The Dead Saga (Book 3): Odium III by Claire C. Riley Page B

out and touch with the palm of your hand. I wanted to offer him some support, to tell him that it would be okay, but I couldn’t. That would have been a lie. Because things would never be okay again. Things hadn’t been okay for a long time now, and with each breaking dawn, when I thought I had seen the worst, a new horror seemed to arise from the ashes.
    That’s something I would never be able to get over. Something I would never become immune to. Because each day I was only shocked more than the last.
    “Next left,” Deacon said, his voice thick as he struggled to contain his emotions. His shoulder was pressed against mine in the small cab of the truck and I could feel him trembling, but chose not to comment or acknowledge it in any way.
    Nova turned left, down a dirt track and past some trees that had grown wild in the years that had passed. We finally came to a stop in front of a small two-story farmhouse, and all the air seemed to leave Deacon’s lungs in one quick gasp. The horror was clearly too much for him, the fresh agony of being here hitting him like a punch to the stomach. It couldn’t be good, whatever awaited us, to garner such a reaction from him when he had seen whatever lay within already…
    I looked away from his face, taking in our surroundings. The yard was overgrown, and what was once a small wooden fence surrounding the expanse of the house was now mostly broken down and rotten. The place had once been well-loved, with a vegetable garden and flower bed, the wooden exterior once a bright white, the roof a pretty red. However, now it was nothing more than a drab, broken home filled with unknown horrors.
    I looked across at Nova as she turned the engine off and the cab of the truck fell into a thick silence. She was staring out of the windshield, her pale face a blank canvas, and in that moment all I could think to do was tell her to keep driving—to take us back to base camp and forget this crazy shit. We knew what was in there. We didn’t need to see it.
    Nova chose that moment to blow a giant bubble, letting it pop and making both Deacon and I jump.
    “Let’s do this shit.” Nova looked across at us all, her stare cold, but her words even colder.
    She reached for the handle on the door and pulled on it, letting the door swing wide before jumping out, her boots landing in the muddy earth with a resounding splat . I took a heavy breath and did the same, holding the door open for Deacon while he climbed out. I ordered Joan to stay in the truck—which, surprisingly, she did with no argument—and then we walked toward the door of the farmhouse. I looked around us as we walked, checking for deaders and traps and anything else that might be out of place.
    I couldn’t quite fathom why Deacon was just doing as we told him. I mean, sure, we had guns and knives, but he was no boy. He was a man with layer upon layer of muscle, broad shoulders, and strong hands that could easily snap my neck if he wanted to. Sure, Nova was badass, and yeah, I had a big-ass knife and a gun to boot, but it still didn’t make any sense.
    As we climbed the steps to the front porch, the wood creaking underfoot, I watched him carefully, waiting to see what trick he would pull on us. But then I saw it. The sag to his shoulders, the defeated look on his face. This man was broken, exhausted, and dead on the inside. He wasn’t fighting us because he had given up already. He had nothing left to live for and didn’t care what happened to him. He had given up already, and was now merely an empty shell for his soul to reside in.
    Nova stopped in front of the door and turned back to look at him. “Should I knock?” she snarked with a grin. “Will the little lady come open up for us?”
    Right in that moment I wanted to smack her around the face and tell her to stop being such a heartless bitch. I knew she was hurting, but weren’t we all? Hadn’t we all done things that were wrong, that were evil and cruel, and that we were