CHAPTER 1: The Day I Died

FREYA'S POV,

“Medbay is empty, and the third floor is clear.” I shoved through the stairwell door, gasping for breath. My arms were full of boxes of gauze and vials, and a half-crushed box of syringes pinned against my chest. “That's everything I could collect. We need to move, now.”

Griffin didn't answer. He was already grabbing the supplies from my arms and loading them into the armoured vehicle before I finished the sentence.

“Where's Selena?” he asked, looking past me at the stairwell. “She went to clear the first floor with Ronan's squad.”

Not ‘are you okay?’ Not ‘thank you for putting your life at risk for me. Or  I am glad to see you are not harmed.’ Not even a flicker of relief shadowed his eyes when he saw me. He was more concerned about our neighbour than about me, his own wife.

I tried to reason with myself, saying he was scared for everyone. “I don't know, I thought she was with you—”

“I'm here!” Selena's voice cracked across the underground garage. She came sprinting out of the eastern stairwell, hair plastered to her face. “They've taken the first floor. The army couldn't control them. They're coming down—”

The engine roared to life when the driver heard that. He leaned out, one hand braced on the door. “We can't wait any longer! Climb up! We have to leave now!”

“What about the others?” I asked, looking at the two armoured vehicles standing not far from ours.

I got my answer when the crowd assigned to the other vehicles rushed towards us all at once and shoved me aside. I hit the concrete hard, and Griffin didn't even turn around. Instead, he caught Selena's arm and pulled her inside. He whispered something in her ear. She nodded at first and followed him towards the back. But then she realised something and jumped out.

“Alice! Where is my daughter? She's not in the car.”

I looked around and spotted the little girl on my left, chasing something only she could see. I didn't think twice. I ran, scooping her off the ground, and carried her back to Selena, who snatched her and covered her face with kisses. Alice wrapped her little arms around Selena, unaware of the situation we were about to face.

“We should move,” I said, pulling Selena back to the car. However, the door was shut, and people were clawing at the handle to get inside. “Fuck! What now?”

“Move! I have a little girl with me… let me pass!” Selena tried to push through, but no one budged. I grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the back of the vehicle. Selena snapped at me. “What are you doing? Let go of me.”

“The emergency window at the back,” I whispered, and thankfully she understood and came with me.

Griffin was already there, waiting for us at the window. Relief filled my heart when I saw the shadow of fear leave his eyes as he saw me. ‘He was waiting for me,’ I thought. ‘He didn't leave without me.’

“Get in. Hurry!” He threw the window open and reached for Selena first. I wish I could say it didn't hurt when he ignored me once again. It did. “Give Alice to Freya. The window is too high. You can't climb with her in your arms.”

I took Alice as Selena climbed inside. Her small fingers twisted in my collar when I lifted her next, and Griffin caught her from the other side. Instead of helping me, he went to put her on Selena's lap. I grabbed the window frame and pulled myself up, finding my mother-in-law sitting next to Selena, her arms wrapped around them both, her lips pressed to Alice's forehead.

“The back window,” someone screamed, and the crowd surged towards the back.

I grabbed the window frame and called, “Help me!” I stretched my hand out to Griffin. I couldn't climb. “Griffin!”

The vehicle started to move, gravel grinding under the tyres as it picked up speed. I tightened my grip and called for Griffin once again when the other survivors tried to pull me down. Some of them threw themselves against the vehicle, trying to grab on, but there was nothing else to hold.

“Griffin! Help me!” I screamed over the engine, reaching for him.

He turned, and his hand shot out and closed around mine, not just fingers, but my whole hand wrapped tight around my wrist. He hauled me in against the window until my shoulder slammed into the frame, but I didn't complain because the army vehicle was moving fast and he was trying to help me. Relief went through me so fast I felt like I was flying. For one stupid, hopeful second, I thought I was safe because he wasn't leaving me behind. He was going to pull me in.

Then he leaned down, close enough that I felt his breath against my ear over the roaring of the engine. “I am so tired of pretending to be in love with you.”

“WHAT?!”

With his other hand flat around my collarbone, he shoved me backwards. My fingers tore free of the grip I had on the window frame, and the ground came up to meet me before I'd even finished understanding what he'd said. I hit the concrete hard, face first. Pain shot through my body, and I felt the bones in my legs crack.

The vehicle didn't slow down either. It just kept rolling, and Griffin disappeared inside.

“GRIFFIN!” Tears rolled out of my eyes when the realisation finally hit me. “I'm your wife. If you leave me here, they will kill me.”

I tried to stand, but my leg wouldn't hold me, wouldn't even bend the way it was supposed to. The survivors who hadn't made it onto the vehicles were running around. Some went back toward the other stairwell doors while the others went out of the garage through the main door. I watched them go. I couldn't follow either direction. All I could do was drag myself across the concrete an inch at a time.

That's when I heard the footsteps behind me. I heard the screams of other humans and felt the vibrations of the hundreds of feet. Then came the wet, guttural sound that didn't belong to anything human. I kept dragging myself anyway, even when my palms tore open on the concrete and tears made it hard for me to see anything. I still moved because I wanted to survive. I was afraid of death. I didn't want to die.

I begged the gods for help. I called for Griffin again and again, hoping he would come to save me, but he didn't.

I felt something close around my foot, and before I could kick, it had already dug its teeth into my ankle. I tried screaming, but I had no breath left for it. More of them jumped on top of me, biting and clawing whatever part of my body they could reach. I tried pushing them away, but they hardly budged, and the pain was unbearable. I felt my limbs being pulled apart, and the world turned black.

“Jesus, woman! Wake the fuck up!” Griffin's voice cut through the darkness before my eyes even opened. “It's almost nine, Freya.”

I jolted upright, gasping, and clawing at my ankle. There should have been teeth marks, but my fingers found only smooth, warm skin. No wound or blood. Not even a single mark. My hands shook so badly, I had to press them into the mattress to keep them still.

I blinked a few times, trying to understand what was happening. The familiar white ceiling, sunlight pouring through the balcony door, the soft mattress under me—it was my bedroom.

‘Am I dead? Is it the afterlife?’ I thought to myself. ‘The day is sunny, and I am back in my bed. That's what I asked for when the darkness took over me.’

“I don't have time for this today.” Griffin stood in the doorway, already dressed, glaring at me as if I owed him something. “I told you last night about the meeting, and you still chose to oversleep. Get your fat ass working and find me the tie-clip.”

I couldn't breathe. This was his voice, his face and his impatient, entitled scowl. The man who shut the window in my face and turned back to someone else. He was alive, irritated and standing about ten feet away from me. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to go for his throat and demand answers for what he did.

‘It can't be the afterlife if he's here with me.’ I told myself.

Ignoring him, I grabbed my phone off the nightstand with fingers that wouldn't stop trembling and stared at it. The date was wrong. I Googled it to double-check and got the same answer. That's when I realised what actually happened.

Somehow I was back in time, exactly a month before the apocalypse came to Spring Falls.