Chapter Forty-Three
Kelly looked out at the storm clouds, and she got the feeling something wasn’t quite right.
It was late afternoon. Nights were drawing in. She’d never liked the dark nights of winter, right from being a kid. Mostly because of her fears of the dark. Her fears of waking up without any vision. Fears that had obviously been fucking exacerbated since losing a goddamned eyeball.
But this afternoon, as the darkness of the storm threatened to swallow the evening whole, there was something just… different about it. Something felt not quite right.
She couldn’t put her finger on it. She knew she’d felt this way before, and it’d turned out being nothing; all had turned out good.
But she still never ignored the signs. Knew better than to dismiss that hyper-vigilance.
Because sometimes—just sometimes—she was right.
Like when Edward died.
And when you went through some shit like that, you never shook this level of hyper-vigilance, that was for sure.
“Still moping about him, huh?”
Kelly jumped. Turned around. It was getting a bit of a habit that she’d be standing here staring into goddamned space and someone would make her jump. Clearly said a lot about her commitment to the security job these last few weeks.
But fuck. Ever since Noah came back into her life—then left again. Ever since the incident with Iqrah… It felt like things had changed all over again.
She saw Shel standing there. Hands on her hips. Shel had pretty much made herself at home here in the community ever since she’d arrived here with Noah. Kelly had got to know her a bit. Learned about her past. Learned about her time on the road, practically bounty hunting for those lunatics out west. And for that reason, it was hard to totally trust someone like Shel.
But at the same time, the way she’d been so frank and upfront about shit reassured Kelly a little. She kept an eye on her, sure. Didn’t want her bringing any trouble to their door. No time for that shit.
But for now, Shel seemed good. She kept herself to herself. She’d settled right in here and was training up to become a security guard alongside Kelly.
“Moping about who?” Kelly asked.
Shel puffed her lips out, stepped to Kelly’s side. “Don’t kid yourself, love. You’re defo not kidding me. Noah. White Knight himself. You guys fucking before all this or something?”
“Whoah,” Kelly said. “That’s kind of uncalled for.”
Shel shrugged. “Don’t see the point beating around the bush, whatever. Look. It’s been two weeks, doll. I don’t mean to be mega blunt, but… well, if he was gonna come back, he’d’ve come back by now. Besides. You heard the man. He’s dangerous to us. They’re after him. As long as he’s close to us, we’re in trouble too. That the kinda life you really wanna live? The kinda risk you really wanna drop the good folks here into?”
Kelly looked off into the clouds and sighed. She knew Shel was right, logically. As long as Noah was alive, he was a danger to be around because the Society weren’t going to just stop hunting him down.
But at the same time… that didn’t matter. It was irrelevant.
Because regardless of how many people Noah knew here, he was one of them.
And they didn’t leave their people behind.
“I’ve thought about it a lot,” Kelly said. “And… and as much as I get it… I can’t just let go of Noah. I know he’s a danger to be around. I know he’s gonna bring trouble to our doorstep if he’s here. But trouble’ll find us anyway. With or without Noah. I just… I just hope wherever he is out there, he’s okay. Because I care for that dickhead. He means a lot to me. And he meant a lot to somebody I cared about very much.”
She stared off into space. Off into the thunderclouds. Off into the growing darkness.
Then she felt a hand on her shoulder.
She looked around. Saw Shel looking at her. Half-smile on her face.
“He’s a tough motherfucker,” she said. “Hell. He fucking well overthrew me, so he must be, right?”
Kelly smiled back at her. She wanted to believe Shel was right. Noah made his choice. And they’d found each other again in the past. Who was to say they wouldn’t find each other again?
“He just needs his time,” Kelly said.
“Too right,” Shel said. “Just needs his goddamned time. Now come on, security. You’re slacking. And I think I just saw Fat Rose nicking some squirrel down by the food court.”
Shel started to walk away. Kelly watched her. Smiled at her. Felt a lot better, even with this smallest of interactions.
She looked back over her shoulder once more. Once again, unable to totally detach herself. Once again, unable to totally step back.
That’s when she saw them.
At first, she thought she was imagining things.
But the closer she looked, the more she realised they were there.
They were real.
And they were heading this way.
“Kel?” Shel said. “What… Shit.”
Kelly stared into the sky and watched as the eight helicopters headed towards them, towards the industrial estate.
And something in the pit of her stomach told her a storm was coming.
A storm unlike anything they’d encountered before.
Chapter Forty-Four
Cameron stepped up the hill from the middle of the woods and looked down at the industrial estate.
He smiled. He’d heard a lot about this place. Heard it was the last place the dude Noah was before the girl died. That was a setback. A real goddamned hitch. She was powerful. More powerful than anyone, apparently. Without her, their hopes of some kind of end to this virus were pretty much zilch as it stood.
They’d been ordered to back off Noah for a while, while they figured out whether they could get what they needed with him alone. It’d thrown all their damned plans right up in the air. Iqrah and Noah were the key. They were together, which meant they could take them
