Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(93)

his face with a meaty crunch.

“You’re dead.” Turk snarled at Benny. He grabbed his pistol and whipped it from the holster, thumbing back the hammer in a smooth and practiced move. “I’ll friggin’ kill you both for—

”

That was all he got out. It was all he would ever say again.

He looked down at his chest, at the bizarre thing that suddenly sprouted from between the ribs on the left side. Benny and Nix stared as well. The whole front of Turk’s shirt exploded with

red as three gleaming inches of sharpened steel extruded from the bounty hunter’s chest. He tried to say something, but there was no air left in his lungs, no power left in his voice.

Behind him there was a blur of movement and a grunt of effort. The blade vanished, pulled back into the wound and then out of Turk’s body. Benny watched as the person behind him cocked a

leg, placed a foot on the bounty hunter’s body, and shoved him forward, so that he landed face-down, inches from Skins.

The figure stood there in the harsh morning sunlight. Tattered jeans and hand-sewn leather moccasins, a shirt that had once been bright with a wildflower pattern, with a leather pouch slung

across her body on a thin strap. Hair the color of newly fallen snow swirled around her tanned face, and she stared at them with cunning hazel eyes. In her tanned hands she held a spear

crudely made from a long piece of quarter-inch black pipe wrapped in leather and topped with the blade from a Marine Corps bayonet.

The Lost Girl.





42


“WHO ARE YOU?” NIX ASKED, BUT AT THE SAME TIME BENNY SPOKE her name.

“Lilah!”

The girl stiffened, and the bloody spear swung around in his direction. Her hazel eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.

Benny held up his hands. “No, wait … I’m Benny Imura.”

She showed no sign of recognition.

“I’m Tom Imura’s brother.”

The girl said nothing.

“My brother, Tom … He knew George!”

If he had struck her across the face, he could not have changed her expression more quickly. The suspicion vanished to be replaced by shock.

“G—George?”

She spoke the name, as if her throat was dusty from disuse, and Benny realized that in a very real way it probably was. Almost immediately her suspicions returned, and the tip of the spear

rose another inch, level with his eye.

“Where?” she demanded. “George.”

Nix glanced at Benny, putting things together very quickly. “Is this her?” she whispered.

“George!” the Lost Girl prompted with a shake of her spear. Her voice was still a husky whisper, and Benny remembered that horrible story that Rob Sacchetto had told him of how Lilah had

started screaming when the men in that little cottage had been forced to kill her mother after she’d reanimated as a zombie.

She screamed herself raw, and then she stopped talking. Those screams must have damaged her vocal chords for good, leaving her with a voice like a graveyard whisper.

God.

“I … don’t know where he is,” Benny said quickly. “My brother knew him. He helped George look for you.”

“Look? For … me?” It was clearly hard for the girl to form sentences. It was a skill that she’d lost over time. Benny could not imagine going for years without speaking to anyone. In

some odd way that was as bad as living out here in the zombie wasteland.

“When the bounty hunters took you and your sister from George, he started looking for you.” Benny risked taking a slight step toward her, despite the threat of the deadly spear. “He never

stopped, Lilah. George never stopped looking for you. And for Annie.”

At the mention of her sister’s name, Lilah’s eyes filled with tears, but her mouth tightened into a bitter line.

“Lilah, listen to me. The men who hurt you, the men who hurt Annie and George …”

“Benny,” Nix said softly. “Don’t …”

“Those same men hurt Nix’s mother.” He turned his head for a second to indicate Nix. “They hurt her … and she died.”

Lilah held her ground, eyes boring into his.

“And they killed my brother.” Benny licked his lips. “Those men took the people we all loved. They took from each of us.” As Benny said it, he realized that he did love Tom. As troubled

and confused as their relationship had once been, Benny felt an ache that went all the way to the core of his heart. “They hurt all of us, Lilah. Do you understand? All of us.” He leaned

on that last word and saw how it worked on her, changing her eyes and the line of her mouth. The spear tip wavered ever so slightly.

“Us,” he repeated. “You … Nix … me. Us.”

Benny waited for a moment, his heart pounding in his chest, and then took another step forward. The tip of the spear was inches from his face now. Moving very slowly, hands open, eyes fixed

on Lilah’s, he reached up and touched the point where the Marine Corps bayonet was attached to the shaft of the spear. He pushed it aside, and the Lost Girl allowed it.

After a moment she stepped back and lowered the weapon.

“Us,” she said.

“Us,” agreed Benny.