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didn’t chase because they were dead fucking
walking, and they didn’t have that kind of thought process. They only knew to
chase flesh and when we pulled out, it was fast and clean—there was nothing
left to chase.
    Omar’s
eyes gleam, fanatically bright. “We can take it back. The Order, the Walkers
and the army. If we work together—we can win the East back.”
    “Omar,
the same thing that was true ten years ago is still true. We can’t face them
with large numbers—it will mutate the ERI in us. That’s what started this in
Atlanta.”
    “You
aren’t listening,” he snaps, and I hate that part of me wants to jerk to
attention, a muscle memory even after ten years.
    “It
doesn’t matter.”
    “It
does. If you want her back, it matters a helluva a lot.”
    I
go still, staring at him. “What the fuck is this going to cost me?”
    He
looks away, walking again, and I fall in beside him. “I know where she is. And
I can retrieve her—but it’ll either cost me my position in the Order, and a
chance to recover the East, or there will be a regime change.”
    “What
will that entail?” I ask, softly.
    “One
assassination,” he answers. “Lori is dead—we confirmed it. 18 fell a week ago.
The Red sect doesn’t have a High Priestess, for now. But there is someone with
enough power to threaten my hold on the Order.”
    I
stare at the track. “Is she safe?”
    “For
now,” Omar says, his voice blank. “But this offer has an expiration date, O’Malley.
If we do this, we do it now. If not, I go away and wait for the right
opportunity, and you walk away without the girl.”
    One
death. One person to kill, and I can have her back, can keep the promise.
    In
the end, it’s not even a choice.
      I nod. “Who do I have to kill?”

 
    Chapter
8. Assassinations

 
    I
SIT ON THE EDGE OF THE WALL, my feet hanging down. The sun set hours ago, and 1
is shutting down, closing in on itself and the darkness.
    Even
now, twenty years after the zombies rose and took Atlanta, the fear of monsters
in the dark is an instinctual thing.
    There
are few things I can say with certainty I am good at. I was seven when the
world changed, and all my childhood dreams died with my mother in Atlanta. I
never had the chance to be good at anything.
    And
in the changed world, the options are limited. I am good at surviving. I’m good
at knowing what the hell is happening and getting the fuck out of the way. At
annoying Collin and pissing off Ren and keeping my own council.
    And
I am good, very good, at killing.
    I
click my magazine into the gun, and let out my breath as I stand. The air is
turning cool, early for the onset of winter, but not unexpected. It catches my
mood. I glance up at the moonless sky, and I pray. For the first time since
Columbus and everything went sideways, and before that, when Atlanta fell and
my mother died, leaving me an orphan for all intents and purposes.
    I
pray that this one last life is enough to buy back Nurrin’s freedom. That
trusting the Black Priest won’t prove to be as deadly a mistake as it did ten
years ago.
    That
wherever and whatever Kelsey is now, she isn’t watching me now.
    Then
I shove all of my maudlin shit aside, and jog silently down the stairs, off to
kill a president.

 
    Chapter 9. The Order’s Price

 
    EVEN THE
PRESIDENT WILL STOP FOR THE ORDER. That is how Omar set it up.
    It’s not unusual
for the Order’s presidential puppet to meet with a visiting High Priest. Kenny
will hate to be manipulated into an unexpected meeting, but he’ll come. He’ll
have no choice.
    Which is why I'm
crouched in a dim hall, waiting for the arrival of a man I hate. Doing favors
and wet work for the man I don't trust. I always knew my life was fucked up,
but this is a new low, even for me.
    Ren's somewhere
with the Order, though and every fucking time I think about that, my blood runs
icy. One more death. One more, and it's over.
    Down the hall,
the door swings open, and I can hear the