TWELVE #2
My cap chooses that moment to be an inconvenient little shit, slipping slow once more. I jerk my head back to keep it on and, for one horrifying second, my fingers lose their grip. My boots hit the lower balcony hard, the sound echoing along with the flare of pain that bursts through my knee.
I collapse sideways into a bunch of broken plant pots, clay shattering under my weight with an obnoxious sound.
My cap falls off my head and everything suddenly stops.
The world keeps moving, obviously. Zeds continue to groan below, the helicopter is still burning away somewhere behind the buildings, Alphas are shouting, Runners are screaming from somewhere near the park.
But everything inside me grows painfully silent as I watch the old faded ball cap land on the edge of the balcony, tip only once before the wind sends it sailing over the ledge, and it drops.
“No,” I breathe, pain twisted in that single word.
It falls into the courtyard below and my chest feels too tight.
Because that’s Maine’s hat. Not just a hat, or just a random bit of fabric.
It’s not replaceable. It’s Maine’s. The stupid faded cap he wore on supply runs.
The one he shoved on my head before he left, because he knew my hair was too bright and easy to spot.
The one that somehow still managed to smell like him for a whole year after he left, maybe longer than that when I held it close and lied to myself hard enough. Freshly cut grass. Sweat. Brother.
The one thing he left me that didn’t rot, turn, or fucking break.
“No, no, no,” I whisper-chant.
I lunge for the railing just as a Zed slams into the balcony below, lured over by the sound of breaking plant pots. Another follows, and then another, until the courtyard fills with stumbling bodies ambling through overgrown flower beds and around rusted garden chairs.
The cap lies near a cracked fountain, dark with rain, and inches from a Zed’s dragging foot.
My heart feels like it’s shredding itself apart, and I can’t stop myself. I start to climb down just as a hand reaches for the balcony opposite mine.
Kaito.
He hauls himself over the neighboring unit, face pale and one hand pressed briefly to his side before he straightens.
His gaze finds mine first, and then he follows my gaze down.
He sees the hat, and understanding fills those dark eyes.
He doesn’t understand all of it, but it’s enough that he knows what I just lost.
“Kota,” he says quietly, and I almost choke on the despair wringing every ounce of control in me.
“Don’t,” I whisper back haggardly.
His jaw tightens, but I can do nothing but watch the number of Zeds double. A Runner tears through the courtyard from the side of the park, knocking over two Rotters as it lunges toward the noise. The courtyard literally becomes a fiasco of teeth and limbs and hungry groans.
My fingers grip the railings tight enough that it aches. I can get it. I can. All I have to do is drop onto the awning, then the fountain, grab the hat, climb the drainpipe, and then cut through the next block.
I can do it.
Maybe.
Probably not, but I don’t care. I swing my leg over the railing, readying myself to risk everything for that fucking hat.
Kaito moves closer suddenly, not touching but close enough that I feel the heat pulsing from his body. “That route is dead.”
“So am I if I leave it behind,” I snap, teeth baring from behind my bandana.
He grows still, the words leaving me raw and ugly, and I despise that he hears them at all. I hate that they sit between us with all of their sad, bleeding truth.
Before he can answer, gunfire bursts from the courtyard entrance.
The scarred Alpha appears below, dropping two Zeds close to the fountain.
The one with hoop earrings moves behind him, firing effortlessly into the next wave of Zeds.
The Welsh one wearing headphones around his neck vaults a low wall, swears at something I can’t see, and kicks a Zed hard enough that it collides with three Rotters.
They’re good, I’ll give them that. I hate it, but that’s the least of my worries. Because the hat is still lying on the ground, and a Zed’s foot drags over the brim.
My vision blurs suddenly, just as I notice the Alpha wearing headphones around his neck sees it.
I have no idea how he does, maybe because my entire body jerks toward it like a compass needle.
Maybe because Kaito is looking at it, too.
Maybe because the universe is actually trying to see how many ways it can fuck me up in less than an hour.
The Welsh Alpha darts across the courtyard, ducks and swipes, grabbing the hat from the ground a mere second before the next Zed tramples it. My breath leaves me in a harsh whoosh of air.
Not with relief.
Certainly not with gratitude.
Pure horror coils through me, because now he has it. He has Maine’s hat.
My hand tightens around my knife, and Kaito looks at me, my hand, and then my eyes. “We can get it back.”
I turn on him so fast that he instantly stills. “I know.”
His dark eyes search mine and whatever he sees there makes him go very fucking quiet.
From below, scarred Alpha shouts something and all three Alphas start falling back toward the road, slicing and shooting their way through Zeds with efficient brutality.
They’re no longer chasing me down. Not fully, anyway.
The horde of Zeds has stolen their priority.
That and maybe the live pilot, the crash supplies, and their own stupid-ass survival.
The Welsh one keeps one hand near the hat inside his jacket as he runs. I don’t even think he knows what he’s holding, and that somehow makes it worse.
A Runner distracts me when it hits the fountain and launches itself toward the balcony supports. Kaito grabs my sleeve, making sure to only touch fabric and not my skin, before tugging me backward. I let him, only because the balcony under us lurches as the Runner slams into it.
“We need to move,” he orders.
I should snap at him for it, but I don’t. I’m too busy memorizing every step the new Alphas take. I map it all in my head. Through the courtyard. Past an old, burned car. Toward the back of the crash. Northwest.
Jaw clenched tightly, I shove through the balcony door into the apartment behind us, Kaito following close but not crowding.
My entire chest feels hollowed out and empty.
I can breathe, sure, but it doesn’t even feel like breathing at this point.
It feels like I’m dragging air over broken glass and it fucking hurts.
The apartment is thankfully empty, so I rush through it quickly, barely seeing the kitchen, the moldy curtains, the water-damaged floor.
My mind remains below, in the courtyard, on the hat vanishing into someone else’s jacket.
I climb through a broken window that leads onto another fire escape, then down to a lower roof over the building entrance.
Kaito follows, breathing a little hard now.
His side has definitely started bleeding again. I can smell it.
I tell myself I don’t care.
I fucking do.
I hate caring.