The horseman is off his mount in one fluid movement. And then he’s running to me. “What in God’s name are you doing?” he bellows. When he gets to me, he grasps my upper arms. He obviously doesn’t care that I’m still holding a sword.

I heave in and out, gasping for air. I glance down at the dead man at my feet, and an unbidden shiver racks my body.

Dear God, I’ve never seen anything so frightening and unnatural in my entire life. And it couldn’t be stopped.

“This morning I asked you to be safe, and this is what you do?” War demands. “Did you come out here seeking death?”

I’m still trying to catch my breath. All I manage is a shake of my head. I didn’t even know there were still zombies patrolling these streets for survivors. Of course I wouldn’t have come if I’d known.

“You could’ve been killed!” he says, his eyes wild.

I almost was killed.

War releases me to curse, running a hand down his mouth and jaw.

I take a shaky breath and pace away from him, trying to regain my composure and, more importantly, not to piss myself.

“Where do you think you’re going?” The horseman’s voice is calmer now, more under control.

Still, I don’t respond.

In front of me, one of the dead begins to twitch. Then, like a marionette, the man rises. He’s one of the grotesque dead, half of his face bashed in. He approaches me, and now I stop, my hand instinctively tightening on my sword.

But the creature doesn’t attack. Not that he needs to. All he has to do is walk towards me, and now I’m backing up, backing up until I bump into hard, warm flesh.

War’s hands close over my upper arms, shackling me in place once again.

In front of me, the dead man collapses to the ground.

“You will answer me,” the horseman says. “And you will not leave.”

My anger rises, filling me like poison in my veins. I rotate around in War’s arms so that I can face him.

I mean to tell him again how much I hate him, how repulsed I am by him, but one look into the horseman’s eyes, and he knows. I don’t know if he cares, but at least he knows.

“Why?” I say instead. “Why did you have to kill everyone?”

Now it’s his turn not to answer.

“Why?” I say again, more insistent.

War’s upper lip is curled, his face grim. He doesn’t respond.

He still holds my upper arms captive, but that doesn’t stop me from pushing him.

“Why?” I repeat. Another push. “Why?” Another. And another. “Why why why?”

I’m asking it like a chant and pushing him over and over. The horseman doesn’t so much as sway. I might as well be pushing a boulder.

Now the tears are coming and I’m angry and sad and I feel so, so helpless.

War pulls me to him, gathering me in his arms. And I just let him. My body sags against his, stupidly soothed by the embrace. I cry against his shoulder and he lets me and somehow that makes this whole ordeal even more awful.

His hand runs over my hair again and again.

At some point he sheaths my sword for me, then picks me up. I don’t bother fighting him. It would be about as useful as my earlier pushes were.

Silently, War settles me onto Deimos, swinging on a moment later.

He holds me close to him as we ride out of that city.

“I feel you slipping through my fingers like grains of sand, Miriam,” War says into my ear. “Tell me what I’ve done wrong.”

“Everything,” I say wearily.

He forces me to look at him.

“Human hearts can be fixed,” he says, like I’m the one whose perspective needs altering.

“Can yours?” I ask.

He searches my face. “Will that make you hate me less?”

I don’t know.

“I won’t lose you,” War says, a promise in his voice. “I spared you that day in Jerusalem because you were mine. And I intend to keep it that way, no matter the cost.”

By the time we return to camp, night has fallen. The smoke from the last fires in Ashdod obscures the stars. It’s better that way. I’d hate for the heavens to see all the horrible things we’ve done to each other.

As soon as War stops his horse, I hop off Deimos.

Once my feet hit the ground, I pause.

I’m ready to walk away and write War off completely, but there is something he should know.

Turning back to him, I say, “I found the picture of my family. The one inside my tool bag.”

The horseman stares down at me, emotionless.

“I was absurdly grateful to you, you know,” I continue. “For a moment there, when I held that picture, I wanted to go back to those two nights we were together. I wanted to relive them differently. Better.”

I leave him with that.

I can feel War’s intense gaze on me as I walk away, but here there aren’t any dead for him to stop me with. Or maybe he’s done caging me in. Either way, he lets me go, and I’m left to deal with my grief and horror alone.

Chapter 16

I’m distracted from the walk to my tent when I pass by a cluster of women, Tamar and Fatimah amongst them. At the center of the group is the woman I saved earlier, the one who repeatedly shot War.

She stands in front of one of the tents, surrounded by the same faces who welcomed me. Her pants are stained with blood, and her hijab is slightly askew, revealing the smallest sliver of black hair. She hugs herself, looking completely miserable.

I cut over to the group of them, drawn in by curiosity and a deep sense of shared purpose.

The woman’s eyes meet mine as I join the group; recognition sparks in them.

“You’re the one who spared me,” she says. I can’t tell if she’s thankful for that, or if she wants to gut me alive for it.

“How are you doing?” I ask carefully.

She swallows, her eyes flicking away.

Right.

I give her a brief smile. “I’m Miriam.”

“Zara,” she says.

My eyes move to the women clustered around her. “I can help her from here,” I say to them.

They’re happy enough to move on. There are other new recruits who need their attention.

Once we’re alone, my gaze returns to Zara. “So you swore allegiance.”

She’s not like me, I realize.

Earlier, all I saw were our similarities, but after the battle in Jerusalem, the fight had gone out of me. Had I not been spared by War, my body would be food for scavengers right now.

But not Zara.

She fought against the horseman and maybe then she wanted to die, but when the soldiers lined her up and asked for her allegiance, she gave it. She wanted to live.

She sighs. “Yeah.” She kicks the earth with the toe of her boot.

When she looks at me again, I see all those deaths she witnessed. She had to watch, just like I did, as her neighbors and her friends were cut down. And then she had to stand in line and watch them get cut down all over again.

“And this is your tent?” I ask, nodding to the home at her back.

“It’s not mine.”

Right. It’s some dead woman’s tent.

I raise my eyebrows. “What did you inherit?”

“What do you mean?” she asks.