The Lost Souls (10 page)

Nico watched as Xan walked through camp, shouldering two large duffel bags. Knowing Xan, he could guess what was in them. One was undoubtedly full of weapons, most of them self-made or lethally altered by Xan himself, and the other would be full of his and Trinity’s belongings. Not long ago, Xan had decided he was leaving camp in an attempt to find Trinity. It was a shot in the dark and everyone knew it, but everyone also knew Xan wouldn’t be Xan again until he found his wife.

Because Xan couldn’t let go.

After slinging his bags into the back of the waiting van, Xan turned around, watching as the rest of his small group said good-bye to their families.

Nico studied the others who were leaving with him—Fifi, Adriana, Simionce, Nadya, Onyx, and Pesha. It was an odd mix of people, ones who had very little previous interaction with one another. But it was an odd world they’d found themselves forced to live in
, and Nico supposed they all had their reasons for wanting to leave. But that didn’t mean he was happy about it. In fact, he hated this—all the death and destruction, but most of all he hated the separation of his clan, a clan who’d stood strong against the world for hundreds of years.

“You’re going to miss him.”

Nico glanced to his side where Becki had appeared, and tried to smile at her. Things were strained between them; she’d thwarted every attempt he’d made at trying to turn their marriage into something more than just two people living with each other, more than just sex.

“Yeah,” he whispered. He was going to miss Xan. They’d always been friends
, but it wasn’t until Shandor had been killed that they’d grown closer. Xan was like a brother to him.

“Go say good-bye,” Becki said. “You know we’re probably never going to see him again, right?”

Yeah. He knew.

“Frate!” he yelled. “Wait up!”

Jogging across camp, he reached Xan and slapped him hard across the back. “You know I’d go, right?” he said. “If I didn’t have my own responsibilities now.”

Xan glanced over toward where Becki still stood, and smiled.

“Don’t ever leave her, frate,” Xan muttered. “Fată deserves some peace.”

If only Xan knew, that it wasn’t him leaving her that he was worried about.

“You don’t gotta worry about that,” Nico said.

Grinning, Xan crooked a finger in Becki’s direction. “Come here,
surioară
,” he called out to her, “and say good-bye to me.”

Becki crossed the lawn quickly and all but fell into Xan’s waiting arms. Nico felt a sliver of jealousy slither through his gut. Not jealousy of Xan per se, but jealous because everything with her was always such a struggle. He was sick of fighting with her just to get a hug.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Becki whispered to Xan. “None of it. Not the botched raid, not Shandor’s death, and not losing Trinity.”

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Xan released her and smiled sadly. “You take care of that copil, fată,” he said.

Becki tried to smile through her threatening tear
s. “You’re coming back, right?”

“Yeah, fată,” he said. Clearing his throat, he looked away
. “I’m coming back.”

Nico grabbed his arm before he could
walk off and pulled him into a hug. To his surprise, Xan hugged him back. “You’re a bad fuckin’ liar, Deleanu,” he whispered. “Te iubesc, frate.”

“Te iubesc, frate,” Xan answered. “Now, get the fuck off me before your wife thinks you’re sportin’ a hard-on for me.”

As Xan walked off, Nico felt his chest tighten with emotion. He was losing everything. He’d lost his father, his brother, countless friends, and now this. It was official; when they should have been their strongest, his clan had fallen apart. Feeling emptier than he’d ever felt before, he grabbed Becki’s hand, seeking comfort. She tried to pull away at first, but he refused her. He just need a couple of minutes of consolation. Was holding his hand too much to ask?

“They’ll be fine,” Maisera said as the rest of the families, the ones who
had come to say good-bye, began to gather around Nico and Becki. The elderly women, unlike everyone else, stood tall and strong, watching as the small group piled into the van.

“Jericho told me this would happen,”
she continued. “He spoke of it back in the Catskills.”

“He told you our children would leave us?” Kizzy asked tearfully. Nico felt for her, he really, truly felt for her. Not only had she lost her eldest son
, Shandor, but her youngest had just left.

Maisera shook her head. “No, child. He told me many would die and that some would leave. But he also told me we would all be together again, some within this lifetime and others in the next.”

Becki’s hand yanked from his, and he turned to find her wiping tears from her cheeks. He reached for her, but she dodged his arm and went hurrying off.

Cursing under his breath, he took off after her, quickly catching up to her. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her to a stop.

“Leave me alone,” she whispered, trying to shake free of him. “I want to be alone.”

“Why?” he demanded angr
ily. “I’m your husband. You should come to me when you’re upset, not run from me.”

“Stop acting like…like…like the
Jankovics!” she sputtered.

Nostrils flaring, he glared down at her. The Jankovic brothers, both dead now, had been strong supporters of the old ways. Marcell, after his first wife had died in childbirth, had taken a second, a thirteen-year-old named Edina. The entire camp had heard her nightly screams as Marcell repeatedly forced himself on her. It wasn’t something Nico would have done personally
, but that didn’t mean he didn’t understand why Marcell had done it. It was the way of their world, and certain things were expected from a wife.

There were certain expectations Nico should be more forceful about with his own wife.

“Maybe I should be more like the Jankovics,” he gritted out. “Maybe I’ve been giving you too many liberties!”

Becki’s
mouth fell open. “What?”

“You heard me!” he shouted. “I’ve been preparing us food, bringing it to you, helping with your chores around camp. I’ve even had to do laundry! And fuck, Becki, you deny me sex all the time! I feel like half the time I’m raping you!”

“I don’t have to do what you tell me!” she screamed. “You forced this marriage on me! You did this!”

“I didn’t force you onto my dick!” he bellowed. “You came to me for sex!”

“That’s just it!” she continued screaming. “Sex! That’s all it was! That’s all it ever was!”

Her words were like a fist to his gut. Releasing her, he staggered backward.

“You still love Hockey,” he said. “Don’t you? Or is it Tobar you love? Is it Tobar you always wanted, then? Did Hockey force an unwanted marriage on you, too?”

Becki
glared at him, saying nothing, but she didn’t have to. He knew everything he needed to know from the look on her face. She would never love him. In fact, she looked disgusted by him. Everything he thought they’d shared, everything he’d done out of love for her, it had all been for nothing.

“Fuck you,” he growled, feeling sick and furious. “Fuck you.”

Before he did something he would regret, like slap her, he spun away from her.

Nico
stalked off without a destination, cursing, glaring at anyone who looked his way. His body was humming with rage, his stomach growing more and more nauseous with each step.

He’d been damn stupid to think he could make her love him, to think he could just sweep her off her feet, literally, and take her home with him, expecting her to be happy about it. She’d fought him every step of the way, every single one, and yet he’d continued thinking it would work. It had to work. Because he felt so much for her, he’d thought that this couldn’t be wrong, that she would realize she felt the same.

He was such an idiot.

Rounding a row of trailers, he glanced to his left and found Magdolna standing outside her trailer, hanging up her freshly laundered clothing to dry in the sun.

Brushing a few tears from her cheeks, still upset over her sister Fifi’s departure, she waved at him and tried to smile.

Nico stared at her, his anger still at the forefront of his mind. He needed to punch something, someone, Hockey or Tobar, he didn’t know which, maybe both, or maybe Becki. Maybe he should knock her the hell out for coming to him in the first place, for making him fall for her, for giving him false hope that they could actually have a family together.

It was all that anger, anger and pain, that had him heading in Magdolna’s direction.

“What the—” She squealed as he grabbed her waist and lifted her up over his shoulder. “Nico, what the hell are you doing?”

Ignoring her, he carried her inside her trailer and straight into her tiny bedroom. Slamming the door behind them, he set her down.

Magdolna’s
hands went to her hips. “Bad behavior for a married man, Nico,” she scolded.

“I’m not married,” he spat, already pulling up his shirt. “I never fucking was.”

“Nico,” she said slowly, backing away from him. “I like Becki. I don’t want to hurt her. And after everything she’s gone through—”

“Trust me, fată,” he growled, grabbing her wrist and tugging her forward. He yanked open the side buttons on her tiered skirt; the soft material fell down her legs and pooled around her feet. “Becki won’t give a shit.”

There would be no going back from what he was about to do. Becki would never speak to him again. And maybe that’s what Nico wanted, for her to cut him off entirely, so he wouldn’t spend the rest of his life in love with a woman who wouldn’t love him back.

“I can’t believe it,” Mira muttered. “We were barely a mile away.”

Hockey glanced up at the warehouse and swallowed back a stomach-churning wave of foreboding. Having no idea what would greet them, he didn’t want to go inside.

“Are you coming or what?” Mira snapped.

She was upset with him, and he was well aware of it. She’d been upset with him for what felt like a lifetime. After what had happened between them, he could barely look at her, let alone talk to her. He felt like the biggest piece of shit, like he’d betrayed his wife, his wife, and most importantly, God. Mira had been frustrated with him at first, but eventually had retreated into herself when he’d refused to acknowledge her. After that, time began to pass by at a snail’s pace.

But it was even worse than that. Once the snow had let up and sun began to shine, Mira had wanted out.

A few more days, he’d insisted, just to be sure they wouldn’t get caught in more bad weather. He had no way of knowing for sure how far they were from the warehouse, but as it turned out, they hadn’t been far at all. The storm had just been that bad.

And Mira…
she was just that pissed.

Women were complicated creatures. You tried to save them from shame by marrying them, accepting that you’
d be raising a child that wasn’t yours, and still they fought you. They literally hit, kicked, and bit you in an attempt to escape your generosity. Then, when you tried to live honest and true, to stand by your promised obligations and your word, and in return, they hated you. Then, when you tried to save them from death by snow and Skins, they still hated you. He didn’t get it.

“Whatever,” Mira said, walking ahead.

“Wait!” he shouted, rushing forward.

“What is wrong with you?” she demanded, glaring up at him. “Don’t you care about them at all?”

“I just wanted to go first,” he mumbled, grabbing hold of the door handle. “In case…”

He didn’t finish his sentence. There were just too many possibilities of what could have gone wrong in their absence.

Opening the door, Hockey stepped quietly and carefully inside the dimly lit office portion of the warehouse, and took a long, hard look around. When he was confident they were alone, he moved out of the way and beckoned Mira inside. She tried to steel her expression, but Hockey could see the fear in her eyes, the one thing they had in common.

Making sure Mira stayed behind him, Hocke
y ascended the darkened stairwell. They cleared nine flights when a smell so vile nearly knocked him on his ass. Staggering backward, gagging, he covered his mouth with his hand. Hockey knew rotten meat when he smelled it. Foul and putrid didn’t even begin to adequately describe the unholy smell. It was darkness, death in the form of a scent—a smell that should never see the light of day, that belonged only to the earth.

“Oh my God,” Mira choked out.

“We’re leaving,” he said, his voice hoarse and muffled behind his hand.

He grabbed Mira’s arm and was about to drag her down the stairs if he had to, when a large crash startled them both into stillness. Wide-eyed, they glanced at
each other.

“They’re alive!” she cried. “Someone is alive!”

Suddenly Mira moved, pushing past him and darting back up the stairs. Hockey shot out his arm, missing her as she flew by him.

“No!” he shouted and took off after her.

He didn’t give a damn who was alive in there. Whoever they were, whatever condition they were in, Hockey was positive he didn’t want to see it and even more certain that Mira shouldn’t see it.

He raced up the stairs, taking two at a time, ignoring the smell, desperate to reach her before she reached that room.

He had just grabbed a fistful of Mira’s shirt when the door at the end of the hall burst open and David staggered out. The stench that wafted into the hallway was so horrific that despite his refusal to breathe through his nose, Hockey could still smell it, and even worse, he could taste it.

Shirtless and covered in both dried and fresh filth, David was hunched over. His skin, the patches that weren’t covered in bloody pustules, was a greenish-grayish hue. His ribs were showing, and his eyes were sunken in, the whites yellowed. He appeared to be both sweating and shivering, clearly starving and riddled with disease.

Hockey yanked Mira off her feet and hauled her backward, quickly shoving her behind him.

“You,” David said, his voice a garbled rasp
. “You left us here to fucking rot.”

Ignoring that, Hockey asked, “Where are the others?” Cutting his eyes to the doorway beside David, he tried to peer inside.

David began to laugh, an awful garbled sound that quickly turned into coughing. Blood gurgled up from inside his throat and exploded past his lips in a spray of red.

“Dead,” David rasped.

Behind Hockey, Mira trembled.

“Mira,” Hockey said
. “When I release you, you need to leave.”

“Okay,” she whispered and he let go of her arm.

Hockey waited until he heard the front door of the warehouse slam and then he turned his full attention back to David. “What did you do?” he demanded, but he already knew.

Smiling, David swayed drunkenly. “I did what I had to.”

“You know why you’re sick, right?” Hockey asked flatly. “You didn’t preserve the meat. Humans are no different than animals. The flesh starts rotting the minute the heart stops beating.” Disgusted, Hockey shook his head. “You killed them for nothing,” he spat. “You’re half-dead yourself.”

David’s greasy smile fell away. “It doesn’t matter,” he hissed. “We are all half-dead! You can pretend all you want that your self-righteous morals, praying to a god who isn’t listening, living by rules that don’t exist anymore, actually mean something. But the truth is that we were all dead the moment this began!”

Hockey shrugged. “Maybe you’re right,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t live as an honorable man during the remainder of your life.”

“Why?” David demanded. “What’s the point? Because the pearly gates of heaven won’t be opening for me now?” David let out another hoarse laugh that again ended in a bloody spray.

The man truly didn’t care.
Including himself, David had killed four people without remorse. He didn’t even care that because of what he’d done, he too was dead. He was a monster, an abomination, and didn’t deserve to breathe another second of air.

Alongside his steadily rising emotions, Hockey felt his palms grow warm until white
-hot fire encased both his hands. Seeing this, David staggered backward, gaping at him. “I knew it,” the man whispered hoarsely, clinging to the wall beside him. “I knew there was something wrong with you.”

“Wrong,” Hockey said, stepping forward, “on both accounts.” He stopped directly in front of David. “First,” he whispered, “there is nothing wrong with me. I’m a carrier of the light and, unlike you, a man deemed worthy. Second, the only gates you have to worry about are the gates of hell.”

Hockey didn’t wait for David to respond. He slapped his palms directly onto the man’s chest, and David’s body lit up in flames. Taking a step back, Hockey watched with disaffected apathy while David crumpled to the floor.

Wiping his hands off on his pants, Hockey turned away from him and entered the room. In the center, beside the garbage cans that had once housed their only heat source, was what remained of Tyler and Chris. It appeared that when Tyler had begun to rot, David had
eaten Chris.

David’s first mistake had been thinking he could ingest raw flesh without cleaning it first. The human body was a mishmash of disease just waiting to happen. Once exposed to the elements…
well, David had found out firsthand what could happen.

There were no shortcuts in life. You had to work for everything afforded to you, even when it came to selfishly taking another person’s life to continue your own.

Pulling the collar of his jacket up over his face, Hockey continued his walk-through, searching out Rachael’s body. He passed by the scattered belongings of the dead, now interspersed with blood, feces, and vomit, looking for her body.

Then he found her.

Lying in a fetal position on top of a dirty blanket, naked and shivering, was Rachael. Her blonde hair was matted, caked in blood and dirt. Her big blue eyes were wide and unblinking as she continuously rocked herself back and forth, murmuring and whimpering fear-filled nonsense. She, too, was sick. Not as physically ill as David had been, but death was all around her, shrouding what remained of her once colorful aura.

He bent down beside her and tentatively laid his hand on her cheek—expecting her to flinch, to scream in fear, to lash out and try to fight him—but she did nothing. She wasn’t even aware of his presence.

What had David done to her?

Bile rose in Hockey’s throat.

He could heal her. It would take all his energy, days of using his fire on her, using the element combined with his own antibodies to heal her physically.

What he couldn’t heal was her mind.

The human mind was a sturdy piece of equipment. It could handle a lot, take quite a few beatings, and survive what even the body that housed it could not.

But even the mind had its limits, and Rachael’s had far surpassed hers. Nothing remained of the woman she had been. She was a disease-ridden shell
and her mind was an open wound, a blood-filled gash, unable to heal, allowing inside of it more emotionally disturbed pathogens that were doing nothing but further infecting her.

Already cupping her left cheek, Hockey slid his hand beneath the other and held her face tightly between his hands.

“Rachael,” he whispered, turning her head, forcing her to look at him.

No response. Her dead eyes looked right through him as her insane ramblings continued.

Lowering his head, he kissed her on her forehead. “May God bless you,” he whispered.

Carefully he maneuvered Rachael into a sitting position, and after wrapping the filthy blanket around her emaciated body, he pulled her into his arms and held her tightly.

“May God’s face shine upon you,” he continued. “May God be good to you. May God bless you, Rachael. May God look upon you with love and bring you happiness forever and ever.”

Readying himself, his muscles bunched and his grip on her tightened. “And may nature keep you forever pressed against her bosom.”

Her neck broke easily.

“Amen,” he whispered hoarsely.

Holding her close to him, Hockey said the prayer again before laying her back down. Running his hand over her wide eyes, he closed them for the last time.

“Oh my
God.”

Turning around, he found Mira standing mere feet from him, her eyes wide, full of horror and shock and…disgust.

“Mira,” he said, quickly getting to his feet. He held his hand out in offering as he took a step forward.

She scrambled backward. “Don’t touch me!” she screamed.

His mouth fell open.

“You killed her! I saw you! You snapped her neck!”

“I had to!” he yelled. “You didn’t see her! She was—”

“What?” Mira yelled. “She was what? Alive? And you killed her!”

“David was alive, too! Should I have let him live?”

“It’s different!”

Hockey took another step forward and watched in dismay as Mira moved even farther away from him.

“How is it different?” he asked, growing angry. He was suddenly sick of the naive Gajes. He was sick of their world, of this world. He was sick of being away from his family and his clan. All he wanted was to go home to a life that made sense,
to be surrounded by people who understood him.

“She was dying!” he yelled.

“You told me you could heal people! You could have healed her!”

“Not her mind!” he roared. “I’m not God! I can’t heal the insane!”

“That’s just it!” Mira screamed. “You’re not God, but you just killed her! You took her life!”

“
To save her!”

“You could have helped her!” she cried. “We could have helped her! You didn’t even give her a chance!”

“You’re forgetting,” he yelled, storming past her. “I have abilities you do not! She wouldn’t come back from this, from what she went through! And I didn’t have a choice!”

“You did! There is always a choice!
You’ve been making them ever since we found you dying in that van!” he heard her scream. “We chose to save you! Tyler and Rachael chose to save you! We should have left you on the side of the road where we found you. We should have shown you the same kindness you showed us!”

Hockey
stopped walking.

A
ll of it—the end of the world; losing his friends and family; losing his way; dealing with his own fears, silently and privately; struggling with his loneliness; and then Mira, struggling with the temptation she’d provided him; dealing with his guilt and his lust—everything just imploded within him and exploded out of him because he couldn’t take it anymore. Turning around, he found Mira standing at the top of stairs, glaring down at him.