Page 227 of Rage

“Lenora! Lenora!” Distantly, I hear a voice drifting through the fog of my brain. If the Beast is alive, I can’t let her near it.

The crunch of bone fills the air, and I can feel the slip of his warm blood around me from head to toe. There’s no more resistance to my blade as it punches down into the bloody grave that was once his chest cavity.

Warm arms envelope me, and my downward strikes stop. After a few breaths, the world around me slowly comes into focus, like a lens shifting on reality.

“He’s dead. He’s dead, Lenora. It’s okay.” Why is she comforting me when they were going to take her?

Looking down at the Beast brings me to my feet. Gone are his beady eyes and gaunt face. In their place is an empty cavern filled with blood and bone, a macabre soup of the Beast he once was.

My heart aches at the what-ifs of the night, and I throw my arms around the only person who can bring me back from the brink of my bloodlust.

“Are you alright?” Holding her at arm’s length, I check her over. A rustle of feet catch my attention, and my head snaps to the small girl who helped these Beasts attack Davey. With my sight focused on her, she freezes, tears tracing down the soft planes of her dirty face.

“Thank you,” she whispers before fainting in the dirt.

“What the fuck was that?” Davey asks.

“A trap. They used her as bait,” I answer.

“We have to bring her back with us. She’s just a kid. If they had her, it couldn’t have been of her own free will,” Davey pleads. I breathe out through my nose and try to center myself.

“We can’t just bring her to the camp and expect everyone to welcome her with open arms. She could be a sympathizer. What if I just killed her father, brother, or worse: her lover?” Bile risesin my throat at the idea of this young girl having a lover in one of the Beasts laying lifeless around us.

“We can quarantine her and have Antonia or Jones keep watch, just until she can tell us what the hell this was all about. Don’t you want to know how they got this close?” Fuck. She has a good point. Part of survival is knowing when to collect intelligence. If they have a base somewhere nearby, we may have a problem. If they were the last alive, we could scavenge and find supplies. But by the looks of their frail bodies, it doesn’t seem like they had a continuous supply of food.

“Fine, I’ll carry her. You just follow me.” As I bend to pick up the girl, a sharp pain lances my side, and I scream out. “Oh, fuck!” My knees hit the dirt, and I try to breathe through the pain on all fours.

“Lenora? Lenora! What’s wrong?” Davey is at my side, but her face spins in my vision. I push my hand against the pain, and she snatches it, bringing it to her face.

“Blood. Lenora, you’re bleeding.” Her eyes dart around and land on the Beast behind us. “He had a knife, Lenora! Oh my God, it’s a stab wound. We have to get you back.” Her voice is growing hazy and distant.

“Give me a minute. I’ll get up in a second.” It’s harder and harder to breathe through the pain. Her face swims in my vision.

“Lenora! Stay with me! I’ll get us back.”

At least, that’s what I think she said before the darkness swallows me whole.

Chapter Nine

DAVEY

Igrab the girl, shaking her awake. This is no time to faint. We need to get Lenora back to the compound, fast. As she rouses on the ground, I grab her arm and haul her up, her small frame much too light for her apparent age.

“Please, I’m so sorry. They made me do it! I swear!” Her voice is thin and childlike.

“I don’t care. Can you help me? Just follow me back to our compound. I can carry her, but I may need help if something is in the way.” I bark the orders at her and reach for Lenora, careful not to aggravate her gaping wound oozing blood through her shirt and onto my hands.

As we make our way back, the night is balmy and, for once, I miss the old days, when winter weather would sweep this side of the country and leave us in snow. Cold would help her body right now. As it stands, I won’t be able to do anything until I can get her somewhere safe and peel back her shirt.

That idea used to be so appealing, I would lose myself in daydreams of the very act, but now, all I feel is cold dread. Why the fuck didn’t I listen? Am I so fucking dense that I ignored a trained fighter? Someone who has done this hundreds of times and survived while creating a thriving little community of herown? While I was,what? Living in a fucking cave with my dying brother, wondering what day or time it was? Useless. That’s what I am.

“I’m Celia,” the girl says, her dead eyes trained on the ground at her feet as she walks.

“Davey. This is Lenora. She runs a compound very close to here. Once I get her there, I can see if I can,” I swallow down the bile rising in my throat, “do something to save her.”

“Are there Beasts there?” she whispers. This poor kid. I can’t imagine the horrors she faced.

“No. Lenora and her team took them all out. You’ll be safe there after you go through some questioning.”

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