Thicker Than Blood (Thicker Than Blood #1)(111)

Bending down, I placed my hand on top of the dirt and whispered a quick thank-you before rising and going to stand beside Leisel. Looping my arm through hers, I cuddled her close to me. “I don’t think it matters, Lei. He’ll like anything you sing.”

Her bottom lip disappeared beneath her teeth, turning white from the pressure. After a moment she started humming, a familiar tune that made my eyes grow wet.

Clutching her tighter, I hummed along with her; softly at first, until Leisel began singing. And then together we stood there, belting out the lyrics to “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan.” It had been her mother’s favorite song, a song the woman had played over and over again on her old record player, a glass of gin always in her hand.

It hit me then, I could feel it deep down, the painful realization that this wasn’t just Leisel saying good-bye to Alex. This was Leisel saying good-bye to everyone she loved, to everything she’d ever known.

And somehow, knowing that, it made everything seem that much worse.





Chapter Forty-One



Leisel

“We could go back to the cabin,” I suggested, pulling another slice of peach free from the mason jar. I swallowed it whole, wiping the residual sticky liquid off on my dirty pants before passing the jar to Evelyn.

Seated beside me on the back of the Jeep, Evelyn pulled her own slice free, popped it into her mouth, and began to chew. “At least he was good for something,” she muttered, staring down at the canned fruit. Whoever he’d been, that awful man who’d killed Alex, had at least made good on his word to provide us with supplies. There was fuel, weapons—guns and bullets—clothing, and enough food and water to last us for at least a few weeks.

“Eve,” I said, turning to face her. “Who was he? Was he who hurt you?”

She stopped chewing, and still staring down at the peaches, shrugged her shoulders. “Does it matter?”

I didn’t respond. She was right; it didn’t matter. Not anymore.

“If we head north,” she said, then swallowed, “it’ll be winter soon. Do you really want to deal with the cold and the snow? On our own? Neither of us knows how to hunt.”

“Or chop wood,” I added, my shoulders sagging as I turned away. “Or anything at all, really. Never mind, it was a stupid idea.”

“No, it wasn’t. It was the safest place we’ve come across so far. If we knew how, we could’ve fortified it, but I just don’t know how.”

She sounded so despondent, so empty, so full of regret, that I didn’t know what I could say to her to make it better that I hadn’t already said. I knew where she was, lost, trapped in a place inside herself, unable to figure a way out, to see anything other than the cause of her pain. I’d been there many, many times before; I’d been ready to die in order to free myself from it. But Evelyn hadn’t let me, and I refused to let her fall victim either. I just didn’t know how to accomplish that.

“Then we keep going,” I finally said. Noticing a shadow of movement, I squinted off into the distance. “Like we’d planned to.”

“Maybe we could find a beach,” she said, sighing. “Learn how to fish—”

“Eve,” I said, interrupting her as I slid off the back of the Jeep. “Over there.” I pointed to the road just beyond the gas station where a lone infected was making its slow, shambling way toward us.

Swallowing another bite of peach, Evelyn raised her eyes toward the infected. “We should go,” she said, though she made no move to get up. “They’ll be more coming, what with all the blood everywhere…” Her eyes glazed over, filling with more tears.

“Eve!” I shouted, slapping my hand against the Jeep. “I know everything sucks right now! Believe me, I know! But we can’t do this! We can’t fall apart now!”

She looked at me through teary eyes, her lips and hands trembling, but said nothing, still not moving.

Letting out a shuddering sigh of frustration, I reached for the gun that had been lying between us. Gripping it, I spun around and marched through the parking lot and toward the infected.

It was an older one, not yet skin and bones but decayed enough that I couldn’t tell whether it had been male or female until I was within twenty feet of it. Like so many of the infected, its clothing had been ripped away, exposing its mutilated body. It had been a woman once, its right breast had been nearly chewed off, only dried and clumpy sinew remaining. What was left of her other breast was little more than blackened, sagging, and shriveled skin.

I stopped in the center of the road and raised my gun, pulling the trigger and letting loose a bullet. It just barely grazed its shoulder, and the creature kept coming. I let another bullet fly, this one missing it entirely.

“Dammit!” I shouted. Lifting the gun higher, I squinted as I aimed. A blur of motion to my right had me glancing up, startled, until I realized it was Evelyn running past me, a large serrated blade in her hand. Wide-eyed with shock, I watched as she barreled past me and directly into the infected, shoving it hard and off its feet. It landed on the pavement with a loud crack and then Evelyn jumped on it, straddling it, and sent the sharp tip of her blade into its face.

Lowering my gun, I allowed my arms to fall limply to my side. She was screaming now, stabbing the infected over and over again, in its face, its neck, its chest. Just mindless stabbing accompanied by gut-wrenching screams that made my stomach start to ache.