“He attacked me,” she cries. “I was just buying some food. I didn’t do anything,” she whimpers louder, and now people have started taking notice.
Their eyes show their panic, but I motion for them to disperse very calmly. They begin backing away, and she squints her eyes as the tinted sky’s light glistens into them.
“No. I can’t be… Please fix it. I don’t want to die a monster,” she cries out louder.
“I’m sorry, but there’s no cure,” I choke out, and she howls out her sobs as she stares at her blackening nails.
“No. Kill me,” she screeches.
“We’re not allowed to do that until full transformation,” Hale says so gingerly, as if he’s talking to a caged animal.
He keeps his hand on his gun, and I do the same as she continues staggering toward us. Everyone behind us keeps stepping back as well. I see a moment of clarity, acceptance, and a sudden realization attack her dilated, reddened eyes. No. Please don’t make me do this.
Her gasp of a breath comes just before she screams out. She charges Hale while flinging her hands erratically, her poisonous nails getting too close with each step. My heartbeat finds my ears, drowning out all other sounds with its fierce, pounding thuds almost deafening me.
I fire five shots before I realize I’ve even drawn my gun, and she falls to the ground… lifeless… after her successful suicide attempt.
I feel the tears starting to whelp up in my eyes, and Hale’s arms wrap around me as the gun falls from my hand.
“It’s okay, baby. She didn’t give us a choice.”
Us? I shot her. Not him. He stayed calm. She wanted to die, and I killed her before it was time.
Hale keeps one arm holding me to his body as he pulls out his phone with his free hand. I sniffle into his chest, trying not to sob out in front of everyone at Selma, as he handles my mess.
“What’s up?” Clay chirps innocently.
“We need a fire crew in the fourth quadrant market.”
“An infected? Inside the wall?” he gasps.
You’ll need a scavenging crew too to make sure it didn’t infect anyone else in the short time it lived,” Hale murmurs, and I whimper a little louder.
“I’ll take care of it.”
Hale hangs up the phone, and he pulls me tighter to his body as the people in the market take a step closer to investigate the dead human with patches of hairless skin, red eyes, and black nails.
“Everyone stay back. I’m Captain Banner, an official in the United. This is now a quarantined section. You will turn around and walk away now,” he asserts while holding up his badge.
“She was still human,” I sob, the wails and animal-like sounds finally breaking free from my throat.
He coos into my ear as he strokes my hair softly to comfort me.
“She wasn’t completely human anymore, Araya, and she knew it. She wanted to die before she was lost to the monster she was turning into. If anything, you saved her,” he soothes.
I feel the darkness stirring within me, and I quickly dig into his pocket where I know he keeps olophine, and I bite into my wrist to quickly inject myself, dousing the savage’s plan to surface.
“Fuck. Let’s get you out of here,” he murmurs while the cleanup crew rushes in.
He tucks me under his arm, and I turn to watch them ashing the woman I just murdered in the streets. She could have been a wife and a mother, and I just took her from her family without giving her the chance to say goodbye. She could have stayed lucid for another hour before fully changing. We could have found her family in that amount of time.
I feel the darkness trying to take me over as the olophine burns through veins, and I know one isn’t going to be enough. I dig in Hale’s pocket once more, and I inject my veins again. He scoops me up and forces my head against his chest so I can’t continue to watch the morbid, fiery show anymore.
“It’s okay, baby. She could have hurt me, and you saved me. You acted in defense.”
“If it was so dire, then why didn’t you draw your weapon?” I whimper loudly, and he kisses my forehead softly.
“Because you beat me to it. I would have done it myself.”
