He wiped his arm on his clothes.
Looked at Colin, one last time.
And then he went to walk away.
That’s when he heard a click.
Felt metal, right against the back of his head.
“Not another move.”
It wasn’t his fucking day, that was for sure.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Not another move, buddy. On your knees. Hands behind your head, where I can see ’em.”
Noah felt his stomach sink as the barrel of the gun settled against the back of his skull. He stared at Colin’s body, which twitched away in death. The bloodied bodies of the other three Society guards. And as his heart raced, as he thought of Kirsty and Iqrah and Bruno, God bless him wherever he was… he couldn’t get over the fact that today was just fucking one of those days. That this was just fucking typical.
The gun jammed against his head. The woman shouted again. “I won’t ask you again, fella. On your knees. Right this goddamned second.”
Noah took a deep breath. He wanted to stand his ground and fight. But at the same time, he knew he didn’t have anything left in him. No fight left. His abilities spent.
“Might have trouble lifting both hands,” Noah said.
“What the fuck you talking about?”
He lifted his hand and his arm.
“Oh,” the woman said. “Shit. Would you look at that?”
“Trust me. Done more than my fair share of looking at it.”
“Enough with the wisecracks. On your knees.”
Noah got to his knees. But as he descended, he turned around. Chanced a glance at this woman.
And the one thing that reassured him through everything was what she was wearing.
No mask.
No black gear.
Just holding a pistol.
Not Society.
“Hey,” she said. Short-haired. Bright blue eyes. Quite small, petite. Looked a bit scruffy like she’d been out here a while. And seemingly alone, too. “On your goddamned knees, okay? And turn the fuck around. No messing about here, or I’ll put a bullet through your skull.”
Noah sighed. Hit the ground with his knees. Half-smiled, as he looked across at the bodies of the fallen Society guards. “Not sure you really want to do that. In fact, I’m not sure you really wanna hang around with me. Not unless you like being hunted by Society.”
The woman tutted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“There’s a lot of things you should know about me,” Noah said. “Especially if you’re planning on killing me. What I can do. What I’m capable of doing. The infected. I... I can do stuff to them. I have some control over them. And I can do stuff with the virus to normal folks like you, too. So you’d better be careful here.”
The woman puffed out her lips. “Look. I don’t care who the fuck you think you are, bighead. I don’t give a shit about any of that crap. All that matters to me is that you’re a well-built guy who looks like he could do a fair job of helping out with a bit of work for some friends of mine.”
Noah frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The woman grabbed him with surprising strength. Yanked him to his feet. “These folks. They pay me to come out here. Find waifs and strays like you. And then when I’ve taken ’em back there, they pay me good.”
“And what do they do with people like me?”
The woman smiled. A few of her teeth were missing, and those that were left hardly looked in the best condition. “That’s for you to find out. Now come on. We’ve got a hell of a long walk ahead of us.”
Noah narrowed his eyes. Tried to sink into that place, that void.
But he knew it was pointless.
He was too weak.
He felt broken, somehow. Like he couldn’t tap into that place at all anymore.
How ironic that something he’d resisted so strongly he now wanted more desperately than ever.
The woman frowned. “Stop staring at me, creep. Get a fucking move on. We don’t have all day.”
Noah sighed. “Would now be a bad time to tell you I’m in the middle of something really fucking important right now, and the last thing I could do with is to get caught up on some little pointless side quest? And that… that I’m pretty sure I’ve got some abilities you really don’t want to mess with?”
“You can say what you want, sunshine. As long as I get paid, I don’t really care what your business is. Now come on. Move it. Less talking, more walking.”
Noah looked around. Realised there wasn’t really much else he could do right now but comply. He’d have to figure something out along the way. He always did.
Even though he was pretty sure his abilities on that front were waning rapidly, too.
He walked. Felt that pistol against his back at first. Then it drifted from him. He looked over his shoulder. Saw her keeping her distance. Shit, this woman really wasn’t going anywhere, wasn’t letting him out of her sight.
“You try anything, I’ll shoot. Believe me. I wanna get paid, sure. But I get a cut for taking you back dead, too. Either works for me. But yeah. Let’s try and get there in one piece if we can.”
Noah walked along this road. He didn’t recognise the stretch they were on. Didn’t know how far from Kirsty and Iqrah he was. Didn’t know where Bruno was, or if he was even still alive.
He just hoped they were out there. He just hoped they were okay.
And as much as the loneliness hurt him, he knew in a twisted kind of way that he and Iqrah were probably better off apart. Because that made it twice as hard for the Society to catch them.
“What you doing out here with all them dead bodies anyway?” the woman asked.
“Thought you weren’t interested in me.”
“Don’t get cheeky now. I’m just not keen on walking all the way back to Renault’s place with no conversation, like.”
“Renault? Really?”
“I dunno. He’s French or something. Anyway. Answer my fucking question.”
Noah sighed. “If you must know, I was
