Bound in Ashes (This is Not a Test #2)

Chapter 1

ONE

Asia

The first one went easy.

The second one made me earn it.

And earn it I did.

With tall grass brushing my shins and twisting around my feet, I swung.

Hard.

The impact of metal against bone reverberated through my arm with comfortable familiarity.

That feeling shouldn’t have been comfortable.

Not really.

I’d only done this a couple of times since the world had gone to hell.

My grip on the metal wrench was tight, and I grunted with the force of my next swing. The zombie’s forehead split, spewing foul-smelling black goo before it slumped into the grass.

Apparently I really was a fast learner.

Before, that validation would have brought a smile to my face.

External proof of my value.

Not now, though.

Now I had to stay alive.

The roof of Uncle Levi’s house peeked over the next hill. I pushed through the tall grass, my stolen hiking boots cushioning each step as I fought to stay on my feet.

Stumbling, falling, anything else would have sealed my doom.

I wiped at the sweat sprinkling my forehead and risked looking back.

Maybe I shouldn’t have.

A wave shambled toward us, cresting the hill in a broken line. At first glance, it could have been a parade, people of every shape, size, age, and color coming together for a singular purpose.

But these weren’t people.

Not anymore.

I tried to catalogue the staggering dots, but it was futile.

It might have been fifty.

A hundred.

A thousand.

I wasn’t sure.

What I did know with every fiber of my being was that those things meant death.

Mine.

Lourdes’s.

Bridget’s.

Jack’s.

My chest clenched as I heard his boots pounding somewhere behind me.

I swung the wrench even harder.

With each blow, reality came crashing in.

The slight but unexpected chill in the air.

The smell of the grass and trees and the rich farmland soil.

All familiar too, but now cut with the sickening stench of the dead.

“You’re going to get killed!” Caitlin yelled from where she ran about fifty feet in front of me.

Obviously.

But I couldn’t begrudge her for saying what I was thinking.

Or rather, what I would have been if I could think about anything.

But I couldn’t think.

Couldn’t even be afraid.

All I could do was fight the death that marched toward us.

I wouldn’t win.

But I wouldn’t quit, either.

“Asia!”

I risked turning my gaze away from the approaching horde and toward the sound of Jack’s voice.

He was ten feet behind me, even closer to those things, but the distance felt like a thousand miles.

“Take them and get inside!” he barked as he ran.

I sprung into action, my natural obedience to Jack’s commands as familiar as this farmland by now.

Maybe if I lived, I’d try to figure out why that kind of obedience felt so natural. So right. Because even after everything, it should have terrified me how easily I fell in line when he commanded. How my body moved before my brain questioned it. How some dark part of me wanted him to demand more.

But that was a problem for later.

Assuming later came.

I refocused on the others, waving toward the porch railing. “Into the house, everybody!”

“They’ll tear that thing down,” Caitlin called back.

“Maybe, but we don’t have any other choice. Go!” I pointed at the house to emphasize my point.

To my surprise, Caitlin ran harder. I watched as Miles, Lourdes, and Bridget did the same.

Elliot was a step or two ahead of me, holding his own weapon, but looking conflicted about whether he wanted to use it.

“Go, Elliot,” I said low, urgently, sweat stinging my eyes as I kept moving.

He nodded and then ran in earnest.

I glanced back at Jack. His long, powerful strides were a thing of the past.

In fact, he stood still.

My heart quivered—literally fucking quivered—as I stared at him.

“What the hell are you doing?” My voice grated out of my throat low, my shock making it impossible for me to scream.

He didn’t answer. He was busy jamming his knife into the eye of one of the zombies.

“Get them to the house. I’ll buy you some time.”

I found my voice. “Jackson!”

“Not the time to argue, Counselor,” he said, still focused on the zombie he’d just killed.

He pulled the knife out, only frowning a little bit when the black goo splashed on his shoe.

Jack was right.

It wasn’t time to argue.

So I didn’t.

I looked back to make sure the others were going to the house.

Then I turned to Jack and lifted my pipe.

Jack glared at me. “Get your ass to the house, Asia!”

For as stoic as he was, Jack’s expression hid very little.

The way he looked at me now made me shiver with fear.

He was furious, as angry as I’d ever seen him.

But it wasn’t just anger. There was something feral in his eyes, something consuming.

It told me I was his.

Promised punishment for disobeying.

My stomach flipped, and it wasn’t with fear.

The moment broke when something flashed at the corner of my eye.

“Watch out!” I yelled.

One of those things shambled toward him, and Jack spared a moment to frown at me before he went back to work.

I swung again, noting how this zombie’s skull was a little bit softer than the last.

It kinda reminded me of the ten pound vats of mozzarella cheese I’d made at the factory job I’d worked between college and law school.

I hadn’t eaten pizza in years because of that job.

Wouldn’t ever eat it again because of everything that had happened.

But that realization didn’t stop me from swinging again.

Neither did the wave of nausea that washed over me as the crowd of zombies drew closer.

But it wasn’t like I had a choice.

I could be squeamish, or I could die.

Let all the others—let Jack—die, too.

I grunted again when I swung this time and didn’t even look at the zombie I took down.

“We gotta try to lead them away,” Jack whispered urgently.

My mind raced as I tried to think of next steps.

My gaze landed on the rolling green hills circled with wire and wooden posts. “Maybe the pasture.”

Barbed wire ran along the sloped hills to our right. It wasn’t perfect, but there was a fence there. Might give us some protection. Plus, the horses—my aunt’s horses—might be enough of a diversion.

Jack nodded and then moved.

“It’ll buy some time,” I said.

Those things followed, their unnerving footsteps, that inescapable stench of death trailing behind us. I couldn’t hold back my sigh of relief.

It was premature, because we were still in a world of shit.

But it was something.

I risked taking a moment to look and saw that the others had reached the house and gone inside. None of the windows were broken, and the door frame looked undamaged.

Not surprising.

One of the things Uncle Levi said he loved about this town, other than the space and the peace and quiet, was that feeling that you didn’t have to keep your doors locked.

I’d always told him he was just looking for an excuse to use one of the arsenal of weapons he kept at the ready.

Uncle Levi had just laughed and reminded me that two things could be true at once.

I hoped an armed response wasn’t waiting for my friends, but I couldn’t be preoccupied with that now.

“They’re getting closer,” I whispered, my voice rough and wavering with urgency.

Jack, as always, was unbothered. “Yeah, but it’s working.”

You’d think I would be used to it now—his absolutely unshakable calm under the most awful circumstances.

I wasn’t.

I couldn’t even begin to comprehend how he maintained his composure, especially when I was barely hanging on.

It was a literal miracle that I hadn’t pissed myself yet. Another point in pride’s favor, I supposed.

“If we can get in—”

Jack was cut off by an angry and oh so welcomed voice.

“You trying to tear down my fences, girl?” Uncle Levi yelled.

My gaze moved wildly as I searched for him. Settled on the figure in the gravel and dirt driveway in front of the house.

He’d never been taller than five eight on a good day, but at this distance, he looked a touch shorter.

He was thin, save for the little gut Aunt Kathleen had lovingly teased him about. Even at this distance, I saw the frown on his face. He shook his head as he stared at me.

He was disappointed.

“Move it!” an unfamiliar man yelled.

That’s when I noticed the other men behind him.

Ten of them, loaded up into two trucks, dust hanging in the air behind them.

And armed to the teeth.

“Jack…” I said.

“Got it.”

He took one more of those things out with another slash-stab and then grabbed my hand.

Not gently.

His fingers locked around my wrist like a shackle, tight enough that I’d still feel it tomorrow.

If there was a tomorrow.

Together we ran, ducking the crowd and hiding behind the gathered trucks.

I think Jack was still moving when the first shot went off.

It was loud enough to drown out the moans—piercing what had been an almost peaceful day, save the horde of zombies.

I should have been used to gunshots, too, but this was something different.

The shots that had become so normal were different. Random volleys that screamed of desperation before fading into the background like a twisted soundtrack to this catastrophe.

These shots were organized.

Efficient.

I didn’t linger on the fact that the cacophony of shots didn’t make me feel any safer.

It was over quickly.

In less than two minutes, the horde that was about to kill us all and destroy my uncle’s pasture was reduced to piles of bodies, some still steaming from the bullets they were riddled with.

I risked searching for Jack, and my gaze found him easily. He stared at me across the blood-soaked grass, and I saw the rage—the promise—in his eyes.

I had disobeyed.

Stayed when he told me to run.

Jack wasn’t going to let that slide.

With that one glance, I knew it was time for the real reckoning.

I should have been afraid.

Instead, my pulse kicked with anticipation.