The World Without a Future (The World Without End) (8 page)

That we will stop is beyond dispute. I can see exhaustion pulling at Finn like an anxious lover and feel the shadows shifting with bodies ripe with death and disease.

"Where are we going?" I ask, more to ease the boredom than from any real desire to know.

Finn glances at me briefly. "Somewhere safe."

I want to pry, to ask for more than that, but I’m too tired, and I ache. It’s a deep, uneasy feeling in my shoulder and in my arm, and I want to scratch at them.

I wonder if Finn would notice, if I did. His eyes are firmly on the road, but that means very little when we’re talking about Finn.

He drives through the windmill fields, past the great turbines that power the western Havens, and turns into a forest.

It makes my breath catch, and it hits me suddenly that we aren’t in the desert anymore. The trees press up against the car doors, making me anxious for my gun.

“It’s safe,” Finn says, and I look at him. He shrugs. “At least, as safe as anything can be.”

The lake startles me. It gleams in the moonlight—night is settling on the forest, the last light slipping from the sky and giving way to darkness. I stare at the water and wonder what the hell he plans to do. We skirt the lake for a mile or more, and I laugh when I see the houseboat. It's small, but it'll take us into the water, and that's really all we need.

Infects avoid water.

Finn eases the car up to the dock and reaches behind us, pulling our bags from the depths of the car and into our laps. I peer into the darkness, but aside from the trees and tall grass, its quiet, an eerie peacefulness that makes my stomach churn. What's out there, in the darkness?

"You ready?" he asks, and I shift, adjusting my bag and reaching for my gun. He stops me, handing me a long machete instead. "Keep it quiet."

I nod, and we slip out of the car and into the surprisingly cool night. Faster than I could believe possible, Finn is at my side, herding me toward the boat. The dock is short—a dozen yards—but leaves me feeling itchy and exposed. I breathe a sigh of relief when I step onto the houseboat, feeling its slight shift under me. Finn tosses me his bag, and I swallow down a scream of pain as it yanks at my torn arm.

The boat is quiet—it barely makes a noise as we pull away from the dock and idle out to the exposed open water of the lake. I feel the shore receding—and some of my worries with it. Here, at least, we're safe for a few hours. Here we can both sleep and not set a watch. Here, there are no threats.

Finn is finally satisfied with our location in the lake and kills the motor. We bob slightly as he throws an anchor out, and then silence settles over the lake and forest again.

Finn stares out over the water for a long moment. I wonder what he is thinking, but when I shift, he looks up.

"Let's get below and get your wounds stitched up.”

I freeze, staring at him. “You aren’t stitching me.”

Finn gives me a dark smile, and I shiver from the menace in it. I clutch my bag tighter and head for the stairs. Six short steps down empties me into a small room—small enough that there is little room to move around the bed that dominates the space.

“Sit down,” he says, and without thinking, I obey, dropping onto the bed in exhaustion. He rifles around the miniscule bathroom and brings out a first aid kit.

The sting of antiseptic on my shoulder makes me hiss in a breath and tense under Finn’s fingers. He pauses, and a small flask appears in front of me. “Drink this,” he murmurs. I take it from him and try to ignore the sound of him opening and prepping a suture kit while I hastily swallow some of the brandy. It’s hot and smooth as it slides down my throat, leaving a flare of fire behind it before it fades into a pleasant numbed warmth.

The first stab of the needle whips through me, and I scream involuntarily. Finn fists a hand in my hair, pulling me back against him, a hand clamped over my mouth, and I bite it off, swallowing down the agony, the scream. The pain recedes under the feeling of his arms around me, until that is all I can feel—that and the warmth of the brandy, sitting like a lit coal in my belly.

“
Be quiet,”
Fin hisses in my ear, and my panic fades in the face of fury. I elbow him in the gut, even angrier when he releases me without comment.

“I told you, keep your hands off me, O’Malley,” I say, but my voice is shaky and weak, and he laughs.

“Do I need to gag you?” he asks, his question sliding across my skin. I shiver.

I shake my head, and he smiles—I feel it where his lips are almost pressed against my skin. Fury floods me, hot and choking, and my cheeks flame. “You can curse me after, Nurrin. For now, hold still.”

It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I manage it. He watches me for a few seconds when he comes around from behind my shoulder, his eyes slipping down to the lip I’ve bitten raw and the sweat that has beaded above it. Something shifts in his gaze, and he nods at the flask. “Take a little more, Nurrin.”

I swallow two large gulps, clench my fist, and nod. He gives me a faint smile, ducks his head, and begins. Twice, I whimper, and he pauses, letting me gather myself, drink some more of the brandy. Once, he stops and wipes away the blood trailing down my chin. His gentleness is unnerving. I shift, moving slightly away from him.

He doesn’t stop again, and stabbing burn, followed by a sharp tug, repeated over and over, makes me want to gag as he closes the wound.

When he’s finally done, Finn lets out a deep breath. He stands, washing his hands quickly in the bathroom then coming back and throwing a bottle of pills onto the bed next to me. “Antibiotics,” he says. “Neural inhibitors.”

“What the hell are you doing with these?” I demand. “The CDC controls them.”

He gives me a cold look, and I roll my eyes. “That’s right. Finn O’Malley, man of mystery and endless questions. Why would I think you’d answer a simple question?”

“Answering questions wasn’t part of this,” he says, stripping off his shirt. My mouth goes dry. “You wanted to come, you’ll do it blind—I don’t believe in answering questions.”

I stand. “What
do
you believe in, O’Malley? From what I see, the only thing you believe in is yourself and my brother.”

And that bothers me. It always will.

Finn pauses, hands on his belt, and cocks an eyebrow at me. “Does it matter? I’ll keep you alive. I’ll keep Collin safe. And I’ll get Dustin’s meds. Beyond that, does it matter?”

He hesitates, watching me, and I finally shake my head, because he’s right. It doesn’t. Something flickers in his gaze, before it’s gone and he nods. Then he slips into the bathroom, and I curl on my side, trying to sleep despite my racing thoughts.

When he comes out of the bathroom, Finn is wearing a pair of low-slung pajama bottoms and nothing else. He throws his clothes into the corner of the room and wordlessly crawls into the bed.

I almost land on my ass in my haste to scramble out of the bed.

Finn doesn’t even turn on, but his voice floats out of the darkness. “Get a shower and get some sleep, Nurrin.”

“I’m not sleeping with you,” I say, my voice shrill.

That does make him move, and his lips twist into a sinful smile as he peers at me over his shoulder. “Are you sure?”

My mouth goes dry, and I breathe a curse on a shaky voice. He laughs and settles back on his side of the bed. “Sleep in the bed or the on the ground—I don’t care.”

His laughter follows me, faintly amusing, into the shower.

I end up sleeping in the bed. The floor is too hard, and the lure of a good night of sleep outweighs the distaste of sleeping next to Finn.

I can feel the steady pressure of his gaze in the morning. It’s what wakes me—the warmth of the sunshine on my hair and his gaze on my face. I lie still, pretending to sleep, and for some reason, he lets me.

Finn O’Malley, who tolerates no dissembling or lies.

I relax a little when he slips from the bed, and I listen to him move around the small room then the sound of his feet on the stairs. The fresh scent of clean air hits me, and I groan, stretching. My stitches tug a little, in time with my throbbing head.

There's a hitch in his steps, and I listen, trying to figure out what he's doing. A sharp, antiseptic smell stings my nose, and I sit up abruptly, my feet swinging to the ground.

Bleach and antibacterial disinfectant—industrial grade. The smell is familiar; it's sprayed on the walls of the Haven every morning and mid-afternoon. It's a scent as familiar as my own, as familiar as home.

It's a zombie repellent.

He creeps back down the stairs, pulling the door shut with a soft snick, and wets the towel from last night’s shower with the solution before shoving it under the door.

I'm trying not to shake when he finally stops, his eyes meeting mine. I see what he'll say.

We're trapped.

I sit on the bed while he dresses in the bathroom. My arm is throbbing and I wish I hadn’t turned down the pain pills Finn offered. Nerves flutter in my belly as the door to the bathroom opens and he steps out. He drops onto the bed. It squeaks, alarmingly loud in the silence. I wonder if we can be heard, or if the zombies have lost interest by now.

“How long will they stay?”

Finn glances at me, gray eyes piercing. I shiver. He shrugs and tugs on his second boot. “Could be gone already, or they could stay out there for another four hours. They could keep us here all day.”

I cross my arms and glare at him. “We have to get to 18.”

“Yes, Nurrin, I am aware of your thoughts on the matter. Give me your arm.”

Because it’s killing me—certainly not because he told me to—I do. He unwraps the bandage quickly, and we both can see the angry line of infection spreading from the wound. It looks like hell, and I can almost feel the disease infecting me. I yank my arm away. He lets me, tension filling him.

“Did you take the neural inhibitors?” Finn asks, his voice dangerous, and I bite my lip. “Mother
fuck,
Ren!” he snarls, and I flinch away as he jerks to his feet. He digs in his pack, pulling out another dose and thrusting them at me.

“Take them.”

I bat his hand away. Neural inhibitors are a last resort, and they don’t work as often as they do. “No way in hell.”

The words have barely left my lips when he has me on my back, my hands caught in his. I gasp at the pressure of his body on mine, and something flares in his eyes. He makes a noise in the back of his throat.

I bring my knee up sharply and he laughs as he rolls away then pins my legs with one of his. I’m caught, neatly splayed beneath him, and I hate it.

“Take them.”

“Screw you,” I spit.

He shifts a little, and my eyes widen. A grim smile twists his lip. “It’s one way to spend the day, Nurrin.”

I don’t respond. Something—a tiny voice of practicality—tells me pushing him right now could land me in a place I don’t want to be.

His eyes are mocking. “Take your medicine like a good girl, and I might let you go.”

“They don’t work. And I don’t want to be a veg.”

“These work. No side effects.”

I shake my head, stubbornly, my fear of the pills more than my fear of Finn. I’ve heard too many tales of neural inhibitors attacking the brain instead of the infection. I’d rather he shoot me than turn into one of those mindless souls.

Sure they were harmless—they didn’t want to eat everyone they met—but there was nothing there. The year I graduated from high school, I spent a summer working in Hellspawn’s hospital. Caring for them was the worst part of the assignment, even worse than putting down an infect.

“Ren.” His voice snaps me out of my mounting panic and back to him. “I promise. I’ve taken them. You won’t become a veg.”

Something in his voice—and because he has never lied to me before—makes me nod. He eases up a little, shifting to grab the bag without actually letting me up.

I gag when he drops them on my tongue, and Finn leans down, kissing me.

I swallow in surprise.

His lips don’t leave mine, and he drops down on me completely as he takes my head in his large hands, nibbling at my lips. And despite the fact that it’s Finn, it’s a helluva kiss. Without conscious thought, I kiss him back. His tongue licks at my lips, and I open for him, whimpering a little as his tongue sweeps inside, twisting with mine and—

He rolls off me abruptly, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Good.”

“Wha?”

Finn glances at me, cool and disinterested, and my face flames. “That was to get me to take the damn pills?”

“What did you think it was?” he answers, dripping disdain.

I don’t answer. Instead, I kick him off the bed, jerk the blankets up around me, and ignore his laughter as my face burns.