Chapter Seventeen
W e don’t find Otto. I give in some time in the early hours of the morning, when we’ve already walked around the entire town once. Mason is a stalwart and looks just as confused as I feel.
I think confusion is what has him sticking with me. I’m not sure he cares about Otto at all, but that’s fine. If it means he’ll keep me company and help me search, then I’m not going to argue.
“We’ll search again when it’s light,” I say eventually. All the adrenaline has seeped out of me, leaving me drained. Where can he be ? Why would he leave at all?
It can’t have been a zombie. They don’t move that quickly or that quietly.
But with Dane gone, too…
Mason steers me inside the church, where the others are waiting. One look at them tells me they’ve had no more rest than I have. Rae is sitting on a pew when we walk inside, but she leaps to her feet at the sight of me.
“You didn’t—”
“We’ll carry on in the morning,” Mason says. Sal’s sitting on the pew, not Callum, and his spine straightens when Mason looks at him. “Take them out at first light. We’ll join you as soon as we can.”
“Got it.”
No one argues—not even me—when Mason snatches up my pack and pushes me over towards the door. Blake glares, but there’s no real heat in it. Is he wondering what I am?
If someone or something is picking us off, if Dane and Otto didn’t wander off on their own, then who’s next?
That thought aside, I hold it together until Mason closes the door to his room. I sit heavily on the bed and drop my head into my hands. Mason puts my pack down and then sits beside me.
“We’ll find him.”
“Alive?”
He rubs my shoulder. I don’t like the non-answer. I don’t like any of this. We never should have come here, but if we hadn’t come here, then I wouldn’t have met Mason, and none of that matters because if we’re being set up or something strange is going on, there’s nothing I can do about it anyway.
“You need to rest,” Mason murmurs. He kisses my temple, then slides to the floor in a mirror of the position I took last night. I squeeze my eyes shut when he drags off one boot, then the other. I’m filthy and tired, and I just want—
“How can they both be gone?” I whisper. “I just don’t—Zombies don’t take someone like that. They can’t .”
Mason slips my jacket from my shoulders before he coaxes me to my feet. I lean on him as he unfastens my trousers and shoves them down, leaving me in a T-shirt and my underwear.
“There are worse things out there than zombies,” he murmurs. He looks frightfully pale even in the flickering candlelight, and I’m struck by the sudden urge to comfort him, too.
I don’t. I let him usher me into bed, then watch drowsily as he undresses and climbs in beside me. He wraps himself around me like he did last night, and the weight of him, the warmth, is just enough to quiet my mind.
“What if they come here?” I murmur.
“Who? Otto? Dane?”
“Whoever took them.”
Mason kisses my forehead and tucks me closer against him. “I told you, little lamb. I’ll kill them. I’ll kill them all just to keep you safe.”
I wake with gritty eyes and the faint, hazy headache that tells me I’m running on too little sleep. Mason is still wrapped around me, but as I begin to stir, so does he.
He blinks dark eyes at me, and I sigh, resting my forehead against his for a few seconds.
“Did I dream it all?”
“Dream what?”
“Dane’s missing. Otto, too.”
“I’m afraid not, little lamb. You want to go search?”
I hum, then nod. I need to. Fuck the zombies. I told Otto I’d take him home, and I meant it. Right now, I don’t care that we haven’t managed to clear this town. They’ve got the zombies in hand; we need to worry about our team.
“Come on,” Mason says. He runs his hand down my spine once before he untangles himself from me and gets to his feet. I flinch at the cold air that makes its way under the duvet, and Mason laughs quietly.
“’S cold.”
“It’ll get colder still.” Mason strides into the other room, out of sight. “The last few winters have been icy.”
I climb out of bed and dig another pair of trousers out of my bag. Before I can put them on, Mason is back, and I only protest a little when he steers me into the makeshift bathroom.
The water in the bowl is hot again and I narrow my eyes at him. “You did this the first time I was down here, didn’t you?”
“I like hot water.” Mason gives me a fleeting grin. “But I thought it might encourage you to stay. Now, stand still.”
I frown at him, heat creeping into my cheeks when he tugs my T-shirt off and submerges a cloth in the hot water. He has soap too, light and fragrant, the scent filling my nose as Mason lathers up the cloth and then presses it to my skin.
I gasp at the first gentle touch, and his eyes dart to mine. He isn’t asking if this is okay. It’s what he wants to do—what he needs to do, I think, by the way he drops his gaze and rubs circles over my skin. I tremble and reach out for the table to steady myself.
This feels…
This feels like being worshipped.
Mason doesn’t touch me, except for the cloth, which he uses to clean me from head to toe. Despite that, he’s not clinical. His eyes devour me, breaths quickening as he steps around me to wash my back.
“Mason…”
“Little lamb?”
“We should—We need to—” We need to get back out there. I glance at myself in the mirror. My mouth is half-open, eyes heavy-lidded. It’s not about sex. I’ve never been touched like this before.
He finishes and places the cloth in the water, which still steams. I see him standing behind me in the reflection of the glass and watch as he inclines his head, pausing with his lips a breath away from my shoulder.
His eyes meet mine. They glitter. My chest heaves with each breath.
I would worship him, too. On my knees, easily. I swallow hard when he finally touches me, his hand coming up to rest around my throat.
“You’re mine, little lamb,” he says, and I don’t argue. For the first time, I’m willing to admit to myself that I don’t want to. I want those icy winters and the sting of his teeth and magic strong enough to keep the zombies out and—
“I’m yours,” I agree, and he rewards me with a brush of his lips against my shoulder.
“Good. Get dressed. We need to find your wayward team members.”
I stumble back into the bedroom in a daze and drag clean clothes on. I’m sitting on the bed, re-lacing my boots, when Mason emerges. He’s entirely naked, unabashed, and I look at him once before I force my eyes away.
Mason chuckles but says nothing. He takes a dark shirt and trousers from a pile of the same and dresses far more efficiently than I just have.
“Why do you call me that?” I ask.
“What?”
“Little lamb.”
Mason blinks at me, understanding slowly washing over him. “You said you’re not religious.”
“You are?”
“No, no. Not now. My… My mother taught me an appreciation for the stories of it, if nothing else.”
“The lamb?”
“God asked Abraham to take his son to the top of Mount Moriah and sacrifice him. His son asked why they didn’t take a lamb with them, and Abraham said God would provide.”
“And then?” My heart jumps into my throat.
“Abraham tied his son to the altar. He was ready to do it. He had the knife in his hand. But then God told him not to. A lamb appeared in the brush. The test was of his faith—could he love God more than his own son?”
“He did.”
“Yes.”
“So why do you call me that?”
Mason smiles. “The son’s name was Isaac. The would-be sacrificial lamb.”
“You’d sacrifice me?”
Mason moves into my space, taking my face in his hands. “I would not be Abraham in that story, Isaac.”
“No?”
“I’d be God. And I would let Abraham prove his faith to me not because I cared about him , but because I’d want you to be mine.”
My next breath shudders out of me. Mason kisses the centre of my forehead, lips soft.
“Ready?”
I nod. I feel like I’ve been flayed open, so vulnerable, but I have to be ready. I have to find them.
Mason steps back, then brushes his hand against mine like he knows it.
I keep my grip on my bat tight and follow him up the stairs, into the church.
Autumn is still sleeping, but Blake and Rae are awake, speaking quietly with Nia, who has a clipboard tucked in the crook of her arm.
Sal and Callum wait further down the church, closer to the door.
“Nia’s organising teams to search,” Rae says as I approach. Ever-present anger contorts Blake’s expression when his sight falls on me, but tension lines his eyes. I doubt he slept much more than I did in the end. “She’s worried, too.”
Mason shifts on his feet next to me. “We all should be. Either something took them, or for some reason both of them wandered off on their own.”
“She’s got us in there?” I ask, indicating Nia with a jerk of my chin.
Rae nods. “I gave her our names this morning. I’ll wake Autumn. We’ll be ready with everyone else.”
“Thanks.” I leave them behind and walk over to Nia, who frowns at my approach. “You have something for me?”
“Yes.” I like that she doesn’t bother with small talk. It makes things easier. She looks at Mason and raises an eyebrow. “I take it you’re going with him?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Wright and Hoar. Got it. You’ll take the far side of Gravesend, from the school to the old town hall. I could add—”
“No,” Mason says quickly. “We’ll go alone.”
The purse of Nia’s lips tells me she doesn’t like that at all, but she doesn’t argue. Just waves us ahead, and I slip past Callum and Sal and out into the grey morning.
“We might be better with another person,” I say. Something nudges at the back of my mind. Something important.
“We won’t,” Mason replies. He pushes his hands into his pockets, then darts a look back at the church. “Come on. We know where we need to go.”
Mason sticks close as we descend into the town. Looking back, I see Rae, Autumn, and Callum heading through the gates. I don’t know if it’s better or worse that Blake will be working with strangers. At least they might take less of his shit.