I took a step backwards, my body slumping into my chair, the wind all but knocked out of me.
I had no idea what to say anymore. For once my words would not come. No witty comeback, no snarky remark. I was voiceless, as if the words had been dragged from my body, and my throat was nothing but an empty hole from which words could not escape. I thought of poor Jessica, of the unborn child that she carried inside of her. I thought of her joy at finding out that she was going to be a mother again, and I felt the pain that it would cause her to get rid of the tiny life that grew inside her. My stomach clenched. It wasn’t a tiny speck of life inside her; it was death that grew within her.
“Where’s Hilary?” Nova spoke and I looked up, seeing a calmness had come over her, her emotions finally under control.
Deacon looked up at her coldly and then spat in her direction. “Go to hell,” he snarled, “all of you. You stay away from my family. You’ve done enough damage.”
“Whatever has happened to you, whatever justification you think you have for killing these people, it’s not good enough. It will never be good enough. There were children here. Families. And you killed them all,” Nova ground out between tightly clenched teeth.
“They were already dead!” Deacon yelled angrily. “They just didn’t know it yet.”
“No, you killed them. You killed them in the worst possible way. You let in the dead and brought their worst nightmares to life. They fought the zombies, killing as many as they could, but in the end they all died.” She shook her head as if the image of what he had done was alive in her mind—and maybe it was. She lifted her gun back up. “Nothing can excuse your guilt of that.”
I realized how lucky we had been that the deaders that had been there—the ones that had attacked and killed the people that lived within the city—were gone. The thought of where they had gone would have to be analyzed some other time, because right then I knew that she was going to shoot him, and he deserved it. There was no excusing what he had done, yet I couldn’t let her. No matter how much I wanted her to kill him. I couldn’t allow her to. It was a stupid time to grow a conscience.
“Nova, wait!” I yelped, holding a shaking hand up to her. “Don’t do this. You’ll be as bad as him if you do, as bad as the people that tested on Hilary. Don’t do this, you’re better than this.” I didn’t know why I was trying to save him—he certainly didn’t deserve it, not after killing so many innocent people—but one thing I was certain of was that she would struggle with this day for a long time to come, and killing him would only add to her internal misery.
“So what? He gets to go free?” Nova sneered angrily, her gaze never wandering from his.
My head was swimming, my thoughts muddled and confused. Everything seemed so screwed up, so wrong. I pulled out my katana and raised it before pressing it to his throat, looking at Nova and letting her know that I would take this for her, I would carry her burden. Because honestly, I didn’t believe that she could carry any more on her shoulders. Not with all the horror of her sister and the damage she had done, the ball that she had set into motion. And Nova was needed in this world, where as I was not. I was nothing. Useless. A woman fighting for survival and coming out lucky every single time. I wasn’t needed. I wasn’t important. And so I would do this for her, for Nova. My friend.
“Where is Hilary? Where is the baby?” I asked Deacon.
“They’re waiting for me,” he said darkly, his gaze never leaving Nova’s. “They’re close by.”
“Take us to them,” I pleaded anxiously.
“No,” he snapped. “I came here to torch this place to the ground and that’s what I’m doing if it’s the last thing I do. This place is evil. It needs to be destroyed.”
I pinched between my eyes, my headache thumping mercilessly in my head. We couldn’t allow him to burn the place down; there were too many valuable things there, too many things that could help people. Things that we needed—
I
needed. Yes, it was selfish, and yes the place deserved to burn for all the horror it held within its walls—much like all of the walled cities did. But we couldn’t do that. Not when the things there could provide so much comfort and help to people.
“Deacon, this place was used for bad, but it doesn’t have to always be that way. It could be made good again, it could become a home for people—other survivors. I can’t let you burn this place down,” I pleaded.
“Fuck this. He’s not burning shit down, I’m killing him!” Nova yelled furiously.
“No,” I yelled back, staring daggers at the side of her face. “No, you’re not. I’ll kill him if that’s what’s going to happen, not you.”
“None of you are killing me!” Deacon roared angrily.
“Yes we are!” we both yelled back, looking at Deacon. Nova aimed her gun and I lifted my katana.
My breathing was ragged, my heartbeat ready to burst out of my chest, and I knew Nova was feeling the same way. She had the same crazy glint in her eye that I knew I probably had, the same look that Deacon had. We were at a stalemate.
“Please, no more death,” Joan’s soft voice whispered from behind us. And somehow through the beating of my ferocious heart and the rush of the blood in my ears, I heard her.
I turned slowly, seeing her cowering in the corner, silent tears tracing down her wrinkled cheeks. Her bottom lip trembled, her hands clasped together in front of her. I took a deep, shuddering breath and lowered my katana.
“No, no more death,” I whispered to her with absolute certainty. “Not today, not like this.”
She whimpered and crawled forward until she reached my feet, where she curled herself around my ankles like she had done previously with Nova. I reached down, clasping my hand around her arm, and helped her up to her feet, and then I folded her into my arms and let her sob against me. I glared over her shoulder at Nova and Deacon, feeling like the good guy for a change. Nova looked shamefully away, an angry blush rising in her cheeks. She glared down at Deacon but lowered her gun all the same.
All the while I continued to hush into Joan’s ear to help calm her. And I hated that I couldn’t stop myself thinking it…but dear God she stunk. She stunk so bad it made my eyes water and I had to breathe through my mouth.
“Okay, we’re done here.” I peeled her frail, skinny body away from mine and took a step backwards, feeling nauseated by the snot bubble coming out of her left nostril. I turned away and looked at Deacon. “We are not blowing this place up, and you
will
take us to Hilary and your baby. It’s important.” I turned to Nova. “And you will not shoot this man. If you do, I’ll shoot you. You got that?”
She looked at me deadpan before pulling out her cigarettes and lighting one. “What-the-fuck-ever,” she said drolly.
“You don’t understand,” Deacon said, staring down at his feet. “If you understood then you’d want to burn this place too.”
I stepped forward and crouched down in front of him. “I used to live in one of these cities. I do understand. They didn’t test on me like they do here, but they stripped away everything that I was. They humiliated me, they hurt me…” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “They hurt everybody, so I do understand. And I don’t blame you for believing what you do, but there are things here that could help people survive. You could make this work.”
“You don’t understand” was all he mumbled back, letting his head fall forward and his chin rest on his chest. “You just don’t understand.”
“So make us,” I replied.
He looked up at me through his dark lashes, his eyes like liquid black. His full lips parted hesitantly, as if he were still deciding on how to reply to me. “Okay.”
I stared dumbfounded for a moment before getting my act together and giving him a firm nod. “If I untie you, do you promise to behave?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I looked over at Nova, who shrugged nonchalantly—though I knew she was anything but. “I’ve got this fool in my crosshairs, you don’t even need to worry about that.” Her eyes narrowed as she scowled down at Deacon. His lips quirked up at the edges into a sickly smile.
Well shit, these two were never going to play nice, I realized.
“Good,” I snapped at Deacon, my mood darkening with the return of my thumping headache. “Nova, there must have been a medic tent here or something.”
“Yeah, so?”
“See if there are any painkillers or some shit I can take for this flu. I swear my brain is trying to escape through my eyeballs. And we need something to clean his head wound. It’s still bleeding and will attract deaders if we take him anywhere.”
I took a step back and sat down in my chair feeling hot and sweaty. The adrenaline rush was wearing off and leaving me feeling especially shitty.
“It’s just a cold, stop being such a baby,” Nova said.
“It’s the flu.” I glared back.
She snorted back a reply and left the tent, hopefully in search of medicine for me. I’d suffered through several years in the apocalypse and I’d never felt so physically lousy from an illness. I’d fought off chest infections, knife wounds, sprained wrists, gunshots, beatings, and so much more, but this flu was kicking my ass.
I dozed in the chair until Nova came back. The room was hot—too hot—yet a cold chill still managed to run down my spine as the first signs of a fever began to hit. A cold sweat covered my body, and I knew that I must have looked like total crap when Nova frowned down at me.
“Don’t go fuckin’ dying on me, Nina,” she said, and dropped a small white tub of what I assumed to be painkillers into my lap. I guess by the lack of tact, she was still pissed at me for not letting her kill Deacon.
I fumbled with the lid of the tub and shook out two white tablets before swallowing them down. I didn’t even care about finding my water to get them down my dry throat, I just needed them inside my system as soon as physically possible. Thankfully, Nova let me rest for twenty minutes until the headache started to ease. The entire time she sat on the chair opposite Deacon, staring at him and smoking as if she had an endless supply and I wasn’t in desperate need of some clean air to clear the fog from my head. However, I refused to tell her to quit chain-smoking in the room and risk looking like any more of a baby.
I stood up, feeling a little better. Though my body was still running hot and cold, at least I could think straight.
“Get up,” I said, pointing my gun at Deacon.
He stood up without question, his jaw twitching in agitation, his dark eyes never leaving Nova’s. I looked between them and shook my head. Nova was clearly provoking him as best she could, possibly in the hopes that he would do something stupid like try to run so she could shoot him. She was itching to, that much was obvious. And I was kind of surprised that she hadn’t killed him anyway. There was no real reason to listen to me, and she knew I wouldn’t ever shoot her. Yet I guessed that my opinion mattered to her, and my opinion of her was the only thing keeping this guy alive at the moment.
I went behind him and untied his hands, whispering in his ear not to try anything stupid as I struggled with Nova’s crazy knots. After five minutes of struggling and grunting in annoyance I looked over his shoulder and caught the attention of Nova, who had miraculously gotten some bubble gum from somewhere and was chewing it noisily, all the while still eyeing Deacon with disdain.
“Dude? What the hell kind of knot is this? It’s like some crazy ninja knot!” I huffed.
Nova snorted out a laugh but didn’t move.
“Seriously, I can’t undo this. There’s some Harry Potter magic shit going on with these knots, I swear they’re getting tighter the more I pull on them.”
“Use a knife and cut them off him. My hands are busy.” She raised her gun a little higher to show me—and possibly Deacon, though I doubt he had forgotten—that she still had him in the sights of her gun, and she smiled. If you could call it a smile.
I pulled my knife out and began to cut through the ropes until Deacon’s hands finally fell to his sides. He pulled them up in front of him and rubbed the dry, red skin where the rope had scrubbed at the thin flesh on his wrists.
“Show-and-tell time,” I said, coming to stand in front of him, my voice sounding harsher and crueler than I actually meant.
He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, biting down on it as he weighed up his choices, his eyes flitting from me to Nova and back to me before finally nodding in agreement.
I walked by his side as we left the tent, Nova staying at the rear with her gun pointed at him.
“Yo, Crazy Pants, are you coming?” I heard her shout to Joan.
Outside the skies were clear for once: no dark rainclouds, no wind storms. The day was calm and mild, unlike my current thoughts, and I hoped that it was a sign of what I was walking toward.
My thoughts, however, continuously veered toward why I was even doing this. Deacon was a murderer. He had killed a lot of innocent people: women, children—and yes, evil scientists too, but in theory they were trying to save the world. While I couldn’t condone what they did in any way, I also couldn’t condone the murder of people so easily. An eye for an eye had never been my motto.
Plus, I pretty much knew from Deacon’s reaction what I was going to see when we got to Hilary and the baby. Yet I couldn’t stop myself. I
had
to see for myself. I had to prove to myself that there truly was no hope left in this world. No matter how much my heart had begun to believe that there was something good out there. That there was hope for mankind. For me. For everyone. What we were walking to would blow that theory away, and with it, my fractured soul would struggle to ever heal.