Chapter Nineteen
I wake in Mason’s arms and for a moment, it feels like home. I’m sore, my body sated, and this room might be small, but it’s warm and safe and what if we did just stay here for the rest of our lives?
I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them again. Enough of that. I might have let myself get swept up in whatever connection I feel exists between me and Mason—and he might have, too—but now I have a job to do.
Find Dane. Keep the others safe. Make sure we’re all ready to get that train tomorrow.
Mason grumbles when I climb out of bed, so I kiss his forehead before I fumble on the lamp and start gathering up my clothes. It’s five, so it’ll be light soon.
He only stirs when I’m pulling my T-shirt over my head. “What time is it?”
“Quarter past five.”
“So early.”
I can’t help my faint smile. As scary as I’m sure he can seem to outsiders, he’s endearing like this, blinking sleep out of his eyes, hair all messed up. My chest swells at the red mark on his throat. I like that he kept it.
“I’ve got to go and look for him.”
“Five minutes.”
“Mason—”
“Five minutes, little lamb. I’m coming. I’m not leaving you out there alone.”
I sigh but wait for him to get dressed. It takes far longer than five minutes, of course, and I’m not at all surprised when he muscles into my space and takes my face in his hands for a kiss.
It’s slow, the kind of kiss that makes time feel strange and syrupy, and I grip his arms when my knees go weak.
“Mason—”
“We’ll do our best,” he says. “We’ll find him.”
“I need proof. I need Otto’s ID. Either way, I need to know so I can report back.”
“Because you’re planning to get on that train.” Mason closes his eyes and rests his forehead against mine. “You’d be angry if I truly kidnapped you, wouldn’t you?”
My lips twitch. I shouldn’t encourage him. I think he means most of the things he says, and it should be terrifying, but terrifying is what we found yesterday; terrifying is a horde of zombies trying to tear me to pieces; terrifying is our team being picked off one by one.
This is… some kind of comfort. Silly, perhaps. Not enduring. But it’s a comfort to think that someone out there cares this much for me, even if it may not be real.
“I would,” I say, voice hoarse.
Mason sighs. He kisses me again, a peck this time, then leans back. “Fine. Let’s go find your wayward team leader.”
Emma, Sal, and Callum join us on the search. We split into two groups instead of three because it’s unspoken, but we’re all aware that one of us might be taken.
It’s frustrating because Blake is with me and Mason—Emma and Callum heading off with Rae and Autumn—and Sal clearly has no interest in fielding Blake’s terrible mood.
I can’t blame him. It’s wearing on all of us now. Autumn is jumping at every sound, which considering the wind has picked up today, means she’s going to exhaust herself by noon.
“Check over there,” Mason says to Sal, who nods and heads for a house on the other side of the street. Blake growls something and follows him. We’re not splitting up exactly, but we need to cover the entire town again, if we can, to be sure we haven’t missed anything.
I follow Mason into another house. It’s as empty as the others, though Mason seeks out the cellar and the attic first. Nothing. He waves his hand, muttering something, and I know he’s using magic.
“Will that help?” I ask. We’re in the kitchen now, and Mason takes a moment to answer.
“Maybe.” He grimaces. “Like I said, I’ve never tried to track people before. We’ll see if it works or not.”
Blake’s aware now, of course. I think Nia or one of the others laid everything out for the three of them last night, while Mason and I were—Well. My cheeks heat. Not talking about that anyway.
It’s just another thing Blake is furious about. Another thing he doesn’t believe. I can’t blame him; it sounds farfetched at best and like a trick at worst.
“Come on. There’s nothing here.”
We search two more houses, then all four of us move from one street to another. There’s a shop here that Sal takes and a series of bungalows that Mason heads toward.
“What was it like?” I ask.
Mason opens the door to one of the bungalows and frowns. “What was what like?”
“Discovering you could do all this stuff.”
He shrugs. The carpet and wallpaper in here don’t look like they were updated for a good few decades before the zombies arrived. Before the curse. Like everywhere else, it smells like dust and damp.
“I always knew I was different.”
I nod, using my bat to push open the door that leads into the kitchen. Rae and Autumn took this area of Gravesend yesterday. They’re searching over where we were today.
Is that why he got magic? He was already different, and then when the necromancer’s curse rebounded, it knew to give something to him instead of… whatever it did to the rest of the people here?
“What happened when the necromancer’s curse hit?” I ask. “I mean, to the rest of you?”
Mason is quiet for too long. When I glance back at him, he’s wearing a contemplative expression.
“The graveyard was destroyed. No one knew that at first. I mean, they wouldn’t have cared anyway. The dead were rising. And when the magic rebounded, it—”
“It what?”
“It killed most people. Slowly. Zombies killed the rest, or they ran. And in the end, there were only us left. The ones with magic.”
“Nia, too?”
Mason nods. He comes closer, and when he reaches for me, I tug him into my arms. “Not as much as the rest of us. The younger we were, the stronger we became. Some ran because of us. They didn’t like what we’d become.”
“They ran.”
“We ran some out,” he admits. “They were a threat, but no point in killing them.”
“Fuck.” I turn my head and kiss his temple. “I’m sorry.”
“What happened to you?”
I huff a laugh and step back, running a hand through my hair. “I was only seven. I remember… chaos. My mum got us out of there. I mean, my dad too, but she was always more level-headed.”
“What happened to them?”
The next breath I take hurts. I’m always surprised by the pain of remembering because it’s been long enough that I think I shouldn’t feel that anymore.
“My mum signed up to hunt when the Citadel first asked for it. God, I would have been… twelve? Thirteen? It was only a few years after, and there were still so many survivors and zombies running around—” I sag back against the wall.
“She died on her tenth mission out. I was thirteen then, for sure. My dad… It broke him. He lasted another two years before he…”
I can’t say it. I still can’t say it. It’s been twelve years, so he’s been gone from my life for almost the same amount of time he was in it, but I can’t get those words out.
Mason moves closer and when I don’t shy away, he rests his head on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Isaac.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat. Somehow, the use of my name makes it more real. One tear escapes, but I brush it quickly away.
Of course the movement doesn’t go unnoticed. Mason lifts his head, eyes searching my face. “You’ve been alone all this time, haven’t you?”
I open my mouth. Only a whimper escapes and Mason moves so he’s standing in front of me, no room at all between us. He strokes his thumb over my cheekbone, other hand moving to grip my hip.
“I’d never leave you,” he says, and I know he means it.
“You might not have a choice. We live in a dangerous world.”
“And who’s to say I’m not the most dangerous person in it?” He kisses me so softly that the lump in my throat almost hurts, tears stinging behind my closed eyelids.
“Come on,” he says when we part. “Let’s find your team.”
We head back out, frustration growing with each building we enter that turns up nothing. Blake is more openly annoyed than I am, but for once I share his feelings—this makes no sense. I’m sure no one in this town took them, and I trust that Mason’s telling the truth about that.
He seems just as confused as the rest of us, is the thing. We meet up with Blake and Sal at the end of one street, and I shove one hand into my pocket when an icy wind curls around us.
“Where the fuck could he be?” Blake asks, but even though the words are harsh, they contain none of the usual heat. “We’ve searched everywhere.”
“Sewers?” I ask. “Tunnels?”
“Callum and Emma took those,” Sal replies. “Nothing down there either. They can tell.”
Blake sneers and looks away, down the empty street. Maybe they’re not in the town at all. We haven’t searched the woods, and I don’t know what we’d find beyond the town’s limits.
“He’s been gone too long,” I murmur. “We still have his pack.”
Blake frowns. “What?”
“If he’s not here, he’s not here. The woods.”
“The forest is full of zombies,” Mason says. “Our boundaries are at the edge of it. We can’t cover all that land.”
“We should check there anyway,” Blake says.
I don’t want to argue with him about it. I want to find Otto’s body. I know he wants to find Dane. And if there are zombies there… That’s where we should be anyway. That’s what we should have been doing all along.
I open my mouth, but before I can speak, a sound carries over the increasing wind.
A scream.
“That’s Rae,” I say, exchanging one glance with Blake, who for a second is wide-eyed, terrified, before I turn on my heel and race in the direction they should be.
Mason is quick on my heels. It takes a few minutes for us to get there because Rae is still shouting—and so is Callum, I think—but the wind keeps carrying their voices in all different directions.
“Rae?”
“Isaac? This way!”
I turn the corner and see them. The three of them—Rae, Callum, and Emma. They all stop when they see us, and Rae rushes over, tears in her eyes.
“It’s Autumn,” she says. “She was right behind me, I swear it, but then I turned and—”
I finish the sentence when Rae struggles to take a breath. “She’s gone.”