"How?"
"My bike's engine has a distinctive signature. Anyone who knows what to listen for..." He doesn't finish. Doesn't have to."Hide. When they find me, you run. Get back to the bike, get Allie her medicine."
"I'm not leaving you."
"Allie needs you alive." His eyes meet mine, and I see something I didn't expect. Fear, not for himself, but for me. "Please."
The logic cuts through my protest.Allie.Always Allie.
I hide in a supply closet, antibiotics clutched to my chest, and watch through a crack in the door as four men emerge from the stairwell.
The leader, a massive brute with a shaved head and dead eyes, grins when he sees Stephan. "Brother. Been looking for you."
"Bull." Stephan's voice is flat. "Long way from home."
"Club wants you back. Or dead." Bull shrugs. "Your choice."
"I made my choice when you started killing families."
"That was business." Bull's smile turns cruel. "You always were too soft."
The fight explodes without warning.
Four against one, and they know his moves. They trained together, fought together. Bull is stronger. They're pushing Stephan back, overwhelming him with numbers.
He's losing. I can see it happening: wounds accumulating, movements slowing, the inevitable end creeping closer.
I don't think. Just act.
I burst from the closet and smash a heavy medicine bottle against Bull's skull. Glass shatters. Blood sprays. Bull staggers.
It's enough.
Stephan moves. Knife into another's leg, gun from a fallen hand, two shots that drop one man and send another fleeing.
Bull retreats, dragging his wounded brother. "This isn't over, traitor."
"You should have stayed hidden," Stephan snarls at me when they're gone.
"You're welcome."
We run. The gunshots attracted every zombie in the building. Outside, the halls are filling with moans and shuffling feet.
We flee Fort Nelson with the dead on our heels and the Wolves knowing exactly which direction we're headed.
six
Stephan
Twentymilesout,wefind an abandoned farmhouse to regroup.
My ribs are cracked. I can feel them grinding with every breath. Iris has a deep gash on her arm from the broken bottle. We're both covered in blood, most of it not ours.
We're alive. I keep telling myself that's enough.
"You shouldn't have done that," I say, cleaning her wound by lamplight. "Bull would've killed you."
"Bull was killing you." She winces as I apply antiseptic. "I wasn't going to let that happen."
