Chapter 2: The Man With the Gun

The explosion knocked the breath from my lungs so completely I could hear nothing but a high ringing while dust poured through the shattered hallway. Then a gloved hand closed around mine and pulled me up, and I was on my feet before my mind caught up with the command.

Mia was already beside me, coughing hard enough to bend double. When she asked about everyone else still trapped in the building, the man just turned and started running. I followed — not because I trusted a stranger with a rifle and an expression that never changed, but because behind us the infected were screaming in a rising chorus that left no room for hesitation.

He kicked open the emergency stairwell door and told us to stay behind him, rifle raised, descending at a pace that was controlled but relentless. On the second-floor landing, I finally asked the question that had been burning in my throat.

“You haven’t told us your name.”

He stopped. Something in his jaw tightened. “Adrian.”

“Last name?”

“Just Adrian.” Like the rest of his identity was something the world no longer needed.

Of course he’d be mysterious and arrogant and apparently the only person in the entire university who understood what was happening. With no better option, I followed him down again.

Something heavy slammed against the stairwell door below. Adrian raised his rifle without a word, and the door exploded inward under three infected who came through with the same mindless hunger I’d already seen upstairs. He fired three shots, dropped each of them in rapid succession, and I covered my mouth because I’d never watched anyone kill a person before — even people who weren’t people anymore.

“Don’t think about it,” he said.

“How am I supposed to not think about the bodies at our feet?”

“If you hesitate, you die.” Harsh, but I couldn’t argue with it.

The ground floor entrance was destroyed, and the courtyard beyond was littered with bodies — students I’d walked past every day, some of them twisted into the shape of the infected now. My legs stopped working when I recognized a girl from my lecture, still open-eyed, blood covering her face. Mia pulled me into a fierce hug and told me not to look, while Adrian said we had to reach his vehicle.

A helicopter roared overhead, and hope surged in me for the first time since the screaming started. I raised my hands and shouted. It didn’t slow down — it opened fire, bullets tearing across the courtyard, and Adrian tackled me to the ground.

“Why did they shoot at us?”

“They weren’t aiming at us.” He pointed toward the gates, where a massive wave of infected was already pouring onto campus. The military had been firing at the horde. My blood went cold.

We sprinted for the parking lot, where an armored black SUV waited like it had been prepared long before that morning. Mia climbed into the back without hesitation. I stopped on the pavement.

“I don’t know you.”

“You don’t have to.” When I asked why he was helping us, he didn’t answer right away, his eyes fixed on mine while the courtyard burned around us. “Because you’re alive. That’s the only reason you’re getting.”

An infected man broke from the crowd and ran straight for Mia. I grabbed a metal pipe and shouted her name, but the thing changed direction mid-stride and came for me instead, white eyes locked on my face with a focus that felt deliberate. Adrian’s shot dropped it inches from my feet.

“You saved me,” I said, staring at the body.

“I know.” Something in the quiet certainty of his voice sent an inexplicable flutter through my stomach, which felt insane in a world that was ending.

I climbed into the passenger seat. Adrian drove out of the lot with the speed of someone who’d already planned every exit. The city outside was fire and abandonment — burned buildings, empty cars, people running with no destination while Mia cried quietly in the back.

“Where are we going?”

“A safe house outside the city. It’ll hold for now.” A pause. “Nothing’s truly safe anymore.”

My phone buzzed with a new alert: citizens should not trust military evacuation zones. I turned the screen toward him. “Why would it say that?”

His hands tightened on the wheel. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

I demanded an explanation, repeating his name until he slammed the brakes hard enough to throw Mia forward. He stared at his own phone, face gone pale, then turned it toward me. Stark letters: THEY KNOW ABOUT THE GIRL.

“What girl?”

He lifted his eyes to mine.

“You.”

Headlights appeared behind us — one vehicle, then another, then five more, spreading out to surround the SUV. Adrian reached for his rifle and ordered me to stay inside as men in black uniforms stepped out with practiced coordination. One raised a loudspeaker.

He called my name with perfect clarity. Ordered me out. Called me a priority subject.

Mia stared at me in open shock. “How do they know who you are?”

I had no answer. Adrian’s eyes had gone almost black, and when he leaned close enough that only I could hear, his voice dropped to something I’d never heard from him before.

“They’re here for you.”