6. Chapter six #2
I narrow my eyes at him, but he doesn’t flinch, just grins at me. But he’s right about the passage deals, though…
“I think I know where to go,” I grumble, before lighting up a smoke, not missing how his gaze focuses on my mouth, either.
“Where?” he asks before swallowing, gaze darting up to meet mine again, blinking the haze away.
Yeah, noticing that as well.
“The docks. If passages are being bought, that’s where it happens.”
“You think any boatman’s gonna spill for you?”
“They’ll spill,” I say, dragging smoke deep into my lungs. “One way or another.”
I push toward the harbor, Kieran falling in at my trail, but something shifts in the air. A ripple through the crowd. It’s small at first, easy to miss if you don’t know what to look for.
But I know what to look for.
Shoulders jerk, heads snap like they heard a sound the rest of us didn’t. Bronze tags glint at their throats. The Touched. Always the first to feel it, like their nerves are tuned to some frequency the rest of us can’t hear.
Their eyes skitter skyward, and that’s what drags mine up too.
The clouds are changing. Dark, bruised, bleeding red as they roll in heavy and fast. I catch it a split second before the warning roars split the square.
The sirens.
Get inside. Get safe. Don’t. Get. Wet.
The square’s covered, mostly. There are tarps stretched between buildings, cloth nailed into crooked frames, scraps meant to keep the worst of it out.
But rain and salt eats through everything eventually, and everyone knows it.
The chaos kicks up fast. Stalls close with frantic hands, traders grab what they can, kids shriek as they’re dragged under awnings and into houses.
I throw my cigarette away, grab Kieran by the arm and haul him over the cobbled street into the nearest doorway just as he nearly eats shit, tripping over those motherfucking flip-flops.
I swear to the fucking gods…
He stumbles against me, breath sharp in my ear, and I have no time to think about how that feels—hot, too close, too easy to get used to—before I shove him further inside. His eyes flash at me like he wants to protest, but I’m already gone.
Out where the tarp doesn’t reach.
I stop dead center in the square, smoke still bitter on my tongue, and tilt my head back just as the first drops fall. One lands smack dab between my eyes.
I close them, inhale deep, and let the scent hit me… Iron, rot, and something sharp enough to cut straight through me. Settling me.
The red rain. The purge that gutted the world and left it bleeding. It doesn’t scare me like it does everyone else.
It soothes me. It grounds me.
Each drop is a reminder that everything out here ends eventually, that nothing lasts.
It’s the only thing that’s ever felt right.
At least… it was.
Not until I met that golden-haired little fucker did something else managed to crawl under my skin and stay there.
I glance back toward the shop. Catch him in the doorway, Kieran .
Watching me from where he’s safe under the awning, eyes wide, mouth set, like he doesn’t know whether to drag me in for safekeeping or not.
Like he knows I’m Immune, but won’t believe it until he sees it.
His curls are damp from the insistent heat, plastering to his forehead, and for a second too long, I can’t tear my eyes away.
But I fucking have to.
Because sometimes, when the red rain hits you, the change can come fast. It could take mere minutes to turn Walker, but most of the time it doesn’t.
Same for the Touched. Some slip straight into full Walkers the moment it soaks through their skin.
It’s not common, but it’s possible. Which means I have to stay sharp.
I unsheathe Whisper, the blade singing free, and focus on my surroundings.
I couldn’t give a flying fuck about most of the people here, but I’m not letting diseased, rotting, zombie scum get anywhere near him .
I’m not the only one in the rain. No. I might be the only Immune bastard, but the Touched are drawn to it, pulled like moths to fire.
Some are heading for the Den where they’ll fuck and fight the sickness out of their system, some go inside their homes to lock themselves away until the frenzy and worst of it passes.
To each their own.
I flip the sword once, twice, the weight familiar in my palm.
Around me, the normals stay hidden, huddled in shops, keeping their mouths shut.
Doesn’t matter that we’re in the busiest part of Ibitha, smack dab in the middle of the market.
Out here in the rain, it’s just me, the blade, and whatever the storm spits out.
The square empties to silence, just scraps of fabric snapping in the wind, crimson puddles swelling dark on the cobbles.
I breathe in deep and listen .
Beyond the sirens still blaring, beyond the steady drip drip drip of red rain sliding down canvas, gutters, rooftops.
Listening is survival. Always has been.
I spare a glance back to Kieran. He’s gripping the banister inside the shop, knuckles white, eyes fixed on me while the rain runs in rivulets down my face. Wide, unblinking, drinking me in. I don’t know if it’s horror keeping him there, or awe, or something else entirely.
I scoff, heat curling sharp in my chest. He’s got no idea what kind of monster he’s staring at. And I’ve got no business caring either way.
That’s when I hear it.
A wet, snapping snarl, loud and hungry.
Then, a scream.
It’s close. Too close.
My attention jerks to one of the bakeries. It’s the one Tass raids every morning for our bread. The shop right next fucking door to where Kieran is. My gut knots.
A child bursts out, no older than eight, sprinting like his life depends on it, terror on his face.
Rain slicks his skin crimson, and before he can slip away, one of the sellers who was just gutting fish snags his arm with her gloved hands.
She doesn’t pull him close, doesn’t shield him, just pushes him back under her awning, careful to keep herself dry.
She nods my way, sharp and quick, like she knows I’ll handle the mess.
Fuck. A small part of me hopes the rain could spare him, and he doesn’t turn Touched. But hope’s a damn luxury. With that much red soaking through, it’s as good as a death sentence, the virus already in his veins. He’s already doomed.
But no time to think about that.
I bolt forward, Whisper gripped in both hands, and raise the blade over my shoulder. A fucking warrior in his element, storm roaring in my ears, blood and steel ready to dance.
The Walker lurches out of the bakery. Still a woman, meat not yet sagging off her bones, freshly turned. Her movements are already jerky, that twitching stagger that gives them away, and her teeth snap in the air like she’s already biting down on a phantom throat.
I recognize her. The kid’s grandmother.
One of the long-haul Touched, clinging on for more than a decade. Held herself together longer than most, but the rain finally finished her.
She’s fast, too fast for a seventy-year-old. The virus sharpens her, snaps her joints into motion, and she darts for the booth where the boy cowers.
His eyes are huge, locked on her, on me, pupils blown wide with terror.
I whistle sharp, cut across her path. Her head snaps to me. Her eyes have that unmistakable shimmer. That dead, hungry glow.
And I grin. Fucking finally. “Hello there, granny. You wanna dance?”
Of course she charges. They always fucking do.
I don’t care that this Walker was once a person. I don’t care that the boy is watching me about to carve his kin apart, tears cutting clean lines through the red streaking his face. All I care about is how my blood thrums at the sight of her, how my chest cracks open with the rush.
I thrive in this lawless, immoral world. I thrive where chaos reigns and blood flows freely, where survival isn’t about how good you look on paper but how viciously you can fight.
I don’t just survive; I fucking dominate.
And she’s going to learn just how vicious I can be.
She comes at me low, hands swiping for my gut. I twist sideways, Whisper flashing as I slash down, shaving a strip of meat from her forearm.
She doesn’t falter. None of them ever do.
She comes at me again, teeth clacking so close to my cheek I feel the spray of her spit. I pivot, let her momentum carry her past me, then whip the blade across her back, severing an arm in the process.
The crowd inside the shops is silent, the whole market holding its breath. I hear Kieran shout my name, muffled through the rain, and I know I should and could end it sooner, that he’s seeing the worst of me, but I just don’t fucking want to.
I spin Whisper in my grip, showy as fuck, and meet her head-on, can’t contain the fucking smirk, the fucking glee .
When she lunges for the third time, I kick her square in the chest, send her sprawling, then raise Whisper high. For a heartbeat I let her crawl toward me—twitching, jerking, refusing to stop. This is the part I live for. The second before the end…
I take a deep breath, then bring the blade down. Hard.
Whisper cleaves clean through her spine, severing the head. When her eyes glaze over, shimmer fading into nothing, I exhale. The itch inside me finally scratched.
Fucking Walkers.
I once asked Tass why the fuck we let the Touched live… Why not end them the moment they’re marked, when they’re carriers, doomed to turn? Cull them early, remove the risk.
She ignored me for a week, then finally screamed at me. Asked me if I thought she didn’t deserve to breathe, to love, to scrape together some kind of life. Asked if I had a shred of humanity left.
Humanity . If you’d asked me a month ago? No. I would’ve laughed in your face. But now… now there’s him. Golden hair, quick tongue, stubborn as hell. Kieran. The one thing I can’t seem to cull out of my own head, no matter how hard I try.
It’s easier to cull Walkers instead.