Read Online Infection Z (Book 4) by Ryan Casey - Free Book Online Page A

guns right down at her.
    “Drop your weapon—”
    “You don’t want to kill me, Robert. And I don’t want to kill you.” She walked up the stairs, slowly. Hayden stayed put. So too did everyone else. “We get along, you and me.”
    The guard called Robert visibly blushed, clearing his throat. “Don’t—don’t make me shoot you.”
    “I won’t. As long as you let us go back to our cells. Enough people have died here to prove your point. More than enough. Okay?”
    Robert fidgeted. The rest of the guards just watched. “I—I need you to lower your weapon, Miri… number thirty-six.”
    “And I will,” she said. “I’m doing that right this second, see. Now you lower yours too. All of you. Please. Nobody else has to die here. We get the message. This is over.”
    She dropped the gun.
    It fell down the staircase.
    Landed right at the foot of it.
    Just inches away from Hayden.
    Hayden stared at it. He knew why it was there. What Miriam wanted him to do. She hadn’t told him, but that had to be the plan.
    Take the gun.
    Shoot the guards.
    Get it done with and get out of here.
    “The—the rest of you,” Robert said. “The rest of your people.”
    “You shot my people, Robert. You shot so many people. Surely that’s not your order? Surely that’s not what ‘Salvation’ is all about?”
    Robert cleared his throat again. “I… We need to—to maintain order.”
    “And you can’t maintain order by shooting,” Miriam said, emphasis on the shooting.
    She’d made her hint perfectly clear.
    Hayden knew exactly what she wanted him to do. What they needed to do.
    But he froze.
    The flashbacks replayed in his eyes. The people he’d let down. The people he’d lost. All because he’d stepped up. All because he’d taken some form of leadership. All because of confidence he’d shown. Responsibility he’d shown.
    And he saw a potential sequence of events playing out in front of him once more.
    Grabbing the gun.
    Shooting the guards.
    Miriam dying in the crossfire.
    He couldn’t do that. Couldn’t risk anyone else’s life. Couldn’t—
    “Are you gonna grab that gun or what?” a woman to Hayden’s left whispered.
    He snapped out of his thoughts. Looked at the gun. Heart pounding. Chest tightening.
    He knew what he had to do.
    He knew he had to get to it.
    He just…
    “Fuck it.”
    The long-haired guy called Jack stepped out from behind Hayden.
    Grabbed the gun.
    Fired up at the guards.
    Hayden didn’t see what happened. He heard a lot of gunfire. Heard a lot of shouts. Heard struggling, heard people in pain.
    And then he saw blood splatter out of Jack’s chest.
    Out of his knees.
    Out of his neck.
    Gunfire peppering down the staircase.
    Knocking Jack to the floor as he kept on firing the emptied gun.
    Then, silence.
    Silence, but for the unending alarm.
    The aftermath of the gunfire echoed around the prison. Hayden stared at Jack’s motionless body, his arms and legs shaking.
    That could’ve been him.
    That should’ve been him.
    Stepping in to try and save others.
    Putting his own life on the line to save many more lives.
    He peeked out from under the staircase. He didn’t want to see what was at the top of the stairs. He didn’t want to see Miriam’s dead body. He didn’t want to see a guard there waiting for him.
    But he had to.
    He had to look.
    He had to know.
    He moved his head further around the staircase.
    Miriam looked back down the stairs. Pale-faced. Staring at Jack.
    Her face was covered in blood.
    Around her, the guards were dead.
    “Miriam?” Hayden muttered.
    She saw him emerge from under the stairs. The rest of the prisoners followed Hayden. Some of them—the survivors—wandered over towards Miriam. An army. An army of prisoners ready to escape.
    She blinked. Those blue, watery eyes of hers blinked. Like she was stuck in a daze. Couldn’t believe what’d just happened. What she’d just witnessed.
    “Come on,” she said.
    Hayden watched the group emerge from behind him.