Restless, I walked along the wall and searched the barren trees for any sign of movement. Dawn’s early light was barely creeping over the horizon. Usually at this time of day, infected roamed among the trees, but everything remained still just like it had yesterday and the day before that. Breach day. The day the infected had fooled me and gotten inside Tolerance.
Bitter regret filled me quickly, followed by frustration. Although I’d been the one the infected had fooled, I didn’t blame myself. I put the blame where it was due. On the damn infected. They were getting smarter, and we’d all been unprepared for that. It didn’t make me less angry about what had happened, though. The infected had taken so much from us already. Our sense of safety. Our ability to go anywhere. My eyes once again swept over the wall that protected as much as it imprisoned. This was the world we were living in now. A dangerous, scary place filled with things that wanted to kill humans.
A sudden burst of panic hit me. The feeling wormed its way into my chest and tightened so hard and fast that I could barely breathe. I paused on the grille of an upturned SUV and took one slow, steady breath while counting to eight in my head. Then I did the same thing on the exhale, repeating the process until the panic eased.
I continued along the wall again, pacing my section as if nothing had happened. I tried not to think of the reason for my attacks. Ever. It was easier to focus on the task at hand: watching the trees for infected. I found it ironic that trying to spot an infected was soothing.
In an odd way, it made sense though. The infected I could kill. My past…well, there was no killing memories.
I took another calming breath. Since the quakes, watching for infected was the only way to survive. I could barely remember my life before the world went to hell a few months ago. I didn’t really want to. It would just make my current life more hellish.
Focusing on the trees, I paused.
“Where are they?” I said softly to myself.
“Brenna,” a voice called from behind me. “Do you need more arrows?”
I glanced at the fey standing below me. He was big and had to be close to seven feet tall. While I was appropriately bundled against the cold, he only wore a pair of jogging pants and a t-shirt that stretched tightly over his broad shoulders and expansive chest. Not all of the fey liked wearing shirts. I appreciated that this one was covered.
His lizard-like eyes swept over my face, and I briefly wondered if he was seeing our differences in my blunt teeth, rounded ears, and pink skin. Or was he looking for something else?
Inwardly, I cringed and hurried to answer so he’d go away.
“No. I still have them all.” I reached back to touch the feathered ends sticking from my quiver.
He grunted.
“Are you hungry?” he asked.
“No, I’m fine. Thank you.”
He repeated his previous grunt, and I started moving again before he could come up with something else to say.
The fey loved talking to women. Like they would cut off their grey, pointed ear kind of love. I found their intensity a little disturbing, but they weren’t bad. Not really. Even if they were constantly trying to talk to me, they respected when I said no to something. Well, most of them did.
The sun rose higher as I continued pacing back and forth on my section of the wall. Tolerance, once a small suburb hidden in the Missouri trees just outside of Warrensburg, was far enough out that the infected still roaming Warrensburg didn’t always hear us. But we’d never gone this long without attracting attention, especially with the wall’s lights flooding the sky at night.
Near midday, I saw a fey farther along on the wall, scrutinizing his section of trees. I followed his gaze and saw movement. My hand automatically flew back for an arrow as another fey stepped from the trees and shook his head.
Since the fey had returned from Tenacity, the other fortress-like camp only a few miles away, my presence on the wall wasn’t required. Not that it ever had been. But after the breach, the fey had put more emphasis on having men patrolling outside the walls for unusual activity. Unfortunately, the only thing unusual at the moment was the complete absence of infected.
Giving up on finding something to shoot at, I waved to the fey on the wall and headed for the ladder. The fey waved back, jogging toward my section as I descended. I dropped the last three rungs so he wouldn’t jump to the ground and try helping me down. The fey liked touching women more than they liked talking to them. But only with permission. They didn’t take what wasn’t offered.
Unlike human men.
I immediately shook off the thought and started home.
My shoes crunched on the fresh layer of snow that now covered all traces of what had happened only a few days ago. The carnage had been severe. More so because the humans from Whiteman’s military base had been here as a result of a breach at the base. Maybe that was why the infected weren’t outside our walls now. Maybe they were checking out Tenacity, the new walled-in location for Whiteman’s survivors.
A group of nearby fey caught my attention. They were surrounding a woman, trying to coax some conversation out of her. Based on the way she was glancing around as if looking for a route of escape, she didn’t seem to enjoy the attention. Between that reaction and the scowling fey standing just off to one side, she had to be one of the few Whiteman survivors who’d decided to stay. If I had to guess, she was assigned to live with the scowling fey but wasn’t interested in being his valentine. And, he didn’t like seeing the other fey swarm his roommate.
She saw me and waved.
“Brenna,” she called, wedging her way through the wall of muscle to hurry in my direction.
I begrudgingly slowed to wait for her. It was no mystery how she knew my name, but I didn’t know hers. As the girl with the bow who liked to guard the wall, I kind of stuck out in this very fey dominated community that liked to shelter women. Besides, the fey talked. A lot. Especially about their favorite things. Women and women’s parts.
All but one of her admirers scattered to find other prey. Thankfully, that prey was never me. As a minor, I was off limits to them. It didn’t matter that my eighteenth birthday was only a few weeks away.
“Hey,” she said, nearing me. “I’m Cheri. Would you know where I can find Hannah?”
“Sure.” I gave her the house number.
Cheri waved, ducked her head, and started walking. If she thought keeping her head down would keep the fey away, she was in for some disappointment. I’d no sooner had the thought when a fey stepped out from between two houses to intercept her.
I shook my head and continued home. It still felt weird thinking of my family’s assigned house as home. There were pictures of another family in the basement, carefully packed away by one of the fey who had helped clear the houses out when they first decided to make this place a safe zone. I never let myself think of what had happened to the people who lived there before us. It was probably the same thing that happened to most of the people on the planet. Hellhounds and infection.
The house was quiet when I let myself in. That likely meant that Zach, my brother, was out following one of the fey around, and Mom was reading one of the books Julie had brought her. Standing in the mud room, I stripped from my winter gear and hung everything up so it’d be ready for when I went out again.
The kitchen was already cleaned up from breakfast, so I went to check on Mom. She was in her room, but not reading. She had her chair pulled up to the window and was peeking through the curtains with a pair of binoculars in her hands.
“Dear God, he’s hung like a horse,” she said softly.
My mouth dropped open.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
She jumped and fumbled with the binoculars as she swiveled to look at me. When she gripped them securely once more, she scowled at me.
“Watch your mouth. I don’t care if the world’s going to shit. I’m your mother, and you will respect me.”
I crossed my arms, not buying her act.
“I will respect you until the day I die, and you know it. But I won’t ever stop calling you out when I see you doing something wrong. Just like you wouldn’t ever hold back on me.”
She was quiet for a moment.
“Fair enough. Are you hungry?” She set the binoculars on her lap and moved her wheelchair forward.
“Are you going to tell me what you were doing?”
“Nope.”
“Then I guess I’ll just need to walk across the street and tell whoever is in that house that my pervy mom was eyeing up his meat stick. I wonder how that will go over?”
She sighed and stopped wheeling forward.
“Probably with him asking if he could see places only your father saw.”
That robbed me of my irritation with her. Uncrossing my arms, I went to sit on her bed.
“I miss him, too,” I said softly.
“It’s not just missing him, Bren. It’s being practical. Molev was right. I need to start thinking of you and Zach.”
Her use of Zach instead of Zachy didn’t escape my notice. She’d been treating us both differently since we’d arrived here weeks ago. Molev, the fey’s leader, had taken her aside to talk to her not long after. I wasn’t sure what he’d said, but that was when she’d changed.
I didn’t let myself think for a moment that she’d changed because of what had happened to me.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “All you ever do is think about us.”
She shook her head and looked down at the binoculars.
“No, sweetie. I haven’t been. Not really. We live in a different world now. The rules of parenting are changing. Keeping you clothed and fed isn’t enough. I need to do everything I can to keep you safe.”
“You have. You are.”
She started shaking her head again. It wasn’t like her to hold back.
“Whatever is eating at you, just say it. I hate when you dance around the subject.”
A grin pulled at her lips.
“I think you and I should start dating.”
“What? Why? Who? Are you insane? Zombies are outside the wall, doing God only knows what, and you’re worried about our love lives?”
Her tired brown eyes met mine as she tucked a short strand of hair behind her ear.
“Three days ago, I was lucky. So were you. We could have been bitten and changed.”
I stared at her, my mind pulling me back to the horrifying moment when the infected used their makeshift ladders to climb the wall. I’d watched them run through the streets, unable to nock arrows fast enough to put a dent in their numbers. While I’d fought for my life and everyone else’s in this place, I’d thought of my mom alone in this house. Bound to her wheelchair.
And suddenly, I understood what she was trying to tell me. It was a topic I couldn’t get out of my head since it became known.
“You don’t want to date,” I said. “You want immunity from infection.”
Thanks to Eden and her run in with infected, the fey and most the humans here now knew what it would take for humans to become immune to infection. The human men were screwed. Actually, that wasn’t right. The human women would be screwed. By fey, the only creatures immune to infection.
“Sleeping with one of the fey is no guarantee for survival. Sure, you won’t turn, but you saw what the infected did to some of the people they got to. There’s no living through that, either.”
Her gaze searched mine for a moment, and she gave me a small shrug.
“It’s not just for immunity, Brenna.” She took a deep breath. “I want a partner. I want to know that someone will be there for you two when I’m not.”
My chest squeezed painfully at the thought of losing her, too. Dad had been there for us through the quakes and the chaos that followed. He’d been the one to get us out of the house to look for supplies. We’d survived the worst of it, or so I thought, because of his steadfast presence. Then, in an act of unwarranted violence, he’d been taken from us by humans looking to expand their numbers with healthy, young people like me and Zach. That group had revealed the truth of the world to me. A truth from which my dad had tried so hard to protect me.
My expression must have given my thoughts away because Mom pushed toward me.
“I will love your father until the day I die, Brenna. And if I had a choice, I’d give myself more time to mourn him. But time is a finite thing, and we never know how much we have. You and Zach are more important than my grief or my pride.” She took my hand, holding it firm. “It’s time I find someone. Someone who will look at me with respect. Who will see my intelligence and not my wheelchair. Someone who will cherish what I am and what I have to offer. Someone your father would approve of.”
“That’s what you were doing, then? Visually interviewing the candidates?”
She chuckled and swatted my hand.
“You know me better than anyone. Everyone might think I’m tough and ornery…”
“But you’re worried. Nervous,” I said in understanding. “They are big.”
“All over,” she said with a glance at the window. “But not dangerously so.” She patted my hand again. “And they’re gentle. Kind. Very respectful. If you say no, they’ll listen.”
“Why does it feel less like you're pep-talking yourself and more like you’re pep-talking me?”
“I want you to date, too, remember?”
That had kind of purposely slipped my mind.
“I’m fine. There’s no need. I’m as good of a shot, if not better, than most of the fey. I don’t need to tear off infected heads with my bare hands. A decent vantage point, and I’m just as lethal.”
“Until you run out of arrows,” she said. “I wasn’t the only one lucky three days ago.”
I shook my head, feeling the weight of panic settling on my chest.
“No, Mom. I’m not. I won’t.”
A noise in the hall drew her attention. Zach stood there, flushed, but not angrily so.
“It’s Brenna’s choice, Mom. Don’t guilt her into anything. She’s done enough.” Our gazes met and held. Guilt reflected in his eyes. He swallowed hard and started to turn away.
I sprang off the bed, grabbed him, and spun him around for a fierce hug.
“Don’t,” I whispered as he held me just as tightly. “Don’t even think about it. The past is behind us. We both need to look forward. We watch out for each other. Always. No regrets. Got it?”
He nodded even as he trembled. I continued to hold him until the shaking stopped and he moved to let me know he was done. When he met my gaze, his lashes were wet and his eyes red.
“Find a fey to teach you any moves today?” I asked.
He grinned.
“No, but I found one making a bow. I helped him for a while. He didn’t talk much but showed me how to make arrows.”
“That’s great. If we stockpile them, I can start placing caches along the wall.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too.” Some of the regret and sorrow left his gaze, replaced by excitement.
“Why don’t you start lunch?” I asked. “Mom and I will join you in a bit.”
He nodded, glanced at Mom, then left.
When I turned, Mom was watching me.
“It’s always your choice,” she said. “Never doubt that. I will castrate any man or fey who believes otherwise.”
“I know.”
She nodded, set the binoculars on the bed, and started wheeling toward the door.
“Take a peek,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “That way you’ll know what you’re getting into before you decide.”
I stayed in the room and sat on the bed, but I had no intention of peeking at our neighbors. Big or small, I knew what I’d be getting myself into with one of the fey. They didn’t date. They obsessed. Some of the women here had found real happiness with the level of devotion from their chosen fey partners. And, I couldn’t deny that Drav was amazing with Mya. But the way he told her what to do…the way they all liked giving orders at certain times…none of it sat well with me.
A memory pulled me in before I could fight it. That first night at the bunker, Zach sat at the table beside me. Strangers were filing past us with their plates to get their portion of the food. I’d nudged Zach. He’d stood with me, and we’d done what the others had. However, when we got to the front of the line, the old guy had shaken his head.
“You work to get fed. You haven’t worked yet, so you don’t get a portion.”
“You took us but don’t plan on feeding us? Why?”
He had nodded his head for someone to take the plate from my hand.
“We plan on feeding you,” the younger guy had said. “You just need to work first.”
The memory of the man’s blue eyes burrowed deeper, switching from the first day to the second when he’d lingered in the kitchen after I’d begged to do the dishes. I’d been begging for something to do to guarantee a portion of the evening meal for Zach. At fifteen, he’d been hungry all the time before the quakes. Afterward, when food was scarce, he appeared almost skeletal.
“There are other ways to work, you know,” Van, the man with the blue eyes, had said while he watched me.
“What?” I’d asked. “I’ll do anything.”
The slow smile he’d given me still haunted my dreams.
“Have you ever given a thought to the future? With so many of us dying, who will be left if we don’t start doing our part?”
I’d understood what he’d meant.
“No one is going to force you. But every time you let me do it, I’ll give up my portion of food for you.”
For Zach, I’d lain still under Van in a bunker filled with people. Some had pretended to sleep. Most of the men had watched. Van had acted like I was the love of his life. He’d petted me and promised to make sure I was ready so I’d enjoy it.
Van hadn’t physically hurt me. I’d been embarrassed, ashamed, resentful, and angry. But Zach had eaten the next day. Me too.
My stomach twisted as the memory faded, and the familiar weight of panic settled heavier on my chest. I picked up the binoculars and turned them in my hands while taking my slow breaths.
Van and his father had called it a choice, but it hadn’t been. Not really. In a system where the men with guns didn’t work but made up the rules for those of us who hadn’t had guns, what choice was there between starvation and letting someone use my body?
I was never going back to that way of living.
Setting the binoculars down, I joined Mom and Zach in the kitchen.
“What do you think?” Mom asked.
“I think that you’re making a decision based on fear and that you should stop and consider the long-term consequences carefully.”
Zach stopped stirring whatever he had cooking on the stove to look back and forth between Mom and me.
“What are we talking about?”
“Mom wants to hook up with one of the fey so she doesn’t have to worry about being turned.”
“And,” Mom added while shooting me a look, “so I know, should anything happen to me, that someone will be here to look after you two.”
Zach remained quiet for a moment, studying me then Mom.
“I want to be mad,” he said. “The resentment is right there. But I remember how scared I was when the infected were running around. How useless I am to keep either of you safe.”
“Zach,” Mom said in a tone that promised she had a million reassurances ready, but he quickly held up his hand.
“Dad was the bravest man I knew. One of the strongest, too. He died keeping us safe. The fey who rescued us from the bunker didn’t die. They were shot and attacked by hellhounds, but they lived. Well, almost all of them. They’re stronger, faster, and immune.
“Since the beginning, Dad told us we needed to stick together to survive. But we know we wouldn’t have lasted out there without him, and he wouldn’t have wanted us to take that risk. That’s why we’re here.” He focused on Mom. “If you want to give one of the fey a reason to care, a reason to stick by us no matter what, I understand. But, you need to care about whoever you pick in return. They’re good people and don’t deserve to be used more than they already have been.”
I looked at Mom. Her scowl might fool some people, but not us. She was doing her best not to cry.
“Your dad would be so proud of you,” she said, her voice husky. “Both of you.”
Zach went to give her a hug. I took over stirring the stew on the stove. It looked like a can of soup, a can of peas, and a can of dog food. I cringed, knowing that we had to be getting to the bottom of the supplies to be cracking into the dog food.
“No making faces,” Mom said, smacking my hip. “Food is food. Go get the bowls.”
We ate lunch together, and when Zach and I started bundling up to go out, Mom pulled me aside.
“I’m set on my decision,” she said. “But I’ll need your help.”
“Name it.”
“When you’re out there, talk to the fey. Find a few who’d be willing to come over for dinner. Make it clear it’s not a promise for anything more than conversation and food. Zach is right; I need to feel some affection for whoever I choose. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.”
“Wait, are you asking me to be your—”
“If you say pimp, I’m serving dog food soup for the next week.”
I snorted.
“We’ll probably be eating dog food for the next week no matter what I say.”
“When you mix it with the chicken noodle soup, it’s not so bad. Tastes like stew,” she said with a grin.
But behind her humor, I saw her worry. She didn’t like feeding us dog food. She didn’t like depending on others to bring us supplies. There was a lot in life not to like now. I hoped she wasn’t adding to the list by looking for a fey.
“Fine. I’ll do it. And I’ll be picky. I promise. But I refuse to do physical inspections for you. You’re on your own there.”