No Time To Bleed

“Cece, go get Kevin! He’s got the keys!” Alex shouted.

My knees gritted into glass as I slid to Eli. Blood trickled from his neck. The red washed my hands as I held his head.

“Eli, you’re not gonna die. You’re too young.”

His clear hazel eyes looked up, lips trembling. “He was my friend, my only friend.”

I didn’t even realize that I was crying, crying so profusely. “Just stay awake. Don’t die.”

His hand rested against his ribs. “My tummy hurts. I want my mommy.”

The words were so weak for such a young boy. I pulled him closer, the back of his head resting against with blood gushing everywhere.

“Just stay away.”

His breathing was shallow, barely above the whisper of a dying fan. “I want my mommy.”

And I just held him, the little boy who’d been so sweet and innocent through this whole thing. I held him and he never moved. The clots of his blood rested in my hands.

Footsteps reached behind me. “Jasmine, he’s dead.”

Tears slicked his voice, Alex’s voice.

“He’s not dead. He’s young.”

His hands grabbed for my shoulders and I held onto Eli’s body.

“Let go of him.” He yanked me one good time.

My hand went around and slapped him, a wet and warm smack against his cheek. He
turned back to me in horror, confusion.

“You let him die.” The words weren’t even strong, just croaks from my throat.

“Jasmine,-“

Cece was back with Kevin now. I pushed my way past Alex and went to the little boy whose collar was snatched into Cece’s hand.

Cece looked just as disturbed as me. “The little brat tried to shoot at me.”

Kevin stood there, just an about an inch of the height Eli was. He had the widest smirk on his face.

Tears still filled my eyes as I held my hand out. I kneeled to him, eye to eye. “Where are the keys?”

“I don’t know.”

I wheeled my hand around and wretched into his face. “Tell me where the fucking keys are! You just let a little boy die!”

Spit and blood flew from my mouth to his face. Salty tears warmed his electric green eyes.

“You should be dead too, but Mommy told Daddy not to eat you. She wanted the baby.” He whispered.

Cece’s hands tightened into his shirt, pulling the fabric more against the boy’s neck.

“Is that what you were gonna do to Aliah? Eat her baby?”

Kevin shook his head. “Mommy can’t have babies. She wanted a new one. She said she knew the baby was gonna be born soon.”

“I’m gonna ask you one more time or your parents are dead.” I repeated. “Where are the keys?”

Kevin exhaled, blood dripping from his nose. “It’s in some bushes back there.”

Alex was already walking to where Kevin had pointed and Cece let Kevin’s collar go. Kevin went scrambling to Reagan, trying to flip his boy over from its facedown position.

“Is Eli dead?” Cece asked.

The look must have given it away because she looked like she was about to be sick.

“Do you think he’ll turn into… one of them?”

I shook my head. It hadn't happened by now, so who knew.

“What the hell is going on down there?! I need the keys!”

It was Clarissa yelling from the top of the bridge.

“Eli’s dead!” Cece shouted back.

No one dared to look back at Clarissa expression.

“Where are the keys?” she asked again, voice sounding like a mist.

“Here.” Alex stepped by and began climbing up the ladder.

Cece and I were left as Kevin cried over his brother’s body. “You killed him. You killed him!”

“Little boy, we killed your parents too. They were evil. They tried to kill us.”

Kevin stood, chest pumping before him and too much emotion for five years old. “We should’ve killed you! We should’ve eaten you like the rest of them!”

My stomach was literally becoming sick with everything that had managed to happen today. I felt my sanity slipping away from me, the screws of my mind loosening as dots filled my vision. Next thing I knew, I was hitting the cold black pavement of the highway with Cece’s screams to send me away.

* * * * * *

The slow bumps and nicks eventually awoke me. My head was radiating and on someone’s lap. We were in the SUV. I tried to seat myself up, but the person’s hand stayed on my shoulder.

“You need to lie down.”

I was already irritated and this wasn’t helping. “Not in your lap. Get off me.”

I jerked the hand of my shoulder and forced myself to sit up. Cece and Clarissa were in the front seat. Clarissa was knocked out in the passenger seat. Cece was driving.

“You had a concussion. You need to rest.” Alex sounded worried.

“Would you leave me alone?” I snapped at him, itching away from him in the seat.

He exhaled rigidly. “What did I do wrong now? Tell me.”

His blue eyes just stayed trained on me. They were the exact color I’d seen the sky sometimes on a nice day, cool and comforting. But not now though. I was too upset.

I turned to front seat. “Cece, where’s Aliah?”

“She’s with Kevin in the backseat. We had to tie Kevin up. He was going crazy, screaming and stuff.” Her voice sounded tired. “We’re about 15 minutes away from the airport.”

The airport was where Lexicon was.

I turned my head and peered into the backseat. There was Aliah, still out cold, but visibly breathing. Kevin was conscious with duct tape around his limbs and mouth. His eyes glared to me.

He’d killed Eli.

“Why do we have him with us? Couldn’t we have left him?” I asked Cece.

“When we told Clarissa what happened, she said we couldn’t blame the kid for what happened.”

That was such bullshit. Kevin had killed Eli. Simple. I sank back into the seat and clipped on my seatbelt. Alex handed my bat over to me.

“I’m sorry, Jasmine. It had to happen.”

His voice was just bugs in my ear.

“You’re a liar.”

I wasn’t sure if I could ever forgive him for this.

“I didn’t mean for Eli to die. But, you would’ve been hurt if you got to him before that zombie did.”

I snickered. “And you’re that selfish. You’d rather not let me make my own choices, is that it? You don’t own me.”

His ears blazed red and internally I was satisfied at his embarrassment, especially the remnants of my red hand print on his face from where I'd slapped him. After all he deserved it.

“Do you have any idea what the airport will look like?” Alex choked to Cece.

“Fences, maybe cement walls. Not that hard to guess considering its Lexicon.”

Alex exhaled, gun in his lap and I had a question to ask.

“How’d you guys end up taking down Willa and Richard?”

Cece adjusted the rearview mirror until it fixed onto my face. Her eyes were a deep and light brown.

“There was never a well. Richard had a knife in his pocket and we had to fight him off. His wife just cried and begged us not to kill her. She never touched us so we left her.”

Kevin could hear in the third row, muffling, and trying to set himself free.

“How’d you get Aliah down from the bridge?”

“After we put you in the car, we rigged up a gurney and sort of lowered it. It took us a while.”

My body felt creaky and tired. I look at my face from the rearview mirror and almost gaped. The left side was heavily swollen and welling with various cuts from where it had been slammed into the floor. My nose was a mess of dried and sticky blood. Even my jaw felt like it was hanging off its hinges so loose.

“You guys had the most fucked up plan. We should have never stopped with those freaks.”

No one had apologized and I was still immensely bitter deep down. How could they have no trusted my instincts when I made it so clear how I felt?

Now Eli was dead and Aliah was unconscious in the backseat. Things had gone exactly as I had feared: in a downhill spiral. And maybe that was why I was pissed off, because I’d trusted these people, depended on them.

And then the stupid plan came along and we were all left in our separate missions. And it was exactly how people had ended up dead today.

I just tried to search my mind through the chain reaction of events that had happened. I tried to put them in order.

Family fell apart. Ricky left. Dad and I fought a lot. He sent me away to live with Aunt Meg and Uncle Trevor. Met Lion over dinner. Met Ryant and fought Jessica. Outbreak of Rogue virus. And the list just went on and on, a never ending tangle of events.

Now we were walking right into the people that had caused this whole destruction. It burned me up inside to think that they’d get away with this, to think that no one, but a select few would know the truth.

“I hope they have food there.” Alex muttered.

“And showers. “ Cece filled in.

Food and showers? What about a zombie epidemic?

Cece went to shake Clarissa’s shoulder and Clarissa mumbled her way awake.

“What? Is something wrong?”

“No. We’re almost there. Five minutes. The tracker says so.”

Clarissa nodded and turned to the backseat, facing us. “Everything alright?”

Alex shrugged and I gave my old sarcastic snort which sent Clarissa back to the passenger seat.
Then it was just a matter of getting Aliah out of her reckless slumber when we got close enough to the airport. Aliah’s brown hair stuck to the sides of her face from endless sweating and her matching brown eyes swam as she tried to focus on me.

“Mom?”

I shook my head, leaning over her. “Uh, no? Jasmine, we’re at Lexicon. Get up. You gotta walk.”

Aliah’s eyebrows crunched together and she looked around the empty car. “Wha? Where is everybody?”

“They’re waiting outside.”

To think this was the first real conversation me and her had since the gas station before we’d gone to that dreadful park in Fairfax.

“Is everybody okay? Where’s the Murphy's? What about Alex?!”

“Shhh.” I placed my finger to my lips. “Aliah calm down. Everyone’s fine. We’re fine. We made it. Your baby is gonna be safe.”

I was probably lying, but Aliah had been through enough to deserve a well-intended lie.

She nodded, eyes softening at me suddenly. “And Jasmine?”

I looked to her patiently. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry for being such a bitch. I’m gonna be a mom soon. I should know better.”

I reached for her hand and stepped backwards over the collapsed second row seat. “It’s okay. We’re all bitchy once in a while.”

I helped her out the car and she looked around to everyone. I guess the loss of one person and the gain of another was evident.

“Where’s Eli?”

The air held a sticky, strange, and abrupt density that stuck to our skins in warmth.

I sighed, the grief still fresh in my system as the tears swam in my eyes. “Eli’s gone.”

Her hand went to cover her mouth and to my surprise, tears slid down her cheeks. “Oh God. He said this would happen.”

I swallowed, my throat sticking as well. “Who said that?”

Her eyes went to me. “Louis.”

My heart fell once again and I thought to the promise Louis himself had made to me that I’d be one of those zombies eventually and it didn’t settle right in me.

So I lied again.

“Things are better now. Come on. We gotta walk the rest of the way. They’ve got guns. They gotta see who we are.”

Aliah nodded again and even now her legs seemed weak from days of no movement. She leaned onto my and Clarissa’s side for support. So there we were, our own little rag tag bunch of survivors walking into the lion’s den for whatever lay ahead.

I hoped whatever we faced next would be good.