The door rattled once.
Then again.
Something heavy scraped along the metal, nails or bone or teeth—no one could tell which anymore—and the sound slithered through the room like a living thing. The five newcomers huddled tighter, breath tearing in and out of them, hands clamped over mouths as if silence could make them invisible.
Justin didn't move.
He stood with his back to the door, shoulder braced against it, listening. Counting. Measuring the rhythm of the moans outside the way he'd learned to measure threat in other lives, other places. The dead weren't smart. They didn't plan. They followed sound. Followed heat. Followed the idea of food.
The noise thinned.
Not gone.
Just drifting.
He lifted a hand, two fingers raised. Wait.
Kenzie mirrored him without thinking, Barbie tucked tight against her chest, the dog's tiny heartbeat a frantic bird under her palm. She could feel the tremor in her own arms now, the delayed shock catching up. She pressed her jaw shut until it ached.
Mari hadn't stopped staring at Tally.
Not with anger anymore.
With something colder.
The kind of look you give a cracked bridge you're not sure will hold your weight.
"You don't get it," Mari said quietly, voice shaking despite the effort to keep it down. "You don't get that you don't get to decide for everyone."
Tally laughed—a short, sharp sound that didn't reach her eyes. "I saved them."
"You endangered all of us," Mari shot back. "Again."
Tally stepped forward like she wanted the argument physical. "You want to talk about danger? You were ready to let five people die out there."
"Yes," Mari said, without hesitation. "If it meant the rest of us lived."
The honesty of it seemed to knock the air out of the room.
One of the women who'd been rescued sobbed harder. A man clutched his arm, blood soaking his sleeve, eyes darting to the back door as if expecting it to burst inward at any second.
Justin turned.
"Enough," he said. Not loud. Worse than loud. Final.
Mari bit down on whatever else she wanted to say. Tally crossed her arms, chin lifted in defiance, daring someone to challenge her.
Kenzie watched them both.
She'd seen this dynamic before—girls like Tally sucking the oxygen out of every room, forcing everyone else to orbit their chaos. She'd survived bullies who smiled while they ruined you. She'd learned when to stay small.
But this wasn't high school.
This was life or death.
And Barbie shifted against her ribs, a soft whine pressing through the fabric like a reminder.
Kenzie stepped forward.
"We need to move them," she said quietly, nodding at the five. "Before the noise comes back."
Tally scoffed. "Wow. You finally talking now?"
Kenzie ignored her.
Justin met Kenzie's eyes and nodded once. "Stockroom. Interior. No lights."
He looked at the five. "Can you walk?"
They nodded, frantic, grateful, terrified.
As they moved, the store felt different.
Smaller.
Every shelf a hiding place. Every shadow a threat. The air thick with sweat and blood and the coppery tang of fear that never quite left once it settled in.
They passed the front window.
Tally didn't look out.
She knew what she'd see.
The parking lot was chaos—dark shapes moving through smoke, bodies on the ground that hadn't been there earlier, or maybe had and she just hadn't noticed. She told herself she'd done the right thing. Told herself that anyone who disagreed just didn't have the guts to act.
But something gnawed at her chest anyway.
A crack she couldn't shout over.
In the stockroom, Justin crouched, pressing his ear to the wall. The moans drifted past, unfocused now, pulled away by distant screams and crashing metal.
The dead moved on.
For now.
The five collapsed against shelves, crying openly now that the danger had ebbed just enough to let it in. One of the women whispered prayers. One of the men shook so hard his teeth chattered.
Mari sank down against a crate, scrubbing her face with shaking hands.
She didn't look at Tally.
She didn't trust herself to.
Justin stood in the center of them all, breathing hard, eyes scanning, already planning the next ten minutes because anything further felt impossible.
"We stay quiet," he said. "No lights. No arguing. We wait."
Tally opened her mouth.
Kenzie beat her to it.
"If you do that again," Kenzie said, voice low but steady, "you'll get someone killed. Maybe Barbie. Maybe Justin. Maybe yourself."
Tally stared at her, stunned.
Kenzie met her gaze and didn't look away.
For the first time since the world broke, Tally didn't have a comeback.
Outside, something screamed.
Then stopped.
The silence pressed in, heavy and watchful.
And in that quiet, every single person in the store understood the same thing at once:
The sound Tally had made didn't just draw the dead.
It drew a line.
And none of them knew yet what it was going to cost.