CHAPTER 5: THE LIE HE TOLD EVERYONE

The maintenance door tore free of its upper hinge with a shriek of bending steel and slammed against the wall, and a man in a torn caretaker's uniform lurched into the corridor with one shoulder hanging far lower than the other. Aria caught a fistful of Maya's hoodie and hauled her backwards, and the creature's fingers swept through the space where Maya's face had been a heartbeat earlier.

"The doorway, go, get through the doorway!" Aria shouted, shoving Maya along the wall toward the gap.

"What about you?" Maya cried, stumbling over the fallen mop bucket.

"I'm right behind you, just move!"

Maya squeezed past the creature's flailing arm and into the broken frame, and Aria followed, but a hand closed around the back of her borrowed cardigan and wrenched her off her feet. She twisted and swung the lamp blindly, and the brass cracked into its jaw with a wet crunch that barely made it blink. Maya's torch thumped down on its forearm, and the grip loosened for a moment, just long enough for Aria to tear free and lurch after her onto a short concrete landing, where a steel fire door stood closed on the far side.

Maya wrenched the handle and threw her whole weight against it, and they tumbled through together onto the top step. Aria slammed the door shut behind them and wedged her shoulder against the cold metal while the creature crashed into it again and again from the other side.

"It's faster than the last one," Aria gasped, her pulse pounding behind the bandage. "Don't wait for it, go down."

They took the stairs at a half-run with their hands skidding along the rail, and the concrete steps seemed to tilt whenever Aria glanced down at her feet. She slowed by a few steps, and Maya turned back with the torch dangling from her fist.

"You're limping," Maya said, her eyes dropping to the long red line across Aria's shoulder where the cardigan had torn. "Did it bite you? Tell me the truth, Isabella."

"It scratched me, that's all, it caught my sleeve," Aria said, pressing her palm over the sting and keeping her voice flat. "Look at it. Shallow, no puncture, no tooth marks."

"We should stop and clean it properly, or..."

"Not here, not with that thing still hammering on the door." Aria steadied herself against the wall and forced her legs to keep moving. "Keep walking."

Voices reached them two flights down, muffled and urgent, followed by the dull clang of metal on metal, over and over. Maya slowed to a halt on the landing, and her fingers tightened round the torch.

"That's the loading bay," she whispered. "It's right through there."

"Stay close, and don't run ahead of me," Aria said, resting a hand on her shoulder. "Whatever's in there, we go in together."

The loading bay was a long concrete cavern lit by a single flickering strip, and perhaps thirty people crowded its width, some clutching holdalls and some arguing in hoarse whispers. At the far end a delivery truck idled outside a half-raised steel gate, its engine rumbling, while a security guard in a crumpled uniform held both arms out to keep the crowd back from the opening.

"Back from the gate, everybody back! There's infected in the street!" the guard shouted, his voice ragged.

Maya tugged at the sleeve of a woman standing beside a stack of crates. "Is this an organised evacuation? Where's the truck going?"

"Government shelter, out past the river," the woman answered without turning her head, hugging a toddler to her chest. "There isn't room for everyone, though, and the driver's not waiting."

Aria opened her mouth to ask which route they planned to take, and then a voice carried across the bay that made her jaw lock.

"She attacked me, I'm telling you, she came at me with a lamp," Nicholas was saying, standing beside Vanessa near the truck's tailgate with a ring of listeners gathered around them. "I tried to help her, and she went for my throat, took every bit of food we had, and she's been like this ever since the outbreak."

Aria walked toward him with the cloth bag gripped against her ribs and the lamp hanging at her side, and the crowd's whispers broke around her.

"That's her, that's the one I warned you about," Nicholas announced, pointing across the bay, and every head turned. "She's unstable, and she's carrying our supplies."

"Nicholas has been patient with her for years," Vanessa added, laying a hand on his arm as though she had rehearsed it. "I saw the whole thing, honestly, she just snapped."

Aria stopped a few metres away and did not raise her voice. "When exactly did you help me, Nicholas?" she asked.

"Stop embarrassing yourself, Isabella. You wouldn't have lasted a day without me."

"You took the food and the water, and you left me bleeding on the floor," Aria said, steadily, looking round at the faces turned toward her. "You only came back because you wanted what I'd saved."

"That's a lie. I had no choice, the building was already..."

"Then why did you come back with Vanessa, and not by yourself?" she asked, tilting her head. "If you were in such a rush to save me."

A murmur went through the onlookers, and several pairs of eyes slid to Vanessa, whose bright expression flickered and wavered at the edges.

"She's lying about our marriage because she can't accept I don't want her any more," Nicholas blurted, colour climbing his neck.

"I don't want to be your wife any more either," Aria said, and a few people shifted. "That's not what this is about, and you know it."

"You should be grateful he came back at all," Vanessa snapped.

Aria turned toward her, and her gaze stayed level. "Are you speaking as his friend, or as the woman standing next to him when he left his hurt wife behind?"

The silence that followed stretched until a baby began to whimper somewhere in the crowd. Vanessa's lips tightened into a thin line. "Watch your mouth," she said, though her voice had lost its edge.

Nicholas stepped forward, his hand outstretched. "Hand over the bag, Isabella."

"No. I collected every bit of this myself."

He lunged for the strap, and Maya darted between them with the torch gripped in both hands. "You'll have to get through me first," she said, her voice shaking but her feet planted.

"You're defending a woman you've known for ten minutes?" Nicholas sneered.

"I've known her long enough to see who ran," Maya replied, and she did not lower it.

"Step away from them, sir," the guard barked, striding across the concrete with his palm raised. "One more scene and you're off this truck, do you understand me?"

Nicholas backed up a pace, his eyes fixed on Aria, and he muttered something under his breath that she did not catch.

"Infected! They're in the street, they're coming through!" a man screamed from the gate.

The bay erupted. People shoved toward the truck in a surge, and a stack of crates toppled over with a crash. Aria spun and saw an old man in a cardigan sprawled on the floor beside the wreckage, his hands scrabbling for a spilled bag of tablets. She crossed to him in three strides and knelt down.

"Stay with me, sir, I've got you, are you hurt anywhere?" she asked, running her fingers along his wrist and then his ribs.

A man barged past her shoulder and kicked the old man's bag out of reach, and Aria snatched his sleeve. "Pushing people over won't get you on that truck faster, it'll just get everyone killed," she snapped, and he tore loose and ran.

"You know what you're doing," the guard said, pausing over her shoulder. "Medical training?"

"I'm a trained medic," Aria said, hauling the old man upright, and she left out the rest. "Not a doctor, but I can keep people alive."

"We need that on the road, I can't promise a seat though, not unless you move fast."

"Then Maya comes with me," Aria said, and she looked straight at him. "Both of us, or neither."

The gate rang under a savage impact, and then another, and the metal began to bow.

"It won't hold much longer!" the guard bellowed.

Aria seized Maya's arm and ran for the tailgate, but Nicholas stepped into her path with his arms spread.

"Search her bag," he said loudly, jabbing a finger at it. "She's carrying stolen medical supplies, she took them out of our flat!"

The guard looked from Nicholas to Aria, and then at the gate shuddering behind them.

He raised a hand to stop her.

"Put the bag down, ma'am," he ordered.