The Risen: Courage by Marie F Crow Page B

past and present among us. He causes this loop of time where hope fades and depression holds to our hearts, robbing us of any possible victory.
    “Helena!” Marxx’ voice pulls me forward as my mind tries to hold me back. I don’t need my mind for this. My body has learned long ago how to do this. We know what it takes to survive and as my blade finds the throat of the first glaring face, it’s nothing personal. It’s just them or us and today we are the good guys. Tomorrow, tomorrow we might all be dead.
    The blood bubbles across the gash of the Risen’s neck. Air that was trapped in his windpipe causes the blood to froth like thick coffee before it slides down his chest. Marxx finishes him when he drops to his knees with a quick kick to the head. It snaps the neck, leaving him a pile of useless limbs, but his eyes still watch us as we walk away.
    Marxx grabs me by the vest I have placed upon me, pulling me to him. “You want to wear this, then act like it. You follow my lead, no hero bullshit.” He has to shout over the screams of the dying and frightened. I nod, not trusting my tongue to obey me, but for it to say something that I might come to regret later. It does that sometimes.
    With a shove, he turns from me and together we fill in the space needed that the other leaves, mirroring as we reduce the numbers of the Risen to make our way to the center where the rest of G.R.I.T. stands. I know the moment Lawless spots us through the weaving crowd. With his fist dripping from the assault he just landed, he mouths a word that I don’t need to be near him to understand. That one syllable is easy to read on his lips even from this distance.
    When Marxx loses a path through, he says the same word. This time, I am near enough to understand. We have fought our way into the eye of the deadly storm. My body that was once exhausted now quickens with the effort to survive. Adrenaline touches every muscle, feeding it with a false vigor. For a period, it fed me with victory. As Marxx and I watch the circle we had cleared enfold us, I know it fed me lies.
    Marxx is spinning, desperately slashing at the ones closest, trying to keep space between them and us. My hand is trembling as I clutch my knife in front of me. The blood falls from it, sprinkling the ground around me with the shaking of it. I don’t look at the female inching towards me. She knows my body is giving out, something that hers will never do. She is waiting for it to happen with arms wide to block anyone else from taking me first. I don’t want to see my death coming for me and when I feel Marxx stumble against me as they overtake him, I know this is how my life will end.
    I don’t hear the screaming anymore. I don’t smell their deaths. There is nothing in this white noise of a moment. I have no fear. My heart holds nothing at all. I guess this is the peace people speak of when the last moments come for their loved ones.
    She is just a hand’s reach away now. Her steady eyes hold the same illusion of peace in them. She is no longer growling or threatening me. Like an executioner giving the condemned their time to prepare for the death that awaits them, she silently watches me.
    I look to where I know the men were. Chapel is gone. He is lost among the crowd of murderous forms that feast from their kills. Rhett is pulling Lawless back into the school. There is so much ground lost between us, making it impossible for them to reach us in time and Rhett knows it. Lawless is screaming for me as he struggles against Rhett’s arms, but the words don’t reach me. I watch Simon leading as many as he can to safety as he watches so many of his friends being destroyed, but his eyes flicker one last time to the two burning white sheets.
    One last time, I tell myself, just one last time.
    Exhaling the air from my lungs, I set my blade tightly in my hand. For Lilly, for Ashley, for Conroy, for those they took from me, just one last time I will fight. One last time before