Page 78

The horde spills around the corner, bodies packed shoulder to shoulder, climbing over hoods, crawling across roofs, dragging themselves through broken windows to follow the sound. Pale, blue-gray skin. Frozen blood. Black mouths. Red-rimmed eyes.

Jacob crouches beside me. “Shit.”

Lyla sweeps the roofs, the alleys, the street. “We follow above them. Don’t drop unless we have to.”

We move low across the roof. Gravel skids beneath my boots. Clair stays behind the parapet, rifle in both hands, hair whipping loose around her face.

A narrow gap separates this roof from the next building, close enough to jump if you don’t look down.

Joanie looks down.

Then immediately steps back. “Absolutely not.”

Lyla grabs the back of her jacket. “Absolutely yes.”

“Lyla, I’m a delicate indoor child.”

“You are a violent raccoon with a gun. Jump.”

Jacob goes first, landing hard on the next roof and turning to help Trish. Lyla follows, quick and smooth. Trish goes after her, jaw tight but steady.

I turn to Clair.

Her eyes are on the gap. Her knuckles whiten around the rifle.

I step close and point to myself, then the roof across from us. I tap two fingers against my eyes.

Watch me.

She nods once.

I run and jump.

Cold air rushes up from the alley below. My boots hit the opposite roof hard, gravel skidding beneath me. I stay upright and turn immediately, one hand lifting to show her where to aim.

The landing spot.

The angle.

The way to favor her stronger leg.

Then I reach for her.

Clair backs up, runs, and pushes off hard, rifle tight against her back, hair flying around her face. Her boot catches the edge clean, but her bad leg buckles the second she lands.

I grab her before she can drop, one arm locking around her waist, the other catching her forearm. She lands against me, breath punching out.

Her hand presses to my chest, right over my heart. “Thank you,” she whispers.

Lavender drifts from her hair, soft and impossible in the middle of all this rot.

Joanie clears the gap behind her, chanting, “Fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck,” before landing like a sack of wet laundry.

Below, Carlos’s crew cuts into a narrower street between two rows of brick apartments.

Bad choice.

The street dead-ends at a chain-link fence topped with twisted barbed wire, locked tight with a rusted padlock thick enough to survive the end of the world.