Page 35 of Before Their After

“Me neither.” Tiago grinned. “But now seems like a great time to start.”

Black Dahlia

ALEXIARES

Dahlia diedtwo-hundred and forty-two days after the bombs dropped. Turned into one of them. The undead in the middle of the night.

We’d thought we were safe. In the home stretch to the promise of a fresh start. St. Cloud, Minnesota had a solid group with decent resources, some semblance of what society used to be. Dahlia had shown no signs of magic in the months we’d spent together. None of us had been concerned. She was young, maybe whatever happened somehow didn’t affect young kids. It wasn’t like we had any around us to compare her to.

My gifts had fully emerged a few months onto the road. By that point, we’d thought it was the end of the time one could turn. Any stragglers we’d met on the road had a gift of some sort. If only we’d known what was still possible … if only we hadn’t let our guard down.

Choking down any tears, I leaned over to cut the woven bracelet Dahlia had crafted together only a few hours before. Tiago’s hand fell in front of my face as I handed it to him.Sputtered, tearful coughs erupted from him as his knees gave out, his grief overwhelming him. I placed a hand on his back in offer of support. Someone had to keep it together right now. If we both lost ourselves to grief, we wouldn’t survive.

What reason is there for you to live? Your purpose is right in front of you, clinging to life.

Blood dribbled down the side of Evander’s mouth, his hand twitched out to the side, clutching for a grasp on life.

“Please,” he managed to sputter. My brother’s fingers found the thigh of my pants and tugged ever so slightly. “Please. Survive.”

No. He was not trying to find a way to hold on. Instead, he was asking for me to let him go.

“He’s suffering,” Tiago murmured. “Ay dios, he’s suffering.”

“I have eyes,” I bit out.

It was unfair. It wasn’t his fault his daughter had killed my brother. It was mine.

Only I could be of blame for the losses that I suffered. It was my fault my mother wasn’t here. I hadn’t held on tight enough. The loss of my brother was on me too. I should have never let us get too comfortable. Deep down, I knew what the possibilities were. Without a definitive answer on what happened with children, keeping my guard down was irresponsible.

Our father may have been a sack of shit, but at least the life skills he’d instilled in us had a purpose. And like a prophet from hell, Alexander Drakos had predicted the inevitable: my carelessness would lead to the demise of my family. My brother.

Evander’s trembling hand fell to the grip of his gun. He’d attempted to pull it on her but hadn’t had the strength to pull the trigger. None of us had until it was too late. Then Tiago had done what only he had the authority to do … put Dahlia out her misery for she would not have wanted to live that way.

There weren’t many memories I shared with my grandparents. Our father’s parents had died before we were born and our mother’s, well, Alexander had ensured we had little to no contact. Yiayia would watch after us only when our father was away during our summer trips to Mykonos.

“That one’s been here before,” she would say as she watched Evander interact with the world.

The same could be true for Dahlia. She was young, but she was wise beyond her years and had been well adapted to life in the middle of an apocalypse. Ending up like the undead had terrorized her in her dreams. Even if Evander hadn’t been a factor, putting her down would have been what she wanted.

It was what my brother was asking for in this very moment. Regret washed over me as I slid the gun from underneath his pale blue hand. Nodding my head, I took in the shell that was becoming my brother. His eyes flickered with emotion, the journey of our brotherhood flashing between us both. Choking on tears, I brought my forehead down against his and scooped up the bloodied teddy bear off the ground.

It was the last thing Evander had bought before his world shattered. He’d meant to give it to the daughter of our father’s associate at the funeral. The teenage crush he’d had on her kept him from handing it over, along with the guilt of knowing what our father had done. Ultimately, he’d decided to leave it at home. Why it was one of the few items he’d chosen to pack before we’d left the home tied to so many terrible memories, I wasn’t sure. I tucked it against his side.

A whisper of a touch brushed the back of my head. Evander’s finger fell onto my shoulder in his weakened state. “It’s okay,” he said.

There were a million things I wished for at that moment. Saving my brother wasn’t one of them. In the here, the now, the only thing I wished I could change were the final monthswe’d had together. I’d wasted a shit ton of time trying to harden him up.Tough love,I’d explained when Tiago suggested I loosened the reins, tried a softer approach with him. He hadn’t seen Evander’s softness as a weakness, instead he’d seen it as something that gave him hope.

I hadn’t viewed it that way. There wasn’t a way humanity could recover from this. Not in our lifetime. It didn’t mean civilization was gone, over with. It just meant we had to start from ground zero. That was what I’d have to leave my brother with if something happened to me. So I did my best to shape him, mold him into what I thought it took to survive in a world that looked like … this. Like death.

Only now, as I watched on in his final breaths, did I realize that in the attempt to save my brother’s life, I’d become the person we’d hated the most. Our father.

“I’m sorry I was never the brother that you deserved. I’ll do better for the both of us, I promise.” Tiago jumped at the sound of the gunshot echoing through the breaking dawn.

The Making of The Bloodhound

ALEXIARES

“Keep moving, my friend.”Tiago’s hand fell on the top of my pack.

---