Chapter 25
Twenty Five
Callan
The director’s office had become our little command center: two desks pushed together, the desk light casting a soft yellow glow, the chairs we’d dragged in earlier from the main lobby forming a rough square around the table.
Jeff finished his second bowl of spaghetti and leaned back, rubbing his face with both hands.
“Jesus,” he muttered. “That might be the best meal I’ve ever eaten.”
Ethan laughed softly through a mouthful of bread. “I told you we should’ve docked days ago.”
“You also told me zombies weren’t real,” Jeff replied dryly.
That earned a tired chuckle from everyone.
Sloane sat beside me on the couch, her knee barely brushing mine. The contact—small—sent a quiet current through me that I couldn’t ignore. She seemed relaxed, listening as Jeff talked about the last few days at sea.
The fishing rig had been out when everything escalated. Jeff had made the call to stay offshore instead of trying to dock in Gloucester when the first reports crackled over the radio.
“Figured the ocean beat a city,” he said. “Turned out I wasn’t wrong.”
“But supplies…” Sloane asked gently.
Jeff nodded, his jaw tightening. “That’s where it fell apart.”
He glanced at Ethan, who worked slowly through a third piece of bread, savoring it as if it might be his last.
“We stretched everything, rationed hard.” He rubbed his beard. “Honestly, I’d about decided to risk docking somewhere.”
I nodded. “You probably would’ve walked straight into a death trap.”
The room stilled as I leaned forward, elbows on my knees.
“There’s something I need to tell you all.”
Sloane turned to me immediately. She heard the shift.
“What is it?”
I exhaled. “This morning, when I went up to the roof… I got a clear look at the parking lot. Of all the things down there.”
Jeff straightened. “And?”
I ran a hand through my hair. “There are a lot of them.”
Ethan stopped chewing. “How many is a lot?”
“I didn’t count. Hundreds; possibly more.”
Sloane’s expression hardened. She’d suspected. Hearing it confirmed still seemed like a blow.
“Just wandering?” she asked.
“Mostly, but some are clustering near the entrance areas.”
Jeff gave a low whistle. “So we’re sitting in a cage.”
“More or less.”
The silence that followed carried weight.
Sloane spoke first, quietly. “The doors are secure.”
“For now,” I said.
Jeff leaned forward. “So, what’s your long game?”
I stood and walked to the table where the maps and blueprints still lay spread out. That morning, Sloane and I had been planning fish tanks and generators. Now those plans seemed like they belonged to a different day entirely.
I pointed to the coastline. “This place keeps us alive in the short term. It’s not a forever answer.”
Sloane watched me, arms folded, reading every word before I said it.
I tapped the map farther north. “About three hundred miles up the coast. Off Maine.”
Jeff came to stand beside me. “What’s up there?”
I pointed to a tiny speck of land. “This.”
They all leaned closer.
“Finn’s Island.”
“His brother’s island,” Sloane said quietly.
Jeff looked between us. “Island?”
“My brother owns it,” I said.
Ethan’s eyebrows climbed. “Like… actually owns an island?”
“Yeah.”
Jeff chuckled. “Not something you hear every day.”
“He bought it years ago through a tax auction, the government selling off remote properties nobody wanted.”
“And he just… lives there?” Jeff asked.
I paused. “My brother’s a former Navy SEAL.”
Jeff’s expression changed in an instant. The amusement drained. Something sharper took its place—respect or recognition. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” I said, letting a small laugh escape. “Exactly.”
“He’s also a prepper,” Sloane added.
Jeff grinned. “Nowthat I believe.”
I traced my finger along the map. “He’s been building that place up for years. Solar water systems, storage, everything.”
Ethan leaned in. “Like a survival base?”
“Exactly.”
Jeff rubbed his chin. “And you think he’s still there?”
“I know him,” I said. “If the world started collapsing, that island is the first place he’d go and the last place he’d leave.”
Sloane looked at the map, then back at me. “And you want us to go there.”
I met her eyes. “Yeah.”
Jeff studied the coastline again. “Three hundred miles.” Jeff exhaled through his teeth. “Hell of a run on open water.”
“I know. But if we make it… we might actually have a long-term survival plan.”
The room became silent, and Ethan looked up at his father.
Jeff stared at the map for a long moment, his fingers tracing the route almost unconsciously, but he nodded, slow and deliberate.
“I’ve run that coast my whole life,” he said. “If there’s a safe place at the other end of it… that might be the best idea I’ve heard since this whole nightmare started.”
Sloane pressed into my side.
I looked over at her. She didn’t say anything.
But she didn’t pull away.
* * *
The aquarium settled into its strange nighttime routine; most of the tank lights had gone dark to conserve power. Through the office windows, water in the large central tank shimmered faintly, shadows of fish drifting slow and aimless through the blue.
Jeff and Ethan were settled on their couches with a pile of tin blankets. After days on a cramped fishing boat, they’d both dropped off almost immediately—Jeff’s snoring already rumbling faintly through the wall.
Sloane and I returned to our arrangement.
Two couches pushed together. The sleeping bag spread open across them.
Not exactly comfortable, but after a week, it had become ours.
I lay on my back, staring at the dim ceiling, listening to the quiet noise of the generators somewhere deep in the building. Beside me, Sloane shifted under the blankets, restless.
For a while, neither of us spoke; after a bit, her voice came through the dark—quiet, careful.
“Callan?”
“Yeah?”
A pause, long enough that I thought she might have fallen asleep.
She didn’t.
“Do you think we’re actually going to survive this?”
The question came out quietly. No drama, no panic; if anything, too calm, and that scared me more than if she’d been crying.
I turned my head, and even in the low light I could make out her profile—staring at the ceiling like she’d been staring at it for hours. The fear lived in her stillness.
I didn’t answer right away because I didn’t really have a good one.
I’d been in bad situations before. Combat zones. Places where survival came down to a coin toss and stubbornness. But this—the whole world going dark, the dead walking, the rules rewritten overnight—this lived in a category all its own.
Instead of answering, I rolled onto my side, facing her.
I slid one arm around her waist and pulled her gently against my chest, and she softened into me, her head settling against my shoulder, her breath warm through the fabric of my shirt. She fit there in a way that still surprised me.
“I don’t know,” I admitted quietly.
Honesty. The only thing I had worth giving.
My hand moved slowly up and down her back.
“But I know this.”
She tilted her head slightly. “What?”
I tightened my arm around her.
“We’re still here.”
“And as long as we’re still here,” I said, “we’ll figure out the next step. That’s it. That’s all we have to do. I promise you, Sloane, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you’re safe.”
She remained quiet for a moment, as if she were considering whether to believe me or not.
“You always sound so sure,” she whispered.
I let out a small laugh against the top of her head. “That’s because someone has to.”
The smallest smile pressed against my chest, and for a long time, we simply lay there.
Her breathing slowed, the grip on my shirt loosened as sleep started pulling her under. Before she drifted off, her voice came one last time—soft, barely a murmur.
“I’m glad you’re here, Callan.”
I rested my chin against the top of her head and closed my eyes.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “Me too.”
* * *
The clock on the wall ticked past two-thirty, but time had stopped mattering here long ago.
Sloane’s soft, ragged crying pulled me out of deep sleep. She shook beside me—small tremors running through her whole body even as she tried to muffle them against the pillow.
I shifted onto my side and reached for her; she stiffened for half a second—then turned into me so fast it caught me off guard. Her face, wet and flushed, pressed against my chest. Her eyes found mine in the dark; they were filled with fear and hopelessness.
“Callan,” she whispered, voice raw and wrecked. “Fuck me.”
I went still.
“Fuck me,” she choked out again. “Please. Hard. Make it stop. Make everything stop. Just—use me until I can’t think anymore.”
The desperation in her voice broke something inside me. Not desire, but something deeper. Something protective and dangerous and hungry all at once, rising fast enough to drown every rational thought I had.
I didn’t answer with words but surged over her, pinning her wrists above her head with one bruising grip, my weight pressing her into the thin couch cushions.
She gasped—sharp, needy—and arched up into me like she’d been starving for the pressure.
I kissed her hard, tongue driving deep, swallowing every broken sound that escaped her lips.
I growled into her mouth and slid my fingers into her hair, pulling her head back forcefully, exposing the long line of her throat. I sank my teeth there—not carefully or gently—leaving a bruise she’d carry for days.
“Legs, open your legs,” I rasped against her skin.
She obeyed instantly, her thighs falling open, heels digging into the backs of my legs as if she needed me closer, deeper, now. I shoved her panties down just enough. My boxers followed.
I lined up the head of my cock and drove into her.
She screamed—muffled against my shoulder—I didn’t pause, didn’t give her time to adjust. I fucked her hard from the first stroke—deep, punishing, each thrust of my hips rocking the couch frame against the wall with a dull, rhythmic thud.