5. Lucas
CHAPTER FIVE
LUCAS
The woods felt different when I traveled through them alone.
Every sound carried too far now. Every snapped twig and shifting branch scraped across my nerves until it became impossible to tell what was real danger and what was merely exhaustion creeping beneath my skin.
My heightened senses didn’t help. I could hear a mouse fart from a hundred yards away. I hadn’t slept since the night before I left. The need to reach Taryn before something bad happened drove me forward.
I slipped through the trees, stepping over roots and dead brush while weak morning light filtered through the canopy overhead.
Taryn and Lila had definitely come this way.
In the early days at Ben’s house, he’d put us through intense training. During one of his lectures, he said it was imperative that we stay in the woods whenever possible and avoid all roads because the hordes were near more populated areas. It looked like the girls had taken his advice.
Most people wouldn’t have noticed the signs.
I did.
A broken branch bent slightly too far downward. A partial boot print in soft mud. Fresh claw marks appeared on a fallen log, indicating where Max launched himself over it rather than going around.
I brought one leaf from the branch to my nose and, with my heightened senses, smelled the faint coconut scent that still clung to Taryn’s skin, even after all this time.
I held it to my face longer than was strictly necessary, then put it in my pocket.
A sound echoed faintly somewhere ahead, and my grip tightened around the knife in my hand.
I froze instantly.
There, to the left.
I tilted my head and heard the wet, dragging sound the infected made as they traveled.
It stumbled into view between the trees a few minutes later, its head twitching sharply as it moved toward the sound of my breathing.
Male.
Middle-aged.
The lower half of his jaw was missing entirely.
“I bet that makes it tough to eat.” I laughed, moving so fast that he didn’t have time to do anything but die.
My knife went straight through his eye like butter, and he dropped hard at my feet.
“I just did you a favor,” I muttered as I automatically crouched, wiping the blade clean on the infected’s jacket before standing again.
It was entirely too easy. That realization unsettled me more than the kill itself. Months ago, that thing would’ve terrified me.
Now?
I barely reacted.
Something else shifted deeper in the trees.
Then another.
My head snapped toward the sound before thought caught up.
Two more, maybe three.
They were too far to see clearly, but I had no problem hearing them.
Those new senses had become so much a part of me that I could barely remember the world before them.
I moved through the trees, low and quiet, letting distance work for me. Faster now than I’d ever been before, I crossed uneven ground without a single slip.
Around noon, I finally stopped near a narrow creek cutting through the woods. I crouched beside the water long enough to refill the bottle in my pack while forcing myself to eat half a protein bar that tasted like cardboard.
A branch shifted behind me, too far back to be careless and too close to ignore.
Not infected. Living.
Sometimes that was worse.
I could leave before they arrived… but maybe it would be better to deal with them now.
I stood slowly without immediately reaching for my knife.
Two men stepped from the trees about twenty yards from where I was standing.
Thin, filthy, and jittery.
One held a hunting rifle with shaking hands, while the other clutched a crowbar and scratched violently at his forearm, leaving red streaks behind as sweat soaked through the collar of his jacket despite the cold air.
Withdrawal.
The realization hit almost instantly.
“Great. Just fucking great.” I mumbled under my breath.
The second guy looked worse.
Pale.
Eyes sunken.
Jaw trembling visibly from here.
“Bag,” rifle guy rasped. “Now.” His voice faltered halfway through the word as both men moved closer.
My grip tightened slightly against the bottle in my hand. “You don’t want to do this.”
“Yes, we do.” Crowbar guy laughed weakly, pacing restlessly as if he physically couldn’t stay still. “You got pills?” he asked suddenly.
There it was.
They didn’t care about food or water. Just pills. I’d seen enough people like them on the road to know withdrawal was its own kind of infection.
Rifle guy swallowed hard enough that I saw his throat move. “Painkillers. Xanax. Anything.”
Something ugly settled low in my chest.
The world ended, yet somehow people were still trying to outrun themselves and their problems.
“We don’t have enough time for this,” crowbar guy muttered frantically. “Just take the damn bag.”
The rifle trembled slightly as the other man aimed the barrel higher toward my chest.
The shaking barrel worried me more than either man did. One twitch, and I was dead.
“I don’t have what you’re looking for,” I said carefully.
“You’re lying.” He dropped the gun slightly and wiped the sweat from his brow. “I know you’ve got something.”
It sounded more like wishful thinking than anything else.
Months ago, they might have found enough to keep going. Now the pharmacies were stripped bare, and desperation had eaten through whatever restraint they had left.
Both men looked hollowed out from the inside and desperate enough to do something that would most definitely cost them their lives.
Crowbar guy suddenly rushed forward first.
He obviously lacked the advanced senses I’d gained after the fever. Because to me, it looked like he was moving in slow motion.
I moved automatically before he reached me, catching his wrist and twisting hard enough to make the crowbar drop into the creek with a loud splash.
He screamed instantly, and rifle guy panicked. The gun fired wildly through the trees. Birds took flight overhead as I slammed into him before he could pull the trigger again, knocking the rifle sideways as both of us crashed into the dirt near the creek bank.
Too easy. Again. The thought bothered me more than the fight.
The other guy swung wildly at my face.
I blocked the hit without thinking and drove my elbow hard into his ribs instead.
Something cracked.
He folded instantly with a choking sound.
Behind me, crowbar guy scrambled desperately toward the dropped rifle.
I reached it first.
Both men froze with the rifle trained on them, their quick, trembling breaths louder than the creek.
For a second, nobody moved.
The creek rushed loudly beside us as sweat dripped down the rifle guy’s face. Withdrawal drained them both more deeply than hunger ever could.
“Please,” crowbar guy whispered suddenly, clutching his wrist against his chest. “Just tell us if you’ve seen a pharmacy. We need something… anything.”
I should have killed them both.
But I lowered the rifle anyway, gambling that they wouldn’t live long enough to hurt anyone else.
It was inevitable.
I lowered the rifle slowly. “Go.”
Neither moved immediately. They were both probably scared I’d change my mind and shoot them in the back.
Honestly? I should.
It would be kinder to put them out of their misery now.
“Can we have our weapons back?”
I just stared at them, saying nothing.
Finally, rifle guy grabbed his friend and stumbled backward into the trees.
I stood there, breathing hard, long after they had disappeared.
Violence was becoming instinct, and every day made it harder to tell who was surviving the darkness and who was feeding it.
By the time the trees thinned after dark, exhaustion sat heavy on my shoulders. I found the place where the girls had holed up, but their packs were gone, and the sleeping bags lay empty.
They’d probably gone to scout the town. At least Taryn had the sense to wait for darkness. I only hoped she was watching first instead of charging straight into whatever waited inside.
Since everything fell apart, isolation had kept us blind. No internet. No phones. No way to know how the rest of the state—let alone the country—was surviving.
I gave them an hour. When neither came back, I followed. If they’d been spotted, anything could’ve happened. For all I knew, this settlement wasn’t a trap. It was bait.
Who fucking knew?
“She needs her ass spanked,” I muttered as I followed the path they’d taken.
I admired her bravery, but the woman was reckless as hell. After watching her with Ben, I understood some of what had made her that way. It didn’t mean I forgave her. It just made hating her harder.
Hating her got harder every day. After what happened at Ben’s, Taryn had softened in ways I hadn’t seen since we were kids.
Her new, honest friendship with Lila proved it.
I smirked. Watching Adrian’s controlled mask crack whenever Beck got near Taryn had been endlessly entertaining. Adrian had assumed she’d be his whenever he decided the timing was right.
Taryn had other ideas, and Beck was the variable Adrian hadn’t accounted for.
Beck was just as hardheaded as Adrian, and I didn’t think he’d give Taryn up until death separated them.
I’d assumed it was a lost cause for my friend, except I saw the way Taryn looked at him when he wasn’t watching.
The hero worship and desire in her eyes were unmistakable.
I knew Beck saw it too, which was probably why the only time he left her alone was when she was in the bathroom… and even then, he wasn’t far.
I crouched and studied the ground.
The trail was clearer here. Lila must have followed after Taryn left; Taryn would’ve been more careful about leaving a path back to the shack.
I kept going until I found a place to watch the settlement, hoping to spot Taryn or Lila before they did something stupid. Then the yelling started.
My head snapped toward it.
Voices.
Male.
I moved at once, low and silent, slipping through the trees until floodlights sliced the dark ahead.
“… found ourselves more strays.”
Taryn. Fuck.
I dropped behind thick brush near the fence and got my first clear look at the gate.
And froze.
Armed men had Taryn and Lila surrounded near the entrance, the whole road washed white by floodlights.
So much for a harmless settlement. Nobody needed that many guns unless they were guarding something—or hiding it.
Through the open gate, I spotted Beck and Adrian in the crowd, Max planted between them.
If they were free to leave, they would’ve been long gone. Something was keeping them here.
My instincts screamed before my brain caught up.
A tall man stood at the center of it all, everyone around him giving way. Leader, then. And even from here, he felt wrong.
Carefully, I edged forward, keeping to the shadows.
Beck shifted toward Taryn the second the men brought her through, but a big, dark-haired man blocked him. Beck looked ready to swing until Adrian dragged him back.
That told me plenty. If Adrian thought they had to hide knowing the girls, this place was worse than it looked.
Patience. I needed to know what was wrong with this town, why Adrian and Beck hadn’t left, and whether walking in would save anyone or get us all killed. After that, I could decide whether to play nice or burn the place down on the way out.
Beck and Adrian were alive. As long as they were still breathing, Taryn and Lila were safe enough for the moment. I hated walking away, but charging in blind would only get all of us killed, so I forced myself back into the trees before instinct overruled strategy.
I circled wide through the trees until the floodlights disappeared behind the brush, then forced myself away from the gate. Every step toward the shack put more distance between me and Taryn, and every damn one felt like a mistake.
By the time I reached the shack, the damn thing looked worse than ever. The roof sagged, one side leaned harder than the other, and somehow, it was still dry, hidden, and defensible enough to keep me alive while I figured out how to get them out.
It was a good place to hole up, but I didn’t expect anything less from Ben’s daughter.
The shack smelled faintly of damp wood, dirt, and coconut. Taryn. The scent hit harder than it should have, dragging every stupid thing I felt for her to the surface when I needed my head clear and my hands steady.
The sleeping bag pressed against the far wall, along with the half-empty water bottle and Lila’s discarded hoodie, confirmed what I already suspected. Lila had left in a rush. Probably ignoring Taryn's orders to stay here, where it was relatively safe.
I leaned back against the wall and dragged a hand over my face, fighting the urge to go right back out there. They were inside now. Taryn. Lila. Beck. Adrian. And all I could do, for the moment, was sit in the dark and hate every second of it.
I stared down at Taryn’s sleeping bag for a long second.
“Ridiculous,” I muttered quietly.
I had a strong urge to lie down in it, but it felt somehow wrong.
Too much like crossing a line and admitting something to myself that I didn’t think I was ready for.
The woods shifted softly outside as exhaustion dragged at the backs of my eyes. I’d been walking almost nonstop since leaving the farmhouse, at a pace no normal human could sustain. My body was finally starting to feel it. That was the only reason I gave in.
At least that was what I told myself.
I crawled carefully onto the thin padding and immediately caught the much stronger scent of coconut wrapped into the fabric beneath me.
Taryn’s lotion.
The realization came embarrassingly fast.
Warm skin.
Soft fingers brushing my hair back.
Her voice cutting through the fever while everything inside me burned.
My chest tightened painfully.
“Jesus Christ,” I muttered under my breath.
I should’ve gotten up immediately, but I couldn’t make myself do it.
The sleeping bag still smelled like her, and after days of cold air, blood, sweat, and smoke…
It felt dangerously close to home.
That thought alone should’ve bothered me more than it did.
I stared toward the cracks in the shack wall as my breathing began to slow.
Just a few hours, then I’d figure out how to get inside.
And how to get all of them back out alive.
Right before sleep dragged me under, I reached into my pocket, pulling out the leaves I’d kept earlier, and threw them on the ground.
I no longer needed them because Taryn’s scent was now surrounding me from all sides.
The last image in my mind was a pair of gray eyes.