Using all the force I can muster, I shove my bar through one of the Eater’s eyes, twisting and gouging all the way to the brain. Leaving him, I kick a leg out, tripping the second monster. He falls with a sprawl on Cole, who’s crawling toward the gun.
“Ahhhhh!” I race over and kick the Eater in the face, right in the teeth. But he’s determined, jaws snapping with an earsplitting scream. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” I yell over and over, each one punctuated with another kick. Cole reaches the gun and rolls on his back, shooting one and then another now alerted to our presence.
“Alex!” he shouts and throws me a heavy, sword-like blade. It lands in the dirt but I snatch it up quickly, using it across the next Eater’s throat.
His head--seconds before his body--falls with a thud to the ground.
“So Jane gives the Hybrids better weapons than the rest of us?” I roll my eyes. “Thanks a lot, sis.”
We resume fighting, trying desperately to get closer to the fence line, but the infected keep coming. I’m wiping blood off my hand when I spot a flash nearby, followed by the sound of bones crushing. Davis stands over the dead shell, making a face at the sludge on his boot.
“Nice one,” I say with a grin.
Moments later, Jude and Parker appear, fighting their own battles with scavenged weapons. That just leaves two unaccounted for, but I push the thought out of my head. It won’t matter if I’m dead, too.
At some point, we shuffle into a group-defensive position, back to back to back. Unfortunately, the Eaters aren’t idiots, no matter how much I wish they were, and they circle around us.
“Guys…” Parker says, her voice wobbling with defeat.
“Keep fighting,” Davis barks, but I glance over quickly and see the rifle in his hand quiver. As if by some signal the Eater howls grow, louder and more feral, until it reaches a volume that sounds more like the roar of a train.
I stare at the one directly across from me, watching his gaping mouth. Focused on his stringy hair and worn T-shirt frayed at the hem, I try to picture where he came from, who he was, but all I hear is that awful, terrible sound ricocheting through my brain. Even when he takes off, I don’t move. I’m hypnotized, standing, staring…completely exhausted.
I’m like a statue as he and the others launch at the same time, flying through the air in a scramble. I hear gunfire around me, the swish of blades, the thwick of an arrow.
My sword lays still by my side.
The Eater licks his lips, drool oozing down his chin; he’s close, so close, and the sound—the roar—is even louder. The wind blows hard, whipping my hair into a frenzy, and I glance upward just as the Eater is two feet away—just as a body crashes into him, expertly taking him down using just hands and feet.
Like a ninja. But it’s not Wyatt fighting the Eater.
It’s Paul.
A voice cuts through. “Alex! Move!”
I snap out of my trance and the world around me is spinning. No, literally spinning, like the blades of a helicopter. An actual helicopter is overhead; a rope tumbles to the ground through the door. Paul finishes off the Eater with a quick snap of his neck, and the swarm scatters from the sound and harsh winds. A bright light washes over us and I cover my eyes to see.
“What the hell?” Jude asks, but bodies jump from the opening and spread out—guns facing outward—toward the Eater threat. Not at us. Another person descends the ladder. I, along with the others, hold my weapon at the ready, keeping a bead on whoever it may be. Because who has a freaking helicopter during the apocalypse? Other than my sister, who I suspect has not sent help.
Halfway down, my question is answered when I see the uniform. Army green, not black.
He smiles when he gets to the bottom and spots me.
“Erwin,” I declare with an exhale.
“Ms. Ramsey, pleasure to see you again.” He glances around at my battered team. “Looks like you could use a little help?”
Every inch of me wants to say no, to tell him to screw off, because I sure as hell don’t trust him. But the Eaters howl in the distance.
“Alex.” Cole steps toward me. “What do you want to do?”
I look at the others. They’re all on their last legs, starving and exhausted. Each one is bruised. I sigh. “What’s that saying? Out of the frying pan, into the fire?”
I start to laugh, because God, what is wrong with me, but Cole nods at Erwin and waves the others toward the ladder. Jude and Parker go up first, shaky on the wobbly rope ladder but Davis follows, and then Paul (Paul!) and Cole. Erwin waits for me at the bottom.
“You’ll see this is the right decision,” he says.
I grunt but search the area. Panic tugs in my gut. “Wyatt’s not here.”