Jude and Parker clear the women out the kitchen door, promising to come back for the men downstairs. I hear Davis instruct them to burn the barns and storage facilities. We can’t afford to hand this farm over to the Hybrids. Davis follows me, but the stairs leading to the upper floor are narrow and steep, only allowing one of us to head up safely. I pass the framed portraits angling down the wall, identifying Sabrina and Tabitha with their husbands and kids.
With a glance down the stairwell, I spot Davis waiting at the bottom of the stairs, his stupid mustache the last thing I see before I round the corner.
The ceilings are low and I duck down to clear my head. I count four doors, two on either side of the long hallway. Faded wallpaper lines the hall. I pause and wait, hand tight around the grip of my gun. He’s good, whoever’s waiting for me behind one of the doors, but I’m not bad. I’ll just have to be better to get out of here alive.
Sure enough, he gives me what I need, the floor squeaking with a whine down the hall to the left. A shadow moves under the door. Taking a deep breath I move fast, although I have no doubt whoever’s up here is biding his time, waiting on me.
I push the door open quickly and it swings wide, revealing the room of a child—a boy—stars and rocket ships painted on the walls. My eyes land on the bed to the four children sitting there, mouths gagged with brightly colored handkerchiefs. Their eyes are wide but not at me. They’re focused on the space behind the door and I feel rather than see the barrel of the gun pressed to my temple.
“Hey, now,” I say. “I’m just here to check on the kids.”
Out of the corner of my eye I see the familiar uniform of black and understand with a sinking feeling what Tabitha meant by not normal. The Hybrids beat us to the house—or at the very least knew we would be here before them. I fear for my team’s lives downstairs more than I do for my own.
I catch the eye of one of the kids, a little girl, reddish hair in two pigtails that reminds me of Alex and my heart kicks my brain into gear. I wink at the girl and spin on my heel, pushing the gun out of my face and kicking the Hybrid in the knee. He’s caught by surprise and I punch him in the jaw while reaching for my gun. His head snaps back quickly but before I blink he’s pointing a sharp hunting knife inches from my eye. My gun is aimed at his chest.
Breathing heavy, and trying not to make any sudden moves, my eyes dart from the purple on the Hybrid’s shoulders to the unfamiliar hue of his eyes, wondering what fresh hell I’d stumbled into.
I shake my head, taking too long to find my voice. Cole does it for me, breaking the silent standoff with a lazy southern drawl. “Nice to see you too, Wyatt.”
Chapter 7
I’m pretty unflappable, even before the infection rolled through the human race. I’ve seen terrible, awful things as a by-product of war and every time I just do my job, never wavering from my mission.
But seeing Cole in a traitor’s uniform, dark eyed and just different, I’m momentarily stunned. Even so, that simple fact makes me hold my weapon firm.
“I can tell you have a lot of questions,” he says, lowering the knife. “I can give them to you, but not today. Today you need to get these children out of here and back to the safety of your base before the others come.”
Make that twice he renders me speechless.
“Wyatt?” he prompts.
I hear the kids shifting on the bed but I keep my eyes on the man—or whatever the hell he is—in front of me. I do finally manage to say, “I’m gonna need a little more explanation than that.”
“And I’ll give it you to, but the Hybrid squad will hit the fence line in fifteen minutes and neither of us want to be here when that happens. We both want the same thing. To get these kids out of here.” He sniffs the air. “Jude and Parker have set the buildings on fire. You may want to make that ten minutes. They’ll smell it too and pick up the pace.”
I jerk my head toward the kids and command, “Get up—go down stairs. There’s a bear of man at the bottom. He’ll take you to your mothers.”
They don’t have to be told twice, jumping off the bed and brushing past me to get out the door. We listen to their feet on the hardwoods and echo down the stairs. I angle my back to the door.
“Go with them and don’t let Davis come up here—things could get nasty.”
He walks toward the window, still facing me. Neither of us let down our guard—not for a second. With one hand he unlatches the window and slides it open. “I’ll answer all your questions. Tomorrow night. On the overpass bridge on route 128. Mile marker 16.”
“What time?”
“Midnight. Bring whoever you want to stand guard but I need to talk to you alone.”
He’s got one leg outside the window already and ducks his head to get all the way though. I hear the backdoor slam and Davis shouts my name from below. I glance away for just a second and when I look back at the window again, he’s gone. Only the moving curtains signal that he was ever here.
Chapter 8
Paul tells us later that we got the family off the property only minutes before the Hybrids arrived. Black smoke billowed in the air, coating us with a thin layer of soot. All in all, we managed to save the occupants on the farm and we brought four men, including teenagers, the three women, and the four children to the base and dropped them at quarantine.
At first I say nothing about Cole being at the house, focusing instead on getting back to the base. But once we’re fed, showered, and prepping for the mission to Dublin, I know it’s time to tell them.
The team sits around a circular table in one of the lounges. Many of the rooms in the building are useless but this one has windows, making it functional during the day. Each location we occupy has fewer modern luxuries. We’re slipping away from the convenience of electricity and fuel. This place isn’t bad but I suspect the next will be worse. But for now, there’s water in the showers, even if it’s cold.
I tell them what happened when I went upstairs, what and who I found. I described his appearance. His tone and the changes I noticed during our brief exchange.