She was staring at the oncoming undead.
"Amy!" Melissa shouted. "We have to fight-"
"Go," Amy said.
Horror covered Melissa"s face. And Carly, although lost in the moment, backed up against the metal bar of the walkway behind her, guessed her face wouldn"t be all that different.
"We can"t go," Melissa said. "We can"t leave you."
Amy turned around then. And for the first time in a long time, she looked totally at peace.
"Go," Amy said. She smiled. "I"ll always be with you." She lifted a hand to her heart. "I"ll always be right here. Right here. Sister."
There was a moment of confusion, then. A moment where Carly didn"t understand. And she figured Melissa didn"t understand either.
But there wasn"t much of a chance left to understand.
Amy looked at Melissa one final time, tears filling her eyes.
"No!" Melissa shouted, as if she was realising something; a secret that"d been buried for so, so long. "No!"
"You be strong," Amy said, lips quivering despite her smile. "You be brave. It"s your turn to be brave now. For everyone."
"Amy-"
As stunned and horrified as Carly was by all this, she found herself reaching out for Melissa.
She found herself pulling her back, away from Amy, because she knew that"s what Amy wanted, and that was their best chance right now.
"Amy," Melissa spluttered. "Amy, please. Please."
But it was too late.
Amy had closed her eyes.
A large, beaming smile had stretched across her face.
And then she"d walked into the ma.s.s of the undead.
There were no screams. There were no yelps of pain. There was nothing.
Just Melissa"s sobs, as the horror of losing a sister she didn"t even know she"d been reunited with welled up inside her.
Reluctantly, she joined Carly at the edge of the barrier, and for a moment-just for a split second-she thought about just throwing herself down into the dark ma.s.s below.
But she remembered Amy"s words.
It"s your turn to be brave now.
For everyone.
She closed her eyes and forced a smile, just like Amy had.
And then she eased herself down, dropped into the unknown, down to where Carly had gone.
She could grieve later.
Right now, she had one thing on her mind.
Getting out of this place.
Getting her and Carly to safety.
Then doing what Amy would"ve wanted her to do all along.
Getting Kesha out of that p.r.i.c.k"s hands.
She landed beside Carly. Carly grabbed the door and opened it, revealing a clear path, except for a few straggling undead.
"You ready?" Carly asked.
Melissa took a deep breath and focused on the moment. "Ready."
She lifted her knife as the undead noticed her and, with Carly by her side, she stepped out into the unknown, towards whatever horrors lay ahead.
Chapter Nine.
"Why so d.a.m.ned bashful all of a sudden? We"ve known each other for months, Ricky. You don"t just get to wander away from our camp-from everything we built together-and go silent on me all of a sudden."
Ricky stood with his back to the wall of the hatch where the woman had brought him. She was still out, clearing the immediate area of undead. Part of Ricky clung to the hope that she"d come back fast and help him out here, mostly because he didn"t want to be the one to have to deal with Mattius.
But mostly, Ricky hoped she didn"t, because he"d seen what kind of a monster Mattius really was. And he dreaded to think what he might put her through, too.
Mattius leaned back against the chair on the far side of the hatch. To be honest, the hatch was more like a cabin inside. It was hardly the high-tech kind of place you might expect from Lost. It did have that old war feel to it, though. It was some kind of bunker, but it had been long disused, evidently.
Mattius held Kesha in his arms. She was crying, like she could sense the tension in the air.
"So, what"ve you got down here?" Mattius asked. "Food? Water? We"re going to need plenty of it if we"re batting down the hatches."
He walked past Ricky, who stayed totally still, other than his shaking fists, which he clenched together. Ricky knew this was a game. A game of chicken. He was waiting for Ricky to crack. And Ricky wanted to crack. He wanted so badly to crack for what he knew Mattius had done to his mother.
But he had to wait for the right moment.
The moment where Mattius wasn"t holding a pistol.
"See, there"s water here," Mattius said, pointing at a load of bottles stacked on top of one another. "A whole lot of it. Good. That"s good. Glad to see you"ve been putting provisions in pl-"
"You aren"t welcome here," Ricky said.
Mattius" eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth, as if he was planning on responding, but then he closed it and wiped his lips, dangling Kesha in one arm. "What did you just say?"
Ricky felt the tension building up in his stomach and like a volcano, he knew it was finally erupting. "You killed my mum. You shot her through the head. You aren"t welcome here."
Mattius sighed. He tilted his head to one side. "Ricky, I"m sorry about your mother. Really, I am. But-"
"Don"t," Ricky shouted. He squared up to Mattius. He felt that Mattius had pressed the gun to his belly, sure, but still he stared into his eyes and let the rage within pour out like water from a leaky tap. "You don"t even say her name. You don"t even talk about her. You killed her. No other way about it. You killed her."
Mattius lowered the pistol then. In his arm, Kesha had gone quiet. She was looking up at Ricky with twinkling, curious eyes. Ricky even thought he saw her smile at him.
"You"re right," Mattius said. "I called the shot on your mother."
Hearing him say those words made Ricky"s skin crawl and his desire for revenge peak. It took all his resistance to stop himself punching Mattius right now, and never stopping.
"But think about it, Ricky. I was doing you a favour."
"Think very carefully about your next words."
Mattius smiled a little. He lifted the gun, pushed it into Ricky"s belly. "Your mother. This world wasn"t a good place for her."
Ricky pushed himself closer to Mattius, squaring up to him. "Don"t."
That smile twitched at the corners of Mattius" mouth a little more. Ricky sensed that Mattius was enjoying this. The sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d was actually enjoying goading him about the death of his mother.
That hurt a lot. After all, Ricky had believed in Mattius for a long time. He"d stood by his side when Mattius had made some awful, sometimes brutal, decisions.
Right now, he felt nothing but betrayal, like a child finding out for the very first time that the tooth fairy isn"t real, even after months and years of suspecting it.
"You know, I thought we could work things out," Mattius said. "I really thought we could figure out our differences and move on, you and me."
"How can we after the things you"ve done?"
Mattius shook his head. "Don"t put everything on me. You stood by my side when I made difficult calls. You were there when our place burned down. When I took the girl"s arm off and killed the woman. And you were there when we fed people to the dead."
"I was," Ricky said, his lips shaking. He tasted tears on his lips and realised he was crying. "And I regret it. Every second of it. I made the wrong call standing by your side. I"m not going to make the same mistake again."
Ricky half expected Mattius to shoot him right there.
Instead, Mattius put Kesha down and punched Ricky in the side of his head.
The punch knocked Ricky to the floor right away. He tasted blood as the side of his skull collided with the edge of a desk.
He tried to get back to his feet. He wanted nothing more than a clean punch at Mattius.
But Mattius got there first.
He rammed a boot into Ricky"s right side.
The kick knocked the wind out of Ricky"s body. He tasted blood even more intensely now, as it filled up his mouth.
"See, the difference between you and me is that I adapt to the situation," Mattius said.
He kicked Ricky again. This time, Ricky thought he felt something crack.
"I don"t cling on to revenge. Even with Riley, I didn"t hold on."
Another kick. The pain in Ricky"s side was so intense that he thought he might pa.s.s out any time now.
Mattius put his foot on Ricky"s head. He started to apply gentle pressure, and Ricky realised what was going to happen. He saw Kesha over at the other side of the room, heard her crying.
And he saw the manic, bloodshot look in Mattius" eyes.
The look of a man who"d stumbled way too far over the edge and lost his way.
"But sometimes, when you don"t do as you"re told, well..."
He pushed down further. The pressure in Ricky"s skull was at bursting point, now.
"Sometimes you just have to crush the bug."
Ricky gritted his teeth together. He wanted to fight, but he was too out of breath, too weak.
He looked over at Kesha, and he hoped-prayed-that things would work out for her.
Then something in his head slipped, and his vision blurred, a sudden flurry of blood splattering against his lips.
He thought it was over. For a second, Ricky was convinced that his skull had cracked and that his brains were going to be spread out along the floor of the hatch.
But that didn"t happen at all.
Instead, the pressure from Mattius" foot dropped.
Mattius staggered off his head, then to his side.
Ricky blinked a few times to try and figure out what was happening, truly.
When he looked up, for the first time in this entire showdown, he felt something that felt like... hope.
Mattius was holding the back of his head. He had a concerned expression on his face. Ricky saw then that blood was dripping between his fingers.
Above, at the entrance to the hatch, Ricky could just about make out a figure.