She felt bad about what’d happened to Noah. Truly guilty. Because she’d felt a bond with him. She’d felt the fireworks of a budding attachment.
And she’d betrayed him. She’d done the dirty on him in the worst possible way.
But then she thought of Bertie.
The way they’d held that gun to his head.
The way the bulky, muscular guard stood there, smile on his face.
“One wrong move and the boy dies, understand? One wrong move and he dies.”
“Kirsty?”
Kirsty closed her eyes.
She took a deep breath.
Stood on the cliff edge. The turning point.
The moment where she had a choice.
The right thing.
Or the thing that tore her apart completely.
“Iqrah,” she said. “I’m sorry. But I’ve not been totally…”
Then she felt something.
A sharpness slammed against the back of her head.
A sudden pain.
A dullness.
She opened her eyes and saw Iqrah shouting at her. Trying to say something. Screaming out.
But she couldn’t speak.
She couldn’t hear her.
She wanted to open her mouth.
Wanted to warn Iqrah.
Wanted to tell her to go her own way.
Wanted to tell her to run—
Another sudden pain.
The back of her neck.
Kirsty tried to stay on her feet.
But then she just fell to her knees.
Broken.
Weak.
She looked up at Iqrah as she kneeled there, the feeling in her body drifting away, the taste of blood filling her mouth, and she wanted to warn her.
“Don’t… don’t…”
And then Kirsty felt another pain against the back of her head, and everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Noah stared at the crowd of infected racing towards him and wondered how today could possibly get any fucking shittier.
There were five of them up ahead. Scrambling across the empty street, kicking up dust. Their skin looked grey. Long-dead, that was for sure.
As they got closer, he tried to sink into that void. Part of him knowing damned well he was already too weak to prove it. But another part of him not really wanting to show all his cards to this lunatic of a woman who’d captured him.
“Go on then,” she shouted, standing behind him, pistol pointed at him. “You think you’re such a special snowflake, huh? Well, go on. Prove it to me. Prove how good a fighter you really are!”
Noah gritted his teeth. Watched the infected approach. “It doesn’t exactly work like that.”
“Then how the fuck does it work, huh? Go on, Superman. Show me those powers if you’re so special!”
Noah saw the infected hurtling closer and closer, and he realised with an immense sense of dread that this woman really wasn’t fucking around.
She wanted to see proof he was for real. For whatever purpose, he didn’t really know. Probably just so she could rinse more fucking value out of him when she took him back to her masters, whoever the hell this “Renault” was.
But he didn’t really give a shit about reasoning right now. Main thing that mattered? Staying the hell alive.
And if he had to try to lean on his abilities to do that… then he’d just have to God well do it.
The infected raced closer. Behind, he heard the woman backing off a little.
“Come on,” she said. “What’s up with you? Performance anxiety or summat?”
“It’d help if you stopped badgering on,” Noah said.
“Oh, really? That how the superpowers work, eh buddy?”
“They really do. So I’d appreciate a bit of patience and silence right now.”
“Yeah, well, only gonna give you so much silence here. Real chance to prove yourself. Do it, and maybe we can start talking negotiation then.”
Noah gritted his teeth, his jaw aching from gritting them so damned much. It was pretty much a character trait at this point. He focused on the approaching infected. No real confidence in his abilities. No real belief he had it in him to tap into that void. His strength felt sapped. His anxiety, sky-high.
If he died at the hands of a lunatic desperate for him to prove his worth—if this were the end of his story—then it would be just fucking typical.
No fireworks moments. No drama.
Just torn apart by the infected dead in the empty streets.
Typical.
Fucking…
One of the infected threw itself at him just feet away.
He squeezed his fist.
Closed his eyes.
A bang.
He opened his eyes.
The infected lay dead on the road—proper dead this time.
The woman sighed. “That wasn’t your superpowers, buddy. One down, four to go!”
He turned to the next. Eager to just prove this woman wrong. Even if it affected him.
And he wondered if maybe he could tap into the abilities and fucking turn her. But he definitely felt out of touch with that part of himself at the moment. Definitely felt like that side of him had faded.
Another infected scurried forward.
Another gunshot.
“Three to go!”
“Jesus,” Noah said. “You really are fucking insane, aren’t you?”
The woman laughed. “You’re the insane one, buddy. Especially if you don’t get proving yourself ASAP.”
Another blast.
“Two to go. You’re up!”
Noah let out a shaky breath. He tried to push every thought out of his mind. Iqrah. Bruno. Kirsty. All of it.
He tried to drop his baggage and sink into the moment when he felt the infected slam into him.
When he heard a click.
“Shit,” the woman said. “I’m all out.”
And then the infected slammed into him.
Knocked him to the road.
He fell back. Barely had time to see the next infected run past, launch itself at the woman.
And as he stared up into the dead eyes of this dark-haired woman above him, green vomit rolling down her chin, maggots worming their way across her forehead, he thought about just letting them take her. Just using this to his advantage.
Letting them take him too and ending any hopes of the Society ever using him.
But then he thought of Iqrah.
He thought of Kirsty.
He thought of Bruno.
And then, as the infected woman tightened her grip around his throat, everything froze.
The woman’s hand.
Tightening first.
Then loosening.
He looked up at her. Saw something like surprise in her dead eyes.
Go. Leave here. Go.
The infected woman staggered back.
Backed away. Step by step by step.
Go. Leave. Never come back. Now!
And then the infected woman snarled and ran off into the streets, into
