Chapter 18 #2
The first thing I notice is the dark-haired man in a familiar suit sitting on the floor, his back against the far wall of the room.
You could almost think he’s sleeping, the way his head is lolling forward like that.
But then I see the blood covering the front of his white button-down shirt, the rusty brown obscene against his dull grey tie.
Blood… that doesn’t make sense—and then I can’t miss the knife buried to the hilt exactly where his heart is.
His eyes are open. There are no shades to hide how completely black they are.
It’s one of them, I think, and since it’s not a woman, I know it can’t be Gwen.
The way that Delilah is curled up against her twin, openly sobbing… I think I know who it is.
Veronica had passed her torch back to Maverick in order to allow Delilah to cleave to her.
Despite the bright lights in the mostly empty room—apart from the man’s body, there is a desk, a single chair, and…
shit… a phone that looks just like the one that Veronica has hidden away in her backpack sitting on top of the desk—Maverick keeps the fire burning as he reaches down, picking up a sheet of paper under the man’s shoes that I’m just noticing was there.
“Kristian.” Delilah’s voice is soft, yet full of pain. “They killed him, Vee. They killed him.”
It’s obvious why they did—and who did it, too.
There’s no sign of Gwen or her guards, only the dead body of a scientist who was still feeding intel to Delilah after she defected.
I get the feeling that they left the sat phone out on purpose, kind of like a big “fuck you” if Delilah ever came looking for him.
Kristian betrayed Project Phoenix and he died because of it.
He died…
I stare at the knife.
Project Phoenix wanted supersoldiers. Stronger. Faster. Harder to kill. Delilah already told us the PP-55 subjects could burn and that lurkers could feed on them, but there’s something almost comforting about seeing the knife in Kristian’s chest. Horrible, of course, but comforting.
Know why? Because a knife through the heart killed him. And if it killed Kristian, that means that other almost-lurkers can be killed, too.
It’s the wrong possible moment to allow a bubble of excitement to well up inside of me.
We lost Aaron in an accident. Another of our allies has been murdered.
And while either one of those things would’ve been enough to help break the old Hallie, the woman the Turning created knows that—like down in the sewer—we have to keep moving.
But seeing that knife…
Project Phoenix created monsters, but they forgot to make them immortal. And whether they meant to or not, they gave us proof of that by leaving Kristian behind to taunt anyone who came looking for Gwen.
They had to know. Those fuckers in charge…
it’s a game to them. Their arrogance and greed and desire to play fucking God has destroyed this country.
Maybe even the world. Since the Turning, our world has been condensed into small, close-knit communities.
If you can travel to it, if you want to risk your life on the Outside, maybe your world is a little larger.
But what is life like out of the States? Eleven months later, and we don’t know. My world has whittled down to New Jersey and New York; my goal: liberating the Northeast from the lurkers in Manhattan and the base of operation for those who orchestrated this apocalypse.
For them to still treat Gwen like a bargaining chip—or a lure—is proof to me that the NRI believes they won’t accomplish whatever insanity they thought they could get away with after their first batch of the Injection without having the antidote to fall back on.
Because that’s the thing. Their tainted formula turned one-third of our population in carnivorous zombies.
Half of the survivors were dead within twenty-four hours of the Turning.
Who knows how many more have died since?
I’ve lost so many… but while we might not ever be able to save those have Turned, Maverick and Chase are proof that the antidote can repair all damage if a lurker does get their claws on you.
That’s why this is so important. We need easy access to the formula.
We could go in like fucking pest control and eradicate the lurkers from their hidey-holes instead of hiding ourselves if there wasn’t the threat of being Turned from a single bite.
Survivors get eaten because, when one bite is a death sentence, you don’t fight back.
Chase did. He got away from the lurker who attacked him because he desperately wanted to see me one last time before he did. The antidote Dad gave me before I left the Grave… it saved him.
It can save so many more.
Gwen is still alive. She has to be. If anyone else could engineer the formula for a working antidote… if the goddamn Doctor could figure it out instead of using his time to experiment and torture on survivors… I have no doubt in my mind that they would do the same to Gwen for refusing to obey.
Kristian is dead. That’s unavoidable. But our mission doesn’t stop here. We still need Gwen. And, okay, I have no idea how we’re going to find her. But maybe Delilah has an idea—
“Mav? What’s that you have there?”
My head whips from the dead body over to Veronica. Still holding tightly to Delilah, she rubs her twin’s back as she furrows her brow, watching Maverick peer closely at the sheet of paper he picked up off of the floor.
He steps toward Veronica, holding it out. “I’m not sure, but I think this is meant for your sister.”