Cole’s gaze dropped to Tyler’s arm. The spot he’d been rubbing earlier was bright red now.
Cole remembered their father coming home one night, while they were still at home, while they still had a home, before the military began sending people into walled neighborhoods like Garfield Park and bombing the rest, trying to exterminate the infected.
Their father had come home, tired and dazed. In the middle of the night, he’d woken up. And he’d come after them.
You brats. You ungrateful brats. Spending my money. Eating my food.
As Tyler reached for him, Cole’s gaze shot to his brother’s arm. To that fevered red spot. To the white semi-circles around it. The faint scars of a bite mark.
They say that one of the infected got in.
It’s Jake. That bastard pushed me.
Because he’d been bitten. Tyler had gotten ambushed by one of the infected, and Jake saw it happen and pushed him over the edge because he knew what was coming. Because Jake was a friend and that’s what you did if a friend got bitten. You gave him a quick and merciful death.
Then I brought him back. I asked for Tyler back as he was before the fall, whole and healed. So the bite healed, but his body was still infected.
Cole swung as hard as he could, plowing his brother in the jaw. Tyler stumbled back. Cole leapt up and raced to his dresser crate. He snatched the monkey’s paw and tore out the door.
Coledidn’t lead Tyler out onto the street. He might attack someone else. More importantly, though, he could be spotted. Cole had to solve this himself. So he stayed inside their bombed-out building, leapfrogging over small debris piles and hiding behind bigger ones, keeping one step ahead of Tyler as he tried to figure out what to do next.
He remembered the night their father got infected. Tyler had put Cole in the locked bathroom and told him to stay there, but Cole had snuck out. He’d followed as his brother led their father through the dark streets, steering him straight to a guard station. Tyler had shouted a warning and the guards came out and… And then there was a shot.
For weeks, Cole had hated his brother. He’d run away. He’d fought when Tyler came after him. He raged and shouted and called his brother every name a ten-year-old knew. He remembered Tyler explaining that this was what their father told him to do. Once you were bitten, even if you seemed normal for a while, something inside you had changed and no matter how good a person you were, you’d hide the bite, and you wouldn’t warn anyone. So they had to kill you before you killed them.
Eventually, Cole had understood, and they’d come to a pact. If either of them was bitten, they’d do the same thing. Don’t hope for a cure. Don’t hope it would get better. They knew it wouldn’t.A merciful death. That was the final gift they could give, as Jake had for Tyler.
Except this was different. Cole still had one wish left.
One cursed wish. One wish that would almost certainly go wrong.
The first time, he’d blamed himself for being careless. Yet he hadn’t been careless with his second wish. He just didn’t know all the facts, and there was no way around that, no way to account for every possibility.
Cole knew what Tyler would want him to wish for. Grant Tyler a merciful passing. Undo the second wish. Protect himself. Don’t take a chance.
For six years, everything Tyler had done, he’d done for Cole. To give him a better life. Now that dream was within Cole’s grasp. He had the money to get into Garfield Park and plenty of extra to help him lead a good life, a safe life, a hopeful life.
A life without Tyler.
What kind of future was that? His brother had already sacrificed everything for him and now he had to sacrifice his life, too? Tyler didn’t deserve that. Goddamn it, Tylerdid notdeserve it. If the world was a just place, Cole would be the one infected and Tyler would put him down and get the kind of life he truly deserved.
But that wasn’t happening. Cole had two choices: undo his second wish or pin his hopes on a third cursed one.
Cole rounded a chunk of wall and nearly ran into his brother. Tyler snarled and lunged at him. Cole stumbled, twisting and getting his footing just as Tyler caught his shirt.
“Give me that money, you ungrateful brat. It’s mine. I worked for it while you sat on your ass and?—”
Cole wrenched free. As he ran, Tyler continued shouting after him. Shouting insults and curses. Maybe that should help his decision. It didn’t. Cole couldn’t even tell himself that maybethis was what Tyler really felt, deep down, because he knew this was the infection talking. His brother had given him everything because it gave him a purpose, it made him happy.
And you know what he’d want to give you now. The best chance possible.
Which is exactly what I want to give him.
So once again, they were at an impasse. And Cole had to break it. He had to make a choice.
Cole saw a door ahead. It led into a rubble-filled room. When they’d first arrived here four years ago, they’d tried to clear that area—a room with four standing walls and a door was rare. But the ceiling was half caved in and the rubble too heavy to move.
Now that’s where Cole ran. He raced through the door, slammed it shut and leaned against it. Then he took out the monkey’s paw and gripped it tight.
