Chapter 2: Three Bullets and a Strange Man

As confusion lingered in my mind, I kept moving because my mother was somewhere across the city, and standing there staring at bodies would not get me any nearer to her.

Blood had soaked through the makeshift pad inside my jeans, while every step brought another cramp through my lower abdomen. My lip throbbed where Rafe had split it, my ribs hurt whenever I moved too quickly, and my entire body begged for rest that I could not afford to give it.

I pulled out my phone and called Mom.

The screen searched for a connection before the call failed, so I tried again while continuing down the street. When that did not work, I called my best friend, then the neighbor who checked on Mom whenever I worked late, but none of the calls connected, and the signal bars had disappeared completely.

“Come on, Mom,” I whispered, pressing her number again even though I already knew what the screen would show.

The call failed like the others, so I shoved the phone into my pocket and continued toward her neighborhood, although the main road was blocked before I got very far. Two cars had collided across the intersection, while another had mounted the sidewalk with its driver’s door hanging open. People squeezed through whatever gaps remained, stepping around broken glass and abandoned belongings.

I took a side street and kept my direction as best I could, but every block brought back the same horrible question: why were there so many women on the ground?

Many had no visible wounds, no blood, and nothing that explained why they had collapsed while the men around them were still moving. Some men remained beside the bodies trying to help, while others had already started searching pockets and removing jewelry.

The sight almost made me throw up.

A pharmacy with a shattered front window gave me somewhere to stop when another cramp made walking difficult, so I slipped inside and searched what remained on the shelves.

Most of the useful supplies were already gone, but I found a bottle of water beneath an overturned display, gauze behind the counter, and a packet of painkillers that had been stepped on without breaking the seal.

I sat on the floor and checked the bleeding, which had slowed, though there was still more blood than I wanted to see.

My hands trembled as I cleaned myself and changed the makeshift padding. I tried not to think about the ultrasound image hidden inside my handbag or the tiny shape I had seen on the screen only days earlier because I still did not know whether my baby was alive.

Until a doctor told me otherwise, I refused to decide that Rafe had taken that from me too.

I swallowed two painkillers with water and remained on the floor until the cramping became tolerable again, then I checked the gun against my lower back.

I had always carried it after a man once followed me home from work, even though Rafe had mocked me for buying it and insisted I was paranoid. He was a lucky man because the gun had not crossed my mind while he was hitting me, and all four bullets remained inside the magazine.

For once, ignoring him might save my life.

I packed the gauze and water into my duffel, pulled the strap over my shoulder, and returned to the street.

The hours blurred into abandoned cars, broken windows, fires, and voices calling names that never answered. An explosion somewhere east sent orange light above the buildings, but I kept moving because every minute spent elsewhere was another minute away from Mom.

Thoughts of her kept forcing themselves through everything else because she lived alone, had a bad knee, and hated driving at night. I kept remembering the way she complained whenever I suggested moving closer to me, insisting she had lived perfectly well on her own before I was born and planned to continue doing so.

Every woman I passed made the fear worse.

I told myself she could have been inside when the sky changed, that maybe whatever had happened did not affect everyone, or perhaps her phone was dead and she was trying to find me too. Those possibilities were fragile, but I needed them.

Three men noticed me when I entered a parking lot behind a strip mall.

One called out while the other two began moving apart in a way that made their intention obvious before any of them got closer to me.

My hand went behind my back. “Stay the fuck away from me.”

I drew the gun and pointed it toward the closest man, but he laughed and continued toward me like a predator. His eyes were crimson, almost the same shade of red that had covered the sky earlier.

“I said stay back!” I shouted.

His smile widened while the other two kept moving around me from opposite sides, and when I looked at them properly, I realized they had the same crimson eyes.

The closest man took another step, so I fired into his thigh.

His scream tore through the parking lot as he dropped and grabbed his leg. The other two stopped, and I used those few seconds to run toward the next building without checking whether they decided to pursue me.

My ribs began hurting almost immediately, but I kept moving until the strip mall was far behind and no voices were chasing me.

My hands shook as I checked the gun and found only three bullets remaining, which left me wondering how many more men I might have to face before I reached my mother.

I put the gun back against my lower back and continued.

The industrial section of the city started around the first gray light of morning. Shops and houses gradually faded, replaced by warehouses, repair yards, fenced lots, and older buildings standing farther apart.

There were fewer bodies here and far fewer people, which should have made me less nervous, but the emptiness only made every sound easier to notice.

My body had started resisting every step, so when I found a warehouse with one side door partly open, I decided to stop long enough to check my bleeding and give my ribs some rest.

Dust drifted through the pale light entering from windows high above the floor, while empty metal shelving divided the large interior into narrow spaces.

I moved inside, searching for somewhere hidden from the doorway, and that was when I saw the man.

He stood near the opposite side of the open floor, tall and heavily built through the shoulders and chest, with dark hair falling past his ears in loose waves and a full beard covering the lower half of his face. The sleeves of his white shirt had been rolled back along his forearms, while a few buttons near his throat remained open.

He was already staring at me, and unlike the other men I had encountered, his eyes were almost golden.

The way he regarded me made my hand move toward the gun because he did not react like a man surprised to find a stranger inside the same building. His attention remained fixed on me with an intensity that made the enormous warehouse suddenly seem much smaller.

He began walking toward me without hurrying, and his steps were unusually quiet for a man his size. When he stopped a few feet away, he drew a slow breath through his nose and tipped his head slightly.

It took me a moment to realize he was smelling the air around me, probably picking up blood, sweat, or whatever else remained on my body after everything I had survived.

“Human.” He inhaled more deeply before looking at the blood on my jeans and then back at my face. “You’re hurt, and you’re alone.”

“Mind your damn business.”

His gaze moved across the bruising around my mouth, and he scoffed with what sounded like amusement before taking another step toward me. “Name.”

I had no intention of giving a stranger personal information simply because he asked for it.

“I said mind your damn business,” I repeated, tightening my hold on the duffel strap as I turned to leave. “If this place is yours, keep it. I’ll find somewhere else.”

“You won’t leave.”

He spoke so calmly that irritation crawled through me, especially because the last thing I wanted after Rafe’s betrayal was another man speaking to me like my choices meant nothing.

“Not out there,” he continued, keeping his eyes on me. “Not with what you are.”

My brows pulled together because I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but I was too exhausted to start asking questions.

My ribs hurt, my abdomen continued cramping, I had three bullets left, and this stranger had already begun talking to me like my choices were his. I prayed I would not have to blow his head off just to make him understand otherwise.

I headed toward the doorway, but he moved at the same time, positioning himself between me and the exit without rushing or attempting to grab me.

When I changed direction slightly, he shifted with me and blocked that route too, which made my hand move toward the gun.

He sniffed the air again, slower than before, and his attention became more intense afterward. His shoulders lowered slightly while his eyes stayed fixed on me, and discomfort crept over my skin.

“You’re coming with me,” he ordered.

I stared at him. “The fuck I am.”

“You are.”

There was no anger in his voice and no attempt to persuade me, but the confidence behind those two words made it obvious that he expected obedience.

“You are weak,” he continued. “The city, humans, everything is gone. Let me protect you.”

His words struck directly at the fear I had been refusing to face since my calls stopped connecting, especially the thought of what might have happened to my mother.

I forced that fear aside before it could take over. “There are still survivors like you and me out there, so step aside.”

He did not move and merely slipped his hands into his pockets with an arrogance that irritated me even more.

I stepped backward to create more room between us, but he adjusted his position and kept himself between me and the exit.

That ended whatever patience I had left.

I drew my gun fully and held it where he could see it. “I don’t fucking know you, I don’t know why you think you can decide where I go, and I do not take orders from strangers.”

He stared at the weapon before looking at my bruised face and the dried blood across my jeans, while his nostrils flared once more.

“You will obey me,” he said, maintaining the same calm voice. “And you start now.”

My fingers closed more firmly around the gun while I tried to decide whether this man was arrogant, insane, or simply accustomed to intimidating everyone around him.

Whatever the answer was, I had no intention of letting another man control what happened to me after escaping Rafe.

I aimed the gun directly at his forehead so there could be no mistake about my warning, but he showed no interest in stepping aside. The unnerving calm in his face told me that he genuinely believed I would eventually leave the warehouse with him, while I was becoming equally convinced that I had stumbled upon a strange madman with a death wish.