The lab smelled like copper and bleach and hot metal.
Ellis couldn't remember when antiseptic stopped meaning clean and started meaning cover it up. The scent crept in quietly, sliding beneath everything else until it settled in the back of the throat and refused to leave. Death had a way of ignoring protocol.
The officer's body lay open beneath the lights—contained, silent, horrifying in its stillness. Not peaceful. Never peaceful. Just stopped.
Ellis stood over the table, shoulders locked tight, eyes burning from too many hours without rest.
Across from him, Dr. Michael Wallace adjusted the overhead light and sighed with exaggerated drama.
"Well," Mike said, peering down with professional focus and very unprofessional commentary, "I officially hate my job today."
Ellis didn't look up. "Only today?"
Mike snorted. "Fair. But this is a new low. When I signed up for advanced neural pathology, I assumed the patients would remain mostly… non-murderous."
Ellis glanced at him. "You're coping."
Mike flashed a thin grin. "Correct. Poorly. Loudly. With jokes. Like a normal person."
Outside the reinforced glass wall, something slammed hard enough to rattle the fixtures. A shadow slid past, followed by another. Hands slapped glass. Fingernails screeched.
Mike winced. "Ah. Ambient doom. Love that for us."
Ellis turned back to the monitors. "Status on the quarantined scratches?"
"Still human," Mike said. "Which feels like a weird thing to celebrate, but here we are."
They worked in silence for a few minutes—the kind that only existed between people who'd been doing this together for years. Their movements were synchronized, efficient, born of trust forged in places where mistakes got people killed.
Mike broke the quiet.
"You remember Boston?" he asked.
Ellis didn't look up. "Which time?"
"The first time," Mike said. "When you punched a general."
Ellis huffed. "He deserved it."
Mike grinned. "Absolutely. I've never seen someone with that many medals look so shocked."
They'd met long before Hunter Army Airfield. Before sealed labs and redacted briefings. Back when Ellis was splitting time between active duty and research, and Mike was the civilian consultant brought in to make sense of neural damage from unconventional warfare.
Mike had been brilliant.
Annoying.
Completely unimpressed by rank.
Ellis had trusted him immediately.
Ellis studied the latest scans. The pathogen wasn't just present.
It was thriving.
"It's not decaying tissue," Ellis said quietly. "It's reorganizing."
Mike leaned closer, humor draining from his voice. "Like it's learning the layout."
"Yes."
Mike swallowed. "That's new."
Ellis nodded. "That's terrifying."
A tech approached with a tablet. "Dr. Leesburg—saliva samples confirmed. Same toxicity as blood. Hair follicles too. Nail beds."
Mike let out a low whistle. "So basically… don't exist near them."
"Sound draws them. Blood feeds them. Touch spreads it," Ellis said. "Efficient."
Mike grimaced. "Nature's worst group project."
Ellis almost smiled.
Almost.
Mike peeled off his gloves and leaned back against the counter. Blood smeared his wrist where the cuff had slipped.
"You know," Mike said quieter now, "I keep thinking about how fast this all went wrong."
Ellis didn't answer.
"Penn sent that first alert," Mike continued. "Then silence. And now we've got outbreaks popping up everywhere. Same timeline. Same symptoms."
Ellis's jaw tightened.
"That's not an accident," Mike said. "That's coordination."
Ellis finally looked at him.
"They were warning us," Mike finished. "And we didn't listen."
The words settled heavy.
Before Ellis could respond, the radio crackled sharply.
"Leesburg, this is Command."
Ellis straightened. "Go."
"We're initiating Tier-One extraction," the voice said. "Your building is classified as a hard-point. You're holding. Good work."
Ellis didn't speak.
"A Black Hawk is inbound in seventy-two hours," Command continued. "Primary evac target is you, Dr. Leesburg. Secondary is your immediate research team."
Mike turned slowly. "Well. That's comforting."
Ellis's expression didn't change. "Negative."
A pause. "Clarify."
"I'm not leaving," Ellis said. "Not without my family."
Silence stretched long enough to be deliberate.
"Doctor," Command said carefully, "this project does not exist without you."
Ellis's voice hardened. "Then it waits."
"You should've been evacuated first," the voice snapped. "You know that."
Ellis did.
And that was the problem.
"You have seventy-two hours," Command said. "Locate your family. Get them to a secure extraction point. Then you get on that chopper."
"And if I don't?" Ellis asked.
Another pause.
"Then we lose the best chance we have at understanding this," Command replied. "And we don't plan for that outcome."
The radio clicked off.
The lab felt smaller.
Mike exhaled slowly. "So. Three days to find your family in the middle of the apocalypse."
Ellis nodded once.
Mike tilted his head. "You're not going."
"No," Ellis said. "I'm staying."
Mike studied him, then sighed. "I figured."
Outside, the dead slammed against reinforced glass.
Inside, the truth settled in.
This wasn't just about survival anymore.
It was about what—and who—was worth leaving behind.
And Ellis Leesburg had already made his choice.