Something must have gone wrong for them to leave me.
I hear people in the darkness, whispers, murmurs, movement, but when I look, no one comes out. Everyone stays hidden, and I’m thankful because I don’t know what to say to anyone or what state they’d even be in.
A growl interrupts my desperate thoughts. I whip my head around, spinning in a wild circle, searching the dark. An alpha half-buried in shadows comes crawling towards me, dragging himself by his arms. He snarls, but he’s weak, and when he lifts an arm, I can see massive injuries that have started to turn black.
There are no signs of intelligence in him, nothing that indicates he can think. A word comes to my mind that is so absurd I think I let out a bark of laughter.
Zombie. He looks worse than any zombie I’ve ever seen. More and less decayed. Still clearly human but so far gone that he shouldn’t be alive.
But it’s not a zombie; that much is abundantly clear. This alpha is dying actively. I can see him breathing. When he moves, he leaves a trail of red blood. Oxygen and circulation.
Not a zombie.
What is this virus? It turns alphas into crazed berserkers, and then they die?
So, why am I alive? How did I survive?
Did Mordecai turn into one of them and…No, that thought is too horrible to even entertain.
I rush away from the alpha, leaving him because I can’t bear the thought of trying to end his life, but when I see a machete, I pick it up. The need to protect myself is strong enough that I don’t even hesitate.
I’m a couple of blocks away when I see her kneeling on the road, doubled over.
She doesn’t move as I approach, but when I get close and touch her shoulder, she stands up and throws herself into my arms, her whole body shuddering with violent sobs.
“Kaida?”
I look past her and try to make sense of the bloody skull and ribcage that are lying on the street.
It’s not until I see his phone, cracked and crushed but still with that ugly-ass design I painted for him, that I realise who it is.
I let out a moan. It’s the single sound of my painful dying.
I set Kaida aside and kneel, reaching out, but I can’t touch him; there’s nowhere to touch. He’s dead; there’s no part of him alive.
“Cai,” I whisper. “Oh, Cai, whatdid you do?”
Kaida kneels beside me, leaning against me. I turn, looking at those huge grey eyes, all red and swollen from crying.
“Kaida, you should have woken me,” I whisper, stroking her face. “I was scared, so scared.”
“I had to get here.”
“Together, remember. We’re supposed to be together.”
She sobs harder, her hand wrapped around mine, the knuckles white. I ignore the pain and stand up, pulling her with me. The machete is still on the ground, forgotten.
“We need to go.”
“No, we can’t leave him. It’s Cai, Jarek. How can we leave him?” She’s hysterical beyond thought.
I can’t blame her; I can feel the hysteria in me. That’s what the ache in the bonds is. I didn’t know, but she did. I can see that she’s clearly been sick; she’s lost weight, and her hair is a tangled mess. She got up and came after him. Alone.
“He’s gone, and he wouldn’t have wanted us to die with him. We need to get somewhere safe. Find a way out of this city,” I say through tears.
She shakes her head, but I grab her wrists and wait until she looks up at me.
“We have to get you out of here.”
