My brother was the kindest, most tender-hearted person I'd ever known. He'd volunteered himself as a guinea pig to help develop a vaccine.
Someone that good would never hear about a person being strung up as bait and shrug it off like it was nothing.
My hands began to tremble. My heart hammered against my ribs. But I still couldn't let go.
"Come with me. Please."
He frowned. "What are you talking about? It's nothing but zombies out there. How could that be better than the Bastion? We have clean clothes, vegetables, real meat..."
Muriel chimed in immediately. "He's right. Piers still has a child to take care of, and we're about to get married—"
"Is it that you don't want to leave," I cut in, my voice turning to ice, "or that you can't?"
My hand shot up. A throwing knife sang through the air and severed a power cable running along the ceiling.
The room plunged into darkness.
The brother who'd been chatting with me a heartbeat ago vanished. Gone. In the far corner of the ceiling, a black machine blinked its red light in frantic pulses.
I pointed at the empty room, my expression glacial. "Muriel. Is this how you've been taking care of my brother?"
