The Future Without Hope (The World Without End Book 3) Read online

  We still don’t know much about what happened beyond our borders.

  The streets are still and quiet—only the distant screams of infects provide an eerie counterpart to the night. The small café’s and stores with second hand clothing—boutiques to amuse the wealthy bored in 1—are closed and shuttered against the night. The vice club will still be busy, but the apartments are quiet and so is the homes in the neighborhood. It means I’m unobserved as I move through the streets, approaching the white house quietly.

  I know he won’t talk to me. But I’m running out of time and options.

  Four of his guards are patrolling the house—two lean near the door, while the other two make lazy sweeps of the perimeter. There will be at least one more inside.

  The thing about guards is that they only think so far ahead. And these don’t expect an attack by the person Kendall has known his entire life. He’s changed—we all have, in the years since the East fell—but not so much that I believe he’s anywhere but Kelsey’s old bedroom.

  I wait patiently in the shadows as the guard makes a pass around the backside of the white house, and then I dart across the moonlit lawn. A scream from the Wall breaks the night, and I can hear the muttered agitation from the guards as I push up in a jump, catching the windowsill and pulling myself up. I hang there for a moment by my fingernails, the weight of gravity pulling on me as I dangle. I take a breath, and shove upward, straining for the handhold in the brick. Splinters dig at my nails and I hiss furiously as I scrape against smooth stone.

  I lunge up again, and my fingers catch in the small handhold.

  I hang there, suspended between the top of the window frame and a precarious stone ledge, and it occurs to me that doing stupid shit is one thing I am very good at. I bare my teeth in a grimace and pull up hard. Tiny shards of rock dig into my fingers as I swing up, scrambling for the windowsill of the second floor window. My feet kick hard once against the glass below me, but it holds and gives me just enough leverage to pull myself up and through the open window.

  Andrew always liked to have the windows open. He said the wind made him feel less trapped. Less afraid.

  It was a stupid fucking delusion, but I liked the man well enough. A lot of people need delusions to keep going, back then. Most people still do.

  I let out a disgusted breath as I roll to my feet. Too many years patrolling the wall and out of recon have me rusty and I can't afford that right now. I unclip my knife and hold it, blade flat against my wrist, as I creep through the house.

  There’s a guard sitting outside the closed door I know leads to Kelsey’s old bedroom. For a moment, I am caught between then and now, memories overtaking me. How many times have I crept down this hallway, while Kenny and Buchman slept a few doors away and Kelsey paced and worried in silence?

  I hit the guard with the hilt of my knife, a vicious blow that contains more of my anger than he probably deserves. It appeases a petty part of me and I roll my shoulders, pulling my gun before I ease the door open.

  There is something almost wrong about finding someone you hate passed out.

  Kenny is sleeping, his mouth parted and snoring slightly. He’s surprisingly alone—I don’t know if that irritates me more than it pleases me. Where the fuck is she, if she isn’t here?

  I kick the bed, hard enough that Kenny startles awake, his eyes flying open. I lift the gun, and give him a manic smile, all the rage I’m feeling spilling into that one expression.

  Fear flickers in his eyes, just for a moment, but it’s enough to convince me he knows something, and that makes me want to cut him open and toss him over the wall.

  I swallow hard, tamping down on my rage. It won’t do me any good right now.

  “What the hell are you doing, O’Malley?”

  “Where is she?” I ask, my voice a soft noise. He goes still, and that fear flashes again. I saw this little jackass grow up—I can read fear in him and right now he’s scared shitless.

  His voice is sharp and biting, though. “No fucking clue. Maybe she finally got smart and cut her losses.”

  A fist of doubt squeezes tight but I shake it. “Nurrin doesn’t give a fuck what it takes to find her brother—and she knows I’m the best chance she has of doing that. She wouldn’t disappear. Where the fuck is she?”

  Rage twists Kenny’s face, “Maybe she’s dead. Maybe you kill all the women you make promises to.”

  I move fast, faster than he can react. Because when shit get real, this is the truth: Kenny is a soft politician. He isn’t a solider, has never Walked, and others kill for him. When it comes down to it, I have blood on my hands and no problems shedding it. Especially his.

  “What the fuck did you do to her?” I snarl, pressing a knee into his chest and my knife to his throat.

  He glares up at me, his eyes furious and mutinous. “Fuck you, O’Malley.”

  I lean down, and whisper, “If she’s hurt, if anyone has so much as looked at her wrong, I’ll fucking flay you. I’ll skin you slow and feed you to the goddamn horde. Do you get me, Buchman? I don’t give a fuck who the hell you are.”

  Fear is stark in his eyes, and I push down harder on the blade, until blood wells under it and his eyes bulge and he squeaks in alarm. A pitiful noise from a shitty excuse of a man. Then I jerk back, and he takes a deep breath.

  “Find me the information I need. Stay the fuck out of my way—I swear if I come back, only one of us will walk out alive.”

  “You could go to prison for threatening me,” he says.

  I laugh, and turn, a deliberate insult. Kenny doesn’t have the balls to attack me, even with my back turned. “You fucking arrest me. I’ll still kill you.”

  Without waiting for him to respond to that, I slip out of the bedroom, down the hall. At the end, I turn back and shoot his door. The noise echoes, and I hear him cursing as the guards outside shout at each other. I duck into the hall closet Kelsey used to hide me in when Buchman surprised us by coming home early, and wait for them to pound into Kenny’s room.

  Then I slip out and into the night, letting the darkness take me as 1 comes awake to the sound of gunfire and the screams of the dead.

  Chapter 3. Favors and Friends

  I KNOCK ON THE DOOR, and wait for the querulous voice of Claire to reach me. She isn’t sleeping—the light is her living room is on. And Clair has insomnia—she has ever since she survived the siege of New York, when the dead swept the city like sewer rats. They killed sixty percent of New York City before the evac teams could clear it. We didn’t bomb it, but only because at that point, we knew it didn’t do any fucking good.

  If the dead get up and walk, what good does a bomb do, but create more of the problem? Atlanta taught us that, and we are still paying for the mistake of dropping dirty bombs on American soil.

  The door swings open and Claire stares at me from behind the barrel of a surprisingly clean shotgun. I lift one eyebrow. She stares for a long heartbeat, just long enough for me to worry, and then the barrel dips, and she relaxes, stepping back a little. “What the bloody hell are you doing?”

  I take the silent invitation and step inside, closing the door behind me. “I need help,” I say softly.

  Claire’s eyes widen and her mouth drops open. In the twenty years since the zombies rose, I’ve never once asked her for help. I’ve come to her with and for information. Once, I got drunk and passed out in her living room. And I ran from 1 and her and all the memories of everything that couldn’t be changed.

  But I’ve never said those three words to her.

  “What happened?” she asks, her voice shaking.

  “Nurrin is missing. She went to dinner with Kenny and she never came back.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Three days.”

  Claire turns wordlessly and limps into her kitchen.

  She doesn’t limp much anymore—it came from a break when Da was moving the ex-pats from Chicago to 1. A small horde caught them outside Des Moines and she broke her leg in the skir
mish. She hated that little handicap—coming into 1 on crutches instead of her own feet—and she worked hard to cover that perceived weakness when her leg healed enough.

  “Sit down,” she says, her accent thick. She ignores the tea that is usually so close at hand and pours two glasses of Scotch instead. She slides one to me and sits heavily in the chair. “Sit down, Finn.”

  Knowing that appeasing her is the best way to get what I want, I obey.

  She sips her Scotch for a moment, and then blinks at me. “Why was she with Kendall?”

  “He’s been courting her since we arrived.”

  “He suspects she’s a First,” she murmurs, softly. To herself. It draws my spine straight and I glare at her. She gives me a dismissive snort. “Stop posturing, O’Malley.”

  “Why the fuck would Kenny care if she’s a First?” I demand.

  “Because he’s in the Order’s pocket. They put him in that pretty white house. We all ignore it because he’s a Buchman, and we like the familiar. But he doesn’t make it a secret.”

  I sit up, my eyes narrow. “Why the hell haven’t I heard about this?”

  “Because Kenny knows how you feel about the Order. Not everyone outside of 1 tolerates them—hell, not everyone here does. But we understand they’re a necessary evil.”

  “Where would they take her?” I demand.

  She shakes her head, “I don’t know. I haven’t been able to get any info on the Order—they keep their own secrets. No one will trade on them.”

  I give her a skeptical look and she slaps the table, making the Scotch jump. “I’m not lying to you, O’Malley. I’ve never done that, and I’m not going to start now over the fucking Order. You can accept that and I will do what I can to help, or you can be a distrustful ass and chase your own goddamn tail.”

  I glare at her for a long minute, and then mutter a curse. She relaxes, the tension I hadn’t noticed slipping from her abruptly.

  “I can’t break another promise, Claire,” I mutter, grabbing the Scotch and tossing it back.

  She’s staring at me sympathetically when I bring myself to meet her eyes. “This isn’t a repeat of Kelsey,” she says, softly.

  She’s right. It isn’t. This is a whole new kind of fucked up.

  “Will you reach out? Find out what you know?”

  Claire gives me a slightly offended look, her lips tightening as her brows furrow. I nod, and stand, leaning down to drop a kiss on her forehead. When I reach the door, she calls after me. “What will you do? If they have her, what will you do?”

  I glance back. She’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen, backlit by the rising sun and the kitchen lights. She looks impossibly old, in a world where the old don’t survive.

  “Whatever it fucking takes.”

  Chapter 4. The Underground

  I GO TO THE UNDERGROUND. It’s deserted this early, but I know some of the acolytes will be there, and a few priests. It’s a gamble, but it’s what I have.

  I could go to Omar. It would take very little to reach out to the High Priest, and I know him—he might be loyal to the Order, but he’ll do whatever he can to destabilize the Red Priestess. Even helping me steal back a sacrifice.

  But that would mean trusting him. And I’m not ready for that. Not yet.

  So I go to the vice clubs.

  The doors are locked. I bang once, and wait impatiently until two acolytes pry open the door. “The clubs are closed until sunset,” the one in green robes lisps.

  “I’m not here for the vice clubs,” I say. “I need to see the High Priest of the Haven.”

  They exchange a quick look, and then the Red shakes her head. She’s familiar—the same acolyte who attended me when I fought. The sweet hospitality in her eyes from the previous night is gone now, replaced with a cool reserve that borders on hostility. She isn’t a woman impressed right now. She’s a fledgling priestess protecting the Order. And that makes me smile, slow and amused.

  “He isn’t here.”

  “Tell him that Finn O’Malley needs to see him. He has two hours to meet me at the house on the edge of the wall and return what he took from me. If I don’t have her by then, I will start killing his priests—and I won’t stop until every member of the Order in 1 is dead.” I pause, and stare at them. Their eyes are wide, fear mixing with anger and shock.

  They don’t believe me. And because of that, they won’t deliver the message. I lean in and murmur into the space between them. “If you think I wouldn’t do it—I want you to know, I fought for Kelsey Buchman in the war. There is nothing I wouldn’t do. And if she isn’t there, in two hours, yours will be the first blood I spill.”

  Chapter 5. Familiar Places

  THE THING THAT KENDALL LIKES TO FORGET IS THAT I KNOW 1 JUST AS WELL AS HE DOES. I grew up here, years before I left with Kelsey for the war.

  It’s changed—grown in ways that make me vaguely annoyed—but at the heart of it, the haven is still a prison converted into a city, and it has weak defenses because of those conversions. The Wall will hold—until it doesn’t—but there are holes in the haven’s security, and I use them now, slipping out of the haven to check the ZTNK.

  There are four infects between me and the RV, and I whistle, once. Best to deal with them with my back to the Wall and some safety.

  Nurrin likes to think I’m reckless and don’t pay attention to danger. She’s wrong. Most of the time, I just don’t give a fuck that it’s there. Today is slightly different, and I shift, balancing my weight as the infects realize I’m here.

  They hesitate, one jerking forward before stopping with a screech. The other three scent the air, and one snaps jagged, broken teeth. They aren’t attacking, though. And that is disturbing in ways I don’t want to think about. I can’t afford that to think about that right now. I slice my palm with the blade of my long knife, and the first one screams, breaking into a sprint. The others follow and I release a sigh, fear mixing with relief. The scent of blood is still a catalyst. The world hasn’t changed that much.

  I snatch a throwing star from my belt and let it go, and the infect closest to me shrieks furiously as it embeds in its eye The other three snarl as they push past him and I grab the dead body, shoving the star deeper and putting the putrid body between me and the other three, using it as a shield as I stay out of reach of their teeth while putting them down. It’d be easy to reach for my gun and take care of them that way. Easy and not what I want—it would draw Walker attention.

  The second and third infect are scrambling at the dead weight of the first, desperate to reach me, and I shove it to the left, unbalancing one while I stab the other with an arrow. Fear zings through me, and I laugh as it sharpens, makes me better. It makes a garbled noise, and falls, and I slam my boot down, swallowing hard at the crunch of brain and bone. The other two hiss at me, and I smirk, pushing the dead shield aside and grabbing the nearest infect.

  She snarls, and I drive an arrow up through the bottom of her jaw, into the soft tissue of her brain. Her body goes limp and I feel the other one, too close as broken fingers grab at me. I slam an elbow back, catching it high enough to daze. Skin rips as it stumbles and I mutter a low curse as I whip around and drive my knife into its skull.

  The body goes limp and drops.

  Too close. Too fucking close. Risking my life is one thing, but with Nurrin in danger, I can’t do stupid shit like that. I swallow the fury and break into a jog.

  The ZTNK is three miles away. I settle my weapons against me and start running.

  I’m tired and dirty when I climb the staircase to the house on the edge of the wall. But the ZTNK is safe and untouched, for now, and I can barter my truck for a bike. If I need to chase her, it will be easier with that versatility.

  A Black Priest is standing sitting on my bed, playing with Nurrin’s revolver. My stomach twists at the reminder that she’s unarmed, wherever she is. She’s alone, and I’m here, facing one of the maniacs who want her dead. I swallow the sick feeling rising in me. I fucki
ng hate feeling helpless.

  Not the time for that. I keep my face blank, and strip off my weapons belt, ignoring the priest as I let my katana and crossbow and knives clatter onto the small table. Then I strip out of my shirt, and the priest hisses slightly.

  I know why. The tattoos and scars covering my back are pretty fucking epic. I give him a cool stare. “Where the fuck is she?”

  “Nurrin Sanders. The girl you came here with.” The priest’s eyes are watching me, calculating.

  I don’t respond and he shrugs, standing. “You would know better than I what happened to her. We don’t bother ourselves with haven girls unless they’ve joined the Order. Did she?”

  “She’s under the High Priest’s protection,” I murmur and his gaze darts to me, too quickly. “And I will find her. If you return her to me now, we’ll leave and that will be the end of it.”

  “The Order doesn’t have your girl, O’Malley,” he says.

  I smile at him, savagely. “They told you what I said. What would happen if you kept her from me. You wouldn’t be here if they didn’t.”

  “The threat is empty—you can’t start a wholesale slaughter in 1 without causing an uproar, and President Stiles would never stand for it.”

  I laugh, my teeth bared in a parody of a smile. “You believe that, if you want. Or ask your priest what Finn O’Malley will do, if pushed. But the Order will begin dying tonight—I’ve waited long enough for her to be returned.”

  “We will kill you both if you do this,” the priest says, his voice sharp and angry. He looks furious as he threatens me—but he doesn’t look like a threat.

  I look at him and grin. It’s been too long—too many years in 8, Walking and existing, away from the war and any real threat. Too long since I’ve faced a real challenge.

  The Order will definitely be that. “You are welcome to try, priest.”

  Part 3.