Affliction (the Affliction Trilogy #1)

Chapter 1

One

T he only thing normal about this Winter Solstice is the hideous thermal one-piece pajamas my cousin insisted I wear. It matches the one she’s chosen from a box of our old things that belong to a life we no longer have. I should have put up a fight, told her the clothes were impractical and the holiday didn’t matter without the rest of our family. Instead, I’m shimmying my damp body into the clingy material reminiscent of an ugly winter sweater. It’s proof that what I would do for her has no limits.

The leg of my pajamas tangles around my foot, sending me stumbling forward and smacking my head against the towel rack.

“Dammit,” I hiss, slapping the wall like it purposely moved into my way.

“You all right in there, Quinn?” River asks from the other side of the door.

I roll my eyes and rub the knot forming behind my ear. “I’d have better luck getting dressed in a coffin than in this ridiculously small bathroom.”

“Just be grateful you have a functioning bathroom.”

River is right—it doesn’t matter that the bathroom contains no frills. The shower has just enough room to stand, and the toilet and sink are white, simple, and functional. The tiny space is a luxury in a time when many don’t have a safe place to live or food to fill their bellies. We may live in a bunker under our childhood home, but we don’t so much as go without hot water and electricity, let alone a meal. In a continent quarantined from the rest of the world and swarming with the Afflicted, we are the fortunate ones.

I fasten the countless buttons running up my torso and turn my attention to the mirror over the sink. Separating my hair down the middle, I work the wet strands into two light-brown braids on either side of my face. It’s difficult not to look away from the worn-out young woman staring back at me. She’s a far cry from the happy-go-lucky girl she was before the Affliction. Dark bags have taken residence under her gray eyes, her full lips are cracked, and her skin chapped and pale from the cold, dry air. But I’m not blind to the good. I’ve worked hard to maintain my physical strength, building lean muscle on my short frame. The universe knows I didn’t look like this before I spent every day fighting to survive.

I open the bathroom door, and River jumps from the worn gray couch, clapping her hands together. Her dark golden curls bounce around her face, and her bright and toothy smile reminds me of an enthusiastic child instead of a nineteen-year-old. She takes several steps to the kitchenette, throws open a cupboard, and pulls out a package of chewy chocolate chip cookies before carrying on to the refrigerator where she removes two cans of soda.

“Are those cookies even safe to eat?” I ask, plopping down on the couch .

“I don’t see why not, they’ve never been opened,” she says, placing the snacks on the battered coffee table.

I pick up the package and look for the expiration date while she turns her attention to a dusty box on the floor. She pulls out an old digital music player and skips across the room. Opening the cabinet below the television mounted to the wall, she hooks the old music player to a small speaker.

“You do realize it’s winter and we should be conserving our energy, right?”

“Live a little, Quinn. The heavens know everything is dying outside of this house. We don’t have to join them,” River quips.

I cross my arms over my chest, trying my best not to look amused at her antics.

Everything we do is calculated: every bite we eat, every bullet we shoot, and every bit of energy we use. My uncle took great care to ensure that our home could fully function during almost any type of catastrophe, and it’s now up to us to make sure our supplies last. Still, it’s hard not to get sucked into letting go when she’s like this. River is an eternal light in our dark situation, and my only source of goodness in a world that is anything but.

Despite missing her parents, who also raised me, she makes the best of things. To the practical, her coping tactics may seem childish—dancing, singing, and eating an extra ration of food. To those who understand that any minute could be our last, she is the epitome of living life to its fullest. It is her refusal to be consumed by despair that reminds me I must do the same.

I shake my head and hide my smile as my cousin dances around the room, singing along to a classic Yule song we loved as children. When the verses run too long, and she can’t remember the words, she gives up and returns to the box of decorations.

“Do you want to decorate the tree with me?” she asks, holding a miniature pink tinsel tree. It’s the one her mom bought us when we were five and begged her to let us decorate the family tree in pink ornaments. My aunt Amara refused, but the next day, she surprised us with one of our own that included all the trimmings.

River places our childhood decorations onto the coffee table and motions me over. It doesn’t take long before the tiny tree is sparkling with pink glitter and satin ribbons. She carries it to one of the side tables and plugs it into the wall. We stand together in our drab bunker, looking at the pink pine with a glowing star on top.

“Oh, wait,” she says, jogging back to the cupboards along the wall. She pulls out a box wrapped in old newspapers and places it under the tree. In turn, I fetch the gift bag I put her presents in and set it on the table.

“World’s Best Grandpa?” she questions after reading the block letters printed on the front of her gift.

For the first time in a while, I wholeheartedly laugh. My body doubles over, and I grasp my stomach. I try to explain it to her, but I can’t hold it together long enough to get the words out. After several attempts, I say, “I’m working with limited resources. It was all I could find in the ransacked general store.”

Her uncontrollable laughter joins in with mine.

It feels good to share this moment; it’s almost like it used to be before Stern was overrun by those infected with the Z virus, and the continent quarantined from the rest of the world.

I reach over, pulling River into my arms and hug her tightly. “Happy Solstice, Riv.”

She rests her head on my shoulder. “Happy Solstice, Quinn.”

This isn’t how either of us wants to spend the holiday. We aren’t supposed to be locked beneath our house, hoping the rest of our family is all right. We should be drinking hot cocoa upstairs and wrapping the gifts we waited until the last minute to buy. My uncle Josh should be sitting next to the tree, shaking every present with his name on it and correctly guessing what’s inside. And Amara would have researched articles about how old household junk can be recycled into bows for the presents. We would have been up all night creating them with her, laughing and singing. Now, we have nothing but the ghost of the memories to haunt us.

“Hey, Quinn.”

“Yeah?” I say, swallowing down the emotion building inside of me.

“You want to watch a movie?”

I squeeze her shoulder before letting go. “Yeah, let me go put this box back in the basement.”

I press the button on the wall that releases the lock on the bunker’s heavy steel door and step out onto the dark, freezing cold cement floor. We shut off all the utilities to the main house shortly after the blackout when we realized it was best if we stayed hidden. If someone happens to come across us and finds out we have running water and electricity, there’s a chance they’ll try and seize our home. By staying confined to the bunker, we can let our guard down a little and sleep soundly at night. It has allowed us to recapture some of the normalcy we lost to the Affliction.

I zigzag down the path of our belongings—everything we were able to carry down from the house—and place the box on top of the ones that contain the dishes from the kitchen .

Inside the bunker, River turns off the holiday music and everything goes silent—well almost. The distinct sound of footsteps and mumbling voices come from above. I hold my breath and glance at the floorboards above my head. More than one set of feet shuffle across the kitchen as they head toward the living room.

I rush back into the bunker and quickly slide my feet into my combat boots. Without a second thought, I grab my gun from the table next to the door and double-check the ammo inside of it.

“Quinn?”

“Someone’s in the house.”

River hurries to my side and slides on her slippers. “How do you know it’s not a Z? Just wait it out until morning. They’ll leave when they think there’s no one to eat.”

“It’s people. I heard them talking. We can’t take the risk of them staying until morning and wandering around in the daylight. If they were able to break into the house, they could get into the greenhouse. I’m just going to scare them away. Wait here and keep the door closed. We don’t need something to happen to both of us if this goes wrong.” When she doesn’t reply, I glare at her and say, “Did you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you.”

I check that the bunker locks behind me and creep up the rickety stairs of the basement. I carefully open the door to the main level and scan the area for the trespassers before slipping through and shutting it behind me. Pressing my back against the wall, I make my way to the kitchen.

The moon shines through the window, setting everything in a cerulean glow. The unused refrigerator looms like a giant in the corner and the stove is a threatening, boxy beast. Snow slowly builds outside the window above the sink. The house creaks and groans under the added weight on its room. Other than that, all is still in the kitchen.

I tiptoe through the house while my brain bombards me with thoughts of all the places the intruders can hide—the closets, the strange nooks and crannies that a house this old possesses, and behind the bigger furniture we were unable to carry to the basement, like the massive antique table and its eight chairs in the dining room. I quietly check them all but find nothing out of place.

My nerves calm a little as I step into the living room to discover it is empty as well. With my gun held firmly in both hands, I walk to the front door and stop short of grabbing the knob. Footsteps made with clumps of snow trail toward the sliding doors at the side of the living room. My breathing halts when whispering comes from Josh’s study.

I shove my fear down deep within me and force my bravery to the surface. Concealing myself against the wall next to the door, I listen to the exchange between male voices. I can’t quite make out what they’re saying, but their tone matches the terror churning my stomach. Chancing a peek from around the door frame, I spot three guys huddle against the wall opposite from me.

“Aiden, come on man, you need to wake up,” says one of the men to another who is hunched over on the floor.

I’m taken back by the sound of the speaker’s voice. His accent is not from Stern—it’s Giranish. In a show of good faith, the Stern president allowed for the evacuation of non-citizens before the continent was quarantined. It’s hard for me to believe anyone chose to stay instead of returning to their homeland, but apparently, they did. Now, they have decided to take refuge in my house, and I can’t allow them to stay.

I rest my head back on the wall and take a deep breath before making my move. With my gun firmly grasped in both of my hands, I step into the doorway and aim directly at the weakest of the three. “Don’t make any sudden moves or I’ll shoot him.”

“Fuck,” says the smaller of the two conscious men. His uneven black hair barely brushes the tops of his shoulders, and his slim face is lightly covered in hair. Filth blankets him, making his blue eyes look like they’re glowing in the dark room.

The other young man is not looking any more hygienic than his friend. His warm olive face is covered with a dark brown beard, and his short hair is caked with dirt. His muscular frame is rigid and his big, brown eyes glint with worry. “Please don’t shoot. Our friend is sick,” he says.

My gaze falls to the fingers of the one they claim to be ill, looking for the telltale sign that he is Afflicted. There is no exposed bone or shredded tendons. Zs always try to sedate their cravings by gnawing on their own flesh first.

“What’s wrong with him?” I ask.

The one with brown eyes answers, “I think it’s just the flu. He’s been sick for the past week, and it’s gotten worse since we’ve had to sleep in the cold.”

A pang of pity stirs in me, but I force it away. I can’t take the risk of allowing them to stay, not when I don’t know what they are capable of. It’s River and me first, no matter how much someone needs help.

“Sorry, guys, but I need you to stand and slowly make your way out the front door.” They don’t move, staring at me like I’m not aiming a loaded gun at them. “I said move!”

Cold metal presses into the back of my neck. I go rigid, my next demand stuck in my throat. The man with blue eyes flashes me a quick smile, and I know I’m fucked.

“I don’t think so. They’re going to stay right where they are.”