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Chapter 156 - Neither Side
Nobody moved for a long moment after the feed cut out.The last image burned into everyone's mind.It was an ordinary woman turning on a man who'd clearly been trying to help her and tearing into him with a strength that had no business living in a body that still looked completely human.Priya finally spoke, her voice small and hollow. "This is my fault.""No," Nichole said, firm. "It's Wolfe's fault. And Zed's. They took something unfinished and turned it into a weapon before you ever got the chance to make it a cure.""It doesn't matter whose fault it is," Priya said. "People are dying out there because of formula I built."Ray moved to her, crouching down to her level, forcing her to look at him instead of the dark screen. "You built it to save people and he stole it to hurt them. Those aren't the same thing, and you know it."She didn't answer, but something in her shoulders loosened slightly, enough that Ray let the point rest there rather than pushing further.********Mattias
Chapter 155 - The Sample
The lab corner of the camp had grown crowded with equipment over the weeks.It was salvaged with centrifuges and refrigeration units humming quietly beside Priya's growing collection of notes, anld by the third week she and Nichole had stopped sleeping on anything resembling a normal schedule."Run it again," Priya said, exhaustion thickness in her voice and watching Nichole insert another sample into the machine."We've run it eleven times," Nichole said, but he did it anyway, because eleven times hadn't been enough yet and both of them knew it.Training was carried on outside the tent walls the whole time, Mattias's drills growing sharper by the day.Saul was running fighters through increasingly difficult scenarios meant to prepare them for whatever waited inside Wolfe's territory. Ray split his time between both worlds, checking in on Priya's progress in the mornings and driving himself through drills in the afternoons, unwilling to let either front slip while the other demanded
Chapter 154 - Zombie-ders
The first report came from a scouting pair two days later, and they came back running."There's something in the old grain silo," one of them gasped, doubled over near the fire, chest heaving. "It's not like anything we've seen before. It's got legs, Ray. Too many legs."Nichole was the first to press for details, his scientific instinct cutting straight past the fear in the room. "How many and where were they attached.""All over," the scout said, still shaking"It looks like it grew extra ones out of its back. It was moving along the ceiling, the actual ceiling, upside down, like a……""Like a spider," Saul finished quietly.The word settled over the fire heavier than it should have for something so simple.********Nichole spent the next morning cross-referencing the description against what fragments of research he still carried, and by the time he found Ray again, he had a grim, careful theory forming."Wolfe's still experimenting," Nichole said. "Grafting traits from other orga
Chapter 153 - A Deal With The Devils
Ferris walked back through the gate just after sunrise, two of her people flanking her, and the whole camp seemed to hold its breath at the sight of her.Ray met her halfway across the clearing, the note still crumpled tight in his fist."Explain this," he said. "Now.""I intended to," Ferris said calmly despite the fury written plain across his face. "Walk with me because this isn't a conversation for an audience."He followed her away from the nearest tents, every step tightening the knot already sitting in his chest."I didn't go to Wolfe," Ferris said, once they were clear of listening ears. "I went to the Rogues."Ray's stomach dropped. "That's supposed to make this better?""It's not the same thing, and you know it," Ferris said."Wolfe doesn't negotiate, he only conquers, or he ignores. The Rogues are different. They're businessmen wearing survival gear and I offered them a share of our supplies in exchange for leaving this camp alone.""You're paying traffickers," Ray announc
Chapter 152 - The Rogues
Frederick's lead pointed them toward a remote stretch of Kansas two weeks into training, a supposed mini-base site he wanted verified before Ferris committed real resources to hitting there."Small team," Ray said, going over the map with Jane. "In, confirm what's there, out, there's nothing more."Jane, Zoe, Saul, and two of Ferris's fighters made up the rest of the group, light and fast, no armored vehicles this time.It was just a single pickup truck salvaged and reinforced enough to survive rough roads without drawing the kind of attention a larger convoy would.The drive out took most of the day, farmland long gone wild stretching in every direction and the isolation of it should have felt safer than the ruined city streets they'd grown used to. Instead it felt worse with nothing to hide behind. Nothing to explain who might already be watching.Saul noticed it first."Someone's tracking us," he said quietly and his head tilted the familiar way. "They have been following the tre
Chapter 151 - Taking The Fight Back
The camp felt different the moment they rolled back through the gate, fuller somehow and louder in a way that had nothing to do with fear.Ferris's people and the survivors from the Ray's camp and the underground town had folded together over the days Ray had been gone.Tents and shelters spread wider across the clearing, and Saul was the first face Ray recognized properly.He was standing near the fire with his arms crossed, watching the vehicles pull in."You look like hell," Saul said, walking to meet him."Feels about right," Ray said, and something in him eased at the sight of Saul upright and steady, shoulder healed enough that he barely favored it anymore.Mia found him a moment later, dragging one of the underground camp's kids by the hand to show him something, and for a brief.It was precious for a few minutes and the camp felt almost like a place instead of a battlefield waiting for its next round.It didn't last and It never did.Ferris called the leadership together that
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