Living Monsters

Chapter 12

As soon as her sister said that, Penny all of a sudden obtained a headache. It was the elephant in the room, and if a genie were to appear, she would wish for Lana to forget about her question.

The question was loud enough to be heard by Caleb, as he was the one who answered it in a brash manner: "First, she decided to stop this thing and go to the bathroom. She didn't care to get her gun, just like she didn't want any of my doors to be locked except for the attic. Ridiculous, I know. But she still valued protection in other ways, for sure."

Time was ticking, and Lana began to tap her foot. Get to the point.

"When I came in, it was just–"

He inhaled a breath and then let it out.

"I'll put it this way. One of the sick was already in there, and I managed to see that it was holding on to some really small bottle. Pills or something."

Aarav felt Penny's side glance from a few inches away.

"Some sort of death medicine? Weird, but I don't really want to think about that right now." She frowned as her forehead wrinkled at the thought.

He pulled the mirror away from Lana. "You know what he was wearing? A heavy navy jacket. Like the one Elena's group was always wearing. I think that she took you, Lana to fulfill some sort of revenge plan because of her dead sister. Whatever. They were going to hold you for ransom in exchange for supplies."

Huh? She didn't say anything about a sister. Though Lana got the idea, she was only still alive so that she could be scolded again.

"The person took the pill, became infected, and passed it onto her, probably once he saw her coming. Jesus, it must've been super quick." He just didn't want to talk about it anymore. That was the fitting time to stop talking because someone with bangs stood in the middle of the nicely-paved road. It took Caleb two seconds to realize it was infected. The tires shrieked to a stop while Nigel cringed at the sensation.

"I'll just go around it," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Not a big deal." The van's speed decreased when it traveled across the gap between the possessed mind and body and the side of the road. It contained weeds that seemed that they could touch the sky to Nina.

"That guy - Isabelle killed his friends. But it wasn't for nothing. It was to get entry, that key card access." He paused and wiped anything close to liquid in his eye.

From gazing out all of the windows in the van, Lana's pitch-black eyes took note of the clear sky overlooking the vast crops. Did he expect her to respond to all of that? She couldn't find a reason not to.

"Scary story," Nina told Lana, physically observing the lack of expressivity in her face to see if it matched up with her steady eyes.

"Well, that's what she got for helping me," she chose to murmur, returning Nina's gape without a change of appearance. "She got what was coming to her."

Penny picked up on the noise. "Did you say something, Lana?" she asked, clarity in her tone.

The words were repeated in the exact order, only louder, pushing Penny to turn around and blankly glare at her with no effort put into her face.

"You should be grateful that you're here right now. A simple 'thank you' should suffice," she remarked, shaking her head. She couldn't believe that Lana decided to thank the group for coming to her aid by leaving for a barely acceptable reason. However, Lana failed to understand why her sister was so upset.

She spoke the truth.

At last, the weight on Caleb's hands had been lifted as there was no need to drive anymore. He was looking out at the hill and the sturdy house standing there. Oh, how he wanted a normal family life.