Chapter One
My stomach growledas I stirred the oatmeal. I hated cooking. No, not true. I didn’t mind cooking, in general. I only hated not tasting what I was making when I was so damn hungry. Shifting my position, I lifted the spoon to my mouth, quietly blowing on the contents.
“No taste-testing, Terri,” Wayne said from behind me. “We don’t want the others accusing you of eating more than your share.”
Annoyed but hiding it, I nodded and returned to stirring the pot of oatmeal without tasting it. No matter how much I wanted things to be different, Wayne was right.
Tensions were understandably high in Tenacity. People were going hungry, and there weren’t any stores to run to for food. Those days were long behind us. Here, in this house protected by a wall of compressed vehicles, we were safely hidden away from what was happening in the world. Hidden, but not ignorant. Wandering humans infected by the plague existed even when we couldn’t see them. Or hear them. So did the creatures with glowing red eyes and a deadly bite who started the plague.
I shut off the stove and mentally redirected my darker thoughts to a more pleasant one.
“It’s done,” I said, removing the stack of ten bowls from the cupboard. We had just enough to feed everyone in the house.
Pausing, I put one back and thought of our missing housemate.
“Have you heard anything about Brooke?” I asked.
“Nothing specific. Aaron’s pretty sure she’s another female stolen by the fey.”
The fey.
I barely suppressed a shiver that wanted to run through me. Even after weeks of catching glimpses of them, I still found the fey terrifying. Unlike most other survivors who found them disturbing, I could see past the fey’s grey skin and pointed ears. What I couldn’t quite get over was their size combined with their sharp teeth and reptilian eyes. Those three things screamed predator to me.
I’d been present when Mya led a massive group of the fey to the front gate of Whiteman, claiming they had arrived to help. I’d witnessed the way the fey had pulled the heads from the infected with ease and no remorse. Since that day, Mya and Matt had been trying to spread the message that we humans had nothing to fear from the fey. But I’d also been there the night two of their kind had killed a few guards and let in the infected. I knew their true natures.
But the fey’s very inhuman physical attributes and killing tendencies didn’t turn away everyone. Brooke was a perfect example of that.
“I hardly think she was stolen,” I said, tucking a strand of my chin-length brown hair behind my ear. “She walked out of this house pretty willingly every morning.” It was her willingness that confused me. How could she possibly be okay spending time with one of them? Not only okay with it, but enjoyed it based on the way I’d overheard her talking to Sam, her roommate. I wasn’t sure how Brooke could see past a fey’s terrifying features enough to feel an attraction to one of them.
However, that seemed to be the case because she hadn’t come home last night.
“Still, if she’s not going to come back, she should let us know so Matt can reassign someone to our house,” Wayne said.
“You mean someone willing to leave for supply runs.”
“Of course I mean that. Do you enjoy going hungry?”
There was a note of disapproval and bitterness in Wayne’s voice. Something I’d heard often enough during our seven years of marriage.
“We wouldn’t be hungry if more of the people here would leave for supplies.”
“No one’s stopping you.”
I let the words roll off of me. After so many years together, I knew he was deflecting.
“What you’re doing is important too, Wayne. I wasn’t criticizing. Without the wood you bring back, we’d all be frozen by now.”
He went out every day, returning after a few hours with enough wood to keep us moderately warm throughout another night. No one in the house complained about the quantity. We all understood that it wasn’t easy to cut wood quickly and quietly. The men sacrificed speed to keep down the sound that attracted the infected. But just imagine how much wood we would have if he spent more than a few hours out there.
It wasn’t only Wayne who did the bare minimum. While he left the house for wood, only two other people took turns leaving for supplies. And not even every day. Bobby and Bram each left once a week. Just enough to keep us from starving. Bobby’s grandmother never went out. Like the other four women in this house, she could physically leave.
Fear kept us where we were, though. I understood that. However, that didn’t make it any easier to accept when my belly was cramping for food.
Abi and Greyly, the little girl Abi had found, came down the stairs. As soon as I saw them, I started ladling the oatmeal into bowls. Eight equal portions and a slightly smaller portion for the child. They’d barely sat down when Bobby, his grandma, and Bram descended as well.
“Sam’s coming,” Bobby said. “I heard her moving around. Any sign of Brooke?”
“No,” I said.