Strain Read online

  A sudden chill went through him, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling, and Rhys’s eyes tracked toward Jacob, who crouched to his left.

  While Rhys held his rifle aimed forward, Jacob’s was across his body.

  Aimed at Rhys.

  Jacob’s eyes gleamed with malice, and his finger stroked the trigger. After a moment, he pulled it away so that it wasn’t trained on Rhys but not before he’d made his message clear.

  They didn’t have to be alone for Jacob to arrange an “accident.” He could have shot Rhys at any time during the engagement, and no one would have known until the gunfire had died down. And he could have claimed it was just a mishap.

  “You look like you’re gonna puke, dude.” Kaleo clapped Rhys on the shoulder as Darius gave them permission to get up. “Surprised you haven’t in all this time. Yo, Toby! He’s made it over two weeks. You owe me ten, man.”

  Toby jogged back to them from helping to deliver the coups de grâce and drew a tattered bill out of his pocket, snorting. “Enjoy your toilet paper, dude.”

  “Enough chatter.” Darius’s eyes scanned Rhys intently. He said nothing, but Rhys felt the concern in that perusal. “Keep searching for heat sources, and hope the gunfire and smoke doesn’t draw more. Gather wood to burn the bodies. It’ll be approaching dusk by the time we’re done, so we’ll start looking for somewhere to camp.”

  Nodding, Rhys shouldered his rifle and began gathering scraps of wood from all the rotting fences lining the properties along the road. No other revenants appeared as they set fire to the bodies, and they left the blaze behind once they were certain it was contained.

  The danger from the revs was gone for the moment, but every time he sneaked a look at Jacob, Jacob smirked and began whistling a tuneless ditty.

  Willamette University had a haunted feel about it, and after the squad’s last experience on a college campus, everyone was understandably tense. What had likely once been a broad lawn overlooked the capitol. Rhys could imagine it once upon a time as a picturesque place to study, as he’d seen characters do in videos before the plague. Now, it was a nearly impassable tangle of weeds, brambles, and saplings. A stone sculpture that had formed the centerpiece of a fountain had toppled, probably during an earthquake, and the fountain itself was nothing more than a dry pit filled with dirt and matted, half-rotten leaves. A quintet of massive sequoias towered on one of the lawns defiantly, as though they alone were untouched by all that had befallen the world and its population since their planting.

  “We’ve got survivors here,” Rhys heard Toby murmur as they approached the first building. “Or there were not long ago. Look.”

  He pointed to the basement windows nearly buried in the tall grasses. One of them had been wiped free of grime in a hasty circle.

  Darius gave a tight nod. “If we find anything human, Joe and Xolani, you get Rhys and Houtman out. Until they’re confirmed positive for Alpha, we have to assume whatever they do have is airborne.” He turned his grim gaze to Rhys and offered the slightest hint of an encouraging smile. “Remember that: Beta’s airborne. Just to be safe, you keep a distance of at least twenty yards until we get the survivors on the boats and headed back to base.”

  “Okay.” Rhys nodded with a tense, jerky motion.

  The basement with the peephole was empty, and the disappointment settled like a weight on the company. The murmured chatter dropped away to grim silence as they braced themselves to leave empty-handed.

  “Dining hall next.” Darius looked up and down the empty passages. “If they’re not here, that’s where they’ll be.”

  A discovery on the quad made Kaleo break into a wide grin. “Whoever it is, they’ve left us a bread-crumb trail.”

  Scraps of industrial-grade terry cloth too pristine to have been in the open for long formed a path across the weed-eaten field.

  “They’ve been holing up in the laundry.” Toby began smiling.

  Darius nodded, studying the scraps. “Probably nesting there to keep warm in winter.”

  Rhys frowned. “Why leave a trail?”

  “He probably heard the gunfire.” Darius pushed himself up and continued leading the way, wading into the tall grasses. “Like we saw last time, survivors can be skittish. If they’re alone they might be suffering isolation psychosis. They’ve been holed up so long, they don’t like being in exposed positions. So most likely, he came to see what was going on, but he didn’t feel safe out in the open, close to the action, and went back to his hidey-hole. He really didn’t want to be missed, though, and he doesn’t know we have the infrared scanners, so he left a trail, hoping it would be us who found it, not the revs.” He looked around, as if hoping to see the survivor emerge from somewhere. “Go slowly, people. We don’t want to panic him or miss a pack of revs because we got too excited.”

  They slowed their pace across the quad, Bailey and Kaleo paying even closer attention to their scanners.

  Rhys sidled up to Xolani, pitching his voice low. “Why do they think it’s only one person?”

  “If it were a group—assuming they weren’t intent on remaining isolated like the last colony we found—someone would probably be brave enough to break cover and approach us.”

  “So, Darius thinks Jacob and I need two people watching to keep us away from one survivor? We know not to go near anyone by now.”

  She smirked. “No. I’m just beached for the next few days where contact with civvies is concerned.”

  “You’re wound— Oh.” Rhys’s face began to burn. “Oh.”

  Xolani chuckled and took the lead, which thankfully meant he wouldn’t have to see the wicked amusement in her eyes.

  “Definitely only one heat source.” Kaleo nodded toward the building they were approaching. “Dining hall. Right on the money.”

  They shuffled Rhys and Jacob toward the back of the formation as they filed into the derelict building. Darius began calling out warnings long before they found anywhere that a survivor might be hiding.

  They found the survivor in the industrial laundry room in the basement beneath the kitchen.

  “I’m not armed!” a male voice called, his voice rough from disuse, from behind a barricade of laundry machines as Darius barked another warning.

  “Out.” Darius jerked his head toward the door, looking at Rhys and Jacob. “Wait at the end of the hall.”

  Rhys didn’t need the pressure of Joe’s hand nudging at his shoulder. He turned and walked out the door with Joe and Jacob, Xolani bringing up the rear, as he tried to contain his curiosity about the first other civilian he’d met since he and Jacob had been rescued.

  After a few minutes, the rest of the Jugs emerged from the laundry room with the survivor in their midst. Rhys wasn’t able to garner much of an impression of him in the dark corridor, save that he was painfully thin and his face was nearly swallowed by a wild mane of dark hair and beard. Rhys couldn’t get close enough to smell the stranger, but he suspected the guy hadn’t bathed in a while. Kaleo took position with them, and they waited until the rest of the Jugs and the survivor had turned toward the exit at the opposite end of the corridor before following twenty yards behind.

  The daylight didn’t offer any more clues about the sort of person they’d found. His thin back was to Rhys, and all Rhys could see was that his clothes were in fairly decent condition. He must have been scavenging in the dormitories for things to wear.

  Rhys listened as the breeze carried wisps of conversation back to him. In spite of understanding the reasons he had to keep his distance, he felt exiled.

  Infected.

  “Too much rev activity . . . any length of time.” Fragments of Toby’s words were lost when the wind gusted. “Especially with Cooper . . . We gotta . . . back to the boats . . . quarantine.”

  “Agreed.” Darius raised his voice over the wind. “Okay, people. We’re on recovery protocol now. We’re heading back to Portland to get the boats. Xolani, Joe, stick with Rhys and Houtman, make sure they stay out of contag
ion range. We’ll take the most direct route, no detours for patrolling. Move out.”

  Rhys had mostly been watching Darius, but he couldn’t miss the sudden, rigid tension that straightened the survivor’s spine when Darius had said “Rhys and Houtman.” He had only a split second to pray that God wouldn’t be that cruel when the black-haired man turned. His indigo eyes widened beneath strong, unmistakable brows.

  Rhys took a step forward without even intending to, stopped only by Joe’s huge hand.

  Suddenly, everything hurt.

  “Gabe?”

  “Please!” Darius scowled as he watched Rhys try to shove past Xolani and Joe, each gently holding him back.

  “Sorry, Cooper,” he heard Joe murmur, his voice carrying downwind. “Can’t let you do it.”

  From the corner of his eye, Darius saw the civvie they’d rescued looking back and forth at them in confusion. “That’s Rhys! Why won’t you let him go?”

  “We’re waiting to make sure he’s not infected with the plague, son.” Darius never took his gaze off Rhys.

  Rhys gave Darius a pleading look across the yards separating them. “Please! I just want to talk to him. Can’t I talk to him?”

  Xolani gave him a sympathetic look. “You might infect him. You can’t go near him until we know you’re safe. Stand down.”

  “But—”

  Joe’s jaw flexed, and the hand he’d held up as a barricade dropped. He reached down and jerked Rhys’s sidearm from its holster, thrusting it butt-first at Rhys.

  “You want us to let you go, Cooper? Fine. But only if you tell me you’re ready to put this to his head if you have to. Because if he gets infected, someone’s gotta do it. You gonna be the one?”

  Rhys’s struggles stopped abruptly, and he gave Joe a horrified stare. “What?”

  “Well? Don’t you want to go?” Joe thrust the gun toward Rhys again. Darius and the rest of his people stirred uncomfortably, because they knew—even if Rhys didn’t—where gentle Joe’s sudden anger had come from.

  Rhys looked pale and ill as he shook his head quickly, the tension leaving his body. “No.”

  After a moment, Joe backed down as well, offering Rhys the gun much more gently. “Good.”

  Something in Darius ached at the way Rhys shut down, his usually expressive face growing stiff and blank. Off to the side, Darius saw Houtman’s eyes seeming to gleam with malicious pleasure, and Darius wasn’t at all happy with the way he was looking at their newfound civvie.

  “Sorry.” Rhys put the pistol back in its holster and glanced at them all before dropping his gaze to the ground. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t sweat it.” Xolani ruffled his hair. “There’s not one of us wouldn’t want to do the same.”

  Darius cleared his throat, breaking the tense silence that fell when Rhys didn’t respond. “That’s enough, people. We got a lot of ground to cover. Let’s move out.”

  Rhys followed them, his head still bowed.

  Darius couldn’t blame Rhys for his reaction. Xolani had nailed it. There wasn’t a single person in Delta Company who wouldn’t struggle with the same impulse if they were suddenly confronted with someone they thought they’d lost. But his people had had years to get used to their losses. Rhys didn’t understand yet that he could never go back to who and what he’d been before.

  Would he choose to go back, if he could?

  It shouldn’t matter what Rhys would do in a perfect world. None of Darius’s people were particularly happy with what life had dealt them. They’d just learned to live with it. Rhys seemed to have been doing the same this last week.

  That was what Darius had been trying to get him to do all along, wasn’t it? Make the best of a bad situation? This had never been about what they would choose. Rhys would never be with him out of choice, except as an alternative to death.

  All that mattered was what they had to do to survive.

  The squad was quiet as they made their way through the silent city toward the interstate heading north. They gave Rhys his space, not attempting to draw him into conversation as they usually did, letting him hold his sullen silence. Every single one of them had confronted their own moments of futile yearning for the past.

  Darius saw Toby’s concerned eyes slide toward Joe, but Toby shook it off when he caught Darius looking. “Don’t worry about it,” he said with a shrug. “Joe’s okay. You better handle your boy, though. Joe says he holds on to things too tight.”

  Darius flicked Toby a look, thinking about those nights of furtive tears. Rhys never cried when he thought anyone might see or hear, even when the last of his family had died. Darius recalled the detached dignity with which Rhys had walked away after the first time Darius had fucked him, and about the days of dutiful apathy that had followed. He’d been doing so much better that Darius had almost forgotten how miserable Rhys had been before.

  He could almost hate this new civvie for putting that look back on Rhys’s face.

  “I need to find a way for them to talk. Not fair to deny the boy that chance.”

  “We weren’t planning to ship out the next batch of survivors for another month. Our civvie will still be at base by the time we’re sure Cooper’s not infected.”

  “If you were him, would you be willing to wait that long?”

  Toby shrugged again, scuffing a toe on the cracked asphalt of the old interstate. “Can’t be helped. We’ve all made our sacrifices. He’s a good kid, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to have to do it, too. Give him something else to think about in the meantime.” He flashed Darius a grin. “He turned a bit green when he saw Joe’s burns, but I bet a belt or a good willow switch would get him back in line.”

  “You’re assuming way too much, Toby.” Darius forced a chuckle, refusing to let himself dwell on the image of Rhys with angry, red welts covering his back. That wasn’t something he could ever do to someone who didn’t want to be with him in the first place. “He might like being pushed around a bit, but it ain’t like that.”

  “Maybe you’re not assuming enough.” Toby scoffed and shook his head, dropping back into formation. “If I know anything, it’s pain sluts, and our sweet little ingenue back there’s got it written all over him, even if he doesn’t know it. Keep him out of his head until his head gets right again. He’ll be okay.”

  The real trouble began after dinner that night, as they prepared to bed down in two adjoining conference rooms of a waterfront hotel.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Xolani murmured near his shoulder.

  “I know.” Darius gritted his teeth. In the past twenty minutes, he’d watched Rhys flatly refuse Kaleo, Bailey, and now, even Toby. He’d shrugged off their attempts to draw him aside, getting testier and more insulting each time.

  As Darius watched, Rhys gave Toby a baleful look. “Leave me alone. Go play your sick games somewhere else. I’m not doing it.”

  Xolani glanced at the sliding partition separating the conference room, on the other side of which Gina, Jamie, and Titus were bunking with Gabriel. “He doesn’t want to let them screw him where his friend can hear.”

  “Can you blame him?” Darius scowled. “What’s the story there?”

  “I don’t really know. Rhys doesn’t talk much about what happened at the monastery.”

  “Why not?”

  She puffed out her cheeks in a sigh. “Because on day one I told him to keep his head down and not complain. I think he interpreted that to mean no one wanted to hear how bad things were for him in the past. Or maybe he’s just conditioned to think no one will believe him or do anything to help.”

  “Just how bad do you think things were?”

  “Bad.” She cast a stinkeye at Houtman.

  “Well, he talks to you all the time. He has to be saying something.”

  “A bit about his mom and sister. Enough about that guy”—she gestured toward the other room—“to make me suspect a bit of puppy love back in the day. But mostly he just asks questions. Wants to know what we’r
e doing and why we do it. It’s his first time out in the world. He’s trying to get a handle on it.”

  “Does Houtman give him shit?”

  “Not that Rhys will cop to, but yeah.” Xolani pressed her lips together, the corners of her mouth whitening. “I’ve caught Houtman menacing Rhys several times now. And we’ve seen what happens when bullies and megalomaniacs become Jugs.”

  Darius gave her a sharp look. “You think it’s that bad?”

  Xolani rolled her eyes. “For a smart guy, you miss a lot of shit happening right under your nose.”

  “I’m busy running this unit. That’s why you’re my eyes and ears. So, report.”

  “Fine. See how skinny Rhys is? Houtman doesn’t have that problem, now does he? Nor did any of the casualties whose bodies we found that day. At least not to such a severe degree.”

  “Been wondering about that.” Darius laced his fingers behind his head, stretching. “Could he be sick? Have some sort of wasting illness?”

  “He’s been starved. Maybe you missed the padlock on the pantry back at the monastery. Guess who had the key?”

  Darius’s eyebrows lifted. “Houtman?”

  “I heard him bragging to Toby about all the responsibility he had, running the monastery with his dad, making sure no one got more than their due. He was in charge of supervising their food stores.” Xolani’s scar twitched. “How much you want to bet withholding meals was a favored punishment of the late, unlamented Father Maurice? Rhys will be lucky if he doesn’t have organ damage from muscle loss.”

  “Shit.” Darius folded his arms across his chest. “But that’s still just conjecture. We don’t know what happened.”

  “Maybe not. But if I had that night at the monastery to do over again, I wouldn’t offer to infect Houtman with Alpha. I don’t trust him with that sort of power.”