Chapter Eighteen
B y the time we make it back to the church, I’ve moved past sadness and into anger.
I know a lot of it is down to frustration.
No one else has seen any sign of Dane, as far as I can tell, and I leave it to Mason to tell the other townspeople what we’ve found because I know it’s going to be difficult enough to break it to Rae and the others.
I’m angry at Mason, too, for not telling me everything about the town days ago. Clearly, Dane was sent to look for something here. The fact that we were sent so far away makes sense now.
What was he looking for? The necromancer? Mason says they’re long gone, but maybe that isn’t true.
Would Mason even know?
I storm into the empty church. Mason lingers with the others for a moment, but Emma is by his side when he comes closer.
“Did you know?” I ask her.
She blinks in surprise but doesn’t miss a step. “Sorry?”
“About the necromancer? Did you know?”
Emma frowns as she looks between me and Mason. “You told him?”
Mason opens his mouth, but I get there first. “Yes, he told me. You all knew? You knew everything we were talking about was a lie?”
Emma shrugs. “Yes. There’s no virus. Never was.”
“And you just—”
“You don’t know what it was like here,” she snaps, but then her eyes stray to the bag Mason is still holding and her expression falters into something more sympathetic. “And that has nothing to do with all that’s happened anyway.”
I growl and fight the urge to kick something. “It does if that’s why we were sent here in the first place.”
Mason looks at me curiously. “What do you mean?”
I shake my head. I can hear Rae’s and Autumn’s voices outside the church. Emma throws her hands into the air and stalks away.
Rae drops onto a pew when she reaches us. “Anything?”
I indicate Otto’s war hammer, and she shakes her head in disbelief. Autumn goes pale.
“That’s not all,” I murmur.
“What is it?”
“We found…”
Mason has drifted away with Emma, still with the bag, and I can’t stop looking at it, remembering what’s inside.
“Otto’s dead.”
Autumn sits heavily next to Rae, who shakes her head again. “That’s not—”
“He’s dead ,” I say, tone too harsh, but I can’t help myself. I close my eyes for a second. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I just—”
“His body?”
We need his ID if we’re to go back. Need to account for the dead. “I don’t know where it is.”
Autumn frowns, voice so quiet when she asks, “How do you know he’s dead?”
I glance at the bag again. I can’t fight the urge.
Rae follows my gaze and presses her lips together, eyes filling with tears. “In there?”
“Yeah.”
“Zombies didn’t do this.”
“I know.”
I sit down next to them both, resting my bat against the wood. Emma and Mason are speaking in harsh whispers over by the wall, and Callum has joined them, expression shifting to something thunderous. After a few minutes, Emma turns on her heel and goes down the stairs. Mason rolls his eyes.
I drag mine away. We’re really not equipped to deal with this, despite everything we can usually handle.
“Why were we sent here?” I ask Rae.
“To clear the town,” she says, but she sounds uncertain. After a long moment of silence, she adds, “I don’t know. I thought it was strange, too.”
“Why?”
“Aside from Autumn, we’re all pretty senior. I can count the number of times I’ve worked with Dane on one hand.”
“Why else?”
“It’s too far. Cut off if we did clear it because there are so many towns between here and the Citadel that are still crawling with the fuckers. And…”
“And?”
“And…” She hesitates, then blows out a breath. Autumn is silently crying, one hand pressed against her lips. “I had a strange meeting before I came here. With the higher-ups. They asked what I knew of the outbreak, where zombies come from, things like that.”
“What did you say?”
“What we all know. What I remembered. They dismissed me after that and told me to expect the job the next day.”
I sigh, drawing one knee up and resting a booted foot on the pew. They were fishing, then, and whatever they were fishing for, they found it in Dane.
Maybe Blake? My eyes alight on him when he walks down the aisle, and he shakes his head. “Nothing?”
“Otto’s dead,” I say, and Blake comes to an abrupt stop, eyes widening when I indicate Otto’s war hammer with a wave of my hand.
“Where’d you find it?”
I explain the town hall, the bag that Mason is holding. The strangeness of it all.
“You really found nothing else in there? No sign of Dane?”
“Nothing at all.”
Blake sighs. He drops onto his sleeping bag and studies the three of us, and that same banked fear I see in Rae’s gaze is reflected in his, too. “What now? We just wait around for one of us to be taken?”
“No,” Rae says. She leans forward and Autumn watches her with rapt attention. “Now we watch each other’s backs. Eyes on each other at all times and tell each other where we’re going.”
“Otto was right there ,” Autumn says in a small voice.
“Yeah, and Isaac keeps fucking off to fu—”
“Enough,” Rae snaps. “Both of you. This is what we’re going to do, all right? And all si—five of us will be back on that train.”
Blake glares at her, but I’m not certain it’s necessarily out of malice. The three of us, at least, know it isn’t that simple. Dane didn’t take food or water with him, and Otto was taken after him, so if he’s dead, then—
“Isaac,” Nia says from the stairs. Emma stands just behind her, and when I glance at Mason, he looks furious . “Could I have a moment, please?”
Rae grabs my sleeve. “Be careful,” she murmurs.
I nod and she lets go. The three of them watch every step I take as I cross the church, and I’m not at all surprised that Mason is half a step behind when I reach Nia.
“Both of you, then,” Nia says. Fury sparks in her eyes, too. Clearly, Mason wasn’t supposed to tell me anything at all.
We descend the steps in silence. Mason puts his hand on my lower back as we follow Nia through the tunnels, never going in the familiar direction of Mason’s room.
There’s far more space down here than I expected, and it isn’t long before I realise it would be difficult for me to find my way back out again.
Mason would help. I think.
Nia pushes open a dark wooden door at the end of one of the tunnels. The room inside is small, crowded with a heavy desk and chairs, as well as a large cabinet in the corner. Emma doesn’t follow her inside. She ushers us past instead, then reaches over to close the door behind us.
Not ominous at all.
Nia takes a seat behind the desk. She gestures at the other two. “Sit.”
I do, but Mason does not. He sets the bag on Nia’s desk, then stands behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders. I fight the urge to lean into that touch, though I’m sure it doesn’t matter. Everyone knows what we’ve been up to.
“What do you know?” Nia asks.
I hesitate. Mason squeezes my shoulders.
“I know there’s magic here,” I say. “I know what we were told about the virus, all of it… It’s a lie.”
“And what’s the truth?”
I lick my lips. “A necromancer. Someone raised the dead.”
Nia sighs and leans back in her chair. She pinches the bridge of her nose like my answer pains her. “Mason, what were you thinking?”
“His teammates are missing. One is dead. He needs to know the truth.”
“The truth,” she says, tone lightly mocking. She hasn’t so much as looked at the bag, though I’m certain she knows what’s inside. “You know the necromancer has nothing to do with this .”
“Magic, I mean. He needed to know about that.”
Nia glares at him again. “Because he would have figured it out otherwise.”
She doesn’t say it like a question. Mason’s grip on me never tightens, and his breathing stays even. He’s calm, even in the face of her anger.
Nia might run this town, and I’ve no doubt of that, but she doesn’t tolerate Mason or allow him to live here—she can’t get rid of him, even if she wants to.
“What now?” I ask.
“We need to get to the bottom of this,” Nia says.
“And as of tonight, your team will be staying down here with the rest of us. Zombies can’t come onto church grounds, but we have no idea who took your teammates and, obviously, the threat has become even more serious.
Mason, you and Emma will secure the door once everyone’s inside. ”
“What if they’re already down here with us?” I ask.
“What?”
“Who else could be in this town? You’d know if any other survivors were here.”
“It’s not one of us,” Mason says softly. “We need to find them too. What happens when they run out of your team to take?”
I tighten my hands on the arms of the chair. He’s right, but I don’t like it. Something else is going on here.
“We’ll start again at first light tomorrow,” Nia says. “Get some rest.”
Mason squeezes my shoulders again and when he steps back, I stand. Nia’s attention is already off both of us, and she doesn’t look up as we open the door and walk out.
“Tell the team they’re staying down here tonight,” Mason says to Emma. “Don’t take no for an answer.”
She looks between the two of us, then nods, taking off down the tunnel.
“I should—” I begin, but Mason shakes his head.
“Let her handle it. They’ll listen. You all know it’s not safe.”
“You said it would be.”
Mason frowns and then pushes me gently back, crowding me in until I bump into the wall. He towers over me this close—or, at least, it feels that way.
“ You will always be safe with me, little lamb. I’ll never let anyone hurt you.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Why can’t I?”
“You can’t be with me all the time. When I go back—”
He cuts my words off with an almost violent kiss, one hand cupping the back of my neck and squeezing hard. It hurts, but it’s grounding, and Mason’s grip only tightens at the broken moan I make against his mouth.
“Mason…”
“Worry about all that later,” he says. “Come with me now.”
Half dazed, I nod and follow him along the strange, winding route back towards his room. We pass the stairs, and Autumn is already halfway down them. She comes to a sudden stop, eyes wide and lingering on our clasped hands.