Page 28 of Brood (After the End #5)

I freeze when I approach the door to the clinic and see it slide open.

Glenda steps out and blinks when she sees me.

After a moment, she turns back around intentionally and says in her cheerful voice, “Oh, Dr. Cameron, before you leave, can I talk to you for a minute about a patient from this morning?”

The doors close at her back, blocking the view of the hallway as I pass by more quickly than before.

Glenda has no way of knowing what I’m doing, but she would have seen that I’m carrying Bun on my back. She probably believes I’m sneaking some extra private time with him. She’s a kindhearted woman, and she’s trying to help.

If Dr. Cameron had caught me, our entire plan would be ruined when it barely started.

I keep walking, shushing Bun gently when he giggles.

The rest of the route is smooth and uneventful. I don’t see anyone else until I turn a corner at the far end and see Will standing in front of an open electrical panel like he’s working on it.

I draw to a stop, out of view of the hallway camera. If I get too close, it will disrupt the cameras here too, and then Will won’t be able to open the storage room door.

Not glancing at me or acknowledging me, Will closes the panel and puts up his pliers. Then he picks up his tool case and walks casually toward the large doors at the end of the hall.

He pauses there until the camera reads his face and slides the doors open. His position gives him access to every public room on this entire level.

When he steps inside, holding the doors open with his hand, I start walking, reaching back to touch Bun protectively.

I’m in a weird, surreal daze where I’m acting automatically—as if there isn’t a storm of fear and nerves brewing within.

When I’ve reached him, Will moves forward, drawing me with him until the doors slide closed.

This room is huge, filled with stored provisions and supplies, some of them made and grown here and some of them held since before the War.

Will takes my hand as we walk through the central aisle, fast and silent.

At one point, he leans over and pulls out a large pack from its hiding place behind a crate.

He’s had it prepared and hidden for three days now.

He straps it to his back, takes my hand again, and pulls me into a speedy stride. I jog a little to keep up, my breath coming out in pants.

At the end of the aisle, on the back wall, is another door. It leads to a stairwell. And up the stairs is an air lock with an exterior bunker door. Not the main one everyone knows about—the one constantly guarded and protected. This one isn’t supposed to exist, but it does.

Will and I hurry up the stairs, and I’m starting to process the fact that we might have actually made it without interruption when Will, a step ahead of me, jerks to an abrupt stop, moving a hand to the holster on his hip, hidden under the longer-than-normal hem of his shirt.

I squeak at his halt and then gasp when I see why.

Brody. Standing in front of the air lock door. Aiming a gun at us.

Not a tranquilizer. A real one.

“So you’re actually trying to do it,” Brody says with a sickening smile on his lips and in his dead eyes. “I honestly didn’t believe you’d make it this far.”

Will pushes me behind him so his body is blocking me and Bun from Brody and his gun.

The tension in his body is palpable. He makes me think of the nature films I’ve watched from before the War.

He’s like a bird of prey brooding over a nest. Protective.

Both fierce and tender. “You’ve always underestimated us. ”

“Maybe. But I still didn’t believe you were stupid enough to try it.”

“How did you know?”

He arches his eyebrows. “Cadence told Danny. That was a mistake.”

Hit by a surge of outrage, I can’t stay quiet. “Danny would never betray me!”

“Not intentionally. No. But he told his spouse, and Tara is much wiser than any of you. She told me that the two of you had somehow found a way out.”

It’s so horrible and upsetting that I almost gag, even as I acknowledge the relief that Tara doesn’t know Bella and Trevor were the ones to help us.

I didn’t even tell Danny. I hug Bun with one arm and grip the back of Will’s shirt with the other.

He still won’t move, even though there’s no way his position can truly protect us from Brody.

“So, what are you going to do?” Will asks, gritting the words out in a voice I’ve never heard from him before.

“I’m going to kill you. I won’t hurt Cadence or the boy as long as she’s compliant. She’s still young and fertile. It would be a shame for anything to happen to her before she can birth us more babies.”

My throat tightens even more, choking me. I can’t hold back a whimpering sound.

“If you shoot me, you’ll have a hard time covering this up,” Will says.

“Yes. I’m aware. I’m not going to shoot you.” He steps sideways toward a tall shelf and picks up a hypodermic needle with his free hand. “A heart attack is a much easier death. It will only take five minutes, and all this stress will be over for you.”

Before I can even process these words, Will throws himself forward. Tackling Brody. The gun goes off, but there’s no blood, so I don’t think the bullet hit anything. The needle rolls across the room while Will and Brody wrestle on the floor.

The fight is like it was with Gus. Too intense, tightly constrained, and violent for me to identify specific moves. Will is on top at first, but when he turns his head to tell me to get out of here, Brody gains the advantage and gets on top of him.

Bun starts to cry.

I act without thinking, leaning down to pick up the hypodermic that’s rolled close to my feet.

I walk over to the fighting men, avoid the flailing limbs, and plunge the needle into the back of Brody’s neck.

He told us it would take five minutes, but it actually takes only two. After a minute, he starts choking. Will flips him over onto his back, holding him down as his body convulses.

Then Brody is dead on the floor. It looks exactly like it did with Vanessa, who was murdered by this man a year and a half ago.

Will stands and meets my eyes. I jostle a still-crying Bun. A heavy wave of relief washes over me as I look down at Brody’s body.

I’m not even sorry. I saved Will’s life, and the world is far better without that man in it.

* * *

After that, it’s almost easy. Things happen so smoothly and quickly, I can hardly keep up.

Because we don’t know exactly who Brody’s allies are, it’s still too dangerous to stay in the Refuge. So Will drags his body down the stairs and through the storage rooms to dump him in the empty hallway.

Then he races back to where Bun and I are waiting. He enters the code to let us into the air lock.

As he stands in front of the control panel next to the heavy bunker doors that lead outside, I touch his back.

He turns his head to meet my eyes.

“Before we go, I wanted to say that I figured it out.”

“Figured what out, love?” Will adjusts to face me.

“What you were trying to tell me this morning. And what you’ve been telling me all these months in so many ways. I figured it out.” I reach up to touch his rumpled beard. “And I love you too.”

His face breaks. He takes a ragged breath. Kisses me, brief and hard. Then he leans over my shoulder to kiss Bun’s head, making the boy giggle. “Let’s get out of here.”

He enters the code into the control panel, and the large heavy doors slowly slide open with a mechanical swoosh.

Will takes my hand, and we step outside.