Page 5 of Bound in Ashes

“If we can get in⁠—”

Jack was cut off by an angry and oh so welcomed voice.

“You trying to tear down my fences, girl?” Uncle Levi yelled.

My gaze moved wildly as I searched for him. Settled on the figure in the gravel and dirt driveway in front of the house.

He’d never been taller than five eight on a good day, but at this distance, he looked a touch shorter.

He was thin, save for the little gut Aunt Kathleen had lovingly teased him about. Even at this distance, I saw the frown on his face. He shook his head as he stared at me.

He was disappointed.

“Move it!” an unfamiliar man yelled.

That’s when I noticed the other men behind him.

Ten of them, loaded up into two trucks, dust hanging in the air behind them.

And armed to the teeth.

“Jack…” I said.

“Got it.”

He took one more of those things out with another slash-stab and then grabbed my hand.

Not gently.

His fingers locked around my wrist like a shackle, tight enough that I’d still feel it tomorrow.

If there was a tomorrow.

Together we ran, ducking the crowd and hiding behind the gathered trucks.

I think Jack was still moving when the first shot went off.

It was loud enough to drown out the moans—piercing what had been an almost peaceful day, save the horde of zombies.

I should have been used to gunshots, too, but this was something different.

The shots that had become so normal were different. Random volleys that screamed of desperation before fading into the background like a twisted soundtrack to this catastrophe.

These shots were organized.

Efficient.

I didn’t linger on the fact that the cacophony of shots didn’t make me feel any safer.

It was over quickly.

In less than two minutes, the horde that was about to kill us all and destroy my uncle’s pasture was reduced to piles of bodies, some still steaming from the bullets they were riddled with.

I risked searching for Jack, and my gaze found him easily. He stared at me across the blood-soaked grass, and I saw the rage—the promise—in his eyes.

I had disobeyed.

Stayed when he told me to run.