Page 10

I pull the trigger again. Then again. The slide locks back. Empty. Each gunshot echoes off brick walls like thunderclaps, making me flinch. The sound bounces down the alley and beyond, a siren call to everything dead and hungry within ten blocks. A dinner bell for the dead.

I know better than to fire in the city, but it’s too late now.

The last rotter drags itself across the pavement on shattered limbs, mouth gaping, teeth snapping at air. Its hisses come out low and guttural as its head tilts sideways, trying to see me better through milky white eyes. I raise the gun to smash the barrel into its skull, but?—

The alley vanishes. The fire. The street. The bodies. All gone.

I’m eight years old again, hiding under the desk in myfather’s study while hallway lights flicker out one by one. Back when the generators failed and the darkness crept in like poison. The monster wearing my father’s face would visit on nights like these, when the rot in his soul became visible and magnified when the stench of alcohol was sharp in the air. When he wore my father’s jacket, but spoke with a voice that cracked like something ancient and broken.

“Casper…Caspian…Casperrr…”

Laughter echoes in my memory, mocking and cruel. My mother’s psychotic cackling providing the soundtrack to my terror.

I couldn’t move then either. The paralysis started long before that night, and I’ve never been able to shake it.

My fingers tremble now. I feel the heaviness of the gun in my hand, how the cold metal presses against my calluses. The past bleeds into the present like spilled ink.

Movement in my peripheral vision. Someone’s in front of me. They’re close. Too close. A figure. A threat. I raise the gun and press the barrel to their temple. Tight grip and calm hands. That’s how I survive. Always has been.

“Caspian.” My name comes out desperate this time. Not a monster’s voice. It’s her. It’s Autumn.

Her voice cuts through the haze like a blade. I blink hard, and her face comes into focus. Dirty, sweat-slicked, scratched, but human. No rotting soul staring back at me. Her bright hazel eyes are wide and glistening, her mouth parted in a silent plea I can’t hear through the ringing in my ears.

My legs shake. Cold steel presses against my throat from behind, angled with deadly precision. A hand locks onto my shoulder.

“Drop it,” Jace growls out, his voice laced with lethal calm.

I freeze.

“Let her go,” he orders.

My fingers uncoil like they’re moving through molasses. The gun slips from my hand and clatters to the ground. Autumn stumbles backward, clutching her injured wrist against her stomach, her gaze still locked on mine. She doesn’t speak, but she doesn’t need to. I can see the fear written across her face, plain as daylight. It’s in her hazel eyes, in the tight line of her jaw. I almost?—

Fuck.

I can’t move. Not even if I tried. All I do is stand there panting, staring at the space where she’d been. My breath comes in ragged gasps, like I’ve run a marathon.

Jace steps between us, blade still in hand, watching me like I’m something feral and dangerous. As he should. He glances back over his shoulder. “You good?”

Autumn nods, though her eyes flick between us with equal parts caution and curiosity.

Jace sheathes his knife and kneels beside Mars. He checks his pulse before peeling open his eyelids like I had earlier. “Your shots brought company. Rotters are moving this way. A lot of them.”

Silent and unable to meet Autumn’s eyes, with the shame burning through my veins like acid, I crouch to retrieve my pistol. My hand hovers over it as I stare at the warm, scuffed metal smeared with dirt and oil. I pick up my knife from where I’d dropped it and sheath it with trembling fingers. I can still feel the trigger under my finger. Still feel her life balanced on the edge of my panic.

The magazine is empty, but that’s not what concerns me.

She was right there.

Right in front of me.

And I almost pulled the trigger.

6

AUTUMN

Jace crouches by a pile of charred wood and debris, trying to coax life from stubborn kindling. His hands shake as he strikes the lighter once, twice, three times before it catches. When the small flame flickers to life, his whole body goes rigid. He holds the lighter like it might bite him, and his jaw clenches so tight I can see the muscle jumping beneath his skin.