CHAPTER THIRTY #2
Michael moves fast, grabbing my arm and yanking me into an alley behind a giant metal dumpster. I gag, the stench making my eyes water, but I keep my head low.
We crouch there, my back pressed against the cold metal. Michael’s stone-still as he peers around the side of the dumpster.
I crawl across the concrete, trying to get a look from the other side.
Four figures come into view—three men and a woman, all weighed down by worn-out backpacks. One of them has a rifle slung over his shoulder, just like James always does.
My pulse kicks up, and my hand drops to my gun.
I don’t draw it, though. They’re not rushing or looking for a fight. Just… moving.
Michael and I exchange a quick look. Neither of us says a word, but we’re thinking the same thing.
They don’t look like a threat. They look… familiar.
They look like us.
It doesn’t take long before more voices drift our way, followed by the distant rumble of motorcycles echoing through the streets.
Then I hear glass shattering from one of the taller buildings.
My head snaps up, and I catch sight of shadows moving behind the busted windows. Laughter follows, creepy as hell.
Michael and I slowly get to our feet. I adjust the backpack and glance across the street. Three women are walking on the other side, and for a second, their eyes meet mine. They don’t react, just keep moving, as if they didn’t even see us.
Michael’s fingers brush my arm, pulling my attention back to him. His eyes are glued to the women, his expression unreadable.
“Don’t trust anyone,” he says, echoing James’s words.
I just nod, swallowing the lump in my throat.
We keep moving through alleys, heads down, quiet as mice, like we’re playing the world’s most intense game of hide-and-seek.
The farther we get from the fire station, the quieter the city becomes. No more voices, no more bikes. Just us and the sound of our boots scuffing the pavement.
Most of the buildings look the same as when we first got here: doors hanging off hinges, windows smashed in. Every place screams “keep out” in the loudest, most desperate way.
The few stores we passed near the fire station were already picked clean, nothing left but dust and busted shelves. But over here, the stores still have stuff like clothes, tires, even cell phones nobody’s bothered to take.
We stop in front of an old café. The front’s a wreck, of course—shattered windows, tables buried under years of dust, curtains hanging in shreds. But none of that matters. What we need is in the back. And sure enough, when we push open the storage room door, it’s jackpot time.
“Hell yeah,” Michael breathes, his eyes lighting up as he stares at shelf after shelf of canned food, all perfectly intact.
I laugh, running a hand over the dusty cans like they’re treasure. “We’re gonna need another backpack.”
Michael smiles, holsters his gun, and pulls the backpack off my shoulders to open it. In under a minute, he’s loaded it up—soup, tomatoes, peaches, peas, corn, sausages. If it comes in a can, it goes in the bag.
But just as that little victory settles in, it’s gone.
A scream, sharp and way too close for comfort, rips through the quiet street outside. My stomach drops, and the fear hits me before I even realize I’ve stopped breathing.
Michael’s hand brushes my arm, and I follow him. We creep toward the shattered café window, crouching low as glass crunches softly beneath our boots. The broken frame gives us a perfect view of the street outside.
Six people stand in the street, armed to the teeth with rifles and handguns. Five form a loose line, some in battered leather jackets, others in flannel shirts. Most of them look around James’s age, maybe a little older. Could be a gang, but they don’t fit the usual mold.
Still, they’re not the ones holding my attention. No, that honor goes to the woman standing at the front of the group, laughing.
She looks about Michael’s age, dressed in all black leather, which only makes her bright pink pigtails stand out even more. Two oversized earrings dangle from her ears—terrible for hiding, since they catch and reflect light. Either she’s fearless, or she has no reason to be afraid of anyone.
Michael’s eyes are locked on the pink-haired woman too.
“Alicia, right?” The man facing her smirks, his tone mocking. His back’s against a shattered window, glass crunching under his boots, like someone just threw him through it. Maybe that was the scream we heard. “You’ve broken a lot of rules in the last month, Alicia. Tyler’s not gonna like this.”
The woman—Alicia—tilts her head and says, “There are no more rules.”
My breath catches.
Those words… they’re the same ones James lives by.
She is an Outsider. Just like him.
“Oh, you think you can save them?” the man scoffs, nodding toward the people behind her. “The other gangs might be gone, but Frank’s gang still answers to Tyler. You save these people, and he gets more to punish.”
The group behind Alicia shoots each other nervous glances, their fear written all over their faces. Whatever Tyler did to them, it left a mark.
The only one who doesn’t look scared is Alicia. She just laughs. A wild laugh, almost reckless. And yet, despite the grin on her face, her eyes hold the saddest look of all.
“Tyler can make all the stupid rules he wants, but I’m not leaving until I free every last person he’s trapped because of them,” Alicia says.
“Imagine when Tyler finds your family, Alicia,” the man sneers. “He’ll make them pay for what you did. Watching them suffer? That’s the kind of beauty Tyler lives for.”
I catch the twitch in his fingers as they creep toward his pocket. He’s going for a gun.
Alicia sees it too. Her eyes flick from his face to his hand, and then she does something that chills me to the bone.
She smiles.
Not a nervous smile, but a calm, deadly one.
“See, there’s one thing you don’t know,” she says, her tone ice-cold. “I don’t have anyone else to lose.”
I barely have time to process her words before she raises the gun and pulls the trigger. The shot rips through the air, and my body jolts like it hit me too.
My mouth falls open, but no sound comes out. Even from where I stand, the metallic tang of blood and gunpowder fills my nose.
The man crumples to the ground like someone has cut his strings. A thin red line spreads out beneath him, soaking into the cracks in the pavement.
Next to me, Michael’s hand flies to his mouth, but he doesn’t flinch.
He doesn’t look away either. Neither of us does.
Some things you can’t unsee, no matter how much you want to.
This is one of them.
It’s the first time I’ve watched someone die right in front of me.
I didn’t see it in the woods when Brandon caught Michael and James ended his life. I didn’t see it in the pharmacy when James killed Aaron. And I didn’t see it in the parking lot when Axel dropped dead next to me.
But this time… my brain is stuck, replaying the moment over and over.
My head starts to spin, my vision blurs, and the dizziness crashes in hard and fast. My tongue feels like sandpaper, while my chest heaves with shallow, rapid breaths.
Before I can even understand what’s happening, the world tilts sideways, and everything goes black. Somewhere, far away, I think I hear Michael call my name.