there. The stench of their rot carried on the wind that blew my hair into my face.
In front of us, the trees stretched endlessly, providing no protection.
My lungs burned with effort, and my side ached. I couldn’t think. I didn’t know what to do.
“Hannah,” Katie panted. “I can’t.”
I tightened my hand on hers, pulling her along. Her weight dragged on my arm. She wasn’t keeping up like she should.
“Keep going,” I said.
The moans were getting closer. There was no stopping. Stopping would be death.
I glanced over my shoulder, catching so much detail in that brief look. Katie’s wide, desperate eyes locked on me. The exhaustion pulling at her features. The horde of infected barely fifty feet behind us and gaining.
I sat up, gasping and shaking. The memory coated my mind, an unwanted stain on my thoughts. Scrambling out of bed, I got on my belly in the dark and searched frantically for another hidden bottle. There was no second miracle to be found, though. I curled in a ball and tried to hold myself together while I desperately waited for the images to fade. They didn’t though. I saw it all play out again, and with a choked moan, I pulled at my hair.
It wouldn’t leave me. It wouldn’t stop. Ever.
I couldn’t do it anymore.
Sobbing softly, I heaved myself to my knees then stumbled to the window. The sash lifted soundlessly, and I slipped through the opening. The brisk, night air shocked me enough to interrupt my tormented thoughts.
I looked over the quiet homes, blanketed in white, and focused on the lights illuminating the dark above the wall. The lights, powered by batteries that were charged using the solar panels retrofitted on the homes, kept the hellhounds out. But the lights wouldn’t last forever. Then what? I didn’t want to be here to find out.
Ignoring the bite of the snow on my bare feet, I climbed higher on the roof. Numbness wrapped around me. From the cold or my resolution, I couldn’t be sure. I walked along the peak, waiting for some sense of calm to settle in my soul. It never came.
I reached the edge and looked down at the dark yard below. Hopefully, I was high enough. Even if I wasn’t, I deserved whatever pain I had to endure until death took me.
I thought of my sister, closed my eyes, and stepped off.
My stomach pitched as I dropped. I waited for the pain, ready to welcome it in order to embrace what would follow. Nothingness.
My back hit a hard ridge with bruising force half a moment before the back of my legs collided with the same. Strangely, the wind continued to rush past me as if I were still falling. I opened my eyes.
Yellow-gold eyes glinted down at me in the dark a second before my descent came to a joint-jarring stop. I bit my tongue, the copper tang of blood flooding my mouth as I stared at Merdon in horror.
He’d saved me. Again. No, not saved. Condemned me to continue my hellish existence.
Anger bled into my shredded soul.
“You fucking asshole.”
The broken words had little effect on him. He blinked at me, which just pissed me off more. I pushed at his chest and tried to twist out of his arms. His grip was unyielding.
“Put me down.”
He didn’t move. Just continued to study me.
“Are you deaf?”
“No.”
“No, what? No, you’re not deaf, or no, you won’t put me down?”
He tore his gaze from mine and started walking.
“You’re not wearing shoes.”
Shoes? He was worried about shoes after catching me because I’d jumped off a roof? I wrapped my arms around my middle, trying to hold myself together.
He jostled my weight more firmly against his chest and held me with one arm as he opened our back door. Once we were inside, he damn near dropped me in his haste to get me back onto my own feet.
I caught my balance and scowled at him.
“What the hell is your problem?”
He stepped closer to me, a move meant to intimidate. I wasn’t intimidated. To prove it, I closed the space between us and bared my teeth.
“You do not own me, Merdon. Get out of my house, now.”
He was silent for so long that I thought he wouldn’t answer.
“I know what you’re doing, Hannah, and I’ll be watching you.”
His gaze flicked over my face, not in the longing way that Shax used to look at me but in a cold, calculating way that had me wondering what the hell Merdon’s comment meant. Before