Heart Hunters

SEVENTEEN

A L A

"You look."

"Why me? You have better eyes."

"I don't want to."

"Why not?"

"I don't know."

My narrowed eyes rested on the end of the aisle. "It's quiet. What do you think that means?"

"How should I know?" snapped Sancha. "I've never seen Carriers fight."

"Well, whoever wins," I turned to my sister, "we're still taking the loser's heart. Right?"

God, what I would've given to be able to see through that damn mask. Sancha crossed her arms and said nothing, stewing.

"Sancha?"

She sighed and plopped down onto a pew. "We need the Cure."

"I know."

"It's nothing personal."

"I know."

"Shut up."

"Why?"

"Because you don't know nothing. Neither of us do." She hugged her arms over her chest, shielding her own heart. "It's better that way."

"That's just how it is. We're not—" I paused. Not what? Bad people? Murderers?

Monsters?

A laugh cut through the heavy silence.

Sancha's body tensed as Mano's jubilant, watery eyes landed on her.

"Why do you need the Cure, kiddo?" He lifted his heavy, bleeding head. His rotary saw hand scraped over the church floor. "For money? Power? Or is it to save a Walker loved one?"

"Hey."

I marched up to the old man, squaring my booted feet before him. Honey swung into his cheek, snapping his head to the side. I squatted down to his level, tilting my head to get a better look at his bruised bastard face. "Don't talk to my sister. Don't look at my sister. Don't breathe the same air as my sister. Got it?"

"Ala, just stop."

I froze. I turned.

Sancha sat hugging her knees, her face hidden in her arms. Dad's shirt hid most of her painfully skinny body, but not enough. Her spine protruded sharply from her back, and her shoulder blades jutted out like the stubs of hacked-off wings. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and scream.

When Sancha was Infected, I went to every hospital on our side of the hills, begging for a way to bring her back.

They turned me out. Their faces blurred together in a knotted mess of unremembered features and shapes. Their blue scrubs and white coats were always the same. So were their voices: limp and worn, tired of sympathy.

I'm sorry. We can't help her.

Please. Please help.

There aren't enough Carriers willing to donate.

Screw them. Screw all of you.

We can put you on the waiting list for a donor.

Wait? You want me to wait? You want my dying baby sister to suffer even longer?

Sorry. Other people have been waiting longer than you have.

You'll just have to be patient.

That's the way things are now.

I'm sorry.

We can't force people to give up their hearts.

"Why the Hell not?!" I wanted to scream. "They're just smarter Walkers! They're not even human anymore! Why do they matter more than real people? Why do they matter more than Sancha?!"

I slammed my fist into the rough, ash-colored pavement. Passerby skirted around my curled-up body. I tipped my head back and screamed. People didn't even stop. Who cared? Who even heard me? I was one voice among many, drowned beneath the screams of one hundred thousand dying and two million dead and walking.

I got home late.

My legs bent mechanically, my gloved hands working the rat trap like they were made for it. Their tails were already stiff, their heads arched back in the ghost of a scream.

Sancha heard me coming.

She snarled and slavered, teeth bared and bloody, straining against the chains on her neck. They were all dog chains, from the guard dogs she'd shredded to bits on the night she was Infected. It took all five chains to keep her bound without hurting her.

Her rough fingernails gouged the dirt, tearing up clumps of dead grass.

I walked past the 'Beware of Sister' sign, stopping just a hair away from the red line I'd painted on the ground — the closest I could get without being torn apart.

"Two for you." I tossed the rats into the air. "One for me."

Sancha snatched a rat out of the air, bones crunching beneath her teeth. She landed with a satisfied growl, her hand shooting out to catch the other before it could hit the ground. Her fingers closed around its throat. Its neck snapped under her thumb.

"That's a good girl." I crouched, watching her tear into her rats. "You're getting better at it every day."

"AUGH!" Sancha ripped off the spine, tipping her head back. She slammed her fist into the ground. "AAAUGH!"

"I know, sweetie. I know." I hid my streaming eyes behind my hand. "It'll be okay. I'll make you better. I promise."

My baby sister tipped her head back and howled.