“Mom? Dad?” She waited a handful of seconds before knocking again.
“Don’t come in here, sweetheart.” Her dad’s voice sounded strained, guttural.
Standing there, her heart racing, her pulse beating in her throat, Sasha contemplated listening to him. In the end that didn’t matter. If they were going to get infected there would have been ample time for that already. They’d been together before the symptoms had started, still close together even after the fact. It was only when her parents started coughing up blood and ran a fever that they’d quarantined themselves in the room.
She gripped the doorknob and turned it, pushing the door open a couple of inches. The lights were off, the blinds slightly open. Light filtered in through the cracks, causing streaks of muted yellow to fill the room.
Her father sat on the edge of the bed furthest away from her. He had his head lowered, his white shirt stained with sweat and splashes of what she could only assume was blood.
He turned and looked at her, her mother coughing from the other side of the bed, her back to Sasha. Tears threatened to fall, but Sasha reigned them in, refusing to show weakness.
“Sasha, sweetheart,” her father wheezed out. He shifted on the bed and a slash of light went across his face. He winced and moved back toward the shadows. Sensitivity to light. That was one of the first symptoms. Before he’d retreated she’d seen his face.
Ashen complexation.
Sunken eyes with dark circles.
Red tinged mouth because of the blood he coughed up.
And the look of death covering his expression.
She placed a hand on her chest, her heart hurting.
“Sweetheart, we need you to listen very carefully.”
She took a stuttering breath in.
“Your mother and I won’t sugarcoat things. You’re old enough to know how life works, what reality is now.”
She nodded, swallowing past the lump in her throat.
“You need to leave with Lucy. You need to take the supplies and bags and head up to your uncle’s cabin.”
She was shaking her head before he even finished speaking.
“Listen to us, sweetheart.” He leaned forward, the light moving across his face again, the look of pain on his expression clear. But he didn’t move back into the shadows, and instead stared her right in the eyes. “It’s not safe here. Not in this house, in this neighborhood … in this city.” He coughed, turning his head for a few seconds until it passed. He looked at her again and she saw tears in his eyes.
“I can’t.” Sasha stuttered out the words. “I don’t know how to get there without you.” She was hysterically crying now, the very thought of leaving her family, that they wanted her gone because they knew they were going to die, had devastation filling her.
“You can. You will, honey. Your mother and I are sick. We aren’t getting better. Having you and Lucy here isn’t safe, not just because of how we are, of the risk of infecting you if we haven’t already, but because in situations like these people will become savage. They’ll take, and take, and take until there’s nothing left.” His voice grew harder and she felt his strength, his resolve. “Promise your mother and me that’ll you’ll take your sister and leave.”
She was shaking her head, the tears and wracking sobs so consuming she couldn’t even breathe, let alone speak.
“Promise us, honey,” her mother said in a weak voice.
Sasha pulled herself together and wiped the tears away. She held onto the edge of the door like her life depended on it. “I promise,” she whispered.
God, could she actually keep it though?
Chapter Two
Darkness, my old friend
“Tell me how you fucked up.” Malachi brought a cigarette to his mouth and took a long drag. He held the smoke in his lungs for a second.
He hated fucking smoking, loathed the taste of it, the stench that clung to him. But it was that damn fix he needed, that rush that the nicotine gave him. He exhaled, smoke billowing out in front of them as he stared at Phillip. “Go on, tell me why you’re on your knees in front of me in a grimy fucking alleyway right now.” Malachi had four guys with him, two on each side of him, all of them packing heat. Hell, Malachi had two guns on him at this very moment.
He took a few steps toward Phillip and then crouched on his haunches, taking another drag off the cigarette, staring the asshole in the eyes. He blew out the smoke, the gray cloud covering Phillip’s face. The bastard had a busted lip, dried blood on his chin, a bloody nose, and a split eyebrow. His guys had roughed him up good, but then again Phillip had wronged him, stolen from him.
“I-I—” he stuttered and licked his lips, looking down at the asphalt before bringing his gaze back up back up to Malachi’s. “I stole from you,” he finally admitted, his voice no more than a mere whisper now.