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“Oh…” I look down at my feet, feeling guilty.
“Right before he left, he told me to tell you not to feel bad if you wanted to pick someone else as your Keeper.”
“No!” I snap. “I don’t want that. Not at all. Call him, have him come back.”
“Sorry, can’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
“The mission is too important.”
“Then have him do it!” I gesture to Atticus.
“Nope, the gears are already turning, and I’m not compromising the mission because of your regrets.”
“It’s not fair.”
“To put it bluntly, you should have thought about that before you treated him like shit.”
I want to respond, but as I search for words to defend myself, I come up with none.
“Take this time and really think about how bad things are out there and how good you have it in here. This isn’t about what he did to your father. How many months have you treated him like a goddamn monster when all he ever did was shield you from what I was ready to make you do? You were pissing us all off, and he defended you at every turn. By fucking God, if you ever give Alistair shit again, I’ll assign you a new Keeper myself, and I promise you this—you won’t like him.”
It takes everything I have to hold back my tears. “I get it.”
“Now get out of my sight.”
Chapter12
WHAT AREN’T YOU TELLING ME?
ALISTAIR
Weeks Later
Room after room, we search the rickety library, looking for signs of life. Most of the survivors we’ve found over the last few weeks have been men, but there was a woman we took to the Keep that Hunter had no interest in claiming. Which is suspicious as hell.
As we exit the building, Hunter pulls off his helmet and turns to me. “Why the hell does Cole have us searching this far out? There’s a goddamn landfill close by.”
I shrug. “I think he just doesn’t want to leave any stones left unturned. Especially if we go under.”
“Jesus Christ, no one would choose to live out here. It’s a shit hole.”
He’s not wrong. Cole has us searching the worst parts of town because the real goal isn’t to find survivors. It’s to figure out why the hell Hunter is killing people.
The days are easy as we scour buildings and take to the streets to bring down the dead.
But each night, I go to bed with one eye open, worried that he’ll finally get around to killing me.
So far, he’s been almost devoid of red flags.
Almost.
When I first came to scout with him, he’d get up in the middle of the night and leave, not returning for several hours. At first, I hadn’t realized it was happening, but once I caught on, I made a point of following him.
Turns out, he was going north, scouring older apartment buildings. When I’d accidentally knocked a candlestick over, Hunter yelled the name Fiona. I was able to evade his search and decided not to follow him again, but I’ve been wondering about who that girl was ever since.
There was talking of him finding someone months back, so maybe it’s her. Caspian took a call from him, but had forgotten to log it. It was Atticus that finally stumbled upon it a month later, and when he’d asked Hunter about it, he’d brushed it off.
