The Girl Who Kissed the Sun (Death Fields 4)
Avi.
His face breaks into a smile. “Beck, thank god. I’m sorry it took so long.”
I stare at him and hear a small sound behind me. I turn and face my sister. Her hands tremble and she stares at the man. She’s shaken for the first time since we were captured.
Yep, we’ve found the man we traveled all this way to find. My sister’s partner and the other half of PharmaCorp, Avi Patel.
Wyatt
Near Savannah, Georgia
Late Winter
The morning sunrise glints off the clean blade before I plunge it into the man’s stomach, jerking it upward for optimal damage. The light fades, but doesn’t fully extinguish from his beady eyes. I kick him in the wound and he falls over, knees hitting the pavement with a crack.
“You’ll never stop us,” he grinds out as his last breath.
I swing the blade and take off his head. It drops to the ground with a hollow thud.
“You’re probably right,” I agree to the corpse, wiping the blade on his shoulders, covering the purple bars with thick blood. “But I’ll keep trying anyway.”
*
At first, the sound of the waves is startling. Not because it’s unusual but because it’s familiar. The ocean hasn’t changed. The waves roll in and out. The tides shift.
It’s one of the reminders that we’re trespassers on this magnificent planet and nature will continue its daily rituals despite our destruction.
I sit on the weathered bench, tucked under a creaky gazebo, and stare out at the Atlantic. The sky is a winter gray, the wind cold and bitter. But there’s no smell of the dead out here, which is one reason why I like it so much. The breeze comes off the ocean—it’s fresh, salty, and untainted. Spring is on the horizon.
We followed Erwin’s plan, moving south to the coast. The ultimate goal was to build his army, increasing the size and skills of the recruits in preparation for the battle headed our way. As far as plans go it wasn’t the best one, but I’m a solider at heart and until I figure out my next move, I stay.
This first winter, nine months after civilization came to a screeching halt, was brutal. Even in the moderate south, the temperature and conditions brought complications we weren’t completely prepared for. Fresh food disappeared, the gardens and farms frosted over or were consumed by efficient animals. We still had access to vehicles but they took constant maintenance and a rotating crew for siphoning gas. The generators we needed to run the base took most the fuel. The lack of central heat was something we’re unaccustomed to. The Army bases aren’t equipped with fireplaces or proper ventilation for fires. Clever members of Erwin’s team come up with solutions.
The apocalypse, quite simply, is an exhausting time to live in.
As the air turned colder, the people did, too. The living separated into two distinct groups. Reality settled into bones, occupied minds. Depending on how you wanted to face the future, some saw it only as a depressing, bleak horizon. Life was getting hard and it was only compounded by the fact that we continued to fight one another as well as the infected.
The other group, presented with the same reality, made the choice to work and build what we could. Nothing permanent, but learning to survive was a necessity. It made people desperate to join our cause even though they’d never seen or heard of a Hybrid in their lives.
Me?
I still had debts to pay.
Erwin doesn’t keep track of me as my official job is ’Scout’. I leave the camp on my own or occasionally with Jude, who has appointed me his mentor. I don’t mind passing along the tricks I’ve learned over the years and he’s got good instincts—I think from hunting at such a young age. Together or alone, I spend my days wandering the southern half of Georgia looking for signs of life—human, Hybrid, or Eater.
I play a game in my head as I comb the countryside—a game similar to the one Alexandra and I used to banter about on patrol. With each living being I track, I identify them into one of three categories; recruit, hide, or kill.
The new recruits train on the Eaters, learning to use the weapons in the armory at Erwin’s most recent base. It’s dirty work and there are casualties, but it’s a necessary evil.
The Hybrids? We keep an eye on them. Kill the ones that travel alone and hide from the ones that don’t. I haven’t seen Chloe herself since the battle at the Vaccine Center. Cole, either—although I assume he’s dead or toiling away in the PharmaCorp labs.
And Alex?
The last time I saw her she was headed into the belly of the beast, looking to stop this whole crazy war with her sister. All I know is that she failed and the Hybrids continue their push south. I haven’t heard word from her since that day and not one of the Hybrids I’ve caught gives me the information I need. I have little choice but to push the dark-haired girl with a big heart and a wise mouth out of my mind.
A chorus of feet beat on the boardwalk of the tiny beach house, racing in my direction. The children’s skin looks dark against the steel gray skies and white beaches, but their smiles are bright with glee. They pass me with barely a glance, kicking off their shoes and heading to the sand with shouts that are muffled by the waves.
I keep vigil while the children play, my gun always in hand. A hunting knife sits on the small ledge. The Eaters are few on this little stretch of the island—evacuated in the early days of the infection. A fire took half of the homes. A bad storm took a dozen more. I killed the remaining roamers before I ever let the children set foot near the place.