The Final Female

Chapter Nineteen

"So what's the plan?"

We were sat in the hall with the stage that I had been pushed out onto on my first day here. People lingered around the edges trying to get a listen but only a small group of us sat in a haphazard circle among the seats. Isaac sat with his legs dangling off the stage. Bandages adorned his arms and legs. I cringed thinking about what his clothes must be covering too. 

Vince is doing most of the talking back and forth with Jay and Zander. They are talking strategy. Brody and Ethan are piping in with plans of attack and defence. I'd come to realise the twins were all about brute force when they weren't giggling and pulling pranks. 

As if we could fight off what is coming.

The whole world couldn't even fight it off last time even when equipped with scientists and army machinery and space ships. 

If the second wave of the apocalypse was coming, to put it bluntly, we were screwed.

Sure maybe we were all immune to the virus, but the weather conditions killed millions too. 

Then there was human nature. The most natural killer of all. No doubt people would come searching for the best compounds. If Benjamin was somehow still alive, he would no doubt gather an army to come claim the upper hand that we currently held in the Vivo. 

I wasn't even going to begin to point out that maybe we should all just accept that even if we did survive all that, the human race would not survive too much longer anyway. Did anyone really believe I could populate the world all over again? I wasn't freaking Eve. 

I didn't even know why I was at this meeting. I wasn't a leader of the Vivo. I was new meat. Bound to be torn apart by teeth at some point. How had I snuck my way into the leadership groups inner circle? 

"Should we go find more survivors?" Patrick says from the chair him and Peter are playing a game of battered cards in. 

"No." Isaac speaks for the first time. Our heads swivel around at his scratched voice. 

"No?" Jay queries.

"We need to maintain food and resources. We can't accept any more people. Not now there is going to be shortages again."

He had a valid point. But a heavy weight hung in the air as everyone realised that meant leaving others to fend for themselves. Perhaps killing them in the process. As much as I hated to admit it... this place was advanced. And people that were outside the Vivo had much less of a chance of surviving if another wave was coming.  

"Should we at least warn people?" Zander said with a slightly panicked look in his eyes. It was only visible to me. To everyone else he looked calm and stoic. 

"I'd gather most people have probably figured it out by now." Isaac muttered as he glanced down at a particularly deep wound in his arm. 

A heavy silence hung in the air. The hall echoed with our mingled breaths. All of us knew, deep down, no matter what we planned, it was the beginning of the end all over again. And this time, we were far less likely to make it out alive. 

"Well... anyone for a game of basketball?" Patrick tried with a forced grin and raised quizzical eyebrows. 

The meeting was over. We all knew there was nothing we could really discuss anyway. 

"Yeh sure little man. Let's go." The twins stood and left with Peter and Patrick trailing behind them. 

Quinn, who had been mostly silent, stood with a heavy hunch to his shoulders. He motioned to Vince and he stood on command, loyal and with a look of admiration in him. Vince saw Quinn as a father, a leader, a strong and wise commander, in this moment I thought he looked frailer than ever. He was barely in his forties, and yet here, in this climate, in this new world, he was an elder in our ranks, deserving of an armchair, a cup of tea and some shitty quiz show on the telly. A rest. 

We knew they were headed back to the clinic to see to those still injured. I was about to ask if I should come when he told me, as if reading my mind, that they could manage on their own, and that I should get some rest. I thought it ironic considering my thoughts a second prior. 

And so four remained. 

"This isn't going to end well." Isaac said after a few moments too long of silence. We all craned our necks to look at him as he jumped from the stage with a wince and joined us in the lazily placed old mix of plastic and iron chairs. 

"Benjamin knows about the vivo now," I reminded them, "When they catch wind another wave of the apocalypse is coming, he is going to bring his men here. It's the only place we know of where survival might just be possible."

"And we will be ready. Unlike the weather, we can fight that battle off."

"And in doing so become barbarians." Zander muttered.

"They're murderers and rapists." Jay reminded. A bitter lilt to his voice. His eyes dashed to me and then away again. 

"So we become them too?" 

"Well hopefully not rapists." Isaac attempted to joke. 

Silence again. 

"If there are any young ones. Like Patrick... we take them in." I whisper. 

"We take them in." Assured Issac calmly. 

"And then?" My eyes leave the floor, darting between the three men before me. 

One I had known my whole life. Who I knew more than I knew myself, and yet felt like I was still worlds away from him after years apart. Years of being stripped of the girl I was when I knew him. Would we ever joke about mums wallpaper again? I still looked at him and saw Dad. 

One a strong leader. Joking, cheeky and charmingly cocky. Yet in the weeks I had been here, I had also discovered to be none of that at all. Shy, kind hearted, just like most of us, playing a role to survive in a changed world. 

And the last... the last confused me and scared me and made me terrified... but for none of the reasons men had made me feel that way before. He made me feel safe and comfortable and like I was going to explode if he looked at me in just the right way. He was strong, kind, a leader too, all of them were in their own ways. He was the perfect big brother and protector for Patrick and anyone else he saw needed aid. He was charming and sexy and everything I thought I would never witness in a man again. 

I admired all of them. 

A lot had changed from the girl with the can of beans and the dirty ripped cap. 

"And then we wait. We wait and we see what happens." Zander says glancing at me with a comforting sad smile. 

"So we do nothing then." I'm looking between the three of them. We all have dark thoughts swimming within us. 

"We survive." I can see the way Isaac's eyes cloud over. He's thinking of someone. 

"We try." 

Jay. All I see is Jay. 

AN: I'm back! I'm sorry! Sooo that last update was me doing my final high school exams... now I'm half way through my first year of university and about to do my first university exams ahaha. Yeh I was gone a bit too long.