The Virus Within: The Road Ahead (Book 1 - SERIES COMPLETED!)

Chapter 38

The dinner bell rang outside, waking me from my light doze. I contemplated going down, but my leg was only sore instead of throbbing, so I didn't want to move. Nor did I particularly feel like descending so many stairs then going into a big room with two hundred humans.

Footsteps came down the hallway – the first ones I'd heard since Nina left – and stopped outside my door. A faint pop made the handle of the twist-lock doorknob click and shift, now unlocked.

I officially have a serious grudge against whoever invented twist-to-lock doorknobs that can be so easily opened from the other side.

"Either come in or go away, Nicky." I hoped she'd pick the second option.

Of course, I wasn't so lucky. The doorknob twisted, and the red-head skipped into the room before closing the door behind her. Since I was still sitting with my back against the wall and my injured leg stretched out, she sat on the foot of the bed and grinned at me.

"You won't believe it! They're going to let me drive the side-by-side as long as I try to drive like Hank and you're the passenger."

At this point, I was amazed they were going to let her drive anything other than a bicycle. "How did you convince them to let you do that?"

"Daniel did it, actually. That forest to the north supposedly has lots of rabbits, and I get to drive you there whenever you want to hunt. Nina said it's probably better if you didn't walk so far for a while."

"That vehicle is loud enough to scare anything away. What are you going to do when I leave to hunt?" I didn't trust her to behave herself for even two minutes, let alone the amount of time it would take me to sneak up on a rabbit in the daylight.

She cheerfully replied, "Daniel is currently out there setting up three live traps for rabbits. You won't even have to chase them down. Although they did ask us to clean the rabbits and bring back the meat."

"And just why are you up here when dinner is being served in the dining hall?"

She made a face. "Whatever new recipe they are trying looks like porridge and smells like my gym socks. I know you have food in that bag of yours, and I'm hoping you'll share instead of subjecting me to food poisoning. If I had known it was going to be that bad, I would have grabbed more food at lunch."

My instincts didn't like sharing, but my humanity could overrule those compulsions. Besides, Nicky might tell me how things worked in a place like this if I bribed her. This was the longest I had ever been in a Stronghold, after all. I was a bit out of my depth and didn't want to admit it.

I reached over and dug through my backpack. There was no way I was sharing my can of pineapple, but I tossed her half a dozen trail bars, some jerky, and a packet of dried fruit.

"Thanks!"

After she had eaten a few bites, I asked, "So, what do you think of this place?"

She swallowed her mouthful and frowned. I blinked at the sight of it. I thought she would have been ecstatic to have new people to torment.

"It's... weird..."

And for that comment to be coming from Nicky, of all people, was even stranger. "How so?"

She took a slow bite of her trail bar and chewed in thought. "I've been in six Strongholds if you count this one. Ironwind seems like the rest on the surface, but when you start looking, things just aren't quite lining up."

I waited silently. I had no basis for a comparison since I could count the total hours I'd been in a Stronghold on both hands.

She looked at me with a serious expression. "The day you decide to leave, can you take me with you?"