Eat the Ones You Love (The Thirteen Book 2) (13 page)

Jenny crouched next to Robin and took the woman’s face in her hands. Robin’s bloodshot eyes widened, as though she’d forgotten all about Jenny.

“I can’t save her,” Jenny whispered. “I’m so sorry. She’s too far gone.”

“I thought I could do this,” Robin breathed. She shook her head. “I can’t. It’s still her. I can see her still in there.”

“She’s not,” said Jenny. “Amy is gone, Robin.”

Robin looked at the rotter and it hissed at her.

“I can’t,” she said.

“You don’t have to,” said Jenny. “Let me. Okay? Let me do this for you.”

Robin nodded, her eyes wide, and pushed the handle of her knife into Jenny’s hand. Jenny took it as Robin fell back, her breath coming in gasps. After a moment, Jenny realized she was singing, her voice raspy and ragged and out of tune.

“
You make me happy when skies are gray
,” Robin sang so quietly that it was hard to hear her. But the rotter grew silent and stared at her.

“You’ll never know dear how much I love you…”

Jenny walked over to the bed, again pulling her shirt over her nose.

“What are you going to do, Jen?” said Casey.

“Please don’t take…”

“Go away, Casey,” Jenny murmured. And he disappeared.

Jenny wrapped her fingers around the knife and put one knee on the bed.

“…my sunshine…”

She frowned and leaned toward the rotter.

“…
awaaaaay.”

“I’m sorry,” Jenny whispered. And thrust the knife up under the rotter’s chin. It didn’t struggle, just stared at Robin and seemed to be almost at peace when it felt the knife go into its brain. Robin began to sob and didn’t stop for a long time. Jenny held her and let her cry, her body racked with pain and grief. When she was finished, she looked at her daughter.

“Help me bury her and then we can go,” she said.

Robin gently untied the corpse of her daughter and carried her up the stairs. She was so light, no heavier than a doll. Jenny wasn’t sure how Robin could stand the smell. When they got to the top, three guys standing by the door looked at each other when they saw what Robin was carrying.

“You stupid bitch,” the biggest one said. “What did you do?” In unison, they each took dirty knives out of their belts. They had track marks on their arms and stunk worse than the dead girl.
 

“Go ahead, Robin,” Jenny said, feeling something familiar rise up in her. Something she hadn’t felt in a long while. “I’ll take care of this.”

“The fuck you will,” said the second junkie. “You’re not going anywhere, sweetheart. Drop the rotter.”

“She’s not a rotter,” said Robin.
 

“Drop her,” he said again. The others looked like they were trying not to smile.
 

“I have a better idea,” said Robin. “I think I’ll drop you instead.”

This time the biggest junkie did laugh. Jenny was behind him in seconds with her knife to his throat. He went slack and almost fell, his knees giving out.

“Shit, lady. What the fuck? We’re just doing our jobs. We can get another rotter.”

“Yeah,” said the junkie closest to Robin. “We’ll just get another one. Let him go and you can take the fucking thing.”

“Thing?” said Robin. “Did you just call her a thing?”

“What else would I call it?” he said, seeming genuinely confused.

Robin hoisted her daughter’s body onto her shoulder. Her shirt was stained with whatever was coming out of Amy’s body. She was abused and unfed and it was only a matter of time before she fell apart. Robin was holding her knife, a different one that she'd taken out of a hidden sheath under her shirt. The junkie was staring at the blade when Robin sent her boot into his crotch. He doubled over immediately, gagging. She reached down and when she brought her hand back up it was covered in blood. Robin was fighting for her daughter’s corpse, her dead daughter’s honor. Just a stringy woman with nothing left in the world, and she was still fighting. The man grabbed at his own throat, trying to stop the blood, trying to live. The blood was thick in the air and Jenny felt dizzy.
 

Jenny knew then that she had to live too. At least for now.

“Go on ahead, Robin,” she said, something odd in her voice.
 

“What?”

“Go ahead,” Jenny said. “I’ve got this.”

Robin looked down at the man she’d cut. He was twitching on the ground, the blood pooling underneath him.

“Are you sure?”

“Go,” Jenny said, her voice low. Robin frowned, not sure what was happening, but backed away from the remaining two junkies. One was looking from Robin to Jenny and scratching his arm.
 

“Wait,” he said weakly. Robin was soon out of sight and Jenny smiled.

“Hello, boys,” she said, looking at the other junkie over her captive’s shoulder.

“Look, lady,” said the big junkie from behind her knife. “We don’t want any trouble.”

“Neither do I,” said Jenny. “But I am so, so hungry.”

SEVENTEEN

Robin was true to her word. Jenny helped dig the grave behind the bank building and Robin laid her daughter’s body gently down. She didn’t cry as they buried her, but Jenny thought she heard her muttering a prayer and singing to her again. Trix and Benji arrived with Declan on their shoulders, just as Jenny jammed a makeshift cross into the ground.

“He threw a goddamn fit about leaving the Mustang,” Trix whispered.

“What’s done is done,” said Robin, looking at the loosened earth. “She’ll be at peace now.” She looked up and met Jenny’s eyes. “It’s better than this fucking world.”

She turned and they followed her. Four blocks, twisting and turning like she wasn’t sure where she was going. Six blocks now. Trix and Declan started to make comments in a low voice which Robin ignored, if she heard them at all. Finally she stopped in front of a copse of trees, the bushes wildly overgrown. Robin stared into the darkness between the trees.

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t,” Jenny said.

“You’re really going to kill her?”

Jenny thought about her mother. She remembered her rage as she stared into the Undead face of her sadistic grandfather. She remembered Casey and Abel and everyone else who had died so recently that she still felt raw inside. She could still feel Sully’s hands inside her body, cutting her, ripping her apart and putting her back together again. She thought of Declan. And all the skeletons, the tiny, tiny skeletons buried under her mother’s old lab.

“Yes,” said Jenny. “I really am going to kill her.”
 

“She’s your mother.”

“She was never a mother,” said Jenny, the venom in her voice surprising her. “What you and your daughter had? I’ve never known anything like that. It’s all alien to me. My mother is a sociopath.”

“Have you ever had a child?” said Robin, her voice so steady that it was eerie.
 

“No,” she said.

“Good,” she said. “They bring you nothing but pain. They leave you one way or another, and it opens up a hole inside you that you try to fill, but it just stays empty. Like a black hole. Just sucking the life from you. Until you’re walking around and you look like a person and you sound like a person, but there’s not a shred of yourself inside of you. You’re just…nothing.” Robin looked at Jenny then. “Do you know that feeling?” Jenny didn’t answer. She looked away. Robin shook her head. “I hope not. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

“Look, lady,” said Trix. “Is this legit or what? Do you even have a car?”

“Yeah,” said Robin, “I have a car. Sort of.”

“Sort of?” said Trix.

Robin started pulling at bushes and plants and they came away easily. They had looked overgrown because they were covering something big. Something huge. Jenny came forward to help her. When they were finished, Trix was finally speechless.

“What the hell is that?” said Benji.
 

“Welcome to my home,” said Robin.
 

It resembled a motor home, but more. The tires were oversized and heavy iron pipes were welded around its boxy frame. It was rusted and dirty and there was a large, rotter-sized black smear on the door.

“How do you get it around?” said Trix.

“Most of the roads are clear now,” said Robin. “And…I used to have help.”

Everyone grew quiet, but Declan shook Trix and Benji off and limped toward the beast. He walked around it.

“What does it run on?” He sniffed. “Grease?”

“Yeah,” said Robin. “It smelled like patchouli when I found it, but it’s been good for me. Gets me where I want to go.”

“How do you keep the rotters out?” he said.

“We reinforced the doors and windows. There are metal bars inside that latch all the way around. When the rotters come, we just wait them out and they eventually wander off. It was never a problem, not until recently. People are getting real weird these days. I mean, the Dreg stops were always a little shady, but now? Fucking freak show. Drugs coming in now too. You saw it. A whole fucking pile of the shit. It’s everywhere now. Junkies are worse than the Rotters.”

“You know we’re not exactly normal, right?” said Declan. “You deserve to know. We’re not safe.”

Robin sniffed. “I know what you are.” She looked at Jenny. “I’ve heard the stories.”

“What have you heard?” said Trix.

Robin shrugged. “You’re dead but you’re not. You were infected with the plague but it didn’t send you away. You’re still present. Still have your minds. Is that true?”

“Pretty much,” Declan said. He met Jenny’s eyes. “For the most part.”

“Did she do this to you?” said Robin. “The scientist. Your mother. She did this?”

“Maybe she thought she was saving us,” said Jenny.
 

“Bullshit,” said Robin. “Of all the children who died, I find it very convenient that her own children were the ones who survived. She didn’t care if anyone lived or died, no matter what you tell yourself to sleep at night. She killed hundreds of children. Maybe more. My son, my little boy, is gone. And you’re still here. And a sister? After all that’s happened, you have a sister?” Robin was manic, walking back and forth on the road, her words coming faster and faster. “No one has blood relatives anymore. But you, baby Anna Hawkins. You have a fucking sister, a mother, who knows what else? You’ll probably come out of this sparkly clean. You’re not even dead like the rest of your friends. I can see you breathing, I can feel the heat coming off you. I should kill you right here. Save you the trouble of finding your…your…”

“Her bitch mother?” said Trix, suddenly stepping between Jenny and Robin. Robin stopped her pacing and narrowed her eyes at Trix.

“What do you care?” Robin said. “You’re just as dead as my daughter was.”

“Fuck you, you superior bitch,” Trix said, tight anger in her voice. “You have no fucking idea what we’ve been through to make it this far. We didn’t do this. Any of it. I’m real fucking sorry about your kids, but fuck you. Fuck you. You think Anna Hawkins spared her kids? You think they got the best of the experiments?”

“Yeah,” said Robin. “I do.”

“You’re wrong,” Trix spat. “Casey, he’s not around anymore,” Trix paused for only the slightest of moments, “but he was right in the pool with the rest of us. He went through everything we went through. This mother you think cared so much for her kids? She barely spoke to him. Barely looked at him. Her own son. I never once heard her even speak his name. And this bitch back here, Jenny? She’s a fucking walking mess. You don’t think she died, the same as the rest of us? Oh, she fucking died, you stupid bitch. She keeps on dying over and over. She can’t fucking stop dying. And you know what? It’s a good fucking thing because she’s the only one who gives a shit about this stupid goddamn world, this fucking cesspool of hate and ugliness and fucking chaos. Jenny is the only good thing left and she keeps trying to save all you stupid motherfucking bitches. And she will never stop. That’s what makes me so mad sometimes. She could just leave, just hole up somewhere. She’d be fucking fine. Me and Jenny? We could both go off together and never look back and you know what? Yeah, we’d come out clean. But we are fucking dead. We’re hungry all the time. I can see it in her eyes and I can smell the blood on her breath when she finally gives in to the hunger and exhaustion and rage. She could have ripped you apart but she didn’t. Maybe she’s stupid, but you’re a fucking idiot if you think that she’s the problem.”

Robin had taken a step back from Trix and for a moment there was a glimmer of fear in her eyes. But then she took a step forward, her face tilted up, giving her the impression of a bird of prey.
 

“I lost two children, rotter. I offered you safe passage. Don’t insult me.”

“Don’t insult Jenny,” said Trix. “Ever. Do not even make a joke about insulting her. She was ripped open over and over again by her own family. Her mother. Her grandfather. Ripped. Open. No antibiotics, no drugs. Just cut. Cut. Cut. Cut. Cut. Cut. Over and over. When I met her she had scars all over her back. She got away before the rest of us, that’s true, but it didn’t matter. She’d already died so many fucking times that even she can’t remember what happened. Maybe she has a sister. But you can fucking bet her sister is even more fucked up than she is. That she’s been ripped open even more times than Jenny has. We’re going to save her. We’ve got to fucking try. Jenny has to try. Because there is so much fucking shit in the world that you have to kick it away sometimes. And if it wasn’t for Jenny I wouldn’t care. Not even a little fucking bit. She got bit before I met her, but she was trying to find her brother when it happened. And when she came back, her brother died because some asshole wanted to know what was inside of her. Inside of us. But especially her. And then, the asshole she’s in love with, the bastard the stupid bitch can’t fucking live without, he got infected too. I would have left him. But it was Jenny. Fucking Jenny. And she saved him. She literally cut part of herself away to save him. And no one does that anymore.”
 

Trix wouldn’t look at Jenny, but kept her eyes firmly on Robin, who refused to look away even though she looked like she wanted to. Tears had begun to fall down her cheeks even as she sneered. Trix laughed then, a hollow sound, but Jenny could hear the emotion in it.