“Assignment?” Alejo asked, not liking the sound of that. He liked the sounds of things like ‘scout for food’ or things that included all of them. Not just her, not just Marina on her own. He was protective of her, she was as near to his flesh and blood as he could get outside of Sparrow. He’d chosen her as as sibling, to fill the Nadia-shaped hole in his heart. And she’d fit perfectly.
“What assignment? For all of us?” he asked again. He looked at the little skulls, knowing he had to put his own set out, and felling a tingle of worry over what would happen when the smallest one didn’t make it to the bar’s rough surface. He finally took them out, not lining them up at all. Instead they sat in a small pile- it would be easy to miss that on was missing now. He put his hands back into his pockets, feeling the small sharps of the broken skull against his fingers.
He’d felt a human skull before. When Rebecca had gotten attacked, the thing had gone for her neck and head. As he’d buried her the best he could, he’d touched the dirty bone that had been exposed. There was apart of him that was horribly paranoid that she’d been infected, and that she would wake up in that grave, reach up, and find the air. That somewhere in Mexico, she was shambling around and looking for someone to eat.