Page 45

AUTUMN

I can’t sit still.

Even after carving names into bark until my fingers bled raw, there’s still this restless burn crawling under my skin.

I pace the edge of our camp comprising the old laundromat and the clearing surrounding it.

My boots wear a path in the dirt and scuff across the concrete while my hands clench and unclench.

My eyes sweep the buildings beyond the clearing, then the overrun rot zone city on the horizon.

Waiting for Lucy to appear feels like another kind of death.

One that’s slow, torturous and completely out of my control.

The circumstances around Summer’s death still hurt, but the paralyzing grief is finally giving way to something else.

Determination, anger, and a need for answers are going to be my driving force.

I can’t wait until I can light a match and watch her abductors burn.

I can’t bring her back, but I can find out what happened and exact justice. I owe her that much.

The wind picks up, scattering ash and dust. For a second, I think the silence is getting to me again and making me see things that aren’t there. Luna paces beside me, matching my restless energy. Her ears prick forward and a low growl rumbles in her chest.

Then I see her. She’s not a hallucination this time. She’s really there. Bright red hair whips around her as she ducks behind a wall at the far edge of the clearing. I move before I can think. My boots pound the dirt, kicking up dust that makes me cough.

“Lucy,” I call out, but she doesn’t slow. I need answers.

Luna bolts ahead of me. Her powerful legs eat up the distance, making her a blur of black and brown against the desolation.

Behind me, the guys yell out one by one.

Mars calls my name and I hear his heavy footfalls race to catch up, but I don’t wait.

Jace’s curse echoes through the empty streets, but I don’t stop.

I round the corner where I saw her disappear and scan the open road ahead. Empty. I spin around, frantic, searching for any sign of her, but the street’s dead. There’s nothing but shells of civilization until a rotter stumbles out from the shadows, followed by a second.

Luna lunges at the first one. She sinks her teeth into its arm and drags it to the ground. I snarl and draw my blade from the holster before darting forward to take down the second. Another rotter shuffles closer. Then another.

Fuck.

Footsteps thunder behind me as Mars and Caspian appear with weapons raised.

Mars’s flannel hangs open and blood splatters across his bare chest when he drives his knife through a rotter’s skull.

We clear them in no time. The corpses hit the ground one by one, and we move on to the next.

The stink of death settles over the street.

That still doesn’t change the fact that Lucy is gone again, and I grow more concerned that she’s hiding more than she’ll let on. Why else would she run from me like that, when she was the one who brought me out here? What does she know about what happened to Summer that she’s too afraid to tell me?

My pulse races and my head fills with doubts. The familiar fog of grief threatens to creep back in, but I push it away. Not now. I’ve spent enough time drowning in that darkness. Now I need to focus.

I spot a flash of color caught on a rusted fence. A piece of fabric, torn and frayed at the edges. A scarf. It’s soft green and patterned with leaves. The same one she wore the day I first met her at that pharmacy.

I snatch it off the rusted metal. “She was here.”

Luna sniffs at the fabric, then the ground, her tail rigid.

Jace pulls up in the car and the engine sputters when it slows beside us.

He leans out the window, scanning us like we’ve gone mad.

“Get in,” he orders. “If she’s here, we’re not losing her.

Not again. Even if I have to hit her with this car in order to slow her down. ”

We all pile into the car. Luna jumps into the back with Mars and Caspian while I take the front passenger seat to direct. “East. Head toward that warehouse, but don’t run her over unless I say.”

“If you want to take all the fun out of it,” Jace mutters, then presses down on the gas, pushing the car to its limits.

The wheels bounce over cracked streets and the engine growls beneath us.

He runs over every rotter in our way, not letting them slow us down by a second.

My hands twist the scarf tighter until my knuckles turn white.

Luna’s head pokes between the front seats, her nose working frantically at the scarf’s scent.

We reach a block where the road ends, blocked by a building that’s been halfway blown apart.

I had done that the first day after Summer went missing.

I didn’t find any clues that day, and rotters were piling up.

Now the debris still scatters across the road, too thick to push through or go around, and I regret making such a mess .

“Thanks for taking care of the rotters, but this car is far too loud to be stealthy.” Mars is the first to hop out. He crouches low and scans the ground before motioning us forward. “Footprints.”

I jump out of the car and draw my weapon.

Luna leaps out after me and sticks her nose to the dirt.

The footprints disappear onto concrete, so we split up to search.

I push forward, refusing to slow despite my lungs screaming for relief.

Luna runs ahead, then circles back to lead me toward a narrow alley.

There’s a flash of red.

Lucy stands in the mouth of an alley, struggling to tame her wild red hair that keeps tangling in the wind. Her eyes widen when they meet mine, and I race toward her. “Lucy.”

She doesn’t move, doesn’t run. She stands there and watches me approach in silence. For someone who’s been missing for days and feared dead, she’s awfully calm.

I grab her by the arms and shake her hard enough to rattle her teeth. “What the hell happened to my sister? Did you have anything to do with Summer’s death?”

Luna circles us with her hackles raised, a low growl vibrating through her body.

Lucy’s eyes go wide with genuine shock. “Summer’s dead?”

Rage boils up again, sharper than before. My voice shakes as the words tear out of me. “I found her as a rotter.” My throat closes around the memory of Summer’s vacant eyes, and the wet sound of my knife sliding into her brain. “I had to put her down. My own sister.”

Lucy blinks up at me while she processes this. Her face pales and her head shakes in disbelief. “I didn’t know. I swear, Autumn, I didn’t know she was dead. ”

“Then tell me what you do know,” I hiss out, tightening my grip around her arm until she winces. “Tell me how you think you helped her before. Tell me everything.”

Lucy flinches, but she doesn’t try to pull away. “My brother and I, we find people. The lost ones, we call them. The ones barely hanging on. We give them somewhere safe to go. A place with food, shelter, and protection.”

“Safe?” The words taste like poison on my lips. “I found Summer’s name scratched into the floorboards of a bunker that looked more like a prison. “Purple hair—traded to G.L. Ring any bells?”

Her brow furrows deep, and she shakes her head. “I don’t know what bunker you’re talking about. That’s not…we don’t trade people. We help them.”

I shake her harder, and she whimpers when my fingernails dig into her skin. “Don’t lie to me, Lucy.”

“I’m not,” she snaps back. Fire flashes in her green eyes for the first time.

“I spoke with Summer after my brothers found her. She was scared, hurt, and lost, but she was alive and safe. When I went back to check on her a few days later, they told me she’d moved on to somewhere better.

Somewhere with more resources. Like they all do. ”

My breath comes in short bursts. “You expect me to believe that? Hell, do you believe the words coming out of your mouth right now? That she just…moved on like all the others? Get a grip on reality, Lucy.”

Her eyes shine with unshed tears, but I feel no sympathy for her. All my compassion died with Summer. “I don’t know what happened after I left her with them. I swear on my life, Autumn. I thought I was helping. I thought—” Her voice cracks. “I thought I was saving her.”

“Where are your brothers?” I growl out the words before shoving her back against the brick wall, making her gasp. Dirt rains down from the impact. “Where the fuck are they, huh? ”

She clamps her mouth shut, her jaw set with stubborn loyalty. Too bad she’s loyal to the wrong people. Luna snaps at the air near Lucy’s leg in warning.

I try another angle. “Why didn’t you meet me that night? You told me to come alone. You said you would be there. Well, I’ve been there for three days. Where were you?”

Lucy’s face twists with frustration. “I was there; I showed up. I waited hours for you. Then I heard screams echoing from the tunnel along with gunshots, and what sounded like the whole damn thing collapsing.” Her hands fly around in wild gestures.

“Then there was nothing but silence, and I thought you were dead. I sent my brothers to check it out, but they came back saying the tunnel was sealed and there were no bodies, no survivors, nothing.”

“Bullshit. We’ve been camped outside that tunnel and the laundromat for days, Lucy. Waiting for you.”

She shakes my hand off when she throws her arms wide.

Her voice rises to match the desperation of mine.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Autumn. Maybe they saw your camp and thought it was a dreg trap.

After all, you were supposed to be alone, not bring your freakishly suspicious bodyguards with you.

Or maybe my brothers lied to me, I don’t fucking know anymore. ”

“Then find out,” I snarl, pressing in closer. “Find your brothers. Make them tell you the truth about what they did to Summer. About this G.L. they traded her to. Some sort of secret lab. Better yet, take me to them and I’ll confront them myself.”

“I told you. We don’t?—”

“Someone did. Someone took her while she was sleeping, experimented on her, and let her die alone.” My voice breaks on the last word. “She was supposed to be safe. She should have been with me.”

Footsteps pound the ground behind me so hard the loose asphalt shakes. I spin around to see Mars, Jace, and Caspian charging down the alley toward us. Mars’s flannel streams out behind him like wings. Jace has his weapon drawn, and Caspian’s eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them.

I whip back around to face Lucy again. “Don’t you dare?—”

But she’s gone. The alley stretches empty before me, nothing but broken bricks and shadows. No footprints in the dust. No movement in the debris. No trail, like she was never there at all.

“Fuck.” I slam my fist into the dumpster near where she stood. Pain shoots up my arm, but I don’t care.

“Don’t you sprain your wrist again, Autumn. It’s finally healing.” Jace scolds me before stopping to take care of a rotter that stumbles into his path.

Luna sniffs at the spot Lucy previously occupied, then whines in confusion at the vanished scent trail.

A rotter stumbles out from behind the dumpster.

Without thinking, I pivot and drive my fist straight through its eye socket.

Bone cracks and rotter brain matter squelches between my fingers.

The rotter drops, and I stand here with gore dripping from my knuckles.

“Autumn.” Mars reaches me first, but his hands hover near my shoulders without touching. “Tell me that was her.” He glances down at the rotter on the ground. “The living person, not the rotter whose brain you tickled.”

I nod, unable to form words. I can’t even laugh at his stupid joke. My hand throbs, though.

“What did she say?” Caspian asks when he catches up. He picks a semi-dirty cloth from the debris and takes my hand to wipe it clean.

“She didn’t know Summer was dead. Claims she was trying to help, and that her brothers never abducted Summer, but they helped her and took her somewhere safe.” I let out a bitter laugh. “Clearly that was a lie, but she doesn’t believe me. ”

Jace scans the alley. “Where’d she go?”

I laugh again, and this time it’s a hollow sound that scrapes my throat. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m losing my mind and she was never here at all.”

“You’re not losing anything,” Mars says. “We all saw her hair from the street. It’s almost as noticeable as yours. She was here.”

Caspian finishes cleaning the rotter brain matter from my hand, and rubs his thumb along my Gemini tattoo before releasing my hand.

I stare down at the dead rotter at my feet, at the mess of what used to be human, and wonder if I’ll ever get the answers I need. Lucy’s brothers are the real monsters here, and she’s the only one who can get me to them.

Or is she in on the whole thing?