“I have it,” Kira said. “I’d only had a sword and knives before he died. Why don’t women think of guns instead of swords? The only way to get one now is for one of us to die or you take one from a newbie.”
“I grabbed a gun,” Gage said, grinning. “Maybe one will drop from the sky.”
Us three women stood guard while the men struggled to pile steel bars onto a makeshift carrier. We’d been searching for supplies to make a wagon all day, with little success because of the Malignants. They wanted out of the wet outdoors as much as we did, thus preventing us from scavenging without their constant presence.
A hissing from behind us. Dante swung a bar at the beast’s head, caving it in and splattering the other bars with blood and brain matter.
I shuddered. A bloody job, and one I was growing weary of after only a few weeks.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Fawke said, his voice echoing down the tunnel. “This subway tunnel is too full of them. We’re boxed in.”
“What about the bars?” Moses hefted one to his shoulder.
“We’ll take what we can and find more somewhere else.” Fawke grabbed one, Ezra and Dante copying.
We ran as fast as the men could go with their heavy burdens. Climbing the ladders to the upper level proved more challenging. Again, the women stood guard, while the men handed the bars to whoever was at the top of the ladder.
Kira’s gun boomed as she fired at the approaching creatures. “We’re getting overrun!”
“Drop the bars and go,” I ordered, shoving against Moses. “We’ll find more. Hurry.”
From faraway, I heard the thump of a helicopter. Today wasn’t Sunday, which meant they’d either sent our supplies early or were dropping off someone else unlucky enough to be a Stalker. Dropping them off in a field still wet with poison. We had more than one reason to hurry.
Our feet slammed the cracked concrete as we raced through the subway platform, up another set of stairs, and barged into the thankfully empty station. Moses and Ezra slammed the doors closed and slipped one of the very bars we’d worked so hard to get into the space between the handles.
“If we’re to get supplies before the outside dries up, we need to be more vigilant.” I leaned against a wall to catch my breath. “We also need to find out what the helicopter is dropping.”
Fawke nodded. “I know a place we can see from.” He led us up another flight of stairs, then another until we reached a roof.
Bright against the gray sky was the white of a parachute. Attached to that parachute was a person.
“What now? If the wet is poison, we can’t let that person sicken and die?” I glanced at the others. “We need everyone.” I paced the rooftop, my brain struggling to come up with a plan. How long until the rain was no longer poison? I stopped and took a deep breath. “All we can do is hope the person is wearing a suit. Fawke, come with me. We’ll have to get dressed and go get them.” Or leave them to survive on their own if they were wet. Considering Soriah knows the danger we’ll be heading into in a few days, I bet on the new arrival wearing a suit. The longer I was here, the more I realized how sharp an eye Soriah kept on us Stalkers, but I hadn’t figured out how.
We headed back to the ground floor and quickly made our way “home”. Fawke and I donned our rubber suits and ventured outside, heading to where new Stalkers were dropped. I wondered why they were dropped so far away when supplies landed in the courtyard outside the building we lived in and said so.
“It’s part of the training. If you can’t make it through a portion of the city not crawling with hordes of Malignants, then you shouldn’t be here.”
“None of us should be here.” I kicked a rock in my path and sent it clattering.
“Yet we are.” He took my hand.
Even though I couldn’t feel his touch through the suit, tingles shot up my arm. “Make the best of it then?” I smiled.
“Yep. There.” He directed my attention to where someone sprinted toward us, two Malignants on his tail.
The young man wore a leather suit and carried two guns. “I can’t shoot with a gun in each hand,” he gave a nervous laugh and handed me one. “I got a little greedy when they let me loose in that room. Then a very tall woman told me to give one to the leader. Said that person hadn’t been smart enough to grab one.” His grin turned cocky.
“Just point and pull the trigger,” Fawke said, handing one of the guns to me. “This is the leader.”
I sheathed my sword and took aim at one of the Malignants. I lined up the red dot where the thing’s heart was and dropped the creature like a rock while Fawke took care of the other one. I knew the feeling of taking what a person could carry. I’d weighed myself down so much, running had often been difficult.
Once the creatures were dead, I turned and offered my hand. “I’m Crynn Dayholt. Leader. Thank you for the weapon. This is Fawke Newton.”
“Thanks for the help.” He returned the shake. “Jolt Hirsch, newly turned eighteen. I have a feeling I’m going to hate that needle landing on black. I didn’t choose this
