Sparrow’s Flight by Jenika Snow Page 0,12

to the knife attached to his outer thigh. She saw Asher unsheathing a long hunting knife and held her breath on what their next move would be.

“Stay behind me, Sparrow.” Asher kept his voice low, but before she could take one more step, he curled his fingers around her waist and pulled forward until she was flush with his body. Her chest was pressed to his back, and she had to look around his arm just to see anything. Sparrow wasn’t weak by any means, could take care of herself, and had at every opportunity, but she would be lying if she didn’t admit, if only to herself, that she liked having this big, strong man wanting to protect her. If there were still feminist groups around, they would probably bitch-slap Sparrow for her thoughts, but she had been alone since everything happened, and despite the fact that she had been with small groups at some points during all this, she had always been fighting for herself.

They continued to move through the brush, and it was clear Mason had seen something before she did. In the car sat an infected female. She was motionless aside from the twitch in her fingers every once in a while. Most of the time, they just roamed around aimlessly, but Sparrow had seen some of the sick in an almost dormant stage, where they weren’t sleeping but staring off and in an almost inanimate state. She didn’t know if that was what happened when they didn’t eat, or if that was their version of sleep, but she had never engaged them to find out.

Mason stepped on a twig, and although it was small, the crack of it echoed all around them and had the three of them instantly stilling. They were hidden behind the thick trunk of a tree but could see the infected turn her head in their direction. For a solid minute, all she did was move her head back and forth, most likely trying to see any kind of movement. But none of them breathed as they looked around to make sure there were no others hidden nearby.

The female crawled out of the car, the once white dress she wore covered in rust-colored stains, holes, and dirt. Her blonde hair was missing in chunks on her head, and the stringy strands stuck to parts of her face. She wasn’t so badly decomposed that her flesh hung from her bones or the necrotic tissue started to take over. Sparrow had seen different stages of the infected, ones who looked like they had crawled out of their coffins they were so badly decomposed, but then for whatever reason, others took forever to die, figuratively speaking.

“Stay here with her.” Mason moved his hand away from the gun at the small of his back and grabbed his hunting knife that was strapped to his outer thigh in the same fashion Asher’s was. Asher still had his hand on her waist, and Sparrow couldn’t help the small tingle that warmed at the point of contact. Mason started moving closer to the female, who now had her back to him as she looked off into the opposite line of trees. He was stealthy and ultra-quiet as he moved closer and closer to her.

“We should go with him.”

Asher tightened his hold on her and turned to look over his shoulder. His blue eyes held hers, and she swallowed at the intensity of them. “It’s okay. Mason’s got this.” He smiled and turned back to watch Mason stop at the edge of the tree line. They should have just kept moving. She never engaged in the sick, even if it was just one, but clearly Mason and Asher wanted to take them down. Another twig snapped beneath Mason’s foot, and the female turned around. Her mouth opened in a low moan, and immediately black, congealed blood oozed out. She moved closer to him, dragging one of her legs behind her, which Sparrow just now realized was broken and twisted at an odd angle. How the female even managed to stand upright was beyond her.

In a swift move, Mason was before the female and had his knife raised high. He plunged the blade into the side of her neck, causing the infected to gurgle out a ghastly sound. He pulled the knife out and stabbed it in the eye, and the infected fell to the ground. After he pulled his blade out of its eye, he wiped it clean on