“You didn’t?” I squeal.
“No, and I was shocked to hell when there really were lurkers out there.”
I fuckingknewit!
His tongue darts out nervously, dabbing at the corner of his mouth. He keeps his head bowed, shadowing his face. “I did it so you wouldn’t see me going through your backpack if you woke up, and then I told you I heard something out there when you did.”
“But therewerelurkers out there!”
Slowly, Maverick moves toward me, stepping out of the shadowshewas lurking in. “I didn’t know,” he says, and I want to believe him. “I didn’t know you could sense them or that they were there. I’m so sorry, kid. I never wanted to put you in any danger.”
Yeah? Well, he fucked that up, didn’t he?
“No. You just wanted to take my antidote and—why? If you knew it was for me in case I screwed up and got bit, why did you steal it? To save your own ass?”
For a moment, Maverick hesitates. He doesn’t answer me, and I think about pulling the trigger and making the gun useless just to prove a point—until he steps into the moonlight and lifts his head.
I’ve known him for a month or so. I’ve often thought he was allergic to eye contact. Whether he was nervous, his cop side made him suspicious, or if his loyalty to the wife he lost meant he never wanted to give me the wrong idea… I don’t know. He just rarely looked at me dead in the eye, especially once the sun set.
Until now.
Suddenly, I know why he’s always looking at the ground after dusk. Why he makes it a point to avoid my gaze, and why he tends to hide in the darkness when the sun goes down.
His eyes are rimmed with black.
Lurker black.
“It’s the worst at night,” he confesses.
“What—what the fuck is wrong with you?” My stomach clenches, bile rising as a terrible realization dawns on me. My finger slips on the trigger before I force myself to get back under control. “You? You’realurker?”
“I’m not.”
“But your eyes?—”
“I promise you, it’s not what you think. C’mon, kid. How can I be? I travel with you during the day, don’t I? I sit beside the fire without burning up. I’m not hungry, not like that. I’m no stronger than Chase is. You can kill me right now with a single shot of that gun, if you decide to fire it.”
He waits for me to do it. I almost do. Too many months of hunting are ingrained in me: see a lurker, flame a lurker, that’s how it should be. But this isn’t a match, it’s a gun, and if I shoot it, I’m not hunting a monster, I’m killing a man.
But those eyes…
“So,” I say after an eternity, ignoring the way he exhales softly; he didn’t know if I would do it, either, “you could be?—”
“No, Ishouldhave been.” He shudders and I see that, apart from the black outline, those sad eyes are the ones I’ve become familiar with. “Lindsay wasn’t the only one who got the Injection. I got it, too… my whole squad did. But I never changed. I never Turned. I don’t know why. I thought I’d find some answers if I went off on my own, keeping to myself in case I ever got dangerous. Too many people told me about the New York nest, but nobody could help me. I never really wanted anyone to come with me… if things go wrong, I won’t have to worry about living life on the razor’s edge. Hell, it’s a suicide mission. I’ve always known that. I only stopped in the remaining communities because it gave me a little taste of home, and the chance to steal an antidote if I can.
“That’s what it was all about for me, kid. The antidotes. I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone, but who knows how long I’ll beme. That rim around my eyes has only grown these last nine months, and I’ve gotten so cold. Sotired. I’ve already drunk three antidotes when it got real bad, and they help for a while… that’s all the Grave was supposed to be. Another antidote. No one’s ever agreed to leave with me before…”
Until me, I think. And Chase.
Suddenly, I’m reminded of that first day. How Maverick tried to persuade me to stay, how he took me through a lurker-infested neighborhood right after I saw the remains of the graveyard. It started before that, too. He didn’t seem all that eager when I volunteered at the high school.
I move two steps back, covering Chase’s body with my widening stance.
“You asked me once why I keep that gun. I told you the truth then… but I didn’t tell you everything. It reminds me of what I lost, but it’s also my safety net. If it happens, if I ever can’t control myself and there’s no antidote… well, you know. I’ve got twenty-four hours. It’s my insurance policy.”
Twenty-four hours. Everyone knows that a lurker is only vulnerable for the first twenty-four hours after they Turn. They can be killed then.
One second. That’s all it would take. One second and a quick tug and all my worries would evaporate. I could go home with Chase and nurse him better than Audrey ever would. My fondness for a former cop might even die with him. He would never get the chance to betray us any more than he already has?—
