Chapter 1 — You Left Me

Rainwater ran red down the cracked pavement.

Evelyn Vale pressed one hand against her side and stumbled through the alley, every breath scraping raw inside her chest. Her fingers were slick beneath the torn edge of her jacket. Blood, rain, grime—she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began anymore.

Behind her, something screamed.

Not human.

Not anymore.

The sound bounced between the brick walls, thin and starving and wrong, followed by the wet slap of feet through puddles.

Evelyn forced herself forward.

One more step.

Then another.

The alley opened ahead, spilling into the back lot behind Mercer Pharmacy. Half of the sign had burned out weeks ago, leaving only MERC flickering weakly through the rain. Beyond it, through the haze of smoke and storm, headlights cut across the darkness.

Her chest tightened.

Damian.

The black SUV sat crooked near the curb, engine running, exhaust curling pale into the cold air. The back hatch was open. Someone was moving around it quickly, shoving bags inside.

For one stupid, aching second, relief nearly took her knees out from under her.

He came back. He actually came back.

“Damian,” she tried to call.

It came out barely louder than a breath.

She dragged herself closer, boots slipping on broken glass. Her left leg nearly buckled, but she caught herself against the pharmacy wall and kept moving.

“Damian!”

This time, he heard her.

Damian Cole turned sharply at the sound of her voice.

Even through the rain, she saw his face change.

Not with relief.

Not with fear for her.

With guilt.

It moved across him fast, ugly and unmistakable, before he shoved it down and looked past her toward the alley.

Toward the sounds chasing her.

Evelyn stopped.

The cold hit her harder than the wound in her side.

He was loading the SUV.

The last fuel can was already in the back. So were the emergency food packs. The medical kit. Her medical kit. The one she had carried for three days with a fever, refusing to use the last antibiotics because Damian had said they needed to save them.

The passenger window rolled down. A woman stared out from inside the SUV, pale and wide-eyed beneath perfectly curled auburn hair now frizzing from damp air. Claire. Damian’s coworker. Damian’s “friend.” Damian’s convenient little shadow who always needed a ride, a favor, a place to stay.

Claire was wrapped in Evelyn’s gray thermal blanket.

Evelyn’s fingers curled against the brick.

“No,” she whispered.

Damian slammed the hatch halfway shut, then hesitated as she stepped into the glow of the headlights.

His eyes dropped to her bloody hand.

“Evie…”

She hated that the nickname still hurt.

Her voice cracked. “Open the door.”

He didn’t move.

The infected shrieked again behind her, closer now. Evelyn flinched despite herself and looked back. Shadows jerked at the far end of the alley, bodies pushing over one another, hands scraping bricks, mouths open too wide.

She turned back to him. “Damian, open the door.”

Claire leaned toward him from inside the car. “We have to go.”

Evelyn stared at her. Something hollow and poisonous opened beneath her ribs.

“You brought her?”

Damian swallowed. Rain ran down his face, plastering his hair to his forehead. He looked exhausted. Afraid. Still handsome in that familiar, useless way that had once made her forgive things before he even apologized.

“She was alone,” he said.

Evelyn let out a breath that almost became a laugh. “So was I.”

His jaw tightened. “That’s not fair.”

“Fair?” she took another step toward him. Pain tore through her side so violently that black specks crowded the edge of her vision. “I went back for the medicine. You told me to go back.”

“I thought you were right behind me.”

“No, you didn’t.”

Silence snapped between them. The rain filled it.

Damian looked away first.

That tiny movement destroyed the last fragile piece of her that had still been begging him not to be this.

Evelyn looked past him into the SUV. Claire’s hand was curled around the strap of Evelyn’s supply bag.

Her supply bag. The one with the protein bars, water tablets, map, flashlight, emergency knife.

“You’re taking everything,” Evelyn said.

Damian’s face twisted. “We don’t have enough fuel to circle back again.”

“I’m right here.”

“There are too many of them.”

“I’m right here.”

His hands flexed at his sides. “Evie, please don’t make this harder.”

For a second, she couldn’t breathe.

The infected reached the mouth of the alleyway. One crashed into a rusted dumpster and knocked it sideways with a metallic shriek. Another dropped to all fours and crawled over it, jaw hanging loose, blackened blood spilling down its chin.

Evelyn backed toward the SUV.

“Damian,” she said, softer now. Not because she wanted to be gentle.

Because terror had stolen everything else. “Please.”

His eyes shone.

For one heartbeat, she thought he might open the door.

Then Claire grabbed his sleeve. “Damian.” Just his name. That was all it took.

He stepped back.

Evelyn saw the decision land in him. Not loudly. Not dramatically. He didn’t become a monster in one grand motion.

He simply became what he had always been when things were hard.

A coward.

“I can’t save everyone,” he said.

The words entered her slowly. like a blade pressed between the ribs.

Evelyn stared at him through the rain. “I was never everyone.”

His face crumpled. But he still got into the driver’s seat.

The locks clicked. The sound was small. Final.

Evelyn lunged for the passenger door. Her bloody hand slipped against the handle.

“Damian!"

The SUV lurched forward.

She stumbled after it, palm slapping against the window. Claire wouldn’t look at her. Damian did. For one awful second, their eyes met through rain-streaked glass.

He was crying. As if that mattered. As if tears could feed her. As if regret could unlock the door.

The SUV sped out of the lot, tires hissing through dirty water, taillights bleeding red into the storm.

Evelyn stood alone beneath the broken pharmacy sign. The cold wrapped around her slowly. Behind her, the infected spilled into the lot.

One.

Then three.

Then more.

Their bare feet slapped the pavement. Their fingers twitched. Their mouths opened around sounds that used to belong to people.

Evelyn reached for the knife at her belt.

Gone.

Of course.

It was in the supply bag.

In the SUV.

With Claire.

A laugh broke out of her then, thin and cracked and nearly soundless. She had saved every scrap. Every pill. Every can. Every mouthful of fuel.

She had given Damian the bigger portions when he said he felt weak. She had stayed awake while he slept. She had walked into dark buildings first because he said she was better at staying calm.

And in the end, he had taken all of it to keep another woman warm.

The first infected reached her. Evelyn swung with her bare fist. Bone cracked against bone. Pain burst up her arm, bright and useless. The thing barely staggered.

Another grabbed her from behind.

Teeth sank into her shoulder.

She screamed.

The sound tore out of her and vanished beneath the rain, beneath the snarling mouths, beneath the engine fading somewhere far away.

She fought anyway.

Even when they dragged her down.

Even when her knees hit the pavement,

Even when cold water filled her mouth and hands clawed at her hair, her coat, her skin.

The world narrowed to teeth and rain and red taillights disappearing into the dark.

No one came back.

Not Damian.

Not anyone.

Evelyn’s cheek pressed against the wet pavement. Her vision blurred until the broken pharmacy sign became nothing but a flickering smear of light.

Her final breath rattled out of her chest.

Then the world went black.

“Evelyn?”

Damian’s sleepy voice murmured beside her.

“Babe, why are you shaking?”