Chapter 4

"They're getting more organized every time we see them."

I don't look at Deacon when he speaks to me, my eyes continuing to rove over the tree line searching for movement. He's right. The Primitives have been exhibiting growth. Now that there's a vaccine, it seems as though their brain functions are increasing and adapting at a much faster rate. I don't know if the two concepts are related or if it's purely coincidental.

"Well then," I look over, my expression cold, "it's that much more important that we get the vaccine distributed."

I glance around the space outside the airplane. It's now littered with Primitive bodies. I feel no sadness for them, nor any shame at having killed them. Maybe my heart is dead. Maybe I can no longer feel. I don't know and I don't care. I have a job to do and I'm going to do it.

There's no sign of our two lookouts. They were either turned or killed. A depressing reality that has hammered away at our collective morale. We've grown close as a group, watching each other's backs, learning about each other. Almost as if we each want our legacy known before we become the next victim. It breaks my heart to see my team behaving this way: weary, sad, resigned, scared. Especially because I'm both their leader and the one who must be protected above all else, since my blood is needed for the vaccine.

"Do we continue in the same direction, into New Mexico?" Deacon questions.

I want to snap at him that of course we will continue on. One brief Primitive attack won't set us back. We've gone through dozens of similar attacks over the months, pushing through each one and moving on to our next destination, distributing the vaccine as we go.

That's not why Deacon's asking the question though. It's because the next Sanctuary on our list is Santa Fe. The place where I loved and lost my husband. Rumor has reached us that there are survivors and that they're rebuilding with a new Warlord at the helm. I've been hesitant to go back, to show my face. I feel guilty at having left survivors behind when we fled the massacre a year ago. Yet, I'm also eager to go back to the place I called home. To see if there's anything left.

I stifle my annoyance at Deacon. It's not his fault the apocalypse has put me in a permanently bitchy mood. "Of course. We continue until we've reached every Sanctuary. No matter what happens, no matter who dies, our mission remains the same. Spread the vaccine."

I stride away from him, my mood dark. Not that my mood could ever be described as pleasant. But this trip, being the leader of this small group of warriors, is beginning to try my patience.

Wolfe had been my only real companion. The only man I was able to stand for longer than a few minutes. Maybe because he was silent most of the time. Or maybe because he's just as bad tempered as me.

My anger begins to rise again as I think of him. He abandoned me to this. He abandoned me after I lost my husband, my friends and my Sanctuary. I want to hate him for it, call him selfish, but I can't. I was the one who drove him away. I was the selfish one. And this... maybe this is my punishment.

I walk through the tree line and into the scrub brush, searching for more Primitive victims to take out my mood on. Killing them is both my reward and my penance. It gives me purpose. As I wander it becomes clear that the only Primitives in the area were the ones to attack my crew at the airplane.

As Deacon pointed out, they're becoming more and more organized. They're not just blindly attacking anymore but using some kind of strategy. Their strategies are still juvenile and ineffective, but if they continue on their current path, they might soon become a real threat to skilled warriors like us.

It's become my purpose in life to not just distribute the vaccine but to kill as many Primitives as I can get my knives and guns on. Once the vaccine has spread across the world and the last of the Primitives are killed, civilization can rise up again.

When I return to the crash site, I tell my men to pack up. We'll continue on, away from the airplane. Primitives are drawn to any signs of civilization, even dead civilization.

I ride in the lead vehicle with Deacon at my side and Hugo, our map reader, in the back with Scarlett. Behind us is another car filled with five more team members. In total there are nine of us left. Yesterday we were eleven.

As if sensing my mood, my companions fall silent, not speaking as we drive through what remains of the night.

"How long until Santa Fe?" I twist in my seat to look at Hugo.

He unfolds a map and looks at it, tracing his finger from our approximate position toward the Santa Fe Sanctuary.

"Two days," he tells me.

I don't respond. Two days. Two days until we find ourselves in the one Sanctuary city I've been dreading. The one I've been avoiding for a year.

***

1 year earlier...

Wolfe speaks, his voice calm and level despite the swirling emotion sizzling all around us. "You're lying to yourself, woman. And as long as you lie to yourself, you lie to me, which I am now done with. I will leave here and you will come to find me when you are ready for the truth between us." He walks away from the tent, letting the flap fall into place behind him.

"I don't understand," I whisper to myself.

But I'm lying.

***

Wolfe

"She's coming, Warlord."

Without turning, I continue to look out the window across the landscape. I'm standing on top of one of the only tall buildings left intact after the Primitives razed the city one year ago, surveying my domain. The rebuild is coming along frustratingly slow.

I told my people to watch for Skye, to tell me when she's headed our way. I've been tracking her progress across the western part of the continent for the past several months as she distributes her vaccine. I knew eventually she would come here. So, I've waited.

My hackles rise as the man behind me waits for an answer. I'm not sure what he's waiting for as he's already imparted the necessary information.

I don't like people. I don't have the patience for small talk. I'm no diplomat, which is why I've avoided any kind of position that might put me in a Warlord's shoes. There had been plenty of opportunity in Santa Fe for me to depose warlord Silas and take his place. I hadn't. I preferred to be the muscle behind the throne.

Until Skye.

She'd arrived in Santa Fe as a young wide-eyed slave. At that point I finally questioned my position in life. As I was forced to watch Warlord Silas take the woman and add her to his harem, I had stood angrily by, questioning every decision that led up to that point. Had I been Warlord, the stunning brunette with the piercing grey eyes and the bad attitude would have belonged to me.

But I'm not one to linger over lost opportunities. I play the long game. I'm an ugly motherfucker with an air of deadly violence that tends to put women off. So, I watched from a distance, protecting her back and allowing her to get to know me better as the Warlord's second. At least if she didn't like me, she'd know who I was. She'd be ready when I finally stepped up to stake my claim, stealing her from beneath the nose of her degenerate husband.

But instead of taking over as I'd planned, I'd watched as Warlord Silas had become ill and it had seemed unsporting to contemplate deposing him when he only had a few short months left. At that point I'd decided to wait the other man out, allow him a dignified death that could only make me look better in the eyes of his prized wife. When the throne was finally free, I would step into it and made Skye my queen.

That hadn't happened. Instead, Primitives had figured out how to cause nuclear power plants to meltdown across the continent. The Primitives had caused mass confusion among the humans, killing them and chasing them across the country. Santa Fe had suffered the same fate as every other Sanctuary east of us. I'd been forced to take Skye and as many citizens as we could and run, begging for Sanctuary in New Tucson.

Now, I wait.

She's coming to me. She'll find her way back home.

Without turning, I say to my man, "Leave."