Lily
They stayed at the house as long as they could, letting McKenna rest, but it wasn’t long before they realized they were in trouble.
Suddenly Ely appeared in the doorway. “It’s time to get out of here.”
“You think?” As if to make Lily’s point, the night air was once again rent by the piercing howl of a Tick.
“There’ll be time for sarcasm later. Let’s move.”
She had already been packing some bags and she had a few ready by the door. Just stuff she’d found around the house that she’d thought might be useful. Now, she went back to the bed, where McKenna lay curled around the fidgeting baby, whom McKenna had named Josie. Lily touched McKenna’s shoulder.
“Time to get up. We’ve got to move.” McKenna didn’t even twitch. A flicker of fear skittered across her nerves. Lily shook her harder. “Come on, honey, get up.”
Slowly McKenna’s eyelashes fluttered. She turned her head. “Huh?”
“We gotta go. Ticks are headed our way. We gotta get out now.”
“Okay.” She tried to wedge her arm under her. “I feel so strange.”
“You’re supposed to feel strange,” Lily reminded her as she picked up the baby. “You just had a baby. You’ll get your strength back.”
“I’m so cold.”
“We’ll bring the blankets with us. Come on, Ely. Help me get her up.”
Lily sat on the edge of the bed and tried to wedge her spare arm under McKenna. The second she touched McKenna’s skin, she knew something was very wrong. Her skin was as cold as chilled lunch meat and just as clammy. On instinct, Lily pulled back the covers.
From the waist down, McKenna was covered in blood. Not a little blood, either. More blood than Lily had ever seen. Her stomach flopped over and bile mixed with peanut butter crawled back up her esophagus.
She called out, “Ely!”
He turned around. He went instantly pale and staggered back a step. He said nothing. No vulgar stream of curse words. No gasp. Just deathly silence.
Then slowly he crossed to the bed, shaking his head. “Oh, God, McKenna.” His voice broke. “I’m sorry.”
She hadn’t looked down yet, and when she did, her head bobbed weakly.
Lily thrust the baby into Ely’s arms. “We’ve got to stop the bleeding.”
“No,” he said. He grabbed her arm before she could reach for the blanket. “You’ll get it all over you.”
He yanked her hard, pulling her from the bed. Lily’s legs wobbled and she would have gone down to her knees, if he hadn’t supported her weight.
“No!” She struggled against his hold, but he was gripping her arm in an iron-tight grasp, walking backward toward the door. “Ely, stop! We’ve got to stop the bleeding.”
“No.” His voice was cold now. Dead. “We’ve got to go. Now.”
“No!” Lily screamed again. Her heart was being torn from her chest. “No, we can save her! We can get her to the car. We can drive.”
He whipped her around so she was facing him. “They’ll smell that blood. They already do. That’s why they’re coming.”
They were talking over each other now. Neither listening. Lily didn’t care. All she knew was that she couldn’t leave McKenna. She couldn’t lose McKenna.
“We’re faster than they are. We’ll—”
“Anywhere we go, they’ll be there.”
“I’m not leaving her. I need—”
“Think, Lily! We can’t—”
“He’s right,” McKenna said from the bed.
Her words were soft, barely audible, but somehow they both heard her.
“I’m not going to make it,” she said, her eyes wide with terror. “You need to go now. Take Josie and go.”
“No,” Lily said again.
“I can’t even walk.”
“This isn’t what you want. You want to live. I know you do. You want to live to fight for Josie.”
She met Lily’s gaze dead on and when she spoke, her voice trembled. “This way she’ll have a chance. This
“No!” Lily said again, nearly senseless now. McKenna was right. Ely was right. But Lily couldn’t face it yet. She collapsed on the floor, sobbing at the brutal, unreasonable horror of it all.
Ely grabbed her arm, wrenching her to her feet and shaking her until she met his gaze. “Get it together! We have to get out of here. Now. Either you walk out or I carry you out.”
“I’m not leaving her,” Lily protested.
“You are.” He gave her another shake, somehow managing to shake her and hold Josie at the same time. “I promised Carter I would keep you alive and I will. I didn’t make any promises about this baby. If I have to put her down to carry you out, I will do it.”
She looked into his eyes, nearly recoiling at the cruel determination she saw there. He would do it. He would drop this precious newborn and leave her here to die. He would carry Lily out and leave Josie.
If Lily didn’t get it together, Josie would die, along with her mother.
“Do you believe me?” he growled.
She nodded, unable to speak past her grief and her burning hatred.
“Then stand up and walk out of here.” He released her arm. Her legs wobbled but she stood. He thrust the baby into her arms. She felt so tiny and fragile. “I’m going to go check outside. You do what you have to do to say good-bye and be out front in two minutes. Don’t get any blood on you.”
Lily nodded past her tears, her grief, her rage. He didn’t see her nod because he was already gone.
Lily walked over to the bed, careful not to look at anything beyond McKenna’s gaunt face and hollow eyes, but her peripheral vision caught the bright-red oval of blood, which seemed to be spreading over more of the bed with every minute that passed. How could a human hold that much blood? How could she still even be alive?
She was so pale lying there in the moonlight that she looked almost blue. Lily clasped her hand, even though her fingers were beyond cold and too weak to squeeze back.
“Thank you,” she said, and Lily couldn’t believe McKenna was thanking her when Lily was the one who was letting her die.
All she could do in response was shake her head. She couldn’t even speak. She couldn’t even breathe.
Lily’s jaw, her chest, everything was shaking with the urge to sob; it took all she had not to give in to it.
She moved McKenna’s arm off her chest and lay baby Josie there, carefully placing her hand back over the blanket, so she could hold her baby one last time, even though she was too weak to do it.
McKenna looked down at her child, tears pouring down her paper-white face. “She looks like Joe. She’s beautiful.”
Lily nodded. “She has his eyes. And your mouth.” She forced the words out, not because she believed them, but because it seemed to be the kind of thing people said about babies. And maybe because she wanted it to be true. She wanted to believe that this tiny baby held a part of her friends.
Then McKenna looked back at her. “You take her now and go. You keep her safe.”
Lily nodded, her hands shaking as she picked up the baby.
“It’s okay,” McKenna said, despite the fear that made her voice quiver. “This is a good way to die.”
Lily wanted to scream. It wasn’t a good way to die. It was a shitty, horrible way to die. And there was a good chance it would only get worse.
Nothing about this was good. A baby shouldn’t lose her mother within hours. Newborn babies shouldn’t be orphans. Josie would grow up without knowing her parents. She’d never even see a picture of them. If she grew up at all.
As if to echo her thought, the door flung open again as another howl, much closer this time, went out from a Tick.
Ely stood in the open doorway. “We’re out of time. They’re here. It’ll take them a couple of minutes to find a
