Page 14 of Alpha Infected
Hazard cursed and stumbled back, but still managed to take out the infected in front of him with a bullet through the skull.
With the way ahead blocked, they turned and retreated back the way they’d come. They made it almost to the center of the big open space of the level but couldn’t go any further. The group from the loft was still pursuing them. Infected now blocked both sides, trapping them in the middle of the horde.
“Fuck! They’ve got us boxed in, Major!” Jax yelled.
“We fight them off here then!” Ortiz shouted back. “Ice, Hazard, you take the left! Jax you’re with me on the right!”
“Roger!” Ice planted his feet and raised his rifle.
Mindless with feral rage, the infected ran at them, looking to bite and kill.
Ice fired, gun powder stinging his nose as he dropped the first infected coming at him. He kept shooting, again and again, taking each one down with a single, well-placed bullet until he ran out of ammo in the clip. Instead of leaving himself momentarily vulnerable while he reloaded, he quickly swung his rifle behind him and pulled his black handled blades. He threw the first two knives, striking two of the advancing infected in the throat with deadly accuracy before instantly pulling two more. Armed with a knife in each hand, he went after the ones closest to him. He rammed a blade into one infected’s throat, pierced the eye socket of another.
Time seemed to slow, while his vision went bright and sharp as he fought off the advancing horde. He fought to stay alive. To help his pack. And to protect his mate. Ice stabbed and slashed in a whirlwind of controlled fury. An infected in black workout gear got close as he was knifing a janitor. A pinprick of pain on the apple of his cheek momentarily broke through thefight kill survivehaze he was locked in. But there was no time or space to worry about it.
He forced the infected in black workout gear crowding against him back before plunging his blade into its ear. The infected’s body twitched and jumped like it was dancing a jig, more foam bubbling from between clenched teeth before it went limp. Ice yanked the blade free, letting the body drop to the floor in time to take on the next red-eyed attacker.
Hands moving with practiced swiftness, he switched to a different gun, this one without a silencer. He started firing again. At the edge of his awareness, he heard Jax, Ortiz, and Hazard shooting to take out their own parts of the horde. Gunfire and shouts, his own heavy breathing, and the infected’s snarls filled his ears.
And then, with jarring abruptness, it was silent.
The gunfire stopped.
They’d taken out the entire horde.
Ice stood in the center of a ring of corpses. His arms and shoulders ached from fighting with his knives. Sucking in a long, deep breath, he inhaled the metallic scent of blood, tasting pennies on his tongue. He let the tainted breath out on a slow exhale before turning to face his squad mates. They had a similar pile of bodies around them.
Careful not to slip on the blood slicking the floor, Ice leaped across the dead at his feet to make his way over to them. He went to his mate first, visually checking him over to make sure he was okay. Satisfied that his mate didn’t have any wounds, he finally noticed that Hazard was staring at him, his green eyes wide behind his mask.
“Ice,” he whispered. “Your face.”
“What?” Ice scrubbed a gloved hand over his bare face. “You’ve seen me without my mask plenty of times.”
Hazard slowly shook his head. “No, it’s not that.” He paused, throat working for several moments before he spoke again. “You’ve been bit.”
Chapter 5
Saturday, October 29th, 1983.
1845
KV Perkins Office Building
His heart in his throat, Hazard stared at the angry, red teeth marks on Ice’s pale face. The skin was broken, which meant the worst. Ice was infected.
“Are you sure?”
Hazard heard Ortiz’s question through a fog as his gaze moved from the bite to Ice’s dark eyes. He didn’t want to see those lovely eyes turn bloodshot and wild with rage.
“Hazard, are you sure?”
Hazard shook his head to break himself out of his trance to answer the repeated question. “Affirmative, Major. The bite mark is clear as day and the skin is broken.”
“Fuck,” Jax cursed.
Ice raised a gloved hand to touch his cheek. “I felt something, but I was so deep into the zone fighting I didn’t realize I’d been bit.”
Suddenly remembering Brigadier General Stone’s order, Hazard spun around to stand protectively in front of his mate, flinging his arms out wide to shield him. “I won’t let you shoot him, Major! This isIce. Royce. He’s one of us. Our packmate. We can save him!”
