Chapter 11 I’m Sorry
I'm sorry
Mordecai
Seven days after the Night of Falling Stars
I park my huge SUV in the carpark and lean on the steering wheel, taking in the disaster in front of me. The grey, dreary weather is the perfect backdrop to this apocalypse. I almost turn the truck back around and drive home.
Almost.
Instead, I stare at the shop, trying to ignore my own urgency, exhaustion, and desperation. I’ve never experienced days like these. I don’t think anyone has.
My eyes are burning, and my body is trembling from lack of sleep and fatigue. My lips are cracked, and I can’t remember the last time I ate. I live off the fire of fear and what I stand to lose should I fail.
The normal uniform parking of customers’ cars is haphazard bedlam; there’s even a car lying on its side, windows smashed.
People are screaming and families with trolleys filled to the brim rush out of the shop, brandishing weapons to keep everyone else back.
Worse are the sick people who are laid out on the ground, forgotten, unattended.
“How have we come to this?” I murmur.
I wonder if the families of the sick people are waiting for them.
Or if their families left them. The things I’ve seen in the last few days have reshaped my entire view of this world.
Alphas have abandoned their betas and omegas; omegas have killed their alphas.
Betas are being slaughtered as people try to find out why they and they alone are immune.
Before the power went, I’d sat glued to the TV, tears running down my cheeks.
I’d wept for our world, for my small family.
What’s going to become of us?
A tall, thin man runs past me, naked and painted with blood, cackling madly as he clings to a box of ramen like it’s the antidote to this nightmare.
It’s been like this at the four shops I’ve been to; this is my last option to find what I need.
But the world has gone mad, and I don’t understand the rules anymore.
Summoning my willpower, I jog to the store and push through the crowd, squeezing through the gaps between fighting people and averting my eyes from the outstretched hands of those who are pleading for help.
It takes more time than I have to get to the section I need. The shelves are empty; water, toilet paper, and canned food went first. Throughout the store, helpless people stand crying over empty shelves. I know this is a waste of time, but I have to try.
Medication would have disappeared, too, but maybe there is something. I need it. For them. It’s worth the risk.
My omega is lying in bed, moaning in agony, and my alpha is so pale he looks close to death. He’s been like that for two days.
I am resigned to the thought that I will lose him, but I can’t bear to see her in pain.
No painkillers.
Not even a single tablet.
I stare at the tag with its price and name and the empty, desolate shelf above it. The weight of my failures presses on me. I reach out and run my hand over the empty shelf, hoping by some miracle that something will appear.
It doesn’t.
I turn away, gritting my teeth, blinking back the exhausted tears. I shouldn’t have left home. If I could rewind time, I would do it. I would go back to the day a week ago before the news broke. Seven days ago, everything was fine. The world was fine.
Seven. Fucking. Days.
It’s all gone to hell. What happened?
I push past people, resisting the urge to lash out at them. Everyone is scared. All the essentials are gone; the government fell on day three. The power went out yesterday. The world has become a war zone.
The law of our civilisation is gone.
We live in anarchy.
The contagions and viruses of the past have nothing on how fast this has spread. No one could have expected it to sweep across the world so quickly. Or decimate the population so completely.
I jog back to where I left the car, but it’s not there. Shock makes my knees weak. My tired brain can’t seem to grasp that it’s been stolen. I’m just rooted to the carpark with a bolt of thick, electric fear holding me motionless.
I look around wildly and let out a frustrated moan.
Now what do I do? A woman screams, her shrill warble exploding into the air, and I flinch hard.
A minute later, she lets out a different scream, this one full of rage.
She brandishes a pistol and shouts angrily.
I hear a gun go off, and she stiffens before falling backwards, blood pouring out of her chest.
I need to get home.
I crouch, hiding behind a car, waiting as a massive brawl starts at the shop doors. Everyone just piles in, uncaring of the children, the elderly, and the injured. They just follow their emotions and their rage into madness.
I carefully slip away, using the cars as shields until I’m far enough that I can bolt. I run down the side of the building, bumping into sick people and healthy people alike. We’re all going in desperate directions.
A car smashes into another one in front of me. My heart explodes into action, and I hesitate over whether to help the driver or not, but he gets out and runs off, leaving his car burning toxic fumes into the already haze-filled city.
People scream, but the sounds are dull. All I can think about is my pack. She’s at home; they both are, sick and waiting for me. I promised them I wouldn’t take risks.
This is a risk. A big one.
I can’t leave the woman to die.
The woman in the car screams, and I know that sound will haunt me forever.
I lunge towards it and rip open the door.
Two seconds to see there’s no saving her.
She’s stuck, her leg crushed, and she’s screaming; there is blood everywhere.
No help is going to come; the phone lines are already down, but she’s screaming so loud.
“It’s okay, I’m here. I’m going to help you. Can you tell me your name?”
“Lisha,” she bursts out between sobs. “My name is Lisha. I have two boys at home. They are waiting for me. I need…I need to get home to them.”
I crouch down, staring at her legs, wondering what to do when someone comes up behind me.
The shocking scent of wildflowers and spices.
I turn and look up into his familiar face.
It’s angular, with high cheekbones and a noble nose.
He’s got dirt smeared across his brow, and he looks as exhausted as I feel.
His light green eyes hold an agony that wasn’t there a week ago.
His tawny skin is pale, and he’s got black waist-long hair that is tangled and crusty with something I’d rather not know about.
He holds up a gun.
“No, Lucian, wait.”
“We can’t leave her like this, and we can’t wait here. You need to get home, Cai,” Lucian says in a firm voice.
The omega lets out a shuddering breath, and I know this will haunt him for the rest of his life.
The gun goes off, and the woman’s screams end so abruptly the silence is almost painful.
“Get moving, Cai. We don’t have time.”
I push up from my crouch and follow him as he races through the streets. People are going both ways, the level of terror is growing by the minute. But with that, danger is getting thicker and more precarious. It’s not safe out here anymore.
A boom sounds, and a second later, the windows everywhere shatter. I’m blown off my feet and into the side of a bus. I drop to my knees and clutch my head. There’s a ringing in my ears that takes a moment to ease.
Lucian gets up and staggers, holding his cheek, which has blood running down it.
“Lucian!”
He wobbles and looks at me with dazed, shocked eyes.
“I’m good. It’s okay. It looks worse than it is.” His voice wobbles, but he’s on his feet.
I catch his arm and drag him with me, fighting the now feral crowd.
“This is ridiculous,” he screams into my ear.
I pull us down a side street, and we lean against the building, panting.
“What are you doing out here?” Lucian asks.
“They are sick.”
I say the words like I am pronouncing their deaths. And I am. The survival rate for alphas and omegas has been almost zero. One in ten. With two sick, the odds of them both surviving are almost nonexistent.
“I’m sorry,” he sobs and starts to cry. He pulls his hand from his face, and I realise it’s a pretty bad cut.
“We need to get you to a hospital or doctor.”
Lucian shakes his head and clamps his hand back on the wound. “No, we have to get out of here before it gets too much worse and we can’t get home.”
I turn but keep him with me as we thread our way back onto the streets. People aren’t moving, and it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but still, I push through, forcing a path when there isn’t one.
We get to the edge of the crowd, and I stop, too, transfixed with horror, causing every hair on my body to stand on end. There is a man in the middle of the road. He’s clearly sick, but he’s convulsing on the ground.
It’s just…his body is wrong, the proportions and the appearance. I realise that he’s missing fingers, like he’s broken them off or…or bitten them off. I think maybe his arms and legs are dislocated, too.
He screams, foam frothing out of his mouth. His legs arch and crack, and he lunges up, looking inhuman. Looking like a monster. I see bone, but he still walks on it.
I stumble back, but I can only go a step. I wheeze as air goes in and out of my lungs too fast.
He pulls at the skin on his face and tears it off, revealing dark red muscle and white tendon.
“Lucian,” I whisper.
“Run,” he hisses.
Together, we break from the frozen crowd and rush across the empty road and into the underground carpark. The darkness makes everything feel worse, but better in here than out there on that street, watching that alpha tear himself apart.
“What the fuck did we just see?” I spit out.
Lucian pushes us through a door and then slams into me as he retreats quickly.
I grab him and swing us around, behind the door as something that once was human slams out and into the world. It doesn’t seem to see us and runs towards the screaming crowd.