Hunter Of The Dead (18 page)

“God damn it, Eden,” Jordan whispered.

She’d been bitten. It was low on her leg, so she probably had a good twelve hours before the infection reached her heart and killed her, then another five to ten minutes before it reanimated her.
Oh God
. Staring down at the bite, blessed numbness wrapped itself around Eden. She wouldn’t have time to worry about the guilt of Kaede driving her insane. She was going to die, would probably be killed before the infection had a chance to work its way through her body.

Jordan’s breath shuddered out, bringing Eden’s attention back to her big sister. “You have to kill me.”

“No.” Jordan yanked the armor back over her leg.

“Jordan.” Her voice broke in the middle of her sister’s name and she fought for control. “You have to. If you don’t, you’re putting everyone in danger.”

“Shut the fuck up, Eden.” Jordan scrubbed her hands over her face. “Here’s the deal. You have at least twelve hours, maybe more if you don’t exert yourself.”

Funny how she could be so calm while her sister was freaking out. Talk about your role reversal. “There is no cure. You know it and I know it.”

“No.” Jordan shook her head, her dark eyes taking on a feverish light. “I won’t believe it. There has to be something we can do.”

Eden let her gaze drift up to the perfect blue sky. Even if she had twelve hours, this would be the last day she ever saw. “The girl I saved, in the village. She had been bitten on her arm and we tried to save her.” Something pushed against the wall of numbness surrounding her, something that felt a bit like panic. “We cut off her arm, Jordan, and it only killed her faster. I’d rather have a bullet in the back of the head.” What would it feel like to die? Eden had already decided there was a God. She just hoped He could forgive her for all the crap she’d done, for being such a shitty little sister, for not caring about Oz’s death, for making the little girl die faster, for Kaede.

“
Eden
.”

Reluctantly, she looked over. “Yeah?”

“I will not let you die. Not like this, not here and not now.”

They were foolish words, impossible words. There was nothing Jordan could do. Even now, Eden could feel the burning sensation in her calf, a sign of the infection spreading. She was surprised she hadn’t noticed it before now, but, with all her other injuries, she guessed it made sense. “It doesn’t matter what you say, Taro will finish this before I turn.”

“He won’t know.”

What her sister was proposing was the ultimate stupidity, a mistake many survivors made. You never hid a bite, never, because it left the people you were with completely helpless. “You can’t be serious.” Again, panic beat on the wall surrounding her, coming a bit closer.

“Eden, keep your goddamn mouth shut and let me fix this. That’s an order.” Jordan unfolded her legs and stood.

Fine. She could keep her mouth shut. For now. But if the infection got too close to her heart and her sister hadn’t come up with a miracle, Eden would pull the trigger herself.

Chapter Twenty-Six

They had barely taken a step towards the camp when something made Eden turn back to the jungle. It might have been a sound or a flash of movement. Whatever it was, the hairs along her arms danced to attention. She grabbed her sister and threw them both to the ground as armed men burst from the jungle, firing at the spot where they were just standing.

She held Jordan down, cursing herself for coming out in the open. They’d been so damn cocky, thinking they could easily dispatch any infected who wandered out of the jungle. Eden hadn’t even considered that the people responsible for this might not take kindly to their surviving. She was an idiot.

“What do we do?” Eden whispered. They didn’t have more than a few seconds before the men were on them, and they couldn’t count on backup from Taro because the soldiers’ guns were silenced—as if he would hear anything through his cloud of grief. At least they weren’t firing any more.

“We have to get back behind the fence. Otherwise they’re going to pick us off.”

Eden nodded, her eyes on the approaching men, their guns held ready. She glanced back at the open gate less than ten feet away. “You go first.”

“Eden—”

“No one else can lead our team—” What was left of it. “—and have any hope of surviving this crap. Besides, I’m already dead.” The thought of turning her back on these men left a sour taste in her mouth, but they didn’t have any other options. She might get a bullet in her back, but at least Jordan would be safe. And, hell, she’d rather take a bullet than live to turn on Jordan and Taro and what remained of the survivors.

After one last look, Jordan held up three fingers. She lowered them one at a time and, when they were all down, she and Eden sprang into motion. The men gave startled yells and opened fire, but Jordan was already through the gate, Eden hot on her heels. Her sister kicked the gate shut and locked it. Which left them locked in with terrified children and a bunch of corpses. Fantastic.

“Get Taro and meet me back here,” Jordan said.

“Stay off the fence until you have backup, okay? If you get shot because you’re being a hero, I’m going to kick your ass.”

Jordan’s smile was on the manic side, a bit too much in common with a skeleton’s grin for Eden’s peace of mind. “I’ll wait here. You’re getting awfully bossy these days.”

“Runs in the family.” She made her way across the open space, skirting the corpses. Even though she’d been ready to drop only thirty minutes ago, now Eden was energized.
Nothing like fighting for your life to get your adrenaline going
. A darker part of her wondered if she was relieved the discussion of her bite was tabled until they dealt with the men, but she told it to shut up. There wasn’t time. Hell, there never was these days. And the burning barely reached her knee. It would be hours before she became a danger to everyone she cared about, before she went the way of her mother and Kaede.

She found Taro exactly where she’d left him, kneeling over his twin’s body. “There are some men outside the gate who seem to take exception with us still being alive.”

Taro looked over, as if he could see straight through the remaining tents and fence to their attackers. Eden had never seen him look so angry, so damn dangerous. She was eternally grateful he wasn’t aiming that expression in her direction.

“I’m going to grab some water and meet you back there.” Her throat burned as if she’d been walking in the desert for days. Probably a side effect of the spreading infection.

He nodded and strode away, leaving her to wonder what Taro would do when this was over, where he would go now that Kaede was gone. It wasn’t a comfortable thought.

Eden headed back to the spring where what remained of the survivors gathered. They were all curled into balls, lying on each other in great puppy piles while they slept. It twisted something in her chest and Eden renewed her vow to kill whoever had done this. Starting with the men on the other side of the fence.

Being very careful not to look at their faces, Eden walked over to dig through the packs, coming up with five protein bars and an empty bottle of water. She went to the spring and refilled the bottle.

“Eden?”

Eden froze, barely daring to breathe when she heard the sleepy voice say her name. She looked up to find Ana’s watching her from where the little girl lay on the ground.

“Ana? You’re okay.”

“Uh-huh.”

The silence stretched out, becoming uncomfortable. Eden forced a smile. “I’m glad. I need you to stay here until one of us comes to get you, okay.”

“Okay.” Ana gave one long blink and Eden smiled for real. The child would be asleep before she made it back to the fence.

“I’ll see you in a little bit.”

“Okay.” The word was broken with a yawn and Ana rolled over to face the cliff wall.

Eden capped the water bottle and started back to the fence. The smell of rotten flesh made her eyes water and she had to fight back the impulse to gag. They would have to make a bonfire or something tonight. She wished they had access to more of the burning powder. It would have made the clean up a lot easier.

Jordan started speaking as soon as Eden came to a stop. “We need to find out who these guys are and how many of them are out there.” She gave Taro a meaningful look. “And then we need to deal with them so we can get the survivors to safety.”

Taro motioned to the sky. He would need darkness to get over the fence without the soldiers knowing.

“I know. So we wait and we keep doing what we were doing—dealing with the corpses. I want a guard on the fence though, to make sure they don’t try anything.”

The words were barely out of her mouth when an explosion blew the fence in. Eden flew off her feet, landing hard on top of Taro. Dazedly, she marveled at how damn muscled he was as she rolled off him and tried to remember how to breathe. The sky above her wouldn’t stay its normal blue. Bursts of colors obscured her vision. Add the ringing in her ears, and she couldn’t get her bearings. A sound finally broke through.

Gunfire.

She rolled back onto her stomach and looked up. The men stalked out of the smoke created by the explosion, looking like avenging angels. It might have been a more comforting image if they weren’t here to kill Eden, her team, and the rest of the survivors. It was the thought of the children that got her to her knees. The men were almost on them. Beside her, Taro struggled to his feet, raising his blade as he stumbled towards them. He was going to get killed. The scary part was, Eden wasn’t sure he cared.

She pushed to her feet and staggered after him. “Taro. Taro, stop.” Then she realized what she was saying. Stop and wait for these monsters to kill them? Not likely. Besides, she was a dead woman walking. She might as well take some of them with her when she went. And if Taro had a death wish, who was she to judge? His freaking twin died in his arms last night and these men were responsible, indirectly or not. She pulled out her
bolo
. The blade felt unnaturally heavy in her grasp, but she refused to let it drop as she moved towards the men.

One of them laughed when he saw her. Bastard. Eden lunged, cutting him across the bicep. Shit, she’d been aiming for his chest. He knocked the
bolo
out of her hands and tripped her, sending her face-first into the ground. She tried to get up, but a foot on the middle of her back prevented any movement.

How ironic that she’d spent her whole life hunting undead monsters and gotten killed by a freaking human. Or maybe it wasn’t ironic. She didn’t know anymore.

Hands gripped her upper arms, making her vision swim when they closed over her wound. The man lifted her to her feet, and she made an effort to lock her knees before slamming her head back into her captor with all the strength she had left. He let her go with a muffled curse. Despite her best efforts, Eden dropped back to the ground, unable to make her muscles obey her command. At least the asshole wasn’t laughing now.

“Fucking bitch,” he yelled, and Eden was pleased to note the wet sound his voice made. She’d broken his nose. Good.

“Enough, Armstead. Eli, bring her into the camp.”

This time when she was picked up, Eden couldn’t force her battered body to move. She wanted to kick and punch and scream, but she only managed to twitch a little bit while she moaned. At least this soldier didn’t laugh at her, but his silence wouldn’t make her any less dead when they put a bullet in her head. She almost wished the infection was far enough along to turn her now. At least that way she could wreak some havoc before she died.

When the man dumped her on the ground, she focused her strength and rolled onto her back. Jordan slumped next to her, blinking in a way that made Eden think she’d been hit in the head. On Eden’s other side, Taro was laid out. The only indication she had of him not being dead was the rising and falling of his chest.

A man moved forward and stared down at her. “Well, well, well. What do we have here?” He was good looking, if you went for the whole tall, dark, and handsome gig. Judging by the way his tight black uniform fit, he had the body to match. All that meant was he was more than a match for Eden in her current state, and he’d probably been eating more than protein bars for the last week. Eden’s gaze traveled up and finally met his blue eyes. She blinked. The explosion must have stunned her more than she thought because she could have sworn he grinned before his face settled back into the cold mask.

“Fuck you.” The words were out before she had a chance to think better of them. But, judging from the way her eyes fluttered shut, Jordan wasn’t going to be saying much in the near future and Taro was out cold.

“That all?” He raised an eyebrow, and she wanted to punch him in his too-rugged-to-be-attractive face, would have if she wasn’t using all her facilities to stay conscious.

“I thought it was screwed up that your people set the infected loose on this valley and then closed off the only way out, but this really takes the cake. We survive, we save the goddamn kids, and you come in to sweep up the mess and finish us off. You a child-killer, soldier? ’Cause there’s a special place in hell for that sort of man.”

Something flitted across his face, too fast for her to follow. “You talk a lot.”

“And you don’t talk enough. Or are you just a take-orders kind of guy? Too stupid to know better?”

He grinned, revealing perfect teeth. There wasn’t so much as a crooked one to give him character. “I think we’ll let you live a little while longer. You amuse me.”

“I doubt your boss will like that.” She paused when he nodded to someone outside her field of vision. A foul-smelling cloth suddenly covered her mouth and nose and she had a moment to think,
Not again
, before the chloroform kicked in and she slid into unconsciousness.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Eden woke up in her underwear, tied to a chair. It wasn’t her finest moment, to be sure, but it could have been worse. She looked around, trying not to puke on herself, to find she was in a tent. Directly across from her the same man from before was leaning over a crate with a map of the valley on top of it. A crate that looked suspiciously similar to the ones in the priest’s tent.

He glanced up and smiled. “Morning, sunshine.”

She glared at him. “It’s not enough you’re going to kill me, you have to humiliate me first.” Eden looked around again, trying to ignore the way the world swam. “Where are the rest of them?”

“Alive.”

He was probably lying. Was most definitely lying. Regardless, she relaxed at his words anyways. A thousand questions and demands bubbled behind her lips, but she bit them back. She refused to be the first one to speak.

“Shall I introduce myself?” He paused thoughtfully. “I’m Christopher Lorenzo.”

“How wonderfully ironic.”

“Indeed.” He smiled again and crossed in front of the crate. “You know, I’ve wanted to meet you ever since I heard your name.”

This time shock kept her silent. He knew who she was, had heard about her before this mission? What the hell was going on?

He continued as if he couldn’t see the confusion on her face. “The most skilled sniper employed by the company and only eighteen. As deadly as you are beautiful.”

As if she hadn’t heard
that
before. Eden sneered. She was not going to be complimented by some guy who drugged her and tied her to a chair. She just wasn’t. “So you took me captive to tell me how awesome I am? Great. Now you’re done, so you can let me and my people go.”

He laughed. “Hardly. But I find myself in something of a dilemma. The original intention was to set you loose on the valley and test out our little friends.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you really not understand?” His gray eyes took on a feverish light. “Imagine, if you will, the largest advancement in biological warfare. All one would have to do is fly over their enemy’s territory and drop several infected in range. They would find their way, as they do, to the nearest town.”

She saw where he was going with this, but Christopher didn’t give her a chance to speak. “Like in the valley, by the time they understood the danger, it would be too late to stop the infection.”

“That’s crazy. You can’t control them and you can’t stop the infected once they’ve turned.”

He shrugged. “You’ve already proven Mr. Lauren’s teams can eliminate an infected threat. It’s part of the package.”

“You—” Understanding dawned. “You think someone is going to pay to infect a town or village or whatever and then have a team kill them all? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Doesn’t it?” He tapped his fingers against his lips. “Perhaps you are not looking at it correctly. If such a horrible infection were to appear as if from nowhere, leaving panic in its wake, and then a noble person—” Christopher cleared his throat and pointed at himself. “—were to sweep in, kill the monsters, and save the day...”

There was no way he could be saying what she thought he was saying. “That’s insane.”

“No. That’s good business.” He grinned. “And I can’t help but admire how well you’ve done in our little scenario. Impressive.” He licked his lips. “Very impressive.”

Christopher leaned on the crate and blatantly appraised her. “It would be a shame to kill off such...talent...as yours.”

He was hitting on her. Eden rolled her eyes. She should probably try to use his attraction to her to get them out of here, but she didn’t have the patience to play the game, even if he was cute. Not when she knew he’d helped bring the infection to the village, was at least partially responsible for killing all those people. Oz. The little girl. Kaede. “You’re a creep.”

“I suppose you would see it that way.” He crossed his arms over his chest and grinned. “But can you really blame me? The way you jumped off the church’s roof to save that girl was fantastic. Stupid, but fantastic. You fight nearly as well on the ground as you shoot.” His grin widened. “We’ll have to make sure you get some swim lessons though.”

Her heart stopped beating. There was no way he could know any of those things. No way. And yet he did. She forced her exhausted brain into motion, considering and rejecting a million ways he could have kept tabs on her. There were more tracking devices under the sun than she could begin to guess, but they gave away a target’s position, not actual events. The same rules went for infrared.

So how the hell had he gotten his information?

A memory teased, slipping away several times before finally coming into focus. His men were watching the entire time. Not using tracking devices, but literally watching. The movement she’d seen when she was on the church’s roof must have been one of them. Again the eerie silence of the jungle came back to her. She’d thought it odd at the time, especially since the infected weren’t around. But it wasn’t the infected who drove away the small creatures. It was this man and his team. And, damn it, how had she forgotten the infected with the military gear and camouflage on their faces? She was stupid. So very, very stupid.

Eden shuddered, anger rising up and choking her with the words she wanted to spit in his face. He’d sat there and watched while people died. What kind of monster did that? What kind of monster set the infected on an unsuspecting town in the first place?

He watched her closely. “Ah, I see you’ve worked it out.”

“Why? Why would you do this?”

“Like I said—a beautiful experiment.” Christopher shook his head. “But let’s not talk any more of that. I’m more interested in you. You want to live, don’t you?”

“It doesn’t really matter now.” Eden glanced down at her leg, the dark streaks of the infection were near her hip now. She didn’t have much time left.

“Oh, that.” He waved away her words as if they meant less than nothing. Hell, to him, they probably didn’t. “We can take care of that easily enough.”

Eden laughed, the sound coming out as a croak. “You’re insane.”

“Hardly.” Christopher picked up something on the other side of the crate and walked back to crouch beside her. He held up the object, a syringe filled with sickly yellow fluid. “I can cure you.”

She stared. Of all the things she expected him to say, this had to be the very last. Making an effort to close her mouth, Eden cleared her throat, unable to take her eyes off the syringe. “There is no cure for the infection.”

He laughed, yipping like a freaking hyena. How fitting. “Do you really think we would engineer an infection without coming up with a cure?” He tapped the side of her head, hard. “Think, Eden.”

“I—” Her brain finally caught up with her mouth, and she snapped it shut, thinking fast. This entire time, while people fought and died, he had the cure sitting right here. “You’re a monster.”

“Think what you like, but I have the only way to save you.”

“I saw some of your men infected. If you have the cure, why didn’t you save
them
?”

Christopher shrugged, a small smile playing on his lips. “They weren’t worthy. Now enough questions. Do you want to live or not?”

“Yes,” she said slowly. What kind of game was he playing at? Because she didn’t believe for a moment that he was saving her out of the goodness of his black little heart, not after he’d let his own team die.

“Wonderful. I believe we can work something out. You see, I could use a talent like yours on my team.”

Eden blinked. “On your team. You want me to shoot for you?” He was insane. He had to be. How could he think she’d actually say yes?

“Shoot and other things.” The way he said the last made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She was so not sleeping with this creep. “But, essentially, yes.”

“And my team?” Might as well see what he was offering before she turned him down flat.

“I’m willing to release your sister, but Aoki is too dangerous.” His smile dimmed briefly. “He has the most unfortunate tendency toward vengeance at all costs, especially since he seems to think we’re responsible for his sister’s death.”

Eden’s breath hitched at the casual way he mentioned Kaede’s death. “No kidding.”

“So do we have a deal?” he asked, turning the charm back on.

She pretended to consider, watching his face closely. “Let me ask you something.”

“Yes?”

“Are you fucking crazy? Do you even know what kind of person lets infected loose on a town and then blocks their only way out? And my team, what were we supposed to be?”

“There’s no need to shout,” Christopher said mildly. “And to answer your question—no, I am not insane. The valley was merely an experiment. My...partners and I wanted to see how the general population dealt with a threat like the infected. Your team was to act as a more knowledgeable test group.”

Eden stared at him, rage temporarily taking her ability to speak. She found her words quickly enough. “All this—all the shit I’ve gone through in the last week was for an experiment?” Saying it aloud somehow made it more real. More devastating.

“Don’t be so melodramatic. Scientists run tests all the time, especially with new weapons.”

“Not when innocents are involved. Scientists don’t kill children,” she whispered, her voice hoarse.

He laughed. “How refreshingly naïve. Of course they do. So will you give me your answer or shall we spar verbally some more?”

She had never wanted to kill someone so much in her life. Eden’s gaze fell to the pulse beating steadily in his neck and she wished she had a blade to get to it. With an effort she smoothed out her expression. “Like I said before—fuck off.”

He straightened and walked back to the crate, where he laid down the syringe. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”

She was not going to ask. She was definitely
not
going to ask. But then she did, “So what now?”

“Now? Well, I still have no desire to kill you, but I can hardly let you run free. You will most definitely try to kill me, even before you turn.”

Since she’d been imagining that very thing not two minutes ago, she chose not to play innocent. “You can’t keep me tied up indefinitely.” Really, though, he could very easily keep her tied up until she turned. Hell, he could kill her right now and save himself some trouble.

“No, I suppose not.” He tapped two fingers against his lips, his dark gaze going distant. “I suppose I’ll have to convince you. Dirty work, that.”

Torture. He was talking about torture. “You can’t break me.” She wasn’t so sure, but showing weakness right now wasn’t going to help any.

He shrugged. “Anyone can be broken. It’s just a matter of finding the right button to push. With you, it’s rather simple.” Her stomach sank and she suddenly knew where he was going with this. “You have the most delicious weakness for children.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The oldest trick in the book—deny, deny, deny.

“Sure you do.”

The problem with denying everything was it rarely ever worked. Eden bit back a groan and forced a smile. “How about you untie me and we hash this out like real men?”

The bastard laughed again. “You, my darling, are hardly a man. I mean that in the best way possible, of course.”

“I don’t know what you think is going to happen. You torture me, and then I fall into your arms and spread my legs?” She forced a laugh. “Yeah right.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Damn it, there was no dissuading this guy. Not that she wanted to die, but his assurance that she would capitulate was making her crazy. “I don’t jump into bed with psychopaths. Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Are you seeing someone else?” A slow smile spread over his face when her jaw dropped. Lord, but she was tired of amusing him. “The Columbian? You two seemed rather cozy after what he put you through a year ago.”

“I’m not going to ask how you know about him.” Or their history. There was probably a thick file somewhere filled with all the details of her life. And he’d been watching them. Thinking of him spying on her and Alejandro made Eden want to vomit. “But, yes, the Columbian.”

Christopher picked up the knife from the crate and flipped it into the air, catching it easily. “You left him in the cabin a few days ago.”

A horrible cold wrapped around her chest and squeezed. Why hadn’t she considered that he might know where Alejandro was? He certainly knew everything else. “If you’ve killed him...” She couldn’t come up with a threat dire enough.

“I didn’t have to. He’s gone.”

Eden forgot how to breathe, and she was pretty sure her heart stopped. The world went gray and she tilted sideways in her chair. Alejandro was dead. She hadn’t even had a chance to make a life with him and he was dead. Eden wanted to cry, but her body wasn’t working right.

“There you go again, being melodramatic. Breathe.”

She realized she hadn’t breathed since he said those damning words. Her lungs burned but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Alejandro was dead. She tried the thought out loud, “Alejandro is dead.” Oh God, she was going to puke.

“He’s gone, Eden, not dead.”

She blinked, sure she’d heard him wrong. Alejandro was alive. But that couldn’t be right. He’d promised not to leave her again. If he was alive, he wouldn’t have left her to deal with this by herself. Except...he’d done the same damn thing a year ago.

“Ah, don’t like that, do you? Would it win me any points if I said I’d never leave you?”

There were no words to describe this man. “No,” she said through numb lips.
Alejandro left
. No matter how many times she tried the thought out, she couldn’t seem to wrap her mind around it.

“I thought not.” Christopher sighed. “I suppose we should get down to business. You don’t have an infinite amount of time left, and I’d really hate to let you change merely because you couldn’t see reason.”

She actually believed he meant that, which only made the situation more bizarre. Eden shook her head, trying to force her sluggish brain into order. It didn’t work. Sweat coated her body and her limbs started shaking—a bad sign. Textbook signals the infection was getting closer to her heart. She didn’t have much time left.