Page 47 of Such a Feral Little Lamb
He smiles faintly. “You worry about your friends.”
Friend. Again, friend. I’m still not sure if that’s what Otto and I are, but I am worried about him. About the rest of us, too. With daylight and some distance, I’m aware that Mason only raised more questions this morning and gave me hardly any answers.
How did he heal my face? How has he avoided the zombies? Why are the zombies only reappearing now, since we’ve arrived?
Nia is waiting for us inside the church. She stands gracefully from one of the pews when I step inside and smooths down her trousers. Dane walks around and past me, but she hardly looks at him.
“I’ve come to extend an invitation to you all to eat with us tonight,” she says, and Dane scoffs outright.
“You know what you’ve got down there,” he all but spits. “We’re not coming.”
I scowl at him. The townspeople who came up from below today, at least the ones I saw, didn’t look scared or concerned.They have to know Otto is among them. It’s not like there are enough of them that he could hide.
“Otto is fine. Healthy. He does have some concerns about your reaction to him.” This time, Nia does pin Dane with a look, and he scowls right back.
“We won’t hurt him,” I say, and Blake scoffs, but Rae must do something behind me because he doesn’t say anything.
“Wewon’t,” she agrees, challenge clear in her voice.
“Dinner?” Nia prompts.
I pull a face. It’s a worse idea to leave Dane and Blake up here alone—not a chance one will go without the other—than it is to say no to dinner.
She reads the no from my expression, at least. From Rae’s too, I gather. Nia sighs and exchanges a look with Mason. “Very well. I will see you all tomorrow, then.”
She strides over to the door and descends the stairs. Dane huffs, tossing his hatchet onto his sleeping bag, then glares when he sees Mason still standing there.
“The fuck are you still doing here?”
Mason gives him a sly, dangerous smile. “Thinking about what I might have for dinner, too.” His eyes simmer with heat when he casts me one final look before he slips over to the stairs and follows Nia.
I swallow down any emotion that threatens to show on my face. Dane stares at me all the same, then makes another frustrated sound before Blake pushes past me from behind.
Neither of them has said anything about my face. Maybe they think Blake didn’t hit me hard enough to leave a mark. That’s fine by me. Not like I want to talk about it, either.
Autumn slips past me, keeping a lot more distance between the two of us, and I feel Rae’s presence before a gentle hand drops on my shoulder.
“Everything all right?” Rae murmurs. Our voices carry in here, despite the holes in the roof sounds can escape through, so she keeps hers low.
“Yeah.” I lean against the pew next to me. “I really think Otto is okay, you know?”
“So do I.”
I blink at her in surprise.
Rae gives me a little shrug, axe resting against her legs. “I don’t know what’s going on here, and frankly, I don’t care to find out. It’s well above our pay grade.”
Dane and Blake are having their own muttered conversation up by the altar. Autumn kneels on her sleeping bag, going through her pack. She doesn’t have her back to them, and her shoulders are tense.
“Do you think Dane knows?” I ask, trying to scratch an itch in the back of my mind. Why would he bring up the virus? Is he trying to catch one of us out, to report us when we get back to the Citadel? Seems like a lot of work when he could just try to kill us out here.
“He knows about you and Mason, at least,” Rae replies. “Be careful there.”
“You—”
“I don’t mean it any which way except for how I say it. Tell Mason. Dane is already on edge. Watch for him tipping over it.”
My hackles are already raised, so I try to lower them. I know what she means. It’s not my fault that Dane is fixated on me, but I already know he’s acting strangely, considering how he threatened the others last night.
