Michael winces as he coughs and then laughs. The bullet must have missed the important stuff. He looks like he might be able to get up off the bed. I lift my bow and pull an arrow.
He smiles at me, "I made you to be more, Emma. Stop devaluing what I created. Be the leader you naturally are. I've had everyone call you the phoenix, in preparation for you to be the one to take my place."
"So it was you that started the stupid nickname? You arrogant bastard. Granny and Gramps and Lenny were always right about you. Not worth the price of spit was how Granny always said it."
His eyes narrow.
I shake my head, sliding the arrow into the bow, "You didn’t make me, Michael. God did. You donated sperm and tried to create something, but my mother and Lenny, Granny, and Leo made me. I am what I am because of them. You had no hand in that. I don’t have to be the monster you tried to make. Granny and my real dad taught me about right and wrong." I smile peacefully, "And you aren’t God, asshole. You're dead."
He opens his mouth, but I release the first arrow into his shoulder, " staring at the pupil of his eye as the second arrow pierces it.
Star switches off the light and opens the bedroom window. She waves at me, "This way." She opens a panel on the wall and puts her grenade inside, "Give me yours."
I pull it out and pass it to her.
We can hear the footsteps on the stairs of people coming to save Michael. No one is bringing his ass back from this. Bastard. I follow Leo out the window, onto the ledge. Star leaps out the window, "Run!" We sprint in the dark to the back of the house. She drops down onto the roof of the pantry and then onto the ground. Leo and me follow her into the woods. We run as fast as we can. I hear a gun cock behind us. My back tenses, waiting for the bullet to hit, but instead, I hear a whistle and something falling in the woods. I look back, but I can't see what it was.
We get a little further along to see Jake holding a bow and quiver, standing on a stump. We both stop, even Leo looks surprised.
He grins, "Now that was an impressive shot. Dummy used a scope, so easy to see him when the moonlight reflected off of it."
I smile, shocked and impressed. Mitch steps up onto the stump and shakes his head, "Gimme the bow back, you little shit."
Jake laughs quietly, "I totally had you fooled. Even Leo bought that one. You all owe me a coke for falling for that."
We saddle up and look at the house. Star raises the rifle, sighting it in and takes a breath. On the exhale she fires. The whole mansion explodes.
We stand there stunned as the camp erupts into flames and alarm. Secondary explosions start discharging. The entire property becomes a war zone of fire and screams.
Star kicks her horse into a fast run.
Mitch looks stunned, "What the hell was that?"
She looks back, "Bernie was paranoid. He never wanted his work to fall into the hands of the wrong people."
It makes a smile break across my face, but then I remember what he said about Nick. I boot my horse in the flanks shouting back at them, "Nick's a mole—we can't go get the medicine for Will. We have to go back first."
Jake looks at me from his saddle and shouts, "WHAT?"
I point, "NICK IS A MOLE! WE GOTTA GO BACK FIRST!"
He winces and I see his lips form the word shit. It’s our favorite I think.
Chapter Fifteen
We reach the guard platforms, but I don’t see anything. No one is in the tree.
I feel sick as I round the corner and no one is in the yard. Of the nearly fifty people we left there, no one is around.
I leap from the horse, blasting into the house.
"ANNA, WILL!" No one answers.
Jake, Star and Mitch are doing the same. We meet back in the yard but there is no one.
The yard and house are empty. I turn and run down to the bedroom, smacking myself in the forehead; Anna can't yell. I push her door out of the way and stop when I see the bloody mess on the bed of the otherwise empty room. I grip the wooden frame of the door, stunned and disturbed as a thousand possibilities run through my mind.
Jake drops to his knees when he reaches the room. His face is buried in my side.
"EMMA!" Star sounds panicked.
I turn, running hard for the doorway, to where Star is staring across the field, pointing.
I see the group of them, all of them walking across the field. They look solemn and sad. Nick is in the front with Will and Anna.
I break into a run, but I don’t stand a chance against Jake. They see us as we run, but they don’t look excited about seeing us. I see mouths open to speak but we ignore them. Jake takes Nick to the ground, screaming and swinging.
Anna wheezes and screams as Will tries to pull him off of Nick. He has lost his mind. Will and some of the others wrestle him off of Nick, whose face is bleeding and swelling.
Anna grabs me, "I lost the baby. He didn’t hurt me." She knows what we saw in her room.
She points at the back lot and speaks in the high moan of the infected, "We made a graveyard."
My lip creeps out as tears start to fill my eyes. Star starts to cry. It's the last piece of Bernie, gone forever.
I pull her in and let her sob into me. Leo jumps up and wraps his paws around her. I don’t think he understands, but he always surprises me with his ability to sense things.
Sarah joins us, bawling too. Jake looks at me. I shake my head. He grabs Anna, holding her to him. Star finds her way into the embrace; she and Anna share their loss.
Will pulls me into him, "You okay?"
I shake my head, "I didn’t get the medicine yet."
He glances at Nick and offers him a hand, "Nick saved Anna."
I look into Nick's eyes apologetically, "He said you came to trick us."
He wipes blood off on his sleeve and pinches his nose, "Of course he did. He's a maniacal narcissistic asshole." He points back at the house, "Did you end him?"
I glance at Star's shaking body as she, Anna, and Jake hug and cry. I nod, "We did."
He offers me a bloody hand, "Let's start over then. Hi. I'm your half-brother, Nick."
I shake his hand, "I'm sorry I shot you."
He nods, "Yeah, it's been a rough week."
The people of our little village give us a sideways look and whisper amongst themselves.
Nick turns around and smiles, "The man who made the mess of our world has died. Emma and Star murdered him. We owe them a debt of gratitude."
The people look at Star, then me, and then each other. They don’t look ready to thank me for ending the tyranny; I don’t give a shit either way. I just want the whole world to stop fighting to be on top.
I turn away from them all and stagger to my friend. I wrap my arms around her and wish there was a way to change the losses she has suffered. It seems like the best of us have it the hardest. Anna is the best person in the world to me. She is the one who saved me as much as I saved her.
We slowly make our way to the houses and filter off into our different directions. Will wraps his arms around me and whispers, "Did you kill him?"
I nod, "I did."
His burning body next to mine scares me. I look at Nick, "Once, Michael told me that my blood could cure things."
His eyes sparkle for a second, "We need a needle to inject it."
I nod, "I know a place to get one." I give Mitch a smile, "Wanna go for a horse ride?"
He shakes his head, "No, my ass is killing me."
I scoff, "Well, we could walk."
He rolls his eyes, "I do not like you very much right now. I just need to put that out there."
"I don’t care, you coming or not?"
He sighs, " Yeah."
I look up at Will, "Hang on for two days, okay?"
He shakes his head, "I'm fine, I swear. Me and Nick have been working on the lung thing. He doesn’t even think it's contagious."
I give Nick a slight glance. His face tells me a different story.
I hug Anna once more, "I'm so sorry."
She shakes her head, "I should have known. The infection wrecked everything."
I kiss her cheek, "No, the important stuff is still there." I whisper into her ear, "If I don’t come back, you make Nick keep him alive, okay?"
She nods.
I glance at Star, "I'm heading for needles."
She winks, "I know the best place." Jake gives us a look, "I'm coming too."
I glance at Will, who is talking to one of the cook pit ladies, "I need you to stay here and make him listen."
Jake shakes his head, "Anna can do that. Besides, I'll go nuts wondering what trouble you all are in without me."
Star rubs her butt, "How long before we leave?"
I shrug, "An hour."
She winces, "That’s going to be horrid."
Mitch runs his hand over his butt too, "Mine doesn’t hurt so bad. If you need a massage Star, I'm sure I could help you out."
Star cocks an eyebrow at him, "That's okay."
I walk to Will and take his hand in mine, "Come on."
He shakes his head, "I have a couple things to do in the barn. If the other smithy is gone, we need to fix this one up."
I smile, "Just come with me."
He gets a gleam on his fevered face. I pull him to Anna's room, "We need to clean this up. We can't make her do it."
He stops at the door and sighs, "Is it wrong I'm glad that she's not going to have a baby?"
I shake my head and start to gather the sheets. We clean everything and flip the mattress after we scrub it with the homemade soap.
The smell of blood and sadness washes away and leaves a lye smell. Will drags all the bedding to the group doing the laundry in the river's edge. I don’t know how we'll do it in the winter, not with this many people. The well is amazing on this farm, but the population has grown a lot.
Mitch comes down the hall, "You ready? It's going to get dark soon."