Opening the front door of our apartment gives me a moment of pure fear, especially when I see the blood smeared on the wall right in front of my eyes.
Finding courage has never been hard for me, but today, feeling this weak, it’s nearly impossible. The ache in my chest gets worse, and I double over, sobbing for breath.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper. “I don’t understand, but I’m coming.”
My hand squeezes the doorknob, forcing the keys to dig into my palm. With a shaky exhale, I let go and rush out. I head to the lifts but remember the power’s out and go to the stairs instead. One floor down, and my legs feel like Jello; by the fifth floor, I’ve had to slow down. When I get to the bottom, I have to lean on the wall to get my breath back.
I can’t believe how weak I feel, but that dull throbbing through the bonds won’t go away, the pain gets sharper, so I drive myself on, forcing open the doors to the building and getting hit with the smell of smoke and the sickly sweet odor of decay.
Up and down the street, I see crashed and abandoned cars. The shops have broken glass windows; doors are jimmied open. The sky is an ominous grey, but it’s warm, and the smell of blood is thick in the air.
“The world ended,” I whisper to myself.
“Hey!”
A hand grabs my shoulder. I spin, throwing the person up against a wall but quickly let go when I recognise a neighbour from the fourth floor.
“Danielle, right?” I say, trying to calm my racing heart.
The beta nods her head in jerks. “Yes, and you’re Jarek? Twelfth floor?”
Her hair is matted, she’s got a bruised face, and she looks like she’s seen better days. I remember her mate; he was a decent beta. We used to chat about sports when we met in the lift.
“Yes, can you tell me what happened? I woke up, and my mates were gone.” The urgency is thick in my voice, even though I try to calm it.
Tears well up in her eyes, and that’s scarier than anything I’ve seen yet.
“It was bad, Alpha. So bad.”
I look back out on the streets and, to my dismay, I see the bodies I hadn’t noticed before or maybe I didn’t want to notice.
“The virus spread. Betas are immune, but alphas and omegas got sick. The alphas, well some recovered, but some turned into mindless creatures, they were just filled with so much rage, and they attacked anything that moved.”
She’s saying words, but my slow brain is refusing to take it in.
“What are you saying? Zombies?”
I whip my head back to the streets, seeing the blood splatter, the violence on the corpses.
“No, they are alive. Just mindless killing machines. It’s more like rabies or something.” She sobs, wiping her nose on a filthy arm.
Cai and Kaida are out here. Alone.
“My mates,” I murmur. “I have to find them.”
“You’ll die if you go out there,” she says and snatches at my arm. “Come with me; leave them.”
“No!” I snap and pull free of her. “I could never leave them.”
I back out onto the road and jog away, scared she’ll find a way to stop me. I look back once, but she’s gone, like she never existed.
The world has fallen apart; the apocalypse has come, but my bonded are out here alive somewhere. I have to find them. It’s all that matters.
The pain triples, and I walk rapidly in the directly that it’s coming from. The night is dark, and shadows shift and move. I wonder how many terrified people are watching me pass from hidden places.
At first, all I can see is everything around me. The cop car turned on its roof, blood pools leading out of the driver door. I see an arm hanging off a door handle. There’s a firetruck on its side, and the bodies of two old people holding each other on top.
I don’t stop, but with each thing I see, a well of panic is rising. Where are they? Why would they leave?
