And there’s one I’d know anywhere.

When I see him, it’s in me: the beat of his heart – the one I’d follow to the ends of the earth – it’s in my blood. It’s not calling me, it’s pushing me. It’s willing me to him until I leap into his open arms and feel his warmth, his strength.

His relentless life.

Chapter Seventeen

“I thought you were dead,” I whisper against his skin, my mouth pressed to his. “I thought I lost you.”

He doesn’t answer me. He holds onto me, his mouth over mine and his hands in my hair. I don’t need words from him. I don’t even know what ones I’m saying to him, they simply spill out in an avalanche of everything I avoid and bury too deep to find. I don’t need to know where he was or what happened. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I lost him, just like I always knew I would, but by some strange, insane, otherworldly twist of fate and luck, I have him back.

All around us the pyres still burn as more bodies are thrown on them. I hear people shouting, fighting, struggling. We should help them. We should stand and fight against the onslaught of zombies that will never end. But if they’ll always be there, then they can wait. We can take one moment in this stupid, thieving world and make it ours. Just his and mine, alone in the crowd and the chaos.

“Ryan!”

With Trent.

I groan, letting my head drop back until I’m staring up at the distorted sky.

“Hey, man,” Ryan chuckles. He squeezes me to him tightly one last time before letting me go.

I’ve never been so annoyed with him. Or Trent. Or the world.

“Good to see you’re still alive.”

I nearly die when Trent hugs him. Trent, my Robo-Boy, my unfeeling machine of a strange, bizarro man, hugs another human being. And he does it like he means it.

“I wouldn’t be if it weren’t for Andy,” Ryan admits when Trent lets him go.

“Did you come out through the tunnels?”

“No, we didn’t have time. We had to light a short fuse and if we’d gone into the tunnels, they’d have collapsed on us before we got far enough away. We snuck out of the showers just after we lit it and headed for the back. When the explosion happened it shook everyone up. The lights went out, the walls started crumbling. No one knew where it was coming from or if the building was going down. It was nuts. Andy hid us in a dark corner until the coast was clear, then we ran out the back toward the water.”

“But you can’t swim,” I protest.

Ryan blushes, embarrassed. “Yeah, I know. Andy was mad. He had to swim us both out. I laid there like a log and let him float me away.” He chuckles nervously. “I was panicking the whole time.”

He’s trying to play it off like it’s nothing, but I can tell from his body language that it was hard for him. Maybe even a little horrifying. But he hates that weakness and I get that so I let it go unnoticed.

“Once we were out, we headed for The Hive,” he continues. “Andy knew it’d be nearly deserted with most of Marlow’s men still up at the Colony. He said we had some recruiting to do.”

“People were willing to defect?” Trent asks.

“Oh yeah. Andy wasn’t kidding when he said there were some angry people over there. Seventeen people left with us.”

“Can they fight?”

“A good portion, yeah.” Ryan searches the people around us. The crowd is thinning as the fight dies down. Not nearly as many zombies followed Ryan and the others here as followed Trent. I know part of that is the fires; they don’t like the scent of their own. “Where’s Vin?” Ryan asks suddenly.

I blink, surprised he cares. “He’s here somewhere. Probably with his flock.”

“I need to talk to him.”

“Why?”

“Because we have a few to add to that flock.”

Ryan gathers together the newly arrived Hive members. Including Andy, looking cleaner than the last time I saw him, he’s right—there are seventeen. A lot of them are women and I realize when I see Freedom and a put-out-looking Elise, the girl who tried to mount Ryan the last time I saw her, that these women are from the stables. It makes me nervous whether they’ll really be happy to see Vin or not. If they’re angry enough at The Hive to run away given the chance, then I think they’re probably angry at Vin too.

“Vin!” Freedom shouts happily when she sees him.

Then again, what the hell do I know?

“You crazy bitch, who let you out?” Vin shouts back, opening up his arms.

Freedom runs into them, followed by Elise and four other women. They take him to the ground, all of them giggling and laughing, Vin being the loudest.

“I do not understand this at all,” I mutter.

“Really?” Trent asks, sounding genuinely surprised. “You just did this to Ryan.”

“Not like this.”

“No, you’re right. It was way more intimate what you did.”

“Why were you watching?” I groan, turning red.

He grins. “Because it was beautiful.”

***

An hour later I’m back in the central tent with Ryan, Vin, Trent, Ali, Sam, Alvarez, and a few other Vashons that I don’t know or recognize. I ask Sam why Taylor isn’t here and he looks at me like I’m crazy.

“Someone has to stay behind and watch the fort,” he replies.

I notice that Sam sticks close to Ali. He’s always with her and I wonder what that’s all about. I wonder if Taylor put him on guard duty—but if she’s so valuable, why is she here?

“We’ll attack at the gates, but we’ll go in over the walls,” Alvarez tells the room. “Crenshaw and the Hyperion boys will detonate the flash grenades at each gate of both stadiums, causing a distraction and panic. While they run to the gates to defend them, Teams One through Eight will go over the fences. Remember,” he says sternly, catching everyone’s eye, “we are going for containment. Use lethal force only if you absolutely have to.”

“You won’t have to,” Vin says clearly from his corner. He’s standing with his back against a support post, his eyes on the room, but his body language is clearly removed from the group. “It’s easier than you think to overthrow one of these things. Most of the people inside don’t want to be there.”

“Even so, they don’t know why we’re there. They will defend themselves, so be prepared. And capture who you can. We want their Leaders. We need information.”

“We want Westbrook,” Ali says.

Her voice is quiet but it carries through the tent to every corner. I watch each Vashon nod in agreement.

I hate the Colonies as a whole, as an idea and a threat, but the Vashons are obviously working on a whole other level.

The group is disbanded after that. We all have our orders of where we’re supposed to be. It’s hard to believe that this is really happening. We’ve made an attempt on a Colony once already, but it was waiting for us. The work was done. This is different. This will be a true fight.

“Sam,” I call as I see him passing through the room. He hesitates for a second, his eyes going to Ali then back to me. She stops to talk one of the other Vashons and I get the feeling it’s for Sam’s sake to give him time.

“Hey, Joss,” he says easily, stepping toward Ryan, Trent, and I. He does that weird handshake/embrace thing guys do before stepping back. “What’s up?”

“Are you Ali’s bodyguard or something?”

His face goes immediately blank. “Yeah. Why?”

“Why does she need one?”

“For protection.”

“From who? The Colonists?”

“Westbrook?” Ryan guesses.

Sam shakes his head. “Nah, nothing like that. They should be scared of her.” He chuckles. “Them I won’t protect.”

“Then who are you protecting her from?”

“From herself,” he says plainly.

I frown. “You’re protecting her from herself?”

“Kind of all of us. Look, she’s moving so I need to go. Stay safe out there, all right? Watch each other’s backs.”