Chapter 2

As I walked down the hospital steps, wind poured in from the intersection, carrying the stink of motor oil and dust.

Viktor Kane’s convoy was lined up across the street—an armored vehicle in front, two modified pickups behind it, men standing in the beds with rifles held loose, muzzles casually aimed at the hospital entrance.

I stopped at the bottom of the steps. I didn’t raise my hands, and I didn’t make a move to run.

The open ground here was too clean. Not a single wrecked car to hide behind. If I tried to break for it, I’d be nothing but a target.

Viktor’s men formed a half-circle around me, not too close, not too far.

Nora stayed behind them. She moved fast, but she didn’t dare step up to my side.

She and Claire supported Marcus between them.

A man in a helmet walked out, holding a plastic tube filled with pale yellow liquid that foamed when it sloshed. He didn’t look at Nora. He simply handed it over.

“Antibiotics.”

Nora took it with trembling fingers.

She pressed Marcus down on the curb beside the armored vehicle, pulled off the cap, and drove the needle straight into his upper arm.

Marcus sucked in a breath from the sting, then immediately forced his voice into a weak, pitiful whine, like the better he played the patient, the more he could prove he was worth saving.

But his eyes stayed on me—half avoiding mine, half relieved.

Someone behind me shoved my shoulder. Not hard, but the message was clear: Move. Don’t stall.

I took one step forward, my boot crunching on gravel.

Only then did Nora seem to snap out of it. She tossed the used syringe onto the ground, rushed to me, and wrapped her arms around my chest.

She held on tight, like she could pin me in place, like warmth could prove she was still on my side.

Her voice pressed against my ear, rushed and low. “Caleb, just endure it, okay? Once Marcus is out of danger, I’ll find a way to get you back. Trust me. I swear I’ll—”

I didn’t struggle. I didn’t push her away. It all felt pointless.

I looked over her shoulder.

Marcus leaned on Claire, rubbing the injection site. His face already looked a little better than before.

Claire flicked her gaze toward me and immediately looked away, afraid I’d see the guilt, afraid I’d ask questions.

I gently peeled Nora’s hands off my back, smooth as if I were straightening a collar.

“I understand,” I said.

Nora froze, like she still wanted to explain.

I didn’t give her the chance. Another man shoved me again, impatient this time.

I started toward the truck. Behind me came Marcus’s carefully softened cough, a reminder to Nora that he still needed taking care of.

Nora didn’t follow. She stood where she was, lips moving, and in the end she said nothing.

Most people would have expected me to rage—shout, fight, swing my rifle toward one of them, at least rip Marcus’s act apart in front of everyone.

But I didn’t.

I didn’t even turn to look at Nora’s face.

Because I’d already decided to treat this “trade” as an exit.

Leaving them didn’t need a fight. It didn’t need an explanation.

I knew Viktor didn’t want a corpse.

He wanted labor—someone who could work, someone he could break, someone he could force to kneel until I looked like every other pack mule under his boot.

What he didn’t know was that I was using his hands to send myself in.

Three years ago, in the first stretch of the outbreak, I watched order collapse with my own eyes.

Shelters got mobbed. Gunfire ran from morning into night. When doors were kicked in, there were no rules—only who was meaner.

Viktor Kane climbed up in that kind of chaos. To seize a spot in an underground shelter, he treated the people inside like obstacles and cleared them out.

My parents were in there.

So was my little sister.

I chased his group for days with a knife and a few rounds, forcing him to dump men behind him, forcing him to hide.

Later, near a gas station, we set off a fuel barrel. When the fire shot up, I thought that would be the day we both died.

But we both lived.

I crawled out of the rubble with my left arm burned raw, my ears ringing for a long time afterward.

Back then I had only one thought: one day I would find him again and settle the debt.

Then I ran into Nora.

She’d been my girlfriend before the world ended, the only person I could still reach in those days.

She was thinner, but her eyes were still hard.

I’d lost my parents and my sister. I couldn’t lose her too. So I put my edge away, buried the hunt for Viktor deep, and spent my strength keeping them fed, medicated, and moving.

Until today—until Nora said out loud, “I’ll trade.”

She knew exactly what stood between Viktor and me. She knew what I would face once they took me.

The truck waited at the curb with its rear door open. Inside was a filthy tarp, and in the corner, dried bloodstains that didn’t belong to the paint.

Two of Viktor’s soldiers climbed up. One pinned my shoulder. The other pulled out rope and, with practiced hands, bound my wrists behind my back. The cord bit into my skin, numbness crawling up my arms.

When they were done, they shoved me into the truck bed.

I caught my balance on the edge and glanced back toward the hospital entrance.

A gang member stood below with a nasty grin, looking me over like secondhand goods. “Heard you killed a lot of our guys,” he said. “Once we get to the compound, you’ll get special treatment. Don’t get too excited.”

I didn’t answer.

My eyes went past his shoulder, back to the hospital.

Nora stood there, her body cut in half by the doorframe.

She didn’t chase. She didn’t call my name again.

She just watched the truck, like all she needed was confirmation that I’d been taken—then she could leave with the medicine.

The truck started up, tires grinding over gravel. The bed jolted once, and the hospital slid backward in my view.

I leaned against the inner wall of the truck, listening to the pickups’ engines and the soldiers’ laughter and curses outside.

A few minutes later, the convoy turned onto the main road. The scenery shifted from collapsed storefronts to a wider stretch of ruin.

A few infected wandered in the distance. The engine noise drew them. They dragged after us for several steps, then fell behind.

Two soldiers sat in the truck with me. One cleaned his rifle. The other chewed on tough dried meat.

The one with the rifle slid closer and lowered his voice. “We know you like that woman. You try anything, and our guys will go find her.”

He wasn’t done. As if the first threat wasn’t heavy enough, he added, “We can go back anytime. We can take her. Or we can toss all three of them into a pack of infected.”

I let out a small laugh—quiet, like I’d just heard a bad joke.

I didn’t care about Nora anymore.

At least, not enough for her to steer me.

I wasn’t staying quiet because I feared them, and I wasn’t staying quiet because the threat worked.

I was staying quiet because this road was taking me straight into Viktor’s belly.

I needed to see how many men he had, how many guns, where the sentries stood, where the warehouses were, which route was easiest to break out of—and which route would let me lock him in.