Chapter 19
Together
Jarek
Nine days after the Night of Falling Stars
I wake up with a throat so sore it feels like someone took razor blades to the inside and shredded it.
“Hello?” My rasp is a barely there sound.
I’m so thirsty. I roll my head to the side after blinking several times, trying to make sense of the world. I see a plastic bottle of water on the sidetable next to my phone. But there is no sign of my pack. Where are they?
I reach for my phone, almost fumbling it with my shaky arms, but it’s dead and doesn’t turn on. Unease slips in, helping to clear the cobweb thoughts away. I always have my phone on.
My bedroom stinks of sweat, piss, and the sickly sweet scent of illness.
I push and roll, but my body is weak, unable to hold me, and I end up collapsing to the floor.
What the hell happened to me? I shove up again and, this time, manage to get on my knees where I sit back on my heels, a trembling husk of who I was.
My hands shake as I undo the bottle, lifting it with both hands and drink the entire contents before I can stop and think.
I’m covered in filth, and I stink like I’ve been left alone for days. Did I shit myself? What the fuck happened?
“Cai?” My voice is hoarse and rusty. “Kaida?”
No one answers me. The unease has slipped right into terror. I stare at the bedroom door, willing it to open. It doesn’t.
It takes a minute for me to pull myself up, and then I wobble across the room, growing steadier as I go. By the time I reach the door, I don’t need to hang on to anything to stay upright, but it takes almost everything out of me.
How long have I been sick? What happened? The last thing I remember is seeing the virus on the news as it spread across the world. They said it was only hitting alphas and omegas. I must have contracted it. Did I pass it to Mordecai or Kaida?
I yank the door open, desperately hoping to see them, but there’s nothing and no one there. Our apartment looks normal. But it feels empty.
Lifeless.
I wander through into the lounge and the kitchen. But there is no sign of my mates. Tears fill my eyes, and I lean against the island, lowering my forehead until it’s touching the cold surface, panting from fear and exhaustion. My legs are trembling, and my head is spinning wildly.
Where are they? Are they dead?
I curl my fingers and slam my fist against the island. Once, twice. The pain brings reason and logic. A plan.
“It’s okay; you’ll find them. Calm down. There’s probably a simple reason.”
But no matter how I spin it, my mates would never leave me alone like this.
I flick on the lights, but nothing happens.
The power is off and, now that I notice it, more and more strange things become evident.
The torches and first aid kit on the couch.
Our photo album is on the floor, open to a picture of the three of us the day we bonded.
There is a pile of dirty dishes and rubbish bags that smell. Chills travel up and down my spine.
“What happened to the world?”
I look outside, but the city is awash in darkness. There are no lights, no sirens, no traffic. No people. It’s quiet and still in a way I have never seen before. Like the entire world died. Am I alone?
With a blast of energy, I rush to the spare room, shoving open the door. There’s no sign of Mordecai or our omega. The bed is a mess; the sheets are tangled. There’s a glass knocked over on the floor. Someone was in here. Kaida or Cai? Who was it, and where did they go?
I almost turn to walk away, but then I see the pool of water on the floor. It’s still wet.
Whoever was here got up in a hurry and left without caring about what they broke. I reach out and pick up the framed photo of the three of us on the ground. The glass is cracked, no, shattered.
The picture was taken a few months ago on a hike in the mountains. Kaida looks radiant and Cai so happy. I remember the feeling that day, that nothing could ever turn our beautiful world grey. We were untouchable. Our happiness had infected everyone.
My chest aches, and I clutch the framed photo to it. Wait, that’s not me, that’s the bonds! The ache is sharp and like nothing I’ve ever felt. Tears burn in my eyes, but I can’t figure it out. I was never that good at reading them.
But I do know something is wrong, and they need me.
I whirl around and head into the bathroom, where I find a bucket of water. I clean myself quickly and pull on clean clothes. Then I rush to the front door, pulling on my shoes and grabbing another bottle of water and a bag of chocolates to boost my flagging energy.
But just doing that much has my head throbbing and feeling like it’s going to split.
Opening the front door of our apartment gives me a moment of pure fear, especially when I see the blood smeared on the wall right in front of my eyes.
Finding courage has never been hard for me, but today, feeling this weak, it’s nearly impossible. The ache in my chest gets worse, and I double over, sobbing for breath.
“What’s wrong?” I whisper. “I don’t understand, but I’m coming.”
My hand squeezes the doorknob, forcing the keys to dig into my palm.
With a shaky exhale, I let go and rush out.
I head to the lifts but remember the power’s out and go to the stairs instead.
One floor down, and my legs feel like Jello; by the fifth floor, I’ve had to slow down.
When I get to the bottom, I have to lean on the wall to get my breath back.
I can’t believe how weak I feel, but that dull throbbing through the bonds won’t go away, the pain gets sharper, so I drive myself on, forcing open the doors to the building and getting hit with the smell of smoke and the sickly sweet odor of decay.
Up and down the street, I see crashed and abandoned cars. The shops have broken glass windows; doors are jimmied open. The sky is an ominous grey, but it’s warm, and the smell of blood is thick in the air.
“The world ended,” I whisper to myself.
“Hey!”
A hand grabs my shoulder. I spin, throwing the person up against a wall but quickly let go when I recognise a neighbour from the fourth floor.
“Danielle, right?” I say, trying to calm my racing heart.
The beta nods her head in jerks. “Yes, and you’re Jarek? Twelfth floor?”
Her hair is matted, she’s got a bruised face, and she looks like she’s seen better days. I remember her mate; he was a decent beta. We used to chat about sports when we met in the lift.
“Yes, can you tell me what happened? I woke up, and my mates were gone.” The urgency is thick in my voice, even though I try to calm it.
Tears well up in her eyes, and that’s scarier than anything I’ve seen yet.
“It was bad, Alpha. So bad.”
I look back out on the streets and, to my dismay, I see the bodies I hadn’t noticed before or maybe I didn’t want to notice.
“The virus spread. Betas are immune, but alphas and omegas got sick. The alphas, well some recovered, but some turned into mindless creatures, they were just filled with so much rage, and they attacked anything that moved.”
She’s saying words, but my slow brain is refusing to take it in.
“What are you saying? Zombies?”
I whip my head back to the streets, seeing the blood splatter, the violence on the corpses.
“No, they are alive. Just mindless killing machines. It’s more like rabies or something.” She sobs, wiping her nose on a filthy arm.
Cai and Kaida are out here. Alone.
“My mates,” I murmur. “I have to find them.”
“You’ll die if you go out there,” she says and snatches at my arm. “Come with me; leave them.”
“No!” I snap and pull free of her. “I could never leave them.”
I back out onto the road and jog away, scared she’ll find a way to stop me. I look back once, but she’s gone, like she never existed.
The world has fallen apart; the apocalypse has come, but my bonded are out here alive somewhere. I have to find them. It’s all that matters.
The pain triples, and I walk rapidly in the directly that it’s coming from. The night is dark, and shadows shift and move. I wonder how many terrified people are watching me pass from hidden places.
At first, all I can see is everything around me. The cop car turned on its roof, blood pools leading out of the driver door. I see an arm hanging off a door handle. There’s a firetruck on its side, and the bodies of two old people holding each other on top.
I don’t stop, but with each thing I see, a well of panic is rising. Where are they? Why would they leave?
Something must have gone wrong for them to leave me.
I hear people in the darkness, whispers, murmurs, movement, but when I look, no one comes out. Everyone stays hidden, and I’m thankful because I don’t know what to say to anyone or what state they’d even be in.
A growl interrupts my desperate thoughts.
I whip my head around, spinning in a wild circle, searching the dark.
An alpha half-buried in shadows comes crawling towards me, dragging himself by his arms. He snarls, but he’s weak, and when he lifts an arm, I can see massive injuries that have started to turn black.
There are no signs of intelligence in him, nothing that indicates he can think. A word comes to my mind that is so absurd I think I let out a bark of laughter.
Zombie. He looks worse than any zombie I’ve ever seen. More and less decayed. Still clearly human but so far gone that he shouldn’t be alive.
But it’s not a zombie; that much is abundantly clear. This alpha is dying actively. I can see him breathing. When he moves, he leaves a trail of red blood. Oxygen and circulation.
Not a zombie.
What is this virus? It turns alphas into crazed berserkers, and then they die?
So, why am I alive? How did I survive?
Did Mordecai turn into one of them and…No, that thought is too horrible to even entertain.
I rush away from the alpha, leaving him because I can’t bear the thought of trying to end his life, but when I see a machete, I pick it up. The need to protect myself is strong enough that I don’t even hesitate.