The Girl Who Broke Free (Death Fields 5)

I roll to my left, across the wet grass and over my bruised arm. The clotting wound on the back of my head reopens and blood gushes down my neck. Using every ounce of strength I can muster, I push myself up on two hands and glance back the farmhouse we’d been holed up in for the last couple of days. The Eater rushes at me, filthy hands grabbing at my shirt. Panic jolts through my system and I get to my knees with a groan and then to my feet. My calf seizes in pain and I recall taking a kick to the back of my leg. My injuries don’t matter to the infected, who takes my hesitation as an opening, and he’s back on me in a flash. I kick him in the side of the knee, throwing him off balance, and run toward the house, searching the area for a weapon.

I don’t find one as much as it finds me. I trip over something hard on the ground and look down. Alexandra’s hatchet.

Intense rage fills every inch of my body and instead of running away from the monster, I charge at him. Screaming at the top of my lungs, I push through the throbbing pain in my head and the aching muscles. I’m sick and tired of my life being controlled by monsters and men. I swing the hatchet across the Eater’s throat, slashing the dirty, decaying flesh. Thick blood sprays across my face. I kick the maimed monster to the ground and smash his head with my boot.

“God damn you stupid mother-trucking infected monsters,” I shout at the body, long after he’s dead. “You can’t have it all! You can’t! You can’t take everything I’ve fought for, you nasty, slime-faced bastard!”

I beat the Eater until he’s nothing but a bloody, mangled pulp and then, finally exhausted, I rest my hands on my knees and look around. The yard is empty, quiet other than the sounds of nature—no other Eaters lurking about. The house is still. Chloe’s vehicles that were parked along the road are long gone. There are no bodies from either side. No signs of violence or even a real struggle. A sense of dread builds in my chest.

I’ve barely steadied myself when another long moan fills the morning air and I clutch the hatchet in my hand. The birds grow still in the aftermath of my breakdown but there are no signs another Eater is coming. I shade my eyes from the glaring sunrise and spot something on the porch. Boots and a body.

I recall stepping over his body during the ambush the night before and run to the porch. Kneeling next to Jude, I see that he’s alive, although not completely conscious. He’s injured—severely—taking an even more intense beating than I had.

“Hey buddy,” I say to the younger man who has become my mentee and friend. “I really need you to not die, okay?”

I roll his deadweight body on his back and lay his arms above his head. I open the door and drag him in backwards, entering the kitchen. I keep my eyes on Jude and away from the counter top. It was the last place Alex and I had been together before shit hit the fan. We found a minute of privacy and she’d been sweet and sexy and if I closed my eyes I could remember what she tasted and felt like.

If. That sort of luxury is gone. I knew it then and I know it now.

A rollercoaster of emotions passes over me. Fear, anger, sadness. Chloe spent the better part of a year looking for Alexandra. Her death wouldn’t be kind or slow. Which meant I had time to get to her, but due to the ache in my arms and back along with the throbbing pain in my head, I know I am going to need a couple days to recover. Same for Jude, if he makes it through the next twenty-four hours.

I get him all the way in the kitchen, his form taking up most of the floor. I step over him and close the door, securing the lock, but then I hear the second spring trigger. The door and a gun.

Dammit. Not again.

“Turn around.”

I turn slowly, kicking Jude’s foot in the process, trying to formulate a plan. I breathe in relief when I see the person holding the gun. Green is barely in the kitchen—mostly still in the hall—leaning his sick and injured body against the wall.

“Green? It’s me, Wyatt. For the love of God, don’t shoot.”

He steps closer to the door and lowers the gun. Disbelief and trauma is written all over his face. “Wyatt? You’re alive?” He looks on the floor. “And Jude?”

“Also alive, for now.”

We stare at one another, two soldiers assessing the situation, but I’m not sure how much longer I can keep standing. A fine sweat has broken out on his face. We’re both in piss-poor shape.

“Come on,” I tell him. “Help me get this bastard to the bed. If we’re going to help Alex and the others, we all need to heal up.”

He nods and bends down to take Jude’s hands while I move to his feet. As we slowly half carry/half drag his body down the hallway one thing becomes clear. If Alex is expecting the cavalry, she’s going to be waiting for a while.

Chapter Seven

When Chloe’s Hybrids left the farmhouse, they didn’t take the backpacks and supplies, including the cache of weapons gathered in the living room. Clearly they were here for one thing only, people, and once they got what they came for, they left quickly.

Too quickly to check to see if I was still alive. Too fast to realize the wound on Green’s neck was healing.

“I played dead—which wasn’t far from the truth,” he says once we get Jude in the bed. There’s nothing much we can do but check on him and hope he heals. We’re lounging in the living room dealing with our own pain and injuries. “I was weak and there was no way I would be able to take on one of those things—much less twenty. They stormed the front door and gathered everyone up. Jane was actually the one that told them I was dead or dying from a bite wound. They all seemed satisfied enough and left the room, although that’s when something odd happened.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I thought they all left and cracked my eyelids just enough to get a peek of the room. There was one Hybrid that stuck around, watching me. I thought for sure I was dead, like he was waiting to catch me playing opossum and then he’d go for the kill. But he just stood there silent for a moment until he caught my eye. We shared a look—“

“What kind of look?”

“Hell if I know.” I frown, skeptical, wondering if he hallucinated the whole thing. “But it happened and I thought he was going to blow my brains out with the rifle he held in his hands. Instead, he turned and left the room, slamming the door behind him.”

We sit in silence for a moment because his story is certainly strange and I’m unsure if I should call bullshit or mental illness. I keep quiet instead.