Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
DAKOTA
Blood soaks through the makeshift bandage on Amelia’s leg, spreading like spilled wine.
“What if—” My hands hover over it, trembling, useless. I’ve spent my entire life protecting her, and now I can’t stop the inevitable. “We can clean it. We can—”
“Dakota.” Amelia grabs my wrist, her fingers ice-cold. “It’s okay.”
“No. Please.” I take her hand in mine. “We’ve gotten through everything else—”
“Not this.” She smiles, and it breaks me. “You know what happens next.”
“I can’t.” My chest caves in, ribs splintering under the weight of this new reality. “I can’t do this without you.”
“You can.” She squeezes my hand. “For me.”
Tears blur my vision. I wipe them away with the back of my hand, smearing blood across my face. “Meli—I—”
“Ssh. You’re free now.“
“Don’t.” I shake my head. “Please don’t—”
“You’re going to fall in love properly.” She cups my face with her free hand. “Get married if you want. Or don’t. Have babies. Or adopt dogs. Whatever makes you happy. Promise me.”
“Stop talking like you’re leaving.” The words rip from somewhere deep. “You’re not leaving me.”
Her thumb brushes my cheek. “I’ve been leaving since the day I got sick. You just refused to see it.”
Truth tastes like copper. Like blood in my mouth.
“I want you—” My voice breaks. “I just want you to stay.”
“I know.” Her hand drops. “But I need you to let me go.”
“Dakota.” Julien crouches beside me, one hand on my shoulder. His eyes are gentle but unyielding. “I don’t want to rush this, but we need to get out of here.”
Amelia’s voice draws me back. “Go. Please.”
Heavy boots pound up the steps. Ramirez bursts in, rifle at the ready. “What the fuck are you still doing here?” His eyes dart from Amelia’s leg to Julien, to me. “Those things breached the gate. We need to get to the boats before they cut off our escape route.”
“Boats?” Julien stands.
“Two of them at the boathouse. Maya prepped them while I got your grandmother.” Ramirez checks the window. “We need to move. Now.”
“I’ll distract them.” Amelia’s voice is steady. Determined.
“No,” I say. “You can’t even walk.”
“I can make enough noise to draw them away. Let me do this for you. Please.”
“I can’t just leave you to—”
“Get her out of here, Julien.” Amelia’s eyes lock with his over my shoulder. “Now.”
“No.” I try to back away, but his strong arms wrap around my waist, lifting me as I flail. “Julien, don’t! We can’t leave her!”
“Dakota.” Amelia’s voice cuts through my struggles. “I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
“No!” I twist in Julien’s grip. “Put me down! Meli!”
Sienna steps forward, kneeling beside my sister. She wraps her arms around Amelia in a tight hug. “Thank you.”
Cameron follows, squeezing Amelia’s shoulder. “We won’t forget that.”
Julien carries me backward through the doorway, my hands still reaching for my sister. Amelia’s eyes never leave mine, her smile sad but certain.
“Take care of her,” she calls after us.
“With my life,” Julien promises.
Amelia nods once, then sways to her feet, using the wall for support. Blood trickles down her leg, leaving smeared tracks as she limps toward the back door. She pauses at the threshold, and my whole being waits for her to look back to tell me this is a nightmare, to laugh and say it was all a joke…
But instead, she disappears from my view.
A scream tears from my throat before Julien’s hand clamps over my mouth, his arms like steel around me.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs against my hair. “I’m so sorry.”
I dig my nails into the skin of his arms. This can’t be happening. Not Amelia. Not after everything. The world narrows to the sound of my heart pounding in my ears and the wet heat of tears flooding down my cheeks.
“We need to go.” Ramirez checks his rifle, face grim. “She won’t have long.”
Julien turns me in his arms, his hands cupping my face. “Dakota, look at me. Look. At me.”
I force my eyes to meet his.
“I can’t save her, but I can save you, and you will always come first, hear me?”
I nod.
“We need to run. Can you run?”
I nod again.
“Stay with me.” His thumb brushes my cheek. “Every step. Promise me.”
“Ju—”
“Promise me!”
“I promise.”
Behind us, a crash echoes, followed by Amelia’s shouting, high and clear.
Drawing them away. Giving her life for mine.
A sob catches in my throat, but I swallow it down.
I need to run.
For her. For the life she’s buying with her own.
Cameron pumps his shotgun. “Stay together.”
Sienna grips her knife, knuckles white around the handle. “Ready when you are.”
Julien intertwines his fingers with mine, anchoring me to the present when all I want to do is shatter.
We run between cabins, ducking low and moving fast. His grip on my hand is so tight it should hurt, but my body’s numb, thoughts fractured.
Ramirez leads, checking corners before waving us forward while Cameron and Sienna guard our flanks. Every shadow looks like death waiting to spring. The moans behind us shift, growing fainter. Part of the horde changes direction, following Amelia’s voice rather than us.
Whatever she’s doing, it’s working.
“Faster.” Ramirez picks up speed. “I don’t know where those wolf things went.”
As if summoning devils by speaking of them, a black shape emerges from between the trees on our side. Then another. Their distorted silhouettes unmistakable even in the dim pre-dawn light. Behind them, regular zombies stagger forward.
“Shit.” Ramirez raises his rifle. “Run!”
The wolf zombies drop to all fours, moving with that unnatural loping gait that’s too fast.
“Go!” Julien places his body between me and the approaching threat.
I sprint, knife clutched in my hand.
Ramirez fires a few shots at the wolves, slowing them down.
The path slopes steeply. I slip on wet pine needles and would have fallen if not for Julien’s hand steadying me.
The boathouse appears ahead. A weathered structure jutting out over dark water.
The sky has begun to lighten, the dock stretching into the lake, two motorboats tied at its end.
And between us and safety.
More zombies. They emerge from the trees to our right, at least a dozen shambling forms with grasping hands and vacant eyes.
“Fuck.” Sienna raises her knife.
“We fight through,” Ramirez says. “Stay tight. Clear a path.”
A bloated zombie in torn coveralls reaches us first. Ramirez swings his rifle like a club, catching it across the face.
Bone crunches. The thing staggers but doesn’t fall.
Cameron steps forward, driving his knife up under its jaw.
Dark blood sprays as he yanks the blade free, already swinging it toward another.
I move on instinct now, mind detached from body. A female zombie lunges at me, teeth snapping. I sidestep, drive my knife into her temple. The blade sticks, and I kick her back, wrenching it free. Turn to the next one.
We form a tight circle, moving as a unit. Back to back. Weapons dripping black as we fight our way toward the dock, one corpse at a time.
A wolf zombie howls from the treeline.
But they don’t attack. They’re waiting?
“Almost there,” Ramirez pants. “Don’t stop.”
The boathouse door flies open. Rosa emerges, a shotgun clutched in her hands. Behind her, Maya shields Leo with her body.
“Mijos!” Rosa’s voice rings across the space. “Rápido.”
“Get in the boats,” Julien shouts back, cleaving a zombie’s head in two with his machete.
Rosa raises the shotgun and fires. The blast catches a zombie reaching for Cameron, sending it tumbling backward.
We back up onto the dock, wooden planks creaking beneath our feet. Ramirez reaches the boats first, jumping into the nearest one and turning to help Maya, Leo, and Rosa aboard.
“Get the other boat,” Julien tells Cameron. “Fast.”
Cameron nods once, vaulting into the second boat.
I block a zombie’s grasping hands with my forearm before driving my knife into its eye.
Ramirez’s engine roars to life. More zombies pour onto the dock, wood groaning under their combined weight. The wolf zombies hang back, watching, as if directing the assault.
“Take off!” Julien shouts to Ramirez. “We’ll follow!”
“Don’t you dare die!” Rosa calls as their boat drifts away from the dock.
Cameron’s boat idles at the end of the pier, ready for us.
Sienna, Julien, and I retreat step by step, blades flashing in the growing light. My arms burn with exertion. Blood—both mine and theirs—slicks my hands, making my grip slippery on the knife handle.
The dock narrows at its end. We’re running out of space to retreat. Zombies crowd forward, moaning, reaching. Behind them, a wolf zombie rises to its full height, head tilted.
“I’ll go last,” Julien says. “Get in.”
I jump, landing hard on the boat’s bottom. Sienna follows a heartbeat later. Cameron guns the engine, and the boat lurches.
“Julien!” I scramble to my feet, reaching.
He swings his machete one final time, then leaps.
The boat’s already moving, creating a gap that shouldn’t be crossable, but—thank fuck—he makes it, barely, his torso landing on the edge while his legs land in the dark water.
I grab fistfuls of his shirt, pulling with every ounce of strength I have left.
Sienna helps, and we’re able to haul him aboard as Cameron steers us further from the dock and hungry zombies.
One of them follows, launching itself after us with a splash.
“Go, go, go!” Sienna urges Cameron.
The engine roars louder. We shoot across the lake’s surface, spray flying up around us. At the lake’s edge, the wolf zombies prowl before hunching and galloping away as light breaks across the horizon and dawn spills gold on the water, illuminating everything.
I collapse against Julien’s chest, lungs burning, muscles screaming.
“She’s gone,” I whisper. “They’re all gone.”
His hand finds my hair, stroking gently. “I’m sorry.”
I close my eyes, unable to look back at the shore.
My sister.
My mother.
My father.
My whole life, receding into the distance with each second.