” I sneered.

“That won’t always be the case, Wildcat. Fact
is, it doesn’t have to be that way for you anymore.”

A moment passed where he only stared at me.
Then another as his eyes searched mine, for what I didn’t know.

“I could be good to you,” he eventually said,
all former pretense gone. There was no smug grin, no swagger to his
movements. He stood before me a man, nothing more and nothing less.
It was surprising and yet…it wasn’t.

“I’m not all bad, Wildcat,” he continued, his
gaze sincere. “At least, I wasn’t always this way.”

Maybe if this had been our beginning instead
of our end, my answer might have been different. But this wasn’t
the beginning, this was the end, and there was nothing here for me,
nothing for me to find with E. And he’d only helped me to see that,
to solidify my decision.

“I don’t care,” I said, shrugging. “We’re
leaving.”

He seemed to expect my answer, his expression
unchanging except for his eyes. Flat and dark, yet in the face of
my indifference to him and his confession, they’d gone suddenly
ablaze. Taking a step back, he nodded.

“You sure I can’t change your mind?” he asked
coldly, his usual hard exterior firmly back in place.

“Where, E?” I demanded, ignoring his
question. “Where is the truck?”

In one swift movement, he’d grabbed hold of
the barrel of my gun, wrenching it to the side and bringing my arm
with it. Stepping forward, he pressed his chest against me and
lowered his head to mine. “What’s he have that I don’t?” he
growled. “What do you see in that little boy that I can’t give
you?”

I didn’t bother to struggle, already knowing
that fighting against his strength was futile. Instead, I glared up
at him. “He’s a good man,” I hissed softly.

“He’s nothing,” E hissed back. “He’s young,
stupid, doesn’t have the guts to do what it takes to get by in this
world.”

My laugh was soft, yet full of mocking. “He
does,” I said. “You know he does. You’re just jealous that he’s
better than you, better than you will ever be.”

As if I’d burned him, E dropped my arm and
immediately backed away. A muscle ticked in his jaw.

“South parking lot,” he gritted out. “Dark
blue Jeep. Keys are in the glove box. I give you anything better,
and it’ll be missed.”

“What about everything else?” I asked.
Keeping my eyes on him, I took a sideways step in the direction I’d
come.

Unblinking, his eyes met mine—cold, dark and
murderous. “I don’t ever go back on a promise. It’ll be there come
sunup.”

Answering him with only a single nod, I
turned to go.

“Wildcat?”

I paused, yet didn’t look back. “What?”

“How you gonna get through those gates? Past
the guards?”

Briefly closing my eyes, I silently cursed
myself before turning around to face him. He was right, I had no
idea how we were going to get past the armed guards and through the
gates, having planned on driving straight through them if it came
down to it. Turning, I found E looking rather smug.

“I could help with that. There’s another way
out of here…” He shrugged, though the gesture was more ominous than
any simple shrug could ever hope to be.

“What do you want?” I asked, already knowing
and dreading his answer.

Interlacing his fingers, he began
individually cracking his knuckles, the sharp sound stark against
the silent night, echoing off the wall behind me. “Everything comes
at a price, Wildcat. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

He took a step forward, gesturing to the
space I’d just vacated. “Right here?” he said.

Leisel

What did they always say about best-laid plans?
That they often go astray? Yes, well, then
they
would have been correct.

This whole plan—from leaving
Fredericksville until right up to this moment—now seemed to have
been doomed from the very beginning, as if every step we’d taken
toward progress had simply been another step in the wrong
direction. And now the three of us sat here in our dilapidated
room, waiting for the minutes to tick by until we could either find
freedom once more, or be punished and kept against our will. Yet
again.

Our troubled journey so far all seemed to
be just a series of mistakes and unfortunate circumstances. Evelyn
and myself, Alex and Jami, had run off into the night, fleeing
Fredericksville with only the intention of leaving. And Jami had
died. A heartbreaking loss for poor Evelyn, something I knew she
still hadn’t given herself time to properly grieve over.

Then we’d stopped in Covey, a seemingly
destroyed and silent ghost town, in hopes of finding food, gas, and
shelter, only to end up kidnapped by religious zealots and nearly
made a meal out of. And more people had died.

And the man in the cabin, the one with the
little girl who’d been bitten. I’d tried to help her, tried to
comfort him, yet she’d died anyway, and in his grief the man had
disappeared, his fate unknown. But I could only presume that he was
dead now too.

And here, in Purgatory, a place we’d come to
in hopes of finding supplies, of finding a way to continue
surviving, only to find another version of Fredericksville, another
version of Covey, another version of that man in the cabin, losing
his daughter…and meeting with only more death.

It was just a continuous onslaught of death
lurking in wait at every corner. No matter what we did, we couldn’t
seem to run fast enough or far enough to escape it.

The pain, the suffering, the struggle, it was
never ending, much like the barrage of bullets I’d put into that
man the night before, like the number of times I’d driven that
blade into Lawrence’s body, like the amount of tears I’d shed.

We should have learned by now that nothing
was ever easy in this world. Yet, like children, we remained
forever hopeful, optimistic that just once something would go right
for us.

We were wrong. That was just the way of the
world now, and people like us, those who hadn’t let go of the old
ways, who couldn’t let go of the hope that eventually something had
to give and change for the better, we had no place here. We were
doomed much like the infected were, forever walking the earth,
trying to fulfill a need—a hope—that could not be fulfilled.
Because there was no good in this world now.

Our belongings were already gathered, our
weapons strapped to us, our clothing and food packed neatly in
backpacks procured from Grannie, everything ready and waiting for
us to flee. And so we waited, sitting silently in our darkened
room, just waiting for what was going to happen next.

With the rise of the sun had come a knock on
our door. We glanced at one another uneasily, the tension palpable.
None of us wanted to open the door, to be the one that let in the
crippling disappointment we already knew was waiting for us.

“It could be your friend?” I whispered to
Evelyn. “The one you said would meet us at the Jeep?”

Wide-eyed, Evelyn glanced toward the door,
her red and swollen nostrils flaring. “No,” she whispered back. “He
wouldn’t have come here.”

Another knock sounded, this one louder than
the last. Sighing, Alex pulled his gun from his pants and stepped
toward the door. With his hand on the knob, our eyes met, and in
them I saw all the things he couldn’t say, didn’t know how to
voice. He was sorry, sorry that he wasn’t the man he’d wanted to be
for me. Sorry that he hadn’t done more to protect me, to protect us
all.

I stared back at him, hoping that he could
read me as well as I was him. Hoping that he saw my gratitude, that
he could see how much I didn’t blame him, not for a single thing
that had gone wrong. Instead I wanted him to know how thankful I
was for him, for everything that he’d done, for the happiness he’d
given me by simply being himself.

He hadn’t just loved me, he’d freed me. He’d
given me back hope, trust, and pride in myself. He’d given me
everything that Lawrence had stripped from me in our poisoned
marriage. And I loved Alex for that. I loved him for reminding me
that not all men were bad, that there were still men like my
beloved Thomas alive.

I loved him for helping me to love again.

Alex seemed to understand this, the silent
message I was willing him to receive. It seemed to strengthen him,
to give him the courage to open the door and once again shoulder
whatever burden was handed to us.

As it turned out, it was only a boy, no more
than ten years old, with short, scruffy hair and innocent eyes. The
boy thrust a piece of paper toward Alex without saying a word, and
as soon as Alex grabbed it from him, he took off running down the
hall with barely a second glance. Alex unfolded the page, and as he
skimmed it quickly, his features pulled tight in annoyance.

“It’s for you,” he said, looking up at me,
both apology and anger written on his face. “You have to work
tonight.”

“Nobody’s working tonight,” Evelyn snapped.
She glanced from me to Alex. “We’re leaving. Are you both ready?”
Her look was almost daring us to disagree with her.

Whereas I nodded numbly in response, Alex
seemed skeptical. “Who is this guy, Eve? How can you be sure he’s
going to follow through?”

We’d been over this so many times already,
Alex repeatedly questioning Evelyn on who her secret friend was,
and Evelyn refusing to give any details. I had my suspicions,
mainly that she had traded herself for a vehicle and perhaps a way
out of here, but I hadn’t voiced them.

Whatever had happened had changed her, the
change was written all over her face. She barely kept eye contact,
moving away whenever I got too close. Her shame was evident, but I
didn’t want to press her on the matter. We’d all been through
enough, and there would be plenty of time to talk when we were free
of this place.
If
we got free
of this place.

“I can’t be sure,” Evelyn answered, sounding
exasperated, her expression softening somewhat. “But we’ll never
know if we don’t try, right?” She looked to me for support, knowing
that Alex believed that staying alive was the better option than
dying while escaping. Anything just to keep me safe.

So many times in the last few years, I’d
thought I was going to die, and it terrified me. But now, when I
thought about the possibility of being killed for trying to escape,
or worse, being forced to stay here and do the bidding of Jeffers
and Liv… Faced with the choice between those two options, I wanted
out and I
was
ready to die
trying. After all, there were far worse fates than death, most of
which we’d already lived through.

“We have to try,” I said to Alex firmly,
reaching out and laying my hand on his forearm. “We can’t stay
here. I won’t stay here.”

His eyes closed again briefly, pain washing
over his features before he reopened them and focused on me.
“Whatever happens, Lei,” he said, taking my hand. “It was worth
it.”

My heart swelled at his words; I
wholeheartedly agreed with him. It was worth it, wasn’t it? No
matter what happened, after years of misery, it had been worth
finding even an iota of happiness. It had been worth it to learn
there was someone else in the world, other than just Evelyn and me,
who hadn’t succumbed to the corruption and wickedness everyone else
had seemed to. Because the infection ran so much deeper than just
turning people into mindless cannibals. It destroyed people’s
souls.