Page 9 of The Last Sanctuary

The tiger house dens were six feet by twelve feet, with steel sheeting lining the walls, a welded mesh floor, and a steel-barred sliding drop gate. There were two chambers, though they had only one tiger.

Gristle, shredded fur, and the curved bones of horse ribs covered the concrete floor of Vlad’s den. This would take a while. She picked up the mop in the corner and took a shallow breath through her mouth. No matter how often it was scrubbed clean, the tiger house always stank of raw meat, of death.

“You’re disgusting, you know that?” she muttered, though the tiger couldn’t hear her. “The things I do for love.”

A loud yell filtered down the hill, followed by a high-pitched scream.

Raven dropped the mop.

Zachariah.

Chapter Three

Raven dashed outside, her heart thundering. She shielded her eyes against the sun. At the top of the hill beside the wolf enclosure, the figure of her father stood several feet back from something lying in the pathway.

She sprinted up the hill, knowing what she would find, dread like cement filling her chest. Her father glanced up as she approached and came to a halt beside him. He looked like he’d aged ten years in the last ten days.

Zachariah lay sprawled on the sidewalk. His limbs were bent awkwardly beneath him, his features contorted in a mask of pain. Tears of blood stained his gaunt cheeks. His eyes were open, staring in frozen horror. He didn’t move. His chest didn’t rise or fall.

She swallowed hard. “Is he—is he dead?”

“He will be.” Her father holstered the tranquilizer gun. “Stay back.”

She didn’t point out that she’d already been contaminated from less than a foot away. If the mask hadn’t protected her, there was little point in taking precautions now. That horse had already left the barn.

Her father coughed and cleared his throat.

She knelt on the paved path beside the body. He no longer looked like the Zachariah she’d known and loved, the one who always grinned at her, his weathered skin splitting into a hundred grooves and wrinkles, who loved to ruffle her hair, who’d nicknamed her ‘Little Bird’ with great affection.

Something was on Zachariah’s torso. A small gray tube with an orange top stuck out from the man’s concave chest. Her stomach sank like a stone. “What did you do?”

“He’s no longer suffering.” His voice was flat, expressionless.

She jerked out the dart and stared at the syringe, the needle. Reeling, she stumbled to her feet. “You gave him a dose intended for a five-hundred-pound tiger. You stopped his heart. You… you killed him.”

“He was dying anyway.”

It was true. She knew it was true. Still, the thought of pointing a gun, even a tranquilizer gun, at a friend and pulling the trigger set bile roiling in her stomach. She took a steadying breath, then another. “I didn’t say goodbye.”

“He wasn’t himself anymore,” her father said brusquely. “He could barely speak.”

Revulsion filled her, sour acid stinging the back of her throat. It was horrible, too horrible. She felt sick, her whole body going hot, then cold, then hot again. She thought of the virus, possibly inside her, the same virus that had done this to Zachariah.

“I should have kicked him out the moment he coughed.”

She looked sharply at her father. “And abandon him when he most needed us? Where would he go? Who would feed him or bring him water? Who would take care of him?”

“He promised me he’d stay in the loft. He swore to me.”

“He was sick! Crazed with pain.”

“It was a mistake to allow him to stay.”

“He is—was—family.”

“No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t family, and he shouldn’t have been here. I should’ve kicked him out like I wanted to.” His harsh gaze, glittering with anger, slanted toward Raven.

She was the one who’d begged to allow Zachariah to stay, who’d suggested the quarantine in the loft. It was her fault. Her father blamed her for this.