Marks tapped me on the shoulder to get my attention. “Listen, Mara, I’m going to put you, Burns and Sebastian into the Jeep and send you up island. We need a boat, something that can get us across the strait safely.”
I frowned and shook my head. “What about the harbour, wasn’t it was full of boats?”
Marks gave me a pointed look and the sound of the explosions rippling through the building suddenly made horrible sense.
“He knew, knew it would be our only way off the island,” I whispered.
Marks lifted an eyebrow at me. “Donavan?”
I nodded.
He shrugged, re adjusting his rifle strap across his shoulder. “Once a few boats blew up and some caught fire the rest followed, the oil and gas setting the whole harbour ablaze.”
We started to walk again, making our way through the debris to the far side of the theatre, avoiding the worst of the rubble. I stumbled over a piece of rebar and Marks caught my arm, helping me get my balance back. He stared into my eyes, continuing to hold onto my arm too long for my comfort, the intensity behind his gaze anything but neutral.
“What happened here then?” I said, wanting to divert his thoughts back to the business at hand. I didn’t want to encourage him in a romantic way, had never wanting his feelings for me to spill over in that direction.
“We hit the compound as soon as we saw the harbour start exploding, but most everyone had already scattered. No sign of Donavan either,” he said. I said nothing as to the whereabouts of the man who’d run this compound.
As we rounded the corner I saw the Jeep, Burns already waiting for us with a grin on his face. I smiled and waved, feeling a small ember of hope start deep inside of me. Maybe we could get out of here okay after all.
“Where are all the Nevermores?” I asked, suddenly acutely aware that we hadn’t been mobbed once.
“The explosions are drawing them like moths to a flame. It will give us a window to get the three of you out,” he said, his hand brushing my arm yet again, his fingers hot against my skin. Before I could pull away he dropped his hand.
“Okay boys, we need to lift Sebastian into the back of the Jeep.” Marks said already two steps ahead of me.
It took three of them to lift Sebastian; not only was he tall, he was a solid mass of muscle. They got him in to the Jeep, laying him across the back seat, his legs scrunched up. Other than his initial rousing from the sedative, he had given us no trouble.
Marks started to bark orders and the men ran in all different directions. Then he turned back to me. “We have to find Donavan,” he said.
I shook my head. “No, you don’t have to Marks. You can leave this place and he’ll die or the Nevermores will find him. Either way he’s done.” No one needed to go back into the compound. I knew for a fact Donavan wasn’t going to make it out.
Marks directed me into the passenger seat and I let him guide me.
“You’re probably right Mara. But I can’t take the chance he’ll slip through my fingers. Not when he’s so close. There’s also the possibility of a cure. We don’t have a lot of time, so we’ll do a sweep and clear out the compound. One way or the other we’ll find Donovan and whatever he’s cooked up.” He pointed a finger at Burns and then me. “You keep her safe.” Burns nodded and gave a salute, his eyes solemn.
Marks bent and kissed me on the cheek and I put a hand out to stop him.
“There is no cure, Marks. Donavan said so this morning. The last batch of whatever he used on Sebastian is a failure. He was going to be killed tonight.” Marks’ face fell and he nodded once, his mouth turning into a thin hard line. I had no doubt that he would still look for Donavan; there was no point in trying to stop him. Without another word, Marks turned on his heel and jogged back around the compound. I put my hand to where his lips had brushed my skin and willed my heart to settle back down. I wasn’t encouraging him, but I wasn’t discouraging him either. Guilt made me flush. Though I’d done nothing wrong, for a moment I’d not thought about Sebastian or that fact that he was still my husband; I was still married. That scared me as much as the thought of losing Sebastian.
Burns started the Jeep and we sped out of the downtown area, dodging stalled and abandoned vehicles with ease. I held on to the edges of my seat, my mind whirling with what if’s, now that I had nothing else to do but think. What if Sebastian didn’t come out of this? What if Marks didn’t come back? What if we couldn’t find a boat?
I reached back for Sebastian, needing to touch him, to feel his heartbeat under my skin, wishing he could comfort me. I had no illusions about what was coming. Whatever Donavan had given Bastian would be the end of him one way or the other. There were two possibilities, either he would end up a drooling shell of a man with not even as much personality as the Nevermores had or . . . I pinched my eyes shut and swallowed hard.
“Will he survive do you think?” Burns asked me, breaking the silence. I let out a shaky breath.
“I don’t know. That’s what scares me the most, Burns. All along I thought we’d make it, somehow, but now…” I ran my fingers through my hair, the heat from Sebastian’s skin making my own skin feel unnaturally hot. “Now, I just don’t know. He’s so sick, his fever is so high. I don’t know.” I was repeating myself, but there was nothing else to say. I didn’t want to give in to the hopelessness that was welling up within me. If I let it loose, I would never be able to hide it away again. And for the sake of our child, I needed to be strong, to fight my way through this.
Again, I reached back to brush my fingers against Sebastian’s skin, in spite of the way it seemed to scorch my finger tips with the heat that radiated off him.
“Do you love him?” I spun in my seat to see Sebastian sitting up, his eyes unfocused and still yellow, but the iris was almost normal, nearly round again.
“Sebastian!” I yelped, my fingers brushing his jaw as his eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped into the seat, unconscious again. “Stop the Jeep Burns!”
Burns slammed on the brakes, the jeep sliding sideways and shuddering to a stop. I turned towards Burns, my own eyes feeling as if they might fall out of my head.
“The cure. Donavan might have actually given him the cure,” I whispered. “We have to go back for it. I know there were more vials, all marked the same as the one Donavan gave Sebastian.”
“Marks told us to leave, we can’t go back. If we go back with the Jeep, I don’t think we’ll have enough fuel to get to the rendezvous point.”
I shook my head. “This changes everything, what if Sebastian has been given the cure? We need to have the other vials, to be able to give them to the doctors, the real ones, when we get to safety.” I said it all as if it was to be, as if we were all going to make it.
“Okay, you stay here.” Burn’s got out of the Jeep, his back to the road. “I’ll go back on foot, catch up with Marks and be back here in no time.” Shutting the door he leaned in through the Jeep’s window. “If I don’t get back to you, if something goes wrong, the rendezvous point is…” Burns never got to finish his sentence. He’d committed the cardinal sin when it came to the Nevermores. He turned his back on them.
3
Burns was seized from behind, yellowed hands grabbing him all over. In a split second, before I could even reach for him, he was snatched from the side of the Jeep and hauled away, the gurgle of blood overwhelming his screams.
The pack barely dragged his body ten feet away before they started to feast. The only thing I could be thankful for was that he was dead before they ripped at his flesh, his neck severed by bites. I swallowed down tears, hiccupped back a sob and very slowly leaned forward to pull the Jeep’s door shut, doing my best to not draw their attention to us.
I crawled into the back seat, scrunching myself between the passenger’s seat and Sebastian, laying my head against his chest. His heartbeat was erratic, thumping at an elevated rate then going silent for nearly a minute before picking up speed again. Tears slipped down my cheeks and onto his bare chest. I wanted to curl up in a safe, warm place where I could sleep for days and wake knowing that there was nothing wrong with the world.
His big hand lifted up and he placed it on my head. I stared up into his face, his eyes at half mast. “No tears,” he rumbled, then closed his eyes and slid back into unconsciousness.
I hiccupped back another sob and the tears slipped down my cheeks faster.
I lay there with Sebastian, my heart heavy and my mind frozen. I didn’t know what to do. Did I go back for the cure, or hope that Marks found it? Of course he wouldn’t know what it was, or which bottle to take. This could literally be what the world was waiting for and I didn’t think I had it in me to just walk away. Finally, somewhere between waking and dreaming, I made my decision.
Sliding back into the front, I shimmied into the driver’s seat, my eyes scanning the area. There was some movement on the edge of the brush, but nothing else. I clipped on my seatbelt and reached for the walkie talkie.
I flicked the dial on and scrolled through the channels until I heard a voice. It sounded like Marks.
“Marks, it’s Mara. Burns is dead. I was wrong. The cure, there might be one,” I said, huddling over the speaker, trying to muffle the noise. The pack was still eating but, after a quick glance that turned my stomach, I could see that there wasn’t much left of Burns to keep them occupied.
His voice was scratchy as it came through. “Mara . . . bunker cleared out . . . wait for me . . . explosions are worse . . .” Marks voice faded in and out and I cursed. I tried to adjust the dial, turning it ever so slightly counter clockwise.
The walkie talkie squawked, letting out a screech that lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. One glance out the side window confirmed what I already knew. I wasn’t the only one who’d heard it.
The local pack rushed the Jeep and I fumbled the keys, dropping them on the floor. I bent, my seatbelt stopping me from reaching the keys over my ever expanding baby belly.
“Son of a bitch,” I snapped, unbuckling myself as the Jeep rocked, the pack pushing it as they screamed out their hunger.
My hand grabbed the keys and a handful of dirt from the floor, and I sat back up, doing my best to ignore the open mouths and scratching nails on the metal. Heart pounding, I focused on getting the keys in the ignition and starting the Jeep. Again, the vehicle rocked hard and I held my breath as we teetered on two tires for a split second. Miracle of miracles, the Jeep dropped back down on the ground.
I turned the key and the Jeep fired up. Slamming it into reverse, I hit the gas pedal and cranked the wheel hard. The frame shuddered as we spun into the pack, thumps and screams of pain filling the air. I bit down on the remorse that tried to surface. They’d eaten Burns, torn him apart, and they’d do the same to me.
I threw the gears into first, shifting as we picked up speed; the Jeep lurched each time—I was out of practice driving a manual, but we quickly left the pack behind. A groan from came the back seat and I checked the rear-view mirror. Sebastian was twitching, his body shivering and jerking as if he were some strange marionette. I swallowed, my heart beating so hard I could feel it against the walls of my chest.
“Please let him be cured. Please let him be cured...” Became my mantra as I drove.
The drive back to the compound didn’t take long, at least not long enough for me to come up with any sort of a plan—just that I had to get the vials I knew were in the basement. I pulled into the underground parking lot of the Coast Bastion Hotel and put the Jeep in park. I would walk from here and at least Sebastian would be out of sight and, hopefully, safe.
I dug through the Jeep and found a flashlight and what I thought was a Billy club. That, or a fish bonker. Gripping the two-foot-long dark wooden shaft did not make me feel particularly safe, but it was all I had. I slid into the back with Sebastian.
“Love, I’ve got to go for a bit. Stay here. I’ll be back.” I kissed him, his lips unmoving under mine. A tear slipped down my cheek and dripped onto his face. With the heat that radiated off his body, I almost expected the liquid to sizzle. Stroking his hair and giving him another kiss, I knew I was stalling. I didn’t want to have to go back in the compound, but I knew that if Sebastian was cured and found out I’d run away from bringing the cure to others I’d never be able to look him in the face again.
I closed the Jeep’s door softly, only a light click, but in the darkness and the vast emptiness of the underground lot it sounded like a shotgun to my oversensitive ears. The shuffle of bare feet on concrete, on the far side of the lot, snapped my head around. I dropped to the ground beside the Jeep, peeking under it.
Feet so dirty I could see the filth, even in the dim light, scuttled into view. The distinct tones of yellow with the broom pattern underneath the skin confirmed what I already suspected. I held my breath and waited for the Nevermore to either pass the Jeep by or make a move closer to me and Sebastian. I prayed it would pass by. My hands were clammy clutching the club, and I knew that if it was a big Nevermore I was going to have a hard time killing it with an over-sized fish bonker.
The Jeep rocked suddenly, and Sebastian let out a howl, startling both me and the feet on the other side. The Nevermore let out a growl and fingernails scratched down the metal doors.
Shit.
I wasn’t going to have a choice about this. I pushed myself to a crouch and plastered my back up against the Jeep. One more deep breath, a prayer whispered with words I weren’t sure were going to help, and I stood to face the Nevermore.
Compared to Sebastian he was small, scrawny and had minor injuries all over his body. It would have made it easy to kill him or, at least, easier. But I wouldn’t have too. I let out a shuddering breath and lowered the club. It was Scout.
4
“Scout,” I said.
His head snapped up, a grimace on his face, then he lowered his eyes. I snapped my fingers and let out a low whistle and he scooted to my side, pressing his face into my thigh as his fingers dug into my calf. I patted the top of his head and tried not to think about how dirty he was.