The World We Live In | 𝚃. 𝙾𝚃𝚃𝙾 ♤

Chapter 17

Hunched over the workstation, Troy stared at the identical markings on the separate maps. Blake and Cooper were in charge of Andrew and Vince's interrogations while he focused on Aaron. Troy had less luck with the questioning than the others, but luckily for them, the other two were weaker than their leader. One a coward and the other an addict. On their own, the trio was unreliable as hell but separately asking them specific questions. Comparing those answers yielded the results Troy was looking for—tracing his finger from their current location to mark the way up north to a couple of miles from here. It wasn't even that far either—half an hour with a vehicle.

"We can trust what they're saying?" Troy looked up, staring at Blake and Cooper.

"I don't trust these pricks one bit," Cooper answered with a scoff and lined his hands around the front of his tactical vest and gripped it. Despite his opinion, he put some perspective and elaborated, "but I don't think mine's lying. Drugged him up enough. Reckon he'll be begging for another shot soon."

Nick was in the room and inwardly winced at Coop's comment. It felt out of place being in an environment and listening to the others talk about torture and killing people, using everything in their reach without caring about living human beings. His tense conversation with Troy did sway him that these three couldn't be kept alive. But Nick still felt as if he was the odd one out.

His hesitant gaze traveled in Cristine's direction, who stood at the other end of the workstation, next to Troy, and her face lowered. The way she barely reacted to the other's conversation established that all of this was usual for the medic too. He'd known, but seeing her so in place with the others send a shiver up Nick's spine. She must've felt his stare because Cristine looked up from the maps and her intrusive, dark irises like pair of onyx gems. He saw her tilt her head and called his name. "What?" Nick jolted in surprise and looked confused before looking at the other. He realized everyone was looking at him with expectation.

"I asked how evac with the dead is going?" It was Troy who repeated his question, sounding impatient. Nick puffed out air through his puckered lips and rubbed the back of his neck. Troy slid his hand on his hip and tilted his chin back to listen to his briefing.

"I managed to split a part of the horde and led them to the road. I made sure the dead are heading away from here. It won't be long until the rest follows. I'd give it a few hours until they're all gone."

"Still can't believe you did what you did outside, Clark. Didn't think you had it in you." Coop's analogy brought back some lightness among the five of them.

"This tops what we did when we played possum."

"Possum? You mean you guys played dead?" Nick looked between the quartet, and Troy was the one who answered.

"Yeah, we cut down a lot of corpses, piled them up together, and buried ourselves between them until they passed. Masked ourselves with their scent," Troy explained and slipped his hand on the top of the work desk again. What he'd done today, walking together with the dead, was probably at the top of his list of crazily beautiful things he did. Troy experienced this force and power of nature at that moment. He'd do this more often for his curiosity and how to exploit it in full.

"That was insane. I think we were in there for hours. Felt like the smell stayed on me for days, even after cleaning up." Blake winced, remembering that terrifying experience. He could joke and laugh about it now, but at that moment, it wasn't enjoyable. But he didn't have that dreadful feeling today, maybe because they did it to protect their own or perhaps because he'd already seen a lot.

"Alright," Cristine drummed her fingers on the table, cutting the men's little bonding moment short. "If you guys are done getting horny over the dead, we can wrap things up. We sure about this? She asked, being that Troy was the one who had the final call, having weighed the pros and cons.