Page 7 of Glass Rose (Where Roses Rot #1)

A family minivan. It’s cramped inside, and smells like cigarettes and energy drinks. The old lady left empty fast food bags on the floor and a photo of a smiling blonde kid stuck to the dashboard.

Better than the delivery van.

The streets are empty, silent in a way that they never were. Even before the outbreak, I could count on one hand the times I’d seen urban streets this deserted. Now, it feels like driving through a tomb.

Sofia’s directions come in fragments—”Left here,” “Take the bridge,” “Past the gas station”—each word tighter than the last. Her heart rate’s elevated. I can hear it, a rapid staccato beneath her ribs.

The infection hasn’t fully claimed this area yet, but it’s coming. I can feel it in the air like static before a storm, taste the metal on my tongue.

“Is Gavin your real name?” Sofia asks.

“Yeah.” I keep my eyes on the road, scanning for movement. “Gavin Hart.”

She shifts in her seat, angling toward me. “What did they do to you in there? Besides the tests?”

I navigate around an abandoned SUV, its driver’s door hanging open like a broken wing. “You really want to know?”

Her fingers fidget with the hem of her lab coat. “Level 4 was off-limits to most researchers.”

“Lucky you.”

“That’s not what I meant?—”

“I—” My head explodes with fragmentary images. Needles piercing skin, restraints cutting into wrists, a woman in a white coat saying, “Increase the dosage,” while I scream. The steering wheel turns slippery under my palms. Sweat or blood? Can’t tell anymore.

I slam on the brakes, the van screeching to a halt in the middle of the empty road. My vision tunnels, black creeping in from the edges like ink.

“Gavin?” Sofia’s voice sounds distant, underwater.

I’m strapped to a table while they cut into me, watching my own skin knit back together in hours while the pain feels endless.

“Hey.” Sofia’s hand lands on my forearm, light as a butterfly. “Look at me.”

I lift my head and meet her eyes. Warm brown, like aged whiskey. Like something I might have drunk in another life, before this. Before them .

The phantom needles withdraw from my skin, the ghostly restraints loosen, and the pain disappears. It’s just her.

“That happen often?” she asks.

“Often enough.” I release the death grip on the steering wheel. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” She withdraws her hand, and I immediately miss its warmth. “I’m sorry for what we… for what I did.”

“I don’t want your apology.” The words come out wrong. Harsher than intended.

Her eyes drop to her hands. “I still?—”

“Stop. We all do shit we regret.” I ease my foot onto the gas. “You’re the one who called those guys. Tried to expose the place. That counts for something.”

“Not enough.” She stares out the window, shoulders hunched. “Not nearly enough.”

The silence hangs between us, heavy with all the shit neither of us wants to say. Fourteen months of my life stolen. Her complicity, however unwilling. The end of the fucking world happening outside our windows.

“Take a right at the next light,” she murmurs.

I do, scanning the darkened houses we pass. Most have their curtains drawn. Occasional lights and the sound of distant televisions. A sprinkler waters a perfectly manicured lawn, and a cat stretches lazily on a porch railing. A suburban community asleep, unaware that the world has already changed.

“Your parents,” I say. “They doctors too?”

“My dad’s a janitor at Green. Mom works at a daycare. They wanted me to be a real doctor, but I fell in love with viruses instead.”

“Bet they’re regretting that career advice now.”

She laughs, a short, broken sound. “You’re an asshole.”

“Never claimed otherwise. ”

“They worked three jobs each to put me through undergrad. When I got the scholarship for my PhD, my dad cried. That’s why I took the job. The money… they’re getting older and?—”

“I get it.” I cut her off before she spirals further. “Family’s important.”

“Do you have family?”

“No.” It’s not a lie.

She waits for more, but I keep my focus on the road.

“Everyone has someone,” she persists, voice gentler now. “Before all this.”

I could tell her about the guys from my unit, the ones I consider more family than the blood relatives who never understood me. People I’d die for. People who might think I’m already dead after fourteen months.

But I don’t.

Not because I don’t trust Sofia, but because I don’t trust Alex. And Sofia’s the type who’d share information, thinking it might help, not realizing it could get people killed.

Her smile fades as we turn onto a tree-lined street of modest single-family homes. “Third house on the left. The blue one with the?—”

“Porch swing.”

The house sits dark and silent, with no lights visible from any window.

Her heartbeat thunders in my ears—too fast, too loud. “Maybe they’re asleep.”

I park behind the house, engine idling. “Stay here.”

“No.” She unbuckles her seatbelt. “They’re my parents.”

“Which is exactly why you should?—”

“Don’t.” Her eyes harden, something fierce breaking through the fear. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t handle.”

I recognize that look. Saw it in the mirror every day for months while they tried to break me. Determination wrapped around terror, holding it at bay.

“Fine.” I kill the engine. “But you stay behind me. And if I say run, you fucking run. Got it?”

She nods once, jaw set.

“I mean it, Sofia. No heroics.”

“Understood.”

My hearing picks up movement inside—not the steps of people, but a persistent squelching.

“How many people should be in that house?”

“Just my parents.” Her brow furrows. “Why?”

“Any pets?”

“Gavin, what do you hear?”