Thicker Than Blood (Thicker Than Blood #1)(7)

I stumbled forward, dropping to my knees, already knowing that Leisel had no defense. No matter what happened, her voice wouldn’t be heard. Justice here wasn’t justice at all, and no one had the time for sob stories. Surviving was all that mattered anymore, the protection of our community from outside threats, and ensuring that everyone continued to do their part to keep the cogs turning, to keep humanity afloat.

A sob began to build in my throat, making it hard to breathe. “No,” I whispered to the darkness. “Please, no.”

I’d promised to protect her, to keep her safe. But I’d broken that promise, told her to forget about her previous husband, her previous life, even though I hadn’t—couldn’t. I still thought about it every day, my first husband and our lives before the infection. I’d been a hypocrite and a liar, and part of me felt that if I’d been honest with her from the start, instead of always shielding her from my own pain, that maybe things wouldn’t have ended like this.

Choking back my bitter tears, I slowly got back to my feet and looked around my sham of a home.

Three months after the infection had arrived in America, Leisel and I had both lost our husbands, our entire world. It took everything we had to carry on when all we wanted to do was curl up and die. I’d kept us strong, kept us fighting. I’d lied through my teeth, choking back my own sorrows in order to comfort and soothe hers, and now I was going to lose her anyway.

It had all been for nothing.

But then again, that was what I did. I stayed tough despite all odds, and even in the face of utter devastation, I’d always been the resilient one. I’d always refused to give up.

And, by God, I refused to give up now.





Chapter Three



Leisel

Seated on a lone bench in the corner of one of two concrete rooms inside the Fredericksville police station, both my hands and ankles bound in handcuffs, I stared blankly through the candlelit cell at the guard stationed to watch over me.

Alex was younger than me by about five years, still in his early twenties, and I’d previously thought one of my late husband’s most trusted friends. He’d been the one who’d always quietly spirited me away to the infirmary when I’d been too injured to walk, who’d made excuses for my absences, who’d ensured that my husband’s sick secrets remained just that. Secrets.

Worse, he’d been Lawrence’s personal escort, following wherever the man went, even standing watch outside our house at night. Because of this, it had been Alex who’d found me with my husband’s dead body.

If anything, I’d expected to see anger or hatred in his features, or at the very least, shock and horror. Instead, he’d taken one look at my bloody, battered body, another at Lawrence’s mutilated form, then lifted his eyes to mine filled with what looked like pity. And something else, something shocking and unrelated that I couldn’t quite fathom.

Not a word was spoken as he’d slowly pulled his handcuffs from his belt and gently placed them on my wrists. Even more surprising was that he’d waited until I’d been securely locked inside a cell before alerting the others to my crime. It had dawned on me then that he’d been protecting me from the town’s wrath, especially from those who had been a part of Lawrence’s close-knit group.

I’d been here for an hour now, and yet hadn’t had a single visitor other than Alex and a few other guardsmen passing through. No one had so much as looked at me, let alone spoken to me, leading me to wonder how many people had actually known about the four long years of abuse I’d endured.

Why hadn’t anyone ever said a word about it? No one except Evelyn, that is. And even Evelyn had been loath to speak her mind in front of anyone who mattered. Speaking your mind in this new world was a crime in and of itself, and if the words you spoke were against Lawrence Whitney, you usually ended up minus a tongue.

I sighed, knowing I couldn’t fault them for falling in line with the cruelty here, not when the outside world was as terrifying as it was. These men had saved us from the infection, protected us, given us a semblance of our old lives, no matter how warped that semblance might be. Something was always better than nothing.

Averting my eyes from Alex’s, I looked out the lone window and into the inky black night, thinking of what was to come. I would be executed soon, there was no getting around that, and yet, much to my own surprise, I wasn’t experiencing the crippling fear I’d thought I would when it came to facing my own death.

My calmness probably came from the knowledge that the world I was leaving was a barren one, devoid of everything I’d once loved. With the exception of Evelyn, there was nothing here for me. And maybe some small part of me was still hoping that there was a heaven somewhere out there in the great unknown. That maybe the human race hadn’t been forsaken, and God would forgive me for my sins, allow me into heaven to be with my first husband again, to be the woman I once was without repercussions—simple, shy, and happy.

Without consequence.

Maybe someday I would see Evelyn again as well. Because if heaven was real, then she deserved to be there too.

The sound of a door rubbing against the concrete floor jolted me out of my musings. I jerked, then lifted my head to find Alex already on his feet and nodding to whoever was entering. I stiffened, preparing for the worst, thinking that my time had already come and I would be sentenced to die tonight.