Chapter 35
THIRTY-FIVE
DAKOTA
The truck Cameron hot-wired three towns back rumbles to a stop, engine ticking as it cools.
I blink awake from my half-doze against Julien’s shoulder, taking in the stone-and-timber structure nestled into the mountainside. My neck aches from sleeping crooked, but the pain feels distant, like it belongs to someone else.
Everything feels like it belongs to someone else these past days.
“Home sweet home,” Julien murmurs against my hair.
If such a thing still exists.
“Holy shit.” Sienna presses her face to the window. “This is yours? I was expecting, like, a shack with an outhouse.”
“Grandfather’s hunting lodge.” Julien unbuckles his seatbelt. “Remote enough that most people don’t know it exists. Big enough for three families.”
We climb out, stretching limbs stiff from hours of driving. The mountain air bites cold and so clean it burns my lungs, nothing like the heavy stench of rot we’ve been breathing for six days.
Pine trees surround us, sentinels against the darkening sky.
Julien tenses beside me, hand moving to his machete. “Someone’s here.”
Light spills across the porch as the front door opens. A tall man with olive skin fills the doorframe. Behind him, a woman with slightly darker hair.
Julien’s whole body relaxes. “Cole.”
The man steps forward, a big smile breaking across his face. “Took you long enough.”
They collide in a bone-crushing embrace, the kind that speaks of years of trust and shared history. When they pull apart, Julien turns back to us.
“Everyone, this is Cole Russo.” He gestures to the woman. “And his wife, Arianna.”
She nods, arms folded, assessing us with wary eyes. I can’t blame her. Strangers are more dangerous than the dead.
“When’d you get here?” Julien asks Cole.
“Roads were hell, but we made it a week ago.” Cole’s eyes scan our group—Ramirez, Maya cradling a sleeping Leo, Cameron with his arm protectively around Sienna, Rosa leaning heavily on a walking stick, and me standing slightly apart. “Looks like you had a rough time.”
“Lost some people,” is all Julien says.
Cole claps his shoulder. “Let’s get inside. You can tell me everything once you’ve eaten.”
The cottage is larger than it appeared from the outside.
The main room opens into a vaulted ceiling with exposed beams, a massive stone fireplace dominating one wall, with a fire crackling, casting dancing shadows across worn leather furniture.
It smells of wood smoke and something cooking. Actual food, not the canned crap we’ve been surviving on.
“We have power?” Sienna asks, noticing the dim lights.
“Solar panels and a backup generator,” Julien says. “Water from a well and a river in the back. Place was designed to be off-grid. Is everything working well?”
“No warm water,” Cole answers. “But other than that, it’s perfect.”
“My husband survived one apocalypse,” Rosa says, lowering herself onto the couch with a sigh. “He wasn’t taking chances on another.”
Cole directs us to wash up.
I splash my face, avoiding the hollow-eyed stranger in the mirror. The past week has carved new lines around my eyes, drained the color from my cheeks. I look like I’ve aged years, not days. When I emerge, they’re discussing sleeping arrangements.
“Rosa, you take the ground-floor bedroom,” Julien says. “Maya and Leo can have the one next to it.”
Maya nods gratefully. “Thank you.”
“Cameron, Sienna, you’re upstairs on the left. Ramirez, you’re across the hall from them.” Julien’s hand finds the small of my back, a touch so light I barely feel it. “Dakota’s with me.”
“Let’s eat.” Arianna points to the long wooden table beside the kitchen. “Made extra.”
We gather around the large table while Arianna ladles stew into a bowl and Cameron and Sienna distribute it.
My stomach clenches with hunger, but when I lift the spoon to my mouth, nothing happens. The food sits there, cooling, while conversations flow around me.
“You should eat,” Julien murmurs, his fingers squeezing mine under the table.
I lift the spoon again. Force it into my mouth. Chew. Swallow. I’m sure Arianna is a good cook, even though it tastes like nothing.
“So, security?” Ramirez leans forward, elbows on the table. “What’s the setup here?”
Cole gestures with his spoon. “Motion sensors on the perimeter. Cameras covering all approaches. Everything feeds to monitors in the basement. Battery and generator backup if the power fails.”
“Military grade?” Ramirez asks.
“Better.” A smile tugs at Julien’s mouth. “My grandfather was a bit paranoid.”
“That’s one word for it.” Rosa snorts into her stew.
“Best part is the stone wall,” Julien says. “More robust than any fence could be.”
I swallow another bite. Then another.
The old wooden clock on the wall reads 8:17.
“I should—” The words catch in my throat.
I should what?
The spoon drops from my nerveless fingers, clattering against the bowl as the room swims.
My chest seizes up.
I should what?
“Sorry.” I push back from the table. “I-I have to—”
The chair scrapes. Too loud.
Everything’s too loud. The scrape of spoons against bowls, the wind outside, the fire crackling.
“Dakota?” Julien’s voice cuts through the static building in my ears.
I should—what? What should I?
My hands shake as I clutch the table edge. The wood grain blurs, swimming in and out of focus.
“I need to check—” The words come out strangled. “Her pills. Meli.”
Silence drops like a stone.
“Mija.” Rosa’s voice is gentle. Too gentle. “Amelia isn’t—“
“I know.” My throat closes. “I know. But I—”
The room tilts sideways.
Can’t breathe. Can’t—
Strong hands grip my shoulders, steadying me before my knees give out. Julien. Has to be Julien by the scent filling my nose.
“Breathe,” he says. “Dakota, look at me.”
I can’t. If I look at him, if I see the pity—
“She’s having a panic attack.” Arianna’s voice comes from somewhere far away. “Get her somewhere quiet.”
“No.” I shove against Julien’s chest. “I’m fine. I just need—”
“To breathe.” He doesn’t budge. “In through your nose. Count to three.”
“Don’t tell me—”
“One.” His thumb presses against my wrist, circling. “Two.”
My lungs burn.
“Three. Now out through your mouth.”
I exhale. Ragged. Broken.
“Again.”
“Julien—”
“Again, Dakota.”
His voice is soothing, not commanding, not harsh. Just steady. My safe place.
I breathe in.
One. Two. Three.
Out.
The static recedes. Not much. But enough that I can see past the white edges crowding my vision.
“Good girl,” Julien murmurs. “Good job.”
Rosa’s face comes into focus across the table, eyes wet with unshed tears. Maya’s turned away, shielding Leo’s eyes. Cameron’s frozen mid-bite, spoon halfway to his mouth.
And Sienna. Sienna’s staring at her bowl.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m f—”
“Don’t.” Julien’s arms wrap around me. “It’s okay.”
My laugh sounds more like a sob. “Nothing about this is okay.”
“I know.”
“She’s gone.” The words crack something open inside me. “They’re all gone and I can’t—I don’t—”
She’s gone.
My sister is dead.
Dead because she saved me.
She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone.
The words pound through me with each heartbeat, each one striking harder than the last.
Dead because—No.
She was the one supposed to be healthy and finally be able to live her life.
The world suddenly tilts as Julien scoops me up. My legs dangle, and I wrap my arms around his neck, hiding my face as the tears keep rolling.
His boots thud against hardwood. Up stairs. Down a hallway. A door creaks.
Then softness beneath me as he lowers me onto a bed. The mattress dips under his weight as he sits beside me, one hand finding mine.
“I can’t stop seeing her face.” My body shakes with sobs that feel torn from somewhere deeper than my lungs. “When she—”
Silence stretches. Outside, the wind rattles the windows.
“I keep forgetting she’s not here.” Ugly, choking sounds scrape my throat raw. “My brain just—It won’t accept that she’s—”
His thumb seeks my wrist again. That slow, steady circle.
“I was supposed to protect her.” Tears blur everything. “That was my job.”
“You did protect her.”
“She’s dead.”
“She chose that.” His other hand cradles my face. “Dakota, look at me.”
I do. His eyes are dark in the dim light filtering through the curtains.
“She made her choice.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “You didn’t kill her. Those things did.”
“But I left her.”
“What else could you have done?”
“I don’t know.” My chest heaves. “Stayed. Died with her. Something.”
“She was bitten.”
“I don’t know how to do this without her.”
“You learn.” He draws me against his chest. “One breath at a time.”
“What if I can’t?”
“You will.” His lips brush my temple. “Because she asked you to.”
I bury my face in his shirt, letting everything pour out in waves. He holds me through it, one hand stroking my hair, the other keeping that steady pressure on my wrist.
“I’m here,” he murmurs. “I’m right here.”
“She was supposed to get better,” I sob into his neck. “She was going to have more time.”
“Tell me about her.”
“What?”
“Tell me something about Amelia that I don’t know.”
“She s-saved the good chocolates for me,” I whisper. “My mother always got this one box with d-different ones in it.”
“What kind?”
“C-caramel, nuts, nougat, truffle cappuccino, and cherry. I only liked the caramel ones. Meli said they were too sweet for her anyway.”
“But they weren’t.”
“No.” A wet laugh escapes. “She loved caramel. More than anything.”
His fingers thread through my hair.
“Do you?” I lean back to look at him. “Your friend—Liam—Do you—”
His jaw tightens. “Every day.”
“Does it get easier?”
“No.” He frames my face. “But you get stronger.”
“I don’t feel strong.”
“You’re still breathing. That’s strong enough. So tell me. What else?”
“She…” I close my eyes, reaching for more. “She collected quotes. Wrote them in the margins of books, on scraps of paper. Had this whole shoebox full of them under her bed.”
“Do you remember any?”
“‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’” The words come without effort. “Oscar Wilde. She said it meant that suffering doesn’t have to make you ugly inside.”
“What else?”