My third kill this morning. His second.
It was getting easier, almost routine now, and I tried not to let that bother me.
“Fucking Dustin,” Theo muttered. He stepped over a fallen body and drove his sword through the skull of an athletic man in a blood-stained police uniform. The man’s belt was stripped clean of weapons, his chest torn to shreds.
We’d only come downstairs to load the last of our supplies into Theo’s car. Then we saw what Dustin had done and hit pause on our plans.
“He’s barricaded himself inside his apartment,” I said, flicking a glance in that direction. His broken door was braced with something heavy on the other side—a couch or a fridge, maybe. “He must have overheard us talking about leaving today.”
The glass entrance doors had been propped open using the armchairs from the foyer, letting every infected pour in off the street. Eight were in here now, wandering around with their empty eyes and bodies in varying degrees of ruin.
If we couldn’t get the doors closed soon, more of them would join the herd.
A teenage girl limped toward me with blood-drenched hair and half her face missing. With her slight body and delicate features, she reminded me too much of Ellie and Willow, and I winced as I struck her down. Another swing, and her body stopped moving.
I exhaled hard and rolled my shoulders. When I turned and faced the next threat, my foot hit a slick patch of blood.
“Oh, crap—” My leg slid out from under me, my stomach dropping as I lost my balance.
I fell straight on my ass, and the axe clattered from my hand, skidding across the tiles.
“Shit.” Theo’s voice broke through the chaos, sharp with fear. “Sweetheart. Get up.”
Sweetheart? Smack in the middle of danger, this man could still make my heart pitter-patter.
“Don't worry. I wasn't planning on getting comfortable down here.” I flattened my palms on the floor and scrambled to my feet, breathing through the panic. The stink of decay grew stronger, and I looked up as two of the dead were closing in on me.
Adrenaline surged in my veins.
Don’t overthink. Just move.
I shoved the closest one back with my forearm, keeping clear of its grinding jaws. When I had a moment to regroup, I wiped my damp palms on my jeans and spotted my weapon over near Theo’s feet.
He hacked at another of the infected, then kicked my axe toward me. The handle collided with the side of my boot, and I swooped on it.
“Got it.” With a tight grip on the handle, I pivoted and ended a guy with an eyebrow tattoo, jumping clear before he took me down with him.
Theo's boot met the knee of a heavyset man, and he finished him with a sweep of his sword.
The sight of him taking charge did things to me I refused to examine while we were at risk. I shifted my focus to another elderly woman who’d locked onto me, her eyes cloudy as she worked her jaw.
The last of the dead in the foyer.
Her permed grey hair had been ripped from her scalp on one side, and her cardigan hung off her shoulder. I shut down my sympathy before it could take over and lifted my axe to split her skull.
“Wait!”
Owen’s voice echoed through the space.
My arms froze mid-swing.
Breathing hard, I stumbled backward a few steps and caught Theo’s eye.
“I need to know something before you take out the last one,” Owen said, calmer now.
He stood three steps up from the bottom of the stairs, a bag hanging from each hand. They dropped from his loosened grip as Theo and I joined him.
“What the hell happened?” he asked. “The doors were locked.”
