He could have branded the numbers into their flesh like farmers did to their cattle. He would have to think about that later when he had time.
“The two guards that General Murray sent down,” Afana finished. “Where are they?”
Martin gulped. He opened his mouth to speak, but fear trapped the words in his mouth. He’d never been this close to Afana, and he’d certainly never spoken to him before.
Afana could feel his rage boiling over inside him. Martin could see on his face that he was about to explode, so he spoke quickly. “They are down here, sir. I can show you.”
Afana nodded curtly. “Show me.”
Martin led Afana down one of the tunnels. Afana had never been down here when there were people inhabiting the space. He’d visited it when it had been completed, and he remembered being surprised by how much room there was. Being down here now, he realized there was a lot of wasted space. The hunters needed to go on a cattle acquisition trip soon.
Martin stopped in front of one of the closed doors. “One of them is in there, and the other is next door.”
Afana slammed the door open.
Tank’s swung his head around to the door, a half-formed snarl on his lips as his naked ass paused in the air mid-thrust. “Get the fuck out of here!” The snarl turned to a whimper when he saw who had intruded.
Before Tank could fully turn around, Afana threw him across the tiny room. He slammed into the wall, crashing clean through it and landing on Knuckles in the bed next door.
Sarah, the woman Tank was with, screamed and covered herself with the bedsheet as she scrambled off the bed and huddled in the corner. Afana glanced at her, feeling the old familiar craving rise up in him. He suppressed the urge. He didn’t have time for a snack right now.
“Stay there,” he commanded.
Afana crashed through the hole in the wall. It was a little small for him, but his powerful body tore through the remaining cinder blocks like tissue paper.
Knuckles was trapped beneath Tank’s unconscious body. The woman he was with had managed to squirm free, and she cowered silently on the edge of the bed.
Afana pointed at Knuckles. “Did you cut off Ivan’s head?”
Knuckles shook his head, his naked body trembling.
“Speak,” Afana said from the pit of his stomach.
“No, I didn’t. It was the hunters. They cut it off. We took it from them.”
“Which hunters? Where are they?”
Knuckles rattled off the names. “Sergei, Pavel, Yegor, Nestor, and Terrier.”
Why is he keeping a name from me? “And the sixth? There are always six people hunting together.”
“Ryder was the sixth. I just forgot about him because he wasn’t with them…” Knuckles trailed off, suddenly realizing his error. Not omitting the name of the sixth member of the hunting party, but the fact Ryder had never come back to the bunker. He sighed like a man accepting his fate. “Ryder wasn’t with them when the hunters returned.”
Afana kicked Tank’s body away, and he grabbed Knuckles by the throat, lifting his naked body off the bed. He looked like a little boy compared to Afana. “You let a traitor leave?”
Knuckles’ face turned red. He didn’t know what to say, so he said the first thing that came to his mind. “Sergei and the others didn’t mention anything about Ryder turning traitor. I thought they had killed him, or that he’d been killed hunting.”
“There was no head!” Afana spat. He flung Knuckles to the cement floor and exited the room. Martin was standing outside, wondering if he should have left.
“Where are Sergei and the others?” Afana asked.
Martin panicked. He didn’t know where they were exactly. They could be anywhere on Level Six. Afana stepped closer to Martin, pinning him with his gaze. The smell of death on his breath terrified Martin to the core.
Martin began to shudder as he tried to answer, but he didn’t know what to say. Meanwhile, Afana was getting even more annoyed. These damn imbeciles!
Fluffy growled and ran ahead of the group.
Ryder heard gurgling, like someone was gagging on their own blood. There was something ahead of them, but Carter and the kids didn’t stop. Can’t they hear it?
“What’s that sound?” she asked as she stopped walking. She wanted to know what she was walking into.
“Don’t worry,” Carter told her. “They’re caged.”
Ryder pulled Carter to a stop, and he looked down at her hand on his arm.
“What?” he asked. “It’s okay for you to touch me, but not the other way around?”
Ryder rolled her eyes. “What’s caged?”
“The living dead.”
“What?” Ryder asked.
“People who got all grumpy and tried to eat everybody and can’t die.” Carter’s eyes were still fastened on the path ahead. “That type of living dead. It started yesterday morning. It was like a switch flipped inside them. One moment, they were fine, and the next, they got crazy. I was asked to keep the kids occupied while the problem got sorted out.”
Ryder’s mouth fell open. No fucking way! The same thing had happened to Ivan, and at the exact same time.
What the fuck was going on?
“Why do you keep them caged?” she asked.
He looked at her like she was an idiot. “Duh. Because if they were free, they’d try to kill us.”
She couldn’t argue with that. Panic flared inside her. She’d been in contact with Ivan. She thought back to the fight she’d had with him. Did he touch me?
“How the fuck do they turn?” she asked.
Carter leaned away from Ryder and swept his gaze up and down her body. “You’ve been in contact with one of them, haven’t you?”
Carter’s playful tone had gone serious, which Ryder didn’t like one bit. She felt the kids staring at her as they also moved away.
She nodded. “I have. Ivan, our cook.”
Carter looked at Ryder intensely. “Did he bite you?”
“Fuck, no, he didn’t bite me. Why? Is that how they infect you?” Ryder’s heart raced as she
