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Sometime later, though it was impossible to tell without windows, Renee stirred and woke to the pitiful sounds coming from the room with the dismembered torso. She propped up on her elbows and peered around the space in the darkness. Weird there weren’t any candles lit, and she saw everything. Her night vision hadn’t been great before. She could see better than most in her most recent group, but she figured it was because her other senses compensated for her loss of hearing during most of her early childhood.

She sat up and pulled her knees to her chest, unable to tune out the whimpers now. Renee rubbed her dry eyes and reached for a bottle of water, emptying it down her throat. She must’ve been way more dehydrated than she thought. Why would the king mutilate one of his own kind? The faster zombies seemed to be more like him than the slower, decaying shamblers.

Her eyes darted to the wingback chair, and she inhaled sharply. In the darkness, his odd irises glowed. Before, outside, she thought it was a trick of the light, or perhaps because she was slightly delirious. But in the pitch-black room, there was no denying it. His fucking goldish eyes glowed and were locked on her.

Although Brie showed emotion, it had only been anger or irritation. He often showed anger, yet mixed in laughter or sarcasm. No other zombies behaved like him. When he assured Renee of her safety, his tone reminded her of a love interest from her books. Renee flattened her lips and stood.

“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t. Just go back to bed.” His posture was still proud, but his voice was weary.

“Why don’t you sleep?”

“So, you can try to escape?”

She crossed her arms across her chest. “That’s not what I meant. But yeah, if I woke up, and you were asleep, I’d try to run.”

“Where would you go that I wouldn’t find you?”

She swore his voice sounded almost playful, but she ignored it. No way would she actually tell him her plans, but Renee wasn’t a good liar either. She decided to keep it vague and somewhat truthful but with no details. “I don’t know. I guess I’d try to find a stronghold or some military base. Help gather enough weapons to take as many of you out as we could.”

Her mind drifted to every military group she had been near or observed. As safe from the zombies as she might be with soldiers, there was a tradeoff. Instead of fearing zombies would tear her apart, she would be paranoid that the other humans would recognize she was useless and use her as bait or toss her out of the group or safe haven. Many of the people who still survived were hardened, distorted versions of themselves. They were almost as terrifying as the zombies.

He sighed. “Your world is dead. This is all there is now. Stop trying to escape, it will not be like you want or remember.”

“Because you and your horde destroyed it! You think I don’t know that things are shit?” She stomped over to him. “Why are you so different?”

He cocked his head to the side. “Different?”

“Are you their king because you can talk? Think? Have glowing eyes?”

“I’m not as different from the others as you believe.”

“Prove it.”

He stood and pressed his body against hers. She squared her shoulders, not allowing him to keep bullying her. For whatever insane reason, he wanted her around, so that meant he wouldn’t kill her - yet. His fingers dug into her arm before he dragged her to the tiny house’s door and opened it.

Renee’s mouth dropped open when she gazed outside. The horde stared at their king and his captive expectantly. So many of them had glowing irises like him, including Brie. Brie’s expression hardened the longer she stared at them in the doorway.

The king leaned down and whispered in Renee’s ear, “Our eyes glow when we’ve fed. The reason humans can’t see us in the dark is because I send in the starving first. By the time my stronger creatures reach them, it’s already too late.”

Renee pushed against him for all the good it did. She hated his words. His logic. He was too strategic for a zombie. She detested how her heart skipped a beat with his mouth so close to her ear. More than that, she hated the realization that came from his words. Without fully understanding that night… she felt it was her fault. She had accidentally killed them all – again. Even though she’d tried to save them, she’d pushed them towards their deaths. In front of her was the fabled sea of stars, only now it was ruined and ugly.

“I hate you,” she bit out.

He yanked her back inside. Another door slammed in her face. He held her against him. The coldness of him against her back strangely heated her skin.

His voice was rough when he spoke. “We are the monsters humans fear the most because they created us. We are them.”

“You’re nothing like me. You’ll always be a monster,” Renee’s voice sounded confident, even though inside she was terrified and something else she couldn’t quite identify. The tendrils of heat crept up her body and made her face hot.

He growled and shoved her to the floor on top of her sleeping bag. “You need to sleep.”

“I can’t sleep with that noise.” She motioned toward the other room.

“Then I will silence the traitor.”

Before Renee could ask what, he meant, he was in the room. The sounds of tearing flesh, sounds of moisture… and then the whimpering stopped. She closed her eyes and placed her hands over her ears. How could she hear without her implants? She rocked back and forth, her face on top of her knees, her arms wrapped around her shins, trying to think of something, anything that would calm her. Find her happy place. The problem was every happy place she’d ever had was gone. If she’d been alone, at least Liam would’ve comforted her but with the king around, she was on her own.

A soft touch against her back signaled it would be okay. Fingers grazed the side of her head and brushed her hair back. She exhaled. The memory was fuzzy, like most memories from before the downfall. Maybe it’d been her brother who touched her with such protectiveness before. Didn’t really matter. Just remembering the gentleness, the love in their touch, was enough. Renee stopped rocking and opened her eyes.

The bastard wasn’t on his throne. He crouched in front of her, studying her. She put her hands down and slid back.

“Death bothers you that much?”

She blinked. Was he being serious? Considering he killed people every day, he probably was. “Yeah. I’m not a murderer like you.”

“I don’t murder.”

“What?” The audacity of his words floored her.

“It’s survival, there’s a difference. We’re the superior species.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“It’s obvious. We’ve destroyed a better part of your world in only seven years.”

“You’ve been around as a zombie the whole time?”

“Does it matter?”

“No. Yes. Maybe.” Renee pinched her lips. Not sure why she’d asked that. “Fine, for argument’s sake, you’re a new-ish species who eat people. You’re still a murderer because you lead them. You go from place to place and tell them what to do, who to kill. You’re their king, and they follow you.”

He flashed his teeth at her. It was hard not to notice how clean and perfectly white his teeth were, not decayed or gross. “I’m not their king. Stop calling me that. They follow me because I’m the strongest of us all.”

Renee’s back hit the wall. “Well, I don’t know your name, and they follow you, so unless you tell me who you are, you’re their king. That’s what I will continue to call you.”

“Have you ever considered how quickly we spread? How we dominated the globe before the military could form a response?” His voice was laced with bitterness.

Renee hadn’t thought about any of that. When shit hit the fan, she was still in high school. At first, she and her few friends thought it was a big joke. A silly social media prank. From the rumors she heard over the years as she went from group to group, it had been a virus or sickness spread through contact. If you were bitten, you were toast. If they scratched you, you might make it, but you’d lose a limb. The way he made it sound; it couldn’t just be that.

“Fools, all of them. They brought this hell upon themselves, and we’ll reap the benefits. They will either submit or die.” He stood and stalked to his wing backed throne.

She was so screwed. He hated humans and thought the blood-thirsty mob he led was superior and every human deserved to die. She wanted to cry but wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, so she slid into the sleeping bag and turned away from him.