Infection Z (Book 2) by Ryan Casey

… you say she spoke. You—you didn’t give me a chance. To say goodbye. You didn’t give me a chance to—”
    “Because you’re my little sister and it’s my duty to look out for you,” Hayden said. “And you wouldn’t have liked what I did. What I had to do. You wouldn’t have liked seeing Dad in the state he was in. You … you would’ve had to deal with the sound of their fucking necks cracking, the feel of the life drifting out of both of them …” His voice gave way completely for a few seconds, and he had to regain his breath. “I couldn’t let you live with witnessing that. I just couldn’t.”
    Clarice looked like she was about to say something else through her tear-soaked lips, but she just closed her mouth and turned away to look out of the smeared window.
    Hayden stared at her. Looked at her greasy dark hair, her skinny frame. Always a skinny kid. Probably something to do with her hatred for any of the foods Mum and Dad used to serve for them. At one stage, measures got so desperate that she was literally eating a bowl of Coco Pops without milk three meals a day. It was Hayden who finally convinced her to eat more and more, step by step. Told her eating her greens would make her even prettier.
    She took to it, held on to Hayden’s word, like she always did. And remarkably enough, eating those greens did keep on making his lovely little sister prettier.
    She’d had every reason to trust him.
    Except now.
    Hayden didn’t say anything else to Clarice. He didn’t want to push her buttons too hard. She needed time. Time to understand. Time to get her head around what he’d told her. And he wasn’t proud of what he’d told her. He wanted to keep it from her. Keep her wrapped in cotton wool for as long as the pair of them survived.
    But he felt better. Just getting the confession off his chest made him feel free.
    He just hoped to God that feeling free was a good enough return for the short-term shattering of his sister’s emotions.
    Hayden leaned forward and looked through the front windscreen. “How we doing?”
    Newbie side-glanced at him. He cleared his throat. “Doing just fine. Should be at Warrington in forty minutes or so at this rate. Providing we don’t run into any obstructions. Or worse—infected.”
    Hayden nodded. He stared at the tall evergreen trees either side of them. There was no sign of any zombie apocalypse going on at all out here in the countryside, but for the occasional piece of loose rubble on the road, or a fallen tree that Newbie had to swerve the car around, unsorted in this new world lacking any kind of emergency services. “We’ve done alright to now. You … your kid. D’you know whereabouts in Warrington they lived?”
    “Eighteen Astley Road. Just on the outskirts. Google Street Viewed it enough times. Hell, I even turned up a few times. Thought about walking in there, wrapping my arms around my Amy. Couldn’t bring myself to do it. Couldn’t strike up the nerve. Probably for the best considering the restraining order. But not anymore.”
    Hayden patted Newbie lightly on his shoulder and leaned back into the car. He didn’t want to argue with Newbie about the risks of going somewhere just outside the centre of a town. But it wasn’t just because of the risk of military and undead. It was because sometimes, it was better to keep the past in the past. A part of Hayden wished he’d never gone back home—as cruel as that was to his dying mum, his zombie dad, and his terrified sister.
    But it was just a small part of him. A small part that niggled away like a stubborn spot, resistant to the squeeze.
    “You … you did the right thing,” Clarice said.
    Hayden turned around. He wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.
    Clarice was staring ahead at the front of the car, but it didn’t really look like she was focusing on anything in particular.
    “I … What do you—”
    “With Dad and … and Mum. You did a brave thing. And you came for me. Got me out