Page 17 of Chaos Destiny
She blinked.
Then, she set her head on my chest.
I lowered the heavy fabric again, situating it so that I didn’t turn her into a sausage wrapped in an L.L. Bean casing.
I’d barely made it thirty yards into the woods when strong fingers gripped my shoulder and jerked me backward. Shrugging from the hold, I spun around and came face to face with ashen skin. The once-human creature snarled and snorted, its mouth wide open, emitting an odor that closely resembled decomposing human flesh. Then, it sniffed, and its hollow eyes lowered in Thandie’s direction.
“Try it,” I said, reaching for my knife. “I fucking dare you.”
Suddenly, it went still.
I went from raising my arm, ready to sink a knife into its skull, to shielding Thandie from chunks of tissue and fluid. Brain matter, if one could call it that, splattered my skin and clothing, but with how heavy the rain came down, it immediately washed away.
The once-human fell to the ground.
Behind it, like velvet curtains being drawn to start a Broadway performance, someone lowered a gun, which highlighted a face tucked beneath a raincoat hood.
A woman’s face.
For a moment, she seemed unreal. As though, if I looked back in the direction of the camper, I would find it engulfed in flames, me and Thandie’s bodies still inside.
She came closer.
I raised the knife again.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” she said. Then, she glanced at the rifle and quickly returned it to her side. “I wasn’t shooting at you. I swear.”
I frowned.
I recognized that voice, this face.
It was dark out, the only light the occasional flash of lightning and the castoff from the flames, which continued to build despite the rain. But I knew that face, and I knew that voice as if I’d heard it many times before, over and over, from as low as a whisper to a loud cry against a quiet night.
“Tayler?”
“Do we...know each other?” she asked. She squinted up at me, and then her gaze fell to the jacket. “Wait, you’re the one I talked to at the clinic, aren’t you? The one with the baby. Thank god I found you. How is the baby? Actually, scratch that. We need to get you two out of this rain.”
She grabbed my wrist.
Like I was being controlled by a magic wand, I went with her until we reached an SUV, and part of me wanted to laugh at the fact that I was following a stranger into a vehicle. Regardless, I slithered onto the cracked leather seats and tossed the wet Anorak onto the floor.
Thandie sneezed.
The doctor climbed onto the seat beside me.
I glanced at the lack of a driver behind the steering wheel. “Are we not going anywhere?”
She rose onto her knees, facing me. “Can I take a look at the baby?”
“Answer the question first.”
“I’m not alone,” she said, tilting her head to try to see Thandie’s face. “I kind of ditched my group, and they won’t be happy when they get back, especially because they told me to stay behind.”
“And you didn’t.”
“No, and it’s good that I didn’t, right? I saved your life.”
I didn’t respond.
