In The End Box Set | Books 1-3 Stevens, GJ (story books to read TXT) 📖

explained that she admired the organism. Only now did I realise how much. She knew we had drifted apart and what better way to keep us together? What better way to keep me at her side? Had Toni thought she’d given me a gift that she couldn’t tell me about?

Perhaps there was a way to get through this. Perhaps there was a way I could live with this thing inside. Perhaps there was a way I could do this whilst never having to kill again. I was sure Toni would have the answers.

I was sure she would be in that helicopter and this didn’t change anything. I still had a job to do. I still had people to tell so they could be saved, but first I had to do something else. I had to see if there truly was any part of me still human.

Guilt welled again at the sight of the pile of bones. Although it had not been my choice, I should have seen this coming. I did see this coming, but they should be the ones to bear the pain. The regret had to be theirs, not mine.

I turned from the partial skeleton with my head flitting to the sound of the helicopter moving across the sky, but instead my gaze fixed on the long, thin shard stuck out from below the engine.

Crawling along the road on my elbows to the rhythm of the battered air, soon my concentration caught the white bone stripped of flesh, only sinew remaining to hang like thick white hair.

I took hold with my right hand, feeling a wave of repulsion as I noticed the dried blood streaked across my fingers and the jagged nails at the end. It was only then I realised I felt no pain in my hand. My finger and hand had returned to its normal definition. I could grip without being contorted with feeling.

With my smile came the pull of skin across my face, but I didn’t need a mirror to know what had dried and soaked into my pores.

With the bone rattling to the road as it dropped, I rolled from under the van, brimming with energy as I stood.

I felt no pain, no aches from last night’s effort, the cold air so refreshing, so invigorating as I pulled it deep into my lungs.

My gaze caught on the helicopter, now a dot in the distance as it lowered, the sound shrinking as it fell behind the far away buildings. I smiled. Dried flakes fell as blood cracked on my skin. Pleasure rose from my chest as I knew I hadn’t lost my cause.

They were still mine for the taking. They still had to pay, Jordain just another victim of the crime I would make them account for.

Pulling my t-shirt over my head, the cold air sent shivers of sensation across my bare chest. I did my best to wipe my face, but I wasn’t hopeful, the t-shirt already too far from its original colour.

The dead still paid no attention as I walked to the back of the van and I stared, taking a moment to linger on the bare bones at my feet so I could let the guilt rise and remind me why I was still here.

Retching at the detail, the body stripped clean, fatigues shredded, the laden holster at his side, I dragged the mass away from the door and bent double.

Tears welling in my eyes, I pulled the gun from the holster still in the pile. With the muzzle facing my way, I laid it in my open palm and I pulled up the handle, the ambling creatures only taking notice as I tapped a light request on the metal.

Alex’s bleary-eyed reaction paused much less than I’d expected.

“Oh my god, you’re alive.”

Her look went from my face to my bloodied chest and to beyond my shoulders, then settled back on the gun resting on my palm. Her hand went to her mouth as I spoke.

“Take the gun.”

105

“Where’s Jordain?” she said, keeping her hand in place, her eyes locked to mine when I didn’t reply and held my open palm out with the weight of the pistol.

“Take the gun.”

Lowering her brow, she reached out and gripped the pistol with confusion bunching on her face, not able to think of any other words and I reached out, lifting the muzzle of the gun in her hand so it pointed level with my chest. “I’m so sorry.”

I didn’t feel the hunger and didn’t see her as a meal, but I needed to make sure she was safe if that changed in an instant.

Her gaze flicked to behind me and she stumbled back, keeping the gun level where I’d put it. Pushing the door wide, I stepped up and closed the door so whatever she’d seen wouldn’t get near.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” she said, her voice muffled with her hand.

I nodded.

“Are you going to kill me?” Alex said, and I could see the gun trembling in her right hand as she spoke.

I shook my head.

“I couldn’t control it. I’m so sorry for what I did, but I’ve figured it out,” I said, pushing my palms together and bringing them to my mouth. “Toni made it so I can exist with this thing. It all makes sense now. She wanted me by her side and this was the only way. I couldn’t control it back then but she must have made it so I don’t have to kill.”

“How do you know all this? How do I know you’re not going to feel like that again?”

“I get it now, but just in case that’s why I’ve given you the gun.”

I watched as her hand dropped from her face and the uncertainty in the squint of her eyes. She looked to the door at my back.