Flesh & Bone (Rot & Ruin, #3)(53)

So she took the bad choice.

However, before she made a move, a voice seemed to speak to her out of the shadows in her mind. Tom’s voice. Just an echo.

“Warrior smart,” she murmured. What was she missing that a smart warrior wouldn’t?

Lilah examined the jagged branches that stuck out in all directions around her.

“Warrior smart,” she said again. Then she took her knife and went to work.





39

CHONG TRIED TO RAISE THE BOW OVER HIS HEAD, AS IF IT COULD STOP THE reaper’s killing blow.

“Don’t fight it, boy,” growled the reaper. “This is more mercy than you deserve—OWW!”

The reaper suddenly reeled back, the scythe falling to the dirt as he clapped his hands over his temple. Blood welled from between his fingers.

Chong did not understand what he was seeing. Death had been a heartbeat away.

Then he heard a thwap sound behind him, and something struck Brother Andrew in the cheek. The impact spun the reaper halfway around and opened a red gash beside his nose.

Chong saw something fall to the ground. Small and gray.

A stone?

He said, “What . . .?”

There was another thwap, and another. More stones struck Brother Andrew. The big man howled in pain and tried to cover his face with his hands, but the next stone cracked against his fingers. Chong heard the bones break.

The world seemed to be going hazy and losing sense and clarity. Chong thought he heard a girl’s voice, but Eve stood in front of him, her mouth shocked to silence.

Lilah, he thought. God, here she is to rescue me. Again. She’s going to be so mad at me.

A female figure rushed out of the woods. Lithe and beautiful. Strong and alien. Wearing the fierce glare of a killer.

But it was not Lilah.

The figure raised her weapon and fired, and Brother Andrew howled in pain as another stone struck his forehead.

Chong spoke her name in a thin wheeze.

“Riot?”

The girl looked wild and terrible. Her face was bruised and crisscrossed with scratches. Blood trickled from one ear, and there was a shallow knife cut across the tanned flesh of her bare midsection.

She stood over Carter’s body with tears streaming down her face as she drew and fired stone after stone from her slingshot.

The reaper bellowed and tried to fight through the barrage, dodging some of the shots, taking others on his huge forearms as he sought to protect his face. Riot kept shooting, though, and the sharp stones cut bloody lines in the reaper’s skin.

And yet, the stones were not enough.

Brother Andrew was a monster of a man, with muscles packed onto his limbs. Riot was hurting him, but she wasn’t stopping him, and with a bear’s growl he waded into the attack, scythe clutched in powerful fists, head bowed to protect his face.

“No,” whispered Chong. “No!”

He suddenly lunged for the reaper and grabbed a fistful of the red cloth streamers on the big man’s ankle, yanking them with all the strength he had left. The sudden jerk made Brother Andrew stumble.

“Get off,” snapped the reaper as he smashed Chong across the face with a brutal backhanded blow.

Fireworks exploded inside Chong’s head and he sagged down, but his hand remained clamped around the red streamers. He distantly heard another thwap and Andrew’s howl of pain, but Chong’s vision was filled with black smoke. He collapsed down on his chest.

Andrew kicked free of his grip and raised a foot to stomp down on Chong’s head. But there was a cry like a hunting hawk and the meaty thud of flesh on flesh, and Chong peered up in wonder to see the reaper and Riot fall together in a snarling and deadly embrace. Andrew had his hands on Riot’s throat, but the young woman did not seem to care. She had a small knife in each hand, and as she crashed down and rolled over and over with the reaper, those blades did horrific work. Blood splashed the ground and spattered Chong’s face as he watched, dumbfounded and appalled as Riot—a teenage girl—slaughtered the monstrous reaper.

There was no better word. No cleaner word.

It was slaughter.

Then it was over. Riot rose from the red ruin that had been Brother Andrew. Blood dripped from her knives, her arms, her face. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She looked across the clearing at Carter, then at Sarah, and finally at Eve—who stood as still and blank-eyed as a statue.

That was the last thing Chong saw before a massive wave of darkness rose up and then crashed down on him, washing everything else away.





40

BENNY AND NIX KEPT MOVING, HEADING EAST. WHEN THEY LOOKED BACK there was no sign of Saint John, and the sound of the quads had all but faded out. All that remained was a faint buzz far away. There were no more yells or gunshots, either. The forest became quiet, but it did not at all feel like a natural calm.

“I don’t understand this,” said Nix.

“Don’t understand what? That guy back there or the whole freaking day?”

“People,” she said angrily. “The world ended, most of the people on the whole planet died . . . there’s no more reason for people to fight each other. There’s so much farmland we can use that no one will ever need to go hungry again. Even out here in the desert there are berries and figs and streams of pure drinking water. There’s no need to fight. But that’s all we’ve done. First Charlie and the Hammer, then White Bear and Preacher Jack, and now all this. I don’t understand it. When are we going to stop fighting? When are we going to actually want peace? When are we going to stop being so damn stupid?”