Vanessa stared at what used to be Liam vacant eyes, standing silent among the ranks of the infected now while her parents dropped straight into a kowtow at Chase's feet."Chase, please. Our family owes you so much. We treated you like our own son when you and Wanwan were together.""Please, Chase. We've known each other for years. There has to be something left of that."Vanessa watched her parents grovel and finally snapped back into herself. Death was standing right in front of her, and if she didn't find a way out of this in the next few minutes, that was exactly what was waiting for her."Chase, I swear I'll never think twice about anything ever again. Whatever you say, whatever you want, I'll do it."She peeled off her torn, filthy coat, desperate not to let something as trivial as ruined clothes get in the way of reminding him what he'd once wanted so badly. She struck a pose, hoping the shape of her body still counted for something between them.Chase let out a cold huff of a

While Chase's attention stayed locked on Tyler, Zoe had already grabbed Vanessa's hand and teleported both of them up onto the transport's roof in a single blink. Old Wade was already waiting by the hatch with Miles.Zoe reached to grab the rest of the team for one final jump but before she could finish the sequence, a flash of white light cracked through the air."AH!" Vanessa doubled over, coughing blood.A light arrow had caught her clean through the lower abdomen. Before anyone could process what had just happened, the whole group was already back at the base.Throughout the standoff, Miles had kept trying to push forward for a better look, only to be held back every time by Old Wade. At one point he was almost certain he'd caught a woman's voice shouting Chase's name.When he finally got his first clear view back at base, hoping against hope to see Chase standing there safe, all he found was Vanessa pale, bleeding, and very much not who he was looking for."Molly! Get over here,

"Morning, Chase."Lulu shuffled downstairs mid-yawn and found him already parked in front of his phone, scrolling."You know staring at screens is bad for your eyes, right? Even for a zombie. Wait is that you? Are you actually internet famous now?"Chase tilted the screen toward her. Most of what was circulating now amounted to survival-tip content people trading notes on safe routes, supply runs, close calls. And in the middle of all of it, clips of Pinky cruising untouched through packed streets kept resurfacing as the one genuine mystery nobody could explain. Every other vehicle got mobbed within blocks unless you were willing to plow straight through like that armored transport had done last night and even then, hesitate for a second and you were surrounded."We need to relocate today," Chase said. "It's not safe here anymore. Whoever's running that base might come looking, and I'd rather not be here when they do.""If either of you have a better option, this is the moment to take

Chase felt the rock spikes gathering under his feet a half-second before they erupted, and threw himself sideways just in time. He redirected the dead man's blade at the zombie's skull mid-dodge only for a fresh stone wall to snap up and swat it out of the air.That reaction time is genuinely terrifying. If anything, the display only sharpened his appetite for that core.He noted, with some frustration, how little metal there actually was around him to work with no rebar, no fencing, nothing worth pulling from the environment. His new ability was strong in theory and useless in this particular fight.The ground trembled again. Chase shifted position on instinct, and a fresh set of walls erupted right where he'd been standing.This thing hits harder than anything I've fought so far.He closed the distance fast, running the math as he moved. His best current option wrapping an enemy in stone was off the table at melee range; get this close and he'd trap himself right along with it.The

The dream lingered long after Chase woke from it, leaving something hollow behind in his chest. He'd assumed, somewhere along the way, that becoming a monster meant he didn't get to feel things like grief anymore. The dream had proven that assumption dead wrong.Chloe filled him in on the details a full day and night had passed this time, longer than any previous absorption. And the changes that came with it were the most dramatic yet.He could now sense every living thing and every infected across an area roughly the size of the whole community and command every infected within that same radius directly, no delay, no resistance.That solves the range problem, at least. Hunting cores had just gotten drastically easier. He planned to keep stacking absorptions before heading out to check on Miles the dream's version of him hadn't left Chase's head since he woke up, and the silence on his phone still hadn't broken.He made his way downstairs and pulled every core-bearing zombie in range