Part 8

Grief didn't arrive gently. It hit Dacre like a wave of cold iron, knocking the breath out of him and leaving something sharp and furious lodged in his chest. Victor's men were gone but the damage they left behind felt permanent.

Dacre broke from the bushes and ran.

The warehouse smelled like blood and oil and something worse—grief. He saw Alex first. Or what was left of him.

"Oh... shit," Dacre breathed, the word cracking in half. "No. No, no, no..."

He dropped to his knees beside Alex, fingers already reaching for a pulse he knew wouldn't be there. The skin was cooling. The truth pressed in, merciless and absolute.

Behind him, Stanley lay crumpled in a way no living body ever rested.

"They're gone," Dacre whispered hoarsely. "Alex and Stanley... they're both dead."

The words sounded fake even as he said them, like lines from a bad movie. But nothing answered back.

Keira and Nathan stumbled in after him. Keira covered her mouth. Nathan went pale, staring too long, as if his brain refused to catch up with his eyes.

"How are the others?" Dacre asked quietly, because he had to ask something. Silence would've killed him faster.

"Alive," Keira said, barely audible. "Tyler and Mary... hurt, but alive. Sadie—she was shot in the shoulder. Aliyah..." Her voice broke. "She keeps asking for Alex."

"They're hiding in the other warehouse," Nathan added. "Where they kept us."

Dacre closed his eyes. When he opened them again, something had hardened behind them. "I'll talk to Aliyah," he said. "Someone else... someone else tell Sadie."

Nathan nodded numbly.

Aliyah came out shaking, wrapped in fear and dirt and borrowed clothes. Her eyes were red and frantic.

"D-Dacre?" she sobbed. "Where's Alex? Where's Stanley?"

The world narrowed to that moment.

Dacre knelt in front of her. "Aliyah..." His voice failed him once. He tried again. "Alex... Alex is dead."

The sound she made didn't sound human. She screamed his name over and over, fists pounding uselessly against Dacre's chest as she tried to run past him.

"No! No, no, no—he can't be!"

"I'm sorry," Dacre whispered, holding her as tightly as he dared. "I'm so sorry."

Her screams carried into the night, mixing with distant zombie moans. Tyler appeared, face wrecked. Mary followed, leaning hard on her cane. Avril stood frozen, eyes empty.

"They're really dead?" Tyler asked.

Dacre nodded. "We lost them."

Mary folded in on herself, a quiet, shaking collapse. Avril didn't cry at all.

Then—

BANG.

The sound came from the other warehouse.

"DACRE!" Nathan screamed. "DACRE!"

Dacre ran again, legs burning and his knee hurting like shit, heart already knowing.

Inside, Sadie lay on the floor. The rifle lay nearby, smoking faintly.

Nathan stood shaking, hands raised. "It wasn't me," he sobbed. "She grabbed it—she just—she just pulled the trigger—"

The room filled with sound. Crying. Shouting. Someone retching.

Keira sank to the floor. "She couldn't handle it," she whispered. "The zombies... the men... Stanley..."

There was nothing else to say. Nothing that made it better.

Three bodies now. Three stories cut short.

"What do we do?" Tyler asked, voice small and ruined.

Dacre wiped his face with shaking hands. "We bury them," he said. "All of them. Properly."

2 weeks later

Two weeks passed, but time didn't heal a damn thing.

The deaths of Alex, Stanley, and Sadie hung over the group like a low ceiling—something you kept bumping your head against no matter how careful you were. No speeches were made. No grand promises.

Yet somehow—maybe because humans are stubborn animals—they drew closer.

Aliyah didn't talk about Alex anymore. That was the strangest part. She stuck close to Dacre now. Too close sometimes. Not romantically—nothing that simple—but with the desperate gravity of someone clinging to the nearest thing to someone they had just lost. Dacre felt it every time she leaned against him, every time she flinched and reached for his sleeve like she expected him to disappear too.

Tyler watched this quietly. He didn't resent it. If anything, he understood. Loss had made him smaller somehow, folded inward. He and Aliyah talked late at night when no one else could sleep, sharing fragments of memories. Alex laughing in construction class, Stanley's stupid jokes, Sadie's nervous humming.

Mary and Avril formed an unlikely orbit. Mary talked enough for the both of them, her voice gravelly and stubborn, telling stories about a world that felt fictional now—Thanksgivings, bad neighbors, ladies she hated. Avril listened. Mostly she just listened. She rarely cried. When she did, it came suddenly and stopped just as fast, like a switch flipping off. Mary never pushed her. She simply stayed nearby.

Nathan and Keira stayed together. They slept holding hands. They whispered plans they didn't fully believe in. Sometimes Nathan woke up shaking, seeing the gunshot again, seeing Sadie fall. Keira would press her forehead to his and tell him to breathe, over and over, like it was a spell that might still work.

For two weeks, they moved like ghosts.

Motels. Gas stations. Empty diners. Anywhere with walls and a second exit. Someone always stayed awake. Someone always watched the dark. Mr. Johnson—Victor—was never mentioned by name, but everyone felt him anyway, like a hand hovering just above their shoulders.

Every night, Dacre thought of Alex's last words.
Take care of her.

They drove until the road lost its meaning.

Gas showed up the way miracles sometimes do—half-full cans sitting beside dead cars, tucked behind dumpsters, once even waiting politely on a highway shoulder like it had been placed there for them.

"I don't know if there's anywhere safe tonight," Dacre said at last, eyes locked on the ribbon of asphalt unwinding ahead of them.

Keira wiped her face with the heel of her hand. "There's a military base a couple hours east. Fortified. High fences. Probably survivors." She hesitated, then glanced back at Aliyah in the rearview mirror. "But... Aliyah's not really in a place for crowds."

Dacre didn't answer right away. The engine hummed. Wind rattled something loose beneath the car.

"I think," he said finally, "I'm done with other people."

The words landed heavy.

"Dacre..." Keira started.

"I don't mean you," he cut in quickly, softer now. "I mean everyone else. Strangers. Groups. Bases." His jaw tightened. "This—us—this is it for me."

Something eased in the car after that.

"I get it," Keira said quietly.

Silence followed, but it wasn't hostile. Just tired.

After a while, Dacre spoke again. "Alex used to take point. Make the calls." His voice cracked, just once. "Feels wrong pretending that didn't matter."

"It mattered," Nathan said from the back. "But leadership isn't a crown. It's just... who people look at when things go bad." He met Dacre's eyes in the mirror. "That's you now."

Keira nodded. "You've been doing it already."

Dacre swallowed. "Okay," he said. "Then okay."

The road kept moving.

A few minutes later, Aliyah's voice rose from the back seat, small and thin as thread.
"Dacre?"

"Yeah, kiddo?"

"Can you... hold me?"

The words hurt more than any scream.

"I—" He glanced at the wheel, helpless. "I can't right now. I'm driving."

She nodded, pressing her forehead to the window, eyes squeezed shut like she was bracing against something only she could see.

"Pull over," Keira said gently.

They stopped beneath a sky with no stars. Aliyah climbed forward, settling between Dacre and Nathan, folding into Dacre's side like she'd been made to fit there. He rested an arm around her without thinking.

Dacre slowed as a low, flickering glow bled out of the dark ahead.

"There," he said, lifting a hand from the wheel. "We can stop there tonight."

No one argued. No one even nodded.

The car rolled into the lot beneath a dying neon sign:

WINTER HEIGHTS RESORT

Only half the letters worked. The rest blinked on and off like a bad heartbeat.

They climbed out slowly, joints stiff, spirits worse. Nathan took Aliyah's hand without asking. She didn't let go. Keira followed with Mary, Tyler, and Avril.

"There are plenty of rooms," Dacre said, keys clinking in his hand, "but after the last few weeks..." He trailed off, then finished quietly, "I don't think anyone should be alone."

"Yeah," Nathan said. "Safety in numbers."

Aliyah was still holding his hand. Still trembling.

Mary wrapped her arms around herself and nodded once.

The room they chose was small and dim, lit by a single buzzing lamp that threw too many shadows. Two queen beds. Beige walls.

"Okay," Dacre said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Four people get the beds."

Nathan glanced from Dacre to Aliyah, then made the decision for everyone. "They should take one."

No one disagreed.

"The other bed?" Dacre asked.

Mary lifted her chin. "I'll take it." After a beat, she added, "If that's alright."

Avril hesitated—just a flicker—then nodded and sat down beside her like she wasn't sure how bodies were supposed to rest anymore.

Keira stood in the middle of the room, hands clasped tight. "And me?"

Dacre thought for a second. "Floor with Nathan and Tyler?"

Relief crossed her face. "Yeah. That's fine."

Nathan disappeared briefly, coming back with armfuls of blankets. Tyler built a nest on the floor.

Aliyah climbed onto the bed beside Dacre and immediately folded into him, small and shaking, as if she'd been holding herself together all day and finally couldn't anymore.

"Dacre," she whispered.

"Yeah," he said.

"Can you just... hold me?"

He did. No hesitation.

Across the room, Nathan watched for a moment, then lay down beside Keira and Tyler, staring up at the ceiling.

Dacre's voice dropped until it was barely louder than the hum of the flickering lamp.

"Listen to me, Aliyah. After all this... you're going to be okay."

She made a small, broken sound in her throat and clutched his shirt like it was the only thing keeping her from sliding off the edge of the world. "How can you say that?" she whispered. "How can you know?"

No one else moved. The room held its breath.

"People keep dying," Aliyah said, the words tumbling out now. "Everyone—"

"We lost three," Dacre said gently. Too gently. "Not everyone."

Her eyes flickered at the names he didn't say. Alex. Stanley. Sadie. Ghosts that still took up space.

"What about tomorrow?" she whispered. "What if it's someone else? What if it's—" Her voice cracked. "What if it's you?"

Dacre swallowed. "If anyone should die," he said, "it should be me."

The words hit the room like a gunshot.

Aliyah's grip tightened, her tears soaking through his shirt, fingers digging in like she was afraid he'd already started dying. Keira sucked in a sharp breath. Nathan's jaw clenched so hard it looked like it might break.

"No," Aliyah said, shaking her head violently. "No."

"I have to lead," Dacre whispered. "I have to do it right. I have to be like Alex."

That did it.

Aliyah sat up so fast the mattress creaked. She grabbed his face with both hands, forcing him to look at her. "You are not Alex," she said fiercely. "You're Dacre. And we need you alive."

Her voice broke on the word alive.

"If it comes down to it," Dacre said, matching her intensity, "I'd give anything to keep you all breathing."

Her thumbs brushed his cheeks, gentle now, trembling. "Even yourself?" she whispered.

"You can't," Keira said softly from the floor, her voice shaking.

"I have to," Dacre snapped. "It's what Alex would've done!"

"Alex is dead!" Aliyah shouted. She shoved him back just enough to put space between them. "You don't honor him by joining him! If you die, what happens to us? Who holds this together?"

Dacre stared at the wall for a long second. "Nathan would."

Nathan stiffened. "What?"

Fear rushed back into Aliyah's face. She grabbed Dacre's hand and pressed it hard against her chest so he could feel how fast her heart was beating. "Nathan isn't you," she whispered. "We need you. I need you."

"Aliyah—"

"Promise me," she said, cutting him off. Her voice shook, but her eyes didn't waver. "Promise me you won't sacrifice yourself. Promise me you won't die."

He laughed once, a sound halfway to a sob. "I—" His breath hitched. "I promise."

She nodded, slow and deliberate, then leaned in until their foreheads touched. "If you break that promise," she whispered, deadly serious, "I'll kill you."

A weak chuckle escaped him. "Yeah. I figured."

Her expression softened, but the fire stayed. "I mean it. I don't care what afterlife you end up in. I'll find you."

She kissed him—quick, firm, sealing it like a vow.

Dacre pulled back instinctively. "Aliyah... you were Alex's girlfriend."

"I know," she said. Her cheeks flushed, but she didn't look away. "And Alex is gone. You're here." Her voice dropped. "I need something solid to hold onto. Right now, that's you."

Guilt flickered across his face, sharp and ugly. She saw it and immediately cupped his cheek.

"Look at me," she said softly. "I'm not replacing him. I'm surviving. And surviving means needing someone."

"I'm not him," Dacre snapped, panic edging his voice. "I can't have you falling for me. It's been weeks."

"I'm not falling in love with you!" she shot back. "I'm scared. I'm grieving. I'm human. Does that make sense, or are you too busy being a martyr to notice?"

He raised his hands. "Okay. Okay. I'm sorry."

She exhaled, rubbing her temples. "Me too. I'm not mad at you." She looked around the room—the tired faces, the shadows clinging to the walls. "I'm mad at this whole damn nightmare."

Aliyah lay back down, curling into him again. "Can we just sleep?"

Dacre wrapped his arms around her carefully, like she might shatter. "Yeah," he said.