The Blood that Binds (Thicker than Blood Book 3)

  The Blood That Binds

  Copyright © 2021 Madeline Sheehan and Claire C. Riley

  All Rights Reserved

  Edited by

  Ellie at My Brother’s Editor

  Mybrotherseditor.net

  Formatted by

  Stacey Blake, Champagne Book Design

  Cover Design by

  Tracey Ward

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Madeline here, dedicating this beloved book to two people. First to Claire, for her help in getting me writing during two very difficult times in my life. I’m eternally grateful for the much-needed kicks in the ass.

  And also to Simone, for her help in getting me through this thing called life. You deserve the stars on a silver platter, you goddamn gorgeous soul, but all I have for you is this book.

  From Claire to Elizabeth—the best friend I could ever hope to have. You’re always there for me through the good, the bad, and the downright ugly, and boy, have there been some ugly haha! Your friendship means so much to me, and I don’t know how I’d cope without you in my life. You’re the Maverick to my Goose, and I’m the butter to your potato. Always and forever, love.

  Two brothers. A childhood sweetheart.

  Life has never been easy for this trio, and especially not after the end of civilization as they knew it. Having had their formative years ripped from them, they were thrust into a shattered, savage world, a world where they only had each other.

  Love and loss.

  Weary travelers on the brink, there is a storm brewing, a turbulent tempest that has nothing to do with the weather. When tragedy strikes, everything changes in the blink of an eye—facades come undone, and loyalty is pushed to a breaking point.

  A diamond in the rough.

  Immersed back into something akin to normal society, a safe haven in the midst of misery, our travelers are forced to finally confront their demons—long-kept secrets that have been haunting them for nearly a decade.

  Love is never easy.

  And love during the end of the world is a hell of a lot more complicated.

  We were just kids when it happened, with barely a foothold on life before Mother Nature made up her mind to sucker punch the world.

  The Vaal Fever.

  An infectious disease born from poverty and strife had crept its way out of the third world and into the hustle and bustle of the privileged, where it slowly but surely began to decimate humankind—first with fear, then with the disease itself.

  Whole families were wiped out, entire cities burned to the ground. The government had all but imploded, and free, functioning societies became a thing of the past. The world we knew was gone, our simple lives eviscerated.

  Humankind fell in near totality, the dead eventually far outnumbering the living. A new breed of humans, a never-ending army of the dead, stalked the streets, clawing their way into our homes, quickly rising to the top of the food chain.

  What remained of our battered species turned feral, desperate to survive, desperate to once again thrive, and willing to do whatever it took to claw their way back to the top. It was every man and woman for themselves, survival of the fittest, a race to the finish line where the only prize that awaited you was even more horrors greater than you could ever imagine.

  These were our formative years—we came of age in a broken world, headed toward an unfathomable future. The rules had been obliterated and rewritten.

  Living was a thing of the past.

  Here and now, we simply survived.

  Willow

  Approaching a darkened doorway, loose floorboards creaked beneath my feet. At least a quarter of the entranceway was covered in thick spiderwebs, their eight-legged owner paying me little mind as I ducked beneath it, finding myself inside a master bedroom of what had once been a large and impressive home. It was still impressive—how else could you describe the sight of two worlds colliding?

  The roof had caved in, causing considerable damage to the entire front of the house, this room especially. A nearby tree had grown in through a broken window, a branch as thick as a man jutting halfway across the room. The skeletal remains of two people lay tucked neatly into a four-poster bed, the large, ornate structure heavily covered in moss. Nature hadn’t just taken hold here, it had claimed this space as its own. It was a familiar sight these days—man struggling while the earth flourished.

  Passing a partially open closet, I peered inside, finding a nest made up of sticks and bits of fabric, with at least fifteen baby opossums wriggling inside it. All fifteen were happily clinging to the back of their mother, oblivious to my presence. The mother, however, had begun hissing at the sight of me. The longer I stood there, the more aggressive she grew, until her hisses had become growls.

  I could kill her quickly, using the trusty piece of pipe dangling from the heavy pack on my back. She’d be the first real meal we’d come across in months. It was only the beginning of summer, but it was gearing up to be the hottest to date—game was scarce, and everything edible was quickly withering and dying under the unrelenting sun. The earth didn’t seem to care that those of us still breathing had been existing in crisis mode for years now. She just kept on turning despite us… or maybe even to spite us.

  Sighing, I backed away from the closet. “Don’t mind me,” I whispered to the still growling opossum.

  Sure, I was hungry—starving actually—but I wasn’t knocking on death’s door… yet. I’d been managing my daily hunger pains with what roots and vegetation we’d been lucky enough to find. And I’d have to be quite literally dying before I’d consider r
ipping a mother from her babies. I’d had my mother ripped from me at the age of sixteen; never would I wish that kind of pain on another living thing, let alone be the cause of it.

  Ducking beneath the jutting branch, I approached a half-collapsed armoire. A long sundress still hung over the doors, its straps trapped between them. Once white, it was now stained in varying shades of brown and green, the hem tattered and frayed.

  Once upon a time, I would have balked at the idea of ever wearing something like this—I’d always been a fishnet stockings and combat boots kind of girl—but now that beautiful dresses had become a thing of the past, serving no purpose in this new, cruel world, I couldn’t help but wonder if I might have missed out on something. Touching it gently, lightly rubbing the fragile material between my fingers, I tried to envision what I would look like in something similar.

  Catching a glimpse of myself in a nearby mirror—my sweat-stained tank top sagging at the neck and dirty cargo pants blown out at the knees—I nearly laughed out loud. I hadn’t had a decent meal in months and here I was romanticizing over a dress. One hard tug and the dress ripped free from the armoire. Tossing it away, I moved to the dresser, prying the top drawer open after several hard pulls on the wet and swollen wood. The entire structure was soggy and rotting, the clothing inside covered in mold, and home to several species of insects that scattered in all directions as I peered inside. With a frustrated sigh, I slammed the drawer shut.

  The farmhouse had been the first semi-decent structure we’d come across in a long while, offering us a much-needed chance to rest and regain our bearings from the constant walking in unrelenting heat… I supposed it was too much to ask that it have a few other offerings as well.

  “Find anything?”

  Lucas brushed the webbing out of his way, sending the spider scurrying to what remained of its silken tapestry. Meandering through the bedroom, Lucas paused at the tree, tucking his dirty-blond waves back behind his ears. Even unkempt and with several weeks’ worth of grime caking his clothing, Lucas almost always appeared well rested and refreshed while the rest of the living tended to look more like me—with dark circles ringing their eyes and more than a few leaves stuck in their hair.

  “Nope. Just some moldy undies and this lovely tree.” Patting the branch as I ducked beneath it once more, I eyed the closet over Lucas’s shoulder. I didn’t dare tell him about the family of opossums inside, fearing he’d have them roasting over an open fire in five seconds flat.

  “And our hosts, of course.” Lucas gestured to the skeletons in the bed. “Nice way to go, right? You don’t see that anymore.”

  A vision of my mother tucked in her bed surfaced—the whites of her eyes turned yellow; the rasping grate of her labored breathing echoing around an otherwise silent room. My breath hitched and shuddered, and I quickly shoved the memory away.

  “True,” I replied dryly. “It’s hard to stay dead in bed when you’re busy trying to eat your neighbors.”

  Lucas laughed, as I’d known he would, and the happy, soothing sound of him was an instant balm to my somber mood.

  “Oh, come on, Willow. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have loved the chance to tear Mrs. Pickering’s face off?”

  Mr. and Mrs. Pickering had been my neighbors once upon a time, an elderly couple from Asheville—our hometown. They’d never liked my family—mostly because we’d been a mixed-race family in a predominantly white town, but also because we didn’t keep up with the Joneses. Oftentimes my dad would go just a bit too long without mowing the lawn, and my mom’s idea of gardening was letting the weeds grow in abundance.

  “You’ve got me there,” I said. “Still, the very last place I want to die is in a bed.” I stuck out my tongue. “How fucking boring.”

  “I know, I know—you want to go out in a blaze of glory. How does it go again?” Smiling, Lucas leaned back casually against the tree branch.

  “Well, I’m surrounded by Creepers,” I started. “And they’ve got me cornered. There’s no way out.”

  “Mhm, mhm.” Lucas nodded exaggeratedly. “But are we talking about Runners or Shamblers?”

  None of the dead could actually run, but some were faster than others. Their level of agility and speed depended on how far along they were in their decomposition. Though the Vaal Fever didn’t stop decomposition altogether, it certainly slowed it down.

  “Runners, duh.” I scoffed. “I can’t claim glory if I’m taken out by a bunch of half-rotten slowpokes.”

  “Of course not. Whatever was I thinking? So you’re surrounded by Runners and there’s no way out. Then what?”

  “Hundreds of Runners,” I corrected. “Maybe even thousands.”

  “Oh, so now it’s a mega horde?”

  “You and Logan have been killed already—early on, actually.” I flashed Lucas a saccharine-sweet smile. “I mean, I tried to help, but you know what you guys are like.”

  “Jeez, Will—why not tell me how you really feel.”

  “Listen here, this is my glorious demise, not yours.”

  “You’re so right. Please, go on.” Lucas made a twirling gesture with his hand.

  “Thank you, I will. So I’m dodging Runners, shoving one into another, jumping over the bodies of the ones I’ve already killed. I’m karate chopping, high kicking—”

  “Karate chopping? Last time you told this story, you’d jerry-rigged a lawn mower into a chainsaw and there was blood and guts raining everywhere. Now you’re karate chopping?”

  “Excuse me? Can I finish my story?”

  Laughing, Lucas pushed away from the tree branch and slung his arm across my shoulders. Tugging on a handful of my braids, he planted a soft kiss at the corner of my mouth. “I love you,” he said fondly.

  Relaxing against him, I ran a fingertip down the full length of his aquiline nose, flicking his nose ring. Kissing each of his prominent cheekbones, my fingers found the straight shape of his mouth, bumping over each of his matching lip rings. “I love you, too,” I whispered.

  My boyfriend since middle school, my best friend, too—my only friend, actually—Lucas had been my entire world for as long as I could remember.

  “You two plan on being useful today?”

  We broke apart to find Logan standing in the doorway, the remnants of the spiderweb hanging in tatters around his hulking silhouette, the spider crushed beside his boot. His narrowed gaze was fixed on us, his heavy brows pinched tightly together. Who knew how long he’d been standing there—Logan, despite his size, was as quiet as a cat and as stealthy as one too. He could move in and out of places with no one the wiser. Meanwhile, Lucas and I couldn’t seem to take two steps without the whole world taking notice.

  That wasn’t the only difference between the brothers; almost three years Lucas’s senior, Logan outsized Lucas in every way. He was taller, bigger, bulkier, and what was only a smattering of hair across Lucas’s cheeks and chin was a full-fledged beard on Logan. Even their shared features were noticeably different—Lucas’s blue eyes were light and guileless while Logan’s were heavy and hard; Lucas’s long locks usually hung free, while Logan kept his pulled back wound into a tight knot. Tightly wound… just like the man himself.

  Lucas sighed. “We’ve been looking—we just haven’t found anything yet. What about you?”

  Logan continued to eye us both, his expression as stony as ever. “The garage is barricaded,” he growled. “Sounds like there’s a couple of Creepers inside. Who’s going to help me clear it?”

  “Willow is!” Lucas exclaimed.

  “Traitor!” I sputtered, stomping my foot.

  Lucas shrugged. “You snooze, you lose, Wilbur.”

  “Don’t call me Wilbur, Lucifer.”

  “Don’t call me Lucifer, Willard.”

  “Don’t call me Willard, shithead.”

  “Oooh, shithead. Real classy, Will, real classy.”

  “You know they say that people who curse are more intelligent than those who don’t, right?”

  Lucas
chuckled loudly. “Who says that? More importantly, where are they now?” His chiseled features went comically slack as he let out a deathly groan—a near-perfect imitation of the dead.

  “Hey,” Logan snapped. “If you two are done fucking around, can one of you get your ass downstairs?”

  Lucas and I shared a glance. Logan rarely relaxed; he was all business all of the time. In his mind, every day was a new battle he had to fight where he was the general and Lucas and I were his unwilling soldiers. And with the current heat index, lack of water, and subsequent food shortage worsening his mood, Logan was only going to grow grumpier.

  But truth be told, Logan had always been this way. He had never been able to simply “sit down and take a load off”, and the end of the world had only made his compulsions that much worse.

  First, the farmhouse would need to be cleared—checked for both threats and supplies. Then it would need to be secured—locked up tight so nothing could sneak up on us. Only after that could camp be set up; a camp that was both defendable and escapable—Logan’s two favorite words. And only after camp was set up could we even begin to think of relaxing. Any sort of deviation from the plan and there was a good chance Logan would lose his shit. Scratch that—any sort of deviation and Logan would definitely lose his shit.

  “Coming,” I muttered. Flipping off Lucas behind my back, I made a dramatic show of trudging into the hall after Logan.

  “Could you walk any slower?” Logan bit out.

  “I mean, I could,” I quipped. “But since you’re like Grumplestiltskin on crack today, this is my quick walk.”

  Logan shot me a look chock-full of disdain and increased his speed, forcing me to jog just to keep pace with him. “Have you always been this much of an asshole?” I muttered.

  It was a rhetorical question, because, yes, Logan had always been this much of an asshole. Especially to me. Back before the world had gone crazy, he’d been the shining star of our small town. And in a town where Friday Night Lights had been the main pastime of nearly every single citizen, Logan had practically been a local celebrity, especially after being awarded a state football scholarship. After that, there’d been no reining in his holier-than-thou ego.