Page 5

CASPIAN

A utumn runs ahead of me, and I’m grateful she’s not fleeing.

I wouldn’t be able to stop her if she did.

Not with Mars slung across my back like a bag of wet cement.

He’s dead weight, and I mean that in my most hopeful way possible.

He’s still breathing. I can feel the rise and fall of his chest against me, the irritating way his breath tickles the hairs on my neck, and the warmth of his blood soaking through my hoodie, a stain that’ll stick around forever.

One of his socks is missing, and I’m guessing that’s what’s shoved into the bottle Autumn’s carrying.

A makeshift molotov, impressive. He’s going to have complaints when he wakes up.

Without a doubt. Mars always made a big deal about his favorite socks, so he’ll probably start with that, move on to the explosion and bar fire, then chew me out for something.

I’m always getting chewed out for something.

At least he still has a chance to complain.

I’ve carried bodies before. Some breathing, some not. Can’t think about that now.

We round a corner and Autumn stumbles, catching herself against the wall with a sharp hiss. That’s when I notice the swelling around her right wrist, flushed with angry violet bruising. She cradles it against her chest, guarding it like something precious.

“Are you?—”

“I’ve got it,” she snaps, eyes forward and jaw clenched tight.

Right, of course she does.

Even injured, she keeps moving, keeps fighting. I don’t know whether to admire her determination or worry like hell about her. Probably both.

Her eyes flutter closed for a moment. She shakes her head, lets out a slow exhale, then continues forward.

The alley narrows as we go deeper. Light fades, and shadows cling to the red brick wall like mildew.

Thick, wet, and suffocating. Broken crates litter our path.

An overturned dumpster spills rusted cans and old bones across the pavement.

A busted van sits on flat tires with its doors hanging open and windows shattered.

A smear of something dark, maybe blood, maybe not, streaks across the ground.

I hate alleys. I hate being boxed in, but I hate the dark even more.

“How are we going to do this?” Autumn asks, pulling me back to our immediate problem.

“What?” I blink hard, forcing my brain to catch up. I’ve been watching her too closely, watching my feet, watching everything except what’s directly ahead. And what’s directly ahead is a dead end.

A chain-link fence stretches upward, topped with barbed wire and rust. Has to be fifteen feet tall, minimum. No weak spots, and no way through.

I must stare at it too long, because Autumn crosses her arms and sighs with annoyance. The motion is stiff and awkward thanks to her injured wrist. “That fence is a death sentence. No way we’re climbing that thing with Mars like this. He had to go and blow himself up and render himself useless. ”

Not the time for questions. We need a way out. “You climb. I’ll figure something out.”

“You’ll figure something out?”

I shiver when I look around the dark alley that seems to swallow more light with each passing second. I hate the darkness. That’s where memories come out to play, especially when I’m alone. “I guess I’m open to suggestions.”

She exhales a breath that’s part frustration and part exhaustion. “As much as I’d love to ditch you strange rooftop men and make a break for it, I’m not in the habit of abandoning people who help me.” She pauses to glance at Mars. “Well. Most times.”

I shift Mars off my back and lower him to the ground, then prop him against the wall. He groans but stays unconscious. He couldn’t have picked a worse time to be out of commission.

The absence of him on my back feels like removing a sandbag from my chest. I stretch my shoulders and roll out the tension, but relief doesn’t last. Not with the air this still. Not with the shadows watching.

A moan rises. It’s low, wet, and close. Something shifts in the darkness beyond the alley mouth. I tell myself not to panic. Try not to breathe too loud or think too much. Then there’s another sound. It’s not a groan or a shuffle. It’s something else.

A sharp click breaks the silence, and my attention snaps toward it. Glass crunches underfoot. Not mine, and not Autumn’s. More rotters are joining our party uninvited.

Three rotters lurch into view from the alley entrance. They’re all jagged edges and slack jaws, with their skin hanging in strips. One’s missing an eye. Another drags a leg attached by threads of sinew. They’re slow, but not slow enough.

We’re trapped. My chest tightens. My pulse picks up. I want to save bullets for true desperation, since gunshots will only draw more and make this worse, but I might not have a choice.

“No. No, no, no,” I whisper. Sweat beads on my skin. My breath turns shallow, and my hands tremble.

The alley is a box. The fence behind us towers too high to climb, with Mars unconscious. Rotters block the front. We’re cornered with monsters in the dark.

Autumn steps closer to the fence, then turns back to me. “How do we do this?”

One rotter slides along the pavement, the scrape of its bones against concrete setting my teeth on edge. It crawls faster than it should, hungrier than the rest. My mind goes blank.

“Caspian,” Autumn’s voice sharpens and rises. “I don’t have a weapon. We need to move. Do something.”

I’m frozen in the headlights of my own terror. Panic claws up my throat, but this isn’t the time to let it win. All we need to do is get from one moment to the next. One breath to the next.

The panic almost claims me, but I’ve seen worse. I’ve survived worse. I swallow hard and force my voice to work. “We fight. Grab whatever you can.”

Autumn doesn’t hesitate, and she doesn’t cower.

She could climb that fence and leave us behind to save herself.

Instead, she dives for a piece of rebar near the van, her injured wrist tucked close, her grip awkward but strong.

There’s something fierce and beautiful about the way she refuses to abandon us, even when survival would be easier alone.

I spot a broken pipe near the dumpster and grab it with both hands until my knuckles ache.

The shadows press closer. The rotters close the distance, their feet dragging with every labored step. I plant my feet, raise the pipe, and try not to shake. One of them lunges.

Decaying fingers wrap around my foot. I drive the pipe down through its skull with a wet crunch. Bone gives way. The rotter jerks once before going limp.

One down. I drop the pipe and pull my knife from its sheath.

Three to go.

I’m cornered.

The rotters are closing in, their groans rising like a tide at the alley’s narrow throat. My heart hammers against my ribs, pulse roaring loud enough to drown out everything else. Adrenaline kicks in, white-hot and blinding.

I step forward and drop the broken pipe, which clangs against the pavement. I let my knife fall beside it and draw my pistol.

One shot. One rotter drops.

Second shot. Another stumbles as half its face vanishes in a crimson spray.

Third shot. Nothing happens. It keeps crawling toward us.

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 my father’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.