Page 2 of Bound in Ashes

Mine.

Lourdes’s.

Bridget’s.

Jack’s.

My chest clenched as I heard his boots pounding somewhere behind me.

I swung the wrench even harder.

With each blow, reality came crashing in.

The slight but unexpected chill in the air.

The smell of the grass and trees and the rich farmland soil.

All familiar too, but now cut with the sickening stench of the dead.

“You’re going to get killed!” Caitlin yelled from where she ran about fifty feet in front of me.

Obviously.

But I couldn’t begrudge her for saying what I was thinking.

Or rather, what I would have been if I could think about anything.

But I couldn’t think.

Couldn’t even be afraid.

All I could do was fight the death that marched toward us.

I wouldn’t win.

But I wouldn’t quit, either.

“Asia!”

I risked turning my gaze away from the approaching horde and toward the sound of Jack’s voice.

He was ten feet behind me, even closer to those things, but the distance felt like a thousand miles.

“Take them and get inside!” he barked as he ran.

I sprung into action, my natural obedience to Jack’s commands as familiar as this farmland by now.

Maybe if I lived, I’d try to figure out why that kind of obedience felt so natural. So right. Because even after everything, it should have terrified me how easily I fell in line when he commanded. How my body moved before my brain questioned it. How some dark part of me wanted him to demand more.

But that was a problem for later.

Assuming later came.

I refocused on the others, waving toward the porch railing. “Into the house, everybody!”

“They’ll tear that thing down,” Caitlin called back.

“Maybe, but we don’t have any other choice. Go!” I pointed at the house to emphasize my point.