She’d made it to the end of the alleyway.
Now it was just a case of making it along the road.
Making it to Morecambe.
Ending this.
She turned around.
Looked ahead, into the distance—into the darkness of her blindness.
And she took a deep breath.
She was going to make this.
Or she was going to die trying.
She went to take her first step when she heard footsteps behind her.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Kelly looked off into the distance and wondered how Noah was doing.
She was at the industrial estate. She’d been there for a good while now. Two years, perhaps. Things were good here. Quiet. Rarely ran into any Society bother. And if they did, they were nicely armed, which meant they had a fair shot at defending this place, even against those thugs.
But things were stable here. Steady as could be. People had jobs. Some worked in construction, others in teaching, others in hunting and policing, that kind of thing. It was a proper working community, and Kelly was proud to be a part of it.
But as she looked out through her one damned eye at the empty landscape in the distance, she couldn’t get Noah out of her mind.
They say life’s stranger than fiction. Well, talk about strange. Running into Noah of all fucking people, abandoned in the sewers, just a couple of weeks ago. Bruno and some girl, Iqrah, by his side.
He’d stayed here a week. Recovered from his gunshots, as best as anyone could recover from a goddamned gunshot. Lucky bastard, the hits weren’t as bad as they could’ve been. Always was a lucky bastard.
And as much as Kelly wanted him to stay longer, he’d had to move on. She got it. He was Important with a capital I. And this Iqrah girl, even more so, apparently.
But a selfish part of her wanted him to put all that aside and just join her damned people.
She had a fondness for Noah. She always had, as much as he’d protest otherwise. She always thought Jasmine was a bitch for dumping him. He thought the world of her, treated her like a princess—in his own way, anyway. More importantly, he was patient with her. Jasmine required that kind of patience. Her old best friend needed her space, needed her own time.
In the end, the relationship just got too much for her, and there was no doubt Jas sacrificed a big element of her happiness in order to protect herself; threw herself headfirst into her career to distract herself from a growing unhappiness within.
But that was the past. They’d rekindled. They’d made up. And it was sad that they’d been torn apart again, after everything. Fucking tragic.
Noah was a good guy. An ordinary guy. Not the kind of guy she ever imagined would be so damned important in the grand scheme of things.
But did anyone ever feel they were important, really?
Or did everyone always feel like an outsider?
Everyone was normal. Nobody ever thought anything was going to happen to them.
“Kelly?”
Kelly looked around. Saw Sammy standing there, smile on her face.
“Hey, Sammy.”
“You okay, love?”
Kelly nodded. Sammy was a sweet woman. Late sixties, very much the mother hen of the community. “Just having a bit of peace and quiet.”
“No fooling me. It’s that bloke, isn’t it?”
Kelly frowned. “That bloke?”
Sammy smirked. “I know you were sad to see him go. You had to be. Went out there and risked your goddamned life to save him. Seen you here a lot lately. Staring out there. Like you’re waiting for somebody. Waiting for him.”
Kelly blushed. “It’s not like that. Noah… Noah and me, we had a connection. ’Cause of our pasts. But it’s not like you want it to be. Sorry to say.”
Sammy shrugged. “Well, that’s a shame. About time you focused a little on yourself a bit more. Your job’s become your life. Which when you’re working with the chickens like me, is totally fine. But when you’re security like you, on patrol out there… hell, you can lose yourself in this world.”
Kelly swallowed a lump in her throat. Nodded. Truth was, she did bury herself into her work. She did lose herself into it. Because it was the only way she could distract from the pain of her past.
The pain of losing her son.
“Well,” Sammy said. “I’ll leave you to it. Got some eggs to collect. Ever thought about a change of profession? We could do with an extra hand on the farm.”
Kelly looked at Sammy and smiled. Funny how life worked. She’d always been pretty lazy and melodramatic when it came to work, back in the day. Never took work seriously. She was happy to just work in the most steady, stable job, not bothered about standing out, or progression, or anything like that.
But since the world had ended, she’d been a police officer back at Westfield, and now a security guard, monitoring the immediate outside of No Man’s Land in search of any threats or positive finds.
“I’m not sure the farm life is for me,” Kelly said.
Sammy winked. “You never know until you try it, love.”
She turned around. Walked away, off towards the industrial estates. Towards the bustle of life.
And as she watched her leave, Kelly wondered if in fact she could settle down to that kind of life. If one day, when all was said and done, she could retire. Process her trauma.
And then move forward.
She took a deep breath.
Looked back over her shoulder, not expecting to see a soul.
But when she looked, she saw a figure.
No. Two figures.
Both of them in the distance.
Both walking this way.
Kelly frowned. Lifted her rifle and looked through the scope.
The first person she saw was a woman. Short-haired. Looked rough. Scruffy. In fact, Kelly thought she recognised her from the road. In a shootout with her once upon a time.
She steadied her grip on the rifle and prepared to fire a warning shot when she saw the man beside her.
The hairs on the
