The Horde Without End (The World Without End) (4 page)

He grins up at us, a dangerous gleam in his eyes as he watches Nurrin’s swinging legs. She looks bored and utterly unconcerned.

That’s my girl.

I blank my face, and he laughs. “Nice tanks y’all got. Where you headed?”

“Haven 23,” I say idly. “You?”

A laugh rumbles through the group. “We tend to drift, friend.”

“Dangerous habit for these days,” I observe.

“Necessity. Not everyone fits neatly into your havens. What happened to your truck?”

“Engine trouble. We’ll get it fixed—no need to stop for us.”

“Well. About that. You look like good people—well connected, and headed for a nice life in 23. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about my people. So we’re going to even the odds a little.” He grins. Like that kind of logic works. It didn’t work before the zombies, and it sure as fuck doesn’t work now.

Nurrin tenses, and I step close to her, pressing my legs into her back. She relaxes a little, and I look back at the scrawny leader.

“We can’t help you,” I say simply.

“That wasn’t a request, pretty boy. Give us your ammo and food. We’ll take the ZTNK. You get to keep your life and the truck.”

Nurrin laughs, and the man’s eyes dart to her, furious suddenly. I’m tempted to smack her for drawing their attention.

“I don’t like their offer,” she says, leaning back on her hands. She grins up at me, and I smirk. Cocky little girl.

“The other offer is you put up a fight—and we take it all, including you, blondie. After we kill your boy.”

I throw the star without even thinking, without considering that it’s a bad idea. It’s instinctual, a quick flick of my wrist, and the flash of metal, the heavy thunk as it embeds in the tire of Rat-man’s bike. Nurrin whistles, and I catch her by the arm, tugging her back. She scrambles to her feet, a solid presence behind me as I stare at the leader.

He’s furious, and I consider that it was probably a bad idea to bait him like that.
Too late
.

“Last chance. Leave us alone,” I say evenly.

“You have two guns and a few knives,” Rat man snaps. “I have a gang of twenty experienced fighters. Do you really think you’ll win this?”

I smile, a lazy twitch of my lips. “Only one way to find out.”

Rat man sighs. “Take the damn RV. Don’t damage it—and leave the girl untouched. I want her.”

Fury flares in me. I shift Nurrin behind me, hear her soft huff of displeasure. “The girl is mine,” I snap, and she makes a choked noise. Rat-man pauses. Stares at me. Around him, his people are uncoiling chains and grappling hooks. “You try to scale this wall, I’ll throw you down. I promise I can outlast you.”

“Not if I shoot you first,” he says, pulling a gun. I laugh. I’m goading him—and I know I am. I bare my teeth in a parody of a smile.

“Fight me—even and fair. Winner takes the ZTNK. The girl goes free regardless.”

Rat-man’s expression twists to disbelief. “Why?”

I glance at Ren. She smirks and holds up a grenade. “Because I’ll blow this fucking RV before I let you touch me.”

His eyes narrow, and then he laughs. “Why not?”

I glance at her. “If anything happens, get the fuck out of here. Do you understand?”

She shakes her head slightly, and I growl, choking the noise off a second too late. “I need to know you’ll get safe, Nurrin. Don’t let that animal touch you.”

Worry wars with anger, and she steps into me, hissing, “If you get yourself killed and leave me alone in the wide open, I will find your zombie ass and chain you in my basement until you rot. Do
you
understand?”

I let it all out, let everything I’m feeling into my eyes, for just a moment, and her eyes widen. She takes a breath, and I jerk her close, kissing her.

Because if I die, I’ll do it with the taste of her on my lips.

For a split second, she’s startled, unmoving. And then her hand comes up, fisting in my hair, her lips parting on a groan. I dip into her mouth, controlling the kiss, angling her the way I want.

She yanks on my hair, hard, biting my lip with just enough force that I hiss, and draw back.

Nurrin grins. “Go slay the dragons, O’Malley,” she drawls. She turns away, all cool nonchalance, but I see the press of her nipples and the flush crawling up the skin of her neck.

People like talking. They like sitting down and hashing out whatever fucked up problem they’ve invented, talking about it until the issue is so muddled they can’t remember what the fuck they sat down about in the first place.

I don’t talk. And from the feral gleam in Rat-man’s eyes, I know he doesn’t either. I swing down the stairs and key open the steel door, triggering it to swing shut and lock behind me. I’ll be out here alone—she won’t rescue me if shit goes bad.

If she does, I’ll kick her pretty little ass.

I grin, and then I step out, out onto the sand.

The gang is arrayed around us in a loose circle, and I give them a lazy grin. “You people gonna let him fight?”

One spits on the ground. “Why should we? Kill you now would be easiest.”

A shot rings out, the ground exploding inches in front of the man’s foot. He curses, stumbling back a few steps.

“Because if you interfere, she’ll put a bullet in your head. She doesn’t miss.”

It’s the only warning I’m going to give. I launch myself at Rat-man, who gives a low shout, jerking backward.

He’s off balance and retreating. Already. This might be easier than I thought. I dart in, and he comes up swinging a knife. His gang cheers, a noise that recedes as the blade scores across my arm, a shallow cut.

It doesn’t do anything but piss me off.

I glance down at the cut then lunge, tackling him. He punches at me, and I bat the blow aside, grabbing his knife hand a split second before he drives toward my ribs. I twist, hard, and Rat-man’s eyes widen in pain. The knife clatters free on the road. I should let go now—but I don’t. I keep twisting, until I feel the bones bending, and then a little farther.

His scream breaks the silence, and I smile, a cold smile. Grab a handful of his dirty hair and slam his head into the asphalt. Again. Again.

“Enough,” a sharp voice shouts, and I blink. Blood is pooling under his head. I glance up at Nurrin—she’s standing, a worried look on her face, her gun propped on one hip.

I give her a slow smirk and stand.

“You bastard,” one of the men hisses, lunging at me. I pull my gun, shooting him point blank. Nurrin curses above me, and I step into their leader.

“Get the fuck out of here,” I say softly. “Or I’ll kill him. Do you understand?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” one shouts, staring at their dead comrade. “You fucking killed him!”

I smile, a savage expression. “You stop me, threaten my life, my woman, and you have the fucking balls to stand here like I did something wrong? You’re lucky I’m letting any of you leave.”

“O’Malley,” she yells, her voice urgent. I hear the scream a second later, faint but unmistakable.

Enough of this bullshit. “Take your trash and get away from us,” I snarl. I turn and snap my fingers. Nurrin tosses the bag of spark plugs, and I snatch them from the air. She meets my eyes, briefly, and I see the worry, the concern before she shuts it down. The screams come again, and I turn to the truck.

Footsteps are my only warning, then the report of the gun. I glance back, and see another gang member on the ground, writhing.

“That wasn’t a kill shot, little girl.”

“No need to be excessive,” she calls back. I laugh.

For some reason, that does the trick—the remaining gang members scramble for their bikes. I shove the spark plugs into place and slide into the truck.

Rat-man has been deserted. He’s squirming on the ground, his eyes wide as he searches for his gang. I feel a flash of pity, but it’s outweighed by the knowledge that he’ll buy us time.

Another gunshot rings out, and I look over. Nurrin is leaning out the passenger side window, her gun pointed. Rat - man slumps, a neat bullet hole in the center of his forehead.

Idiot girl.

“Let’s go, Nurrin!”

She rolls her eyes, slides into the driver’s seat of the ZTNK. And we leave them all behind.

In reality, hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs man’s torment.

-Friedrick Nietzche

“Hope is the reason we’re alive. Because humanity was too fucking stupid to let it go.”

-Finn O’Malley

The RV rattles around me, and it’s not enough to kill out the fears dancing in my head.

Captured. Dead. Turned.

The litany repeats on a loop. I can’t close my eyes without seeing Collin, broken and bleeding, one of the corpses in the bloody streets in front of the Stronghold. I’ve pictured him dead a thousand ways, dead and worse—infected.

In the Clean house, Finn thought I’d slept. I’d stared into the darkness until my eyes ached, until I thought I’d scream from the sitting still—there were so many things we could be doing, and waiting for daylight seemed like the most wasteful.

Every minute we spent not finding Collin was like a small slice of glass on my skin. Every breath aches, carrying the weight of guilt and the knowledge that we might never find him.

I’m following Finn because I have no direction of my own. Because sitting still would do nothing, and I would go slowly insane if I didn’t do something, but on my own I would just curl into myself and pray the demons away. I’m following Finn on the fool’s hope that he knows what he’s doing, that my brother is alive and waiting for us in 9.

I don’t believe it. Not really. But it’s all I have to hold on to at the moment, so I clutch it like a lifeline, the only thing that is pulling me along on this aimless search.

I can see the Walls, bleached white and brilliant in the sun. I squint—from this far away, I can see tiny shapes moving along the Wall, the walkers doing their due diligence. From here, I can't pick out features.

Behind me, Finn is still moving. Getting ready.

Apparently, that means changing into clean clothes and washing his face.

"We're wasting time," I grumble.

"Getting tossed in Q will waste more. So do what I said."

I grit my teeth. I hate that he's right. That we're waiting instead of rushing in, that rushing in won't save anything or anyone.

I want Collin. Being separated from him hums along my skin in an unnatural buzz—something I neither like nor am used to.

"Nurrin," Finn snaps, and I stand, spilling from my seat to push past him. I glare at the outfit he’s laid out for me. It’s better—barely—than the dresses he’s put me in before, but it’s still not what I’d like to wear.

Silk skirts and corsets, skinny jeans and shirts that leave me half exposed—none of it makes sense to me. I have always been most comfortable in zom gear and Collin’s workout leathers. That isn’t an option now. I have a part to play, and Finn is adamant that I play it well.

I dress quickly and pull my hair up into a tight pony tail and dab on some makeup.

When I step out of the bathroom, I go still, staring at him. He’s hunched over a map, something very weary and broken about the way he stands there. It makes my heart twist a little.

Which is insane.

Finn doesn’t get tenderness—he wouldn’t want it even if I were inclined to give it to him. He’s a heartless bastard.

And I hate him.

Sometimes it’s hard to remember that. Like now, when he’s shadowed by fatigue and worry, when the lines of his tattoos are stark against his tense skin. It’s hard to remember how much I loathed him in Hellspawn. Why I did.

“You did well, in the fight,” I say abruptly. His gaze flicks up to mine, surprise in his eyes for a heartbeat before it’s chased away by disdain.

“I don’t need your sympathy or your pity, Nurrin.”

“You don’t
need
to be an ass,” I answer crisply. He smirks, a tiny twitch of the lips. “Do you think he’s there?” I nod at 9.

He shrugs, looking out over the Wide Open to where it waits. “Maybe. We’ll start in the morgue, see if they have Containment. Rule that out as quickly as possible.”

I nod, my chest tightening. “Will the Aldermen help us?”
You.
That is the subtext of my question, and he grins over at me, reading it clearly. It’s mocking, and I bristle, wanting to smack the look off his face.

I wish I had fought, earlier. Maybe it would have helped this unbearable tension.

“Always with the fucking questions.”

I shrug, and he slides into the driver seat. I notice that he ignores my question completely as he puts the ZTNK into gear, and we lurch down the road toward whatever 9 holds for us.

The Walkers look the same. The Walls look the same. Even the stupid weapons and the stupid gates look the same.

But this time, flashing a cool smile and a name doesn’t earn Finn any special privileges. This time, the Walkers eye us with cautious distrust. Even when Finn clears the ZTNK and we pass our blood tests—and that will never get old, will it?—there is something cautious about them.

“What’s your business in 9?” one asks. He’s decorated—clearly their leader. I hide my smile at the way he stands there, his hands resting lightly on the hilt of his knives, his posture loose and unconcerned.

Two harmless Haven travelers, divested of their weapons, their blood tests clean.

That’s what he sees—all he sees. Finn dressed us well for this part, with his too-polished clothes and insistence that I dress up.

We’ve made an impression, all right.

They’re idiots, comfortable because they think we’re no threat. That, more than anything, convinces me that they have no idea who Finn is.

No one could know Finn O’Malley and think he’s anything less than a threat. He stands next to me, a relaxed stance. “Just a vacation with my fiancée. She’s never been far from our haven.”