Chapter 10 #2
The aquarium behind us swooshed softly, systems still running, still doing exactly what they’d been designed to do.
The tanks glowed faintly through the interior glass, casting slow, shifting patterns of blue across the corridor walls.
Fish moving in the dark. Oblivious. Alive in their sealed little worlds, completely unaware that the one outside had fallen apart.
Beyond the door, the world had gone quiet.
No more scraping. No sirens. No cars. No voices. Nothing.
At some point, the adrenaline burned itself out completely, and what it left behind was worse—exhaustion so deep it sat in my bones, and a gnawing dread that had settled into my chest like something permanent.
Then—
A sharp beep cut through the silence.
Sloane’s phone.
The sound made both of us jump. My whole body jerked, hand instinctively reaching for anything—a weapon, a door handle, anything—before my brain caught up.
She fumbled for it immediately, hands still trembling.
I watched her face as she looked down at the screen, expecting—I wasn’t exactly sure.
An emergency alert? A news update? Something official?
Something from the government, the CDC, anyone who could explain all of this and tell us it was contained, handled, and going to be okay.
Her expression changed instantly.
All the color drained from her face instantly, as if someone had pulled a plug.
Her eyes widened, lips parted slightly, but no sound came out.
“Sloane?” I said.
She didn’t respond. Didn’t even blink. Just stared at the phone as if it had turned into something repulsive in her hands.
“What does it say?” I asked, sitting up straighter.
She inhaled sharply and screamed.
The sound tore out of her—raw, involuntary, animal. It bounced off the concrete walls and metal doors and filled the corridor with the agonizing wail.
The phone slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the floor between us.
She recoiled from it, scrambling backward until her back slammed against the interior door, breathing fast and broken. Her hands trembled, pressed against her mouth as if she were trying to hold the sound in.
“Sloane—”
I grabbed the phone.
The screen, still lit.
A picture.
A man. Slumped against a concrete wall in what looked like a stairwell. The image somewhat blurry, poorly lit, taken fast by someone whose hands lacked steadiness. But there was no mistaking what I was seeing.
His neck appeared ripped open.
Not cut. Not slashed cleanly. Torn. Like someone had bitten into him and chewed on him.
Blood soaked his shirt, crimson red and wet, spreading down his chest and pooling beneath him on the steps. His free hand was pressed against the wound, fingers red.
His eyes were wide with terror. Aware. Gazing directly into the camera.
Beneath the image was a single message.
help. trapped in stairwell, please
My stomach dropped.
I looked up slowly at Sloane.
She was staring at the phone in my hand, her entire body trembling. Not just her hands—all of her.
“Do you know him?” I asked quietly.
She didn’t answer right away. Her lips quivered. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused, as if she were seeing something far away that I had no ability to reach.
“SLOANE!” My voice sharp, hoping to reach her.
“My boyfriend,” she whispered.
The words broke apart in her mouth. She said it again, quieter, as if she were trying to make herself understand it. “He’s my boyfriend. Peter.”
I looked down at the photo again. At his face. At the fear in his eyes. At the blood still spreading beneath his palms, dark and impossible to stop.
He was alive.
At least he was.
But whatever had done that to him was still there. Still in that building. Still between him and any way out.
And we were here.
Locked inside an aquarium.
Miles away from being able to do a single goddamn thing about it.
* * *
I stared at the phone for another second before lowering it slowly.
My chest felt empty, like something had reached in and taken everything solid and left nothing behind but the weight of whatever the fuck this was.
Sadie’s voice echoed in my head.
They’re trying to get in.
At the time, it hadn’t made sense. It had sounded like panic. Chaos.
Now it made sickening sense.
A bite.
Like the wound on Peter’s neck. Torn open. Still bleeding.
I saw Sadie in my mind the way she looked the last time I’d seen her—standing in the doorway of the lawyers’ office with her arms crossed, already halfway gone in ways that had nothing to do with distance.
If she’d been there when it started.
If she’d opened the door.
I swallowed hard.
She was gone.
The realization didn’t destroy me. There was no sharp moment of understanding, no sudden shock. It seeped in slowly, quietly, like water filling a room from the floor up, rising around me until I couldn’t breathe and didn’t know exactly when it had started.
I pressed my palms against the cold floor and pushed myself up, legs stiff and unsteady beneath me. The corridor seemed smaller now, the ceiling lower. The sounds of the aquarium systems were louder than before, or maybe I was just more aware of them now that everything else had gone still.
Sloane sat where she’d retreated, curled in on herself against the interior door. Her face was buried in her hands, shoulders shaking with sobs, not fighting it, simply giving in.
She looked small.
Smaller than I’d ever seen her. I’d seen her go toe-to-toe with sharks, shut down every smart-ass comment I’d ever thrown at her without breaking stride. She’d never looked like this.
Fragile.
I hesitated for a second, stood there like an idiot with my arms at my sides, not knowing what to do. Not knowing if she’d want me to do anything. We weren’t close. We weren’t friends. Most days we could barely stop from killing each other, if I were being honest.
But none of that mattered anymore; I crossed the space between us.
I lowered myself beside her, my back against the same door, and gently put my arm around her shoulders.
She stiffened immediately, but only for a second. A reflex—her whole body going rigid, as if she wasn’t used to being touched like that. Like she hadn’t expected it from me.
Then she broke completely.
She leaned into me suddenly, hands gripping the front of my shirt, fingers twisting into the fabric and holding on like I was the only solid thing left. Her face pressed into my chest, and the sobs came harder—raw, unfiltered, shaking her whole body and moving into mine.
I pulled her closer without thinking. My hand rested against her upper arm; she was trembling badly.
“It’s okay,” I said quietly.
It was a lie; nothing was okay. Nothing about any of this was, and we both knew it. But it was the only thing I had to give her, so I said it again.
“It’s okay.”
Her hair brushed against my jaw, soft and faintly damp. The scent of her shampoo filled my nose—clean. Floral. Ordinary. The kind of thing that belonged to a normal morning, a normal life, a world where people went to work and came home and did it all again the next day.
That world was gone.
But she was here. Warm, alive against my chest, breath hitching and uneven as she tried to steady herself. Her heartbeat racing against my chest.
I stared ahead at the dark corridor stretching out before us, arm still around her.
Outside, everything had ended, and inside, all I could do was hold on to what was left.