Page 12 of Worth the Ruin
He shrugs and though it’s nonchalant, there’s a sense of challenge there that makes me narrow my eyes. He straightens and slaps the truck where his arms were just resting.
“Sleep well, Melody.”
Things settle down pretty quickly after that as everyone finishes eating and hunkers down to sleep. Sixteen men sleep on the ground around the campfires or in the tents, and the missing four must be on patrol. Wynn and Traeger round out the group of twenty-two, standing near the truck. I won’t be sleeping, but I’ll pretend to. Maybe Wynn and Traeger will be chatty and I can glean some new information about…well, anything, really. Any intel is good intel.
They talk quietly, but move far enough out of earshot that I can’t make out much. I sigh in frustration and roll onto my back, staring up at the sky. The stars shine so much brighter nowwithout all the smog and city lights blocking them out. I try to focus on them and the beauty that I wish so many other people were still around to share with me. I try not to let myself think of Jonah, of how he’d looked as we drove away from him today. Before I can stop it, my mind drifts back instead.
Back to the beginning of the end.
CHAPTER SIX
MELODY
“Are you at home?”DeWitt asked, voice tense.
“Yeah. They said they had a bad flu outbreak going around, so they sent us home for now to be safe,” I said quietly, stroking Gabby’s hair but being careful not to wake her up. She was still acting mostly like herself, but she was getting tired out more easily and more often. I tried to ignore it.
“Flu,” he muttered, almost to himself. My brows drew down.
“What’s up, Whitt?” I asked. “Are you alright?”
“I’ll be at your place in ten minutes.”
Apprehension prickled down my spine. Something was wrong. Somethingbigif he didn’t want to just tell me over the phone.
“Alright, I’m here.” He hung up and I eased Gabby’s head off of my lap, settling a pillow beneath her cheek instead. She sighed but didn’t wake. I kissed her forehead, made sure Leo was tucked in safe beside her, and went to wait for Whitt on the front porch. He pulled up twelve minutes later and hopped out of the car, barely even putting the thing in park first.
“What the hell is going on, Whitt?” I asked as he jogged up the front steps, urgency written in every tense line of his body. He wrapped me in a quick hug and when he pulled away, I could see how exhausted he looked. Exhausted and…afraid. I swallowed hard.
“Inside,” he said on a rough exhale.
Once in the kitchen, I leaned back against the counter and crossed my arms over my chest. He ran his hands through his hair, making the blonde strands stand up at funny angles. When was the last time he had a haircut? I’d known Justin DeWitt for almost a decade, and aside from a handful of times when it wasn’t possible, I’d never seen him without a fresh haircut and a clean shave. The more I studied him, the more I realized he looked downright haggard right now. Still handsome, of course, but haggard all the same.
We’d hated each other the moment we met. We were both competitive to a dangerous degree and happened to be each other’s biggest competition. That made for a bad combination. We were top of our class at the Academy—me first, him a close second—before both being pulled out for specialized training, where again, we were both in the running for top dog. We’d been placed on the same Ops Team and were constantly at each other’s throats. But eventually, we’d been stuck in a particularly sticky (i.e. life or death, leaning towards big time death) situation together, and we’d emerged friends. He’d saved my ass, I’d saved his, and we’d both had nightmares about it for years afterward. We’d bonded to say the least.
Since then, we’d both moved on to new jobs, new departments, new lives, but we’d remained forever close.
“Fuck, Mel. I’m not supposed to be telling you this. Hell, I’m not even supposed toknow, but POTUS owes me big time…"
“Whitt, I need you to say more words. Coherent ones. Now.” Anxiety was already starting to gnaw at my gut, a numb, coldfeeling settling deep in my bones. He took a deep breath and met my gaze.
Keeping his voice low, he said, “There’s something bad coming down the pipe, Mel. Big bad. The flu outbreaks aren’t flu outbreaks. We’ve been containing the news as much as possible, but we won’t be able to much longer. It’s spreading too fast and we don’t know how to stop it. We’re barely containing it right now…”
“Not the flu? What then?”
“We don’t know, exactly. But…” He blew out a long breath, as if steeling himself for what he was about to say. “It’s a near-extinction event, Mel.” My heart stopped beating completely for a long moment before roaring to life again with an ominous thud, going into overdrive.Extinction?
“What…”
“It’s a disease or a virus or hell, maybe the End of Days from the hand of God himself. People are dying and…fuck, I know it sounds crazy, but they’recoming back to life, Mel.” I nearly snorted but the look in his eyes told me that this was no laughing matter. No joke. No trick. “And if that wasn’t fucked up enough, they’re coming back all kinds of wrong. We’re talking horror movie shit here.”
“What?” I breathed. That just wasn’t possible. Like he said, it was something out of a movie for fuck’s sake. I looked around the corner at Gabby, making sure she was still asleep. My blood turned icy as worry and cold hard reason warred within me. It wasn’t possible. It justwasn’t. But I knew that Whitt wouldn’t bullshit me on this. He wouldn’t have come with some crazy, half-cocked notion of something going on unless he had proof—or the word from the very, very top.
POTUS owes me big time…
“I know it sounds batshit, Mel, but I swear to God it’s true. I’ve watched it happen with my own eyes at the researchhospital that officially doesn’t even exist outside of Quantico. It’s…bad.” He quickly explained what happened, the symptoms of the initial illness and the insanity that came after. “It’s going to start spreading beyond our ability to control the news soon. And when that happens…they’re going to take extreme measures to try to stop it from getting too far too fast.”
“Extreme measures?” I echoed in question. I already knew the answer, but I squeezed my eyes shut waiting for him to respond all the same, needing to hear the words out loud.
