Page 71 of Such a Feral Little Lamb
“I need proof. I need Otto’s ID. Either way, I need to know so I can report back.”
“Because you’re planning to get on that train.” Mason closes his eyes and rests his forehead against mine. “You’d be angry if I truly kidnapped you, wouldn’t you?”
My lips twitch. I shouldn’t encourage him. I think he means most of the things he says, and it should be terrifying, but terrifying is what we found yesterday; terrifying is a horde ofzombies trying to tear me to pieces; terrifying is our team being picked off one by one.
This is… some kind of comfort. Silly, perhaps. Not enduring. But it’s a comfort to think that someone out there cares this much for me, even if it may not be real.
“I would,” I say, voice hoarse.
Mason sighs. He kisses me again, a peck this time, then leans back. “Fine. Let’s go find your wayward team leader.”
Emma, Sal, and Callum join us on the search. We split into two groups instead of three because it’s unspoken, but we’re all aware that one of us might be taken.
It’s frustrating because Blake is with me and Mason—Emma and Callum heading off with Rae and Autumn—and Sal clearly has no interest in fielding Blake’s terrible mood.
I can’t blame him. It’s wearing on all of us now. Autumn is jumping at every sound, which considering the wind has picked up today, means she’s going to exhaust herself by noon.
“Check over there,” Mason says to Sal, who nods and heads for a house on the other side of the street. Blake growls something and follows him. We’re not splitting up exactly, but we need to cover the entire town again, if we can, to be sure we haven’t missed anything.
I follow Mason into another house. It’s as empty as the others, though Mason seeks out the cellar and the attic first. Nothing. He waves his hand, muttering something, and I know he’s using magic.
“Will that help?” I ask. We’re in the kitchen now, and Mason takes a moment to answer.
“Maybe.” He grimaces. “Like I said, I’ve never tried to track people before. We’ll see if it works or not.”
Blake’s aware now, of course. I think Nia or one of the others laid everything out for the three of them last night, while Mason and I were—Well. My cheeks heat. Not talking about that anyway.
It’s just another thing Blake is furious about. Another thing he doesn’t believe. I can’t blame him; it sounds farfetched at best and like a trick at worst.
“Come on. There’s nothing here.”
We search two more houses, then all four of us move from one street to another. There’s a shop here that Sal takes and a series of bungalows that Mason heads toward.
“What was it like?” I ask.
Mason opens the door to one of the bungalows and frowns. “What was what like?”
“Discovering you could do all this stuff.”
He shrugs. The carpet and wallpaper in here don’t look like they were updated for a good few decades before the zombies arrived. Before the curse. Like everywhere else, it smells like dust and damp.
“I always knew I was different.”
I nod, using my bat to push open the door that leads into the kitchen. Rae and Autumn took this area of Gravesend yesterday. They’re searching over where we were today.
Is that why he got magic? He was already different, and then when the necromancer’s curse rebounded, it knew to give something to him instead of… whatever it did to the rest of the people here?
“What happened when the necromancer’s curse hit?” I ask. “I mean, to the rest of you?”
Mason is quiet for too long. When I glance back at him, he’s wearing a contemplative expression.
“The graveyard was destroyed. No one knew that at first. I mean, they wouldn’t have cared anyway. The dead were rising. And when the magic rebounded, it—”
“It what?”
“It killed most people. Slowly. Zombies killed the rest, or they ran. And in the end, there were only us left. The ones with magic.”
“Nia, too?”
