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“You—you killed him,” Maddie choked out in disbelief. One second, she could hear him. The coughing. The groaning. And then, nothing. “You fucking murderer!” she cried, lunging forward.
Her knuckles struck hard buckles, buttons, and tough cloth.
The hand on her throat instantly released, moving to pin her arms down instead.
Maddie cocked her head back an inch, then threw it forward with all the force she could muster, using every bit of the rage that had bubbled up inside of her.
Her forehead landed with a thud as it collided against what felt like lips and chin—both incredibly satisfying and also incrediblypainful. Unfortunately, the yelp that escaped her own mouth was louder than the one from the murderer before her.
“Fuck!” the muffled, angry voice barked a moment before the hand returned to her neck, much tighter than before.She heard what sounded like spitting, followed by a light, barely audible splatter.
“If you don’t shut the fuck up right now, then you’re gonna get bit just like your friend.”
Maddie choked out a cough, grabbing the stranger’s wrist with one hand, while the other reached out instinctively for her white cane. “Wh–what?” She coughed again, straining for air. “He was—infected?”
More spitting. Then a pause. “Yeah and if you keep screaming like that, then we will be too when every zombie in the city shows up.”
Maddie swallowed the sick feeling that surged into the back of her mouth as the hand around her throat loosened its grip once more.
Tyler was just there. She was just talking to him. How could he be gone? How could she not even know that he had been bitten? Maybehedidn’t know? Or maybe he did, and he was so terrified that he couldn’t even admit it to himself. She hadn’t known him all that well. Even before their community had been raided, and then after when the group experienced another attack while traveling and they both got separated from the rest of the group—from her family.
But now he’d left her all alone. His inevitable death would now beherinevitable death.
Could she still find her way to the new settlement? Maybe—
She stopped herself. Not maybe. Shewould. She had to. Just like everything else in her life, she’d find a way.
She pulled off her sunglasses and blinked at the darkness. Through the small amount of light perception she had, she couldmake out one single fuzzy white light moving in the air a few feet away. A flash light, if she had to guess.
She heard the sound of a zipper opening.
Tyler’s backpack?
It wasn’t enough to murder him—now this woman had to steal from his dead body?
“Hey! You can’t take his things!” Maddie protested, pushing herself up off her knees. She took a step forward, swinging her cane to the side.
It met something solid with a rubbery thud.
She took two more steps and heard a rustling within the pack. The thump of unopened cans knocking against each other—the clink when they hit against what she knew was Tyler’s metal camping mug. The mug he’d used every night they’d traveled together.
“Where’s the rest of your group?” the woman asked.
Rage consumed her. “Get away from his stuff,” she growled, her voice lethally quiet as she stepped forward.
“Where is,” the woman repeated, her voice slightly closer than before, “the rest of your group?”
“Fuck you,” Maddie spat, venom dripping over each word.
Being honest might have been the smarter move. She really had no clue where the rest of them were. But at the same time, she didn't want to give this woman that satisfaction. She wanted her to worry—to look over her shoulder and feel like she was being hunted, the same way she’d felt when that bullet had nearly hit her just minutes before.
"They're close," Maddie finally breathed.
The pounding and groaning sounds of the infected continued on the door, echoing around them. But somehow she wasn't afraid. If anything, it only fueled her anger.
Fuck them.
Fuckher.