I can't hear what they're saying, but I can hear Jack. I can only assume it's Fish but then I hear Will. I creep to the scum-covered window with the huge bush in front of it.
I can hear their voices better.
"She isn’t going to go for that. She's all or nothing," Will says.
"The rest were never like this. Fish has lost it. He's got them doing things—bad things." Jack says in a hushed tone.
I lean against the house and realize they want to only kill the ones they have to.
I bite my lips. Can I walk away, knowing they would have hurt me and Star?
A branch snaps behind me. I spin just in time to see a fist coming for my face. I duck and tackle. Taking Fish to the ground. He grabs at my arms, laughing and rolling us so he's on top of me. I scratch and pinch and fight, but he pins me.
He is breathing heavily and looking down on me with a huge grin, "You are a savage."
I clench my jaw, looking for my out or his weakness.
He smiles, "Come on, Emma. You want me. I can sense it. You like it rough. I can tell this sort of thing about girls and you are just my type."
I snarl, "You're not my type, Fish. I like to be on top." I roll us as I wrap my thighs around his waist. I squeeze hard into his kidneys. He screams and it's my turn to laugh. He wraps his massive hands around my throat but I punch his windpipe hard. He chokes and I roll us again. I pin him to the ground, pressing on his throat and digging my fingernails around his Adam’s apple.
He laughs in a wheeze. He doesn’t have the dead look in his eyes, he's enjoying the wrestling. Gasping for air and confused, I shake my head, "What are we doing? Why do you want this? Is this fun for you? Are you insane?"
He grabs a fist full of my hair, dragging it down to his face, "Women are dead inside. It's rare to see one so alive." He smells my greasy, dirty hair. He closes his eyes, "I just wanted to know what you would feel like in my arms." In the closed slits of his eyes, I see tears forming that are about to fall down his cheeks. I don’t know what is happening.
My arm is grabbed as someone shouts, "WHAT THE HELL?" I flinch but it's Will. He drags me off of Fish.
I point at Fish, "You are weird."
Will looks crazy but Jack laughs bitterly, "Coming from her that is an insult."
I shake my head muttering, "I'm out of here. Friggin’ insane bunch." I give Jack a look, "A couple guns and we're gone."
His eyes flicker to Fish, who is still in a daze of some sort. I almost feel sorry for him. He's lost his mind. I don’t even know what's happening.
Fish waves a hand, "Give her guns and show her the way out." He turns and walks away. He's defeated, I think.
Jack looks confused or scared. He gives me a subtle headshake, "I told you to stay in the cabin."
I try really hard to give him a caring look, but I know how it looks on me. It always looks like I don’t give a shit. I've mastered it. I turn and walk away. A man standing near the cabin gives me a wide birth as he walks past me. I almost feel like faking at him and watching him run away.
I see now that my way of reacting is never the same as other people’s, except Will. Me and him react exactly the same, only he ends up calling me crazy and telling me how unstable I am. I snort and walk into the cabin where Star and Jake are talking quietly. I nod, "We're leaving now. Sleeping in the woods with nature would be better than trying to sleep here."
She looks exhausted but smiles, "Okay. We killing on the way out?"
I sigh, "I don’t know. These guys are crazy."
Will comes in the cabin after me. He gives me a hard look. I sneer at him.
"They've been eating some of the people they kill."
I don’t understand. I stand there confused and still for a minute. Jake and Star must be feeling the same way, because they don’t say anything either. None of us move or speak for a minute.
Will nods, "I know."
I shake my head, "What? No. I must have misheard you."
His lip is tucked into a constant grimace, "No. They've eaten some humans. They got real hungry last winter. Jack had been doing the hunting but he wanted to find other folks to live with. He saw them all getting weird, like they had been alone too long. He knew they needed more diversity and he'd heard about the rebel camps having women and men. He figured these boys needed some women. When he left they caught a big bunch of men and a couple women. They had run out of meat…"
I put a hand up, "Stop."
He nods slowly, "We gotta go. Jack was gonna down a big deer or something to start a big barbecue up before we left. So that would be cooking as we left. Drinking and eating distracts them."
"That’s why they're so strange?"
He gives me a look.
"They're eating people and Jack wants us to let some of them live? He thinks they'll be okay if Fish is dead?"
He nods once.
I storm past him, flinging the door open and scan the grounds.
I'm breathing like a crazed person. I see a crossbow like the one I had a few years back. I storm up to the guy next to it.
I point at it, "Can I have that?"
He gives me a look, "Get lost."
I punch hard, cracking his jaw and my hand. He's up and off his feet, but I have the crossbow in my hands. I point it at his chest, "I asked nicely."
He wipes the blood from his face, "You never said please. I see the blade in his hands come at me. I leap back, pulling the trigger. The arrow slices into his arm. He drops the blade as I kick his legs out from under him. Another guy gives me a look. I wing his right arm too. Grabbing the small stack of fresh arrows from the ground, I glance around at the fire pit. There is no one around.
The two guys I shot are calling me names but Will and Jake are with me. I hear scuffles and harsh words. I'm at my threshold for crazy.
I wish Leo were with me. Holding the crossbow up and taking small steps, I round the corner of the cabin where the guy was sitting. I fire three shots, hitting the three guys standing next to a smaller fire pit. The fire is being built by a forth guy. I miss him, reload and hit his right arm. Jack comes running when he hears the screaming. He points a gun at me, "Stop."
I shake my head, "Jack, me and you both know this is never going to stop."
I can feel Will's hulking body next to mine. I can hear the scuffles behind me. A gunshot makes me jump. I glance back at Star holding a handgun over a dead man. She has the dead look in her eyes. The man on the ground is the one who was mainly attacking her before.
I look at Jack, "You need to purge this place. It's only going to get worse."
His eyes shoot to his son. He's pleading with me, but I shake my head. He sighs, "Go, Emma."
I walk backwards, holding the crossbow on him, "How do we get out?"
He points, "Stay that way."
We start to the edge of the campground.
I hear a gunshot and turn to see another dead man on the ground. Star is walking away, turning her back on them. Jake and Will grab rifles and water bottles.
Jake reaches for some jerky on the picnic table but Will slaps it out of his hand, "Not from here."
We enter the woods and I hear the screams and gunfire continue. We break into a sprint, leaping logs and bushes. I know at least two are dead and five are hurt on their shooting arms. We run hard and fast.
Will is shouting at us to run harder. I look back for a second and see them running after us.
I leap for a large branched tree and scramble into it like a monkey. I sit fast and steady myself. The first guy goes down as he lifts his gun up. I take a deep breath and drop the second guy, just as he comes into view. He rolls on the ground, staring up at me with an arrow in his other eye. It's probably the best shot I have ever made, or luck. The third guy drops as I hear a gunshot. They start to fire on us, but we are better at this. We've had nothing but solid practice for months and haven’t been drinking or eating people. Either way, we are a formidable team, minus Jake.
Jack and his son bring up the rear, shooting their own. I see Fish get a shot off. Jack drops into the woods. I leap from the branch and sprint into the group. Men are dropping all around me. I raise my crossbow and fire. Fish turns to me with a gun raised, just as the arrow hits his neck. He chokes but manages a shot. I don’t feel the bullet. I'm certain it's missed me, but I hear a sound behind me. Someone making a noise like stumbling in the bush.
Jack's son is gone too. I get to Jack's body to see his son on his knees over his dying father. Jack smiles when he sees me, "Keep him safe for me."
I nod and grab his son by the arm. He is crying but lets me drag him away. I don’t know how many are left. I don’t know anything. I turn to drag the guy through the woods, but everything comes to a halt. A man holds a gun at me. I don’t have time to react. The barrel is bigger than anything I've ever seen, like my eyes zoom in to see it. As it fires I'm shoved down into the bush. I hear a cry I recognize. I stop.
I'm frozen and I can't get air. Everything is gone in my world instantly. My plan, my hate, my revenge, my fears, and my loves, all fade away. If the sound of the person hurt is who I think it is. I look back over my shoulder to see Will leaning against a tree. The back of his tee shirt is red. I shake my head, "No." I run for him screaming, "NO!"
I can see that he isn’t getting air. I don’t know what to do. He drops to his knee, still hanging on the tree. I reach him, skidding on my knees and turning him to face me.
I grab his face, making him see me, "You need to make it to the vehicles. Okay?"
His breathing is fast and shallow. His eyes water and fill with panic, "Em, you okay?" His voice is gravelly, "You okay, baby?"
I cry and nod. He saved me. He is going to die for me. I'm not worthy of that. I run my hands down his cheeks, shaking my head.
I tear open the front of the shirt but there is nothing. I don’t ever understand how he got shot in the back if he was shoving me to the ground. I spin him and see the jagged edge where the bullet went in. The wound is making a crackling sound with his shallow breaths. I look at my filthy hand and close my eyes. It's my best bet. I slap it against the bleeding wound and wrap my other arm around him. Jake grabs him from me.
"Oh shit. We need to run, let's go. We gotta get him to the city."
Jack's son gives me a look and nods, "Be right back."
He runs into the woods.
Jake looks at me for answers. I don’t have any.
I grab Will and hug him, "It's okay." He can't sit still or talk. He's moving and trying so hard for air, I am dying inside. I want to breath for him.
Star is glossy-eyed and scared. She wraps her arms around him too. His face was red with the struggle to breathe but it's paler now, maybe from blood loss but not much is coming out. My heart is in my stomach, I'm sure. I stroke his head, "It's okay, we'll get you to the city."
Jack's son comes riding up on a horse, leading three others.
Jake points, "You get into the saddle and I'll pass him to you."
I ask, trying not to cry, "How far is the city?"
Jack's son shrugs, "A whole day's ride. But there is a town nearby. We can go there, they can help."
I shake my head, "No. The city is his best chance." I climb into the saddle. Jake lifts Will onto the saddle. I hold him tight. They mount. Jack's son starts fast. Star pulls her horse in next to mine, riding like she was born doing it. I would roll my eyes, if I wasn’t so scared. She shouts, "I'm going for Bern. He'll get us to the city."
I swallow hard, thinking fast, "No. Don’t go off alone." She waves, "Take care of him, Sis." She veers when we get to the road again and catches up to Jack's son. I can hear her shouting, but I can't pay attention to it. My butt is already killing me and my fingers are gripping to Will in the saddle in front of me. I don’t recall exactly how to ride a horse. We're flopping in the saddle, and I feel like I'm going to lose him, but I hang on as hard as I can and ride.
Will is making terrible sounds but the wound isn’t bleeding so badly. I don’t know if that’s a good thing.
We get to the bottom of the hill, and I watch as Star goes in a different direction than us. She gets smaller and smaller and I start to worry. Damn her for creeping into my ‘us’ but she's there.
We ride until every inch of me is aching but somehow numb. My body is killing me and my throat is burning. The horse seems like he's exhausted but he's working to keep up to the other two in the front.
I barely notice the scenery, or the fact the sun has gone down. I barely recall anything, but the sound of his breathing, and the way it's coming out the hole in his back.
Jack's son pulls back, "He okay?"
I shake my head, "I don’t know." Will is bent over the front of the horse. I've pushed myself forward enough, that I'm holding him to the horse. My back is cramping, but I can't move or he'll fall off.
"The city is close."
I nod, "How long can the horse go for?"
"Not much longer."
I sigh and hold him to me, "Great. How long has it been since Star left?"