All at once I’m going under.
It’s tough, but in the end I manage to pull myself together. I tread the water, pushing the feelings down in order to keep myself afloat as Audrey addresses the stranger.
“Hello,” she begins, a little nervous giggle in her voice. “We met earlier.”
Maverick nods. “At the church, yes. You helped me with my scrape. Thank you.”
Audrey brushes off his thanks. Not surprising. If Jack sent the stranger to St. Matthew’s, he wanted to have him there in case it was a repeat of that nineteen-year-old kid. Of course he’d ask the nurse to check out any injuries in case they were lurker-induced, and if he’s here, he must’ve passed the test.
She nods, her expression a mix between her usual warmth and a hint of wariness. “I just wanted to let you know that I agree. And, yes, I get what you’re saying. We all lost someone we care about during the Turning… My mom ate my father right infront of me,” she says candidly, and no one blinks because that’s not even the worst of the horrors that came out of that dark day, “and I’d leave the church and make a pile of lurker ashes of my own if they’d let me, but that’s just it. The Grave can protect itself. We’ve never had a lurker make it past our patrols since before summer. We probably have one of the best hunters to exist?—”
I slink low in my seat again. She has to be talking about me. Sure, I haven’t been out on a hunt for too long now, but before that night when the street lamp went out, I had more verified lurker flamings than anyone in the Grave?—
Leaning over, Audrey grabs her seatmate by the upper arm. She tugs, pulling him up, urging him to get to his feet.
Chase sheepishly stands up, holding his hand high as the audience applauds again.
I blink. Oh. Right.
Not me.
As the survivors rightfully cheer on one of their own, Maverick narrows his shrewd gaze on Chase, watching him with interest. He jerks his chin in his direction.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Chase, sir. Chase Knight.”
Chase isn’t wrong. There’s something about Maverick’s bearing that just screams ‘sir’.
“How many lurkers have you killed, Chase?”
His brow furrows. “I can’t say. I mean, I don’t count. I just do what I have to to keep us all safe.”
To my surprise, Audrey squeezes his arm, beaming up at him. “Don’t listen to him. He’s just being modest. We’ve got a chalkboard set up over at the church, keeping track of all his kills since July. It’s already up to thirty-eight.”
Chase starts shaking his head as soon as she says July. The significance of that month isn’t lost on me. Thirty-eight killssince Hallie’s death. Seems like Chase got to take out his grief on the lurkers like I wanted to do.
Another round of applause breaks out among the crowd. I can’t help but join in. There are one or two cheers.
With the arm that Audrey isn’t still hanging onto, Chase raises his hand again, gesturing for us all to quiet down. “I don’t do it by myself,” he argues.
“See?” Audrey says. “Told you. So modest.”
It’s a quick kiss, and it’s on the cheek, but I watch as the pretty nurse rises up on her tiptoes and kisses my sister’s fiancé in front of the whole Grave like Tony did to me. Chase flushes under all of the attention. He doesn’t move away from Audrey or shake her off of his arm; instead, his eyes shoot over the crowd, and I know with absolute certainty that he’s looking for me again, wanting to see my reaction.
I pause mid-clap, dropping my hands to my lap.
Fuck.
Chase and the nurse? When didthathappen?
Maverick braces his hands on the podium like Jack did before, leaning in so that his lips are just about kissing the microphone. He clears his throat, drawing everyone’s eyes back to him. Chase’s head snaps forward again and he sits down, followed by Audrey. The applause dies down to a gentle roar, then nothing as we all listen attentively to what the stranger has to say next.
“I commend you, Chase. And I didn’t mean to insult your people by assuming you weren’t capable of fighting back. Just the opposite, actually. I was telling Jack when I first sat down with him this morning after my… welcome… that I thought I might’ve finally found a group of survivors that still had their backbones. And then I thought, maybe I’ve finally found the right people to help me at last. So you guys like to kill lurkers…how would you like to kill so many lurkers that his thirty-eight seems like nothing at all?”
He pauses there for effect. Another round of whispers erupts through the crowd. The stranger knows exactly what to say—and how to say it—to get a crowd of suspicious survivors to at least hear him out.
He continues.
