It Was Quiet

7

"What the hell were you thinking?" Braden chastises me for my complete and total idiocy. He paced back and forth in front of me while I lounged in the manager's chair. The gun was still in my hands but now empty as I had shot all the freaks in the parking lot.

Blood still covered my arms and shirt which I hadn't bothered to change when Braden dragged me back into the coffee shop and into the back where we now were twenty minutes later and he was still fuming. "Why are you so upset? I took care of the freaks."

"Is that what we are calling them now? Freaks?" He shook his head and knelt down in front of me, putting his hands on my knees and placing his head on top of them. He sighed and I could feel his shaking against my legs, he was scared.

"Bray, why don't we just go. If we go now, we could make it there in a week if we don't stop too much. Come on. I'm too antsy to keep sitting here. I can't sleep, nor can I eat because all I think about is them. Them out there with their half-eaten faces and blood covered clothes. I can't sleep Braden."

"Bella, come on even I know that it's a stupid idea to leave right now when its dark and only god knows what is running around out there." He stood again and raked his hands through his hair violently.

"Braden." I started before he cut me off by grabbing the now empty gun out of my hands and throwing it across the room.

"NO! Bella, no. We are not leaving now. It's too dangerous." He paced the room in front of me still. I wasn't going to lie. I was frightened by his actions and jumped when I heard the loud clattering of the gun hitting the ground. He looked at me when I jumped and he laughed. He actually laughed.

"What Braden?" I pulled my legs to my chest and played with the strings on my shoes. The world was spinning too fast for me to keep up. I felt like I could sit here forever and the world around me would just keep going. I took a few deep breaths. In, count to four, out, count to four. I did that a few times before opening my eyes.

"I'm worried about you Bella." We hadn't even been in this mess a week and he was already telling me that he was worried about me. What did that say about my actions? What did that say about my ability to keep myself sane? "It's been two days and you are already turning into someone I don't recognize."

I looked him in the eyes and he sighed, turning away from me. That was my breaking point with him. I grabbed his hand and dragged him to the ladder going to the roof. I started to climb up ignoring his pleas for me to come back down. Eventually I pushed open the roof access and walked to the edge. I heard his footsteps behind me and I gestured to the ground below us. It was littered with freaks now. The gunshots brought more and more closer to our hiding spot.

"This is the world we live in now. We can either accept it and die in it, turning into one of those freaks that walk around not knowing a rat from a man, or, we could fight it and live to be old and happy. There're two choices here Braden, you can either choose to live or choose to die. I for one am going to live with or without you."

He looked sad and surprised at my sudden outburst of information. These last few days had been hard for him to say the least, losing his brother and his mum, I couldn't even imagine that but I thought that in the near future I might have to so I was making myself hard now. I looked over at him then back down at the dangerous and dead world below us.

"I don't know Bella. I really don't think I know who you are right now. I don't want Maddie around that." He grabbed my hand and I pulled it away from his almost immediately, almost like it burned. I looked at him like he had lost his mind.

"Are you fucking kidding me Braden?!" I yelled at him. It was one thing to say that right now he didn't trust me or to say that he wanted to learn about this new world with me but to force me away from Maddie? That was way too much. "She is as much my daughter as she is yours."

"Except that's not true, is it?" He had so much anger in his features that I was genuinely scared. He looked so broken and dead inside at this moment that I didn't know what I could do to  make it better. "She's my daughter, you only popped in a year ago. You are not her mother and you never will be."

I backed away from him, I didn't know this man. This was not the man I fell in love with. Then I noticed his eyes. They were yellow and bleeding. I hated myself for not noticing before. They were puffy and pus was seeping from the corners and I was stupid enough to think it was tears. His hands shook as he reached out to me. I stepped back and felt the lip of the roof hit the heel of my foot.

"Braden?" I asked carefully. When could this have happened? When did he get infected? Was it when I was outside? No, that couldn't be it. Then it hit me, when his brother died and his mom. I had blood on my arms and face. He kissed me then, He kissed me when I had their blood on me. I had done this; I did this to him.

"Bella, I don't want you near her?! Do you hear me?!" He yelled again, taking another step towards me. I couldn't back up any further and I put my hands out in front of me to push him away or to keep him away, I didn't know which.

"Braden, you're-you're infected." I muttered. I couldn't bring myself to believe it. I didn't want to bring myself to believe it but it was here, right in front of me. "You're infected!" I yelled this time fearing for my own life as well as the people downstairs.

"Bella duck!" I heard Jessica yell. I couldn't place which direction her voice was coming from so I dropped to my knees, my arms snaking their way over my head to protect it from anything that could have fallen.

I saw the body before I heard the shot. It should have happened the other way. I should have heard the shot before I saw Braden's lifeless body fall from the roof, chunks of his head flying every which way. I think I was in shock more than anything else. I kneeled on the gravel floor of the roof and didn't move.

I was frozen in place. My arms and hands hung limply at my sides. My knees felt like jelly and my lungs barely let me breathe. My heart was beating a thousand miles a second and I felt as if I was going to black out at any moment but I didn't. I couldn't Maddie had to be protected no matter what and, in this moment, that was the only thing that kept me awake.