Page 6

John

I flattened myself against the roof, cursing.

Bullets whizzed all around us. The building was only one storey, but we still needed the higher ground.

We’d scrambled up via a rusty old ladder that’d crumbled instantly behind us.

There hadn’t been a break since then. They pummeled the building with lead, even as we picked them off one-by-one.

We were running low on ammo when Kimmy pulled out the Molotov and let it fly. The flames engulfed one of the attackers and drove back the rest.

As Kimmy got another ready, a female scream chilled my blood. Claire.

“Go!” Kimmy burst out, lighting the wick on the Molotov. “Now!”

Terror-filled adrenaline hit my bloodstream. I grabbed my rifle and sprinted for the back of the roof. I scanned the ground for enemies, then dropped onto the ground, avoiding the jagged rebar left behind by the ruined ladder on the back wall. I raced in the direction of Claire’s scream .

I reached the back of the building next-door.

Three masked cultists struggled violently with a frantically thrashing Claire.

The woman had no chance; I shot her twice before she even glanced in my direction.

One of the men managed a shout before I shot him, too, which caused him to drop Claire’s ankles.

She yelped as she hit the ground, and there was another burst of flame nearby—probably Kimmy’s second Molotov.

The last cultist reached for his weapon, but I was too close now.

I tackled him, knocking him to the ground beside Claire.

He swung wildly at me. I barely felt the hit as I reversed the rifle and caved his skull in with the stock.

With laser-like focus, I drew my hunting knife and slashed across his throat.

His hands clutched his neck uselessly as his life gurgled away.

I stood, panting, and dropped on Claire’s other side.

She babbled something I didn’t understand.

I focused on cutting through her bonds, then helped her stand.

The sounds of gunfire had faded. I backed up against the wall of the building for cover, then peered around the corner.

There were only two dark figures left on the battleground.

I waited patiently for them to take their shots, looking through the scope of my rifle, and took them both out at once.

“Where’s Kimmy?” Claire asked, her voice breaking.

I nodded at the roof next-door. “Come on.”

I took her hand and ran for the next building.

When we were in sight of the back wall, there were two dead cultists on the ground, and the sounds of a struggle nearby.

Kimmy was backed against the building, fighting furiously with another cultist. He threw her backward against the wall, and she made a pained, gasping cough.

“You’re dead now, bitch,” the guy taunted. “I—”

Kimmy buried her hidden blade underneath the cultist’s ribs. He choked, splattering Kimmy’s face with blood, then fell. Kimmy nodded to me with a weary expression, and Claire and I ran to her.

“Front looks clear, any more back here?” I asked.

She stayed slumped against the wall and shook her head. I left to make sure. The area was littered with bodies—some of them still burning—but it seemed like we got them all.

“John!” Claire called frantically. “Come back!”

Fuck. I rushed back to them. Kimmy stood in exactly the same spot against the wall. Claire looked up at me, wide-eyed.

“She’s hurt,” she whispered.

Her tone told me it was bad. Instantly, I snapped back into survival mode.

“Where?” I demanded. “Show me.”

“It’s not that bad, John,” Kimmy said weakly, but her face was white as a sheet.

I ignored her and moved closer. Claire lifted Kimmy’s shirt. Dark blood soaked through. Kimmy gave a small groan, and I saw the gruesome wound: a short, sharp piece of rebar stuck in her flesh. She’d been impaled on it. My stomach twisted, and my heart started pounding.

It was a living nightmare. She wouldn’t survive.

“What do we do?” Claire asked, tearing a strip off her shirt and wrapping it around the rebar to soak up blood. “If we move her…she’ll bleed.”

“Have to,” Kimmy said through gritted teeth. “If you don’t, I’ll die right here.”

She was right. At that moment, I would’ve done anything to save her.

“Grab the medical kit from Kimmy’s pack,” I ordered. “Get everything ready—suture, alcohol, cotton, bandages. When I lift her off the bar, I’ll set her face down on the ground. Then we have to work fast to stop the bleeding.”

I didn’t let myself think about what would happen if we weren’t fast enough. Claire sprang into action, and I held Kimmy’s hand as we waited for the kit to be ready.

“Keep squeezing my hand,” I murmured, hoping to hell that she couldn’t hear the raw panic clawing at my throat.

“Don’t…it’s…pointless,” Kimmy’s eyelids fluttered, a sign the adrenaline was wearing off and she was passing out. “I’m not gonna make it.”

“Shut up,” I said firmly, but I smoothed her black bangs out of her eyes. “You’re going to be fine. Still annoying, but fine.”

The corners of her mouth ticked up, but she said, coughing, “I’m a nurse, John. I know…what this means.”

I couldn’t stop myself from snarling a reply. “No. You don’t get to give up on me. ”

“We’re ready,” Claire said to me, kneeling on the ground by the open medical kit.

I swallowed hard, then wrapped my arms around Kimmy.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered in her ear. “Has to be done.”

I lifted under her arms, trying desperately to pull her off the jagged metal in as straight a line as possible.

Her scream was ear-splitting, and the wet, squishy sound turned my stomach.

Once free, I quickly set her on the ground, and Claire pressed bandages into the deep puncture wound as it gushed with fresh blood. Kimmy screamed again.

“Keep the pressure on it,” I instructed. “I’m going to disinfect, then start suturing.”

Claire’s face was pale with worry, but she nodded.

I took a deep breath to steady my hands, then started cleaning the wound with alcohol.

My heart broke at every one of my sister’s hoarse screams. Claire held the wound closed as best she could while I sutured it, my stitches nowhere near as tight and neat as Kimmy’s.

She was made for this, not me.

Kimmy’s screams faded into hoarse groans, then to nothing as she finally passed out.

An eternity later, we’d closed the wound and stopped the bleeding. I helped Claire wrap bandages around Kimmy’s torso, covering the stitches.

“We need to get out of here,” I said. “I’ll carry her until we can stop and make a drag litter. Take the compass and point us north.”

Claire helped me hoist Kimmy into my arms, then retrieved the compass. I didn’t care where we went as long as it was as far from the city as possible.

We wandered for an hour northward, out of the city and into the woods.

Then I built a drag litter out of branches, and we went as far as we could into the brush, eventually finding a ruined cottage in a wooded area.

The back half of the house had collapsed, but the foyer and adjoined living room were intact.

It’d have to do for now. Kimmy needed rest .

I set up the tent inside the dilapidated front room. Ancient, dusty furniture lined the walls, but at least there was a fireplace. Claire tended to Kimmy, washing her face with cool water and murmuring gently, like a mother to a sick kid. It would’ve been sweet if the situation wasn’t so bleak.

She’s going to die. It kept repeating in my head like a mantra, and now that we were out of immediate danger, I couldn’t stop despair from setting in.

I’d seen people with wounds like that before, some of whom Kimmy herself had treated, and most of them were dead.

If the initial hit didn’t get her, infection would.

Even our tiny supply of homemade antibiotics—the kind that Kimmy made by cultivating mould—was gone, used after the attack on our camp.

We didn’t have enough medicine. We didn’t have a sterile environment. We didn’t even have a real bed for her.

I lit a fire in the fireplace, then started cooking some leftover meat from my last hunt. Claire crawled into the tent with Kimmy and settled her into her sleeping bag. When she finished, we sat by the fire and ate together. Neither of us said a word.

Claire stared at the floor, her red hair glowing in the firelight. Even covered in dirt, sweat, and blood…she was beautiful. And she might be all I had left now. There was a knot in my chest that wouldn’t go away.

“How long do we stay here?” she finally asked in a low voice, breaking the tense silence between us. “We can’t keep going with her in this state. We may have to wait out the winter here, until she’s healed.”

She didn’t get it. I didn’t want to explain it to her.

“You haven’t learned a goddamn thing out here, have you?” I said, suddenly bitter.

She frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I shook my head, digging my fingernails in my palm.

“It means,” I said, “that you still don’t have a fucking clue, do you? You think we can just sit here, all winter long, without medicine or supplies?”

“No—”

“Do I have to spell it out for you, Claire? Again?” I interjected, and I knew I was being an asshole, but I couldn’t seem to stop. “The best we can do now is make her comfortable and hope she doesn’t die screaming in agony. Then we go home as planned. Without her.”

I let out a heavy breath. “That clear enough for you?”

Claire looked like I’d slapped her. She bit her lip and nodded, staring back at the floor. I wanted her to hurt me back, to give me something to be mad about that wasn’t the fucking black hole of despair at losing my sister. My lifelong companion.

She surprised me by wrapping her arms around me. I stiffened, but she didn’t stop. If anything, she held me tighter.

“You don’t have to be brave,” she murmured. “Not right now.”

My shoulders shook uncontrollably.

“But I do,” I whispered, my chest tight. “If I don’t, who will?”

“Me,” she answered, then pressed a kiss against my jaw. “Lean on me. You can go back to being my unstoppable Wastelander tomorrow.”

My arms trembled as I curled them around her. I buried my face in her hair and stayed there, letting her rub my back and comfort me—something I would’ve never let anyone else do.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice cracking. “I didn’t mean…any of it. I just can’t…”

“I know,” she soothed. “It’s alright, darling.”

It wasn’t, but I let myself pretend, breathing slowly and inhaling her scent. Eventually, I stopped shaking. Claire pressed another kiss against my jaw. After a long time, she sat back, looking thoughtful.

“What if there were another way?” she said, reaching out to hold my hand.

“What do you mean?”

“What if I knew a way that we could get her medicine?”

Against my better judgment, my heart suddenly raced.

“Where? How?”

Claire hesitated. “Neil was a doctor. He saw accidents like this occasionally. Specifically, he used a drug called Regenerex. It’s the same drug that’s in my implant that speeds healing—just an acute dose. As far as I know, it was exclusive to the Cave…and may still be there.”

Instantly, my hope vanished.

“Even if we could go there without getting killed,” I said darkly, “why would our merry band of murderers leave good medicine just lying around? ”

“They wouldn’t,” Claire conceded. “But they probably don’t know about the nurse’s station at the school. The drugs there were hidden and password-protected to prevent theft. Only the staff knew the password…and with the possible exception of Asha, I think I’m the only one left alive.”

My eyes widened. That was a better chance than I expected.

“I know it might be a wild goose chase,” Claire continued, “but…we have to try, don’t we? If you can get us in there…there’s medicine, and maybe even more PNCs.”

“You’re serious? You know where to get them?”

She nodded. “The school had a supply shed. There could be some there, at least.”

The idea of saving Kimmy and heading home with more PNCs was too good to pass up. It was also probably too good to be true.

“The place is built to keep people out,” I said. “How the hell would we even get in? Based on what you’ve told me, the walls are too high to climb and topped with razor wire. So…?”

Claire had an answer for that, too.

“There’s a breach in the northwestern wall. I saw it during my escape. They blasted a hole in an area near the gate. Most likely, they couldn’t get the gate to open at the time because we were in lockdown.”

She bit her lip. “And I keep thinking about a throwaway comment my father made when I was a kid. I was worried about him going on patrol, what with the defences around the compound. He comforted me and said that with his implant, the guns on the wall won’t fire.

They can sense it somehow—a way to protect our patrols and technicians from being killed accidentally.

I think…if you could carry me, maybe I could get us inside without activating the defences. ”

I stared at her, barely daring to hope, but I couldn’t help it.

“You’re sure about this?” I said.

“No,” Claire replied with a shake of her head. “But if we don’t go, we know Kimmy won’t survive. This way, even if it’s a small chance…I know it doesn’t solve the problem of the cult. But we’re out of options.”

I swallowed hard. Even as I wanted to reject the plan for being way too risky, I knew this was Kimmy’s best chance. It was her only chance. And after everything we’d been through…I at least owed her my best shot.

“Okay,” I sighed, barely daring to hope. “Show me on the map where we’re going, as close as you can.”