This Is Not The End.

Chapter 10

We decided on having some of the food supplements SWORD had given us as breakfast. No one was brave enough to try the can of wholegrain beef chunks Kai had found while rummaging through the cupboards. He's opened it defensively after I'd said he wouldn't eat it, but once the smell escaped he chucked it straight into the bin under the sink. The supplements might have been gross, but at least they were worth eating.

For a lot longer than needed, we stared at the door, no one wanting to open it and see a horde of Infected waiting to jump at us. The uncertainty of it made me almost miss the routine of having Janet ready and waiting when I opened my eyes in the morning. Almost.

Who was I kidding? No, it wasn't.

A pack of ravenous monsters was preferable to that cow.

"Anyone got a catchy one-liner to say before we head out?" Jack raised his eyebrows. At least he was finally starting to understand how we worked.

Kai thought about it, "I've got nothing,"

"Works for me," he said, sparking a ball of flame which engulfed of his hands. I slid closer to Kai to avoid getting burnt. As much as their powers had been normalised to me, I still didn't like them.

With his other hand, he pulled open the door, and I clenched my eyes shut instinctively.

"We're clear," Jack said, extinguishing the fire and stepping out onto the road. It was far earlier than yesterday. The sun barely peeked out from the mountainous horizon and streaks of vibrant orange still decorated the sky. The air felt different, too: safer. I wanted to believe that today was a fresh start. We'd be smart today, stick to the shadows and try not to draw any attention to ourselves. It was all we could do, and it meant a hell of a lot more after coming across that woman yesterday.

I needed to stop calling her a woman. She wasn't a woman. She was a monster.

Somehow, that didn't make it any easier.

Jack and Kai bickered over which way we were going, and I thought about The Push. Technically, it was called Progressive Cerebral Decline, but that was too much for us – we'd shortened the names of our colours, it was natural for us to change it. Kai was right, we all had our sob stories, but as far as they came mine was quite cheerful. I'd never seen the real effects of the disease – apart from yesterday – and I didn't have to watch my family and friends get torn apart by Infected. My brother and I were taken to SWORD as soon as our hometown was overrun. The Hunters told us our parents and our little sister had died, but I'd never really mourned them – after all, I'd never seen the bodies. The Push hadn't ever seemed real to me until I woke up on a military plane to America, and by that point it was too late.

We were two sides of the same coin, Kai and me.

"Hey, Snuff, we're going," Kai called to me. I snapped out of my trance.

"Which way?"

"Well, we could stick to this road," Jack said, "But I think we're gonna be better off if we cut through the trees there and make our way through this town,"

My eyebrows knit together, "You're deciding to break the rules?"

"No. I'm just being proactive," he insisted, folding up the map and sliding it back into his bag. "Didn't you hear the hordes last night?"

"I'm a heavy sleeper," I hadn't heard a thing.

"Well, we could stand around here talking, or we could make a move," Kai crossed over the road and stood in the middle green, his hands on his hips and pulling a face at us. "Are you coming?"

"Hold your horses," I said, following after him. We regrouped in the middle and headed across to the forest on the other side. It felt wrong to not have to check for traffic, but there wasn't anyone else around.