Chapter 2
My head shoots toward her. “Made it?” I echo.
Veronica keeps her eyes on the road. “Of course I did. When you called me and told me that you were going to defect and take Lindsay’s Mav with you, did you think I wouldn’t be there to be your ride?”
I feel stupid. “Called you?”
Fuck it. I’m a parrot now, I guess. But how could she call her sister? Phones went down months ago. There is no calling—
“Sat phone,” grates out Maverick. It’s the first thing I’ve heard him say since our outdoor escape. “You called her on a satellite phone.”
Delilah nods succinctly. “Yes. I got in touch with my sister once I heard Collins crowing about the new subjects. Lindsay would’ve never forgiven me if I left you there, James.”
He nods in return, and if it affects him to have his late wife’s former colleague refer to him by his real name, you’d never know it. Ever since his round of torture with the Doctor, he’s been almost completely shut down, and that’s exactly how he is now.
Delilah addresses her sister. “I hope you’re not mad at me. I stayed as long as I could—”
“Don’t you even think that, Dee. We wouldn’t have half our intel if it wasn’t for you.
” Veronica glances at the guy sitting next to her.
Just like I thought, he’s blond, with a buzz cut, a perpetual scowl, and though he’s not in a suit, he’s wearing black from head to toe.
I’d put him at early thirties, and definitely some sort of military from the way he’s carrying himself.
“David? We’re heading back to the GWB. Keep an eye out for any lurkers. ”
“Got it.”
“What about those assholes?” asks Chase. “The ones in the shades and the suits? What about them?”
Delilah is the one to answer. “Once they realize we’re gone, they’ll send a team out.
But just like you and me, they’re vulnerable to lurker attacks.
I know Winston wants to make it seem like nothing can hurt those of us who took the first shot, but we can burn the same way the Turned humans do, and we can be fed upon like the survivors.
He’ll send those that are dispensible, but the real hunt won’t start until dawn. ”
“And by then we’ll be long gone,” adds Veronica. “It’s about time you come home, Dee. You know how much I hated letting you go back to them every time they gave you leave.”
“Well, my bosses won’t be welcoming me back anytime soon. But that’s okay. It was time I quit.”
Maverick stays quiet. I’m sure he’s thinking along the same lines as Delilah. Only he’s wishing that he could’ve convinced his wife to leave the NRI before the Injection was finalized—or before he talked her into taking it.
He got the Injection, too. For reasons I still don’t understand, it didn’t quite take.
By sporadically taking the ever rarer antidote to the Injection, he’s managed to stave off Turning completely, but whatever the Doctor did to him…
his eyes aren’t as completely black as they were hours ago, but one look at him and you know those aren’t human eyes.
Chase has noticed. He hasn’t said anything because I don’t think he wants to risk upsetting me, but the guy in front… David? His brow is furrowed as he watches Maverick and Delilah in the rearview mirror.
What the hell, dude? Isn’t he supposed to be keeping look-out for lurkers as we flee Manhattan?
I don’t know, but his attention seems to have settled on Mav as he says to Veronica, “I know about your sister, Vee, but what’s up with the guy? He another one of them?”
Chase might have pretended not to notice earlier, but, suddenly, he’s watching Maverick just as closely, waiting for his answer.
Delilah provides it. “He’s different. He didn’t have the first dose, and whatever the second dose did to him, he hasn’t Turned. Not completely. Besides, his wife was one of my closest friends. I’ll vouch for him.”
David’s dour expression says that doesn’t mean much to him. Probably because Delilah is one of them, whether her loyalty is to her twin or not. “You got a name?”
Maverick works his jaw. “James Brooks.”
“Maverick,” cuts in Veronica. “He goes by Maverick.”
“Wait. This the guy you were telling me about?”
Veronica nods. “That’s him. So be nice, David.”
David doesn’t look like he knows the meaning of the word. “And Ken and Barbie back there? Who are they?”
I open my mouth to tell this Rambo wannabe to suck my dick, then have a horrible moment when I wonder if that’s Xandra speaking or if Hallie would react so strongly to a stranger making the same sort of comment I heard all throughout high school.
I mean, I’m blonde, Chase has sandy brown hair and a chiseled jaw and is gorgeous as hell.
Yeah. I get the Barbie and Ken reference, and old me would’ve laughed it off.
The me I am now? I have to resist the urge to tell him off. And because I have to, I sink into my seat and keep my mouth shut.
Following my lead, Chase does the same.
David shrugs and turns in his seat, finally doing what Veronica told him to.
From my spot in the back, I see the looming bridge ahead of us. If we take it, we’ll be out of New York in no time.
“Where are we going?” asks Maverick, echoing the question I’ve been thinking myself. “You said ‘home’. Where’s home for you, Veronica?”
Veronica hesitates for a moment as she floors the SUV, taking the bridge with enough speed that I imagine it rattles beneath us. “It’s not that far. If we keep up the speed and don’t run into any more lurkers, the path back only takes about an hour.”
After the Turning, with the roads in such terrible condition, that could mean anywhere.
“Yeah,” mutters her sidekick. “And we’ll burn through enough gas to run the generator for three days just to play hero.”
Veronica’s voice takes on a sharp edge. “If you think I was going to abandon my sister, then maybe you’re not camp material, David. We don’t do that.”
The man has to be at least a head taller than Veronica, but he sinks in his seat. “Sorry. Habit. I know they say ‘leave no man behind’, but when I served, they impressed upon us how important it was to look out for the many. I know better than that. I won’t bitch about the gas again, Vee.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’re all on edge. Let’s just get back in one piece and we’ll deal with it in the morning. Now, you got your lighter up? Be prepared.”
David nods, and while I’m watching the power exchange going on in the front seat, Maverick is sitting on the opposite side of Chase, working shit out.
“Veronica?”
“Yeah?”
“You said it’s going to take an hour.”
“Yup. That’s right.”
“Where exactly are we going?”
Before, she brushed him off with an almost answer. Now?
“Ramapo Hills. We’ve got a camp that’s hidden in the trees, remote enough that lurkers don’t usually bother us, and a lake that protects a third of our borders.”
Sounds like a great settlement in the after times, only…
“I thought your base was around the Pulaski Skyway.”
“It is. Around the Skyway.” Veronica flies down the empty George Washington Bridge.
Ash scatters beneath the wheels of the SUV, and I’m stunned to realize that it’s our ash.
This is the same exact path we took to get into Manhattan earlier today, only in reverse.
“It’s safer if only those loyal to the cause know where our actual base is kept.
You’re in, Mav. I’m taking you home, too. ”
“So what are we doing with them?” asks David. “Ken and Barbie, I mean.”
“Chase and Alexandra,” supplies Veronica, and I wince to hear her use my sister’s name. Of course she does. When I first met her, I was Xandra. “And they’re coming with us, too.”
Oh.
Okay, then.
Veronica called it a camp. When she said that, I imagined she meant a larger version of the campsites we built whenever we stopped for the night. With sleeping bags, maybe a couple of tents, and a large fire to ward off lurkers.
No.
She meant a camp camp. Like an old sleep-away camp, complete with a large wooden sign stretched over the entrance that says: Camp Sunnyside, est. 1983.
By the time we’re approaching the entrance, the clock on the dash reads: 9:43. It’s so hard for me to believe that, barely twelve hours ago, we were full of hope and determination as we made our way into Manhattan, and after everything that happened, it’s still the same day.
I’m fucking exhausted. Mentally. Physically.
Emotionally. The lure of following Veronica and David to this settlement where I might actually be able to sleep through the night without worrying about lurkers eating us if the fire goes out or we knock out during watch is enough that I’m looking forward to getting there.
Especially since, the one thing I’ve picked up on during the ride over is that this camp?
It’s full of survivors working together to make it through another night.
Then I see it, and there’s a pretty fucking big reason why I can make out the sign. The entrance is bracketed by large lamps. They remind me of stadium lights, they’re that tall and bright, and if they don’t keep the lurkers out at night, the lit torches posted everywhere should do the job.
We’re all quiet now. The rest of the ride to the Hills—at least, that’s what Veronica calls it, though she says it used to be Mahwah—was both awkward and uneventful.
The way that Chase is humming at my side, it’s obvious to me that he wants to talk.
I’m sure he has a million different things to say, and even more to ask me, but as long as I stay silent, he does the same.
It’s my fault. I dropped the bomb on him that I remember who I really am, I fucked him, and then I basically shut down.
The both of us had curled up on the white cot, waiting for Maverick to return to the cell, waiting to see which of the clipboard-wielding goons would come for Chase, but he was content enough, holding me close, that he didn’t push.
I can tell he wants to, but he knows better than to try. That could be a problem, though. If Chase decides that he has his Hallie back, that it’s as simple as that? I’m sorry, but he’s going to be in for a rude awakening, and I’m not so cruel that I’m ready to dash his hopes so soon.
Instead, I snuggled against him, and when he put his arm over my shoulder, I eventually relaxed into his embrace.
Veronica focused on driving. Every now and then, Delilah would lean forward and murmur something to her sister. Veronica would answer with either a nod or a shake of her head. That was all.
David seemed to loosen up a little when he asked Maverick what he did before the Turning.
I was right when I thought he screamed “military”.
The haircut and the bearing gave him away.
He’s a retired Marine who got out a year before the Injection was mandatory for his unit, and because he was a vet who ignored the VA’s summons to get his free shot the December before the world ended, he never got it.
It becomes super fucking clear why he didn’t.
It’s for the same reason that he found his way to Veronica’s camp.
Whatever his time in the armed forces did to this guy, they made him as anti-government as the rest of most survivors I know.
He might’ve been loyal to the cause once, but after the government fucked up and left us all to fend for ourselves, he pledged himself to help Veronica.
Because Veronica… she’s not just some run-of-the-mill rogue. She’s the head of a settlement of her own, with a population that isn’t as great as the Grave, but with preppers and former military and those who—like Maverick and me—will do anything to see every last lurker burn.
David perked up to hear that Mav was a cop. Same when he finally pulled an answer out of Chase. He told the entire SUV that a social worker would be a good help around camp, then seemed even more pleased to discover that Chase is the most decorated hunter in the Grave.
As for me, Chase told Veronica and David that I was going to school for my psych degree while I basically shrunk down inside of Rory’s jacket, hiding from David’s scrutinizing look as he peered at me through the rearview mirror.
I got a grunt of approval for that, though his expression turned thoughtful as Mav mentioned my ability to sense a lurker’s approach.
I know what the two guys are doing. Both of them are trying to protect me.
It doesn’t take a true shrink to get a look at me and know I’m inches from the edge.
The farther we get from the NRI, the more I’m struggling to come to grips with everything that happened, and both Mav and Chase are making me sound like a more attractive survivor than I am so that I keep my invite into the settlement.
We failed in what we set out to do; this is our only choice at the moment.
After all that time, we went all that way and left New York the way we found it.
The largest lurker nest on the East Coast survives, and so do the monsters that destroyed the world.
I don’t know how Maverick isn’t cursing and spitting and demanding to go back for his bombs, but as Chase tries to explain an ability that I’m pretty sure Maverick already told Veronica all about, I glance at the older man and wonder just what the hell he’s thinking.
He, at least, knew that Veronica had a base instead of being an ordinary rogue.
He admitted as much after Delilah let us out of our cell.
He actually had gone searching for Veronica when we “stumbled upon” her, hoping that she would help him in his quest to blow up the NRI to avenge his wife’s death.
All along, I thought he was flirting with Veronica when we first met her, but it was nothing like that.
He was plotting, and his plan failed. Even so, Veronica did help us.
When Delilah called her on that satellite phone thing, she hopped in the SUV, grabbed the survivor with the best aim for the shotgun seat, and picked us up before we could become lurker chow.
Now she’s parking the battered SUV alongside a pair of near-identical ones alongside the drive after she pulled under and past the Camp Sunnyside sign.
Once the car stops, she starts to give quick orders to David.
“Take them to Caroline and make sure they get settled in. I’m going to bring Delilah home with me and figure out how this changes things moving forward. Dee?”
“Yes?”
“Where’s your phone?”
“Back at the facility. I gave it to Kristian, like you said.”
“Good. He’ll get in touch when he can. David, once you’re done, check in with Aaron and Simon. They’re in charge of border check tonight. I want as many of us as we can spare, just in case that fucker Winston pulls some shit. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good.”