Chapter 39
There’s nothing keeping us here
Wilson
“Come this way,” Amo mumbles, stepping into me and forcing me to follow his lead down the side of the barricade surrounding the community. The shouting and growling of the horde is less on this side of the structure, the percussion of explosions dampened.
There’s a similar line down the other side, I know because that’s where Moros’s cabin is.
What I didn’t know about is the back side Amo guides us to.
There’re tons of brush and overgrown shit covering most of the fence, making it blend in with the scenery, almost as if it’s not even here.
I’m not sure why the rest of the fence doesn’t look like this. It would make it harder to be a target.
But I’m not in the decision-making position for a reason, I guess.
I’m mentally preparing myself to have to climb up and through all of the vegetation when Amo pulls away from me.
“When we were training, Cassia and I—” He swallows hard and swipes at his face. “We canvased back here where almost no one goes and we found this.”
He pushes through some of the branches and discarded limbs, and the creak that follows has my stomach dropping.
I rush forward, only to stop dead in my tracks when he yanks open a heavy, metal door. It’s just big enough to fit a person, and covered in rust and growth, but it opens directly into the back of the community.
“Holy shit.”
Moros grumbles at my back, his heavy steps close behind me.
“This was supposed to stay locked.”
Amo’s big eyes meet Moros’s, and I see the way his jaw clenching softens for our boy.
“It was how I could sneak out to you, asshole.” The heat is little in his words, but the meaning … it’s big.
Moros just huffs.
Then Amo reaches out and cups his cheek and I watch all of Moros’s armor slip through the cracks.
“Thank you,” Amo whispers, holding him in a trance for a few solid, life-altering seconds before his touch trails down to pet Cassia’s lifeless head. “Let’s come back for her.”
Moros nods knowingly, that stiffness replaced in his features as he lays her gently in the grass.
There’s nothing back here—no one—back here and it’s almost as odd as the horde trailing off, leaving us be.
I can hear the chaos of the residents from where we are, but it seems to be more of confusion and outcry rather than anger and battle.
“That should be a good sign, right?” I ask Moros, who grunts a reply and palms his knife.
“Should be doesn’t mean it is.” He hands another blade to Amo and levels him with a look. “Stay with Wilson.”
He nods, a trickle of sweat trailing down his brow and tucks in close to flank me.
Silently, we weave through the buildings, stabbing and slicing anything dead or dying as we go.
When the break in the buildings opens up to the middle of the community’s center where I know the plays are held, my surprise leaves me in a huff.
There’s a small fire by the edge, bodies lining the roadway, and the cries of the living filling the air.
What I’m not expecting is the decomposed to be essentially gone.
Dead.
Unmoving.
The farther we go into the old city, the denser the people, the more the disarray begins to register.
Newly busted windows and broken brick. Overturned bins and baskets, contents missing. Doors hanging from hinges or missing.
Raided.
I peek inside the seamstress’s shop as we pass, his racks all emptied and lopsided, material strewn over the floor. He says something in aggressive French that I don’t understand.
Amo responds right back.
In French.
“Whoa … baby?” I clutch my chest and shoot a loaded grin at him as Moros wonders farther ahead. “You speak a second language?”
He smirks over his shoulder at me, and my dick jumps.
He says something else, something that sounds like a third language, and I feel actual butterflies in my stomach.
“You continue to surprise me.”
There’s a warmth to his cheeks as he finishes talking with the seamstress, consoling him in a way, I think.
Though I don’t know because I can’t understand a fucking word.
And yet, I watch his lips form each syllable with precision, the smoothness of his voice making my dick even harder.
“Okay, he said—”
“Son of a bitch. Those fucking assholes!”
Moros’s coarse tone draws me back out into the street, Amo on my heels.
“Boss?”
He storms out of the bakery with the broken off lid, jagged glass covered in bright red goop, raised in the air.
“The motherfuckers took the cherry shit!”