chapter 9

Serena POV

The freezing rain beat down relentlessly, plastering my hair to my forehead and washing the dark, crimson blood of the dead off the iron bar still gripped tightly in my knuckles.

My breath rattled in my chest as I stared across the slick cobblestones at the patio.

Lisa stood under the awning, completely still. The terrified, fragile facade she had put on for my mother was gone, replaced by a dark, chilling amusement that sent a spike of ice straight down my spine.

"What did you just say?" I demanded, my voice cutting through the heavy downpour like a sharpened blade.

I took a slow, deliberate step toward the patio, the iron bar swinging slightly at my side. My eyes locked onto hers, searching for any trace of the innocent sister my mother had spent years weeping over.

There was none.

The moment Lisa saw me moving toward her, her expression shifted back with terrifying speed. The cruel smile vanished, replaced instantly by wide, tear-filled eyes and trembling lips. She shrank back into the shadow of the doorway, clutching her wet cardigan around her shoulders.

"I... I'm just frightened, Serena!" she whimpered, her voice high and pathetic, completely shedding the dark tone from seconds before. "Please... get us inside! Please, na! It's so cold, and those things... those things almost ate us!"

Before I could take another step, my mother charged down the patio steps, throwing her body between Lisa and me as if I were the monster wielding a weapon.

"Stop questioning your sister!" my mother shrieked, her finger pointed inches from my face, her voice dripping with violent indignation. "Can't you see that we are terrified?! We need to get inside before we get infected! Or before those vile things break through and kill us all!"

I stopped in my tracks.

Rain trickled down my neck, but the cold outside was nothing compared to the sudden, hollow chill that bloomed inside my chest.

I looked at my mother's face—twisted with rage, demanding, entitled. I looked at Lisa, cowering behind her with a subtle, veiled glint of triumph in her eyes.

A wave of bitter, suffocating memory washed over my mind.

> In my previous life, when the world burned and I had nowhere left to turn, I had begged them. I had stood before my own flesh and blood, crying, offering everything I owned just for a safe place to sleep. And without a single second of hesitation, my own family had abandoned me. They had locked their doors, taken my rations, and thrown me to the wolves as if I were nothing more than garbage on the street.

>

And now, here they were. Standing on the marble steps of my estate, demanding my protection, expecting me to risk my life, my fortress, and my future to keep them warm and fed.

"Why did you come here?" I asked, my voice dropping into a dangerous, terrifying quiet.

"What kind of stupid question is that?!" my mother barked, wiping rain from her eyes. "We are your family! Where else would we go?!"

"You didn't come to see if I was alive," I murmured, staring at them with eyes devoid of any human warmth. "You came because you ran out of options. You came because you think I owe you."

"Serena, enough of this disrespect!" my mother screamed, stepping closer. "Open the front doors right now and let us into the main living room! Lisa needs dry clothes and a hot meal!"

I turned away from her completely, looking toward the head security guard who was standing near the SUV, holding a bloodied pipe.

"Get everyone inside the staff quarter wing," I commanded crisply, my voice carrying over the sound of the storm. "Reinforce every ground-floor door and window with heavy steel shutters. Lock down the lower levels. Nobody leaves without my explicit permission. Is that clear?"

The guard straightened immediately. "Yes, ma'am! Right away!"

My mother gasped, her face flushing a deep, mottled purple with outrage. "How dare you give orders to your family?! How dare you tell me where I can and cannot go in your house?!"

I slowly turned back to face her, my posture tall, unyielding, and iron-clad.

"Because this is my house," I spat, every syllable laced with steel. "Not yours. You don't own a single brick of this foundation. You didn't bleed for this shelter. I did. And if you take one step out of line, I will throw you back out those iron gates myself."

My mother’s mouth fell open, stunned into silence by the sheer venom in my tone.

Before she could recover her breath to scream another demand, a sound shattered the heavy rain.

CRACK-BANG!

A sharp, deafening gunshot exploded from the eastern perimeter of the estate.

Everyone froze.

The wind seemed to die down for a fraction of a second as the echoing bang reverberated off the stone walls, followed immediately by the terrifying, frantic sounds of metal grinding against metal and high-pitched, inhuman shrieks.

Footsteps pounded frantically across the wet cobblestones. A junior security officer came sprinting around the side of the main building, his face completely drained of color, his sidearm drawn and shaking violently in his grip.

"Ma'am! Ma'am!" he screamed, stumbling as he reached me.

"What happened?!" I demanded, gripping his shoulder firmly.

"Someone... someone opened the secondary East Gate!" he stammered, his eyes wide with wild, unadulterated panic. "The lock was disengaged from the inside!"

My heart sank into a bottomless, freezing abyss.

What?!

"What do you mean opened?!" I yelled over a fresh wave of distant screams.

"The eastern gates are wide open!" the guard cried out. "The infected... they're pouring into the inner gardens! Hundreds of them!"

Panic erupted across the patio in an instant.

"OH GOD! THEY'RE INSIDE!" my mother shrieked, grabbing Lisa by the arm with frantic, uncoordinated strength. "SERENA! DO SOMETHING!"

"Shut up and get into the bunker wing!" I roared at them.

Without waiting to see if they obeyed, my mother grabbed Lisa and ran frantically toward the heavy double doors of the main house, screaming for the household staff to clear the way.

My mind was racing at a neck-breaking speed.

The East Gate was a reinforced secondary entry point, secured with a double-encrypted digital keypad and a heavy mechanical deadbolt. It was physically impossible for the horde outside to break through it from the exterior without heavy explosives.

Someone had unlocked it. Someone on the inside had deliberately opened the door to the bloodbath.

"Cover the main hall!" I threw the iron bar to the junior guard and bolted toward the central security command suite located in the west wing of the mansion.

My combat boots slammed against the polished marble floors as I sprinted through the corridors, bypassing the crying servants and panicking staff. I slammed my hand against the biometric scanner of the security room, throwing the heavy steel door open and leaping into the control chair.

The room was bathed in the harsh, blue glow of dozens of high-definition surveillance monitors.

I frantically tapped the touchscreen console, pulling up the live feeds for the East Gate perimeter.

"Show me," I whispered, my teeth grinding together so hard my jaw throbbed. "Show me who did this."

The monitor flickered, adjusting to the infrared night-vision stream of the eastern courtyard.

My breath caught in my throat. The air in my lungs completely evaporated.

On the screen, standing directly beside the fully opened, heavy iron secondary gate, was a solitary figure.

The person was wearing the official, heavy-duty tactical uniform of my personal security detail.

My fingers trembled violently as I reached out to the control board, pinching the screen to zoom in on the man's face. The high-resolution camera sharpened the image, clearing away the blur of rain and shadow.

It was Marcus.

My most trusted head of security. The man I had paid double his market rate, the man I had personally vetted, the man who had sworn on his life to guard my estate against any threat.

On the screen, Marcus didn't look panicked. He didn't look like a man fighting for his life.

He slowly raised his hand toward the high-angle security camera.

With a cold, mechanical detachment, he gave a crisp, mocking salute directly into the lens. Then, he turned around and stepped back into the shadows of the guard booth.

Behind him, through the wide-open iron gates, a sea of violent, decaying bodies—hundreds upon hundreds of blood-drenched, hungry infected—poured through the opening like a dam breaking over a doomed city.

The horde had entered my sanctuary.

And the man I trusted had just handed them the key.