“Are you sure it’s abandoned?” Grace asks. “Like really sure?”
“According to Sutton it is.” Bruno wipes his forehead. We’re sweating out valuable fluids when we’ve got nothing to replace them with. “I thought about going there first, but once we got in, everything sorta just blew up and we ended up here.” He rubs his temples as if he’s trying to remember something. “I’d kill to get in and raid that training facility, have myself a weapon holiday.”
“And we definitely could use some medicine and first-aid kits,” I say. “Zeus’s wounds need to be cleaned. He could probably use some antibiotics too.”
“There you go again. Always thinking about that dog,” Bruno says. Zeus growls at him and nudges him with his head. Hard. “Okay, okay, I’m just kidding, buddy.”
“Right. So we avoid confrontation at all cost,” Cole says with a scowl on his face. “Be smart. Get the basics, don’t waste ammo or energy, and move fast. We got this.”
There’s a shrill squawking overhead. The vultures fight over something on the roof of a nearby building.
“Stupid birds,” Bruno says. “I’m so tempted to shoot one.”
“And do what? Eat it?” Grace asks.
“What else would I do with it? Use it as a weapon? Carry it around as my pet?” Bruno asks. He smacks his lips. “Beats starving to death.”
“I’m not eating that,” she says. “Those birds are foul.”
Shooting a vulture and cooking it does sound tempting. But anything sounds good right about now. I bite my lip, just thinking about the food I had in my pack before I lost it. Canned beans sound delicious right about now.
Bruno pulls his near-empty pack on and nods at Cole before moving out of the shadows. We all fall into a silent line behind him.
At one point, Grace turns to look at me. Her eyes search mine when our gazes meet, and she whispers, “Are you okay?”
With Cole’s eyes boring holes into my back, I shake my head at her.
Eventually, I fall into a rhythm, counting my steps, when I notice Zeus dragging his feet beside me. It worries me. His injuries need to be tended to, but we’ve got nothing to clean or bandage them with. I touch his head, prompting a swipe of his dry, rubbery tongue across his teeth. One of my worst fears is that his wound gets infected, and we have nothing to treat it with. But I can’t think about that now.
We pass behind my old building. Memories come pouring back to me from when Bruno took me to see Sutton after Wilson pistol-whipped me in my quarters. My head aches just reliving it. He took me out the back way, and it was the first time I had ever laid eyes on the shantytown behind my building. It was a place of squalor then, but now, even my imagination can’t think up anything more gruesome.
We stop against the familiar cement-block walls and duck away from the daylight. I let my eyes wander over the mass of huts, tents, and crudely made living areas. It’s like a collage of colors, muted by dust and weathered by the constant beating of the sun.
The stench from a pile of rotting bodies invades my nose. Flies buzz around my face. I swat them away, cringing and trying to keep my mouth closed. Swarms cover the corpses even as the turkey vultures swoop down to tear at the dead flesh. I cover my mouth to stem the feeling of nausea that sweeps over me. Too late. But there’s nothing to throw up anymore. Just stomach bile. My retching must be loud, because everyone stops.
“Get us away from here,” Grace says in Bruno’s direction. She pats my back and holds my hair away from my face. I hear disgust and maybe even pity in her voice. Then she dry heaves, once.
“That right there is by far the sickest thing I’ve ever seen,” Bruno says. I straighten my back and look at him as he covers his entire face. I guess he’s never seen anyone throw up yellow stomach fluids before. But he’s pointing to the vultures dining on the dead Sinners.
“Yet you want to eat one of those vultures?” Cole asks. It’s a half-attempt at being funny. Maybe he will be back to his old self soon. Broody, sulky Cole isn’t working.
He touches my shoulder. When I look into his eyes, pity’s written all over his face, in the way his eyebrows gather in and his mouth turns down. I’m still unsure of what to think or say. His behavior makes me question what exactly he’s hiding, and yet, I know he loves me.
“Ready?” Bruno asks me.
I nod.