Page 35 of Such a Feral Little Lamb
I tremble with the urge to run to Otto’s side, but even the time I’ve been watching is too long. I whirl back around and take out another zombie with a fast, brutal blow, and when blood splatters over my face, I just move forward.
Mason is still fighting ahead of me. He takes down two zombies in quick succession, and I hear gurgles among the shouting behind me, and all at once, it’s over.
My breaths saw in and out of my chest. I hardly dare to turn and look.
The bite won’t take him straight away. The virus has to work its way through his system. Though he might have longer than minutes, it will still be fast.
If he’s not gone by tonight, he will be by morning.
“Isaac!” Rae cries, voice pitched higher with fear. I’ve never heard that from her before.Never.“Isaac.”
Mason watches me. I take another breath, tiny razor blades dragging down the insides of my lungs, then turn away from him and head up the slope.
Dane and Blake are too close. Autumn is useless now, trembling all over, her machete slack in her grasp. I don’t have it in me to praise her for earlier, even if she clearly needs to hear it.
Rae stands between Otto and Dane. Sal frowns from the sidelines, and Emma watches me as though she simply wants someone else to take the lead.
“We need to do this now!” Dane all but screams. Fuck. We’ve all lost team members before. In the beginning, every trip out meant at least two or three people would be lost. Sometimes, entire teams didn’t make it back.
Otto looks faint. Sweat beads on his forehead, lips pale, and I don’t know if that’s due to the bite or the fear. He has to die. Either way, he’ll die. He tugs his shirt aside to get a better look, and my stomach turns at the sight of torn flesh, already reddening at the edges.
I come up on his free side, where the bite is. Rae is still yelling at Dane. Blake makes to move around them both, but Sal is quicker and larger and steps up to keep him where he is.
“Fucked it, haven’t I?” Otto says. His eyes are wet, the blue of them brighter than I’ve ever seen it.
I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood. No point in lying. “Yeah, looks like it.”
Otto laughs, but it rings hollow, and when he sucks in a breath, I think he’s swallowing down a sob. “Can you…?”
I glance down at my bat. Can I? I’ve done it before. Never to anyone I’ve worked with so often as Otto. We don’t socialise at the Citadel, but maybe he and Rae are the closest I have to friends.
“The guns,” I say, begging my voice not to tremble. “At the church, they—”
“Sal will take him,” Mason says, suddenly close behind me. His fingers curl over my shoulder, digging in. “Won’t you?”
Sal’s expression does something complicated before it settles on a dark glare. “No, Mason, we can’t—”
“Won’t you?” Power reverberates in his voice and I’m not the only one who hears it.
Otto shrinks back, and Autumn almost falls to her knees, collapsing sideways into Rae instead. Even Dane looks surprised, head jerking back as he blinks rapidly.
“We’ll take him,” Emma says, recovering the fastest. She slips around Dane, Blake, and Rae, and lays a gentle hand on Otto’s arm. “Come on.”
Otto’s mouth trembles. He blinks back tears, and it takes him a moment before he speaks again. “It’s better like this.”
“Go,” Mason says, and Emma and Sal steer Otto away before he can speak again. I watch mutely as they lead him up the hill and in the direction of the church.
“They’ll make it quick?” I ask.
A muscle twitches in Dane’s jaw. Did hewantto kill Otto? Blood and viscera are smeared around us. We’ve all done enough killing for today.
“It will be fine,” Mason replies. He squeezes my shoulder too tightly before he takes a step back. “Come on. We should see where those zombies might have come from.”
Chapter Twelve
“Whatthefuck?”Blakegrumbles, but Rae is already rallying Autumn, trying to get her to walk on her own. “We’re still—”
Dane scowls. He can’t argue. Otto is being… taken care of, and we have a job to do. Not to mention that we’ve just seen evidence of all the zombies here. If we go back to the Citadel without clearing this place out properly, then that’s it for us.
