CHAPTER TWO

Not a sister's kiss. Not a thank-you kiss. A long one, like she'd been waiting.

"What took you so long?" she murmured against his mouth. "I got so sick of her. Always Emma this, Emma that. You could've gotten us both out ages ago."

Us both.

I heard myself say it out loud. "Us both?"

And then I saw her stomach, the round, unmistakable curve of it under that oversized sweatshirt she'd worn every day for weeks.

I'd thought she was just eating the beans out of boredom. Thought the stress had made her puffy, the way it does. She hardly ever left the apartment.

Daniel and I were the ones who went out, who risked it, who came home with whatever we could scrape together.

And I knew whose it was. I knew it the way you know the stair that's missing in the dark, a half second after your foot's already in the air.

I threw myself at the elevator and hit the call button over and over, which was pointless, since he'd already locked it from inside.

"Daniel! Open the door! Open the damn door!" I shouted, tears running down my cheek.

He looked away. His other hand was wrapped around Lily's fingers.

"Please!" I pounded on the metal with both fists. "Please, wait!"

He turned. For one foolish, stupid second I thought he was coming back for me.

I thought he was going to consider how hard I had toiled through each month, week, and day to provide for both him and my sister.

But instead, his looks were icy cold.

"I found the sanctuary," he said. "They've only got room for two."

Something inside me just went quiet. My breathing was a bit shaky.

"So you picked her."

"She's carrying my kid, Emma," he said like I was being unreasonable.

"She's my family now. What did you expect me to do, leave the mother of my child behind?"

Daniel scoffed while he held Lily's hand tighter.

The tears were running down my face and I couldn't have stopped them if I'd tried. Looking back, the signs had all been there. The way he laughed at her jokes when he never laughed at mine.

How many nights I'd woken up and found his side of the bed empty and told myself he was keeping watch. Her curled up beside him on the couch, his arm around her, just keeping her calm. She's scared.

I'd been so grateful to him for being kind to my little sister.

"And what am I?" My voice came out ragged. "What am I to you, Daniel? After everything?"

He wouldn't meet my eyes.

"You were useful," he said, "while we needed you."

I've been stabbed since. I've been scratched, and shot at, and I've fallen off a roof. Nothing has ever hurt the way that one sentence did.

I turned to my sister, because I couldn't help it, because some stupid part of me still thought she'd say something.

"Lily?" I slowly turned my gaze towards her.

She looked right at me. There was nothing in her face. No guilt, not even pity.

"He never loved you," she said. "He's always loved me. Honestly, Emma? You'd be doing everybody a favor if you just died."

My own sister. The girl I used to carry on my back through the grocery store.

Down the stairwell, below us, claws started scraping on metal, quick and eager and getting louder.

Daniel took a small step back. And he smiled, the bastard. A tiny, tired smile, like he was sorry for the inconvenience.

"Goodbye, Emma."

"No! Daniel, no!"

The elevator groaned and dropped. I watched the two of them sink out of sight behind the grimy glass, Lily's head already resting on his shoulder, and then there was only the shaft and the dark and the sound of the cable humming.

Then the infected hit the landing.

I backed up until my shoulders met the wall, knife shaking so badly the blade rattled against the concrete. One of them came up the stairs, then three, then more than I could keep track of, a tide of them with their jaws hanging open and their eyes lit that awful red. My whole body went cold and I felt sweat slide down the back of my neck, under my collar.

I wished I could go back. Just a few hours. Just long enough to not open that door.

"I'm not dying like this," I whispered. I don't think I believed it.

The first one lunged. I stepped in and drove the dull knife as hard as I could into its throat, and it went down with a gurgle. The second was already on me. I ducked its first swipe, not its second, and claws raked across my shoulder and the pain was bright and enormous and I screamed.

"Get off me!"

I stabbed again, and again, and it didn't matter, there were too many. Someone's hand closed around my wrist and twisted, and the knife skittered away across the floor. My legs went out from under me. The concrete came up and hit me in the back.

The last thing I saw was a hand, black with dried blood, reaching for my face.

Then nothing.

No pain. No growling. I couldn't feel my arms. It was quiet in a way the world had not been quiet for two years, and I remember thinking, well. So this is it. That's not so bad.

Then a voice spoke inside my head.

It wasn't a person's voice. Flat, even, a little cheerful, like an elevator announcement.

[Host detected.]

I would have laughed, if I could. That's how it starts, I thought. You turn, and you start hearing things. Nobody ever tells you that part.

[Life signs: critical.]

[Soul integrity: 3%.]

[Emergency survival protocol engaged.]

A light bloomed in the black, small and white, like someone had cracked a door.

[Apocalypse Survival System has been awakened.]

System?

Was I dreaming? Was this what dying looked like, a pop-up window?

[Host meets minimum requirements.]

[Reward unlocked: Second Chance.]

My pulse should have stopped. Maybe it had. I stared at the glowing words hanging in front of me, and I felt something stir in my chest that I hadn't felt in a long time, small and ugly and stubborn.

[Would the Host like to return to the beginning?]

The beginning of what?

I didn't get to ask before another line scrolled up under it.

[Returning Host to thirty days before the apocalypse.]

"Wait," I said, or thought I said. "No, wait, I..."

The white light swallowed everything.

[Regression commencing.]