Sparrow’s Flight by Jenika Snow Page 0,6

been able to be with their loved ones because of what man could do. None of that mattered anymore.

“We are only human and can’t control life and death. I’m all for helping the sick, but there is always a point when we just need to step back and say things happen for a reason,” he continued. Whether she agreed with him or not wasn’t the point, not anymore. “All we are doing is prolonging the inevitable.” Mason scrubbed a hand over his jaw, and she saw a muscle tic right beneath his skin. “Everyone wants to be in control, but that isn’t how life works.”

Asher cleared his throat and reached out to Mason, but the dark-haired man stood before contact could be made and started pacing. He did this for several minutes, and when it was clear he got himself under control, he sat back down.

“Go on, Sparrow.” He motioned with his hand for her to continue, but it was the way he said her name, like sandpaper across her flesh, that had a shiver racing through her body.

She swallowed and explained, “I was an LPN and going to school part-time for my BSN.” Her voice was low, but it wasn’t because she was purposefully making it so. This was the first time since being in their presence that she had seen a sliver of emotion come from Mason as she spoke and as he asked her these personal questions. It was at that moment that it made sense. He had lost someone very close to him, possibly by his own hand.

She knew many people had to kill their loved ones after they turned sick, herself included. Was that why Mason was the way he was? He shut himself out until something she said broke the wall he erected inside himself. Sparrow thought herself pretty good at reading people, and up until this moment, Mason had been a mystery to her. But he was asking her things, wanting to know about her. Over the last few days in his company, this was the most he had ever said directly to her.

“Got someone with a useful skill, huh?” Asher’s voice cut through the tension surrounding them, and she smiled, but she knew it probably didn’t look genuine and was a bit forced. “You worked in a hospital or something?”

“I worked at an assisted living home. I was doing my clinical rotation at St. Anthony’s when the news first broke about the immunization changing people. Immediately, there was hysteria and chaos. My family had gotten the immunization, and my class was due to get theirs that day as part of the school’s requirements.” The images of that day were scorched into her brain.

“If you weren’t one of the lucky ones to die from the immunization, you turned into the piece of shits roaming around.”

She nodded at Asher’s statement. “Yeah. My parents didn’t survive, but my brother, who was only twenty-one, turned into….” She picked at a loose thread on her jacket. “My brother wasn’t lucky enough to die and instead became one of those things.” This was the first time she had actually explained in depth what happened to her, and honestly, she didn’t know what it was about Mason and Asher that made her feel comfortable enough to open up to them like this. The people she traveled with before finding these two men hadn’t cared two shits about her life before the sick had taken over, but she hadn’t cared enough about them to know how they had lived either. It was a very, very sad realization.

“What happened to him?” Mason asked.

Sparrow grew sad thinking about her brother, but she had no more tears left to shed. Those dried up long ago. “I killed him.” The air seemed to still, and something flickered behind Mason’s eyes. Keeping his stare, she said, “I couldn’t let him suffer like that, even if the news said the infected couldn’t feel pain and were no longer the people we knew and loved.”

All of that had been a load of shit. The government, the scientists, everyone who had been involved had wanted to smooth things out. They had caused this, but the people had fueled the fire. But Sparrow was sick of casting blame anymore. What good did it really do? The world was hell, literally, and all she could do was take it one day at a time.

“I had never hurt anyone before, and it took me four times before I could get the