Tension ran between my shoulder blades. We were like domesticated animals experiencing the outdoors for the first time.
I drove past the parklands where infected roamed in larger groups, weaving between trees and tripping through the grass, overgrown now with no one around to maintain it. Two men walked faster than the rest, heavy backpacks on their shoulders, movements too agile and aware to be the dead. One of them waved his hands above his head and shouted.
I kept driving.
“I heard what you said to Varesh before we left.” Sadie tapped a silent beat on her thigh, leaning forward and taking a longer look at an infected man. His body had been torn apart so badly, it was tough to see how he could still be standing, let alone walking.
I swerved around a shopping trolley that had been tipped on its side, its wheels turning uselessly in the breeze.
“I know why you said it,” she went on, her voice soft, “and I agree. I’m just—”
“Struggling with the agreeing part?”
She forced a smile. “Yep.”
An SUV approached, packed to the roof with belongings, the occupants staring at Sadie and me as our paths crossed. “Like it or not, we need to get on board fast with the idea. There’s nothing keeping people in line anymore.”
“If he touches Ava, if he does anything that makes her think she’s in danger, she’ll kill him, Theo. She will.”
Sadie sounded so sure, so final. “I hope he doesn’t put his hands on her,” I said, “but if it happens, and she ends him, he's earned it.”
“The world’s scary enough with the dead roaming. The thought of coming across people like him makes me sick.”
“We’ll do our best to avoid talking to anyone. Stay out of trouble.”
Sometimes, though, the choice was out of our hands.
Thirty-Two
sadie
“Oh, God. Look at her,” I said as we passed a body lying facedown in the gutter, a torn t-shirt revealing horrific bruises, and tangled brown hair as long as Ava’s. One foot was bare, and the other encased in a dirty sneaker.
She hadn’t been bitten, otherwise we would have seen her staggering around like all the other infected. Someone had ended her life and left her lying on the road as if she meant nothing.
“Probably hit by a car,” Theo said, his tone sombre.
My heart thumped erratic beats. The way she took her last breath made no difference to me. She’d been left on the road to die alone. Just like Brynn.
I absorbed every detail until the body was behind us. “She looks like Ava.”
Theo reached across the console and took my hand, resting it palm upward on his thigh. “You’ll drive yourself crazy if you keep thinking about her,” he said, linking his fingers with mine.
“You don’t think about your family?”
He traced his thumb over the lines on my palm. “All the time.”
I pressed my lips together and raised my brows. “So… you’re a hypocrite, is what I’m hearing.”
With a laughing breath, he squeezed my hand. “The biggest.” His thumb never stopped moving over my palm, languid strokes that made my chest tighten in a completely different way.
I looked out the window again, forcing myself to breathe through the tension. There was a time and place to fall under Theo’s spell, and now was definitely not it.
The infected tripped aimlessly down the street, some following a leader and others going it alone. Based on what I’d seen so far, they appeared to gravitate toward one another and create bigger groups, despite having no ability to think.
A disfigured teenager reached for the car as we cruised past, hoping for a chance to get his teeth into us. The fear of being surrounded by them with no way out stayed in the back of my mind, a warning not to let my guard down.
Up ahead, the road curved, and my pulse quickened.
