Chapter 37
Not this again
Wilson
“We gotta draw them away.”
Moros’s stiff command has the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end before my feet are even flattened against the unstable surface.
“Boss?”
“Look.” He tips his chin up in the general direction of the Outskirts and I shake my head.
An icy chill runs down my spine when I finally see it.
No, not it.
Them.
“Fuck, is that—” I squint into the distance, the sleeveless shirt and tattoos hard to miss, even from so far away. As if the blacked-out eyes weren’t enough of a giveaway.
Raiders.
But before I can manage a thought about the raiders and why they might be trailing a horde of decomposed, another flash of something pulls my attention.
I stumble when the wall shakes beneath us, falling into Moros for support at the same time I grab his jaw and point his line of sight off to the right.
“That better not be our curls out there.”
The roar that Moros lets out sounds utterly lethal, vibrating beneath my hands before he jerks away from my grasp.
“Kitten!” he exclaims with such ferocity that even I pause. But then he’s moving, pushing away from me and maneuvering around Guard’s rifles, jumping and leaping off the edge like a fucking madman.
I follow him.
Of course I follow him. I have for over a third of my life. Not to mention the bouncing head of wild curls bobbing in and out of my sight, among the throngs of decomposed, means that my knot-tying skills are severely lacking.
And I’m pissed.
How could he just take off on us like that?
“I can’t believe you let him out,” Moros grinds out when I catch up to him, weaving around the decomposed as we go.
I slash as I pass, stabbing whatever is in reach with my pocket knife.
It’s not fucking ideal, but neither is Amo being alone out here in the middle of this shit.
A goddamn swarm of undead and raiders that seems to be following us.
“I didn’t let him do anything, Moros,” I snap back, narrowly missing his swinging arm with my blade.
“I’m gonna tie him up and teach him a fucking lesson.”
I snort and duck the swing of his chain as he whips it around a neck and snaps it clean through.
Viscera splatters across my face, my chest and flannel, and I growl.
“Can you stop brutalizing everything and get to him? I don’t want a red shower.”
Moros grunts as he rips his chain through a half missing torso, spreading more guts around. “How about a golden one?”
I dip beneath his swing and jam my knife through the chin of a decomposed at his back.
When I spin to face him, his wide chest heaving and face painted in deep red splotches, he quirks a brow.
“Maybe later,” I murmur.
A release of breath flies from his nose, his only response, before he takes off again.
“Amo!”
I follow close behind, watching his back as he clears a path straight to our guy.
The bewildered look on Amo’s face almost makes me chuckle. Had we not been in the center of a horde, I probably would.
But as Moros captures him, spinning him around and forcing his body to his chest, his sneer deepens.
His face and clothes are painted just like ours, splatters of deep red woven into the fabric of his yellow shirt and splotched across his nose.
It almost makes him look like the Guard I know he really is and yet I can’t find it in myself to regret trying to keep him back inside the gates.
Inside our community, where his safety was … possible at least.
His arms fling around, hitting everything in his reach, his legs kicking out. He narrowly misses me in the process, but as he thrashes around, he manages to kick back two decomposed that are dangerously close.
His efforts have the corners of my lips tipping up but the wall of muscle behind him holding him back is not at all amused.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Moros asks the sneer and wildness in his hazel eyes I’ve never seen before.
“You fucking left me,” Amo snarls out while still swinging, still clawing, catching Moros‘s arm in the process. He tears open skin and draws a deep red gash across his forearms. It makes me hiss and Moros growls.
“I’m trying to fucking protect you,” Moros mutters behind gritted teeth.
“You all left me,” Amo yells, wedging his hands beneath Moros’s grip just right to slide beneath.
He dodges my reach, too, when I go to grab him, my fingers barely brushing the fabric of his shirt before he’s turning away and taking off.
“Stupid fucking assholes—”
All of the air leaves my lungs when a body slams into Amo, sending him flying, the two tumbling to the ground in a heap.
The sound he makes, the squeal of his surprise that bleeds into pain, has Moros screaming his name and my stomach drops.
“Baby, no!”
Heart pounding, I pump my legs to catch up, stabbing anything and everything in my way.
“Stop,” Amo yells when Moros grabs the freshly decomposing body that’s pinning our guy down, and he freezes. The thing thrashes against him, ripping her clothes further, trying everything it can to either break free or chomp on whatever gets close enough to her snapping jaws. “Fuck.”
The thick way Amo’s curse comes out has me swallowing back a whole lot of shit as he accepts my offered hand to pull him up.
But the tears in his eyes nearly break me.
“Oh, shit, it’s Cassia.” Moros’s words cut through anything I was about to say and the collection on Amo’s lashes break free.
“What the fuck is she doing out here?” I ask, but no one can answer as both Amo and I turn to look at the body in Moros’s arms, her skin too pale, punctured in several places, and her short hair a ratted mess.
There’s a wound already on her head that’s pouring a deep red down the side of her face and her eyes … they’ve gone bloodshot and darkened.
I have to grab Amo when he lurches forward, like he’s reaching for her, and I hold him against me.
The wails of pain come next, and my heart shatters in my chest.
Moros meets my gaze over her head, and his, and I subtly shake mine.
No. We can’t kill her yet.
I swallow hard as Amo trembles in my arms. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“She was just—” he cuts off with a choke. “Wilson, I just saw her.” He cries and shakes harder when she hisses and snaps. “She was fine before she snuck out!”
Moros pins her harder, keeping her in place as Amo just stares.
And my baby cries.
I meet Moros’s hard gaze over their heads again, silently asking him what the fuck we’re supposed to do. The horde is shifting behind him, moving away from us and closer to the front gates we can't leave unattended for too long.
He shakes his head back, a softness to his eyes that he’s trying to bury behind his hard scowl.
“We’re running out of time, baby,” I murmur softly and Amo sobs.
Cassia screeches.
“Let me do it,” he whispers, his grip on me tight.
“Kitten,” Moros says almost in warning. It’s hard and draws Amo’s tear-filled gaze up.
“It has to be me,” he says, stronger this time, but no less heartbroken.
I place the hilt of my knife to his palm.
Press my lips to the side of his head.
“Until the end, Amo.”