Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
LARKE
I walked along the tunnels, shining my flashlight down every side opening to check for rodents, human predators, and other beings.
I couldn’t remember every turn Dez and I had made to get to our love alcove, but I wouldn’t be stepping off my current path.
The memories we’d made there would be enough to last me a while.
I glanced at my left hand.
A lifetime, perhaps.
Someone grabbed my arm, covered my mouth, and pulled me off the pathway. I tried to maneuver my head to bite their fingers off, but they bent near my ear and whispered a gentle, “Shhh,” followed by, “It’s me.”
I quieted.
Several pairs of booted feet hurried by.
Once they were gone, Ronan released me, spun me to face him, cupped my chin, and raised my head to meet his gaze. He brushed the pad of his thumb over my cheekbone, intermittently pressing as if checking for sore spots.
“Pass?” he asked. “Fail?”
“You mean the Standardized Larke Health Assessment Test administered by the Dez Association? You’ve passed with flying colors.”
“Good. I studied.”
I laughed.
“Follow me.” He released my chin. “Stay close.”
I stayed so close, I stepped on his heel.
Twice.
After we exited the tunnel, he told me to hang back and disappeared. When he returned, I scanned the group of people he’d brought with him: Sabine, Kendra, Althea, and Tamra, along with three more women draped in Sanitation garb I’d never met, who introduced themselves as Joanna, Mara, and Ruby.
“Where are Ana and Ms. Tess?” I asked.
“They’re not coming,” Tamra said. “They wanted to stay behind in case anything happened and to buy us time to get out. And,” she continued, just as I went to protest, “they told us to tell you not to fuss. That they know what they’re doing, and it’s more important that we get out.”
Though a rare occurrence, I swallowed my will to debate.
Ana and Ms. Tess had lived their lives up to this point without my interference.
Had they felt the need to be here, they would have come, and going back for them wasn’t an option.
We were on borrowed time, and it made little sense to risk the lives of everyone else to attempt to save two people who’d explicitly asked me not to.
“They were sure, Larke,” Sabine added, gently squeezing my wrist. “They’re all right. They took care of us, so let’s have faith in the fact that they know what they’re doing.”
Nodding, I faced Ronan. “Okay, then. Ronan, you’ll follow me this time? Or do you already know where the gate is?”
“You will follow me,” he said. “I know where to find the gate, but even if I did not, if I get hurt, you can be okay. If you get hurt, he will find me in hell.”
“His words?”
“Yes.”
Right on time, all the lights around the camp went down, casting us into complete darkness. Our group followed Ronan as he crept along the fence line, but I could see nothing beyond the edge of the circular beam from my flashlight.
Like Dez, there was something cagey and prowler-like in the way Ronan moved. Yet, as I studied his broad, muscular back, it wasn’t his movements that stood out to me most. It was the fact that he’d placed himself in front of me.
Not behind me.
Not beside me.
I wasn’t sure if the positioning came naturally to him, based on whatever he did before, or if this was Dez’s doing, but my eyes stung, and my nostrils burned.
There were people willing to stand up, to protect.
I didn’t have to constantly place myself in the crosshairs, and now that I was with Dez, I wondered if I ever would again.
Before any tears could make an entrance, Ronan extended an arm behind him, silently letting our procession know to wait. Then, he walked ahead, but he only got a couple of steps off before he was backpedaling.
The gate was wide open, and a group of at least ten of the infected had stumbled through. Behind them were at least a dozen more, and those were just the ones I could make out in the darkness.
I faced the group. “Back. Infected. A ton of them. We need to go.”
“Go where?” someone asked.
“In the opposite direction of the Infected.”
A bullet whizzed by my ear and hit the ground.
A figure stood on the other side of the gate. The light affixed to their shoulder patch highlighted a Class Four uniform. Had it been a Class One, I was sure the bullet would have exploded against the back of my skull.
“I will take him,” Ronan said.
For the shooter’s sake, I prayed Ronan killed him. If he didn’t, the minute I saw Dez, I would go full damsel in distress, weeping with my shoulders hunched while hiding my face in my hands. Dez enjoyed being a savage, and who was I not to give my husband what he wanted?
I started to call out for everyone to head to the tunnels, but when I swung the flashlight around, all I saw was gray skin.
Cursing, I maneuvered around the Infected and slithered back into the tunnel opening.
As I went to shut the hatch door, a pale, veiny hand shot through the side.
I dropped the flashlight, reached into my back pocket, pulled out a small tactical knife, and sank it into the off-colored forearm skin.
The knife slid in like butter, but the movements didn’t stop.
I stabbed again, but it was the same thing.
Then someone came up behind me and shoved their shoulder against the door hard enough to tear through the arm. We worked together to seal the latch and, breathing hard, I turned around and pressed my back against the tunnel wall.
“Thanks, baby,” I said.
The person didn’t respond.
I paused a moment before looking up.
“Baby?” Matthew Neal stared down at me, a weak smile on his even weaker face. “Did you think I was someone else? Or have we finally put the past behind us?”