Kirsty shook her head. Dropped the rifle, as too did Noah.
“Well?” Noah said.
Kirsty took a deep, shaky breath. “Now or never, right?”
Noah nodded. “Now or never.”
And then he ran to the front of the van, clambered out of the smashed window with Iqrah over his shoulder, and slid onto the road below.
He hit the concrete with a thud. Scratched his hand on the jagged glass still attached to the windscreen.
He looked back. Saw Kirsty and Bruno sliding out onto the road too.
They landed beside him. A wall of infected between them and the Society guards now.
“Come on,” Noah said. “Let’s get the hell away from here.”
They kept low and ran around the back of the van. He didn’t recognise his surroundings, only that they were still on a coastal road somewhere. Didn’t look like anywhere he’d seen before. But he had to assume they’d gone the opposite direction to the safe place.
Tough shit. They could worry about that when the time came.
They had different priorities right now.
He ran down the road towards the buildings on the right. Didn’t want to get trapped inside anywhere again. He’d already learned his lesson on that front.
But they did need to create some distance between them, between the Society.
He heard the gunshots rattling behind. Heard shouting. Looked back, saw a few of the nearer infected falling.
And as much as he wanted to run... another idea came into mind.
“Maybe we stay here,” Noah said.
Kirsty frowned. “You kidding? They’re right behind us.”
“And they’re expecting us to keep running. Maybe... maybe we hide here. Let them think we’ve run. Maybe that’s the best option we have.”
Again, Kirsty looked caught in two minds.
And then she ended up shaking her head, shrugging her shoulders.
“Fuck it,” she said. “You’ve been pretty right so far, so who am I to argue?”
Noah nodded. “Cheers for the vote of faith.”
He looked around, heart pounding, questioning whether he’d had the right idea, made the right call.
Saw a car to their left. A Land Rover. Space underneath it. Space to hide.
“There,” he said.
Kirsty sighed. Looked like she was going to protest.
Then she just nodded in turn.
They ran to the car. Clambered underneath it. The infected shrieks and gunshots still echoing around this street.
They dragged themselves underneath it. Noah patted Bruno, who tilted his head, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
“And now we wait,” he said.
He lay there. Stayed totally still. Heard the gunshots rattle on. Heard the shrieks descend into silence.
And then heard nothing but silence.
Then shouting.
Then footsteps.
He held his breath as three figures appeared. He couldn’t see their faces, only their legs. But they were Society, no doubt about it.
One of them ran over, right by the car. Stopped. Just metres away. One wrong move and they’d hear them.
“Where’d they get to?”
“I saw ’em running.”
“Running where?”
“They can’t have gone far.”
“Shit. Boss’ll kill us for this.”
Noah stared at those legs of the Society guard just inches away.
Saw him start to walk.
And then he dropped something.
Some keys fell to the ground.
Noah’s whole world froze.
The guard reached down.
Noah saw his face.
And for a moment, Noah swore that man looked into his eyes. He swore he looked right at him. Everything stood still. He held on to that rifle with the sedative darts and braced himself to fire.
And then the guard just stood back up, keys in hand, and walked away.
“Come on,” he said, beginning to jog. “They can’t have gone far.”
Noah watched the guards run by, one by one.
He watched them disappear up the road.
He didn’t say a word. None of them did.
They just crouched there as the evening turned to night, as dusk turned to darkness.
They didn’t move until they were absolutely sure they were in the clear.
Chapter Nineteen
Noah and Kirsty found an old gas station to shelter in for the night.
They decided it was too risky to keep moving tonight. Better to lay low and stay out of the way and make a start again in the morning. They needed rest, anyway. It’d been a tiring day. A goddamned eventful day, that was for sure.
Besides. Iqrah wasn’t showing any signs of recovery, any signs of awakening. And that was concerning for Noah.
He crouched by her side. Pulled the blanket over her neck. She shuffled a little, eyes closed. Cold to the touch. He could only sit there and stare at her and feel his heart swell a little at this girl. The connection he’d made with her. Sometimes he forgot she was in her late teens. She was stunted in ways, mostly because she hadn’t been educated since she was really young, like any of the other kids left in this world. Poor socialisation didn’t help, either.
But others, he was amazed by her intelligence. Her emotional empathy. Her inherent strength.
“You really care about her, don’t you?”
Noah jumped. Looked around.
Kirsty stood at the other side of the gas station counter. She’d taken her clothes off, was down to just an off-white T-shirt now. Her long, light legs reflected in the moonlight.
Noah blushed a little, looked away, back at Iqrah. “Too right, I do.”
Kirsty walked over to his side. So close to him, he could feel her warmth. Some of her loose hair tickling against his face. She stood there and looked down at Iqrah, too.
“I’m sorry I doubted you at first,” she said. “Just you’ve got to understand. Iqrah’s parents. They were devastated when she disappeared. We spent so long searching for her. So long trying to find her and bring her back. We lost people along the way. And then a bloke shows up holding her over her shoulder, the girl totally blind… You have to know how that looks to me.”
Noah nodded. “Sorry if I was a little short with you too. I’ve spent a long time trying to look out for this girl. Trying to do what’s right for her. We’ve been through some shit together. I don’t find it easy to trust new people is all. Especially not around her.”
“So what’s going on?”
“What?”
“You
