Don't Whistle Past the Graveyard

Ch. Sixty-Eight

Everyone else remained dead silent, somehow sensing that this battle was an exclusive one between myself and Shane. I dragged my ponytail holder out of the half of the hair that had remained in it, then tied it back from my face.

Shaking my head, I said, "He helped us, Shane. He helped us."

"I'm still failing to see the point here, Raleigh." He smiled bitterly. "I've been helped, before, just to find the same guy planting a bomb on the side of a road he knew we'd use."

"It's not the same thing!" I exclaimed. I looked at Aaron, who was standing with his hands behind his back, feet slightly apart and I frowned at him.

My lips parted to ask him a question, but then Shane said, "No. I..." His mouth pressed into a thin line. "I'm not gonna do it. He was with them. If they were willing to do what they were willing to do here, you know they'd done the same elsewhere. And where are the other people you bastards found?"

Shane addressed the last bit to Aaron, who glanced at me. When I nodded, he said in that same quiet voice, "Aside from them, you're the first people I've seen in what I think has been about seven months."

"Bullshit!" Shane hissed.

Aaron looked at me again, like he was asking for permission to defend himself and I nodded. He grimaced and clicked his tongue — a mannerism I was familiar with from Shane — and he said, "I started out with a group out of New Orleans when it all went down. We made it for a while, didn't run into too much trouble."

He paused and Shane snapped, "Keep going."

Aaron clenched his jaw before glaring at Shane. "We ran into a... a whole herd of dead ones. There were too many. I made it out. Handful of others made it out. The rest, well... wasn't even enough left to bury."

Danielle made a small sound of sympathy, then covered her mouth.

I squeezed my eyes shut, then trying to make my voice as kind as possible, said, "Is that what happened to your daughter?"

Shane's gaze jerked over to me, his eyebrows knitting together and I said, "He said he had a girl about Vik's age. He said that's why he killed them."

I put a small emphasis on the last two words and Shane gave me a dry stare, very aware of what I was trying to do.

Aaron's mouth thinned down and he nodded once, the motion short and sharp. "After that, the others who made it... some didn't want to keep making it. Some got bit, some got sick... some got killed. Eventually it was just me."

Shane's mouth was unforgiving. I couldn't find a shred of mercy anywhere in him. I sighed internally, understanding that this was going to be a long, bloody, uphill battle.

Sitting down as the adrenaline started to drain out of me, I pressed carefully at the tender skin of my jaw. An ache told me I had a bruise there. I moved my jaw around to make sure it wasn't anything more than bruised, and caught Shane looking at me with concern.

Tilting my head, I pointed at where Pete was laying behind Shane. Reluctantly, he looked at the man, then turned back to me with a raised eyebrow. Making my tone clinical, I said, "He wanted to use Cas, Danny and myself as... I don't know..." I tried to come up with something a little delicate, but nothing was forthcoming. Sighing, I said, "He wanted us to agree to have sex with all of them without a fight."

Shane went white with fury, as did Kyle and Cassidy. Danielle looked sick and Sacha squeezed his eyes shut, pulling Vik closer. Swallowing my own nausea, I continued, "He said if we didn't, he'd kill Kyle and Sacha. He said he'd let them hurt Vik."