Chapter 2
He carried me to an abandoned nursing home.
Dead vines covered the outer wall, and faded warning signs moved in the wind. Three powerful infected guarded the gate. One had metal plates strapped across its broad shoulders. Another dragged a heavy ax that sparked against the road. The third wore a nurse's uniform and tilted her head with a sharp, unnatural click.
The nurse came too close.
The man growled once.
She dropped to her knees.
Inside, he placed me on a clean bed. He leaned over me for one second too long, one hand beside my hip and the other still supporting my back. His coat had fallen open. Beneath it, his shirt clung to a hard body marked by old scars and black veins.
I pushed his chest. Nothing beat beneath my palm.
His pale eyes dropped to my hand. He covered it with his own and held it there as if he wanted me to feel exactly what he was.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"Rin," he answered.
"What do you want?"
His thumb moved once across the inside of my wrist. It was a careful touch, but my pulse jumped against it.
"You," Rin said.
I pulled free, grabbed a shard of glass, and pressed it to my throat.
The building came alive with scratching feet and low, hungry sounds.
Rin's red pupils widened. He lifted both hands and stepped back.
"Send them away," I told him.
Rin gave a low command. The sounds stopped. Hundreds of footsteps withdrew from the building.
"Open the door."
Rin opened it, then filled the doorway with his body.
"Move," I said.
"No," Rin replied.
"Then I cut."
His fingers closed around the frame. The wood groaned beneath his grip. At last, he stepped outside and shut the door himself.
I tested the room while he waited in the hall. The window had been boarded from outside, but the boards were old enough to loosen. A basin held clean water, and folded clothes lay on the chair.
They were my size.
That frightened me more than the guards. Rin had not brought me here on impulse. He had prepared a place for me.
An hour later, a bowl of soup appeared at the threshold. Rin sat on the other side of the door. A gray cat with one torn ear balanced on his shoulder.
"Drink it first," I ordered him.
Rin lifted the bowl. He swallowed with difficulty, never taking his eyes from me. A drop of soup touched the scar beside his mouth.
Without thinking, I reached through the gap and wiped it away with my thumb.
Rin became perfectly still.
His lips were cold beneath my skin. The tip of one sharp tooth touched the pad of my thumb. He could have bitten through it before I moved. Instead, he turned his face and pressed one brief kiss into my palm.
I snatched my hand back.
Rin slid an old photograph beneath the door.
In it, a nine year old girl offered candy to a silent teenage boy in a hospital gown.
The boy had the same scar beside his mouth.