Page 5 of The Forever (When the World Fell #3)

Cruz

“ A re you sure you can trust this guy?” I asked Ellie, my tone coming out more forcefully than intended. “He was told to stay here.”

We’d given the car park a thorough once-over on the off chance they’d left clues for us to find. After coming up empty, Jonah and the twins stationed themselves at the entrance to keep watch on the street, leaving me with the women to figure out what was going on here.

Ellie didn’t know me well enough to understand my irritation was at Tae for ignoring the plan, and she straightened her shoulders as if I was just another asshole looking to pick up where Dane and his crew had left off. “ Yes, I’m sure. I’d bet anything he’s taken her home. Where else do you think he’d go?”

“We’ve got a second car stashed at a house not too far from here. Willow knows the location.”

Ellie couldn’t have been much older than twenty, but she had a mature way about her, like all the other kids who’d been forced to grow up too fast. She frowned, a little less sure now. “Well, I didn’t know that.”

Ro had the same blonde hair and blue eyes as her nieces, a wiry, sun-browned woman in her forties. She switched her attention between Ellie and me, her gaze narrowing as she sized me up. “I’m not worried about Tae,” she said. “Wherever he’s taken her, she’s safe with him.”

This was going nowhere. I clasped my hands on top of my head and met Liv’s eyes, silently sharing my frustration. We needed to find our car and wrap this up so we could all move on with our lives.

“How far away is your place?” Liv asked Ro, just as eager to get to a solution.

She pointed north. “About two kilometres that way.”

Roughly twice the distance as the journey back to our temporary base, only in a different direction. “What do you think? Would Willow go to the house we’ve been using as a pit stop, or to your place where it’s familiar?” I asked.

“Now you’ve told me about the other car, I don’t know.” Ellie nibbled her lower lip. “It honestly could go either way.”

“We’ll save time then and split into two groups to cover both locations,” I said, “which means you’ll need to separate for a bit, so one of you can direct each group back to your place.”

“I’ll take Ro’s house,” Liv said, no doubt ready to stretch her legs after missing her daily exercise. “Remy, Gabe, and Ellie can come with me. We’ll run it while the rest of you walk and grab the car.”

“I’m not sold on the idea of splitting up.” Ro’s gaze swept over me, then shifted to the boys at the car park entrance. “We’re grateful you helped us, but I’ve got two girls to think of, and I’m not excited about showing you where we live—no offense.”

“None taken.” I pulled the knife from my belt and spun the handle around. Pushing her was the quickest way to get on her bad side, but we didn’t have the time to let her warm up to us naturally. “I don’t want to rush you, but you need to jump on board with the plan now, or we’ll say goodbye and go our separate ways.”

Liv’s expression tightened, but she didn’t voice any objections to my handling of the situation.

Unspoken concerns swirled between Ro and Ellie for a few beats, then Ellie blew out a breath and her expression softened. “They didn’t have to help,” she said to Ro as her gaze came to rest on me. “It would have been easier just to leave us behind in that hellhole, but they put themselves in danger and broke us out of there—and now they’re still trying to help, even though they don’t owe us a thing.”

“Okay, okay. Enough with the melodramatics.” Ro had a shrewd, no bullshit way about her that had the potential to be entertaining once we got to know her. “But I’m gonna let you know right now if any of that help involves putting a hand on either of my girls, I’ll get real pissed, real quick. You got me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Liv snuck me a smile. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ll be there to watch over Ellie, and you have my word that Cruz and Jonah are trustworthy—but we need to get moving. We don’t know how many men survived back there or which direction the horde went. We’ve got to get ahead of this now while we still have the chance.”

Neither of them had weapons, so I held my knife out to Ro, handle first. She clocked onto the fact that I’d already pulled it out in anticipation of her saying yes and gave me a deadpan look as she took it from me. Liv passed her own knife to Ellie, and we stepped away from the women, giving them a chance to say their temporary goodbyes to each other.

As we wandered over to the others at the entrance, I prepared myself for the next half hour of activity away from Liv. We were about to part for the second time in as many hours, and although she’d have Remy and Gabe with her—and Ellie, too, a resident who knew her way around the town—it didn’t change the fact that I wouldn’t be there.

I stopped and turned to face her. With a finger hooked in the neckline of her shirt, I tugged her closer. “Watch your back out there, querida. Don’t let your guard down for a second.”

She gazed up at me with the hint of a smile in her eyes. “Always.”

Her demeanour should have lessened my concerns, but it didn’t. “I mean it.”

“I know you do. You be careful, too. Ro’s just looking for a reason to unleash on someone, and you’ll be right there in her firing line.” She tipped her head back and offered her lips. “Now kiss me goodbye, mi amor, and let’s get this done.”

With a huff of amusement, I cradled her face in both hands and pressed my mouth to hers, kissing her several times in quick succession until her eyes shined with happiness.

Since my group would do a combination of walking and driving, I eased the backpack off her shoulders and onto mine, freeing her up for her run.

My chest tightened as I looked at her, but I reminded myself we’d survived every other challenge, and there was no reason to think we’d fail this time around, either.

“You never told me how you found Willow.” Ro adjusted her pace to keep up with Jonah and me.

We’d left the business district behind several minutes ago and ventured into residential territory. Townhouses lined both sides of the street, and fenced-off gardens overflowed with shrubs and trees.

“Perfect timing.” My boot crushed a clump of weeds pushing through a crack in the footpath. “She was running down the road right when we were leaving town. A few minutes earlier or later, and we never would have seen her.”

“God. That girl.” Ro extended her knife hand and pointed out a corpse staggering down a driveway.

“All yours.” I hung back with Jonah to see how she’d handle the challenge. We still knew next to nothing about her or her nieces.

She approached the withered man with a confident stride and kicked him in the knee hard enough to bend his leg the wrong way. The second he hit the pavement, Ro stabbed him in the ear and took him out with a single strike.

She lived on a farm. It shouldn’t have surprised me to see her willingness to do the dirty work, but I smiled in appreciation, anyway.

“As I was saying,” Ro went on as if we’d never been interrupted. “Even at her age, Willow’s tough enough for this world. She doesn’t complain or cry about losing all the things she used to love. The only time I’ve ever seen her upset is when her parents died last year.”

“Willow told us they were living here when it happened,” Jonah said.

She nodded, her eyes troubled. “My brother-in-law, Joel, and my sister, Laura. She dived straight into a gaggle of zombies to save him. Ellie saw it, but I was back at the house with Willow when it happened.”

In all this time, I’d never heard someone refer to the corpses as zombies. People seemed to avoid using the term because saying it out loud meant admitting the impossible—that they were real and this was our life now.

“My dad died the same way,” Jonah admitted, his features drawn.

“It’s pure instinct to defend the ones you love.” Ro headed for another corpse and drove her blade straight up through the emaciated woman’s jaw. When she joined us again, she said casually, “There’s seriously nothing I wouldn’t do for those girls, so remember to keep your hands and other appendages to yourself, or I won’t treat you any different from a zombie.”

I slid a glance Jonah’s way. “Got that?”

His eyes widened. “What makes you think she’s talking to me?”

I’d already received the same warning, but he didn’t need to know that. “Because you’re an immature little boy with wandering eyes, and I’m a mature, grown man.”

He scoffed. “Keep telling yourself that.”

I smiled and shot another look behind us, finally accepting that we were in the clear. Whichever direction the horde had gone, there were no corpses in sight, and their monotonous drone had faded to nothing.

“How did those clowns get three of you to the shed without a car?” I asked Ro.

“We were scavenging in town. Tae tried to word us up, but we caught on too late. There were four of them and three of us, and we weren’t that far from their place.”

“You didn’t know they were using it as a base?” Jonah asked.

“Nope.” She spun around and walked backwards for a couple of steps, checking the street in the other direction. “We hadn’t wandered that far across town since the pandemic,” she said, facing the front again. “I’ve only caught glimpses of other people here and there, and I don’t know who’s left and who’s bad news. No one’s talking to anyone.”

“Did that come from one of them?” I pointed to my temple to refer to the bruise on hers. Willow had mentioned her aunt giving the men a hard time, and after meeting her, I believed it.

She made a humming sound in agreement. “Dane didn’t like being threatened by a woman. Had to prove how much of a man he was by getting physical. You think he’s dead? Ever seen anyone escape from that many zombies?”

The visceral image of my brother being surrounded by a horde hit me out of nowhere. “No, but without their bodies as evidence…”

“They could still be out there.”

“Always safest to assume the worst.” If Dane had survived and took another run at the group like Sue did back in Wallin, he wouldn’t make it through another attack. I’d kill him myself.

As we closed in on the last turn, Jonah ran off to put an end to the suspense. “See you there,” called over his shoulder.

“This is where we’ll find her,” Ro said, as he rounded the corner and left our sight. Her voice sounded more hopeful than certain. “It’s closer than my place. It makes the most sense.”

We reached the end of the street, and by the time the two of us had set eyes on him again, Jonah was just a few of houses away from our destination.

When his steps faltered, I almost held my breath. Then he raised his fist and pumped the air. “They’re here!”

“That’s my girl.” Ro grinned and clapped me on the back.