32. Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Two
Hector
Zone T looks nothing like it did when I first arrived on Charon’s boat.
What’s left of the compound looms ahead, a blackened skeleton of what it used to be. The towers are still standing, but rubble chokes the outer perimeter, scorched metal and burnt flesh coating my nostrils.
I stumble to a stop, breath catching when my eyes find the boat bobbing gently against the dock, completely unscathed.
“It’s still here,” I breathe in disbelief.
Charon's gaze scans the vessel before taking in our surroundings .
The closer we get, the more the destruction around us becomes real. Half of the building collapsed, a section of the wall just a heap of concrete and twisted barbed wire. It looks completely dead…but not everything died.
Shadows dart between the ruins, catching my eye. Survivors, maybe. Raiders searching for anything left.
Or maybe something worse.
Gripping Charon’s wrist, I gesture toward the boat with a thundering heart. “Quick. Before they spot us.”
He scoops me up, cradling my body to his chest as he nearly runs the rest of the way. Whoever used it last left the ramp lowered, but just as we climb aboard, something screams inhumanly behind us.
“Shit, shit,” I gasp, gripping the railing when Charon sets me down. “Oh fuck!”
The first biter lurches into view from behind the wall, half its body burned clean off, exposing blackened bone. Then another, and another. Dozens pour out from the guts of Zone T, some of them guards and others prisoners.
Charon yanks the ramp halfway up before the rusted pulley catches, grinding to a halt. He growls angrily, throwing his full weight into it.
“They’re coming!”
The dock cracks as the first biter slams into the base of the ramp, snarling up at us with blood-crusted teeth. Charon jerks the mechanism again, hard enough to make the ramp jolt. Finally, mercifully , the damn thing clatters into place with a bone-rattling slam.
But the infected aren’t giving up .
One of them leaps, arms outstretched. Its fingers claw at the railing as it drags itself upward like a fucking nightmare.
Nyx caws angrily, swooping down from the sky to rake her talons across its face, causing the thing to lose its grip and fall into the water below.
But more keep coming.
I scramble toward the back, ignoring a fleeting throb in my leg as I check the sail’s bindings. “Come on, come on.”
Charon steps in, dragging the heavy tarp free, and its patched cloth catches the wind, but not fast enough.
“Row!” I scream, fumbling for the thing he uses to steer. “Row, baby, now!”
He’s beside me in an instant, directing the boat away from the dock, muscles straining with each pull. The sail fills, lurching us forward just as another biter slams against the hull with a snarl. Clawing fingers swipe at the air behind us, one of them leaping over the railing—
Charon kicks it square in the chest, sending it flying back into the others.
And then we’re free, the sail stretching taut overhead as we glide away from the shore.
Biters dive into the water in pursuit, splashing after us, but the current pulls us faster than they can swim. Zone T starts to shrink in the distance, swallowed by night and the howls of the damned.
“Fucking hell.” I collapse onto the deck once we're far enough away, my chest heaving in relief. “So much for…grabbing supplies. ”
He drops down beside me a second later, brows tight with worry and hair a wild mess around his shoulders. The sight sends a carnal zap of lust down my spine, but then his eyes catch on something over my head, and an elated grin spreads across his face.
I follow his gaze curiously, only to choke on my spit when I spot what he's smiling at.
Rations. Bags and bags of rations, piled near the cabin. Crates of silver coins and bullets, too. My lashes flutter as I blink rapidly, certain I’ve gone mad.
“What the fuck…no. That can't be real.” Dragging myself toward the pile, I pull the string on a burlap sack, checking inside. Sure enough, everything is there. Dried meats and fruit, vegetables, bandages. Medicine, too, from what I can see. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
Charon chuckles as he presses a kiss to my temple, clearly not as shocked as I am. What the hell happened after I left in that water barrel?
Nyx flutters down from above, landing on one of the crates with her chest feathers puffed. “Good to go.”
I glare at her accusingly. “Did you know about this the entire time?”
She just preens like the little shit that she is.
Charon laughs silently, pulling me closer until I fall into his lap, exhausted.
“Holy shit. Our plan worked. We made it. We actually made it.”
The boat creaks steadily as Zone T grows smaller behind us, a shell of the hell it used to be—no longer a prison, but a graveyard of painful memories now put to rest .
Before us, morning starts to spill across the river, painting the waves with gold. Charon steers us into dawn, facing the sunrise with that smile still on his lips. I can't help leaning forward to kiss it.
“I love you,” I whisper against his mouth. “Thank you for saving me. Then, and now.”
He kisses me back tenderly, blue eyes shining as he leads us toward a future I never hoped to dream of.
Toward home, with my Ferryman at my side. The owner of my rotten soul.
Though death had tried to claim it first;
It was always his to keep.
The soil’s stubborn beneath my hands, rocky and dry near the base of the lighthouse, but it gives eventually.
Everything does, if you press hard enough.
My fingers are blistered and caked with dirt when I lean back on my knees, examining the crosses we'd just finished erecting.
They're crudely made, tied together with twine we found in the cellar, but they serve their purpose.
Two graves, side by side.
One for the woman who raised me, and one for the woman who raised him .
Charon leans against my side, quiet as always with his mother's book on his lap. The look on his face when he'd found it still in his nightstand will forever haunt me, the absolute relief that had sent him crashing to his knees.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice barely a whisper against the ocean waves. “I know she…she killed your mom. She hurt you. She wasn’t a good person.”
His brow creases, but he shakes his head slowly, reaching out to rub the back of my neck. A shiver runs through me, and I close my eyes as I lose myself to the touch.
“I’m not burying the Judge, I’m burying my sister. The memory of her, anyway. Who she was before all of this.”
Not that I have anything of hers to bury. Just the nightmares.
Nyx hops over, nudging my knuckles in a rare show of affection. I smile down at her sadly and gently stroke a finger down her beak.
Charon shifts beside me, his shoulder warm against mine. When I glance over, his eyes aren’t on the graves anymore. They’re on me.
The book lies open on his lap, a pressed flower caught between its pages, so delicate that it makes my throat ache. I reach for the nearest white stone, turning it in my palm before setting it atop the fresh mound of earth. “All of the pain we went through, all of the anger…it dies here.”
He gently closes the book, setting it on the ground between us in order to pull his blade from his back pocket. I jolt in surprise when he presses the tip of the blade into his own fingertip, bright blood welling against his skin.
“Charon, what are you…?”
Lifting his hand, he starts to write on the wall above the graves, the blood smearing in deliberate strokes of letters I don't understand. When he leans back to meet my gaze, the marks glisten in the dying light.
óso anapnéo
“What does it say?”
He grabs my hand and mouths softly into my palm, “As long as I breathe.”
My heart skips a beat, thudding against my chest when he smiles against my skin, kissing it softly. Those words feel like a promise, not only for the dead, but the living as well. Us.
“As long as I breathe,” I repeat—no, I vow, closing the gap between us to press my lips to his.
I don't know what our future may hold, or how long we can hang onto this life we've found, but I'm never letting go.
There might come a day when he gets sick, or maybe I turn, and everything comes crashing down around us…
but maybe the fear is supposed to be there.
It'll remind us to never go back to where we were before. One foot forward at a time.
In my case, literally.
I never want Charon to hurt again, and I'll spend the rest of my days making him feel as safe and cherished as he's made me.
Until the end, whatever it takes, for as long as I can.