My parents. My wealthy, pompous, uncaring and emotionally unavailable parents. My mother, with her drinking problem, my father with all of his infidelities, and me, the one they had because it was expected and needed. Me, not being the son they wanted.

  “They hated me and everything I loved,” I confess, looking down at the scuffed toes of my boots. Suddenly feel hollow.

  He—Cliff—is quiet for a few heartbeats. Then when he speaks, his voice is solid stone, “No more talk.”

  I scuffle back—all that the tight rope allows—as he drops to one knee in front of me. No proposals here, he snatches my ankle firm in his grip and with his other hand, fishes out the photographs I have tucked in my boot. Not anymore.

  Crumpling the pictures in his fist, he pushes up to stand. My breath catches as he brings them to the torch—

  And he burns them to ash.

  Tears flood my eyes. My mouth twists as I fight back my own weakness.

  Cliff doesn’t look at me. He just turns and heads into the shadows, the rope dragging me along with him.

  All I can think about is why the fuck I told him anything about myself at all.

  26

  All the way through another village, and still he doesn’t stop even once for a toilet break. He forces us onwards into the blackness.

  Though he can’t possibly know it, his silence steals me back to quarantine.

  No one in my group ever understood why, despite what we have all experienced together, I resisted sleep so often. We all had nightmares, things that made us wake with starts and screams, wake covered in sweat so damp that it stuck our clothes to our skin.

  Those memories do still haunt me. I am only human. But it isn’t those hauntings I’m avoiding when I fight the weight of my eyelids and wrestle the yawns from stealing my face.

  I avoid the cold, terrifying memories of quarantine. And they were terrifying, each one of them. So I only sleep when I absolutely must and my body will grant me no other choice.

  Still, even then it’s not promised that those days won’t snare my dreams for their own and wake me up with my heart swelling in my throat and my insides gutted out with the purest terror I’ve ever known; the kind of fear where you can feel every icy tendril unravel throughout even the smallest parts of your body, from your toes to your fingers even down to your butt-cheeks.

  That sort of terror.

  Nothing extravagantly vicious happened in that sanatorium. It’s just how it all faded away—and I do mean faded.

  The plague had its claws deep in me before I even arrived at the hospice. Delirium was setting in by the time I was being strapped to a bed in a private room—that room didn’t stay private for very long. I recall a few things, but they are melted together, binding an inconsistent story that doesn’t fit into chronological order.

  Still, I’ve managed to make sense of it in the time I’ve been out here.

  I remember the time I was moved from the private room into the hallway. By a nurse who didn’t so much as glance down at me, my wheel-bottomed iron bed was pushed against the corridor wall and left there. More beds joined me each time I managed to flutter my eyelids, more and more until we were packed in tightly. A doctor moved around us. Only one.

  The next memory I have, I was in a different room again. This one seemed more like a lunch hall, cleared out to make space for us. There were more patients and less nurses. I didn’t see a doctor down there.

  Opened my weary eyes, feeling the crust binding them together, a gloss painted over my hazy sight. Stared at the wall for what felt like hours, simply because I just didn’t have the strength to turn onto my back. Some sounds seeped into my ears; faint rattles, as though someone was messing around with phials, softly padding footsteps, hushed German words.

  In that moment, I knew it was the nurses. The ones still there, that is.

  I tried to call out for them. All that came out of me was a weak, croaky breath.

  Next, I was on my back. Had enough strength to turn my head and see—through a glaze—the room. Large, white, clinical, and packed full of hospital beds. But who had the strength to count them all? I sure as hell didn’t.

  And I didn’t see any nurses that time, either. The only movement I noticed was a patient some dozen or so beds away from me jerking under a white sheet, as if coughing.

  I never saw that patient move again.

  Last time I heard the nurses, my back was turned to the room and I faced the window. Lacquered black, as though freshly painted on the outside, iron bars separating that strange new world from me, and yet doing nothing to protect me from it.

  What was going on out there? Why haven’t they fixed the blackness yet? Are my parents still alive?

  Those questions tangled around in my muddy head.

  Behind me, distantly, I heard the rattle of a phial on a metal tray, murmured words spoken in that harsh language. And then I heard nothing. The plague dragged me back down to the pits of despair and nightmares.

  The final time I woke up in that room, there were no nurses, doctors, or surviving patients. Corpses were rotting in the corridors, private rooms were packed with bodies zipped up in bags and piled on top of each other, the phone lines were dead, and I had no idea what the hell had happened to the world.

  I was all alone.

  I’m not alone anymore. At the very least, I’m not back there in that sanatorium, wandering through the halls, calling out for someone with my hoarse and croaked voice, then sobbing into a packet of mouldy bread in the kitchen’s pantry after hours of searching and finding not a single living being.

  Darkest days I’ve ever known. Even now as I am dragged through the country by a ruthless dark fae warrior—one whose intentions with me I am beginning to question—I can’t deny what wretched choice I would make between the two experiences.

  Though it makes me sick to my stomach and haunts my dreams when I have them, I would watch Spike be tortured to death a dozen times over before willingly returning to that ghostly hospice.

  Surviving the virus means I’m one of the lucky ones. Or I was one of them, back then. It wasn’t long after I regained my strength and packed a bag before I left the hospice and found a group. A friendly, welcoming group.

  That is as far as my luck stretches, I think. It’s not quite gone beyond that. Since meeting those other survivors, I’ve only faced pain and horror.

  Sure, I survived longer than most. But what is surviving if you’re not really living? And what’s the point of life if there is none of it to be had?

  But all hope of an early, swift death is dwindling inside of me like a bloomed flower coming into autumn. It’s withering, like Cliff’s glares.

  There’s just something about the way he held onto me after he caught me trying to get to the critters. Something about the way his breaths came out too panicked and sharp for a warrior in tip-top shape. A short sprint should not have knocked the breath right out of him, but it was as though pure adrenaline was pumping through him.

  Then he wanted to know about me. That really cemented it.

  I think this beast might feel something for me. What he might feel, I can’t guess. Could just be love or even the affection one holds for a pet. Could be deeper than that, though I doubt it. Whatever it is, I just know it is dangerous.

  So I keep my mouth shut and, though the writhing in my womb is at a groan-stifling high, I grimace against the pain and march on beside him.

  We’re far out of reach of villages and towns now, wandering narrow gravel roads and surrounded by fences. He wants to keep us off-grid and out of the way of any potential surviving humans. The less trouble he has, the better.

  But I’m trouble. And apparently so is my period.

  Before the first blood is even shed, he stops beside me and throws a look at me. I’m standing just at the curve of his shoulder, my wide eyes on him—then the unpleasant sensation hits me and, for a fleeting beat, I wonder if I’ve wet myself without control.

  As I realise what has just escaped me, I cut my gaze down and look at my boots. Lucky I’m wearing a pad from my failed alibi-attempt.

  Turning his back on me, he forces us onwards.

  Beneath my boots, the land is rocky and dipped. The torchlight sheds light over the cracks, illuminating the creepy crawlies that skitter into the gaps. Life still thriving despite the dark, life still thriving despite the massive loss of human life.

  I almost scoff at just how important we once thought we were. But the world doesn’t need us anymore—it never did. We needed the world, but we mistreated it, and perhaps this is our karma. Our mass extinction could well be the fate we weaved for ourselves.

  Cutting into my despair, the warrior—Cliff, I remind myself—takes a hard right and steers us deeper into the abandoned farmland. His pace holds purpose for the better part of an hour until he finally starts to slow.

  It’s like the bastard has forgotten all about the bruises that he bestowed upon my body. I sure haven’t forgotten. How can I when every step further into the blackness aches throughout my entire body, head to toes?

  Relief at his slowing pace starts to unwind through me, like ribbons of tension unravelling. It means we’re stopping for a break soon—and he’s spotted a place to hole up. He must know where to go in the dark for our breaks, probably from the map he has tucked away in his satchel.

  Cliff carries the satchels. After my race at the critters, he picked them up and took the weight of them both. With the loss of Spike, I have somehow avoided slipping into his position of the mule.

  Maybe the warrior does acknowledge that my body is in no shape to be carting around bags of supplies, or even to balance the weight of the heavy torch. And he might be stopping again for my benefit, not his, since his wounds have healed and it hasn’t been all that long between breaks already. For him, at least.

  Spike once told me that in his time with the dark fae army, they would be on the move for days and nights without rest—and that they would seemingly only rest so that their kuri prisoners could keep up. Though, that didn’t stop some of the humans from collapsing or dying, apparently.

  Cliff might be heading to the edges of the shadows, where the outline of a farmhouse is starting to clear, for me and not for himself.

  The nearer we get to the farmhouse, the better I see it in the torchlight. Amber hues that remind me of the fae’s eyes climb up the wood face, and I decide it’s more of a cabin than anything. Cedar-wood everything, from the log roof to the wrap-around porch and steps cascading down to the hard, packed earth.

  This is no farmland, I realise, but a reserve or a clear area of a national park somewhere in the midst of France. It irks me more than I would have thought to be in my country and still not know where I am, really. But last time I snuck a peek of the warrior’s map, he slammed me hard on the chest and sent me smacking back against the couch.

  All I know about my whereabouts right now is that it’s somewhere away from towns and cities and villages, and it has a cabin.

  Before we can reach the steps, out the corner of my eye I spot Cliff’s hand shift away from resting on his weapons belt. He reaches around his side for the sliver of rope between us.

  My face crumples into a scowl as he grips the rope and drags me closer. A ripple of tension glides up his arm. He’s on edge.

  Staring up at his profile, I see the shadowy line that cuts across his jaw, the shift of his amber-flecked eyes as his gaze darts around the cabin. His senses seem to assure him that nothing is amiss here and, with a loosened grip on the rope, he takes me up the stairs to the front door.

  Before he can lift his boot from the wood and kick in the door, I reach for the handle. With a smug look over my shoulder at him, I tug down the handle and—it’s locked. My luck.

  Hooking my gaze, he slides my hand away before yanking down the handle, hard. I hear the snap of the lock inside the door break apart.

  As he pushes the door open, my mouth flattens into a slanted line.

  Cliff slips inside first, the rope quick to pull me in after him. Darkness doesn’t follow us into the cabin; the trapped torchlight floods the lounge with orange light.

  I stagger back into the open door as Cliff turns on me.

  Reaching around me, his gaze locks with mine. His eyes are spilled ink, glistening wet.

  My breath suddenly traps in my throat. He closes the door, then lingers for a moment, his breath hot on my face, disturbing the tendrils that curl at my temple.

  His gaze shifts downwards for a beat, dropping to my ripped bodice. My fingers tingle with the itch to cover myself, but he’s turning away from me before I can even lift my hand an inch. The look was so quick that I could almost be convinced that I imagined it.

  Now, it’s a vanished moment and he’s unspooling the rope from his belt.

  The hilt of his sword, strung over his back, shifts in its holder and taps me on the head. I throw it a scowl and make a side-step between him and the door. He doesn’t let me by—before I can slip away from the door, he has my arm in his firm grip, and he’s dragging me into the lounge.

  With a shove too hard, he pushes me back into an old armchair. Dust clouds up upon my landing. I choke on it, doubling over, but Cliff doesn’t so much as throw a glance my way.

  Flames ignite in the wood-stacked hearth as he tosses the torch. The blaze is blinding. I squint my eyes and turn my cheek. And when I look back at him, he’s already watching me, shadows climbing up his face like dark fingers from the depths of his world.

  He doesn’t look away. I don’t, either.

  For a long moment—a moment that should never happen—we stare at each other. Could be from the fire in the hearth, but I feel the heat growing on my cheeks.

  Finally, his gaze shifts. It roams my face, flickering over my mouth for a second too long, and I can’t breathe.

  I swallow back a lump in my throat, and he pulls away.

  His voice is a low, garbled sound, thick with his gravelly accent, “Stay there. You need rest.”

  “I need a bathroom,” I mumble, but there is no stern infliction in my tone. Almost like I’m scrambling for some version of a fight. Something, anything to sever the moment that’s thickened the air in the whole cabin.

  “After you eat.” His growly voice makes it clear that his decision is final. That moment might have affected him as much as it did me.

  Roughly, he snatches up the rope from the arm of the chair, then lifts it up. A scowl settles on my face as he hooks it around the antlers of a decapitated deer head that’s fastened to the wall above the mantle.

  He leaves me here and sweeps the cabin, taking one room at a time, ensuring that it’s safe and we’re alone—or just trying to escape me for a few minutes. When he returns, he goes into the kitchen, leaving the door open so that he can keep an eye on me tucked up on the dusty old armchair.

  I can hear him rummaging around when he dips out of sight. It isn’t long before the sounds of tins and bowls start clattering, then he’s coming back into the lounge and headed for the fireplace.

  Silence wraps around us as he lays out his loot on the floor.

  Bringing my knees up to my chest, I loop my arms around my legs and watch him. It’s surprising to me that he knows how to cook.

  Using a black pot, he empties tins of soup then sets the pot on a grate.

  Once that’s done, he’s taking a handful of candles from the mantle and lighting them on the flames.

  “Bathroom now,” he decides and pushes up from the floor. I get the distinct feeling he just doesn’t want to sit and wait in silence with me as the soup heats.

  I’m quick to stretch my wrists out at him. Limp, my hands hang there, patiently waiting for the rope to be removed.

  He’s gentle as he unfastens the slick rope from my wrists, and his fingers linger too long over my bruises before he draws away. He holds the candles firm in his grip, unfazed by the hot wax starting to drool down the sides.

  I shadow him through the cabin to the back. He steps inside first, letting me know with that one move that he’s not leaving. Still, he feigns privacy and shuts the door behind us.

  As he leans against the door, I wander to the toilet in the corner and my nose crinkles. It’s ... wooden, and I wonder if it’s more of an inside-outhouse than an actual toilet. My stomach drops; there are no flush handles in sight.

  Face twisting, I lift the lid and—I was right. It’s one of those toilets with a hole that goes straight down to a septic waste tank.

  At least it’s clean.

  Whoever owned this place before the world went to shit had it ready for return. Only, they never made it back here. Maybe if they would have done, they might still be alive for Cliff to come breaking their door handle.

  He leans against the door, still, his arm stretched out and resting on a shelf. The candles flicker above his loose fist.

  With a sigh, I plonk myself on the toilet and let nature answer its call. It’s still humiliating doing this in front of him, but what other choice do I have? And it’s not worth getting upset about with so many other troubles he brings me.

  Since there is no flush, I just whack the toilet lid down when I’m finished. I move for the cupboard in search of pads or tampons, but I find so much more than sanitary items. This cupboard is jammed to the brim with supplies.

  My heart skips a beat as my focus lands on a tray of pill bottles. I know pills and their bottles, and I can pick out some of the labels from my cocktails over the years.

  But I can’t take any yet. Not with Cliff by the door, watching me.

  Making a mental note to return for these babies, I slide my hand away from the cupboard door then start to browse the shelves. Cotton buds, medical packs, boxes of antihistamines, face washes, body scrubs, boxes upon boxes of toothpastes.

  This place was meant to be somewhere to hole-up for a while.

  I see no signs of sanitary products until I crouch down to the bottom shelves and rummage through rolls of bandages and—there! Buried at the very back of the very bottom shelf, piles of pads and tampons. By how hidden they are, I know that this cupboard was stacked by a man.