Page 2 of Glass Rose (Where Roses Rot #1)

TWO

SOFIA

My hands shake so badly I can barely punch in my access code to activate the observation window shield. The metal panel glides down just as Jack’s killer rams against the other side, making the reinforced glass rattle.

I reel backward, vision tunneling to pinpricks as my knees fold, and I drop hard to the floor, teeth clacking together as sweat turns ice-cold against my skin.

“What the fuck is that?” Mia presses herself against the far wall, chest heaving. “What the actual fuck?”

Alex points a small camera at the subject, who is hammering his head against the door. “You said they were dead.”

“They were. Clinically. No pulse, no brain activity. They weren’t supposed to be… active. The logs said?—”

“Those are zombies,” Mia says. “Actual fucking zombies.”

“Not zombies.” The scientist in me rebels against the term, even as my lizard brain screams that she’s right. “Post-mortem neuromuscular activity triggered by the BC-7 virus.”

Alex lowers his camera. “You knew.”

“I didn’t.” My throat constricts. “I swear I didn’t. ”

“But you suspected.” He steps closer, voice dropping. “That’s why you were nervous about the cells.”

“No. I?—”

The pounding stops. Silence ripples through the corridor like a held breath.

Why? I pull myself up, legs still quaking.

Fisher, the only guard who ever bothered learning my name, moves down the hallway with caution, service weapon raised. His shoulders are squared beneath his security uniform, head swiveling as he checks each cell. Our buddy, who wanted to eat us, shuffling toward him.

“Fisher!” I slam my palm against the door. “Get out! They’re not?—”

Alex yanks me backward. “Are you fucking insane?”

“He doesn’t know what’s happening!”

“And you making noise will bring that thing back to us.” His voice drops low, almost tender. “We’ll all be dead.”

“I can’t just—” I wrench free, lunging for the control panel.

Alex blocks my path, his body a wall between me and the door. “You want to save him? Or feel better about yourself?”

I freeze, hand outstretched.

“You think I’m being cruel?” His eyes soften even as his stance remains immovable.

“He has a gun,” Mia whispers, her mascara running in black rivers. “Maybe he’ll be okay?”

Fisher turns—Peter?

It happens so fast. One second, Fisher is standing there, the next, he’s on the ground screaming as Peter’s teeth crunch into his shoulder. Blood spurts in rhythmic pulses, and Fisher’s gun skitters across the floor, unfired.

The speakers crackle to life. “Attention all personnel. Facility-wide containment breach in progress. Lockdown protocols initiated. ”

“Sofia.” Alex tugs at my arm, eyes wild. “What’s the protocol?”

I tear my gaze from the window, nodding mechanically. “Emergency exit. This way. We have twenty minutes before they gas the sublevel.”

“Gas?” Mia’s voice rises. “What kind of gas?”

“Nerve agent. It’ll kill everything organic.”

We run through corridors I’ve walked a thousand times, transformed into something alien by the strobing emergency lights and blaring alarms.

“Hey, wait up.” Mia trails several steps back, her breathing shallow and uneven. “I need a minute.”

I glance back and stop cold. She’s leaning against the wall, face slick with sweat, fingers clutching her forearm.

“Let me see that.” I reach for it.

“It’s fine.” She retreats. “Just grazed me when I fell.”

I pry her fingers loose.

Teeth marks. Not a graze. Not even close.

An angry crescent of torn flesh, the wound’s edges black.

I know what this means. I know the progression charts…

“When?” My voice sounds distant like it belongs to someone else. “When did this happen?”

Mia yanks her arm back, tucking it against her chest. “It’s nothing.”

“Fucking when Mia?” Alex asks.

“When I went for the camera.” Her eyes dart between him and me, her shoulders hunched. “It barely broke the skin.”

“Sofia.” Alex steps away from her, subtle but unmistakable. “She’s turning, isn’t she?”

“Let me see it again.” I reach for her arm.

“Don’t touch me.” She backs up, shoulders hitting the wall. “I’m fine.”

But she’s not. Her skin has taken on a grayish undertone, perspiration beading along her hairline despite the facility’s arctic air conditioning. The bite mark pulses with each heartbeat, veins around it darkening like spilled ink through tissue paper.

“You’re burning up.” I press my palm to her forehead, feeling heat radiating through her clammy skin.

“How long?” Alex asks, keeping his distance. “How long before she turns?”

“I don’t—” My throat closes around the words. “The lab data suggested twelve to twenty-four hours, but?—”

“But what?” Mia’s voice cracks, higher than before.

“Those were controlled conditions.” I swallow hard. “Smaller doses, different vectors.”

Mia slides down the wall until she’s sitting, knees pulled to her chest. “I don’t feel right.” Her breathing comes in short, sharp bursts. “My head… everything’s too bright.”

“The virus attacks the brain stem first,” I say. “Then spreads to the limbic system, frontal cortex?—”

“English.” Alex’s voice is tight, controlled.

“It’s eating her brain.” My hands ball into fists. “Starting with the parts that make her… her.”

Mia’s eyes find mine, terror giving way to something worse—resignation. “How long do I have?”

I kneel beside her, close enough to see the capillaries in her eyes beginning to burst, creating a spiderweb of red. “I don’t know.”

Her hand shoots out, fingers clamping around my wrist with unnatural strength. “Don’t let me become one of them.”

Blood trickles from her nose, black and viscous. Her pupils dilate until almost no iris remains, just bottomless wells of darkness.

“Sofia,” Alex says. “Get away from her.”

“Kill me,” Mia manages, each word a struggle. Her body twitches, jerky movements like she’s fighting for control of her own muscles. “Please. It hurts.”

She crashes her head against the wall, hard enough that I hear bone crack. Blood trickles down her forehead. “Get out. Get the?—”

I flinch back.

She turns, and it’s no longer her. No longer Mia.

Alex and I sprint down the corridor, Mia close behind, her movements growing more coordinated with each step.

“Right door! Stairs!” I point ahead where the emergency exit sign flickers.

Alex reaches it first, yanking the handle. Nothing. He slams his shoulder against it, face contorting. “It’s fucking locked!”

The card. I pat my pockets, fingers trembling against fabric as Mia’s guttural sounds grow closer. Where is it? Lab coat—left inside pocket?—

“Sofia, hurry the fuck up!” Alex presses himself against the door, eyes fixed on the corridor behind me.

I twist around. Mia’s shambling form rounds the corner. Blood drips from her nose and vacant eyes.

“I’m trying!” My fingers close around the plastic card, fumbling it out. I stumble forward, heart hammering against my ribs like it’s trying to escape.

Her pace quickens, her broken movements smoothing out as the virus rewires her neural pathways. Evolution in fast-forward.

I reach Alex, card extended. Our fingers brush as he snatches it and swipes.

Red light.

“Fuck!” He flips it, swipes again.

Still red.

Mia closes in, ten feet away. Nine. Eight.

“Give it to me.” I grab it and flip it right-side up. The magnetic strip catches on the reader.

Green light. The lock clicks .

Alex shoves the door open, practically falls through. I lunge after him, catching my hip on the frame, pain shooting down my leg.

The door slams shut behind us, the automatic lock engaging as Mia crashes against it. The impact reverberates through the metal, followed by scratching and pounding.

“That was…” Alex rubs a hand over his face. “Fuck!”

I slide down the wall until I’m sitting, adrenaline draining and leaving me hollow. Mia continues to hammer at the door, the sound like a metronome counting down to something inevitable.

Then, abruptly, it stops. The sudden silence, somehow, worse than the noise.

“Is she…” he trails off.

A low moan answers him, but more distant. She’s moving away.

“I’ll make this right,” I whisper.

“You can’t.”

“I have to.”

“She was already gone.” Alex’s voice lacks its usual charisma. Just raw fear. “Some things can’t be fixed, Sofia.”

The worst part is, I know he’s right. But it doesn’t stop the crushing guilt that settles over me like a shroud. I did this. I brought them here. I exposed the facility without understanding what I was really exposing.

“But you can get us out of here,” he says.

We climb the stairs in silence, the only sounds our ragged breathing and the distant wail of alarms. At the next level, I lead us into a monitoring station. The walls are lined with security screens showing different sections of the facility.

What I see stops my heart.

Chaos. Pure, unfiltered chaos.

In the cafeteria, a janitor tears into a security guard’s throat.

In the west wing labs, three researchers huddle behind an overturned desk while infected subjects pound against the door.

In the main lobby, a group of night shift workers make a desperate stand with improvised weapons, only to be overwhelmed by a tide of shambling figures.

This isn’t contained to our sublevel.

And where the fuck is Henry?

“It’s spreading.” I run my hands through my hair, strands coming loose from my ponytail.

“Too fast. The containment protocols should have stopped it, but there are too many points of failure. Too many Infected. And not enough people to stop it because it’s the effing middle of the night. We’re gonna die if we don’t get out.”

“How do we get out?” Alex cuts me off, his voice hardening. “There must be an exit plan.”

The horror builds with each screen I scan for a safe exit. Where could we walk through? There! “Through the auxiliary labs, then up the maintenance shaft to the surface. Most are at the entrance or taking the normal emergency exit route.”

“Then let’s move.”