The Future Without Hope (15 page)

A
hand grabs me, and I roar, whipping my knife out and stabbing blindly at the
zombie whose gotten too close. Then a solid presence is at my back, and all the
shit we've been through, all the years of anger and silence, fall away as Omar
positions himself behind me.

"Good?"
he snaps, and I laugh, a wild, manic sound.

He
grins at me over his shoulder, and we fight, the zombies coming thick and fast.
One scrapes too close, and I slice down with my knife, cutting off its hand
before it can get a grip on me. The infect screams and lunges forward, and my
knife sticks as I drive it up into the brain from under its chin.

And
there are still more behind it.

I
pull my gun, and shout at Omar, "There's too many."

"Too
many for you? We did this shit every day in the East."

I
growl, and he laughs wildly, slicing an infect across the neck. I fire quickly,
three times, and two infects fall.

There's
one lunging at us still, and five more sprinting toward us. "You done, or
want to stick around for the after-party?"

Omar
grunts, and I grab the muzzle from my waist.

This
is the tricky part—killing is easy. Bringing an infect in alive and still
dangerous is a stupid fucking game to play, but there aren't a lot of options
just now.

The
muzzle was created by a family of morticians. After the dead started sitting up
and eating the folks around them, the way we treated the dead changed. Even the
dearly departed. Bullets to the head became standard. And with a new caution in
most people about being around dead, funerals became a thing of the past.
Morticians were quickly a superfluous thing in a world filled with shit we no
longer needed.

But
even in our world, a world ruled by fear of the dead, there were some who
couldn't adjust. Who couldn't let go.

And
there will always be someone willing to feed that.

The
Clark family spent three generations caring for the dead. And when that
changed, they went into business creating products to care for them. If you
aren't quite ready to let go of your dead father--it's fine. Clark Company is
sure to have the perfect muzzle for your pet infect, and chains to keep them
contained.

It
was a brilliant little business that preyed on the sick and desperate—and then
one of those pet infects broke lose, and her muzzle came off. She infected
fifty people in Haven 29 before she was put down.

29
still hasn't fully recovered from that massacre.

But
the government seized the zombie gear, and muzzles became something we could
fine tune, for our own use.

It
is always better to study a live specimen, and this made that possible.

It
was still dangerous as fuck, and I had always hated being part of the tag and
grab.

"Ready?"
I snap, and Omar grunts, whipping around and grabbing the infect. It screams
and lunges at his face, and I toss the muzzle over its head. Another shriek and
the infect goes crazy, bucking wildly in my grip as it tries to shake lose and
do what the disease demands: feed. I hiss, and Omar catches my eye over the
infect’s shoulder. "Hurry this shit up."

The
infect snarls and jerks, hard. The muzzle slips, and teeth come close, too fucking
close, to the Priest.

He
snarls, and I yank hard on the muzzle, and it slides into place. I laugh as the
lock engages, and Omar curses, letting the infect go. It lunges at him, and I
grab it by the hook on the muzzle, yanking it backwards and into the Outpost.

"You
know this is fucking stupid."

"I
know this is the only way to get you to be my second in command."

I
glance at him. "I'm not interested in working for you again, Omar. You
know that."

"But
your First will fight with me," he says, simply.

And
it is that simple. I swallow my curse, and shove the stairwell door open.
"Don't fucking count on that. She hasn't left yet, and I can still talk
sense into her."

Omar
shrugs. "Maybe. Maybe not. But the first step is to show you both that the
disease isn't something we need to fear."

I
don’t argue with him. I don’t argue with lunatics, and as much as I wish it
were otherwise, that’s the camp Omar is falling into these days.

“How
does this go down?”

“We’ll
put him in containment overnight. Give the cure time to work into Stiles’
system.”

I
nod, and follow his lead as we wrestle the furious zombie into containment.
Nurrin stands on her side of the walled room, eyes cool, face blank, as we
work.

Cold
fear pricks my belly. She’ll be in the same building as a live infection, all
night. That thought makes me feel sick to my stomach. The zombie lunges
suddenly, and I tighten my grip on the muzzle hook, shoving it into containment
as Omar steps out of the way. The door swings closed, and the zombie screams,
furiously battering itself against the door. I stare at it for a long tense
moment, and then let my gaze swing to the Black Priest.

“Even
if we can’t be infected—that? That isn’t safe. You’ll never be able to convince
me that facing them is anything less than suicide. And I stopped going on
suicide missions years ago.”

His
lips quirk. “The problem is, you never went on suicide missions. You just
followed the girl. And you’ll do it again now—she’s too important to you.”

Dread
hits me in the gut, and I stare at him, my eyes dead as I keep from shaking by
a sheer force of will.

“I’ll
kill you, if anything happens to her. It will make what happened to Kelsey look
like a mercy.”

Omar’s
eyes cool. “Threats have never worked on me, old friend.”

“You
know me, Omar. You’ve known me longer than anyone alive, but Claire. You know I
don’t make threats—and I don’t make promises unless I’m damned sure I can keep
them.”

Omar
smiles, and nods. “I’m counting on that.”

Chapter
4.
Keeping Promises

“COME
WITH ME.” I say.

Nurrin
is standing at the window, staring at Kendall. I wonder what she wants to see.
The cure won’t work in any way that is visible—not until we’ve actually
infected him, and see how the virus in his body reacts.

“Nurrin,”
I prod, my voice sharp. Her eyes snap up to mine, fury written clearly in her
gaze. I smile. That’s what I need to see from her—the anger that keeps her
alive.

Some
people shut down under pressure and anger. But some people—people like
her—sharpen with it. They get stronger. It’s why I push her.

“Come
with me,” I repeat. She hesitates, her eyes wary, but I don’t offer more than
that, and eventually, as I knew it would, her curiosity pushes her into motion.

“Where
are we going?”

I
ignore the question and head to the fourth level of the Outpost. It’s here that
Holly is organizing the supplies and weapons. Getting ready for a war that all
sense says is lost.

It’s
also where the kitchen is, with stores of MREs and fresh produce. Cans of veg
and soup and weird desserts that became popular after the end of the world. A
kitchen that’s better stocked than most Haven homes. I glance at her. “What do
you want?”

Nurrin’s
eyes are wide as saucers as she stares at the stock. I know why—of course I do.

She’s
a Haven girl—and Collin did his best to take care of her before the Haven fell.
But he was a Walker, and there was never enough to go around, especially when
he tended to share with other orphans in the Hive.

Nurrin
never went hungry, if we could help it. But enough and excess are two very
different things. I’ve been lucky—my life has always been crowded with excess.
The privilege of my parents’ name, and the benefits of being Kelsey’s favorite.

The
perks that came with being the son of the plague-bringer didn’t outweigh the
guilt, or the hatred people had when they found out who my mother was.

And
nothing—not anything—could ever make losing Kelsey worth it.

“Anything?”
Nurrin says, her voice calculating. I grin, and nod.

Ten
minutes later, we’re headed back to our room. The flash of glee in her eye as
she pulled fruit and soup and pudding and loaves of fresh bread from the
shelves—it’s gone now. She’s withdrawn, her eyes down as we walk, almost
ignoring me.

I
want to shake her, but Kendall’s words are too present between us. Whatever
she’s going through, I need to be quiet and allow her to process them. Even if
I want to push until she breaks, sometimes, there is strength to be found in
moments of weakness, and allowing those moments. So I stay quiet as we walk,
following her to our small room.

The
First hall is crowded, still. Nurrin goes still when she steps into the hall,
and I brush up against her back. She hisses softly, and I smile, tight and
amused. She dances away a step.

Silly
girl. She can think whatever she likes, but this thing between us isn’t going
away. Even if that’s what is safest and best—what we both want and need. I’ve
been inside her now, tasted her, and heard the soft noises she makes when she’s
falling apart. She’s dug her way into my defenses, and I’m not giving her up
now—I can’t. And in a rare moment of honesty with myself, I will admit the
truth. I don’t want to.

Nurrin
pushes me, in ways no one has since Kelsey, and not even her. Because Kelsey
knew me before the world stripped away all of the pretty lies. Before I
realized that there was nothing but death. That is all the world has to offer.

Kelsey
didn’t live long enough for me to reach that conclusion before her death. And
in truth, I wouldn’t have. Her death was the nail in the coffin—the thing that
stripped the last of who I was and shaped who I became.

Nurrin
wouldn’t have recognized me before Kelsey’s died. Bitter and angry, but still
stupid enough to believe that this could end in something other than blood.

It
all ends in death. That’s all there is—it’s just a matter of how you pass the
time until then. Hiding or fighting to live.

“What
the hell is going on?” one of the Firsts demands.

Nurrin
looks back at me, her eyes wide and a little scared. I shake my head and step
back. This is her party. She wanted them free—she gets to deal with the upset
people who just had their secure little box torn apart.

It’s
an ugly truth of our world, that we’re happy in our little box. Even if it’s
just a stopping place on the way to our eventual slaughter—because it’s
familiar and it’s comfortable, and we’re creatures who value both.

A
figure pushes to the front of the group, and I tense. It’s the one from
earlier, with long dark hair and sharp green eyes that linger on Nurrin longer
than I like. I don’t like this one. “We aren’t being told anything, First. And
that’s a bad place for a group like us to be in.”
 

“Have
you decided what you want?” she asks, shifting her bag. She doesn’t like being
in the spotlight—common sense after a lifetime of hiding from the Order.

Ethan
glances back at the clustered Firsts, and then looks at her. “Can we talk
privately?”

My
eyebrows lift, lazily, and I take the single step I need to brush against her,
an arm slipping around her waist and pulling her tight to me.

Ethan
looks at me, and for the first time, I think he actually registers what he
sees. His lips tighten, but I don’t release her. He hasn’t earned the right to
be anywhere near her and he sure as fuck hasn’t earned enough trust to be alone
with her.

“No,”
I say, softly. Quietly enough that only she hears the word, murmured into her
ear. Nurrin twitches irritably.

“We
can talk in my room, if you’d like,” she says, a compromise. I wait until Ethan
gives a grudging nod, and then I steer her into our room, ignoring the mass of
terrified-looking Firsts.

“What
the hell are they doing?” she demands, tossing her bag on the bed. It clatters
noisily, but I’m staring at the bed, and all I can think about is her. There.
Naked with me.

“O’Malley,”
she snaps, her voice a tart whiplash. I jerk from my thoughts and refocus on
her.

“They’re
sheep, Nurrin. And you just set them free. They’re wandering around bleating
because that’s what sheep do.”

“Fuck
you,” a sharp voice says from behind me, and I turn, flicking a glance at the
First standing in our doorway. He’s glaring at me, and it pricks my interest. I
don’t like the way his eyes skate over Nurrin, a little too interested. But he
has more sense, and more anger than the other Firsts.

And
anger might be destructive and people might hate it—but it does the job when it
comes to staying alive.

“Don’t,”
Nurrin snaps. “Sit your ass down.”

Ethan
eyes her for a long moment, and then he perches on the edge of the desk. Smart.
If he had moved toward the bed she’s sitting on, I might have broken his neck.
I’m already pissed he’s in the same room as her.

“What
do you think happens next?” he asks, abruptly.

Nurrin
ignores him and cracks the battery pack on the soup, shaking it hard to warm
the little can. She tosses one to me and I grab it out of the air. “What
happens next is you go to a Haven, or you get your shit together and live in
the Wide Open, or whatever the hell you think you should do. You get away from
the Order and you live.” Nurrin says.

“Why?”
he demands.

She
goes still, the can forgotten in her hand. “Because we all deserve the right to
live and die in the manner of our own choosing. The Order doesn’t get to decide
that because we’re Firsts, we’re someone less, or merely here for their own
use. We are people too. And we get to live the way we want—if that’s hiding
behind the Walls of a Haven, or staying a few steps ahead of the horde.
Whatever. It’s your fucking life. Live it.” I stare at her, and her gaze darts
to me, for a moment. She licks her lips, nervously, and then refocuses on
Ethan. “You aren’t bound by Walls or society or the Order. Do what you’ve never
thought you could.”

Ethan
stares at her. “What are you going to do?”

Nurrin
blinks. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”

He
shrugs, and her eyes narrow a little. “I think it has a lot to do with
everything. You gave us our freedom, not the Order. You say to live in the
manner of our choosing, but for so many of these people they don’t know what
that is. I’m curious how you will live.”

She
licks her lips, and I see the shadows in her eyes as she darts a quick glance
at me, then back to the boy who asked her the question. Her face is utterly
blank, and her voice is cool and distant when she answers, “I’m going to live
in a way that matters.”