001

Noya’s POV

The metal gate rattled under the weight of bodies.

I pressed my back against the cold bars, fingers locked so tight the skin split. On the other side of the fence, the safe zone lights still glowed. Warm. Protected. Alive.

Ethan stood just beyond reach, rifle slung over one shoulder, face half-shadowed by the floodlights. He didn’t move.

A low, wet growl rose behind me. Then another. Then dozens.

“Ethan.” My voice cracked. “Open it.”

He stared at me like I was already dead.

“That day,” he said quietly, “you should have been the one who died.”

The words landed harder than any bite.

I laughed once, a broken sound. “You’re still saying that?”

He didn’t look away. “Lily was still out there. I told you. I begged you to wait. You dragged me onto that helicopter like I was some helpless child. You left her to die.”

The memory slammed into me with the force of the first infected that hit the gate.

Three months ago. The final evacuation. One last helicopter. One empty seat left between blood and smoke. Ethan had refused to board. He kept screaming that Lily—the girl we had sponsored since she was sixteen, the girl he treated like a little sister—was still alive somewhere in the city. I had seen the radar. I had seen the swarm. I had known the truth.

So I had grabbed the front of his jacket and hauled him into the cabin myself. The doors sealed. The rotor blades screamed. Below us, the city burned.

I had thought I was saving him.

I had thought love meant that kind of choice.

“I saved your life,” I whispered against the bars.

“You killed hers.” Ethan’s voice stayed flat. “And you knew it. You’ve always known how I felt about her. Even before the world ended.”

The infected slammed into the gate again. The metal screamed. One of the bars bent inward with a sharp crack.

I stared at him. “You loved her.”

“I still do.” He finally looked me in the eye. “We have a son, Noya. He was born two weeks after the first outbreak. She died protecting him because you forced me to abandon her.”

The world tilted.

A son.

Not ours.

The words I had carried for weeks rose in my throat like blood. I’m pregnant. Three months along. The test had been positive the morning the power grid failed. I had planned to tell him once we reached the safe zone. Once we were safe. Once we could start over.

I opened my mouth.

The gate gave way.

Cold hands seized my arms, my hair, my throat. The stench of rotting meat flooded my nose. Teeth sank into the soft place under my jaw. Pain exploded white-hot and total.

I hit the ground hard. Bodies piled over me. Claws tore through fabric and skin. Something wet and heavy pressed against my mouth, cutting off the scream.

Through the tangle of limbs I still saw Ethan.

He didn’t raise the rifle.

He didn’t step forward.

He simply watched.

In the last flickering seconds, every strange detail from the past year rearranged itself into a single, ugly truth. The nights he came home smelling of someone else’s perfume. The way he always chose Lily’s name when he spoke about the future. The quiet way he had looked at me after the helicopter—like I was the real monster.

I had spent my entire life protecting people who never protected me back.

I had dragged the man I loved onto a helicopter and left another woman to die, believing it was the right thing.

I had been wrong about everything.

Blood filled my mouth. The sky above the floodlights turned black at the edges.

If I get another chance—

I will never put anyone’s life before my own again.

I will prepare.

I will survive.

And every single person who stood on the other side of that gate and watched me die will pay.

Darkness took the rest.

Then a cold, mechanical voice cut through the nothingness.

[System Binding Successful.]

[Welcome back, Reclaimer.]