Freeze Him
The word drops like a verdict.
"Freeze him."
Lily's voice fractures in the frozen dream around me, trembling with a grief that isn't mine but presses against my ribs all the same.
"Freeze him," she repeats, voice shaking."Give him the time I couldn't give her."
The dream collapses.
The freezer.Mom.Her thawing scream.Lily's blade.Blood melting into ice.
Everything slams into darkness.
And then—
I'm awake.
The Storage Room
Cold air. Dust. The metallic scent of rust and old tools.
I gasp and curl inward without thinking, my arms wrapping tight around my ribs like I can keep myself from shattering. My hands fly to my face. Hot tears leak between my fingers.
I pull my knees to my chest and fold over them, trying to hide inside a body that isn't entirely mine.
"Lil… what did you do?" My voice breaks into pieces. "Mom."
Her grief vibrates through me—quiet, aching—but I shove it aside. I can't look at it. Not right now.
"Okay, girl," I whisper to myself, dripping and shaking. "Get it together. Get it the hell together."
A low moan cuts through the stillness.
Eli.
I scrub my face, blink the tears off my lashes, and force myself to stand; the room tilts. My stomach lurches. Lily's sleeping pill is still dragging on my nerves like chains.
I stumble to the cot.
Eli is drenched in sweat, hair plastered to his forehead, cheeks flushed an alarming red. His breathing is shallow, his lips dry, and his skin burning under my palm.
"Shit," I whisper. "Hot as hell."
Where the hell is Marcus?
Lily's voice flickers inside my mind—familiar now, a whisper echoing off bone.
You're going to have to do this without Marcus.
"I know," I snap out loud. "Do what, you psycho bitch? Mom killer?"
The room goes colder.
I feel Lily flinch inside me.
Good.
She deserves that. It'll take more than one dream for me to forgive her.
Her voice returns, small but steady:
Save Eli.
"How?" My throat tightens. "How am I supposed to—"
Her answer cuts like ice.
Freeze him.
I sigh hard, shaking out my hands. "Yeah? And where exactly do you propose I do that?"
Silence.
Then, a whisper:
The bunker.
The Door Lifts
A deep metal groan vibrates through the storage room.
The whole floor shivers under my feet.
"Fuck—"
The storage unit door begins to rise. Slowly. Hands curl around the bottom edge, thick fingers gripping hard.
I lunge for the nearest weapon, an aluminum bat lying next to the bed. I grab it and creep closer, muscles coiled tight.
The door inches higher.
A shadow.Boots.Legs.
I swing.
WHACK.
"—Aw! What the fuck?!"
I freeze.
"Marcus?" I breathe.
"Yeah, who else the hell would it be?" he snaps, limping into the room and grabbing his shin.
I drop the bat like it's burned me and help him haul the door up the rest of the way. His face is slick with sweat, irritated, and wind-chapped.
Relief hits me so hard I almost sway.
"Where have you been?" I demand.
"Getting food!" he fires back, throwing it over his shoulder like it's obvious. "You're welcome, by the way."
I turn back to Eli.
"He's sick," I say, the words too thin for the size of the fear in my chest. "Marcus… I need to get him to the bunker."
He freezes.
His jaw clenches.
"I'm not going there," he says. "That place is crawling with infected. And the way there is blocked by Lantern patrol."
I point at Eli, hard enough that my hand shakes.
"Please. He's just a kid."
Marcus's face hardens.
"Yeah, well, kids die in this world."
My vision blurs.
"Please," I whisper. "For Lily."
That stops him.
He looks at me like I've just stepped off a cliff.
Slowly, he steps toward the cot and studies Eli—really looks this time. The flush, the sweat, the too-fast breaths.
My grip tightens on the bat.
If he touches Eli wrong—If he even thinks about making this easier on himself—
I will swing again.
Marcus notices.
His lips twitch—not cruel, not amused, something almost… sad.
"You'd die for him," he murmurs.
I don't answer. I just clutch the bat tighter.
He nods once. "Okay."
The Escape
Shock floods me, washed away a heartbeat later by adrenaline.
We move fast—blankets, food, water, the pill bottles I found earlier. Marcus lifts Eli with surprising gentleness, like he's something fragile instead of a burning weight.
Before we leave, I force a few more pills into Eli—antibiotics, a painkiller, something to help him sleep. It might be too much. It might not be enough. I don't know. I just need him quiet and not screaming when we're trying not to die.
We slip out into the dead streets.
Dark windows stare down at us. Burned-out cars crouch like sleeping beasts. The wind whistles through broken gutters, carrying the distant stink of rot.
Eli doesn't stir.
"That was too easy," I whisper.
Marcus raises a finger to his lips.
We skirt the edge of town, moving where the shadows are thicker, sticking close to walls and wrecks. The city gives way to the outskirts—cracked asphalt, overgrown lots, the distant line of the treeline ahead.
My arms ache already. Lily's strength hums under my skin, but his weight is still real. His fever radiates through my clothes.
"Almost there," Marcus mutters. "Barn's past the first tree line. Then we cut behind it."
I nod, breathing hard.
The woods loom up, darker and quieter than the streets. The silence here feels wrong. Too thick. Too expectant.
The Ambush
A dry, rattling cough breaks the stillness.
Too close.Too wet.Too wrong.
I skid to a stop.
Three figures lurch out of the trees—not the lumbering horrors of the frozen ones, but fresh infected, fast and twitchy, driven by a desperate, hungry energy. Their movements jerk like glitching puppets.
I shift Eli higher in my arms, cradling him like a shield. He feels like a furnace. I don't dare check for a pulse—I'm afraid I'll find nothing, or worse, something wrong.
The lead-infected lunges, a high-pitched, tearing shriek ripping through the air.
"Behind you!" Marcus roars.
I don't hesitate.
I drop Eli with agonizing care behind a fallen log at the roadside, tucking him into the shadow it casts. If he makes a sound, if he moves, we're done.
I spin, bat already swinging.
CRACK.
The bat connects with the first infected's skull, snapping its head sideways and sending it crashing into the second. They tangle in a mess of limbs and claws.
The third—taller, faster—sidesteps, its jaw hanging at an obscene angle, blackened teeth bared.
I meet its charge.
My sister's strength—my strength now—surges through my muscles. I don't just swing; I commit, putting all my fear and fury into the blow. The bat slams into its knee with a sickening crunch. The joint collapses, and it drops with a howl.
Marcus is a blur at my side, rebar flashing in his hands. He drives the rusted shaft through the chest of another infected in one brutal thrust, then rips it free in a spray of dark, clotting blood.
The first one I hit scrambles upright, head twisted at a wrong angle. It sucks in a breath and lets out a deafening, echoing roar that vibrates in my teeth.
A signal.
"Fuck!" Marcus shouts, stabbing the one on his left again, pinning it to the ground. "We need to run!"
He finishes the second with a savage twist.
I drive the bat into the side of the tall infected's head, silencing it mid-screech. Its body spasms and goes limp.
The forest goes silent.
For a heartbeat.
Then the answering roars start.
Dozens of them.
The Hand-Off
"Move," Marcus snaps. "Now."
He's already turning, eyes wide, gauging the direction of the sound. They're coming from deeper in the woods, a wall of noise and hunger closing in.
He sprints to the log and scoops Eli up, shoving him back into my arms.
"Take him!"
"What—Marcus—"
"I've got your back," he says. "Follow the road to the barn. Go around the back. There's a tracker—a metal box near the foundation. Beneath it, a door."
He digs into his pocket and jams a crumpled piece of paper into my hand.
"The combination. Please don't wait for me. If I make it, I'll meet you inside."
I shake my head, tears burning hot.
"Your retinal stamp will open the bunker," he finishes. "Once you find the scanner, it'll do the rest. Now go."
"I—Marcus—"
He meets my eyes, serious and raw and scared in a way I've never seen on his face.
"Be the person she would want you to be," he says quietly. "The one you know you are."
My throat closes.
Mom.Lily.The freezer."Freeze him."
I swallow hard.
"Thank you," I whisper.
Then I turn.
Behind me, the infected roar in a rising wave. Marcus yells something guttural and sprints into the trees in the opposite direction, every step drawing the sound away from us.
I clutch Eli tighter. Lily's strength pulses through my legs.
And I run.
The ground blurs beneath my feet. Every breath is a shard of ice in my lungs. Eli's silent, burning weight is an anchor against the spinning, sick feeling the dream left behind.
"Freeze him," Lily's voice echoes in my skull—cold, hard, undeniable.
I lock my eyes on the shape of the barn in the distance, dark against the sky.
I run faster.