Page 23 of Glass Rose (Where Roses Rot #1)

SIXTEEN

SOFIA

Marcus’s body collapses on top of Alex, the black blood pooling beneath them both. Dr. Cho doesn’t lower her weapon, keeping it trained on Alex as he shoves Marcus’s corpse aside, scrambling backward on his hands and feet like a crab.

“Don’t,” Min-Ji says. “Stay exactly where you are.”

“Min-Ji—” Alex raises his hands. “Please, I didn’t mean?—”

“Save it. You’re only breathing because Marcus wouldn’t want blood on my hands.”

The warehouse door bursts open behind us, and Gavin emerges from the smoke-filled entrance, rifle raised, with John limping behind him. John’s left shoulder is soaked in blood, his shirt torn where a bullet punched through flesh.

“Sofia!” Gavin’s gaze bounces between us. “Get in the car. Now!”

A low moaning carries across the night air. Not one voice but many, a chorus rising from the treeline. Shadows move between the trees. But not only that. A Green—former—Green soldier crawling out of the fire lapping at the entrance .

“Fuck.” John sways on his feet. “Incoming.”

“Let’s go.” I reach for Min-Ji’s arm.

She shakes me off. “I’ll hold him here.”

“What? No! We’re not leaving you!”

“Someone needs to slow them down.” Her voice doesn’t waver. “Make your escape worth something.”

The infected are closing in from all sides, drawn by our voices, our scent, our warmth. The SUV sits a few yards away, keys in the ignition where I left them.

Our only chance.

“Min-Ji, please,” I beg. “Come with us. We can figure this out.”

“I lost everyone at the facility. Then Marcus. I have nothing left.” Her voice softens. “But you do. Go.”

“This is fucking suicide.” Tears burn my eyes. “You can’t?—”

Gavin’s arm locks around my waist from behind, lifting me off the ground. “Time to go.”

“No!” I kick my feet in the air, trying to get out of his grip. “Please.”

“We don’t have time.” He carries me toward the SUV. “John’s losing blood, and those infected will be here in less than a minute.”

No. This is wrong. But he’s right.

Min-Ji finally meets my eyes, and the resignation stops my struggling cold. She’s made her decision. She won’t be swayed.

“It was nice working with you.” She inclines her head. “I hope we meet again, and when you find a cure. Name it after me. The Cho Solution has a nice ring to it.”

“Don’t do this,” I whisper. “Please.”

Gavin yanks open the passenger door and deposits me inside like a sack of groceries. “You don’t get to die with her.”

John fumbles with the door handle, nearly collapsing as he hauls himself into the back seat.

My emergency pack lies on the floorboard where I dropped it earlier.

I put on the seatbelt and clutch it to my chest like a shield as Gavin slides behind the wheel, starting the car.

He throws it into reverse, tires spitting gravel as we lurch backward.

The seatbelt stops my body with a jolt, but all I focus on is the scene before me.

Infected swarm from all sides, Green’s remaining soldiers forming a defensive perimeter in front of the warehouse entrance, and in the middle of it all, Min-Ji and Alex locked in their private standoff.

Through the smoke billowing from the warehouse, a figure emerges. Gabriel Green stands in the doorway, regarding us and then Min-Ji, a cruel smile spreading over his lips.

Gavin whips the wheel around, shifts into drive, and floors the accelerator, forcing me to grab the dashboard to stay upright while the backpack topples to the floor.

In the side mirror, I catch one final glimpse of the warehouse.

Min-Ji has lowered her weapon, her shoulders slumped as she kneels beside Marcus’s body.

Whether in defeat or acceptance, I can’t tell.

Around her, Green’s soldiers cut down infected with controlled bursts of gunfire while Alex is dragged toward the building by two men in tactical gear.

Then the road curves, and everything disappears.

“Kid,” John’s voice rasps from the back seat. “You good there?”

His skin has gone waxy with blood loss, his breathing shallow and rapid, the fabric of his shirt glistening wetly.

“Don’t you fucking die too.” I’m trembling so hard I can barely unzip the emergency pack. Bandages, antiseptic, painkillers—not enough for a gunshot wound, but maybe enough to keep him alive until we reach somewhere safer. If such a place still exists. “I’m sick of people dying around me.”

He lets out a wheezing chuckle that turns into a cough. “ Not planning on it. Takes more than a bullet to put down Crazy John.”

Gavin checks the mirrors. “We’ve got company.”

I unbuckle my seatbelt with clumsy fingers as he takes a sharp turn that slams me against the door.

“What the fuck are you doing?” His eyes flick to me, then back to the road.

“John needs help.” I twist between the front seats, my hip catching on the center console. “Unless you want another corpse.”

The SUV lurches as we hit a pothole, sending me sprawling into the back. My knee connects with John’s thigh, and he hisses through clenched teeth.

“Sorry, sorry.” I steady myself. “John, I need to see the wound.”

His eyes are glassy, unfocused. Bad sign. I peel back the blood-soaked fabric, revealing angry red flesh puckered around a ragged hole just below his collarbone. Blood still seeps from it, but not the arterial spray that would mean imminent death.

Thank fuck for small mercies.

“How’s it look, Doc?” John asks.

“Like you got shot.” I uncap the antiseptic, the sharp chemical smell filling the car. “Exit wound?”

“Went straight through.”

“You know. I’m a virologist. This isn’t exactly my expertise.”

“You’re all I have.” He doesn’t flinch when I dab on his wound. “Marcus showed you this?”

I press clean gauze against the hole, applying firm pressure. “Told me to use the heel of my hand. Said most people are too gentle.”

John’s laugh turns into a wet cough. “Smart kid.”

I grab the belt from the middle-seat, cutting the leather free and looping it over his shoulder, threading it under his armpit. That’s what some do, right?

“This isn’t proper medicine.” I wrench the makeshift pressure strap tight. John grunts but doesn’t complain. “But it’ll slow the bleeding.”

“Hold on.” Gavin swerves the SUV violently.

The force yanks me against John, who lets out a strangled sound that might be a scream if he had the strength for it.

“You did good, sweetheart.“ John’s hand finds mine, his eyes fluttering. “Your daddy would be proud.”

Don’t you dare. I check his pulse—still there, though weaker than I’d like.

“Are they still behind us?” I ask.

Gavin’s eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “Not anymore.”

I sink back in my seat, one hand still on the gauze of John’s wound. My body aches from the rough escape, but it’s nothing compared to the hollow feeling in my chest.

One more loss. One more person I couldn’t save. How many more before this is over?

If it’s ever.