"
Where is the food?" Sherry asked. I turned to find her eager, red face behind me.
"Haven't you done enough today?"
"Nah," she said and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. "I need to see how we're doing on food so I can have a little piece of mind."
I grimaced. "Well…"
She stopped and ticked her head to the side. "What?"
"There was a crate of can
ned
food," I hedged.
"Yes," she dragged out.
"But it was a whole crate of green beans."
"What!" she shrieked.
Miguel passed us and laughed. "I told you not to tell her."
"Beat it, Aussie." I put my hands on the tops of her small arms. "Baby, it'll be fine."
"How? Explain how the only food we have plenty of now is basically just water and won't help to keep us full or alive."
"We'll just have to do food runs again. No way around it."
She groaned. "Oh, my gosh. We can not get a break!"
"Sherry," I whispered and put my arms around her, lifting her to my level. She sulked and refused to meet my gaze. "Sherry," I sang, taunting her.
"What?" she muttered.
"Look at me." She did immediately. "We’ll be ok. I didn't defy death just to die of hunger, ok?"
She sighed dramatically. "Fine."
"Fine?"
"Fine!" she laughed. "Fine."
"Good."
I kissed her forehead and then let mine rest there as I set her feet to the concrete. Her tingling touch was my constant reminder of everything I would've missed if I wasn't on this earth any longer.
"Oi!" Miguel shouted. "You hear that?"
We all stopped and listened. Katie shushed Sky who continued to cry, but we
could still hear it. Trucks
.
Big ones.
Did it mean something?
"We need to go scout," I told him and he nodded. "I'll be back," I told Sherry. She n
odded and hugged Lily to her as
she gripped her leg. Calvin and Franklin followed behind me with stakes in hands. I turned and gave them a look.
Calvin said, "We're with you. Let's go scout."
I
glanced at Ryan who was on our tail and he nodded as he passed us. "Let's go!" he called over his shoulder.
"Sweet
!" Calvin chimed and went past
me, too. I sighed and looked at Laura and Eli. They watched as Franklin followed Calvin. "I'll keep an eye on him. We're just going to get a look."
He nodded as any parent would in that situation. Reluctantly.
Daniel started to come, but I waved him off. "You can't sense them, but we don't know if they can sense you. Just stay here, ok?"
I ran to catch up and we rode the elevator up to
the roof.
Jeff and Miguel had come with us, and Billings, too, apparently. I could hear him cursing about the soot
from the roof on his boot.
"Get down!" I told Calvin and pushed both of their heads down. There was a
long line of big
trucks roaming
around the highway. They were going back and
forth. Not necessarily looking at the warehouse, just the road in general. I felt a little better about it.
But then I heard the familiar screech of a Marker and peeked to see one coming the opposite direction. "Search is in full swing it would seem. Good thing we left the store when we did," I told Miguel. "They would have caught us coming down the highway."
"Bloody right," he muttered and ducked lower.
He caressed his leg over his pant leg, the Marker's scratch.
"You think they're looking for us or just searching for rebels?"
"Anyone's guess." I looked around. "But they aren't moving along. Let's get back inside. We need to talk about making a food run in the morning. Everybody's getti
ng pretty thin these days. We do
n’t have much left and hardly any protein at all."
"Good," he said and motioned for us to follow him down.
But we all stopped dead when we heard the bark of a dog.
A dog…
I leaned over the side in shock to see a dog barking and putting his paws up on the building side as if asking for permission to come inside. I gawked. A freaking dog.
Dogs were extinct as was every other animal. So how the heck wa
s a dog sitting in front of us?
Franklin couldn't handle it. He yelled and leaned over the side. I heard the wings beat just before the Marker grabbed his shirt back. I wasn't fast enough before he had him fully over the edge. If I had grabbed him then, he would have fallen to the ground below.
Miguel went to shoot it, but I slammed my hand into the butt of the gun to make his shot miss. It did and he scowled. "You want
him
to drop to the ground from that height? Not me. Let's go."
We made our way down the ladder and followed the Marker with Franklin out into the parking lot. I knew we would prob
ably draw the attention of the trucks full of Enforcers
, but what else could we
do? I'd just told Eli and
Laura that I'd watch out for Frank
.
Miguel and I stopped under them and waited for the Marker to make his move.
Miguel once again grabbed at
his leg and groaned a little, h
is scratch burning from being near the Marker.
A blaze of fire flew passed us to the tree near us.
Calvin.
A large burning branch fell from the top and came plummeting toward the ground, toward the Marker. He lowered to keep from getting hit. I braced myself and took my one chance. I jumped on its back, knocking it sideways and making it release its hold on Franklin. We all slammed to the ground, but we were alive.
I felt my body writhing and my teeth gritting as the Marker's skin made contact with mine. The searing pain wasn't something I ever wanted to feel again, but I'd do again to save him.
Just like I'd done for
Sherry and that memory played
behind my eyes. I felt my breath return slowly as his venom
receded
.
He screeched and made a huge fit over it before Miguel ran him through with the barrel of his shotgun through the Marker's chest while he was down. He burned up and I groaned as I sat up. "We've got to get outta here," I told him through a wheeze.
"Mate, what-" he was cut off by Franklin's screams.
I turned to him, a prayer on my tongue tha
t he hadn't been scratched by the Marker. N
o answered prayers this time.
His eyes were glazing as he groaned. The scratch on his
wrist was small, but powerful.
I wanted to curse and scream. Sherry was right. There were no breaks for us.
Ryan hauled him up into his arms and then hoisted him over his shoulder. We all ran to the warehouse and climbed the ladder. When we reached it, I'd forgotten one thing.
The dog.
It
waited patiently there,
at a loss of what to do with it. We couldn't afford to give it food. We could barely feed ourselves. Calvin gripped my arm. "Just bring it with us and stop trying to find a reason not to. Franklin wanted it."
"That doesn't mean we should keep it," I said low, biting back a groan at the pain in my neck from the Marker's touch.
"Yes, it does! It's the reason he got taken by that thing. If he woke up and saw that the dog wasn’t there after all that trouble, he'll flip his lid, man."
"Whatever," Miguel said and gingerly picked up the dog around his middle like a soiled baby. "Nice doggy."
"It's a Jack Russell, Miguel, not a Doberman."
"Does it have teeth?" Miguel asked as he held it to his chest and grimaced as he climbed the ladder. "Then it's a Doberman for all I care."
Billings laughed as he climbed and I wanted to punch him. There was no time to laugh. He had no idea the hell that boy was about to go through. Only two people really understood what it was like. Sherry and Miguel.
Sherry…she was going to be devastated and pissed and angry. I growled and g
roaned as I jumped from the edge
and wobbled to the elevator.
"What's up with you, mate?" Miguel asked.
"I jumped on the Marker
to get him off Franklin
."
He hissed through his teeth. "Oi, I heard about that from Ann. She said it sucks balls. That true?"
"Dude," I complained and
chuckled in pain
at the same time. "Shut up."
We emerged and I held my breath at the chaos about to erupt.
"Laura!" Ryan yelled. Franklin
was
out for the count still and Laura's eyes bugged. She ran toward us.
"What happened?"
As Ryan explained to her what exactly had happened…and what had to be done, Sherry ran to us, too. She covered her mouth shaking her head and glanced at me. I nodded and she squeezed her eyes shut tight for a second before standing straight. She took a deep breath and then yelled, "Marissa!"