In The End Box Set , Stevens, GJ [motivational novels .txt] 📗

been drowsy ever since. You saw how she was. But today she’s like...” I stopped myself from saying the words out loud.

“Like what?” Alex said, forcing her voice lower. “She’s different, isn’t she?”

I nodded, but didn’t speak when I heard the door rest gently against its jamb. After listening to footsteps, Cassie appeared around the corner of the bar and stared at us, still covered in blood but I concentrated on the three tins of fruit in syrup in her hands.

“I found these,” she said in a low voice. “There’s a kitchen. You want them?”

I smiled back and nodded whilst taking the tins. “Thanks, Cass. You got some?”

She moved out of sight without reply and moments later the door settled back to the jamb again as I rested the tins on the floor.

“What was she like before?” Alex asked, and I turned to her as the memories flooded in. The time we’d spent scared for our lives in the wardrobe. When we’d walked alone to the village. When we’d almost kissed. The night she’d lain at my side.

“When did Cassie have the medicine?” Alex asked when the door swung closed, its hit against the jamb sending renewed slaps to the windows. “She’s different now. Isn’t she?”

“She’s been through a lot. We all have.”

Alex nodded.

“Yesterday. No, the evening before that. She drank it a little under two days ago,” I said and watched as her expression hardened. “What is it?”

Alex swallowed as if trying to make a tough decision. Eventually she shook her head and spoke, “Jess was bitten, too.”

I let the moment hang, my eyebrow raising as I spoke. “I think I knew,” I said, nodding.

Alex turned her head to the side, eyeing me cautiously as she waited.

“What did they give her?”

“I only know what Jess told me. They gave her something, then infected her.”

I reared back, sitting up straight, but didn’t say a word as Alex spoke again.

“They infected her and then gave her more of the stuff. She was supposed to keep getting doses, but the place they were keeping her got overrun and she escaped.”

“So many questions. Did it work?” I said, as Alex paused for breath.

“Only in part. She’s not unscathed.”

“What do you mean?” I added and then stopped as I heard the door opening. Before Alex could answer I spoke again. “Do you think they gave them the same thing?”

She shrugged, speaking in a whisper. “I think what they gave Cassie must have been better. A newer mix, perhaps? Plus, they gave it to Cassie after she was infected. Is that right?”

Mandy came around the bar and she stared at the tins.

“Help yourself,” I said and turned back to Alex as Mandy sat by her side and pulled the ring up to get at the fruit.

I wanted to ask so many questions. I had to know if we were safe around her. I had to know if it was Jess feeding on people. I had to know what she’d meant by not being unscathed. Would the same happen to Cassie? Was she safe to be around?

I stared at Mandy, willing her to finish slurping down the fruit and go back to where she’d been sitting on her own, but when I heard the door again, I gave up on answers for the moment; Jess had been fine around us, as had Cassie. So far, at least.

“What about you?” I asked, looking at Alex. “What’s your story?”

Alex spoke after a moment, collecting her thoughts. “I was heading home from a job. I’m a locksmith,” she said. “I saw those creatures in the road. Scared the life out of me. Then I literally bumped into Jess. I nearly ran her over.”

“Oh,” I said. “Funny that.”

Alex replied with a frown. “How’s that funny?”

“I almost shot Cassie when I first met her.” For a moment a grin pulled at the corner of my mouth, until I remembered the depth of my fear for what might have been.

Alex raised her eyebrows and gave a shallow nod. “That’s why you seemed so okay when Jess nearly shot you in the tunnel.”

I nodded.

“I assumed you’d known each other for ages. I assumed you were...” I stopped myself as I saw Mandy leaning into the conversation, her features rising with alarm.

“No,” Alex said. “I met her like the night after new year’s night. I think. How long has it been? I...”

“It’s just the way you are together...” I said, but stopped myself again. “Never mind,” I added when I realised it was something she didn’t want to talk about.

“And you and Cassie?” she said, turning the questioning back to me.

I paused, trying not to listen to the slap of hands against the glass.

“I don’t know,” I said, then turned, looking to the fast-flowing river rushing over the top of the bridge deck. “It was early days.”

“It is early days,” Alex corrected, and I twisted around with a smile.

A shot rang off somewhere in the distance, followed by the crack of glass. A second resounded in the air and Alex and I struggled up, rushing to our feet as a third shot came.

Coming over the top of the bar, we watched the creatures still on the other side, but they’d each turned away. I didn’t follow to where they looked; instead, I peered to the two glass panels spidering with cracks as a plume of plaster flew from the adjacent wall.

Baring her teeth in our direction, Cassie stood in the opposite corner as the windows seemed to flex from the downdraft of a helicopter as if directly above us.

50

JESSICA

“Jessica Carmichael,” the woman in the orange dress said with her eyebrows raised and breath heavy as she sat opposite me in the baker’s shop.

In her lap, a blonde-haired doll