Infected (Releasing the Magic Book 1) Read online

  Her body rose and fell beneath my arm as she took a shaky breath. “I hid. In trees, in dumpsters, everywhere I could find. That lasted a few weeks before people began to get… scary.” She swallowed hard. “I got really good at hiding, and saw people do horrible things to each other. Then I met this nice guy who stuck with me for a while.”

  I waited for her to elaborate, but she remained silent and played with her thumbnail instead. “So, what happened to him?” I regretted the question as soon as it came out. Asking that never meant anything good.

  “We got separated.” She continued to pick at her thumbnail then moved on to a different nail.

  If she didn’t want to talk about it, then I wouldn’t push her on that yet. We all had stories we wanted to keep hidden, so I changed the subject. “Where did you find water? What did you drink?”

  “I found this stream and drank from that.”

  My eyes met Adam’s at her answer. If the water was safe after all, then we might not need to keep taking extra measures. It was just speculation that the water would spread infection if drank untreated, but none of us had been desperate enough to test that theory. Through our silent conversation, I wasn’t sure how soon any one of us would be willing to try either.

  Maura continued on, bringing my focus back to her. “After that, I ate leaves and berries and stuff that I found outside. There wasn’t much since it was winter, but I got what I could. I hid in trees, and found the occasional deserted campsite with food that I took for myself, and then ran and hid again. I kept mostly to myself, until I found you.”

  With her story complete, we stayed there in silence, enjoying each other’s company once again. She fell asleep soon after, her breathing slowing, and I looked down at her face. During the years we spent together with Mama G, I had always tried my best to protect her. I never once tried to teach her how to protect herself. Guilt gnawed at me even more as I realized I should have done something more to prepare her for the world. Granted, I never knew the world would turn into this current sweaty ass of a life, but I could’ve done better. There was no use taking all the blame though. Martyrdom never helped anyone. Self-guilt wouldn’t help Maura wield a knife. Tomorrow morning, her training would begin. Tomorrow morning, she would learn how to fight.

  Blyss

  “Again.”

  With a huff and a look of tired determination, Maura stood up straight and kicked her leg out, before losing her balance and ending up sprawled out on the grass once again.

  “Again.”

  She groaned and brushed herself off as she stood back up. She was improving, but still needed more work. Failure and frustration were getting to her and she didn’t even bother getting back into a starting stance before throwing her leg out at me once again with an ear-splitting scream.

  “Chamber your leg before you kick out,” I called to her as she fell over yet again from her lack of balance and coordination.

  “What does that even mean? Chamber something? Is that even a thing? I think you’re messing me up with made-up words.”

  “It’s an analogy, drawn from firearms. You chamber a round, which means to put a bullet in the chamber. In the same way you chamber a round in firearms, you can chamber a kick to ‘fire’ it.” I explained with air quotes around the word ‘fire’. “Chambering refers to any technique, which in this case is a kick. You fully draw back your leg in preparation for exploding forward.”

  Her face lit up in realization as the meaning behind the technique sunk in.

  “It’s a term used in some martial arts,” I finished.

  “Since when did you learn martial arts?”

  “Since I was attacked by scavers the first time, and someone saved me. He taught me how to fight.” That was not a memory I wanted to fully explain at the moment. Don’s face flitted into my mind and my heart clenched at the memory of how I last saw him: infected and tied to the fire station pole.

  “Was this ‘someone’, one of these guys?” Maura questioned with a head tilt and a curious look in her eyes.

  “It was someone else, who’s a story for another time. Right now, our focus is on you. Not on my past.”

  Maura groaned and took her spot back on her starting point. With a deep breath, she hitched her leg in close to her body, knee up, and kicked out straight into my waiting hands. A large grin spread across her face at her first successful kick.

  “I did it!” she exclaimed, pumping the air with her fist.

  “Yes, you did,” I laughed. “Come on, a few more rounds of that and we can move onto weapons.”

  “Again.”

  Maura ran at me with her stick held high. As she neared, I sidestepped and placed a hand on her back, adding to her momentum as I pushed her farther forward.

  “Again.”

  With a huff, Maura raised her stick and charged at me again, this time with a battle cry. I sidestepped the same as before, and this time she swung at me and I threw my hands out to grab her weapon. Holding on to the end of the stick, I swung it around with her still attached to the other end until she was flying through the air. She hit the ground and rolled, coming to a stop at Lincoln’s feet.

  “Again.”

  “Can we take a break?” Maura pleaded with me. “I’m so tired and I’m not as strong as you. We’ve been at this for ages.”

  “Yet. You’re not as strong yet. You will get there,” I encouraged, wanting her to keep going.

  “A short break?” she asked again.

  “When you’re up against rotters or scavers, the only break you get is when you kill them or they kill you,” a gruff voice called out. “Again.”

  Maura looked up to see it was Lincoln who had spoken this time, and his face looked like he meant business. She must have decided it was better to come at me again than it would be to argue with him. Standing up and placing her feet shoulder width apart, she steadied her stance and raised her stick like one would do in a jousting match. She took her time this round, her face scrunching up in thought.

  The rise and fall of her chest evened out along with her breathing, and her eyes bored into mine. For the first time since we started her training this morning, I felt like she was really into it. As though this round she might succeed. This time she might improve. The corner of my mouth twitched into a small smile and I watched her, waiting.

  In a split second, she was running toward me, her feet pounding the ground. She neared and I moved to dodge her, but this time she ducked underneath my arms and jabbed her stick into my side, pointy end first. I stumbled back from the surprise impact, impressed. My small smile then spread into a grin as I looked at her to see that worry was coating her face.

  “I’m so sorry!” she blurted out in a panic. “I didn’t mean to hit so hard, are you okay? Did I hurt you too much?”

  I let out a light laugh and grabbed her up in my arms, bringing her in for a tight hug. “I’m fine, Maura. You did amazing and I’m so proud. We can take that break now if you want, before we continue on.”

  “Well, I could use a snack.” She hugged me back. “I’m sure I burned enough calories this morning for everything I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.”

  I let out another laugh and let her go. She dropped her stick and headed toward the front door. Lifting my shirt up, I looked at the spot on my side where she jabbed me. A couple drops of blood showed where she’d broken the skin, and from the looks of it, there should be a nasty bruise later. What I saw instead nearly stopped my heart. Where the droplets of blood had come from, the skin was slowly stitching itself back up, the wound disappearing faster than something in quicksand, hiding the evidence that anything had happened there.

  I looked up at Lincoln to see him standing in front of me with a look on his face I couldn’t decipher. We never did get a chance to talk about why he thought he started that fire at the station. He’d been avoiding fires since then, so Adam and Mateo had stepped up as the new residential fire starters. I didn’t know exactly what I saw in his eyes in this moment
, but I knew it wasn’t what should be there.

  “Linc,” I spoke, “something is wrong with us.”

  Jonah

  Concern filled me when Lighthouse and Lincoln came back inside. Their faces were filled with concern. They tried to hide it around everyone else, but I’d gotten pretty good at reading faces. Something was troubling them, but they weren’t ready to share. That bothered me, I really wanted to help in anyway I could. Especially if it concerned Lighthouse.

  Puppy ran up to greet her, sneezing all over her legs in the process. Lighthouse’s mouth opened in silent laughter, a sound I wished I could hear. I’d gotten used to being deaf, it was one way to help tell you who your real friends were, but if there was ever a sound I wanted to hear, it was her voice. This was the first time I was really taken by a woman. She continued to shine her light, constantly guiding me out of the bubble I’d built for myself. She was my lighthouse in the night.

  She proceeded over to the food stash in the corner of the room by the fireplace. Pulling out some crackers, she sat down on the floor with her back against the wall and snacked, throwing some pieces to Puppy in between her own bites.

  Looking around the room, I noticed how every eye kept drifting toward her. It was something I took notice of pretty early on. When she first awoke at our camp, we were nice to her, hiding how on edge we really were. We knew it would be tough for Mateo, his distrust of others having escalated after Conni took out his eye, but this one began to dig under the barriers around our hearts almost immediately, without even realizing it. With each day that passed, I observed how every one of them wanted to be around her more. Even making excuses to carry her around just so they could touch her.

  As a very observant person, I noticed all of this before they even knew what they were doing. We talked about it, which was originally to confront Mateo about his attitude toward her, but discovered that we all felt the same way. Even him, although he was afraid to show it. I couldn’t blame him, though, after what Conni did to him. It was the first time in a long time that he decided to try to trust someone, and he ended up literally losing a part of himself in the process.

  Lost in my own train of thought, I wasn’t paying attention to all the conversations going on around me. Lincoln still had a pained look on his face that increased every time he looked at Lighthouse, but I had a feeling there was something else going on with him. I’d make sure to have a chat with him later.

  I looked back over to see Lighthouse appearing more relaxed. She laughed at something Maura said, her shoulders jumping up and down with the action. Whatever it was that plagued her when she entered the cottage had dimmed. Her eyes now lit up, and the sunshine streaming in through window helped magnify the gold flecks in her irises.

  We’d all agreed that if she would have us, then we’d each pursue her. She was the best thing in this world and we couldn’t imagine being away from her. I fully intended to pursue her if she’d let me.

  Her head turned toward me and caught me staring, but I couldn’t get myself to look away. She smiled at me and my heart fluttered.

  Blyss

  Maura ate her beef jerky cheerfully as she told the others the story about how she bested me. Very modest girl, that one.

  “Sounds like you got the upper hand on Skittle there. I can’t wait to see it happen again,” Adam chimed in unhelpfully.

  “Skittle?”

  “Yeah, she gets overly excited when she sees skittles.”

  “That was always her favorite candy,” Maura laughed, “so it’s pretty fitting. You could use skittles to bribe her or blackmail her for anything.”

  Adam’s eyes lit up at that. “Oh really?” I didn’t miss the mischievous glint that entered his eyes. “Sounds like you might have some good stories.”

  “No, no stories. No good stories. Maura, don’t make me cut this break short.”

  “Funny,” Mateo joined in. “I thought you were called Skittle because you’re a fucking rainbow,” he deadpanned

  Food flew out of my mouth as my body lurched forward in surprise. Peanuts littered the floor and Maura shrieked while Lincoln chuckled. I looked up at Mateo to see the small grin on his face. It was small, but it was there. Stubborn bastard had a sense of humor after all.

  Jonah joined in with the first laugh of his that I’d heard. His laugh had a nice ring to it. He always smiled, but now I wanted to make sure I would hear his laugh again.

  We’d explained to Maura about his hearing and she agreed to try and learn the basic signs too. She had nowhere else to go and wanted to stick with me. A small sense of pride welled up within me at that, and she was taking all these challenges better than I would have thought. For someone who seemed so traumatized only yesterday, she was learning to fight and even got one over on me, and she was learning how to use signs to be able to communicate with everyone in this group. Not like she had much else to do anyways, as she had stated, but it still made me proud. Mama G tried to break us, but we were rising up strong.

  “Eat up, Maura. We have some more training to do,” I reminded her.

  “Are you sure you want to continue right away? I don’t want to injure you any more, I’m sure you must be developing a nasty bruise. Maybe someone else could step in for a little bit if they want to.”

  “Bruise?” Adam questioned.

  Bruise? Jonah signed. What injury? Where?

  “It’s nothing,” I tried to deflect. “I feel fine. Great, even. Although I wouldn’t be opposed to someone else stepping in, it would be good for you to learn how to fight and defend yourself against more people. Especially all these guys with their muscles.” Oh shit, did I really just out myself that I noticed their muscles? Maybe I could brush it off casually and change the subject.

  “Muscles, huh?” Adam repeated with a grin. Welp, so much for that whole changing-the-subject idea.

  I shrugged it off and continued to pop peanuts into my mouth while Puppy gobbled up the ones still strewn across the floor. Maybe I could keep my mouth shut and the conversation would change. My cheeks heated the longer the silence went on, presumably waiting for a response from me. Well, they weren’t getting one. I emptied the last of the water from the bottle into my mouth and stood up. “So, who’s going up against Maura next?”

  Puppy’s head whipped back and forth as she anxiously watched Maura and Jonah go at it. Being Jonah’s best bud lately, she was very into this sparring session. I must admit, Maura was a quick study now that her confidence was up after catching me in the side earlier, so she was giving Jonah a run for his beef jerky.

  My hand ghosted over the spot in question. I checked it when the others were distracted, and still no bruise. After wiping off the few droplets of blood, there was no sign that anything had happened. I looked over to Lincoln and saw him watching me. Making sure the others were preoccupied by the scene in front of us, I motioned at him to follow. We managed to slowly back up without causing any heads to turn, and headed back into the house. Reaching the door, I turned around to see Mateo with a lifted eyebrow in our direction, but he made no move to follow, so we ducked inside before anyone else could catch on, and silently closed the door behind us.

  Turning to face Lincoln, I crossed my arms and took a deep breath. It would be best to dive headfirst into this rather than waste time beating around the bush. “Okay, so you’ve seen my side heal already. It’s still healed, as in there’s no sign that I ever received a blow there, no bruising, and no evidence to suggest any blood had ever been spilled. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but it’s freaking me out.” I took a deep breath and continued, “That day, when I was outside and buried under all those rotters, I thought I got away scratch-free. But then… I don’t know, something weird happened. Like, I was freezing and it was weird, and then suddenly I wasn’t. Then I felt warm, and fine. Better than fine, even. I went into the bathroom and realized that my ankle was all healed up. The marks on my body were gone, some even disappearing before my eyes. Any injury I may have had on my
body at that time was healed. It was like… I don’t know what it was like. It was freaky though. I didn’t even get a chance to process what was going on, let alone talk to anyone about it, because then those scavers were there and…” I trailed off. We both knew what had happened next.

  Lincoln stepped closer to me. “When you were laying there, I was so worried. I thought we might lose you.” He reached out like he was going to touch me, but then dropped his hand. “I don’t know if you remember it, as you were in and out. But I kissed you. Then I felt what I had thought was static electricity, then I was suddenly freezing, but I didn’t think anything of it. Not until the scavers were there and beating us down. It looked like none of us might make it out alive and I just… anger boiled up from inside me until fire was shooting out of my hands.” He lifted his hands up to his face and inspected them as though he was worried it would happen again. “I had no idea what the fuck was going on, but I knew it was me. I knew I was the reason why we had to leave the fire station and lost all of our supplies.”

  I walked up to him and placed a hand on each side of his face, forcing him to look at me. “Hey, now you listen to me. If that’s what happened, which I’m pretty sure now that it is, I thank you. You were right, none of us were going to get out of there alive. You saved us all.”

  The solemn look began to slowly leave his face and I kept watching, waiting for the little bit of hope to creep into his features. But it didn’t.

  “You do know that, right? You’re the reason any of us are even still alive right now.”

  He opened his mouth as though to speak, but hesitated. “I didn’t do it on purpose. I mean, yeah, I wanted to save you all, fuck, of course I did. And that gun pointed at you… what I mean is, I have no idea how I did that. If I can really produce fire, then that might be more destructive than anything. I could really hurt you, B. Any of you. And that’s the last thing I’d ever want to do.”