Thicker Than Blood (Thicker Than Blood #1)(26)

Then the worst thing possible happened—I slipped. I didn’t know how or why it happened, not that it mattered once I was flat on my backside, my arms hanging above my head, my wrists still chained to the altar. As the garbled groans grew closer, I grabbed hold of my chains, kicking at the floor, attempting to pull myself back up to my feet, but I wasn’t fast enough. The infected reached me, and with its bony arms outstretched, descended on me.

I knew I was screaming, I could feel the vibration in my lungs and in my throat, yet I couldn’t hear a thing. My heart was pounding, my cold, sweaty hands sliding down the chain as I continued to try to pull myself upright, my fingers slipping with every attempt. Instinctively, I swung my right leg up and forward, hitting the infected square in its open mouth and sending it staggering backward. It hit the wall, the force of which pushed it forward, giving me only a split second to pull myself up.

I managed to regain my footing, but the chains had become twisted and tightened when I’d fallen, and now running in circles around the altar was no longer an option.

The infected came at me again, steady and sure, and again I swung out with my leg, this time catching it in the knee. With an audible crack, the limb bent and the infected stumbled. But still, it kept coming, entirely unbothered.

Frantic, I tried to untangle the chains, screaming as I yanked and pulled, uncaring that I was openly bleeding, uncaring that I was now probably missing most of the skin on my wrists. I hadn’t lived this long—surviving the loss, the pain, and the brutality of this new world—only to end up locked in a room, chained to an altar like a sacrificial lamb, and given to an infected as a gift.

I took too long trying to untangle myself, not giving myself enough time or space to get another good kick in, before the infected came barreling back toward me. I screamed as it reached for me, thrusting out my elbow into its chest, but without enough strength. The shove didn’t do much, only alerted the infected to the ready meal I’d just shoved into its face. As its rotten teeth clamped down on my arm, I screamed again, this time with tears in my eyes.

“No!” I cried out, struggling harder. “No!”

My jacket ripped beneath the onslaught of teeth, and I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing my shirt and skin would be next. I was too tangled now, no room for any evasive maneuvers. The sickly sweet smell of rot and decay was all around me, the breathless monster on top of me, clutching at me with frozen hands. It was over. This would be my bitter, ugly end.

At the first scrape of teeth against my skin, my heart skipped a beat. A visceral reaction burst forth and I swung my arm upward, and even with as little room as I had, my elbow dislodged from its mouth, finding purchase against its jaw. The force of the blow wasn’t enough to send it backward, nor distract it, but it gave me enough room to back away just enough to lift my leg and send my foot straight into the same knee I’d already broken.

This time its fragile bones shattered and the infected fell to the floor, its head slamming against the concrete. I didn’t waste another second. I lifted my foot and sent it down and onto the creature’s face. With the force of my stomp and the amount of decay the infected had already endured, my foot sank easily through its skin, its face giving way beneath my weight. Skin split and bones cracked beneath my shoe, but I pressed on, grinding my heel, screaming and crying until I both felt and heard a resounding pop. Like a broken water balloon, the head of the infected deflated, sludge pouring from it.

The infected was now still, unmoving, and what was left of its face entirely engulfed my tennis shoe. Still screaming, I began kicking, attempting but unable to dislodge it. With my refusal to touch the thing, I eventually had little choice but to sink to the ground beside it. Not that it mattered much. The infection would soon take root inside me and the fever would spread quickly, giving me a day, maybe two before I succumbed and then awoke as one of them.

As my bottom hit the cold concrete floor, the rest of my fleeting energy leaving me entirely, my screams turned to whimpers, my cries to a quiet choking that resulted in bile erupting from my throat and down my chin. I sat there, coughing through my emotion, fear snaking through my body so wildly that I could hardly think straight, and then my bladder unwittingly released, warm and wet, coating my jeans.

And that was how Alex found me. Covered in my own vomit, in a pool of my own urine, with my foot still lodged in the skull of an infected.

So consumed with my own circumstances, I hadn’t even heard the door open, didn’t see Alex until he was standing in front of me. I stared up, feeling momentary disbelief until I noticed the arm in his hand. Connected to the arm was the entire body of a man I didn’t recognize. A man who, considering he had what looked like a human bone jutting from his eye socket, was obviously dead.

Alex took one look at me, at my expression, then dropped the body and rushed to my side. Belatedly, I noticed the large key ring in his hand, courtesy of the dead man, I supposed.

“Ev-Ev-Evelyn,” I managed to sputter out between sobs.

Yanking on my chains, Alex shook his head. “Haven’t found her yet. Only found you because you were screaming.”

“Bi-bitten.” I sobbed, trying to move my right arm to show him.

There was a momentary pause as Alex’s eyes grew wide with alarm, and then he ripped off the remaining shreds of my sleeve and frantically inspected my skin.

Dropping to his knees, not caring what he was kneeling in, he rocked back on his heels and smiled at me. “Not bitten,” he whispered.