Page 1 of The Forever (When the World Fell #3)

Liv

“ C ruz, behind you! Aim low!” My heart lurched as an elderly woman tried to latch onto the back of his shirt. She may have been tiny and feeble, but her teeth worked just the same as the bigger infected bodies lumbering around.

Cruz downed a ragged man with a missing arm, then pivoted and swung his hatchet, connecting with the woman’s head in one blow. She crumpled in a heap like a macabre, melting candle, and without a second’s pause, he focused on the next target.

The sight eased the tightness in my shoulders, but it wouldn’t lessen my vigilance. We were out in the open, exposed and temporarily stranded. All my senses were heightened.

I gripped my tantō and removed the top of a woman’s head with a neat slice. As she landed in the rain drenched weeds at the roadside, my eyes locked on the next threat.

Only two of our cars had made it through the storm, the third suffering the brunt of the damage from flying debris.

After saying goodbye to Dawn at her graveside, our group had dragged every broken branch and body off the driveway to clear our exit.

Just when we thought we had a straight run back into town, Gabe swerved to avoid several of the still-moving infected and bogged his car in the softer gravel at the roadside.

Now, he and Remy were working to free their SUV while Cruz and I handled the dead that were blown into the area by the wild weather.

Jonah sat in the backseat of our car, pensive and quiet.

None of us had slept yet, and I’d never experienced this level of exhaustion in all my life.

“How’s it going?” I called out to the guys.

“Almost there,” Remy yelled back.

I glanced in their direction. They’d chocked the back wheels with branches and looked about ready to drive out of the mess.

A few more minutes.

I shifted my attention to the final infected man coming my way, slashing at his head once, then swearing under my breath and returning for a second swing when the first didn’t quite land.

Droplets of black goo sprayed out in an arc as the body landed at my feet. Some of the dead were particularly nasty, and the stench that rose from this one made me dry heave.

With the worst over now, I stepped away from the smell and turned to scrutinise the other bodies. A few of them were splayed across the road between our two vehicles, blocking our path out of here.

Sheathing my sword, I dragged the closest one off to the side by its shirt, breathing hard as I heaved the dead weight. My energy levels were just about depleted, and my patience wasn’t too far behind. It wouldn’t take much to make me snap—a stumbling step, a minor inconvenience—and I refused to hit that low in front of the others.

Cruz came over to help me, and when we were done, I straightened and stretched out the ache in my back, desperate for a break. Just a few hours to close my eyes and rest, so I could wake with my mind in fight mode again for the last part of our trip.

I prayed the rest of us would make it to Bridgehill. The thought that someone else might meet the same fate as Dawn played on my mind, and I wished I could shake off the feeling.

Cruz stowed his hatchet and frowned at my expression. “All good?”

“Nope, but I’m hanging in there.”

“That’s all we can do.” He ran his hand through his hair and gave the area a sweeping glance. “Come on. We’ll get this last part done, then we can pass out somewhere in town.”

“This place looks pretty solid.” Cruz pulled up in front of a brick house, just a couple of streets over from where we’d stopped to meet Remy and Gabe yesterday.

Storm litter covered the roads and footpaths. The ground was still wet, and the sky almost as grey as the mood inside the car.

Jonah had barely spoken since we left the farm, but what could he say? He’d just lost the most important person in his life—the only person from his old life.

I stared out the passenger window. “It’s better than the others, at least.”

The property had a wide driveway, with no garage or fence separating the front from the back; just a house plonked on a desolate piece of land, with a rear gravel yard where we could hide the cars while we slept.

Cruz stopped at the end of the drive and performed a walkthrough of the ground before we parked, stamping his feet to make sure the rain hadn’t turned it boggy. When it looked like we were good to go, he and Remy reversed our vehicles in to make escape easier, and we entered the house through the unlocked back door.

As we moved into the cramped laundry, I picked up on a stale smell, but no decay, so our biggest worry was stumbling onto humans in hiding.

Gabe sighed and said, “Let’s do this.”

Remy stepped into the kitchen first, and the rest of us followed, spreading out to perform our usual sweep. The house had been built years before the modern, open-plan styles came along, and it was made up of a series of boxy rooms with a short hallway.

We checked the cupboards and under every bed to ensure we were alone, finding nothing but dust and cobwebs.

No one spoke as we completed our tasks, and the quiet somehow seemed louder after a night filled with chaos.

When we were done, the five of us brought in our backpacks and left the rest of our supplies in the cars.

“I’ll open the drapes a bit, so we can see outside.” Concerned we wouldn’t pick up on approaching threats, I crossed the lounge room and let in a wedge of light, while Cruz dragged a chest-height bookcase over to the front entrance. The boys took care of blocking the laundry door with the washing machine, and only minutes later, we were as secure as we could be with our limited resources.

Jonah stood off to the side, staring at nothing in particular.

I didn’t know where my mum was, if she’d survived or if she was now one of the millions of infected wandering the country, but I understood the feeling of being alone.

“Go get some sleep,” I said, rubbing his arm.

With a half-hearted smile, he exhaled and looked around the room. “All right. I’m gonna take a bedroom.”

“Just remember, there’s no hurry to move on from here. We can stay another day or two if you need some time.”

“It’s fine. I’ll be good to go later today.”

I watched him leave the room, unsure if I’d be ready that soon.

Bone tired, I unloaded my weapons on the coffee table and sank onto the red and blue checkered couch, aware of every aching muscle.

Remy scrubbed his hands down his face and blew out a loud breath. “We’ll take the other two rooms if you guys are fine out here,” he said.

As was our habit, Cruz left his weapons with mine and dropped into the spot beside me. “Fine by me. I can sleep anywhere.”

“I’m about ready to pass out on my feet,” Gabe said. “See you on the other side.” He gave us a quick, closed-mouth smile and disappeared with his brother.

As their footsteps thudded down the hall, Cruz turned his head toward me. “You didn’t want a bed?”

I smothered a yawn with the back of my hand. “I’d rather be where you are.”

He examined me in his usual analytical way. “Because you want to be alone with me, or you’re scared something might happen to me when you’re not around?”

After thinking it over, I decided it didn’t have to be one or the other. “Both, I guess.” I pulled the tie from my ponytail and slipped it onto my wrist, shaking out hair that was still damp from last night’s rain. “The fear’s always there, no matter what’s happening or how safe I am,” I said. “I felt it in Melbourne, too, but it was easier to deal with then, because my life was more predictable. Now, though…”

“Shit keeps coming at us, and we have no clue what’s on the way next?”

I pressed my lips together in a weird imitation of a smile, my heart heavy with loss. Not just Dawn and Haruto, but my family and friends, the life I used to love.

“When we met the two of them, I never could have imagined how fast she’d be gone from our lives,” I said. “Now... if I lost you...” I played with the hair tie on my wrist, snapping it against my skin.

Cruz watched me intently, his eyes lifting from my wrist to my face. He grabbed the two cushions beside him and arranged them on the arm of the couch, easing me down until we were stretched out together. As I shifted into a more comfortable position, I realised we didn’t have a blanket to keep us warm, but after the night we’d had, I think we were both too tired to care.

I curled into him and let out a breath.

Being close to him made me feel more at ease, his strength seeping into me, his presence letting me know I’d never be alone as long as he existed in the world.

He stroked the side of my face, no doubt contemplating the best way to put my mind at ease. “You and me, querida … we do whatever we need to do to survive. Even when it feels like we've got nothing left, we never give up—and if we’re ever separated, I’ll always, always find my way back to you.”

“Promise?” I asked, looking into his eyes.

He touched his lips to mine. “Promise. Now, try to get some sleep . Jonah might be up to travelling later, and we need to be ready.”

“ Try to sleep? I’m trying to stay awake .”

He gave me a lingering kiss, then another. “Stop trying then.”

The moment I let go of control, my eyes drifted closed.

Mere seconds later, the fatigue took over.