Chapter 8 Stephan
eight
Stephan
Three days of peace.
More than I expected. More than I've had in years. More than I probably deserve.
Allie recovers faster than anyone expected.
The antibiotics worked overtime, and her own stubbornness doing the rest. By day two she's sitting up and interrogating me about my motorcycle with the intensity of a career criminal.
By day three she's asked approximately three hundred questions about how engines work and declared that she's going to learn to ride.
"Absolutely not," Iris says.
"When you're eighteen," I add.
"That's forever!" Allie crosses her arms, the picture of ten-year-old outrage.
"Eternity," Iris agrees. "Now eat your breakfast."
I teach her about the bike anyway, over Iris's eye-roll but not her actual objection. How to check tire pressure, oil levels, the basics of engine maintenance.
Watching her concentrate, tongue poking out between her teeth, brow furrowed in determination, makes my chest ache with something I thought I'd lost forever.
This is what Sabrina might have been. Curious. Fearless. Determined to understand how things work.
"The carburetor controls air flow into the engine," I explain, pointing. "Too much air, engine runs lean and hot. Too little, runs rich and sluggish."
"Like breathing," Allie says.
"Exactly like breathing."
"If zombies had motorcycles, would they ride them badly? Because they don't breathe right?"
I blink. "I have never considered that."
"They'd probably crash a lot," she decides. "Because they're stupid."
"Sound tactical analysis."
"You're good with her," Iris says that evening, watching from the doorway while Allie draws in the other room—pictures of motorcycles and butterflies and a stick figure she's labeled "STEFFF" with three Fs.
"She's easy to be good with."
"She likes you." Iris laughs, and the sound does something to me. Makes me want things I've been afraid to want for three years. Stability. Family. A place where I belong.
But peace in the apocalypse never lasts. I know that. I've always known that.
The peace ends the next day.
Bull must have been tracking us since the hospital—moving slow, gathering numbers, waiting for the right moment. The wound I gave him at Fort Nelson has healed enough for revenge.
Eight of them roll up at dawn, engines growling, the sound carrying across the settlement like a threat. Bull at the front, his scarred face twisted with fury.
"Give us Stephan," he calls out, loud enough for every soul in to hear. "Or we burn this place to the ground. Every building. Every person. We start with the kid."
I step forward before anyone can stop me. "I'll go. No one else dies for me."
"Like hell you will." Iris appears beside me, pistol drawn, jaw set. "He saved my daughter's life. He's under our protection."
"Iris, you don't have to."
"Shut up."
Then something I never expected happens. Other settlers join us. Dr. Nowak with his shotgun and his steady hands. The guards moving to reinforce the gate. A dozen ordinary people, farmers, builders, survivors, who have no logical reason to risk themselves for an ex-Wolf.
"Why?" I ask.
"Because you sat with my daughter when she was dying," Iris says. "Because you're not the man those tattoos say you are."
Bull laughs. "This is what you left us for? Farmers and women? Pathetic."
"Not pathetic," I say. "Family."
The word surprises me as much as it seems to surprise him.
I know Wolf tactics. Bull will feint, test our defenses, then hit hard from an unexpected angle. He likes overwhelming force, shock and awe, breaking morale before the real fighting starts.
But he doesn't know this settlement. Doesn't know I spent three days walking these walls, identifying weak points, positioning defenders. Doesn't know that Dr. Nowak was a competitive shooter before the outbreak, or that the guards I trained have been practicing kill shots on zombie targets.
"Let me coordinate this," I tell Iris.
The battle is short and brutal.
Bull expects farmers who'll break at the first charge. He gets a coordinated defense that uses the gates and walls against him. Crossbow bolts drop two Wolves before they even reach the perimeter—Dr. Nowak's sharpshooting taking out their scout and their fastest rider.
When they breach the outer gate, they find a kill box. Overlapping fields of fire, obstacles that slow their bikes, choke points that negate their numbers.
Bull comes straight for me, of course. This was always personal.
We fight in the gateway while the battle rages around us. He's bigger, stronger, fueled by two years of hate. But I'm faster, and I know his weaknesses, like the way he drops his left shoulder before a power swing, the old knee injury that slows his pivot.
He cuts me twice. Ribs and forearm, blood soaking through my jacket. But I stay moving, stay patient, wait for the opening I know will come.
It comes when he overextends on a killing blow, putting all his weight into a swing that would have taken my head off if it landed.
My machete finds his throat.
The look of surprise on his face is the last expression he ever wears.
The survivors flee. Five Wolves dead, three in retreat, and the settlement has only minor injuries. One guard with a broken arm, another with a gash that needs stitches. Nothing that won't heal.
Bull's blood cools on my hands. Iris finds me standing over his body, machete still dripping, unable to move.
"It's over," she says.
"For now. Word will spread. Other Wolves might come."
"Then we'll be ready." She takes my bloody hand in hers. She doesn't flinch, doesn't hesitate. "Stay, Stephan. Not because we need protection. Because Allie needs you. I need you. Stay. Build something with us. Stop running."
I've been running for three years. Running from the Wolves, from my memories, from the weight of promises I couldn't keep.
"Okay," I say.
"Okay?"
"Okay. I'll stay."
She kisses me, right there with the settlement watching. It's not romantic. It's bloody and messy and tastes like survival.
It's a promise.
I let Dr. Nowak stitch my wounds while Allie hovers nearby, asking a thousand questions about how deep the cuts are and whether she can see the stitches go in. Iris finally shoos her away, but not before Allie extracts a promise that I'll show her the scars when they heal.
"Battle scars are cool," she informs me solemnly. "Way cooler than tattoos."
"I'll keep that in mind."
By evening, the adrenaline has faded and exhaustion has set in. Allie falls asleep early, worn out from the excitement, and the settlement grows quiet around us.
Iris finds me on her front porch, watching the stars.
"Can't sleep?" she asks.
"Don't want to." I shake my head. "Every time I close my eyes, I see Bull's face. The moment the blade went in. The surprise."
She sits beside me, close enough that our shoulders touch. "Does it bother you? Killing him?"
"No. That's what bothers me." I stare at my hands. They’re clean now, but I can still feel the sticky dried blood. "He was my brother once. Rode with him for years. And I felt nothing when I killed him."
"You felt something," Iris says quietly. "You just haven't figured out what yet."
Maybe she's right. Maybe the numbness is its own kind of grief—mourning the man Bull used to be before the apocalypse twisted him into something unrecognizable. Before it twisted all of them.
"Come inside," Iris says after a long silence. "Come to bed."
"Iris."
"Not for that. Not tonight." She takes my hand. "Just... come inside. Let me hold you. Let me remind you that you're not alone anymore."
I follow her into the house, into her bedroom, into her bed. We undress in the dark—not with urgency, but with quiet exhaustion. She curls against my side, her head on my chest, her arm across my stomach.
"Thank you," I whisper.
"For what?"
"Seeing something worth saving when I couldn't."
Her hand finds mine in the darkness. Squeezes.
We fall asleep like that, tangled together, and for the first time in three years, I don't dream about the people I've lost.
I dream about the ones I've found.