Page 80 of Death Valley

“What the fuck else could be out there if not Hank!” Cole cries out.

“You saw what he did to Red!” she yells. “He’s dangerous.”

“Red doesn’t know what he saw!” he counters back, spittle flying but Aubrey remains steady with the rifle. “He could have been attacked by a…a bear. Anything! It doesn’t make sense that Hank would do that!”

Red moans on the table, his face waxy with pain and blood loss. The bandages Aubrey applied are already soaked through, crimson spreading across the white fabric despite herbest efforts. His eyes, when they open, are glassy with fever, unfocused as they dart around the room.

“So cold,” he mumbles. “Why is it so cold?”

Meanwhile, the tapping at the far window intensifies, no longer gentle but insistent, demanding.

As if it’s saying…

Let me in. Let me in. Let me in.

“What do we do?” Eli asks, fear beginning to strain his voice, looking between us and out the window, searching for Hank.

I look at Aubrey, still aiming the rifle at Cole. “You’re the agent,” I say to her. “What’s the protocol for a situation like this?”

“Hard to think when I might have to shoot,” she says without taking her eyes off Cole.

“Cole,” I say to him. “Stay back and listen. Don’t give her a reason to shoot you because she will, if I don’t do it first.”

Cole looks at me, at her, at the windows. He’s shaking slightly. Scared shitless. But finally backs up until he hits the wall.

I take advantage, crossing over to him and taking Aubrey’s gun from his grasp. But instead of giving it to her, I slip it into the back of my pants. She meets my eyes, an understanding between us as she lowers the rifle.

She doesn’t trust me.

And I don’t trust her.

23

AUBREY

The hut is silent except for Red’s labored breathing and the tapping at the window. Over the last few minutes the tapping had slowed, but then it starts up again.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I try to keep focused on helping Red. I try not to think about Hank with crazy blue eyes and a bloody mouth standing outside that window, tapping on it like a crazed monster. He could get in the hut if he wanted to, couldn’t he? But he’s not even trying. He’s just tapping away as if all he wants to do is remind us that he’s there.

Death by a thousand taps.

“I need more light,” I say, clearing my throat and keeping my voice steady despite the tension crackling through the hut. “And clean water if we’ve got any left.”

Eli is the only one who responds, bringing the lantern closer and setting more water to boil. His expression is carefully neutral, though I can see the changes in his boyish face. He looks scared now and, more than that, he looks at me like I can’t be trusted. I expected Jensen to act betrayed but to feel it from Eli cuts deep.

Red lies on the table, face waxy and drawn with pain. The bite wound on his arm looks worse than before, despite the cleaning and bandaging I’ve done. The flesh around it is swollen, darkening to an ugly purplish-black that creeps outward from the ragged edges. Not like any infection I’ve ever seen—too fast, too dark, the skin almost bruised.

“How bad is it?” Red manages, his voice a dry rasp. Out of everyone here he’s the only one who doesn’t seem to care much that I’m a federal agent, but that’s probably because he’s dying.

Fuck. I shouldn’t think that. I shouldn’t call it so soon. He could still survive this. But he’s lost a lot of blood and we’re out on top of a mountain peak in the middle of fucking nowhere and he probably needs a tetanus shot, rabies shots, antibiotics, and anything else they can throw at him. There’s an infection already spreading and I’m not sure how the hell we’re going to get him to civilization in time.

Not to mention the big question, the one that’s on my mind, and Jensen and Eli’s as well: Cole and Red don’t know about the hungry ones, they don’t know that the feral people are real. They don’t know the truth of what happened to Lainey, the things that Jensen could never explain. They don’t know that with Hank biting Red, that there’s a possibility that Red could turn himself. Is that why Hank only bit him and didn’t eat him? Did he purposefully turn Red knowing what would happen? Was Hank trying to recruit his friend?

Or did Red get lucky by fighting him off?

If you can call that lucky.

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