Chapter 3

Penny’s POV

My space was a safe place, but I couldn’t hide in it forever. Zombies weren’t the only thing coming. In the novel, the end of the world arrived as a whole catalogue of horrors: blizzards and heat waves, tsunamis and typhoons, famine, and the one thing worse than any of them human greed.

I needed a fortress, somewhere defensible. Luckily, I was already standing in one.

My penthouse sat on the thirtieth and top floor of a thirty-story building on the Upper West Side, with modern security and only two units per floor. I’d bought it a year ago with the inheritance from my parents’ estate after the car accident. And my neighbor, the other occupant of the top floor, was the male lead.

I’d read that part in the novel, and it had made me sigh the first time. Lucas Zane had paid the previous owner double the market price just to live across the hall from Penny Lang. He was the most powerful man in the story, and he’d moved buildings for a girl who wouldn’t even look at him.

Quite the romantic. Pity the girl in question hadn’t realized it until the end of the book, when she watched him die for her. Only then did she understand what she’d thrown away, and by then it was far too late.

Not this time.

My apartment was safe enough in peacetime. Peacetime wasn’t going to last, though. I needed reinforcements, and fast. That was my second priority.

In the novel, Lucas was one of the strongest survivors in the whole story. He’d tried to protect Penny for years despite her stubbornness and her blind loyalty to Ivy. If he hadn’t thrown himself between Penny and a pack of zombies, he never would have died so easily.

But I wasn’t the old Penny, and things were going to be different. I’d make him my strongest ally.

I changed, grabbed my car keys, and headed for the garage. The second thing I needed to deal with was waiting there: a sleek, shiny BMW. Driving that through the apocalypse would be suicide.

I had one more advantage, and it was resting in my wallet: an unlimited black card. Money would be worthless soon, so I intended to spend every cent of it first.

Buying out a supermarket was out of the question. I’d already figured out from the novel and the original Penny’s memories that this world functioned a lot like the real one. Suspicious bulk purchases would draw attention, and attention would get me in trouble. I had to be smart.

My first stop was a renovation company in Midtown. I asked to see the manager and was shown into his office, where an assistant served me tea. I sat down, set my cup aside, and got straight to business.

“I need my apartment renovated within five days,” I said. “Double-layered bulletproof glass on all the windows, with a steel mesh on the outside. A bulletproof, shockproof door for my unit, and another one on the stairwell leading up to the thirtieth floor. Solar panels on the balcony, connected to high-capacity batteries. A second air conditioner and air purifier in the living room and bedroom. Heated flooring rated for extreme temperatures. Seal off every vent leading into my apartment and into the thirtieth-floor corridor. Double anti-theft locks on every door and window, matching the ones on the stairwell door.” I paused. “Can all of that be done in five days?”

The manager stared at me. I could see the exact moment he decided he had never heard such a list in his entire career. To his credit, he recovered fast.

“It’s possible,” he said carefully, “but it’s a great deal of work. We’d have to triple our usual crew to finish a month’s worth of work in five days. That will cost more.”

“Money isn’t a problem.” I slid the black card across the desk. “Take whatever you need and use the best materials you have. I also just bought a house, and I’ll want that renovated too. If I’m satisfied with this small job, it’s yours.”

It was a bluff, but a good one. I needed them to take me seriously, and I needed them not to cut corners.

“Don’t worry, Miss Lang,” the manager said, taking the card with visibly trembling fingers. “In five days, your apartment will be a fortress.”

He’d probably never had a client like me. He was treating me like the god of wealth himself.

I left my keys with him and walked next door to a luxury car dealership. It catered to the very rich and the very powerful, which was exactly why I’d chosen it. If anyone in the city had a heavily modified Hummer, it would be here.

I’d barely walked through the doors when a sales associate hurried over. “Good afternoon, miss. How can we help you today?”

“I’d like to sell my BMW and replace it with a modified Hummer,” I said. “Do you have anything like that?”

“You’ve come to the right place. Let me get the manager. It’ll go faster.” I could have kissed him.

I waited five minutes before a man in a sharp gray suit strode out of the back office, smiling. “Miss Lang, I hear you’re selling a BMW and buying a Hummer? What are your specifications? And would you like to consign the BMW with us or sell it outright?”

It hadn’t even occurred to me that I could just sell it on the spot. “Outright,” I said. “As for the Hummer, I want bulletproof and shockproof panels and glass, run-flat tires, a double diesel tank, and a sunroof made from the same material. Do you have anything close?”

“As it happens, we do,” the manager said. “We have one that matches almost everything you’ve listed. The tires aren’t run-flat, but we can swap them.”

“That’s fine. I’ll come back in three days. Is that enough time?”

“More than enough. Anything else, Miss Lang?”

I thought for a moment, and then it hit me. When people fled to the survivor bases, housing was going to be limited. Some would sleep in tents. Others would fight over a single room. I needed a place of my own that could move with me.

“Do you have modified RVs?”

His smile widened so much I thought it might split his face. “We do. What specifications?”

“The same as the Hummer. Bulletproof panels and glass. A water tank, an LPG system, solar panels, and everything necessary to live in it.” Acid rain was coming in the novel. A galvanized, primed RV would last decades where an untreated one would corrode in a season. “Can you add galvanization and a primer coating?”

“That will push the delivery from three days to five,” he said, a little apologetically.

“Do it. I’ll be back in five days for the RV and three for the Hummer.”

“Of course, Miss Lang. Thank you for your patronage.” He accepted the black card I handed him, and I added one more request.

“Also, can I rent a truck? I’ll bring it back in a week.” A big, covered vehicle would let me move supplies without renting a warehouse, and I didn’t have time for a warehouse.

“Of course. I’ll get you the keys.” He crossed the office, opened a small box on the wall, and came back with a key, my black card, and a polite goodbye.

The truck was waiting outside, medium-sized and sturdy, capable of hauling two tons at a time. I climbed in, started the engine, and headed straight for Hunts Point.