Page 51 of Outbreak

My stomach nearly falls out of my ass as Ghost leaps off the loading dock, his boots thudding loudly against the metal dumpster lid. He wastes no time jumping down the ground, banging his crowbar on the side to draw them to him.

I want to throw up. Anxiety claws at my insides and bile climbs up my throat. I can’t lose him again. I just fucking found him. All the bullshit of the past falls away in the face of death. I don’t care what he did or what he thought. I just need him to survive. For me—with me. Together.

“Hey! Come on, shit stains, come get me!” He shouts, jogging backwards down the alley, hitting anything and everything to draw the noise to him and give me an opening. I keep my back plastered to the concrete wall next to the door, trying to make myself as small as possible so they forget I’m up here.

Don’t die.

I want to squeeze my eyes shut and block out the panic, but if I take my eyes off of him for one second—I can’t even finish that thought. But it’s working. The dead follow him down the alley, their mangled, decaying bodies dragging on. He’s right—they'reslow, but the numbers are against him. All it will take is one wrong move, one mistake, and they’ll rip him to shreds.

My heart thunders in my chest, ricocheting against my rib cage like a raging storm. Then he disappears around the corner. I’ve been so busy keeping my eyes on him, I didn’t realize the coast was clear. With a heavy breath, I push off the wall and take off, tossing our duffles over the ledge and climbing down. My boots make contact with the ground, and I snatch our bags up, racing to the truck.

Please don’t die.

With a strength I didn’t know I possessed, I throw the heavy bags into the truck bed and jump inside. I guess neither one of us factored in that my short ass can’t see over the steering wheel. I have to adjust the seat height and pull it forward to even reach the goddamn pedals. Time feels stalled until I’m high enough to see out of the windshield and I throw the truck in drive and stomp the gas.

The last straggler chasing Ghost is rounding the corner when I get there, but I don’t stop. The dead woman’s body smacks against the ground, the truck rocking as she rolls under the tires.Ten points, bitch!

Swerving to make the turn and struggling to control this tank of a truck, I finally straighten the wheel and panic claws its way up my esophagus as I stomp on the brakes. There’s more dead—more than double the ones outside of the warehouse—they've merged with another group. Too many to count or kill on our own. There’s no way Ghost is fighting his way out of this. I can’t even see him anymore.

Don’t you dare fucking die!

Sitting up higher, I squint, searching the sea of death and rot in front of me for his head, but I can’t find him.No. No. No!I don’t even think as my foot flattens the pedal to the floor and I scream his name into the ether like a mad woman, mowingdown any fucker in my path to find him. The truck bounces from side to side as body after body thuds against the front end, crunching under the tires. Thankfully, the truck is so big, none of them fly into the windshield.

“Ghost!” I scream for him as I roll the window down, pleading with everything in me that he emerges from somewhere safe and sound. I don’t know how many I’ve taken out, but when I get to the end of the street, only a few remain standing, clawing at the truck as I roll to a stop… and still no Ghost.

Come on! Where the fuck are you? Don’t do this to me. Not again.

Burying my head in my hands, I try to hold back the anxious spiral that's about to spin out of control inside me. “Breathe, bitch. In and out.”

I try to pep talk myself like Ghost would do, but that just makes me more anxious. He should be here—talking me down from this himself. I can’t do this. I thought I could. Now, I realize just how delusional I’ve been to think I could’ve left him and tried this on my own. Honestly, I’d rather drive his truck off a tall cliff and take myself out of this episode ofThe Walking Deadthan try to survive this shit alone.

As the dark thoughts and panic try to strangle me, and the dead grab at my door, a loud thud sounds, shaking the whole truck. “What the?—”

“Go, go, go! Now!” He shouts, banging his hand on the roof from the bed of the truck. I don’t even have time to feel relief as I throw the truck in drive and speed off, taking out two more of the dead fucks on my way. “That’s my girl!” He yells above the engine, jumping up and down as he whoops and hollers, and I can’t help the grin that eats up half of my face, even as the tears blur my vision.

He’s alive.

He didn’t leave me again.

He came back.

CHAPTER 42

Ghost

Aplume of dust settles around the truck as I park in the driveway of the cabin. The drive into the mountain at night is dangerous, but I know these winding roads like the back of my hand now. This place has been my permanent home for a few years now. Soon after I moved in, Reaper and I turned it into a safe house of sorts. If he, Viper, or any of our guys needed a place to lay low or get away, they came here. It’s fully stocked—with everything we didn’t know we would be needing for a fucking apocalypse.

Rue is sleeping in her seat, completely exhausted from our very intense day. My girl has been through every emotion possible today, it seems, and it drained her completely. When I jumped off the fire escape I was hiding out on into the back of the truck, I could see through the back window she was freaking the fuck out. She couldn’t find me. To be fair, I wasn’t hiding from her. When I came around the second corner at the end of the street, the dead were waiting for me. I had to act quickly, turning back and jumping onto a ladder and shimming up the side of the building like fucking Spiderman while flesh-eating corpses pulled at my boots.

“Rue…” I say gentle, rubbing her leg to wake her. “Wake up, baby girl. We’re here.”

She stretches like a cat in her seat, rubbing her eyes before she sits up and puts the seat back upright. “Damn, I didn’t mean to sleep the whole way.”

“You’ve had a fucking day, Rue. You needed it.”

“Holy fucking shit, Ghost.Thisis the ‘cabin’,” she says, making air quotes and everything. “That is not the word I would use to describe this place.”

“Oh yeah. What would you call it?”

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