Survival Instinct (Book 3): Fighting Instinct Read online

  He’s not.

  “So we should be worried then.”

  Freya nodded.

  This seemed to calm Misha down. Apparently not knowing bothered him more than confirmation.

  “We’ll have to fight, won’t we?”

  I’d say it’s likely.

  Misha nodded, now focused on a patch of wall to his left. He had trouble with eye contact, at least when it came to Freya.

  “That’s all I really wanted to ask.”

  Despite his statement, he continued to stand in the room. Freya wondered what he was thinking. There was something about him that reminded her of herself, only without the tree of hate inside.

  “Is there anything else you need?” he finally asked.

  Freya shook her head.

  “All right. I’m sure the guard outside could get you something if you really needed it.” Without saying any sort of goodbye, he turned and left the room, his dog following behind him.

  Once the door was closed, Freya walked up to it and threw the deadbolt. Having done that, she turned to the food on the tray. There wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. Vegetables took up most of the space, with a few puny fruits. There were also two hardboiled eggs, and a glass of water. Freya noticed that she had been given a knife along with a fork. When she finished eating, she planned to keep that knife.

  It was impossible to tell how late it was. Without a window or a running timepiece, Freya had only her own internal clock to tell the time, and that clock had never been right. She thought that maybe she would sleep. If she was right about when Sher and his men reached them, she wanted to be rested.

  Turning off the one light made the room pitch black. After a few seconds of total darkness, Freya realized her eyes would not adjust to it, and so turned the light back on. It was one thing to hide in the shadows, it was another to be entirely blind.

  Stripping off the bed’s sheet, Freya reset the duvet and lay down on top of it, and then covered herself with only the thin fabric. She lay as if in a coffin, on her back with her hands folded across her belly. Staring up at the ceiling, she thought about Misha and his questions. What would happen when Sher caught up to them? There would be a battle, no doubt, but how would it go? Freya had never seen a battle on the ocean. Their camp had been raided by pirates before, but she had never seen a boat attack another boat.

  Closing her eyes, Freya attempted to sleep. She thought of her brother, back when he had been known as Sheraton. Back before Sher had turned him into a monster and killed him. Freya hadn’t been able to kill him when he took over the group because she still hoped her brother lived inside the monster. She would see his face and think of Sheraton. But Sheraton was dead now. There was only Sher left.

  Freya could kill him now.

  13

  Where’s Misha?

  After his visit with Freya, Misha headed for the stairs. It was still too early for his dinner, which he wasn’t much looking forward to. He didn’t really want to see his friends, not right now. All day he had been worried about Sher and his threats, and he had finally found an opportunity to confirm them. There was a battle coming. Surprisingly, he didn’t much care about when it came, just that it was coming. He always had a spear gun strapped to one leg, but now Misha was thinking about going to the armoury and picking up something like a machete. First, he went down to the second deck.

  During his down time, Misha had been hanging around the veterinarians. He had no interest in changing jobs, but he wanted to understand Rifle better. If Rifle ever got sick, he wanted to know the early warning signs, and what he could do to help.

  Looking down at Rifle, Misha saw that his ears were pricked as much as possible, and his tail was held higher than usual. Rifle always got excited when they came down to Noah’s Ark

  The two of them walked into one of the examination rooms, but there was no one there. This didn’t bother Misha.

  “Rifle, up.” He patted a metal table, prompting Rifle to climb the little staircase next to it.

  Rifle watched his paws as he walked onto the table, and then carefully laid himself down upon it. Misha searched for the dog anatomy book that Cameron had shown him before. He remembered when he first met the basset hound, Shoes, the dog had been fine, but after a few days, he appeared to be sick. It turned out the dog was just in mourning for his lost little girl, and became himself again once Becky was his new owner. With the death of Alec, Misha suspected Rifle might go into mourning. The German Shepherd probably didn’t know what had happened, not yet, but over the next few days, he’d realize that Alec was gone. Misha was worried that if something was actually wrong with Rifle during that time, he might mistake it for a dog in mourning, based on his experience with Shoes.

  “Misha.”

  Misha nearly jumped out of his skin, hearing his name whispered in a room he thought was empty.

  “Who’s there?” Misha wheeled around, searching the room while placing a hand on the butt of his spear gun.

  Rifle jumped down off the table and scooted over to a large gurney in the corner, sticking his nose under the sheet that hung from it.

  “Ack, go away Rifle, your nose is cold.”

  Misha walked over to the corner and lifted the sheet up off the gurney. Jon was scrunched up underneath it, with Rifle sniffing him all over.

  “Jon? Aren’t you supposed to be in prison?”

  “I escaped. Can you give me a hand? I’m caught on something.” Jon gestured toward his back.

  Kneeling on the floor, Misha looked up underneath the gurney. The collar of Jon’s shirt had somehow become entangled in part of the structure. Misha carefully freed it, managing not to rip the fabric.

  “Thanks, man.” Jon crawled out from beneath the gurney, but both he and Misha remained sitting on the floor together. Rifle sat down next to them.

  “Why did you escape from prison?” Misha asked him. “And how?”

  “It was decided that since I was there for testing positive, I was a dead man and didn’t need to know what the meeting was about. A guy showed up and tried to kill me. He did kill Yanis, the man I brought back from the other ship.” Jon sounded a little shaken by what had happened, but he was dealing with it. “I had to kill the man, or else he would have killed me. You understand that, right?”

  “Yeah. I do.” On the Day, Misha had killed his best friend for the same reason. His friend had been a zombie, but Misha didn’t know that at the time. The world was very much kill or be killed these days.

  “I killed him. I don’t know who he was, but I got a knife off of him.” Jon held up the knife. It wasn’t bloody, so it wasn’t what he had used to kill his attacker. “You know the fake stained glass window between the sealed-off exits?”

  “The one above the hallway just outside, under the stairs,” Misha gestured in its general direction.

  “Yeah. The plastic was tough, but I was able to cut through it with the knife. Some guards were coming back, so I hid in here after jumping through the opening. Cut my arm a bit on the plastic.” He held up his arm to show Misha the scratch. It was an angry red, and looked like it had been bleeding earlier, but had since stopped.

  “What do you plan to do now?”

  “I need to get to the medical centre. There’s something strange about this so-called infection of mine.”

  “What?” When Misha had heard that Jon was claiming he wasn’t infected, he believed Jon. There were a few people outside his group that he trusted to be honest about such things and Jon was one of them.

  “I don’t know how I could have gotten infected, for one. The man I killed, he turned afterward. I don’t think he was infected either.”

  The hair on the back of Misha’s neck bristled. How could someone turn into a zombie without being infected?

  “Yanis said that people on his ship were dying due to various illnesses and malnutrition. It had been several weeks since anyone in his group had had contact with a zombie, yet when they died, they turned.”

&nbs
p; Misha shifted his position on the floor. Rifle, who had lain down while Jon was talking, lifted his head, noticing Misha’s discomfort.

  “I feel I need to tell this to someone in the medical centre.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, you should,” Misha agreed.

  “Can you help me get there? Just scope out the hallways and stairs for me. We’re not far.”

  No, they weren’t far. The medical centre was just at the other end of the ship and down a level.

  “We’ll have to use the hallways up here. We can’t travel through the engine rooms. There will be people all over the place down there, now that we’re moving.”

  “We’re moving?” Jon paused and cocked his head, feeling the motion of the ship. “So that’s what it is. I thought it felt like movement, but just assumed I was dizzy or something because of what happened. Why are we moving?”

  “There’s an attack coming. The ship leaders are trying to avoid it by taking us to Texas, but I don’t think that’s going to work. I think the attackers will catch up with us.”

  “Pirates?”

  Misha shook his head. “All the pirates we’ve come across are in small bands. This won’t be a small band.”

  Jon nodded. “All right. The information I have might be even more important, given the chance of gunfire.”

  “I’ll get you to the medical centre.”

  Misha and Jon both got up off the floor, which caused Rifle to do likewise. Misha walked over to the door and stuck his head out. The hall was still empty, so he waved Jon forward.

  “Too bad we don’t have a hoody or something for you,” Misha commented as he headed down the hall. If they had something to cover Jon’s face with, this would be easier. It didn’t help that Jon was a fairly well known guy, and therefore recognizable.

  Jon only shrugged in response.

  Rifle trotted happily ahead, disappearing around the corner into one of the major hallways they needed to traverse to get to the other end of the ship.

  “Hey there, Rifle!” a happy voice cried from around the corner.

  Misha and Jon froze.

  “What are you doing here? Is Misha with you?”

  Gesturing for Jon to prepare to run, Misha went around the corner to see who it was. The voice was very familiar, and as it turned out, it belonged to Riley’s twin sister, Cameron.

  “There you are,” Cameron said, looking up from where she knelt on the carpet rubbing Rifle’s shoulders. “Came to do some more studying?”

  “Yeah, but something came up and I need to go see your sister.”

  “Oh? What about?”

  “It’s kind of personal.”

  Cameron cocked her head to one side. “You know you fidget when you lie?”

  Misha stilled his hands that had been picking at his wet suit. This was going poorly. He should have planned what to say.

  “Did you break something in the exam room?” Cameron asked, trying to wheedle the truth out of Misha.

  “No. No, I didn’t break anything.”

  With a sigh, Jon stepped around the corner. “Well that was short lived.”

  “Jon?” Cameron got to her feet. “I thought you were being held in the Dragon’s Den?”

  “I got out. It’s actually me that needs to see Riley. Something came up that’d I rather not discuss in the open.”

  A deep frown creased Cameron’s face, making her completely indistinguishable from her more serious sister. She was clearly thinking about what to do, which meant that telling the ship defenders was an option for her.

  “It’s a pretty serious matter that affects all of us,” Jon continued. “I promise I’ll go back into holding after I give my news. It doesn’t even have to be Riley, but I need to talk to someone in the medical centre.”

  Cameron didn’t answer as she continued to think things over. Suddenly, Misha had an idea.

  “Why don’t I go get Riley and bring her here? Jon can stay in one of the animal pens until I get back.”

  “Works for me,” Jon agreed.

  Cameron kept thinking. Rifle looked at each of the people, and then chuffed softly, wondering why they weren’t moving.

  “All right. He can stay in one of the animal pens, and I’m going to keep an eye on him,” Cameron finally relented. “Go get my sister.”

  “Thanks,” Jon sighed with relief.

  “I expect an explanation when this is all over though,” she admonished them. “I’m also going to call the ship defenders if I think you’re up to something.”

  “Understood.”

  “Come on, Rifle.” Misha stepped around Cameron and patted his leg. Rifle turned to follow him down the hall.

  “In here,” Cameron led Jon into a nearby animal room.

  ***

  When Misha reached the medical centre, he stopped just outside the door. He could hear voices inside and they were speaking in Russian. Although the voices were muffled, he stopped to listen to what he could. Most of the words were indistinct, but there was one word he picked out: bomba, bomb. He strained to hear more. They were talking about a bomb they had set off. Suddenly, Rifle pushed his way through the door, forcing Misha to stop listening and follow after him.

  The Russians were sitting in the waiting chairs near the entrance. They all looked up and stopped speaking as Misha entered the centre. He chose not to look directly at them, hoping he wouldn’t give away the fact he had heard something they didn’t want him to. It sounded like the Russians had set off the bomb that killed Alec. A tightness wound up Misha’s guts, while his heart was squeezed up into his throat.

  Rifle trotted over to a bed that Milly was lying beside. She stood up as the shepherd approached her, and they began their sniffing routine. On the bed sat a sullen looking Hope, and Becky, who had a bandage wrapped around her head. Across from them sat two other kids, one of them an older girl wearing a cowboy hat. Misha suspected that these were the recently found missing children.

  “Misha, what are you doing here?” Riley strode over from where she had been changing a woman’s IV bag.

  For a second, Misha couldn’t remember. All he felt was a red hatred for the men in the corner. When he did remember Jon, he drew Riley to one side, where his whispers wouldn’t be overheard.

  “Jon escaped from the Den,” he told her. “He says there’s something weird about his infection, and the man he brought in told him a pretty disturbing story. You should probably hear it from him.”

  “Where is he?” Riley didn’t sound very surprised by what Misha had just told her.

  “Noah’s Ark. Your sister is keeping an eye on him in one of the pens.”

  Riley sighed. “I can’t go see him just yet. I need to wait here with the kids for their parents to come pick them up.”

  “I can watch them.” Misha wasn’t so sure he’d be watching the kids so much as watching the Russians.

  “No. I don’t want to leave Hope. Besides, the parents are expecting me to be here.”

  Misha shuffled his feet. “Well, how long is it going to be?”

  “Not long. I suspect the parents have been found and told where their kids are by now. They should be coming to get them any minute.”

  “Has Mathias been here?”

  “Not recently. Although he should be here. Why?”

  Misha lowered his voice even further, placing his lips right up against Riley’s ear as he spoke. “Because I heard the Russians mentioning a bomb they had set off.”

  Riley’s eyes widened. They darted over to the Russians, and then quickly back to Misha. “I knew there was something up with them. The kids were found because they came across those men in the laundry room. They claimed they were just shutting down the machines for departure, but that was before the large meeting was even over, and they were pretty rough with the kids.”

  “They killed Alec.” Misha’s hands were clenched so tightly, he was going to have indentations in the palms from his fingernails.

  “It’s possible, but you could be wrong. You may ha
ve misheard.” Riley placed a hand on his shoulder, and discovered just how rigidly Misha was standing.

  “I didn’t mishear.”

  “Doesn’t matter. They could have been talking about something else. A ship defender should be on his way down to talk to them. You can mention it then.”

  Misha looked over at the three men who were watching their whispered conversation with interest. He wanted to strangle them. Not having had a lot of experience with killing, even when it came to zombies, Misha nevertheless thought he could easily watch the life go out of those men’s eyes.

  “Fine. I’ll wait,” he eventually said through gritted teeth. “I’m not sure if your sister will though.”

  “She’ll wait. She knows that if I’m in the middle of something, wild horses couldn’t drag me away from it. Besides, how many times have both she and Jon been at our dinner table? She knows him, and will give him the benefit of the doubt. Why don’t you sit down?”

  “I don’t want to sit down.” Misha wasn’t even sure he could sit down. His muscles felt like they had been bound by wire.

  “You’re going to sit down. I want you to sit down before you do something stupid. Come on, doctor’s orders.” Riley placed her hand on his shoulder again and led him toward an empty bed just past the children. She pressed down on his shoulder until he sat. “Now, I have a few more patients to check on. You’re not to move.” Riley then turned away from him.

  “Are you in trouble too?” Hope whispered across the gap between their beds.

  “No, I’m not in trouble,” Misha told her.

  “You look like you’re in trouble. You look mad.”

  Misha looked down at his hands and noticed they were still clenched painfully tight. Slowly relaxing them, he realized he was probably going to have small bruises from his fingers as well as indents. At least his nails were brutally short, or else he might have found himself bleeding.

  Rifle walked up to Misha and lifted his head as high as he could, just able to place the end of his chin on Misha’s knee. Rifle’s ears were pricked high, and his tail wasn’t wagging. He understood that something was upsetting Misha. Misha scratched his muzzle, prompting a slow tail wag, but those alert ears didn’t lower and his eyes didn’t leave Misha’s face.