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I COULD&039;VE HAD ALL three of them," Adam says, his voice weak and frail but somehow still filled with adrenaline-fueled enthusiasm and excitement "I didn&039;t need your help I&039;d have been perfectly fine if you hadn&039;t come back-"
"Sure you would," I interrupt "You&039;re full of shit, do you know that?"
"You&039;re the one who&039;s full of shit" He laughs "You were the one hiding up a ladder!"
"I wasn&039;t hiding-"
He coughs and laughs again, showering his bare chest with speckles of blood There&039;s no tays about it, he&039;s on his way out His breathing is increasingly shallow and uneven He was already severely weakened by the injuries inflicted by his dad and the subsequent untreated infections, and the brutal beating he took this e to push his broken body into total subs He&039;s hardlyto steadily worsen
It&039;s another swelteringly hot day The air is dry, and the relentless heat makes the smell of thousands of badly decayed corpses even harder to sto It&039;s hard to take a breath without sucking in a lungful of buzzing little fuckers We&039;re not heading into town until after dark, so there&039;s nothing to do for the next few hours except try to relax and ready asps I grab a half-empty plastic bottle of water and hold it up to his chapped lips He tries to s, but ain and winces with sudden pain, but he doesn&039;t complain Unbelievably, he&039;s still fired up by the rush of battle Poor bastard&039;s completely oblivious to the fact he&039;ll probably be dead before the
"Next tiht for the head, knohat I&039;?"
I nod I don&039;t have the heart to tell hi to be a next time
"I know," I lie
"See," he continues, trying to prop hiain, "they&039;ll look atare fucked, I&039;ll be a pushover But they&039;ll be wrong"
His eyelids flutter closed, and just for a second I think he&039;s gone I reach out to check his pulse, but he bats ible He&039;s like an animal, blissfully unaware of his own o on and on and on In a way I can&039;t help but envy his ignorance He fades into unconsciousness
"He dead?" a woman asks, her voice uncomfortably loud I stand up and try to usher her away froround Her naroup of us heading out, and, from what I&039;ve heard from some of the others, she&039;s a hard bitch who doesn&039;t stand for any bullshit She has a strong Irish lilt to her voice, and I can&039;t help thinking of the IRA and the Troubles when she speaks It&039;s wrong of me, but who cares Equality, diversity, and political correctness are all things of the past now, condereat leveler All the nae we used to avoid using have lost their i on"
She nods, her stern face devoid of any emotion "There&039;s more food in the van Make sure you eat before you leave Don&039;t knohen you&039;ll get the chance again"
What with the heat, the flies, and the s I want is more food
"Poor bastard," I say quietly "Just look at the state of him"
Now that I&039;ve taken a step back from Adam I can see just how bad his condition really is He has open, weeping wounds all over his body, and his shattered bones haven&039;t been properly looked at since his father first broke the world we&039;re suddenly all living in Thisto die before the day is done, but none of his wounds are truly life-threatening The medicine, the expertise, and the means to save him exist, but they&039;re all out of reach Julia see with unco yourself up about it," she says "There&039;s no point Face facts, he&039;s useless to anyone like this"
"I know, but-"
"But nothing We don&039;t have ti to be able to fight again It&039;d take him months to recover, and even then he&039;ll still be next to no good And who&039;s going to look after hiht now there&039;s no such thing as doctors and nurses and surgeons and the like At the end of the day we&039;re all fighters, and that&039;s all there is to it"
I feel like I should protest, that I should try to say soht in his corner, but I know there&039;s no point She&039;s right Christ, it was only thisout on hiht," she continues, preaching atto help hiun and put a bullet in his head"