2026-10-24 22:11:54
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 14
Chapter 14"How many days is that?" Martha asked.She was sitting up in bed with a glass of water in one hand and the first pill in the other. Lena stood by the door with her arms folded. Benji had stayed out in the hallway, because he said he couldn't look at Mrs. Hale's foot without feeling sick."Enough," Damon said."That's not a number.""Take the pill, Mom."Martha looked at the six packs on the blanket next to her, then at him. She had been reading his face since the day he was born, and he had never been able to hide anything from her for long."So it's not enough," she said."It's enough for now. I'll find more."She held his eyes for a moment longer, then swallowed the pill and handed him the glass. "Your shoulder's bleeding through your shirt. Go and let Lena look at it before you drip on my floor."Lena cleaned the cut in the office. It wasn't deep, just a long scrape where he had landed on the concrete, but she took her time with it. She didn't ask any questions while she
Chapter 13
Chapter 13"If you tell me to drive faster one more time, I'm going to stop this van and make you walk," Benji said. "I'm doing ninety on a forty road, Damon.""Then do ninety-five."Benji gave him a dirty look, but he pressed down harder on the gas.Corbin Medical was on the east side, near the old freight yards. In his first life, Damon had walked into that building four months after the outbreak with Benji beside him and a crowbar in his hand. Somebody had already set fire to the front offices by then. The only thing left was a locked cage at the back, full of the antibiotics hospitals kept for people who couldn't take penicillin.This time there was no fire. There were two trucks.The first one was already leaving the loading bay as they turned the corner. It was a white box truck with no name on the side, and it drove off toward the expressway. The second truck was still backed up to the open bay, and three men in dark jackets were throwing the last boxes into it as fast as they
Chapter 12
Chapter 12Martha set her spoon down very carefully in the bowl. For a long time she didn't say anything, and then she bent down and peeled the sock away, and Damon got up out of the chair and knelt on the floor in front of her.The sore was on the ball of her foot, under the second toe. It had probably started as a blister, the kind she always got from new shoes, the kind that never healed properly because of her sugar. Now it was an open wound the size of his thumbnail, yellow at the centre, and the skin around it had gone red and swollen and hot. When he touched the top of her foot, she flinched, and he saw it. A thin red line ran up from the wound, across the top of her foot, and disappeared under the hem of her nightgown toward her ankle.He had seen that red line at Riverside more times than he could count. He knew what it meant and how fast it travelled."How long?" he asked."It's nothing.""How long, Mom?"She looked at the wall, at Max's drawing of the bear that might be Ben
Chapter 11
Chapter 11"Where's my sister?"Jace was sitting up against the back of the cage with his knees pulled to his chest and his ruined suit jacket wrapped around his shoulders like a blanket. The grey had gone out of his skin overnight, and the milky film had cleared from his eyes, and without it he looked exactly like the Jace who used to sleep off his hangovers on the Sterling family's pool loungers. The only difference was the bite on his neck, which had already closed into a ridge of angry pink skin, and the fact that he was afraid."She went home," Damon said. He pulled the ammunition crate over to the mesh and sat down on it. Tom had gone to sleep in his truck at dawn, and Sergeant had stayed behind, lying across the doorway with his chin on his paws and one eye open."Home." Jace laughed weakly. "She left me here. With you.""She told your father you stole the vials. By now he thinks you ran off with them."Jace stared at him for a long moment, and Damon watched him try to find a w
Chapter 10
Chapter 10 She didn't answer, because there was nowhere to go and they both knew it, and he hated himself a little for asking."Give me one minute with him," Damon said. "One minute, Lena. Then you can hate me."He crouched down at the bars until he was level with Jace's face. Up close, Jace looked younger than twenty-four. He looked like a frightened kid who had borrowed his father's suit."Do you know who Benji is?" Damon asked.Jace blinked at him through the haze. "Your driver friend. The one with the van.""If I said to you, say hi to Benji for me, what would that mean to you?""I don't know." Jace's lip shook. "I don't know what that means. Is it a joke? I don't get it, I'm sorry, I don't get it."He didn't get it. Damon looked into those clouding eyes and understood, in a way he hadn't let himself understand before, that this Jace hadn't done any of it yet. He hadn't locked the loading door. He hadn't stolen Tom's bolts or kicked anyone off a wall. He was a spoiled drunk who p
Chapter 9
Chapter 9"Don't you dare pick that up," Lena said.Damon picked it up anyway. The case was colder than the night air, and when he opened the latches, rows of small glass vials sat in grey foam, each one filled with something the dark red of old wine. Every vial had the same printed label, his own surname followed by a batch number, as if he were a product that had come off a factory line.He stared at his name until Lena spoke again."He threw Max out of a door," she said. "You told me so yourself, in the van, with Max asleep on my lap. You told me you found them two days later.""I know what I told you.""Then close the case."On the other side of the gate, Jace had slid all the way down to the gravel. The towel on his neck was soaked through, and his breathing had a wet, catching sound in it that Damon had heard a thousand times at Riverside, always in the last hour before someone stopped being a person. Celeste stood over her brother without touching him. She hadn't wiped the bloo
You may also like
The Mutant King In Apocalypse
Jack1.1K viewsRise Of The Villain
Ace5.0K viewsApocalypse Landlord: The Sanctuary System
Miufira559 viewsApocalypse: Zero Empathy
Aria Black80 viewsThe Apocalypse Rebate System: I Became King by Giving
BADDY INK465 viewsApocalypse Vending Machine System
CutebyYou732 viewsReborn as the Apocalypse Master
Lone Writer1.8K viewsApocalypse Harem System: Infinite Rebate
Alia Writes 2.9K views