The Future Without Hope

The Future Without Hope

Book 3 of The World Without End

Nazarea Andrews

This book is a work
of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is
entirely coincidental. The author makes no claims to, but instead acknowledges
the trademarked status and trademark owners of any wordmarks mentioned in this
work of fiction including brands or products.

Copyright © 2014 by
Nazarea Andrews

The Future Without
Hope by Nazarea Andrews

All rights
reserved. Published in the United States of America by A&A Literary

Summary: After
being separated, Nurrin and Finn struggle to survive

And find their way
back to each other despite the zombies and Order.

1. Zombies 2. Romance
3. New Adult 4. Post Apocalyptic

No part of this
book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
articles and reviews.

For information,
address Nazarea Andrews @ [email protected]

www.nazareaandrews.com

Edited by Brianna
Shrum

Cover design by Mel
Stevens of the Illustrated Author

Cover art
copyright©: Nazarea Andrews

Separated from Finn,
captive of the Order, Nurrin has no hope left. But she has survived twenty
years of zombies--and she has the unshakable faith that Finn will find her.

But Finn is a long
way away. The Order's influence runs deeper than was ever suspected, and
politics are shifting--and zombies may not be the most dangerous thing she's
facing.

Finn always thought
the war stripped him of all he had to lose. But with Nurrin missing and doors
closing in his face, he realizes there is always more for the world to
take--and he will drag the remains of civilization down with him before he
gives up on the only promise that matters.

Mel,

for indulging my love of zombies and gives me prettier
presents than I could ever ask for.

Part 1

The Girl Without
Hope

Once you choose hope,
anything is possible.

Christopher Reeve-

Hope is the one thing
that will fuck you up, every time. It’s the thing that keeps humanity going
when we should have died. In the end, it’s what will kill us.

Finn O’Malley-

Chapter 1.
Pretty Lies

EACH OF US HAS A
MOMENT WHERE WE HIT ROCK BOTTOM. Where nothing makes sense, and going
on—fighting to live—is just too much. Each of us have faced that kind of
devastating loss.

Before Emilie,
and everything changed, life was easy. Not for everyone. There was disease and
poverty, abuse and death and war. There was loss, in its way. But for so many,
it was easy, and difficulties, when they came, faded just as quickly. Life was
good
.

And then the
dead rose, and Atlanta fell, and nothing—not a fucking thing—was the same.

We tried. We
tried to build our cities with the Haven walls, tried to keep our lives what
they were with our false government in 1, and companies that tried to pretend
life wasn’t shattered beyond repair.

But it was. And
when the dead are screaming, there is no pretending. When you have the very
last thing you believe in stripped away, there is no way to look at our pretty
falsehoods and see anything but the fucking lie that we’ve built out of the
ashes of our dead.

We all have that
moment.

And sitting
here, in a noisy train, huddled in my brother’s arms—this is mine.

Chapter 2.
Old Wounds

THERE ISN’T MUCH
LIGHT—just what breaks in when the train rattles under a decrepit light the
feds put up to keep the dead back.

Idiots. Light
doesn’t deter the dead. Only a bullet to the skull can do that with any
certainty.

That is an
unassailable truth. There is one other—that there is no immunity. No cure.
Everyone bitten turns. Everyone.

That is a
constant refrain in my head as I stare. Even when it’s too dark to see, I
can—there are few things imprinted in my memory.

Mother’s body,
jerking as the zombies fed. The nameless sacrifice, screaming as her blood
enraged the zombies. Finn shaking me on an empty beach.

My brother, his
leg bleeding and bitten.

Some things you
can’t unsee, you can’t forget. You can’t change, and that’s the bitch of it.

“How did this
happen?” I ask, my voice hoarse. I’ve screamed myself out by now. Screamed and
sobbed until I gagged and retched, dry heaves that do nothing but make my
stomach ache and my mouth burn with the aftertaste of bile.

There’s nothing
left—just a shell of myself, hollowed of emotion.

His eyes go
distant, remembering. “The Order found me. Both of us. Dustin is—”

“I know,” I say,
my brow furrowing, cutting Collin off, because time is precious and running out
and we aren’t going to spend it talking about
Dustin
of all fucking things. “We found him. What happened after
that?”

The train
rattles around us, wind shaking the metal we’re leaning on. Collin shifts,
uncomfortably. “He babbled. In the fever, he talked. And the Lone Priest found
out we knew you—and that you were a First. After that, it was just a good
business decision to keep me contained. He checked in with a few of the Black
Priests, but no one was stopping him. They’re desperate to find sacrifices.”

“So they’re kidnapping
our families now?”

“It worked,
didn’t it?” he asks.

I snort. “That
isn’t because I knew they had you. It’s because I was too stupid to listen to
Finn.”

Collin’s grip on
me, already tight, tightens more. “Where is he? Why isn’t he here?”

“Because Kenny
didn’t fucking invite him on a date,” I snap.

Collin jerks
back, the first time since I collapsed in his arms that he’s let go of me.
“O’Malley let you go on a date?”

There is a
comical level of disbelief in his voice that makes a giggle bubble in my
throat, completely inappropriately.

I’ve always
laughed at the wrong things, at the wrong times.

“Finn doesn’t
give a fuck what I do.” I poke him, annoyed. I remember something suddenly. “Do
you know who his mother was?”

“Of course,”
Collin says absently, catching my hand as I poke him again. “Ren, what the hell
happened between you two?”

“Nothing,” I
say, absurdly defensive. “Why are we fighting about Finn O’Malley right now?”

“Because right
now is all we’ve got, baby girl. And he’ll protect you when I’m gone.”

Impossibly,
tears burn in my eyes. How can I still have tears to shed? “Finn doesn’t care
about me, Collin. When you’re gone, he’ll have no reason to stick around. I’ve
already dragged him back to a place he hates. He’ll be happy to be rid of me.”

Collin laughs,
and I scramble away from him. I know my brother, and I know that laugh. It’s
the one he uses when I’ve done or said something he thinks is fucking stupid. I
crouch a half foot away from him, almost lost in the darkness of the train and
glare.

“Get back here,
idiot,” he says, still laughing. I let him tug me back and he kisses the top of
my hair. I lean against his side, even as he’s careful to position me away from
his leg.
 
“I always thought I would
protect you from the Order. Turns out I’m what you need protection from. How is
that for irony?”

“Shut up,
Collin. You would never hurt me.” I snap, trying to keep my fear off my face.

Even as I say
it, I know it’s not true, and I expect him to call me out for the lie. Finn
would. Finn never tolerated lies. Not from me, not from himself. I always knew
just how much he hated me, and how much he wanted me, and how much he hated
wanting me.

What is the only thing that matters?

I blink away his
memory, his phantom. Stare at my brother. Ask the question I’ve been dreading.
“What are we going to do, Collin?”

Chapter 3.
Cruel Truths

“DO YOU HAVE A
WEAPON?” He asks, and his voice is remarkably calm. Collected in ways mine
isn’t. I shiver and shake my head. All the times he’s asked me what weapons I
carry—all the times I’ve double and tripled checked my ammo and knives while he
watched. All for this moment, when it matters and I’ve failed.

I gesture at the
dress.

It’s been
days—who knows how long—since I was taken from that empty restaurant. But no
one has bothered to replace my dirty dress with anything. It’s filthy, and
hangs around my legs in tatters. I’m trying hard to ignore the stains—vomit and
blood and other things I can’t think about without losing my shit.

His fingers tap
lightly on my boot. “Give it here,” Collin says softly.

I don’t argue.
Just wrestle the damn thing off. I hiss, my toes stretching for the first time
in god knows how long, and tears sting my eyes. Collin takes the boot, and
scoots away from me. He makes a quiet noise as I rub my toes, and I twist to
look at him. My hair is hanging in my eyes again—I’d do just about anything to
pull it back.

“This will
work,” he says softly and my stomach drops. I don’t need to ask to know what
he’s talking about. The spiked heel is sharp—not blade sharp, but it’ll do the
job if I hit the right soft tissue.

My stomach
heaves, and I gag. There is something very wrong about thinking that in
association with Collin. He isn’t a target.

“Collin, I
can’t,” I whisper.
 
“I can’t kill you.”

“You won’t have
to,” he says, his voice full of false confidence. I know when my brother is
lying to me, and I can read it in his voice now. “The Order needs you alive for
the sacrifice. There aren’t so many Firsts left that they can let you die by my
hands.”

I shudder. He is
so matter-of-fact about it—and I know he’s right. That those are my options.
The Order or death at my brother’s hands. I just don’t want to face that
reality yet.

“Why did you
never tell me who he was?”

Collin doesn’t
bother asking who—there is only one person I could mean. “Finn’s story is his
own. It wasn’t my place to share it.”

“Not even with me?”
I ask, twisting my dirty skirt in my fingers.

“Especially
you,” he says, sharply. “You disliked him on sight, and you would have never
accepted him if you knew his history—and you know what it’s like, to be blamed
for something that you had no control over.”

I flush, and
look away. I do. It’s the curse of every First—even people who aren’t part of
the Order blame the Firsts, a taint that we carry because of their vicious
rhetoric. I grit my teeth. “You should have told me. Especially since you know
he doesn’t tell me shit.”

A smirk. “He
doesn’t trust easily.”

I laugh, a
short, bitter noise. “The bastard doesn’t know what that word means.”

Collin shrugs, a
quiet motion of his shoulders, and pain squeezes his face closed for a moment.
I glance at the bite on his leg. “Collin?”

He squeezes my
hand and shifts against the wall. “Need you to promise me something.”

“Shut the fuck
up,” I snap, fear fueling my words. “I’m not making any fucking deathbed
promises. We’re going to get out of this.”

“Quit it,”
Collin snarls, and that’s the brother who has done whatever it took to keep me
alive, the one who was by turns stubborn and fierce and gentle. The one who
wouldn’t tolerate my excuses in school or workouts, weapons practice or the
orchard. “You know how this plays out, Ren. Don’t fucking lie to yourself.
Because it will play out, and I need you alive when it does. Do you understand
me? You do whatever the fuck it takes to stay alive. That’s what you do—what
you’ve always done. You’re a survivor, sweetheart. And I need you to hold onto
that.”

My lips are
numb, and I bite down on my bottom lip to still its quiver, and to keep from
sobbing. It won’t change anything.

If tears had the
power to turn back the dead, the world would never have changed.

“How long? How
long do I have to survive?”

A smile, cold
and satisfied, tilts his lips up and he tugs me against him, settling me into
the curve of his body and kissing my hair. “Until Finn gets here. He will come
for you—he promised, didn’t he?”

I glance at him,
startled that Collin would know that. “He’d keep me alive. Get me to you.”

What is the only thing that matters?

Collin nods and
leans his head back against the side of the train. I can see the strain of the
bite, working across his face. It’s changing him, already. I swallow that
thought and my tears, and lean against his side. “Then that’s how long—you stay
alive until he comes for you.”