Chapter Fifteen
O tto doesn’t come with us that day. I don’t see him at all while the sun is up. By the time Mason and I are fully dressed again, it’s time to leave, and Callum comes to let Mason know he’s keeping Otto below.
Dane scowls and mutters something under his breath, but from the expressions Blake and Autumn are wearing, I know at least some of us are relieved.
I’m still worried. What if he has turned? What if something’s gone wrong? Mason keeps a certain distance between us now that we’re back among the others, and I’m grateful for it, but I already crave his reassurance that Otto is healthy and whole.
We find no zombies, either, which does nothing to help with the anxious energy building in my chest. Blake is a snarl wrapped up in a jacket, with even Dane telling him to knock it off at one point.
I know I’m walking too fast as we take the hill back up to the church. Mason keeps pace with me. Rae has been shooting us both looks all afternoon, but when I glance back at her now, the same worry that’s gripping my chest is reflected in her expression.
Will Otto still be there?
“He’s fine, Isaac,” Mason says in an undertone, and I give him a sharp look.
“How did you—”
He smiles faintly. “You worry about your friends.”
Friend. Again, friend. I’m still not sure if that’s what Otto and I are, but I am worried about him. About the rest of us, too. With daylight and some distance, I’m aware that Mason only raised more questions this morning and gave me hardly any answers.
How did he heal my face? How has he avoided the zombies? Why are the zombies only reappearing now, since we’ve arrived?
Nia is waiting for us inside the church. She stands gracefully from one of the pews when I step inside and smooths down her trousers. Dane walks around and past me, but she hardly looks at him.
“I’ve come to extend an invitation to you all to eat with us tonight,” she says, and Dane scoffs outright.
“You know what you’ve got down there,” he all but spits. “We’re not coming.”
I scowl at him. The townspeople who came up from below today, at least the ones I saw, didn’t look scared or concerned. They have to know Otto is among them. It’s not like there are enough of them that he could hide.
“Otto is fine. Healthy. He does have some concerns about your reaction to him.” This time, Nia does pin Dane with a look, and he scowls right back.
“We won’t hurt him,” I say, and Blake scoffs, but Rae must do something behind me because he doesn’t say anything.
“We won’t ,” she agrees, challenge clear in her voice.
“Dinner?” Nia prompts.
I pull a face. It’s a worse idea to leave Dane and Blake up here alone—not a chance one will go without the other—than it is to say no to dinner.
She reads the no from my expression, at least. From Rae’s too, I gather. Nia sighs and exchanges a look with Mason. “Very well. I will see you all tomorrow, then.”
She strides over to the door and descends the stairs. Dane huffs, tossing his hatchet onto his sleeping bag, then glares when he sees Mason still standing there.
“The fuck are you still doing here?”
Mason gives him a sly, dangerous smile. “Thinking about what I might have for dinner, too.” His eyes simmer with heat when he casts me one final look before he slips over to the stairs and follows Nia.
I swallow down any emotion that threatens to show on my face. Dane stares at me all the same, then makes another frustrated sound before Blake pushes past me from behind.
Neither of them has said anything about my face. Maybe they think Blake didn’t hit me hard enough to leave a mark. That’s fine by me. Not like I want to talk about it, either.
Autumn slips past me, keeping a lot more distance between the two of us, and I feel Rae’s presence before a gentle hand drops on my shoulder.
“Everything all right?” Rae murmurs. Our voices carry in here, despite the holes in the roof sounds can escape through, so she keeps hers low.
“Yeah.” I lean against the pew next to me. “I really think Otto is okay, you know?”
“So do I.”
I blink at her in surprise.
Rae gives me a little shrug, axe resting against her legs. “I don’t know what’s going on here, and frankly, I don’t care to find out. It’s well above our pay grade.”
Dane and Blake are having their own muttered conversation up by the altar. Autumn kneels on her sleeping bag, going through her pack. She doesn’t have her back to them, and her shoulders are tense.
“Do you think Dane knows?” I ask, trying to scratch an itch in the back of my mind. Why would he bring up the virus? Is he trying to catch one of us out, to report us when we get back to the Citadel? Seems like a lot of work when he could just try to kill us out here.
“He knows about you and Mason, at least,” Rae replies. “Be careful there.”
“You—”
“I don’t mean it any which way except for how I say it. Tell Mason. Dane is already on edge. Watch for him tipping over it.”
My hackles are already raised, so I try to lower them. I know what she means. It’s not my fault that Dane is fixated on me, but I already know he’s acting strangely, considering how he threatened the others last night.
“I’m aware. I won’t let anything happen to her.”
Rae huffs. “I’ve got Autumn well in hand. Besides, I think Dane might be in for a surprise if he targeted her. He’ll be sneakier with you. Don’t let him be.”
“Got it.”
Rae and Autumn take the first watch. Rae says she’ll take the last with me, leaving Dane and Blake to take the middle, but I have no intention of letting them wake her.
Callum is up here anyway, and though I don’t see Mason again before I bed down for the night, I get the feeling that if anything does happen, he’ll be up here before I know it.
I dream of him. Or of something that feels like him anyway. It’s all sharp claws and gnashing teeth, tearing into my skin, and I let it because I want him to take me apart and put me back together again.
When Dane’s hand lands on my shoulder, I startle awake, breathing hard. He gazes down at me, grin crooked. “Having fun?”
Heat claws its way into my face, and I sit up with a sound of annoyance. Blake is already lying down, and Rae is still asleep. Small mercies. Callum stands over by the church doors, one cracked open as he stares out into the night.
“I’m up,” I say. “Go rest.”
Dane doesn’t move or let go. His weight shifts as he gets more comfortable in his crouch. My shoulders tense.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“To fuck.” The bluntness of his words surprises me, even if it shouldn’t. I know what he wants. I’ve always known what he wanted.
“No.”
“You’ll let that pale little freak fuck you but not me?”
I don’t know how he worked it out, though I suppose we weren’t really discreet. I don’t care. It’s none of his business and I’m tired of all of it. My fingers close around the handle of my bat, and I don’t know when I moved my hand.
“Let go or I’ll fucking kill you,” I snarl, for once truly meaning it.
Dane bares his teeth. Working out his chances? He has size and weight on me, and he’s possibly as vicious, but we both know I won’t go down without a fight. I can’t grab my knife without him noticing. Blake might not be fully out yet. Callum might choose to stay out of it.
“Touchy,” Dane says, and there might be no edge in his voice, but it’s clear in his eyes. He lets go of my shoulder, raising his hands so they’re level with his shoulders. “I’d make you feel better than he did. I can promise you that.”
“We’re not talking about this.” I lift my bat and rest it over my knees.
Dane’s eyes track it, and his hand tightens on his hatchet. Callum moves from the church door but doesn’t close it. He keeps to the shadows, but I feel like his gaze is on us.
“Go the fuck to sleep. I’ll keep watch.”
Dane shifts his weight again, cocking his head to one side as he thinks. “Come on,” he says, tone wheedling. His eyes travel the length of me, and even though I’m wearing a T-shirt and am otherwise covered by my sleeping bag, my skin crawls. “I promise it’ll be good.”
Violence sparks in his expression when I raise my bat.
“Dane, I swear to fuck—”
“Enough,” a cold voice says.
My heart skips a beat at the sight of Mason standing over us. I didn’t hear him come in, didn’t even know he was outside at all. His cheeks are faintly flushed from the cold.
Dane scowls up at him, too. Seems like he didn’t hear Mason leave in the first place. He pushes to his feet all at once, an explosive move, but Mason doesn’t step back or back down.
“You turned him against us,” he snarls, and I’m struck by the similarities between what he’s saying and what Blake said before he hit me. “You shouldn’t go anywhere near him.”
“That’s not up to you,” Mason replies. “It’s up to Isaac.”
“Bullshit! This is my team. I protect them.”
He didn’t protect Otto, though. Didn’t kill the zombie after, either. He won’t see him now but—as far as I know—he hasn’t been down to kill him.
His team, too. I shake my head and climb out of my sleeping bag, dragging a pair of jogging bottoms over my briefs before I step up between them.
“Stop it,” I say. “You’ll wake the others. Dane, go to sleep.”
Dane growls. He wants to push past me and get to Mason, I know that, but now there are three of us, Callum looming not far away, and though Callum might not step in for me, we’re both sure he will for Mason.
Not that Mason needs it. He exudes the same quiet confidence he has every time he’s faced off against Dane, and I know that’s what’s making Dane angrier.
“You should listen, Dane,” Mason says, and a tickle of something trails down my spine.
Dane’s eyes widen before his expression hardens and he raises his hatchet. I secure my grip on my bat. I can take him out at the knees before his hit connects.
“You fucking—”
“Go to sleep,” I say, a little louder than I mean to. It seems to snap Dane out of it, at least in as much as he actually looks at me, blinking like he’s coming out of a trance.
“Isaac…”
“No. Sleep.”