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“How far do you think you’ll make it before you inconvenience them by passing out and making them carry you back in here?”
He blinked at me again.
“Help us by staying in that bed,” I said. “And stop wasting everyone’s time by being stubborn. You’ve done your part while we sat on the sides, unable to do anything. It’s our turn now. Rest.”
He grunted and closed his eyes.
“Hannah will be back to check on you in two hours,” I said. “No getting out of that bed until then.”
“If you need to pee, use the bottle,” Cassie said, turning and leaving the room.
Hannah kissed his forehead.
“Sleep, baby. The faster you heal, the faster you can get out there again.”
We left the room and let ourselves out of the house.
“I like your level of tough love,” Hannah said as I looked around the quiet houses.
“Thanks. What’s everyone doing to help?” I asked.
“The humans who know how to shoot are helping watch the wall. The fey who are able are loading up bodies and hauling them away. Ryan found a gravel pit they’re using as a dumping ground.”
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s round up some drivers. We can drive the trucks back and forth so the fey don’t have to.”
We knocked on the doors of the immune women, including Mya, to ask for help so the fey could rest. We pitched in and worked through the night in shifts, doing our part to help to clean up the thousands of bodies around Tolerance.
By the end of the third clean-up day, the gravel pit was overflowing, but all three communities were clear of the deceased. Ryan and Richard pushed dirt and gravel over the body pile that night. I heard from Mya that June in Tenacity had buried her ex-boyfriend in a separate grave between our two settlements and planted one of the Ernisi tree seeds.
We all finally had a chance to grieve everyone and everything we’d lost since the quakes.
The next morning, a torrent of rain started. It marked the first day Molev and I didn’t need to hurry out of bed for some reason.
I lay in Molev’s arms, sweating and tired from our sex-a-thon, and listened to the rain drum against the roof.
“It’s a weird combination of feeling like it’s finally over and that things are just starting,” I said.
“Explain,” he said, running his fingers through my hair.
“The bodies are cleaned up, and the immediate danger is gone. It’s time to start thinking about what’s next. What we want our future to look like. We don’t have to worry about the hounds anymore, and the infected that remain aren’t as smart or as organized. They’re still a threat, but not to the same degree they were.”
He grunted in agreement.
“So, what’s next for us? And I don’t mean me and you; I mean humanity.”
“We find out how many are left,” he said.
I sighed heavily and nodded.
Since we’d returned with news that destroying the crystal had killed the hounds, the doctor had been trying to contact the other research team. No one had answered yet. However, we had heard from other survivors. Families and small groups here and there who reached out after hearing all the hounds were dead.
Matt and June had met with a few of them to provide supplies and information. The last meetup had been ambushed. It hadn’t gone well for the ambushers. The poor family had been a little shocked by the sudden appearance of fey.
The fey, including Merdon, were doing well and healing quickly. All the stitches had gained them extra attention and care. Unity had more couples in it than Tolerance now.
“I’m not so sure there will be many volunteers to go out and find more survivors,” I said. “Your brothers won’t have any reason to leave soon.”
“Won’t they?” Molev asked. “We do not know if there are still humans out there, trying to find a way to kill us. We need to protect the future children my brothers may have.”
