Chapter Nineteen
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” Jasper slams the Jeep door shut, chest heaving.
I fly into the back of his seat as Greeley rips us out of the parking lot, my entire body shaking. I scrub tears out of my eyes as if doing so will wipe out the memory of Milo, too.
Jasper’s voice stiffens. “I asked you a question.”
“Sorry,” I mutter, barely able to get the word out.
Milo is dead.
“Not you, Kota,” Jasper says, the edge gone. His gaze finds mine in the rearview mirror and I hate that it’s full of pity. I rip my eyes away before more sobs can bubble out of my aching throat. Jasper turns to Greeley and points. “You.”
Greeley’s hands grip the steering wheel so tight her knuckles pop out like pearly stones. She’s tight-lipped, but Jasper persists. “Well, Greeley? Do you feel better now?”
She steps on the gas. “No, Jasper, I don’t feel better.” The odometer reads sixty as we veer onto a jagged side road. I snap on my seat belt. “We’re going hunting.”
We whip through a tunnel of trees, and I can see Milo wincing.
Fifty-two. That’s fifty-two zombie trees I’ve counted since the beginning.
You’re keeping count?
Someone has to. The trees signal the countdown to our demise. Wanna know how many actual trees I’ve counted?
Not really.
Twenty-five. Oh shit, I turn twenty-five next month. Think we could convince your Grandma to bake me a cake?
Twenty-five years old. Milo died the same age as West.
The zombie trees have begun to eat their neighbors.
Their roots crawl beneath the earth, their bark speckled with black welts and gray mold.
Their rotting tendrils wrap around any breathing limb they can, taking all the nutrients for themselves.
Take. That is all this new world does. It takes the people I love from me.
It chews them up and spits them out in my face.
We exit the dark, haunting passage and the few remaining living trees plead. Don’t leave us, they whisper. Save us.
“We are not going hunting,” Jasper says. He whacks the dashboard, and I flinch at the impact.
Greeley smiles.
Seventy miles per hour.
I’m sorry, Milo. I’m sorry for being too scared to pull the trigger. I’m sorry I let the world take you.
I catch my eyes in the rearview mirror.
Weak.
Weak eyes that watched their friend die. Eyes that may never meet Bunny’s bright gaze again because of a choice I made. Eyes that may never form crow’s feet wrinkles like Grandma’s because I’ll never grow old. Eyes that will die without saying goodbye.
The engine roars.
Seventy-five.
“We don’t have a choice,” Greeley spits back. “I don’t have anything to trade.” Her voice is like knives to my ears. She put us in this situation. She wanted violence. She taunted the boys.
When I look at Greeley, a thick, wet haze of red clouds my vision.
I don’t see the strong, brazen woman she so desperately wants to be.
I see a woman who let this world win. I see raw, grisly skin stuck in rotten teeth, blood smeared across decaying chins.
Flesh crammed into fingernails. Guts splayed on the ground.
Milo.
She caused Milo’s death.
“Kota needs a breather,” Jasper says, pointing at me with his thumb. “Let’s go hunting tomorrow.”
“What about my needs? My stomach is going to eat itself.”
She can have mine.
“I just killed her friend, Gree!” Jasper yells.
“Don’t ‘Gree’ me,” she says. “I don’t give two shits about Blondie’s feelings.”
That’s enough.
I sit up taller in my seat, heat blossoming on my cheeks. “Think you could stop being a fucking psycho for five minutes?”
“Delicate as a flower, this one is.” Greeley releases a hand from the wheel and squeezes Jasper’s shoulder. Winks. “Great shot, by the way.”
“Look at her,” Jasper says. “She’s turning blue.”
“My car, my rules,” Greeley twists around and sizes me up. “Damn, she looks like a Smurf.”
Greeley swerves onto I-85—at the last possible second—and hops into the left lane. The right two lanes are piled up with broken cars, motorcycles, and trucks. People thought they could outrun it, but they had no chance of escape. None of us do. The virus is inside all of us. We are all doomed.
“She is right here,” I say. My voice wavers, but I’m more determined than ever to assert myself—because I can’t escape this car.
Because I’m stuck here with Mr. Nice Guy and a complete bitch who believes me less than.
And maybe I am weak, but that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve respect. “She is a human, and she can speak.”
“We know you can speak, Kota,” Jasper says, his tone gentle. And that’s what pisses me off. Why does he—my kidnapper—get to be sweet? “We’re just trying to—”
“I don’t care!” Violent noises swirl through my head.
If Jasper and Greeley can’t take a single second to think about what just happened, what kind of monsters are they? Not the kind I want to be in leagues with. I chose to run away with them, and at what cost? Will I lose my humanity and turn into a monster, too?
I’m seething as I say, “I know that I’m nothing more than a pawn in this stupid game you’re playing with Chandler. I get it. But I’m not your puppet. You don’t control me.”
“Say the decision was up to you, Kota,” Jasper says, his brown eyes filled with pride at my words. He stares at me for a long moment, sizing me up. My heart pounds. “Where would you go?”
I exhale. Close my eyes. Say, “To the forest to get some fucking food.”
Greeley pulls her shoulders back and pumps her fist in the air. “She doth locate her spine!”
Jasper shakes his head. “Enough with the theatrics, Greeley.”
“In another life, I was a Broadway star.” She gestures wide with her arms.
The Jeep lurches to the left.
“Ten and two, Shakespeare.” Jasper grabs the wheel and pulls us back into the lane. “Just because there isn’t traffic doesn’t mean we won’t end up in a ditch.”
“Your use of double negatives confuses me.” Greeley spins around and grabs the headrest, forcing Jasper to take full control of the wheel. “Jasper got his kill,” she says, winking at me. “It’s time to get ours.”
I peer at the gun at my feet.
Greeley’s hunting for food, but she may be my first kill.