The Truth is Contagious (The Contagium Series Book 4) (12 page)

I reached up, rounding my back so I could
unbutton his jeans. My fingers tightened around the metal button. I
yanked it loose.

“Riss,” Hayden breathed, moving his mouth to
my collar bone. “We have the meeting.”

“Postpone it.” I stuck my hand inside his
pants, curling my fingers around his erection. He softly moaned and
kissed me, working his way to my breasts. He took my hard nipple
between his fingers, turning me on even more. “You are the boss
after all.”

He stopped and moved his face back to mine.
“I am.” He kissed me once more before stiffly leaning away. “I wish
we could spend the day together, naked and in bed.”

I wrapped my legs around him, not ready to
stop just yet. “We can.”

“Tomorrow.”

“I don’t like you being responsible.”

“I don’t like it either.” Grudgingly, he
straightened up. “Not one bit.” I took my hand out of his pants and
sighed. He looked at the clock the smiled deviously. “We have
twenty minutes.”

* * *

Hayden stood. His first official meeting was
over. Since the room we had previously used for meeting had been
converted into a bedroom, everyone had crowded around the dining
room on the rarely used first level of the estate. Hayden had sat
at the head of the table, with Hector to his left and me on the
right.

He discussed the S1s’ scary new behavior,
went over using the tunnel, stressed that everyone was to be twice
as cautious as before. Everyone was settling in here and getting
comfortable. And bad things were more likely to happen when you let
your guard down.

We were going after the nest of crazies
today. Assuming everything went all right, Alex and his group would
leave for a mission tomorrow, gathering the supplies we needed.
Ivan, Brock, Wade, Jason, and I hung back while the others shuffled
out of the room and back downstairs.

“Are we leaving right away?” Jason asked. His
brown eyes were wide with excitement.

“Yeah,” Hayden closed the folder that lay in
front of him. “I don’t want to be out there after the sun
sets.”

Hector, who stayed behind as well, shot
Hayden a surprised glance. “You’re going?”

“I was planning on it,” Hayden answered.
“Riss and I know the layout. Besides, these guys need me.” He
flashed a grin at Ivan.

“Why wouldn’t he go?” I asked, sensing
Hector’s opposition.

“It makes perfect sense,” he answered. “But
Fuller never went on missions. He stayed here to keep an eye on
everything.”

Suddenly, I felt trapped. Hector was right;
Fuller never left. He gave us assignments and then went back into
his windowless office, back to making plans but never leaving,
never setting foot outside the fenced in protection of the
compound.

Sweat broke out along my spine. I didn’t want
to go on a mission without Hayden, and more so, I knew Hayden
wouldn’t want me to go on a mission without him. Would he ask me to
stay here with him? A lump formed in my throat. I couldn’t. I
couldn’t do it. I’d feel like I was stuck in a cage, pointlessly
living out the days while someone else risked everything to keep me
safe.

“No,” I said aloud. “Hayden has to come with.
It would throw off the vibe of our group.”

Hector’s face softened. “I didn’t want to say
it, but the reason Fuller didn’t go on missions was because it’s
dangerous. If something happened to Hayden while he was out there,
we’d be back in the position we were just in. This place, these
people, need a leader.”

Hayden’s expression was tight. He thought
Hector was right but he also didn’t want to be stuck here for the
rest of the apocalypse. I ran my fingers along the chain that held
his dog tags. Everyone waited for Hayden’s decision.

“You’ll be fine without me,” he said as if he
was addressing our entire group. Really, he was talking to me.
Hayden was so much more than my assigned partner and I had a
feeling Hector was catching onto that.

“Of course we will be.” I forced a smile and
nodded. I turned, scanning the faces of my friends. “Ready?”

* * *

The Range Rover bumped along the long
forgotten road that led into the entrance of the park. Clouds muted
the bright sun and lowered the temperature a few degrees. I was
sitting in the middle in the back seat, wedged between Jason and
Wade. My quiver full or arrows and bow sat uncomfortably between my
feet and the butt of Jason’s rifle was poking me in the side.

The back of the SUV was full of more weapons
along with the Molotov cocktails we hadn’t used in Eastmoore. It
had been a quiet ride. While we roughly knew what we were getting
into, the thought of willingly walking into a herd of crazies made
us nervous. Ivan slowed, passing by a faded blue and yellow sign
that read ‘Welcome to Dogpatch USA.’

“You would come to an abandoned theme park to
hunt,” he said and let the SUV coast to a stop. He looked at me
through the rearview mirror.

“Hayden picked it,” I reminded him. Ivan cut
the engine. In silence, we got out and suited up, strapping weapons
to our bodies and shoving ammo into our pockets.

“After the last mission,” Jason started and
held his rifle to his face, checking the scope, “this doesn’t seem
too bad.”

“It doesn’t,” Wade agreed. “But don’t go into
this thinking it will be easy.” He opened the back of the Range
Rover. “S1s aren’t scared of death or pain. That makes them very
dangerous.”

Jason nodded. “Which way?” he asked me.

I turned around, looking at the parking lot.
“I’m not sure. We didn’t come through this way at all.” I pushed my
braid over my shoulder and wrapped my fingers around my bow. “Once
we get in I’ll be able to figure it out.”

“Ok,” he said. I watched him load his pistol
and stick it in the holster on his hip. He was so enthusiastic to
be out here, so excited to have the chance to run with us and make
a difference. It made me worried he would do something I would
do…something so reckless he’d get himself hurt. Jason had grown on
me as if he was the younger brother I never had. I didn’t want him
out here. I didn’t want him getting hurt.

“Got your radio?” Ivan asked me.

It hung from my belt. I patted it. “Yep.”

“Good.” He turned his on. We weren’t planning
on splitting up but brought the walkie-talkies just in case. He
locked the Range Rover and tucked the keys into his pocket.

I took the lead. Jason sped up to get next to
me. Dry weeds crunched against the broken pavement as we walked
through the lot. I darted my eyes back and forth, watching for any
sign of movement. My heart sped up. I slowly inhaled. The air
smelled faintly of rotting filth.

We were getting close.

The path that led from the parking lot into
the park was long and wound through trees. At one point I was sure
it was pretty. I imagined kids tugging on their parents’ hands,
excited to get inside and on a ride. Now moss and weeds covered
most of the pavement. The trees on either side of us crept up,
branches almost touching each other.

Jason slapped his neck, squishing a mosquito.
“How do you stand hunting?” he asked quietly. “Don’t you sit still
for hours?”

“Sometimes.” I scanned the trees. “And
hunting was always more than just
hunting
.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was something my grandpa and I did
together. Being out in the woods was just…just relaxing.” I turned
to look at Jason. “Although sometimes I hated it and wanted to be
inside on the computer like a normal kid.”

“You hunted when you were a kid?”

“Oh yeah,” I said and remembered Jason knew
very little about my childhood despite the fact that he had stayed
at my grandparents’ farmhouse with me for several weeks. “My
grandpa wanted me to know how to take care of myself. He, uh, was a
little obsessed with teaching me how to survive.”

“I’m glad.” He smiled. “If you didn’t know
how to do all that stuff, we wouldn’t have made it.” He ran his
hand down the barrel of the rifle and laughed. “Do you remember
when you attacked Padraic in the basement?”

“What? I never attacked him.”

Jason nodded. “You said you thought he was
keeping us down there on purpose.”

“He was keeping us down there on purpose,” I
teased. “But yeah, I do.” We both laughed and Jason explained the
whole story to Ivan, Brock, and Wade. Suddenly, our laughter
ended.

“There’s something over there,” Brock said,
pointing to a dilapidated structure that was barely visible through
the trees. We moved into formation with our weapons raised. “Keep
it quiet if possible.” He gripped a knife in one hand and kept the
other on his pistol.

“Riss,” Wade whispered. “You got this?”

I pulled the arrow back and nodded. Jason let
out a shaky breath. Eastmoore was fading from his mind and he was
getting scared. Good. I hoped it would keep him rational.

I swallowed and took another step toward the
old ticket booth. My heart was in my throat and nerves tingled
along my spine. I wanted to turn and go back to the car. Something
was wrong. I could feel it.

I squeezed my fingers around the arrow.
Leaves crunched. Whoever was in the ticket booth was moving. Seeing
Brock out of the corner of my eye was reassuring. Each heartbeat
pounded in my ears as I waited.

The screen door creaked open and the crazy
stepped out. He was tall and thin, looking to be in his mid
thirties. His sandy blonde hair was a horrible mess and blood and
dirt streaked his face. Wild eyes took us in and he tipped his
head, curious. Then he held up his hands.

“Uh, guys?” I asked and lined the arrow up
with his chest. “Should we take his gesture of good will?”

“Doubt it,” Brock whispered.

Ivan lowered his gun. “Cover me,” he said and
stepped forward. He put one hand up, showing the crazy he wasn’t
going to hurt him.” We come in peace,” he said. I kept a steady
hold of the arrow. The crazy tipped his head up and sniffed. Then
he turned around and made a strange strangled cry five times.

Ivan took another step. I sucked in air and
held my breath, muscles aching to release the arrow. The crazy
leaned forward and pulled his lips back, showing his teeth. In a
flash, he reached behind him, pulling a gun from his waist
band.

I let the arrow go. It hit him in the
shoulder. The crazy stumbled back and the gun fell from his hands.
I strung another arrow and hit him in the throat.

“The fuck?” Ivan asked, spinning around to
look at us.

Brock shook his head and holstered his
pistol. Carefully, he edged forward. I grabbed another arrow,
expecting another crazy to pop out of the booth. He bent down and
picked up the crazy’s gun, grimacing at the filth that covered the
grip.

“It’s not even loaded,” he said and turned it
around.

“So they have enough sense left to know what
guns are but not how to use them,” Wade said as he surveyed our
surroundings.

“Looks like it,” Brock said and tossed the
gun onto the crazy’s chest. He yanked the arrows from the body,
flicked off the blood, and handed them back to me. I shoved them
back in the quiver. “Does this unnerve anyone else?”

“Yes,” Ivan and I said at the same time.

“It’s good it wasn’t loaded, right?” Jason
asked.

“Yeah,” Wade answered. “But I’m not going to
bank on the next S1 we run into to
not
have a loaded
weapon.”

“How do they know who’s infected and who’s
not infected?” I asked. “Like can they sense it or something?”

“Good question,” Ivan said.

We regrouped and moved deeper into the
park.

“Maybe we can bring a few back and let Dr.
Cara do more experiments.” Ivan turned and grinned. “And then you
can snap more necks in front of children and give them
nightmares.”

I scowled at him. “Shut up.”

He laughed. “Too soon?”

“What choice did I have?”

Brock held up his hand.

We stopped and looked in the direction he was
pointing. A large building sat surrounded by pavement. It was in
fairly decent shape with the exception of the broken windows and
missing front door.

Someone was watching us from the second story
window. I narrowed my eyes, focusing on her face. The old woman
stared at us, unmoving.

“That is creepy,” Jason said with a shudder.
“Why is she doing that?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered. The hair on the
back of my neck prickled like it did when I was being watched. I
felt the eyes drilling into my back. Shit. The old woman was in
front of me. I whirled around.

“Guys!” I shouted and grabbed an arrow. The
second my fingers grazed the fletching, I knew it wouldn’t be
enough. A herd of crazies emerged from the trees. There had to be
at least thirty. Thirty fast moving, armed, crazies who feared
neither death nor pain. And there were five of us.

Fuck.

I let the arrow go, hitting a crazy in the
stomach, and reached for my gun. The guys were firing away. I
watched the front line of crazies drop, only to be replaced by
more. I yanked the gun and flicked off the safety. I held it up and
started shooting. I fired three rounds, aiming for the head, before
I remembered that almost any gunshot wound could be fatal to a
crazy. I could fire more rapidly if I wasn’t aiming for the
head.

Suddenly, Jason screamed. I flicked my eyes
to the side just in time to see a crazy lunge through the air and
land on his back.

“Jason!” I screamed and ran to him.

Jason fell, face first, onto the pavement.
His face smacked and his gun was trapped under his body. The crazy
dug his fingernails into Jason’s shoulder.

“No!” I cried.

She tipped her head up and howled before
sinking her teeth into his neck.

The gun fell from my hand. I gripped the bow
and thrashed it through the air. It collided with the crazy’s head.
She fell sideways off of Jason, blood dripping from her ear. She
scrambled up, snarling. Ivan turned and shot her in the forehead.
Blood sprayed in the air and she fell.