Page 42 of Outbreak

He left me?

“He realized you’re nothing but a dirty, used-up waste of space.” He thrusts into me dry, punctuating his insults with his punishing hips. “He practically begged his father to leave tonight.”

He left me.

Silent tears slip down the side of my face, and he leans over me, dragging his foul tongue over my cheek to catch them, and I want to die.

“It’s just you and me now—and I love it when you cry for me, little girl.”

CHAPTER 34

Ghost

Pain throbs in my head as I peel my sandpaper eyes open.

What happened?

Groaning, I lift my head from my chest, looking around an unfamiliar space. Light filters in through glass-paned windows surrounded by grey cinder block walls, and industrial equipment sits around the large space.

Last night’s shitshow comes back in waves. The blocked road. The rain. Fighting off the dead.Rue.

“Rue!” I yell, trying to scramble to my feet but falling back on my ass against the hard metal. “What the fuck?”

My wrists are tied behind my back, and I tug on them. Twisting around, I see the rope connecting me to the table legs.

“Rue!”

“I heard you,” she says from above me, swinging her legs over the side of the table and hopping down beside me. “How’s your head?”

“My head? Uh, it hurts. Are you okay?” Her voice is distant and cold, making me nervous. The dead man lying a few feet from me catches my eye, his head smashed to pieces on the dirty concrete floor. “Did you get bit?”

A fear like I didn’t know possible runs through me. If she got bit, she’s as good as?—

“No. I didn’t.”

“Okay? Then what’s going on? Why am I tied up?”

“Huh!Ghost. I get it now.” She laughs, but it holds no humor. “That’s fucking fitting.”

“What are you talking about? Rue! Untie me!” She paces in front of me, spinningmyopen knife blade on her fingertip mechanically. She must have taken it from my pocket when she tied me up.

“Awe. Don’t like the shoe on the other foot?” She stops in front of me, and the look on her face is nothing but ruthless anger. “You can dish it out, but you can’t take it?”

Two can play this game. “Rue. Is something on your mind?”

Her eyes flash with rage for a second before she moves, straddling me and digging that blade into my throat and jerking my hair by the root to tilt my head back. My hair—oh fuck!

My mask is gone.

“Missing something,Wyck Dawson?”Disdain and betrayal color her tone as she grits out of my name, the pressure piercing through my skin, and I can feel the blood dripping down my throat.

“Rue. I can explain?—”

“Un-fucking-likely!”

“Death—” I whisper.

“Don’t fucking call me that! You lost that right when you disappeared!” The blade presses harder until she’s shaking with rage.

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