Page 10

Chapter 3

Addie

Ibrandished the knife in front of the dead Rager’s face, a smug - admittedly, sardonic - smile on my face.

“You’ve been...knifed.” Frowning, I turned towards Asher who stood beside me, his favorite crossbow slung over his shoulder. “I need a better catch phrase.”

“Catch phrase?” he asked, wiping the blood off the arrow on the hem of his shirt. His eyes glinted with feral amusement. The sick bastard enjoyed killing Ragers, stabbing knives in their heads, cutting off limbs.

“When I kill people,” I explained lightly. The Rager at my feet was ugly. Red, blotchy skin. Milky, sunken eyeballs. A head that canted to the side in death.

“You plan on killing a lot of people, Sweetheart?” he asked amusedly.

I shrugged. “Maybe. I have a lot of pent-up aggression. Maybe it will take the form of murdering people.”

“Psycho.”

I stuck my tongue out at him in response.

“It’s not psychotic if you admit it’s psychotic. Then the word psychotic loses meaning. Thus, it’s perfectly sane,” I pointed out smugly. Asher merely blinked his beautiful, large eyes at me.

“I’m going to pretend I understood that.”

Around our feet, half a dozen Ragers littered the asphalt. Their sightless eyes stared up at the cerulean sky peppered with wispy clouds. I wondered if they had felt any pain before death claimed them. I wondered if they had felt my dagger slicing through skin and bone.

Ragers were the product of a horrific organism that ravaged the nation. It took the form of a black parasite - a disgusting worm-like creature - that appeared when global warming melted the ice caps. The parasite affected both the hypothalamus, which regulated the basic biological drive related to survival, and the limbic system which dealt with fight or flight. The parasite caused you to fight. Constantly. With a rage-like mentality. A rage that was almost primitive in nature.

Nobody was prepared for the world to end. Not me, not my family, and not the seven boys who have come to mean the world to me. For months, we have been on the road traveling to Atlanta to save my younger brother until Fallon and Declan decided to play hero and save him themselves.

One would think we would’ve been relieved at finally being able to hole up in one place for an extended period of time, but all we felt was a pronounced loneliness without the missing three pieces of our collective soul.

“Look, I’m just saying, I’m not against killing people for the people I love. You guys, Mof, Tommy…” My voice choked on that final name, another scab getting picked open. I placed my hand against my chest and rubbed at the skin as if that gesture could somehow soothe the organ thumping erratically underneath.

Tommy was my pseudo-son, my younger brother in all ways but blood. And god, I missed him. So damn much it was almost painful. His presence had always been the balm to my twisted soul.

He was as broken as I was, hastily glued back together in jagged ways. But his spirit called to mine, his misery an echo of my own. We both understood pain, were intimately familiar with it, and somehow we’d found each other in this new world.

Asher, easily able to read my emotions, graciously changed the subject. “Your cat attacked the curtains last night. Completely shredded them.”

“Aw. He’s such a good kitty,” I cooed, the first real smile touching my lips. The black cat had been my companion since this whole shit fest - shest - had started. I would be devastated if anything happened to the little bugger.

“He’s a menace to society,” Asher countered, but his lips twitched upward. They were always attempting to get me to smile. It was almost as if my smile chased away the storm clouds. As if they lived in constant, monotonous darkness that was only broken apart by my laugh. Their own rare smiles would grace their handsome faces, as if my own was contagious.

And I loved them for it, even if a part of me wondered if I could ever truly be happy again. Happiness was fleeting, I knew. As fleeting as lives. The thin string could be cut by a keen blade in seconds.

One of the Ragers on the ground twitched, head canting to the side and milky, sunken eyeballs roaming over my body. I launched myself at the creature, dagger raised, and stabbed him directly in the forehead.

“Yippie kayak, motherfucker,” I whispered darkly.

Nailed it.

Pulling myself off the ground, I found Asher staring at me with a decidedly amused, albeit quizzical, expression.

“What?” I asked in mock defense. “You’re just jealous of my sexual prowess.”

He snorted but didn’t contradict my claim. No surprise. I knew I had sexual - and murderous - appeal far beyond my time.

Now that the threat had been eradicated, we made our way inside the small, dilapidated pharmacy. The walls were bleached from the sun and corroded by acid rain, but the roof remained firm over our heads. Broken windows and graffiti adorned the exterior. The interior was just as depressing with shelves made out of distressed wood, shattered glass, and overturned tables that had once housed appliances. It was apparent the store had been ransacked one too many times.