Page 47 of When the Living Fall

The town is devolving into a maze of disarray, and I feel like a rat trapped in a labyrinth. I duck into a few buildings in my search for Zoey, checking every dark corner behind every door, and yell her name. She has to be somewhere around me. I keep telling myself I’ll find her soon; the colony isn’t that big. But the longer I search, the more frantic I become. I only hope she’s doing alright. Maybe my guys found her, and they all made it to safety.

I slip into a nearby building to catch my breath and get my bearings. After closing the door behind me, I peer out the window to make sure no one followed me.

The dim light from the open blinds reveals a figurecrouched against the wall, and I raise my gun, knife ready. “Show yourself,” I demand.

The figure has his back to me, and he’s crouching over the body of a towns person who I used to go on supply runs with. He turns to face me, and a mixture of fear and hatred creates a lump in my throat. My palms become sweaty, and I sheath my knife in favor of holding the gun with both hands.

“I’m impressed, Emily,” Nathan drawls, his voice smooth and calm. “You’re tougher than I ever gave you credit for. I should have kept you around longer; you’d be a valuable asset.”

Disdain drips from his every word, and I take a step closer, feeling confident I have the upper hand. My finger slides to the trigger. “And here my only regret is not shoving a knife into your eye when I first saw you a few days ago.”

Nathan rises and turns to face me, palms out, with a smirk on his face that chills my bones. “You gonna kill an unarmed man?”

“Absolutely.” I pull the trigger, and nothing happens. I glance down and see the safety is on. “What the fuck?”

Before I can flick off the safety, a rotter crashes through the window behind me and claws at my back. I spin around and aim the gun at its head, but it flails around and smacks the gun out of my hands. It’s still stuck in the window with the front half of its body dangling inside. The broken glass on the windowpane cuts into its gut, dripping blood onto the floor. It reaches its decaying hands toward me, and I yank my knife free of its sheath and drive it through its skull, stabbing it until it goes limp. I’m gasping for air when I stop, the weight of the situation weighing heavy, tears threatening to spill over.

By the time I turn back around to deal with the other threat, Nathan appears in front of me, slamming my backagainst the wall and pressing a knife to my throat. This seems to be the theme today.

“Such a disappointment,” he murmurs, his knife grazing my skin while he looks me over with a twisted, mocking smile. “I could have had such high hopes for you. You could have been so much more, but my idiot brother poisoned your potential. You used to be so trusting, so…pliable.”

My upper lip pulls back in a sneer. “Sorry to disappoint. Guess I can’t bring myself to worship scum like you. Too bad I don’t drop to the ground and kiss your boots, right? I might accidentally cut off your dick on the way down.”

His hand gripping my shoulder pulls forward and then back again, slamming me back against the wall with force. A slight high-pitched noise fills my ears and my vision blurs for a moment. “Watch yourself, Emily. I’m still the one holding the knife.”

“Didn’t quite catch that. I was busy daydreaming about your brother, and how he’s so much better in every. Single. Way.” I grin at him. At least, I think that’s what my face is doing. My head hurts too much to think.

His face contorts with fury, and the knife pierces my flesh. I can feel a single drop of blood travel down my skin, disappearing beneath my shirt.

Nathan removes the knife and replaces it with his hand. His fingers curl around my neck, his palm pressing against my throat. I ram my knife toward his gut, but he swats it out of my hand, grips my wrist, and holds it above my head. His fingers tighten in their quest to wrap completely around my neck. He leans in close to whisper in my ear. “Still as pretty and feisty as you were the day I first saw you. It’s a shame you turned out the way you did, filthy mongrel.”

Just as his grip tightens around my throat, stealing my breath, he’s yanked backward, torn from me with a violent force that sends him sprawling across the floor. Air rushes into my lungs and I cough, gasping for air. Looking up, I seeMax standing over me, rage simmering in his eyes as he surveys me.

“Are you hurt, pet?” His voice is low, but heavy with worry and drowning in a level of coldness I’ve never heard before. His hair is wild, sticking out in all directions, having been pulled from the hair tie at some point. The orange glow from the fire outside streams in through the window, making him look like an ethereal savior. Beautiful yet deadly.

I glance past him in time to see Nathan’s shape vanish into the shadows. Damn it. “I’m fine, but you interrupted. I was about to finish him. Had him right where I wanted him.”

Max looks over his shoulder and, seeing the room is empty now, looks back at me before kneeling down and lifting my chin with one hand. His eyes turn into deep black pits when his thumb runs along the spot where the knife nicked me. Then he runs a gentle fingertip along my throat. I know I’m going to bruise.

“I’m okay, Max,” I whisper, my voice soft.

The blackness in his eyes recedes a little when he looks at me, but they’re still not the vibrant green I like to see.

His hand reaches behind my head, fisting my hair before crashing his mouth against mine in a kiss full of heartbreak and pain. As though he can’t find the words he wants to say, so he shows me instead. Then he pulls away, resting his forehead against mine and leaving me breathless. “I’m sorry I took away your fun, but I’m more worried about protecting than killing him. I promise you’ll get to kill someone soon. There are plenty of assholes to choose from.” A smidge of the green returns to his eyes. “Actually, speaking of assholes, you can kill them that way. A knife up the ass. Some of them may even enjoy it before they die. Wow, what a way to go.”

He runs his tongue along his lip in thought, making me laugh. “You can promise that? I mean, I’ve already killedsomeone, but I really want to see Nathan dead. I don’t even care who does it.”

“You can have anything you want. I’ll rip out his heart with my bare hands and place it in a pretty box with a bowtie for you if it’ll make you smile.”

I lean in and kiss him again. “You really know how to charm a lady.”

“Anything for you, pet.” His fingertips brush along my throat before he pulls back to look me over again. “There are still enough bad guys out there for us to massacre, but I’m more worried about you. His hand was around your throat. I should have killed him myself for that alone.”

“Yeah, he didn’t seem to like what I had to say.”

He tilts his head, reminding me I also need to find Buddy. “What did you say?”

“Wait, what happened to Buddy?”

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