I nod. “Good idea.” She goes to turn away, but I stop her. “Don’t think I haven’t forgotten about asking Alex what happened between you two and the guards at the main gate. Or that cut on your cheek, princess.” I shoot her a stern look.
She juts her chin out and glares. There’s a stubborn shine to her green eyes that simultaneously hardens my cock and annoys the fuck out of me.
I arch an eyebrow. “Arguing won’t stop me. Wewillbe talking about it.”
Understanding that I’m not backing down, she huffs. “Fine,” she mutters as she turns away from me.
I can’t help but smirk as I watch as she leads her animal menagerie towards the back of the long line, where the people struggling the mostare located. While I’ll never admit it, her fire is one of my favourite things about her. When she’s not using it to get herself killed.
It takes nearly anhour for us to walk the two miles back to the small corner shop we’d been staying in—far too long—and any good mood I had has soured.
There’s no doubt in my mind that unless I come up with something, we’re going to get caught. Each minute settles like a lead weight on my shoulders and tangles my guts into knots. My grip tightens on my rifle as I scan the area, half-expecting the Scourge to jump out at us. But they don’t.
And then shouts erupt from behind me, followed by high-pitched squeals. I whirl around, rifle poised and ready to fire as I scan the area for enemies.
Only to find a single shuffling infected.
It’s so rotted that it’s moving at a snail’s pace, and yet Jerri and a few others are screaming and losing their minds like it’s a tiger chasing them down. Some others in the group are also freaked out, stumbling backwards in their haste to get away, but at least have the common sense to not scream their heads off. Everyone else just looks exasperated; including Tobias, who stalks over to the infected and stabs it in the head with brutal efficiency.
The infected drops like a sack of shit to the pavement, and everyone visibly relaxes.
“Well, I’m glad no one overreacted,” Theo says with biting sarcasm as several people glare at Jerri and the others who screamed.
Alex snorts in amusement beside him.
A few have the decency to appear chastised, but others, including Jerri, glare back at everyone, with no ounce of embarrassment or shame. At least they’ve stopped screaming now.
“What happened to staying quiet?” I demand as I stride over to the group.
Jerri turns to me with a huff and crosses her bony arms over her chest. “It just came out of nowhere! I can’t help my reaction to something like that.”
A few of the others, including an older-looking guy, all murmur their agreement.
Theo rolls his eyes. “I’ve seen slugs move faster than that zombie. No one was in danger from it. In fact, the biggest risk was everyone’s eardrums bleeding from your screams.”
Her face turns bright red, and she snarls as she turns to face him. Her hands clench into small fists and her entire body tenses, ready to fight. Some people, when they’re scared or ashamed, will freeze up or run away. Jerri? She gets mean. Well, meaner than usual. As she sucks in a breath, I just know that whatever is about to come out of her mouth will only make shit worse.
“Enough!” I snap before she can speak. “In case none of you have realised, we’re currently running for our lives. So if you could keep your mouths shut, that would be great. I don’t care if you’re shitting yourself because you’re so scared,you don’t fucking scream. Unless you want to alert the entire Scourge gang to where we are.”
The words burst from my lips, filled with anger and frustration. Shit like this doesn’t usually affect me—my training as an SAS soldier saw to that. But I’m operating on little sleep, my arm and shoulder are throbbing with agony, a headache is slamming against my skull between my eyes, and I’m being ridden hard by doubts and fear.
Andnoneof this is helping.
Silence fills the air.
Everyone stares at me, some with shock, while my two best friends have the decency to at least appear apologetic. Ollie is gazing at me like she’s seeing me for the first time, while her brother just looks shell-shocked. The only person who isn’t surprised is Jerri.
No, she’s glaring at me like somehow all of this is my fault. Like I’m the one who started the apocalypse and kidnapped her. Maybe in her twisted mind it is, just like everything else in her life.
I rake a hand through my hair and bite back a groan. I can’t wait to get back to Haven and be done with this shit. “Get your shit together and move. No more fucking screaming. I don’t care if you’re dying, you don’t scream or shout or yell or whatever loud-ass noise you can make.” I level everyone—but especially Jerri—with a hard look before turning around and striding off.
If these people don’t start taking this seriously, they’re in for a rude awakening.
A few people murmur behind me, and I even hear Jerri huff and mutter about how mean I’m being to her and singling her out. As if I give that much of a shit about her. The moment we’re back at Haven, I’m going to dedicate my life to avoiding her ass.
Fucking hell. While I knew this journey home was going to be rough, I didn’t expect it to be quite this shit.
Pure Dumb Luck
