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“You are one of those kids from that horrible Loth family, aren’t you?” Vaughn realized in disgust. “You’re an abomination!”

“Superiority is never an abomination!” she snapped.

“None of that matters!” I shouted, because I was exhausted and I wanted this all to be over. “Remy came down here because she wants to have a word with you, and I came here because I want to take your son far away from here.”

“You mean to hurt him?” Mercy clung to him.

“No, he’s a child, and I wouldn’t hurt a child,” I promised her. “But the town is no place for zombies. It’s not safe, and so I need to take him away.”

“You want to help him?” Mercy asked in confusion.

“I do,” I admitted. The air around him was pungent with his fear and sadness, and he was a small boy with wide curious eyes. “I can hear him calling for help because he doesn’t belong here.”

“I am not letting either of them out,” Vaughn said.

“And I won’t let you run off with him,” Mercy insisted. “He is the Chosen One.”

“I am going to leave, with or without the child, butif he stays behind, someone will kill him, along with you,” I said. “Let him go with me.”

“You aren’t letting –” Wilder was arguing, his attention on me and Mercy, so he didn’t notice Boden taking a swing at him.

In a matter of seconds, Boden knocked Wilder out and took his handgun. Then he bent down and took the jail keys off Wilder’s belt.

“What are you doing? Have you lost your mind?” Vaughn asked, sounding hysterical. “You can’t let a zombie loose!”

“I’ve just never really enjoyed killing children,” Boden replied glibly. He held the gun in one hand and keys in the other, so he unlocked the door. When he opened it, he kept the gun aimed on Mercy.

“Chosen isn’t like other zombies,” Mercy persisted. “He needs me. He won’t survive without his mother.”

“I don’t mind killing zombies of any size,” Remy said. She was leaning against the bars, glaring at Mercy. “And I know what you did to my friend Harlow, so don’t think that I have any pity in my heart for either you or your bastard offspring.”

Mercy started crying then, and maybe I would’ve felt bad if I hadn’t read what her family had done in her book. But I had, and right now, I couldn’t feel anything, because if I did, it would only be at the agony of surviving without Max.

Mercy hugged her son, kissing the top of his head, and she told him, “I love you so much, Chosen. You’re going to save the world whether I’m in it or not.”

I held my hand out toward him, and as soon as Mercy let go, he walked over to me and took my hand. He never looked at his mother or acknowledged her in any way, but he did look up at me.

“Where are you going?” Boden asked as wewalked by him.

“I’m taking him and all the zombies far, far away from people," I said, because truthfully, I hadn’t thought farther than that.

“Why will they follow you? What are you?” Mercy asked. She stood up, and Boden cocked the gun.

“It doesn’t honestlymatter to you what her deal is because you’re going to be dead in a few minutes,” Remy said. “So let’s just focus on the here and now.”

55

Remy

“Why would you let her just take a zombie?” Vaughn asked in disbelief after Stella and Chosen had gone. “Why wouldn’t you just kill him?”

“I’m sick of fucking killing kids, even infected ones in the shape of kids,” Boden reiterated. “Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

“Because people like him are therealmonsters!” Mercy sneered at him as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “Not the zombies.”

“Oh, there’s plenty of room foreverybodyto be a monster,” I said dryly. “There’s no act too cruel or depraved for a human to commit.”

“Then why didn’t you kill mommy’s little monster?” Vaughn was looking up at me. “You aren’t blind to how dangerous a zombie hybrid could be.”