Lesbain 4 Paigethree!! Paige’s Gorgeous Angel @hereticalmoon - Tumblr Blog

A/N: this took so long but I adore it. Writing horror is honestly one of my favourite things!! If people like this I will bring back my more horror based fics because this was so fun to write. I do wanna apologise now to anyone whose fave gets killed off… just know I killed one of my favourite people really early on. So we are alllll suffering. I really hope someone enjoys this and uhhhh if not idk I’ll go cry? Oh also there is a second part purely because it was too long for one post and I hit the maximum on tumblr

Title: bang bang (my baby shot me down) pt1

Pairing: threebones

Warnings: MDNI!!!! graphic depictions of violence and gore, zombie attacks, biting, dismemberment, exposed organs, blood, major character death, graphic descriptions of dying, panic, physical injury, zombie apocalypse, mass death, and societal collapse, intense psychological distress, panic attacks, hyperventilation, dissociation, trauma responses, grief, survivor’s guilt, watching loved ones die, body horror. Vomiting/retching, near death experiences, fear, desperation, and sustained high-tension scenes, infection, illness, and implied impending death. If you need to avoid any of these topics, please read with care!!!

Guys this is an extremely heavy one please read with caution.

——-

The sound of flesh tearing never got easier.

It split the air with a wet, intimate violence that rang straight through Paige’s teeth and lodged behind her eyes. Too close. Always too close. Her brain recoiled from it on instinct, scrambling for some other explanation, stage blood, prop knife, sound design too loud… anything except what it was.

Reality did not care.

Something slammed into her from the side, hard enough to steal the ground out from under her feet. Her shoulder hit concrete with a crack that sent pain lightning-fast down her arm. The world tilted, lights smearing into long, nauseating streaks. Her ears rang, high and shrill, and for one horrifying second she couldn’t hear anything else, not her own scream, not her name, not the thing on top of her.

Then weight crushed her chest.

The walker loomed over her, knees bracketing her hips, hands clawing clumsily at her jacket like it couldn’t quite remember what hands were for. Its face hung inches from hers. Close enough that she could see the pores, the split skin at the corners of its mouth, the way one eye tracked her while the other lagged a fraction behind.

Not blind enough. Not gone enough.

Paige gasped, panic shredding any coherent thought. Her knife was still in her hand, good, thank God. But her fingers had gone numb, useless, refusing to close properly. She stabbed wildly upward and felt nothing but air.

The walker shrieked, a raw, furious sound that vibrated straight through her ribs.

“Paige!”

Sillexa’s voice cut through the ringing, sharp with fear rather than command, and that, somehow, that scared Paige more than the thing trying to kill her.

The gun went off with a crack so loud it felt like the station itself flinched.

The walker’s head snapped sideways. Something dark sprayed the tiles behind them in a grotesque arc. Its body went slack instantly, all momentum gone, collapsing forward onto Paige in a dead, awful heap.

Paige screamed then, really screamed, hands scrabbling uselessly at its jacket, chest heaving as the smell hit her all at once. Rot, copper, gunpowder. Her stomach revolted.

“Fuck—fuck—Paige, I’ve got it—”

Hands grabbed the walker by the collar and yanked hard. The weight slid off her, dragging across her legs before hitting the ground with a dull thud. Paige rolled onto her side, coughing violently, gagging as she sucked in air that felt too thin to be real.

Sillexa dropped to her knees in front of her immediately, gun clattering forgotten onto the concrete. Her hands hovered, unsure, shoulders, face, throat, before settling on Paige’s cheeks, firm and grounding.

“Hey. Hey, look at me,” she said, voice shaking despite her best effort to keep it steady. “Paige. Paige, baby, look at me.”

Paige forced her eyes up.

Sillexa’s face was pale beneath the grime, eyes blown wide and glassy with adrenaline. There was blood on her knuckles. Paige’s? No, no, and her breathing was just a little too fast, like she’d sprinted a mile instead of fired a single shot.

“You bit?” Sillexa asked, words tumbling over each other now. “Tell me right now. I swear to God, Paige, if you’re bitten—”

“No,” Paige croaked. Her throat burned. “No, I’m—Lex, I’m not—”

Sillexa’s hands tightened reflexively, fingers digging in like she was afraid Paige might disappear if she let go. Relief hit her hard enough that her shoulders sagged.

“Okay,” she said, nodding too quickly. “Okay. That’s good. That’s—fuck, okay.”

Sminty skidded to a stop beside them, eyes enormous, knife clutched in both hands like a lifeline.

“Oh my God,” she breathed. “Oh my God. I thought—Paige, you scared the absolute shit out of me. I’m going to age like ten years every time you do that.”

Paige huffed out something that might have been a laugh if it didn’t turn into another cough halfway through. Her whole body shook now, the adrenaline bleeding out of her in ugly, uneven waves.

Sillexa noticed immediately.

“Okay, sit,” she said, gentler now, guiding Paige until her back hit the wall. She crouched in front of her, blocking out the corridor with her body like she could shield her from everything else. “Just sit for a second. Breathe.”

Paige pressed her head back against the cool tile and closed her eyes, focusing on the familiar cadence of Sillexa’s voice. In. Out. Her heart still hammered like it was trying to break free, but it was slowing.

She opened her eyes again and looked past Sillexa’s shoulder.

The walker lay sprawled on the platform, one arm bent at a wrong angle, its head… ruined. It wore a Transport for London jacket, orange striping dulled by grime. A name badge still clung to the chest, smeared but legible.

Martin.

Paige swallowed hard.

A month ago, she would have been annoyed at the Tube delays. A month ago, this man might have told her to mind the gap with bored professionalism. A month ago, Bones might have texted her something dry and cutting about London transport being the real apocalypse.

Her chest ached with the effort of not thinking about that.

Sillexa followed her gaze and winced. “Don’t,” she said softly. “Don’t do that to yourself.”

Paige’s voice came out thin. “He was just… working.”

“I know.” Sillexa’s mouth twisted. “Which sucks. Massively.”

She scrubbed a hand over her face, smearing dirt and sweat together. When she looked back at Paige, her eyes were bright again, not fierce this time, but wet.

“I almost shot you,” she admitted quietly.

Paige blinked.

“I lined it up and everything,” Sillexa went on, forcing a crooked smile that didn’t quite land. “And then your head moved and I thought, ‘Cool. This is it. I’m going to survive the apocalypse and then accidentally murder my best friend in a Tube station.’”

Paige let out a breathy laugh before she could stop herself. It shook through her ribs, half-hysterical.

“Yeah,” she said hoarsely. “That would’ve been very on brand for us.”

Sminty snorted despite herself. “Honestly? I’d haunt you both out of pure spite.”

Sillexa reached out and bumped Paige’s knee gently with her own, grounding again. “You hesitated,” she said, not accusing, just stating it. “You froze.”

Paige looked down at her hands. They were still shaking.

“I keep thinking it’s going to stop,” she admitted. “That someone’s going to call it. Like—‘okay, everyone, joke’s over.’”

Sillexa exhaled slowly. “Yeah. Same.”

That surprised Paige enough that she looked up again.

Sillexa shrugged, a little helpless. “I just… panic faster, I think. Makes me look like I know what I’m doing.”

Paige reached out without thinking and squeezed her hand. Sillexa squeezed back immediately, too tight, like she’d been waiting for it.

“Okay,” Sminty said, peering down the corridor. “As heartwarming as this is, I am hearing noises I would prefer not to hear while we’re having a feelings circle.”

As if summoned, something groaned deep in the tunnels, low and searching.

Sillexa grimaced. “Right. Vulnerability later. We move now.”

She stood, offering Paige a hand. Paige took it, letting herself be pulled up, legs still a little unsteady but functional.

They moved together, closer now, Paige unconsciously keeping pace with Sillexa’s shoulder. The maintenance corridor felt narrower than before, the walls closing in with every step. The lights flickered overhead, buzzing faintly, like they were deciding whether or not to give up entirely.

Paige listened as they walked, to the scuff of boots, the soft jingle of gear, the way Sminty hummed under her breath when she was nervous. Her own breathing sounded too loud in her ears.

She thought of Bones again, uninvited and relentless.

Bones would have hated this place. Would have complained about the acoustics. Would have stood just a little too close, pretending it meant nothing.

Paige pressed her lips together hard.

Sillexa glanced sideways at her, reading the shift instantly. “We’ll find her,” she said, gentle but firm. “Or we’ll find out what happened. Either way.”

Paige nodded, even though hope felt like something thin and dangerous.

They reached the stairs leading back up toward the street. Sunlight filtered down weakly from above, dust motes drifting lazily in the air like everything wasn’t on fire.

For a second, just a second, it almost felt like the world was holding its breath with them.

Then something screamed again, closer this time.

Sillexa swore. Sminty tightened her grip on her knife.

Paige squared her shoulders, knife firm in her hand now. Her hands still trembled, but she lifted them anyway.

They broke into the daylight like a wound reopening.

The stairs spat them out onto the street in a rush of stale air and sudden, brutal brightness. Paige barely had time to register the sky, washed-out blue, wrong in its normalcy, before the noise hit her. Not one sound but dozens, layered and overlapping; shouts, screams, the wet-throated moans she was learning to recognize too quickly, the distant crack of something collapsing under its own weight.

The city was moving.

Not traffic. Not people. Bodies.

Hordes clogged the street from end to end, spilling out of side roads and alleyways like rot spreading through fruit. Some staggered. Some ran. Some moved with a horrifying, lurching urgency that made Paige’s stomach drop straight through the pavement.

“Oh, fuck,” Sminty breathed. “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck—”

“Don’t stop,” Sillexa said immediately, voice sharp with panic now, no room left for sarcasm. Her hand closed around Paige’s wrist, fingers iron-tight. “Run. Now.”

They ran.

Paige’s legs burned almost instantly, lungs seizing as she forced air into them. Her dancer’s body knew how to move, how to push, how to endure, but this was wrong, all wrong. This wasn’t choreography or rehearsal or adrenaline dressed up as art. This was terror, pure and unfiltered, pounding through her veins.

The sound followed them.

Footsteps, too many to count. Screams that cut off abruptly. The snarling chorus of the dead swelling as they noticed movement, sound, life.

Paige risked a glance over her shoulder and immediately regretted it.

They were coming.

A mass of bodies surged toward them, drawn by noise and motion, faces twisted into expressions that might once have been hunger or anger or fear. Some still wore office clothes. High-vis vests. A woman in heels stumbled and went down, and the crowd swallowed her whole.

Paige stumbled too, catching on uneven pavement, a sob tearing out of her before she could stop it.

Sillexa yanked her upright with a grunt. “Eyes forward,” she snapped, voice breaking on the last word. “Please, Paige—eyes forward.”

A shopfront loomed ahead, glass already shattered, metal shutter half-cranked open.

“There!” Sminty yelled. “There, there—”

They barreled toward it, heartbeats roaring louder than the world. Paige vaulted over debris without remembering how her body knew to do that, skidding through broken glass and into shadow.

Sillexa slammed into her from behind, sending them both sprawling across the shop floor. Sminty tumbled in allowing momentum, shrieking as the shutter screamed downward behind them.

Sillexa threw her weight into it, hands braced as the metal screeched closed, fingers slipping on grime and blood. A hand clawed under the gap just before it slammed shut.

Sillexa didn’t hesitate.

Her knife came down once. Twice.

The hand went still.

The shutter hit concrete with a final, echoing bang that reverberated through the empty space.

Silence crashed down in its wake, thick, suffocating, punctured only by their own gasping breaths and the distant, furious noise of the horde outside.

Paige collapsed against a shelf and slid to the floor, lungs burning, vision tunneling. Her whole body shook violently now, adrenaline tearing through her with nowhere to go.

Sminty wasn’t doing much better.

She staggered a few steps before folding over completely, retching violently onto the tile. The sound was awful, wet, desperate, each heave wringing something raw and animal out of her chest. She sobbed between breaths, one hand braced against the floor like it was the only thing keeping her upright.

Sillexa leaned back against the shutter, chest heaving, forehead pressed to the cold metal. Her hands were shaking badly now, fingers smeared red and black.

“Okay,” she whispered, more to herself than anyone else. “Okay. Okay.”

Paige stared at her.

She had never seen Sillexa like this, not like this. Not stripped bare by fear, sarcasm burned clean away. Her jaw trembled as she dragged in air, eyes squeezed shut like if she opened them she might break apart entirely.

Paige pushed herself up unsteadily and crossed the floor, wrapping her arms around Sillexa’s middle without thinking.

Sillexa made a strangled sound and immediately folded into her, gripping Paige’s jacket like it was a lifeline. Her breath stuttered violently against Paige’s shoulder.

“I thought—” she choked. “I thought I lost you. I thought—”

“I’m here,” Paige murmured, over and over. “I’m here. I’m here.”

Sminty slid down the wall nearby, wiping her mouth with a shaking hand. “I’m gonna be real,” she said weakly. “I don’t think I can do that again. Like. Ever.”

Paige managed a breathless laugh that dissolved into something too close to a sob.

They didn’t stay long.

They couldn’t.

The noise outside hadn’t faded, if anything, it was getting worse, the horde pressing and shifting, attracted by the shutter, by the sounds they couldn’t fully silence.

Sillexa pulled back first, wiping at her face hard. The softness retreated, not gone, but tucked away, rationed carefully.

“We can’t wait it out,” she said. “They’ll figure this place out.”

Paige nodded, throat tight. “The van—”

“Is three blocks east,” Sillexa finished. “If it’s still there.”

Sminty laughed once, sharp and hysterical. “Love that for us.”

They moved through the shop toward the back exit, weapons raised, bodies tense and exhausted already. Paige’s legs still trembled with every step. Her lungs burned. Her head rang.

She thought of the van, the builders’ logo still half-visible, the mattress they’d shoved in the back, the stolen fairy lights they rationed like hope. The only place that felt even vaguely safe anymore.

She didn’t know if they’d make it.

The door at the back creaked open onto another street choked with bodies.

Sillexa swore under her breath.

Paige tightened her grip on her knife and stepped forward anyway.

They didn’t make it half a block before everything went wrong again.

The street beyond the shop was narrower, boxed in by brick buildings that funneled sound and movement into a single, lethal channel. Paige’s boots slipped on something slick, blood, rainwater, she didn’t know, and the horde reacted instantly. Heads snapped toward them. Bodies surged. The air filled with noise, a rising, hungry roar that made her skin prickle.

“Move, move, move,” Sillexa gasped, dragging Paige along by the sleeve now, no finesse left, just desperation.

Paige ran blind, lungs on fire, the sound of her own heartbeat drowning out everything else. Every step felt too loud. Every breath felt like an invitation. The city felt awake in a way it never had before, like it was actively trying to kill them.

Something grabbed at Paige’s backpack.

She screamed, the sound tearing out of her throat, and slashed backward without looking. Her blade met resistance, meat, bone, and she yanked it free with a sob, nearly losing her balance as the walker collapsed behind her.

Sminty was crying outright now, a thin, panicked sound threaded through her panting. “I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—”

“You can,” Sillexa snapped, voice cracking. “You are literally doing it right now.”

A doorway loomed ahead, office building, glass already shattered, heavy door hanging half-open.

“There,” Paige rasped. “Please—there—”

They veered sharply, barely making it through before Sillexa slammed the door behind them with her shoulder. She threw the deadbolt, then another, hands slipping, breath coming in harsh, broken pulls.

The door shuddered almost immediately.

A body hit it from the outside. Then another.

Paige staggered back, chest heaving, vision swimming. The space smelled like dust and old carpet and something faintly chemical. Fluorescent lights flickered weakly overhead, casting everything in a sick, stuttering glow.

For one fragile, stupid second, Paige thought. Safe.

Then something groaned behind them. Slow. Close.

Paige turned. Six walkers stood scattered through the open-plan office.

Six.

They were dressed in business casual, wrinkled slacks, blouses torn and stained, lanyards still hanging around necrotic necks. One sat slumped in a chair, head lolled to the side like it had fallen asleep at work and never woken up.

Another lifted its head. And screamed.

“Oh no,” Sminty whimpered. “No, no, no—this is bad, this is really bad—”

“Quiet,” Sillexa hissed, already moving, eyes darting, calculating. “Okay. Okay. We can do this. One at a time. Don’t fire unless you have to.”

They spread instinctively, backs almost touching, a rough, shaking circle of steel and terror.

The first walker lunged faster than Paige expected.

It slammed into her, knocking her into a desk. Pain exploded up her spine as she went down hard, the breath ripped from her lungs yet again like the universe was mocking her. Its hands clawed at her shoulders, nails digging in, mouth snapping inches from her face.

“No—no—get off—”

She shoved desperately, blade wedged uselessly between them. Panic overtook technique. She screamed Sillexa’s name like a prayer.

Sillexa was there instantly.

Her knife plunged down into the walker’s skull with a wet crack. Once. Twice. She dragged it off Paige with a guttural sound that might have been a sob.

“Get up,” she said, voice wrecked. “Please, Paige, get up.”

Paige scrambled back, shaking so badly she could barely stand.

Sminty wasn’t faring better.

Two walkers had converged on her, pinning her against a filing cabinet. She swung wildly, shrieking, knife skidding off bone. One of them snapped at her arm, teeth grazing fabric.

Sillexa turned just in time to see it.

“Oh my God—Sminty!”

She fired.

The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed space. The walker’s head exploded backward, spraying the wall. The second reeled, disoriented, and Sminty took the chance, stabbing down with a scream that sounded torn straight out of her chest.

Paige barely registered the last two until one grabbed her hair from behind.

White-hot pain seared her scalp as her head was yanked back. The walker’s mouth descended, breath foul and hot against her cheek.

“No—no—no—”

She slammed her heel down hard, stomping blindly, felt something give. The grip loosened enough for her to twist free, and she drove her knife up under its jaw with everything she had.

It went down, twitching.

The final walker came at Sillexa.

They collided hard, crashing into a desk that splintered under their combined weight. Sillexa grunted, struggling, the walker’s hands locked around her throat.

Paige moved without thinking.

She tackled it from the side, both of them going down in a mess of limbs and snarling mouths. Her knife plunged down again and again until the resistance stopped, until the body went slack and heavy and dead.

Silence fell like a dropped curtain.

Paige lay there, chest heaving, ears ringing, staring at the ceiling tiles. Her hands were slick. Her arms trembled so violently she couldn’t push herself up at first.

Sminty slid down the wall, sobbing openly now, face buried in her knees. “I don’t—I don’t want to do this anymore,” she choked. “I can’t—this isn’t—”

Sillexa crawled over to Paige and collapsed beside her, pressing her forehead to Paige’s shoulder, breath shuddering.

“I thought you were gone,” she whispered, barely audible. “Again. I keep thinking that’s it. That that’s the moment.”

Paige wrapped an arm around her weakly, holding on like if she let go the floor might swallow them whole.

Outside, the door rattled.

The horde had heard everything.

Sillexa lifted her head, eyes red, jaw setting even as her hands still shook. “We can’t stay,” she said hoarsely. “We have to move. Now. Or they’ll tear this place apart.”

Paige nodded, swallowing hard, forcing herself upright despite how her body screamed in protest. Every muscle ached. Her scalp throbbed. Her lungs felt raw.

The building didn’t let them forget the dead.

It groaned and rattled around them like it was breathing, like it was alive and angry about it. Each impact from below sent a tremor through the stairwell, dust drifting down in pale sheets. The smell lingered too; blood, rot, something sharp and chemical that burned the back of Paige’s throat.

Sminty had gone very still.

She sat on the step with her back to the wall, knees drawn up, eyes fixed on nothing. Her hands were shaking so badly they rattled faintly against her knife.

“I don’t feel good,” she said again, quieter this time, like she was confessing something shameful. “I really don’t.”

Paige crouched in front of her, heart thudding. Sminty’s skin was clammy under her fingers, too warm, pulse skittering like a trapped bird.

“You’re okay,” Paige said, though it felt like a lie she was mouthing out of habit. “You’re just—your body’s catching up. We’re getting out of here.”

Sminty nodded automatically. Then her face crumpled.

“I keep seeing it,” she whispered. “I keep seeing Elle.”

Sillexa’s head snapped around.

Paige felt something cold settle in her gut. Elle wasn’t just a name, they’d all known her. Laughed with her. Danced beside her. She had been alive in a way that still felt recent enough to hurt.

“What happened?” Paige asked gently.

Sminty’s mouth opened.

Closed.

Her breathing sped up, shallow and panicked, like she was trying not to drown.

“We were together,” she said finally, words tumbling out unevenly. “Me and Bones and Krystal and Chai and Elle and Dede. First day. We were all together. We thought—” A broken laugh escaped her. “We thought if we stayed in a group, we’d be fine.”

Sillexa sank slowly onto the step beside Paige, eyes never leaving Sminty’s face.

Sminty swallowed hard. Her eyes shone, unfocused.

“We were crossing the road,” she said. “Traffic everywhere. Cars smashed into each other. People screaming. And then—then they started coming out of the buildings. Like ants. Just… pouring.”

Her hands clenched in her sleeves.

“Elle tripped,” Sminty continued. “She fell right in the middle of the road. And it was like—like the world decided that was enough for her.”

Paige’s stomach twisted.

“A bus,” Sminty whispered. “It didn’t even stop. It just—hit her. I don’t think she felt it. I don’t think she even knew.”

Her voice shook violently now.

“She—she was just gone. Not dead like people are dead. Just—” Sminty gestured helplessly. “Smeared. Across the road. I saw her jacket stuck to the tire when it drove off.”

Paige pressed a hand to her mouth.

Sillexa swore softly, eyes squeezed shut.

“And Dede,” Sminty went on, tears spilling freely now. “Dede got grabbed. I was right there. I was holding her hand.”

Her breath hitched hard.

“They took her face,” Sminty said, voice cracking completely. “Not all of it. Just—chunks. Her cheek. Her throat. I could see her teeth through the side of her mouth.”

Paige felt dizzy.

“She was still trying to talk,” Sminty sobbed. “She kept saying my name. But it didn’t sound right anymore. It was all wet. She was choking on it. On her own blood.”

Sminty wrapped her arms around herself like she was freezing.

“She fell, and they kept biting her, and I watched her change,” she whispered. “Like right in front of me. Her eyes went wrong. And she stood up. And she looked at me. And she tried to say something again but it was just—gargling. Like she was drowning.”

Silence swallowed the stairwell.

Paige felt something tear open in her chest, horror layered over grief layered over a sick, nauseating understanding. She’d killed walkers already. But hearing it like this, hearing Dede in it, made it different. Worse.

“She came for us,” Sminty said quietly. “And Bones pulled me away. And I didn’t look back again.”

Paige reached out without thinking and pulled Sminty into her chest. Sminty collapsed into her instantly, sobbing so hard her whole body shook.

“I never told you,” Sminty gasped. “I couldn’t—I thought if I said it out loud it would make it real.”

Sillexa rubbed a hand over her face, eyes wet, voice low and rough. “Fuck. Sminty.”

The building shuddered again, harder this time. Something downstairs gave way with a splintering crack.

Sillexa straightened immediately, fear snapping her back into motion. “We need to move,” she said hoarsely. “Now. Before they come up here.”

Sminty nodded weakly, wiping her face with the sleeve of her jacket like it didn’t matter anymore.

They started up the stairs again, slow, careful, every step echoing too loudly. Paige supported Sminty’s weight, heart pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat.

They were halfway up when the crash came from above.

A door burst open.

Footsteps thundered downward.

Sillexa spun, gun already up, breath sharp. “Stop—don’t—”

“Don’t shoot!” someone shouted. “Fuck—don’t shoot!”

Three figures barreled into view from the landing, wild-eyed and blood-smeared and alive in a way that felt impossible.

Paige barely registered anything but the blood at first, streaked across sleeves, hands shaking, clothes torn.

Then.

“Paige?”

Her name, fractured by disbelief. The world tilted sideways.

Bones stood there, chest heaving, hair pulled back messily, blood dried along her temple. Her eyes locked onto Paige’s like she was staring at a ghost.

For one suspended, unreal moment, no one moved.

Then Paige made a sound that wasn’t a word and lurched forward, crashing into Bones with bruising force. Bones caught her automatically, arms locking tight, both of them shaking like they might fall apart if they let go.

“You’re alive,” Paige sobbed. “You’re alive.”

Bones pressed her face into Paige’s shoulder, voice breaking completely. “I thought you were dead. I thought—”

Behind them, Krystal leaned against the wall, laughing weakly through bloodied teeth. “This is so fucked,” she muttered. “I hate it here.”

Chai hovered just behind, eyes soft and devastated and steady all at once. “We don’t have long,” she said gently, firmly. “They’re coming up.”

Bones pulled back just enough to look at Paige again, eyes frantic. “Elle and Dede—” She swallowed hard. “They didn’t make it.”

Paige nodded, fingers still fisted in Bones’ jacket, Sminty shaking silently beside her.

They didn’t get long to exist in the miracle of it.

The stairwell felt suddenly too small for the number of living people crammed into it, the air thick with breath and sweat and the metallic tang of blood. Bones was still there, there, her hands warm and real on Paige’s arms, her eyes flicking over Paige’s face like she was memorising it again from scratch.

Paige wanted, desperately, to collapse back into her. To press her forehead to Bones’ and feel the grounding weight of her presence. To let herself shake now that the thing she’d been grieving had stepped out of the dead.

“Paige.”

Sillexa’s voice cut through the moment, low and tight.

Paige looked over. Sillexa was already moving, already doing that thing she did when fear sharpened her instincts into something ruthless. She jerked her head toward the narrow stretch of landing just out of earshot, fingers catching Paige’s sleeve.

“Two seconds,” Sillexa said. Not a request.

Paige hesitated, eyes flicking back to Bones, Bones, who watched her go with a faint crease between her brows, like she could already sense distance forming.

“I’ll be right back,” Paige murmured, hating how it sounded like a lie.

Sillexa pulled her aside, pressing them into the shadowed corner of the landing. The sounds of the others blurred into background noise, the dead below, the quiet murmurs above.

Sillexa didn’t waste time.

“You are not telling them about the van,” she said immediately.

Paige stared at her. “What?”

“Not yet,” Sillexa clarified, jaw tight. “Not until we’re sure.”

Paige’s chest flared hot. “Lex, are you serious right now? That’s Bones. You know her. You know all of them.”

“I know,” Sillexa shot back. “Which is exactly why I’m saying this.”

Paige scoffed, incredulous. “We’ve been sleeping in that van for weeks. It’s not just a vehicle—it’s our food, our meds, our weapons. You want me to lie to her face?”

“I want you to keep us alive,” Sillexa said, voice sharp but shaking underneath. “Which means not advertising the one thing keeping us from dying on the street.”

Paige ran a hand through her hair, pacing the tiny space like a caged animal. “You don’t get it. I thought she was dead. I thought I’d never see her again. And now she’s here and you want me to—what—play politics?”

“I get it,” Sillexa snapped, then stopped herself, breath hitching. Her voice dropped. “I get it too well. That’s why I’m being the bad guy.”

Paige looked at her then—really looked.

Sillexa’s hands were still shaking. There was blood under her nails she hadn’t noticed yet. Her eyes were rimmed red, exhaustion and terror barely contained behind sarcasm and control.

“You think I don’t want to trust them?” Sillexa went on quietly. “You think I don’t want to believe this is a miracle and everything’s fine now? Because I do. I want that more than anything. But people get desperate. And desperation makes monsters out of good people.”

Paige swallowed hard.

Sillexa stepped closer, voice dropping to a near-whisper. “If we tell them about the van and this goes sideways, we lose everything. No fallback. No safety. No way out.”

Paige’s jaw clenched. “Bones wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know that anymore,” Sillexa said gently. “None of us are who we were a month ago.”

That landed. Hard.

Paige looked away, chest tight, anger and grief twisting together until she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. She hated that Sillexa was right. Hated that survival had turned everything into a negotiation.

Sillexa softened then, just a fraction. “I’m not saying never. I’m saying not yet. Let me ask questions. Let me feel them out. If it’s safe, I’ll say so. I promise.”

Paige let out a shaky breath through her nose. “You’re unbelievable.”

“I know,” Sillexa said. “You love me anyway.”

Paige huffed, defeated. “Barely.”

But she nodded.

Sillexa squeezed her arm once, firm and grounding, before turning back toward the others, mask sliding back into place.

Bones was watching them when they returned, eyes sharp and searching. Paige felt the pull toward her immediately, instinctive and painful, but she forced herself to stay half a step back, shoulder brushing Sillexa’s instead.

Sillexa took point.

“So,” she said, casual on the surface, voice steady. “Let’s do a quick headcount slash trauma debrief before the dead get upstairs.”

Krystal snorted. “Love a meeting.”

“How many of you?” Sillexa asked.

“Three,” Bones said. “Us.” She gestured briefly to Krystal and Chai. “It was five this morning.”

Paige flinched.

“And you’re holed up where?” Sillexa continued.

Bones hesitated. Just a beat too long. “Nowhere permanent. We had a flat, but it got overrun. We’ve been moving since.”

“What are you armed with?”

“Two knives. One gun,” Krystal said, patting her waistband. “Six bullets. So. Living the dream.”

Sillexa nodded slowly, filing it away. “Transport?”

Bones exhaled. “A small car. If it’s still where we left it.”

Paige felt Sillexa’s attention flick briefly to her, checking, confirming. and then away again.

“Okay,” Sillexa said. “We’ve got a car too.”

Paige bit down hard on her tongue at the word car, anger flaring even as she understood the choice. Bones didn’t comment, but her eyes flicked to Paige again, something unreadable passing across her face.

Below them, the stairwell door banged open.

Chai straightened instantly, soft voice firm. “They’re coming. We need to move. Now.”

Sillexa nodded. “Agreed.”

Paige finally let herself step closer to Bones as they started moving, fingers brushing Bones’ sleeve, just enough to say I’m here. Bones leaned into it subtly, like she’d been holding herself apart on purpose.

The plan came together the way most plans did now, quick, jagged, born out of fear rather than confidence.

“We can’t go back down,” Sillexa said, already scanning the stairwell above them like it might sprout teeth. “Street level’s suicide.”

Krystal leaned over the railing, peering down through a grimy window at the chaos below. Her mouth twisted. “Yeah. No. Absolutely not. That’s a meat grinder.”

The city outside looked feral. The street writhed with movement, too many bodies packed too tightly, drawn toward sound and shadow and the promise of something alive. Walkers slammed into abandoned cars, crawled over one another, tripped and got trampled only to claw their way back up again. Smoke drifted somewhere in the distance, turning the sunlight a sickly yellow.

Paige’s stomach churned.

Bones stood close enough now that Paige could feel the heat of her through their sleeves. Every instinct screamed to grab her, to anchor herself in the familiar solidity of her body, but Paige stayed still, jaw tight, hands clenched uselessly at her sides.

Chai spoke softly, cutting through the noise without raising her voice. “There’s roof access,” she said, pointing. “Fire stairs. We can go up.”

Sillexa followed her gaze, nodding slowly. “Okay. Roofs it is.”

Sminty let out a weak laugh that dissolved into a hiccup. “Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be roofs.”

They moved again, climbing the final flight of stairs as the sounds below grew louder, wood splintering, glass breaking, something heavy being dragged across tile. Paige’s legs burned with every step, muscles screaming, lungs raw like she’d swallowed fire.

The door to the roof was rusted but intact. Sillexa shoved it open with her shoulder, wind immediately whipping through the stairwell, carrying the stink of smoke and rot and the city’s slow collapse.

The roof stretched out before them, flat, uneven, cluttered with vents and satellite dishes and debris blown in by weeks of neglect. From up here, London looked wrong. Too open. Too exposed. Too alive in all the worst ways.

Paige’s breath caught.

Across the narrow alleyway, barely six feet away, was another building, same height, same ugly concrete lip, its own roof cluttered with junk. A fragile bridge of possibility.

Sillexa stepped forward, peering over the edge. “Okay,” she said carefully. “We can cross.”

Sminty made a strangled noise. “You mean jump.”

“Step,” Sillexa corrected, though her voice wasn’t convincing even to herself. “It’s a step. A long step.”

Krystal snorted. “That’s a jump, babe.”

Paige edged closer to the ledge despite herself, heart slamming violently into her ribs as she looked down. The alley below was a vertical throat of shadow and movement, hands reaching, bodies pressing, mouths open in soundless hunger. If you fell, you wouldn’t hit the ground.

You’d be caught.

Paige’s vision tunneled.

Bones noticed immediately.

“Hey,” she said quietly, just for Paige. “Don’t look down.”

Paige swallowed hard and looked at her instead. Bones’ face was pale beneath the grime, eyes steady but dark with fear she wasn’t bothering to hide. There was blood dried at her hairline. A bruise blooming along her jaw.

“You okay?” Bones asked, softer still.

Paige nodded, even though it was a lie. “Yeah.”

Sillexa was already testing options, tugging at a length of loose cable and a battered wooden plank someone had abandoned up here ages ago. She dragged them toward the gap, movements precise despite the tremor in her hands.

“We lay this across,” she said. “One at a time. Lightest first.”

Sminty barked a shaky laugh. “Oh, good. So I die last.”

“No,” Sillexa said flatly. “You go first.”

Sminty blinked. “I—what?”

“You’re already shaking,” Sillexa said, gentler now. “Get it over with.”

Sminty looked at Paige, eyes wide and terrified. Paige stepped forward and squeezed her hand.

“I’ve got you,” Paige said. “Just look at me. Don’t think.”

Sminty nodded frantically.

They laid the plank across the gap. It wobbled slightly, the sound of wood scraping concrete echoing far too loudly in the open air. Something below howled in response.

Sminty whimpered.

“Okay,” Sillexa said. “Now.”

Sminty went.

She moved like she was walking a tightrope over hell, which, to be fair, she was. Arms out, breath coming in sharp, panicked bursts, she edged across the plank inch by inch, eyes locked on Paige’s face.

Paige didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe.

Sminty stumbled near the middle, a scream ripping out of her throat as the plank dipped.

Paige lunged forward instinctively, heart stopping.

But Sminty caught herself, sobbing openly now, and scrambled the rest of the way across, collapsing onto the other roof in a heap.

Paige’s knees nearly gave out in relief.

“One down,” Krystal muttered. “Only the rest of us.”

Chai went next, moving with surprising steadiness, her calm radiating outward like something solid. Krystal followed, swearing the entire way but making it across without incident.

Sillexa gestured for Bones and Paige to go together.

Paige’s pulse spiked. She stepped onto the plank, the wood flexing ominously beneath her weight. The wind tugged at her jacket, cold fingers trying to unbalance her.

Halfway across, she froze.

The sounds below surged, walkers slamming into the building, drawn by the noise, by the silhouettes against the sky.

Paige’s breath hitched. Her foot slipped.

Bones grabbed her instantly, arm locking around her waist, pulling her close enough that Paige could feel her heart pounding too.

“I’ve got you,” Bones said firmly, voice low and unwavering. “I won’t let you fall.”

Paige clung to her, fingers digging into Bones’ jacket, terror cracking something open in her chest. She nodded, swallowing back a sob, and forced herself to move again.

They made it across together.

Sillexa crossed last, fast and efficient, kicking the plank away behind her the second her feet hit solid ground. It clattered down into the alley, disappearing into the mass below. A furious chorus rose in response.

They stood there for a moment on the second roof, panting, shaking, alive.

Paige bent over with her hands on her knees, chest heaving. The fear caught up with her all at once, nausea rolling violently through her stomach. She gagged, barely turning aside in time as bile burned up her throat.

Bones was there instantly again, one hand braced on Paige’s back, the other tangled in her hair, holding her steady while she retched.

“I know,” Bones murmured. “I know.”

Paige’s vision blurred, tears spilling freely now that she couldn’t stop them. “I thought you were dead,” she whispered, voice breaking completely. “I really did.”

Bones pressed her forehead against Paige’s temple, breathing just as hard. “I’m here,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Sillexa watched them from a few feet away, jaw tight, eyes scanning the edges of the roof even as she registered the moment. Below, the city screamed and thrashed, relentless.

She thought of the van.

Of how easily it could disappear if the wrong person decided they needed it more.

“Okay,” Sillexa said finally, voice steady despite everything. “Next step. Closest car first. Then we drive to the second.”

Paige nodded, wiping her face, forcing herself upright.

Sillexa added, quieter, almost to herself, “God help us if the first one’s ours.”

The roof didn’t give them mercy for long.

The stairwell door on the far side resisted at first, rusted hinge screaming in protest as Sillexa forced it open just enough to peer through. The smell hit them immediately. Old blood. Damp concrete. Something sweet and wrong underneath it all.

Sillexa swore under her breath. “We’re not alone.”

They descended anyway, because there was no other choice.

The first walker came at them three steps down.

It lurched out of the shadow like it had been waiting, jaw hanging loose, one arm dragging uselessly behind it. Paige barely had time to register its shape before Sillexa was already moving, knife flashing in the narrow space.

“Back—back—”

There was no room. The stairwell was a bottleneck of bodies and panic and sharp edges. Paige slammed herself against the wall as Bones drove her blade up under the walker’s chin, the impact vibrating through the metal railing. It collapsed forward, dead weight tumbling down the steps with a sound like sacks of meat being dropped.

Another followed it.

And another.

They fought shoulder to shoulder now, breaths ragged, knives slipping slick with blood. Paige’s arm screamed in protest as she shoved a body away, teeth snapping inches from her wrist. The sound, that sound, wet and tearing and intimate, clawed at her nerves.

Sminty screamed when one grabbed her ankle.

Paige reacted on instinct, lunging forward and hacking downward until the grip loosened and the walker fell back, skull cracked open against concrete. Sminty collapsed against the wall, sobbing, face pale and slick with sweat.

“I can’t—Paige, I can’t—”

“You are,” Paige snapped, grabbing her shoulders. “You are.”

Sillexa finished the last one with a brutal efficiency that left her shaking afterward, chest heaving, eyes glassy.

For a moment, just a moment, there was quiet.

They stood there panting, surrounded by bodies, the stairwell slick and reeking and undeniably cleared.

“No more,” Krystal muttered. “I am officially done with stairs.”

They reached the bottom floor carefully, weapons raised.

The street outside the glass frontage looked… wrong.

Empty, mostly. Abandoned cars skewed at odd angles, doors left open like mouths mid-scream. No horde. No immediate movement. Sunlight slanted in dusty and harmless-looking, like a trap.

Paige’s stomach dropped.

“That’s not good,” Bones murmured.

Sillexa scanned quickly, jaw tightening. “They’re inside.”

As if summoned, something slammed into the glass from the other side of the lobby.

Not outside.

Inside.

The ground floor was open-plan, wide, echoing, full of overturned furniture and shattered planters. And walkers. Not dozens. Not yet. But enough. Clustered near the street-facing windows, pacing, bumping into one another, drawn to light and sound like moths to a flame.

And between them and the street.

The revolving door.

“Oh no,” Sminty whispered. “No, no, no, absolutely not.”

The door stood pristine and stupid and intact, four glass panels slowly turning as something nudged it from the other side. A design meant to control flow. To trap air.

To trap people.

Sillexa’s face went tight. “That’s our exit.”

Krystal barked a humorless laugh. “Of course it is.”

Paige’s eyes flicked to the street, and her heart sank further.

Parked half a block down, angled badly against the curb, unmistakable even at a distance.

The van. Their van.

The builders’ logo still ghosted along the side. One back door dented from when Paige had misjudged a turn weeks ago. Fairy lights faintly visible through the rear window if you knew where to look.

Sillexa noticed too. Her jaw clenched hard enough it looked like it might crack.

“Fuck,” she breathed.

Bones followed her gaze. “That yours?”

Sillexa didn’t answer immediately. Paige felt the tension spike beside her, sharp and ugly and private.

“Yes,” Sillexa said finally. “And it’s too close.”

The walkers in the lobby shifted as a group, heads snapping toward them now that they were fully visible. One shrieked. Another stumbled forward, hands slapping uselessly against glass.

The revolving door creaked as something pushed into it from the far side.

Chai spoke softly, cutting through the rising panic. “We can’t fight them all. We have to move through.”

Paige stared at the door, dread pooling low and heavy in her gut. The mechanics of it ran through her head unbidden, how it forced you to slow, to commit, to be vulnerable in increments. How it only let one person pass safely at a time.

“How fast does it turn?” Krystal asked grimly.

“Too slow,” Sillexa said.

Sminty shook her head violently. “I don’t like that. I really don’t like that.”

Paige reached for her without thinking, fingers curling into Sminty’s sleeve. Sminty clutched back like she might fall otherwise.

Sillexa exhaled sharply, eyes flicking between the door, the walkers, the van. Calculating. Choosing who got to live with the consequences.

“Okay,” she said. “Listen to me. One at a time. No stopping. No freezing.”

Her eyes met Paige’s briefly—apologetic, resolute.

“We go fast,” Sillexa continued. “We do not turn around for anything.”

They didn’t have time to decide who went first.

They ran.

Paige barely remembered her feet hitting the floor, only the violent jolt as she slammed into the revolving door, shoulder first, glass rattling as Sillexa shoved in behind her and Bones barreled through on the other side. The door lurched, began to turn, slow and agonising, its panels catching the light like a cruel joke.

The lobby erupted.

Walkers poured in from the side corridors, too many, moving too fast, drawn by the sudden noise and the crush of living bodies. Krystal and Chai were still outside the door, knives flashing, trying desperately to thin the swarm enough to follow.

“GO—GO—GO!” Sillexa screamed, shoving the door harder, muscles burning as she forced it around.

Paige stumbled out onto the pavement, nearly falling flat on her face. Bones grabbed her arm, hauling her upright as Sillexa burst out behind them, already spinning back toward the door.

They turned together.

And saw immediately—

This wasn’t survivable.

The street might have been quiet, but the inside was a nightmare. Walkers slammed into the glass from every angle, hands smearing blood across it, mouths open in soundless screams. Krystal and Chai fought like hell, backs pressed together, blood splattering the pristine marble floor.

“WE CAN’T CLEAR THEM ALL,” Krystal yelled, voice raw. “IT’S TOO MANY!”

Sillexa’s face went white.

“Chai—NOW!” she shouted.

Chai ducked under a grasping arm and dove into the revolving door just as it came back around. Krystal followed, swearing viciously as she shoved her way in, slamming her shoulder into the glass to keep it moving.

And then.

Sminty screamed. Not a scream of fear. A scream of shock.

Paige saw it happen in fragments, her brain lagging behind the reality of it. A walker lunging from the side. Teeth sinking into Sminty’s collarbone and neck. Flesh tearing away in a wet, obscene sound that cut straight through the chaos.

Sminty staggered back, eyes wide, mouth opening and closing.

“Oh—oh—hey—hey,” she said, confused, like she’d tripped. “That—hey—that really hurt—”

Blood poured down her chest in sheets.

Half her collar was gone. Torn open, muscle and bone visible beneath shredded fabric, her skin hanging in ruined ribbons. One side of her neck sagged unnaturally, bite marks deep and catastrophic.

She didn’t seem to understand.

Adrenaline held her upright, frantic and blind.

“I’m fine,” Sminty insisted, voice wet and bubbling already. “I’m fine—I didn’t—I didn’t get bit—I’m okay—”

She lurched toward the revolving door just as Krystal and Chai spilled out onto the pavement.

Sminty slammed into the glass.

“LET ME IN,” she screamed, pounding weakly now, palms smearing red. “PLEASE—PLEASE LET ME IN—I’M NOT BIT—I’M NOT—I’M FINE—”

Krystal turned. Saw her. And froze.

For half a second, her face broke completely, horror, grief, disbelief tearing through the sarcasm like it had never existed.

Then she moved.

She planted herself in front of the door, arms out, body blocking it.

“No,” Krystal said hoarsely.

Sminty stared at her, betrayed and terrified. “What—what are you doing—Krystal, move—I’m bleeding—I need help—”

“You’re bitten,” Krystal said, voice cracking. “Sminty—you’re—fuck—you’re—”

“I’M NOT,” Sminty screamed, panic finally breaking through. “I’M NOT BIT—I’M NOT—I’M FINE—I’M FINE—”

She clawed at the glass harder now, nails scraping, leaving bloody crescents behind. Walkers surged behind her, pressing her flat against the door, their weight pinning her there.

Paige screamed her name.

Sillexa grabbed Paige around the waist from behind, holding her back as she thrashed. “Paige—no—don’t—”

Sminty’s voice went high and thin, breaking apart. “Mum,” she cried suddenly. “Mum—I need you—Mum—it hurts—”

The walkers descended.

Hands tore at her shoulders. Teeth sank into the open wound at her neck, ripping away what little was left. She screamed until the sound shredded itself raw, until it turned into choking, gargling sobs as blood flooded her throat.

She banged her head weakly against the glass once.

Twice.

“PLEASE,” she sobbed, mouth filling, red spilling down her chin. “I don’t—I don’t want—”

A walker latched onto her jaw and pulled.

The sound was unspeakable.

Paige sobbed violently, trying to break free as Bones wrapped her arms around her from the other side, holding her up as her knees gave out.

Sminty’s body went slack as they tore into her, screams dissolving into wet, broken noises until there were none left at all.

Her hand slid slowly down the glass, leaving a final red streak before disappearing beneath the mass of bodies.

Krystal slammed her fist into the door with a scream that ripped her voice raw.

Chai sank to her knees, hands over her mouth, silent tears streaming down her face.

Sillexa finally dragged Paige away as the walkers began battering the door from the inside, the glass spiderwebbing under the assault.

They ran like animals.

Not coordinated, not clean, just raw, panicked motion, lungs burning, feet slipping on blood-slick pavement as the doors behind them finally gave way with a sound like a breaking bone. The office vomited walkers into the street, bodies spilling out in a heaving, grasping mass, drawn by noise and scent and fresh death.

Sminty’s death followed them.

They couldn’t see her anymore, but they could see the proof.

One walker stumbled first out of the doorway, jaw working uselessly as it chewed nothing at all. A curtain of dark hair hung from its teeth, tangled and unmistakably hers. Another dragged itself forward on ruined knees, collarbone slick and red, fingers clutching a strip of fabric patterned with little stars, Sminty’s jacket, torn clean through. Blood shone wet on their mouths, their chins, their hands. Fresh. Still dripping.

Paige made a sound like she was being torn in half.

“DON’T LOOK,” Sillexa shouted, though she herself couldn’t stop seeing it, couldn’t stop the image from burning itself into her brain, Sminty’s hand sliding down the glass, the way her voice had broken when she screamed for her mum.

They bolted.

The van was there, too far, impossibly far, parked at the curb like a cruel miracle. Walkers poured from side streets now, drawn by the chaos, some sprinting, some staggering, all of them hungry.

Sillexa hit the van first.

She wrenched the driver’s door open and physically threw Paige inside, hands on her shoulders, shoving her across the seat hard enough that Paige cried out.

“GET IN—GET IN—”

Paige collapsed onto the passenger side, curling in on herself immediately, breath hitching violently.

Sillexa vaulted into the driver’s seat, slammed the door, locked it with shaking fingers. Bones appeared next, face white and feral, yanking the side door open as Krystal and Chai sprinted toward them.

For half a second, just one.

Sillexa’s hand hovered over the ignition.

She thought… I could go. I could save her. I could save Paige.

She thought of hands clawing at glass. Of bites. Of blood. Of trust that could kill you faster than any walker.

And then Krystal reached the door, eyes wild, screaming something Sillexa couldn’t hear over the roar in her own head.

Sillexa swore violently and stayed.

Bones dragged Chai inside. Krystal scrambled in last, slamming the side door shut as walkers collided with it seconds later, bodies thudding against metal, fingernails screeching as they tried to pry their way in.

“LOCK IT—LOCK THE FUCKING DOOR,” Krystal screamed, voice already breaking apart.

Bones lunged for the latch, hands slipping, blood smearing across the handle as she forced it down with a violent shove.

The van rocked as walkers slammed into it.

Faces pressed against the windows, flattened noses, wide eyes, mouths opening and closing, teeth clicking inches from living flesh. One dragged its tongue slowly across the glass, leaving a cloudy smear. Another beat its forehead against the window again and again, the dull thud echoing through the van like a heartbeat.

Paige was hyperventilating.

She was folded in on herself, knees to chest, hands clawing at her shirt like she couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. Her breaths came sharp and useless, little gasps that went nowhere.

“I—Lex—I—” she choked, eyes unfocused, tears streaming down her face. “I can’t—I can’t—I can’t—”

Sillexa reached across the console, grabbed Paige’s face with both hands, forced her to look at her.

“Paige,” she said, voice shaking but fierce. “Paige—look at me. Look at me.”

Paige’s eyes flickered, unfocused, then locked on.

“You’re here,” Sillexa said. “You’re alive. You’re in the van. You’re okay right now.”

The van lurched violently as a walker slammed into the hood.

“DRIVE,” Krystal screamed from the back. “DRIVE OR THEY’RE GETTING IN—”

Sillexa turned the key.

The engine roared to life like a prayer answered too late for someone else. She slammed her foot down, the van surging forward, bodies rolling off the hood, walkers stumbling and falling beneath the tires with sickening thumps.

They tore down the street, walkers scattering behind them, the office disappearing in the rearview mirror like a nightmare that refused to stay buried.

Bones didn’t hesitate.

There wasn’t space for it, no room in the van or in the moment for disbelief, for the weight of you’re real, you’re here, you didn’t die. Whatever part of her had learned to survive by locking everything down simply… stepped aside.

She moved like gravity.

Paige was shaking so badly it rattled the seat, breath still stuttering, eyes glassy and unfocused as if she were half a second away from vanishing entirely. Bones climbed over the console without thinking, knees knocking into metal, one hand braced against the dashboard as the van swerved.

“Hey,” Bones said, soft in a way she almost never allowed herself to be. The word cracked. “Hey, love. Look at me.”

Paige’s head jerked up at the sound of her voice.

For a split second, nothing registered, then her face collapsed. A broken, animal sob tore out of her as she lunged forward, hands clutching fistfuls of Bones’ jacket like she was afraid Bones might dissolve if she didn’t anchor her there.

Bones wrapped around her immediately.

She pulled Paige into her chest, one arm locked tight around her shoulders, the other cradling the back of her head, fingers threading through blonde hair that was sticky with sweat and blood that wasn’t hers. Paige buried her face into Bones’ neck and cried like something had finally given her permission to fall apart.

“I thought you were dead,” Paige gasped, words tumbling out between broken breaths. “I thought—I kept—I kept waiting—”

“I know,” Bones murmured, rocking her gently despite the van’s violent motion. “I know. I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re okay—just stay with me, yeah? Breathe with me.”

She pressed her lips to Paige’s temple, then her hair, grounding herself in the reality of it, the warmth, the weight, the fact that Paige was solid and alive and shaking in her arms.

Sillexa watched them for half a second too long.

Her chest tightened painfully, relief and terror tangling into something sharp and unmanageable. She forced her eyes back to the road, knuckles white on the steering wheel as the city blurred past, burning cars, abandoned buses, figures moving too fast between alleyways.

“Fuck the car,” Krystal said hoarsely from the back, voice rough with screaming and grief. “Just—Lex—just get us out. I don’t care where. Anywhere but here.”

Sillexa nodded once. “Yeah,” she said, swallowing. “Yeah. I’ve got it.”

She didn’t slow down.

The van hurtled through red lights, clipped curbs, bounced over potholes hard enough to make teeth clack. Walkers lurched into the road and scattered again, some going under the wheels, others slamming into the sides with hollow thuds.

In the back, Chai hadn’t said a word.

She sat hunched slightly forward, arms wrapped around her middle, face pale in a way that had nothing to do with fear. Her breathing was shallow, uneven, not panicked, just… wrong.

After a long stretch of silence, she cleared her throat.

“I feel a bit sick,” she said quietly. “Like—um. Nauseous. Might be nothing.”

Bones’ head snapped up instantly.

“You okay?” she asked, gentler than the question deserved to be. “You hit your head back there?”

Chai shook her head slowly, a small frown pulling at her mouth. “No. I don’t think so. Just—my stomach feels weird. And my chest’s tight.”

She coughed then, soft, wet, like she was trying not to draw attention to it.

Krystal turned, eyes narrowing. “Chai?”

“I’m fine,” Chai said automatically, too fast, offering a weak little smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Probably adrenaline. I just need water.”

Sillexa met Krystal’s gaze in the rearview mirror.

Something cold slid down her spine.

The van sped onward, out of the worst of the city, sirens wailing somewhere far behind them like ghosts that didn’t know they were already dead.

Bones held Paige tighter.

And in the back of the van, Chai coughed again, just once, into her sleeve, where a dark red spot bloomed and quickly disappeared as she pulled her arm back to her chest.

No one said the word.

It sat in the van with them anyway, heavy, unspoken, breathing down their necks.

Paige and Bones had migrated fully into the back without anyone consciously deciding it. Paige was folded into Bones’ side, legs tangled, forehead pressed into the hollow beneath Bones’ jaw like she had finally found the only place left in the world that made sense. Bones’ arms were locked around her, possessive and protective in a way that felt almost feral, thumb rubbing slow, grounding circles into Paige’s spine.

If Bones let go, she was convinced Paige would shatter.

Paige’s crying had softened into something quieter now, hiccupping breaths, tears soaking into Bones’ shirt, hands still clenched tight like she was afraid Bones might disappear if she loosened her grip even a little. Bones pressed her cheek into Paige’s hair, breathing her in, memorising the feel of her because Jesus Christ, she’d already mourned her once.

In the front, Krystal had climbed into the passenger seat.

Sillexa drove like she was holding the world together by force of will alone, jaw tight, eyes flicking constantly between the road and the mirrors. The city thinned behind them, fewer walkers now, more abandoned cars, the buildings stretching lower and wider as they pushed outward.

Krystal leaned in slightly, voice low.

“She’s been bit,” she said flatly.

Sillexa didn’t look at her. “You don’t know that.”

Krystal snorted quietly. “I do know that. I’ve seen that cough before. And the nausea. And the way she’s trying to act normal about it.”

Sillexa exhaled hard through her nose. “Or she inhaled a lungful of walker dust and adrenaline and panic and almost got eaten alive.”

Krystal glanced back at Chai.

Chai sat very still, head resting against the window, eyes closed. One hand was pressed lightly to her ribs like she was bracing against a wave that hadn’t quite crested yet. She looked… peaceful, almost. Too peaceful.

Krystal swallowed.

“Okay,” she murmured. “So what’s your plan, then?”

Sillexa’s grip tightened on the wheel. “Plan for what?”

“For when she turns.”

Sillexa let out a sharp, humourless laugh. “Jesus Christ, you’re dramatic.”

“Oh, I’m dramatic?” Krystal scoffed, leaning her head back. “You literally ran over three corpses back there without blinking.”

“Yeah, well,” Sillexa shot back, finally glancing at her. “They weren’t our friend.”

They sat with that for a second.

Then Krystal huffed another laugh, quieter this time. “Okay, okay. Hypothetically. Worst case scenario. We pull over, tie her up, wait it out.”

Sillexa grimaced. “Tie up Chai? She’d apologise to us while we’re doing it.”

“True,” Krystal admitted. “She’d be like, ‘Sorry for the inconvenience, guys.’”

Sillexa snorted despite herself.

Krystal continued, voice softening. “Or we don’t tell her. Just… keep moving. Hope we’re wrong.”

Sillexa shook her head slowly. “That’s fucked.”

Krystal smiled faintly. “Yeah. Welcome to the apocalypse.”

They fell into silence again, broken only by the hum of the engine and the occasional thump of something hitting the road beneath them.

Then Sillexa muttered, “We could stop at a Tesco. Get her Lucozade. That fixes everything.”

Krystal barked out a laugh. “Oh my god. You’re right. Zombies? Fine. Apocalypse? Sorted. Just get Chai a fucking meal deal.”

“Yeah okay.. that was stupid,” Sillexa said dryly.

Krystal laughed harder then, covering her mouth, shoulders shaking as the sound escaped her despite everything. It cracked something open in her chest, grief and terror leaking out sideways as ridiculous, hysterical humour.

They were quiet again after that.

Human again.

In the back, Paige shifted, lifting her head slightly. Her eyes were red and swollen, but calmer now, glassy in that exhausted way that came after the worst of the storm had passed.

“She okay?” Paige whispered, nodding faintly toward Chai.

Bones hesitated.

“She’s… tired,” she said carefully, voice low and soothing. “Just needs rest.”

Paige nodded, trusting her instantly, then burrowed back into Bones’ chest, fingers curling into the fabric of her shirt like it was a lifeline.

Bones closed her eyes for half a second.

She didn’t know if Chai had been bitten. She didn’t know how much longer any of them had. All she knew was that Paige was here, breathing against her skin, alive.

The road stretched out in front of them like a held breath.

London thinned reluctantly, spitting them out in ragged pieces, burnt-out cars abandoned at obscene angles, traffic lights blinking uselessly over empty junctions, shop fronts smashed open like mouths left mid-scream. The further they drove, the quieter it got, but the quiet didn’t feel like safety. It felt like the pause before something noticed you.

Sillexa kept the speed just high enough.

Too slow and the walkers would start to follow, not sprinting, not yet, but that awful, purposeful drifting that turned into a problem miles down the road when they suddenly had a moving wall of bodies behind them. Too fast and they’d burn fuel they didn’t have to spare.

The van’s fuel gauge sat just under half.

Sillexa clocked it again. And again.

“We’re going to need petrol soon,” she said, not loud, just factual, like she was naming the weather. “And not the fun kind where you pop into a station and grab a Coke.”

Krystal hummed. “We have… what. Two jerry cans left?”

“Two and a bit,” Sillexa said. “And we’re still carrying too much weight.”

Krystal glanced at the back, then at the blood smeared on her hands. “Yeah. No shit.”

Outside, a cluster of walkers drifted out from between parked cars as the van passed. They didn’t chase, not exactly, but their heads turned in eerie unison, bodies reorienting, feet adjusting their aim. One tripped and fell. The others stepped over it without slowing.

“See?” Sillexa muttered. “They hear us. We slow down, they stack.”

Krystal shuddered. “Like fucking ants.”

The van rumbled on.

In the back, Paige and Bones were their own small universe.

They were curled together on the narrow bench, knees tangled, Bones’ back against the cold metal wall while Paige fit herself into the space like it had been made for her. Paige’s head rested on Bones’ chest now, ear pressed right over her heart, listening like it was proof of life.

Bones traced lazy patterns along Paige’s arm, thumb brushing over goosebumped skin. Her touch was careful, reverent, like she was afraid to startle something fragile back into pieces.

Paige sniffed softly. “You’re warm,” she murmured.

Bones huffed a quiet laugh. “That’s because I’m alive. Shocking, I know.”

Paige tilted her head just enough to look up at her, eyes still red but brighter now. “Don’t joke like that.”

“I’m not joking,” Bones said, lips twitching. “I’m bragging.”

Paige pressed her face back into Bones’ chest with a breathy, almost hysterical laugh. “God. I really thought I was hallucinating you.”

“Rude,” Bones said gently. “I’d haunt you better than that.”

Paige smiled despite herself, fingers curling into Bones’ shirt. “You’d be a terrible ghost.”

“I’d knock things over constantly,” Bones agreed. “Just to be annoying.”

They fell quiet again, the van’s vibrations rocking them gently.

Outside, the road dipped into a long stretch of dual carriageway. A wrecked lorry lay jack-knifed across one lane, its cargo spilled open boxes of bottled water scattered like bones. Walkers wandered between them, some crouched, some gnawing on nothing, some just… standing, as if waiting.

Sillexa slowed just enough to edge around them.

“Fuel,” she muttered again, softer this time. “We’re going to have to risk it.”

Krystal nodded. “Yeah. And when we do, it’ll be loud. Smelly. Obvious.”

Sillexa’s jaw tightened. “Which means we can’t stay long.”

In the back, Paige shifted, frowning slightly. “You think they’ll follow us?”

Bones answered before anyone else could. “They always do. Just depends how many notice.”

Paige sighed. “Cool. Love that.”

Bones pressed a kiss into her hair. “We’ve survived worse.”

Paige snorted weakly. “Have we? Because I feel like that’s objectively untrue.”

Bones smiled against her hair anyway.

Outside, the sun dipped lower, casting everything in that horrible golden light that made blood shine and shadows stretch too far. The van cut through it, loud and vulnerable and very, very alive.

Chai didn’t collapse all at once.

That was the worst part of it.

She unraveled slowly, like a body that hadn’t yet received the message that it was already lost.

At first it was just the way she lagged half a step behind whenever they stopped. The way her feet dragged, scuffing the asphalt. The way she leaned heavier into anyone who tried to steady her, apologising breathlessly every time.

“I’m sorry,” she kept saying. “I’m just—give me a second. Sorry. I’m okay.”

She wasn’t.

Sillexa noticed the smell first.

Not rot, not yet, but blood, coppery and wrong, layered beneath sweat and fear. Chai’s breathing had turned wet, each inhale catching like something was bubbling where it shouldn’t be. Her skin had taken on a greyish cast, pallid under the grime, and her pupils were blown wide, unfocused.

Sillexa met Krystal’s eyes across the front seats.

Krystal didn’t need to say it.

They both knew.

They drove anyway.

The petrol station appeared like a mirage at the edge of the road, two pumps still standing, the forecourt littered with abandoned cars and bodies that had long since stopped pretending to be people. Walkers clustered there in numbers that made Sillexa’s stomach drop. Fifteen, maybe twenty. Some wandering. Some still. All of them close enough to hear the engine.

“We can’t clear that,” Krystal whispered.

“We don’t have a choice,” Sillexa replied, already slowing. “We’re running on fumes.”

Krystal swallowed, eyes flicking to Chai as she stumbled against the van’s side when they stopped.

A horrible, unthinkable thought slid into the space between them.

“What if—” Krystal started, then stopped, face twisting. “What if we… used her?”

Sillexa’s hands went numb on the wheel.

“I know,” Krystal rushed, voice shaking. “I know it’s fucked. I just—she’s already bit, Lex. She’s slowing us down. If we—if we let her draw them off—”

“No,” Sillexa said immediately. “No. We’re not doing that.”

Krystal nodded sharply, relief and guilt crashing together. “Yeah. Yeah. Okay.”

They got out anyway.

The fight was brutal and fast and loud, knives flashing, gunshots cracking the air like broken bones. Walkers fell hard, skulls splitting, bodies jerking in that horrible half-alive way. Paige stayed close to Bones, trembling but focused, stabbing when she had to, crying quietly every time something crunched under her blade.

They cleared enough.

Barely.

They grabbed fuel, water, anything they could carry, but the noise had already done its damage. Shapes began to appear at the edges of the forecourt, staggering toward them, drawn by the gunshots and the screaming metal of dying engines.

“Back to the van!” Sillexa yelled.

They ran.

Chai tried to keep up. She didn’t make it.

Her legs buckled halfway there, knees slamming into the concrete hard enough to crack teeth together. She cried out softly, more surprised than hurt, palms scraping red as she tried to push herself back up.

“I can—I can get up,” she said, voice slurred. “I just need—”

Krystal grabbed her under the arms, hauling her forward, but Chai’s weight sagged dead and heavy. She coughed again, deep this time, and blood spilled freely from her mouth, dark and thick.

Paige screamed her name.

Bones dragged Paige back as Sillexa slammed the side door open, shoving Krystal inside.

“GO,” Krystal yelled hoarsely. “JUST GO—”

Chai reached the van at last, fingers clawing at the doorframe.

“Please,” she sobbed, finally terrified now. “Please don’t—please, I don’t feel good—I think I’m sick—I just need help—”

Sillexa slammed the door shut.

The sound echoed like a gunshot.

Chai stared at the metal in disbelief, hands flattening against it.

“Lex?” she cried. “Krystal? Why—why did you close it?”

Krystal broke down sobbing inside the van, pounding the wall weakly with her fists.

“OPEN IT,” Paige screamed. “OPEN IT—SHE’S STILL ALIVE—”

Sillexa’s hands shook violently on the wheel.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

Chai began to scream.

High, desperate, tearing sounds that shredded the air as walkers closed in, drawn by her voice like a beacon. She beat on the van with both hands now, sobbing, begging, sliding down to her knees.

“I don’t want to die,” she cried. “Please—I don’t—I don’t understand—what did I do—”

Sillexa couldn’t drive.

She just sat there, frozen, as the first walker reached Chai.

Just one. It was slow. Almost gentle.

It grabbed a fistful of Chai’s hair and yanked her head back. Chai screamed, hands flying to its wrists, fingers scrabbling uselessly as its teeth sank into her jaw with a wet, cracking sound.

She didn’t die quickly.

The walker tore sideways, ripping her cheek open, skin peeling away like fabric. Chai gargled, blood pouring freely as she tried to scream again, the sound collapsing into choking, bubbling sobs.

She looked at the van.

At them.

Her eyes begged even as her mouth could no longer form words.

The walker bit again, into her throat this time, and Chai convulsed violently, body arching as it ripped out something vital. Blood sprayed across the concrete in bright, obscene arcs.

Sillexa finally slammed her foot down.

The van lurched forward as Chai was dragged out of view, her body collapsing bonelessly beneath the walker as others began to close in.

Paige sobbed hysterically, screaming into Bones’ chest as Bones held her so tightly it hurt.

Krystal slid down her seat, hands over her mouth, making broken, animal sounds.

Sillexa drove.

She didn’t look back.

And somewhere behind them, Chai died alone, soft and kind to the very end, while the world kept moving forward without mercy

There was nothing left to do but drive.

No destination, no plan beyond the thin, desperate hope that somewhere ahead there might be quieter roads, fewer bodies, a place that hadn’t yet been swallowed whole. Sillexa kept the van moving like stopping might let the grief catch up, like if the wheels slowed, Chai’s screams would finally reach them.

The roads betrayed them again and again.

One turn opened onto a high street clogged wall-to-wall with walkers, bodies pressed so tightly together they swayed as one mass, a living, no, unliving thing. Sillexa swore and wrenched the wheel, reversing hard, tyres screaming. Another road dipped into an underpass where walkers clustered thick beneath the echoing concrete, heads snapping up in eerie unison as the engine noise bounced off the walls.

“Nope. Nope, nope, nope,” Krystal muttered, rubbing her face hard. “Absolutely the fuck not.”

They rerouted. Again. And again.

Every detour burned fuel they didn’t have.

The van smelled like blood and fear and hot metal. No one spoke for a long time. The only sounds were the engine, the scrape of tyres on broken asphalt, and Paige’s quiet, exhausted breathing as she clung to Bones in the back like an anchor in open water.

Eventually, it was Krystal who broke the silence.

“Everyone check,” she said flatly. “Now.”

It was automatic. Muscle memory already.

Sleeves shoved up. Collars pulled down. Hands shaking as they checked arms, necks, ribs, anywhere teeth might have found flesh in the chaos. Sillexa twisted awkwardly in her seat so Krystal could check her shoulder. Krystal lifted her shirt without comment, exposing bruises blooming dark and ugly across her side.

“Nothing,” Krystal said after a moment. “You?”

Sillexa nodded. “Clear.”

In the back, Bones gently guided Paige’s hands away from her own chest and checked her instead, slow and careful, thumbs brushing over skin already marked with scrapes and fingerprints.

“You’re okay,” Bones murmured. “No bites.”

Paige nodded, eyes glassy. “I know. I just… needed to see.”

Bones checked herself last, quick, efficient, then sat back, exhaling shakily.

No one mentioned Chai. Not at first.

It crept in sideways, the way guilt always did.

Krystal scoffed suddenly, harsh and brittle. “She should’ve told us.”

Sillexa didn’t respond immediately, but when she did, her voice was tight. “Yeah. She should have.”

“She knew,” Krystal went on, words tumbling faster now, like if she didn’t keep talking she’d scream. “She fucking knew she was bit. That cough? The nausea? She lied.”

Paige flinched slightly at that, fingers tightening in Bones’ shirt.

Bones said nothing, jaw clenched.

Sillexa nodded, swallowing hard. “She put us all at risk.”

The words tasted wrong in her mouth, but she said them anyway. Said them because it was easier than saying we left her to die.

Krystal leaned her head back against the seat, staring at the ceiling. “We didn’t have a choice.”

“No,” Sillexa agreed quietly. “We didn’t.”

In the back, Paige pressed her face deeper into Bones’ chest, voice muffled. “She was scared.”

Bones closed her eyes.

“I know,” she said softly. “But that doesn’t mean she didn’t lie.”

They clung to that. The lie. The betrayal. Anything that made it feel less like murder by omission.

Outside, the world continued to rot.

They passed a school where walkers stood clustered at the gates, backpacks still hanging from skeletal shoulders. A petrol station burned in the distance, flames licking the sky, smoke curling thick and black. Somewhere far off, gunfire echoed, three sharp cracks, then silence.

Sillexa drove.

She didn’t know where they were going anymore. Only that stopping felt impossible. Only that if she slowed long enough to think, she might fall apart completely.

In the back, Bones pressed a kiss to Paige’s hair.

“We’ll find somewhere,” she murmured, more promise than certainty.

Paige nodded weakly, eyes staring past the metal wall of the van at nothing at all.

They kept driving.

Through blocked roads and empty stretches and the long, suffocating aftermath of survival, where the danger didn’t stop, it just changed shape.

And behind them, somewhere on the road they would never take again, Chai was gone.

And the silence she left behind was louder than any scream.

Time stopped behaving properly.

Days slid into one another without ceremony, measured less by sunrises than by fuel gauges, hunger, and the way exhaustion crept into their bones. The road became their whole world, miles of cracked tarmac, hedgerows gone feral, towns half-swallowed by silence. Sometimes they drove for hours without seeing a single walker. Other times they’d crest a hill and have to detour immediately, the road below clogged with bodies standing shoulder to shoulder like they were waiting for something to begin.

Those days were the worst.

But slowly, slowly, the noise thinned.

It was as if the world had exhaled and not bothered to breathe back in.

They slept in lay-bys and behind abandoned warehouses, rotating watches that grew lazier with each quiet night. The van became less of an escape pod and more of a home again, cluttered, smelling faintly of petrol and damp clothes and the comforting familiarity of them.

Grief didn’t leave. It just stopped screaming.

It sat with them instead, like an extra passenger no one acknowledged.

And then, one night, there was space for something else.

Bones was driving.

It was late, deep blue sky bruising into black, stars faint but visible once they were far enough from the city’s dead glow. The road was empty in that eerie, almost sacred way that made it feel like they were the only people left in the world.

Paige sat in the passenger seat, legs tucked up sideways, bare feet on the dash despite Bones’ earlier protests.

“You’re gonna get decapitated if we crash,” Bones muttered, eyes on the road.

Paige grinned lazily. “Bold of you to assume I wouldn’t look hot doing it.”

Bones snorted despite herself.

Paige leaned closer, chin propped on her hand, watching Bones’ profile like she was studying something precious. The tension had drained out of her face in the low light, no tight jaw, no thousand-yard stare. Just her. Soft. Real.

“You’re a really good driver,” Paige said, voice quiet.

Bones glanced at her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Paige smiled. “Very competent. Very hot.”

Bones rolled her eyes, ears going pink. “You’re insufferable.”

Paige hummed. “And yet.”

Bones reached over briefly, squeezing Paige’s knee. “I missed you.”

The words landed heavy and gentle all at once.

Paige didn’t joke that time. She just reached for Bones’ hand and held it, fingers lacing together like they were relearning how.

In the back, Sillexa watched them through the gap between the seats, a faint smile tugging at her mouth before she looked away and pretended very hard not to be emotional about it.

The days found a rhythm after that.

One afternoon, Sillexa and Bones stood at the open back of the van arguing over inventory like it was a sacred art.

“We have three tins of beans,” Sillexa said flatly. “We don’t need more beans.”

Bones crossed her arms. “Beans are protein.”

“So is literally everything else.”

Paige piped up from inside the van, holding a packet of biscuits. “I vote beans because they make Bones grumpy.”

Bones shot her a look. “You’re on thin ice.”

Krystal, crouched beside a crate of supplies, snorted. “You say that like she hasn’t been skating on it since day one.”

Sillexa smirked. “She’s right. You’re whipped.”

Bones scoffed. “Absolutely not.”

Paige leaned over and kissed her cheek. “She is.”

Bones sighed, but she didn’t move away.

Another day, quiet enough to feel suspicious, Sillexa and Krystal took the risk.

The town was small, almost pretty in its abandonment. No bodies in the street. No smashed windows. Just leaves skittering across the road and the distant creak of a sign swinging in the wind.

“We’ll be quick,” Sillexa said, already scanning rooftops.

Krystal nodded. “In and out. Ten minutes.”

Bones watched them go, jaw tight. Paige slipped her hand into Bones’ without comment.

“They’ll be fine,” Paige murmured.

Bones exhaled. “I know. I just hate waiting.”

They waited anyway.

They sat on the hood of the van, legs dangling, sharing the last of a chocolate bar like it was something sacred.

Paige leaned her head on Bones’ shoulder. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “this is probably the most domestic we’ve ever been.”

Bones laughed softly. “Zombie apocalypse really brings out the commitment.”

Paige smiled, eyes closing. “I like us like this.”

Bones looked down at her, at the curve of her mouth, the quiet trust in her posture, and felt something warm and terrifying bloom in her chest.

“Me too,” she said.

When Sillexa and Krystal returned, arms full, triumphant and bickering, the relief was immediate and loud.

For a little while, they were almost normal.

Not happy. Not safe.

But alive. Together. And still capable of laughter.

Which, in the end, felt like a kind of miracle.

They ended up on the roof because there was nowhere else to breathe.

The van sat tucked behind a line of trees just off the road, engine long cooled, the night spread wide and quiet around them. No walkers. No distant screams. Just crickets and wind and the soft tick of metal contracting as the day finally let go of its heat.

Paige climbed up first, easy and fluid as if the world hadn’t ended, then stretched out along the roof like she owned it. Bones followed more cautiously, grumbling under her breath as she hauled herself up and sat beside her, legs dangling over the edge.

For a moment, they just lay there. Stars overhead. Silence big enough to feel unreal.

Paige turned her head, smiling slowly. The kind of smile that meant trouble.

“You know,” she said lightly, “I’ve been very patient.”

Bones snorted. “Have you?”

“Painfully so,” Paige replied, dramatic, hand flopping over her chest. “Do you know how long it’s been since you so much as looked at me like you wanted to misbehave?”

Bones glanced at her sideways. “We’ve been sleeping in a van with two other people. During the apocalypse.”

Paige hummed. “Excuses.”

Bones laughed quietly, shaking her head. “You’re ridiculous.”

Paige rolled onto her side, propping herself up on one elbow, blonde hair spilling down her shoulder. “Am I? Or are you just avoiding the fact that you’ve been doing absolutely nothing about how hot I look lately?”

Bones’ eyes flicked over her before she could stop herself. Paige caught it instantly.

“Oh,” Paige purred. “There it is.”

Bones groaned. “You are insufferable.”

“Mmhm,” Paige teased, scooting closer, her knee brushing Bones’ thigh, “you haven’t moved away.”

Bones swallowed. “Paige.”

Paige leaned in just enough that their noses nearly touched. Close enough to feel Bones’ breath hitch.

“I miss you,” Paige said softly, teasing edge dulled just a little. “I miss us.”

Bones’ voice came out rougher than she meant it to. “I know. But now is not exactly—”

Paige kissed her.

Not hard. Not rushed.

Just a slow, deliberate press of lips that felt like a question more than anything else.

Bones froze for half a second, then melted.

Her hands came up automatically, settling at Paige’s waist like muscle memory, thumbs brushing against warm skin through fabric. Paige smiled against her mouth, pulling back just enough to nip gently at Bones’ bottom lip before kissing her again, slower this time.

“You’re very tense,” Paige murmured between kisses. “All that brooding. Very unattractive.”

Bones huffed a breathless laugh. “You’re trying to get murdered on the roof of a car.”

“Am I?” Paige said innocently, straddling Bones’ lap in one smooth movement. “Or am I just encouraging you to relax?”

Bones’ hands tightened at her hips. “Paige.”

Paige leaned down again, kissing along the corner of Bones’ mouth, her jaw, just close enough to drive her mad without quite giving her what she wanted. She pulled back, smiling sweetly.

“You could stop me,” she whispered.

Bones stared up at her, jaw clenched, eyes dark. “You’re doing this on purpose.”

“Obviously,” Paige said brightly. “I’m needy. And bored. And you haven’t so much as pinned me against a wall in weeks.”

Bones laughed under her breath, shaking her head. “We have no alone time.”

Paige kissed her again, slow, lingering, maddening. “We do right now.”

She pulled back just far enough to grin, thumb brushing Bones’ lip where she’d bitten it earlier.

“Unless,” Paige added softly, teasing, “you’re too distracted.”

Bones exhaled sharply, forehead dropping to Paige’s shoulder as she laughed. “You’re impossible.”

Paige wrapped her arms around her, smiling into her hair. “And you love me.”

Bones’ arms tightened around her in response. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “I really do.”

They stayed there like that for a while, kissing, laughing softly, pretending for just a moment that the world wasn’t broken beyond repair.

Just two people on the roof of a car.

Alive.

Together.

And desperately, beautifully human.

By the time two weeks blurred past, the truth settled in quietly and without mercy.

They weren’t out of supplies.

They were about to be.

It crept up on them in small ways, the way Sillexa lingered a second longer over the crates, mentally rearranging tins to make them last. The way Paige started breaking biscuits in half without comment. The way Bones stopped offering extra portions entirely. Fuel was worse. The gauge dipped faster than any of them liked to admit, each mile driven a small, invisible cost.

Eventually, Krystal said it out loud.

“We need a proper run,” she said one evening, voice steady but tired. “Not scraps. Not ‘grab what we can carry’. A real one.”

No one argued.

They drove until the towns grew smaller, until the buildings slouched instead of loomed, until the streets felt less watched. When they finally rolled into a place that looked quiet enough to gamble on, it was late afternoon, the sun already slanting low.

It wasn’t untouched. Nothing was. But it wasn’t teeming either.

Shops stood open-mouthed and empty. A newsagent with its windows intact. A chemist half-looted but not gutted. No movement in the street. No sound beyond wind and distant birds.

Sillexa cut the engine. The silence felt oddly loud.

“Okay,” she said, turning in her seat. “We do this clean.”

They stood by the van, doors open, laying everything out like ritual. Two guns. Four varying blades. Backpacks checked and rechecked. Radios, useless, but comforting to carry anyway.

“We split,” Sillexa continued. “Two and two.”

Bones glanced instinctively toward Paige, then stopped herself.

“Bones with Krystal,” Sillexa said. “Paige with me.”

Paige opened her mouth, then shut it again. She knew this logic. Bones and Krystal were efficient, blunt, good under pressure. Paige and Sillexa moved like extensions of each other, years of muscle memory and quiet communication built long before the world ended.

“Two halves of the town,” Sillexa went on. “We take opposite sides. No heroics. If it looks bad, you leave it.”

Krystal nodded. “We bolt back here if anything goes wrong.”

“If one team doesn’t make it back by sundown,” Bones added quietly, “the other waits. Engine off. Lights off.”

Paige swallowed. “And if neither of us—”

“We don’t do ‘if’,” Sillexa cut in gently. She squeezed Paige’s shoulder once, grounding. “We just do it.”

They armed up.

Bones checked her knife, slid it back into its sheath with practiced ease. Krystal adjusted the strap of her backpack, rolling her shoulders like she was gearing up for a workout instead of a potential death sentence.

Paige stepped close to Bones before they separated, fingers brushing her wrist.

“Be careful,” Paige murmured.

Bones smiled faintly. “Always am.”

“Liar,” Paige said, but she leaned in anyway, pressing a quick, fierce kiss to Bones’ mouth, too fast to linger, too desperate not to.

Bones watched her walk away with Sillexa, jaw tight, then turned sharply toward Krystal.

“Ready?” Krystal asked.

“No,” Bones said honestly.

They split.

Footsteps echoed too loud in the empty streets. Every doorway felt like a mouth waiting to speak. Paige and Sillexa moved fast and quiet, slipping into shops, grabbing what mattered, food, medicine, batteries, hands working in silence broken only by the soft clink of glass and metal.

Bones and Krystal cleared buildings methodically, backs to each other, checking corners, listening harder than felt reasonable. Every shadow twitched. Every sound threatened to become teeth.

Paige didn’t scream when it happened.

That was the first thing Sillexa noticed later, when she replayed it over and over in her head, how quiet it was. How ordinary.

They were moving fast through the back of a half-collapsed hardware shop, bags already heavy, the air thick with dust and rust. Shelves leaned at unsafe angles, tools scattered like dropped bones. Paige was behind Sillexa, humming under her breath, a sound so soft it barely existed.

“Grab the batteries and we’re out,” Sillexa whispered.

Paige nodded and stepped sideways.

And her foot went through the floor. Not all the way. Just enough.

Her ankle caught on something hidden beneath the rot, twisted nail, a bent metal bracket, Sillexa never figured out which. There was a sharp, ugly crack, more felt than heard, and Paige pitched forward with a startled gasp.

“Fuck—Lex—”

She hit the ground hard, palms scraping, breath knocked clean out of her lungs. Pain bloomed white-hot up her leg, immediate and total, the kind that didn’t ask permission.

Sillexa was at her side instantly. “Paige—Paige, don’t move.”

Paige tried anyway.

The second she put weight on it, her face drained of colour.

“Nope,” she said faintly, laugh breaking at the edges. “That’s… that’s bad.”

Sillexa crouched, hands already gentle but urgent, fingers brushing Paige’s ankle. It was swelling fast, skin tight and angry, the joint sitting at just the wrong angle to be reassuring.

“Can you walk?” Sillexa asked, though she already knew the answer.

Paige swallowed hard. “I can… move.”

They didn’t have time to debate.

A sound echoed from somewhere deeper in the building, a low, curious moan. Then another. Drawn by the noise, by the scent of living bodies.

Sillexa hauled Paige up, arm slung tight around her waist.

“We’re leaving,” she said. “Now.”

They moved.

Slowly.

Too slowly.

Paige’s injured leg dragged no matter how hard she tried to lift it, foot scuffing uselessly along the floor. Each step sent a jolt of pain through her body sharp enough to make her vision blur. Her gait went wrong almost immediately, uneven, jerky, one side lagging behind the other.

It was horrifyingly familiar.

“I know,” Paige whispered, voice thick with fear and something close to disbelief. “I know how I look. Don’t say it.”

Sillexa didn’t. She couldn’t.

They burst out into the street, sunlight blinding after the dark. The town was quieter than it had any right to be, but not empty.

A walker turned its head at the sound of them.

Then another. Paige tried to hurry. Her leg refused.

She stumbled, caught herself, dragged onward again, breathing harsh and panicked. From a distance, from the corner of the eye , she looked wrong. The stagger. The hitch. The way one foot scraped.

Sillexa felt sick.

“Eyes up,” Sillexa murmured fiercely, half to Paige, half to herself. “Just keep moving. I’ve got you.”

They crossed the road inch by inch, Paige’s weight heavy against Sillexa’s side, Sillexa’s heart hammering hard enough to bruise. Walkers began to notice, not rushing yet, but turning, orienting, drawn by movement that didn’t quite match the living.

Paige saw it happen.

“They’re faster than me—” Her voice broke. “Lex.”

“I know,” Sillexa said, throat tight. “I know.”

Paige’s breathing went shallow. “If Bones sees me like this—”

“Stop,” Sillexa snapped, sharper than she meant to. She softened immediately. “You’re not dying. Not like this.”

They rounded the corner toward where the van should be, Paige dragging herself along, pain and terror blurring together until she could barely tell them apart.

Behind them, the moans grew louder.

And Paige limped on, half-running, half-staggering, moving through the world in a way that was suddenly, terrifyingly indistinguishable from the dead.

The van door slammed shut hard enough to rattle the panels.

Sillexa locked it, slid the bolt home with shaking hands, then immediately turned back to Paige.

“Sit. Sit—don’t move, don’t put weight on it,” she said, already half-panicked, half-commanding.

Paige was slumped against the built-in bench in the back, face grey, sweat slicking her hair to her temples. Her leg was stretched out awkwardly in front of her, boot still on, laces half-undone from where she’d tried, and failed, to get it off on the way in.

Sillexa grabbed the crowbar by the door. “I’m going to clear them. Don’t.. don’t touch it yet.”

Paige nodded weakly. “Be quick.”

Sillexa didn’t trust herself to say anything else. She yanked the door open and was gone, the sounds outside turning ugly fast, wet impacts, sharp breaths, the dull crack of bone. Paige forced herself not to listen. She focused on her foot instead.

Her fingers trembled as she finished unlacing the boot.

The smell hit first.

Metallic. Rotting. Not quite blood, not quite rust, something sour and wrong.

“Oh god,” Paige whispered.

She peeled the boot off slowly, teeth clenched, every millimetre of movement sending fresh spikes of pain through her ankle. When the boot finally came free, it stuck for a second, tugging at her sock.

When the sock came with it, she gagged.

The fabric was darkened through, stiff in places. Blood, yes, but not just blood. There was something yellowed at the toe, something wet and stringy clinging to the fibres.

Paige swallowed hard and rolled the sock off.

Her foot was a mess.

The ankle was already badly swollen, skin stretched shiny and angry, bruising blooming deep purple and blue around the joint. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

The sole of her foot, just behind the ball, was punctured clean through.

The nail hadn’t just scraped her. It had gone in.

There was a ragged hole, the skin split unevenly, edges torn instead of clean, as if the flesh had resisted and lost. Blood oozed steadily, darker now, pooling beneath her heel. The wound gaped slightly when she moved her toes, revealing flashes of raw tissue beneath, pink, red, too exposed, too inside to be outside.

Paige felt dizzy.

“Oh my—Lex,” she called weakly.

Sillexa burst back in a moment later, breathless, crowbar slick. She slammed the door shut and locked it again before turning.

And froze.

“Fuck,” she breathed. “Paige. Paige, don’t look at it.”

Paige laughed hysterically, tears spilling over. “Bit late for that.”

Sillexa dropped to her knees in front of her, panic flickering across her face before she shoved it down hard. She grabbed the first aid kit, hands shaking as she tore it open.

“Okay. Okay. Nail puncture,” she muttered, more to herself than Paige. “Deep puncture. Risk of infection—fuck, Paige, this is bad timing.”

“No shit,” Paige whimpered.

Sillexa poured water from a bottle over the wound.

Paige screamed.

Her whole body arched violently, a sound ripping out of her that didn’t sound human at all. She clawed at the bench, nails scraping, heel jerking instinctively away.

“Paige! Paige, I need you still—”

“I can’t, I can’t, it burns, Lex, it burns—”

The water washed fresh blood free, revealing the depth of it. The puncture track was visible now, a narrow channel disappearing into the muscle, angry and inflamed already. Tiny flecks of dirt and rust clung stubbornly inside, ground deep by her weight when she’d stepped down.

Sillexa’s stomach rolled.

“Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry,” she said, voice breaking despite herself. She soaked gauze and pressed gently.

Paige sobbed, loud and raw, body twisting away. “Please—please stop—”

“If I don’t clean it, it’ll get infected,” Sillexa said desperately. “Paige, this kind of wound—tetanus, sepsis—people lose feet to this. I need to get it clean.”

She dabbed again, firmer this time, trying to flush debris out.

Paige screamed until her voice went hoarse, hands flying up to cover her mouth as she choked on the sound. Tears streamed down her face unchecked, her leg shaking uncontrollably.

“Oh god,” Paige gasped. “I can feel it inside me. I can feel it—”

Sillexa saw it too, the way the tissue around the wound was already swelling inward, the skin angry and hot. She wrapped the foot carefully once she was sure it was as clean as she could manage, layers of gauze and pressure bandage, hands gentle but urgent.

“Okay. Okay. That’s all I can do right now,” she whispered, tying it off. “You don’t put weight on this. At all. You hear me?”

Paige nodded weakly, shaking, tears soaking her shirt.

Sillexa leaned back on her heels, chest heaving, and finally let herself look at Paige properly, really look.

Pale. Sweaty. In pain. Bleeding.

And still breathing.

Sillexa reached out and rested her forehead against Paige’s knee, careful of the injury, eyes squeezing shut for just a second longer than she could afford.

“Bones needs to hurry,” she whispered. “Please fucking hurry.”

Bones almost tripped over a shopping basket and laughed so hard she had to grab the shelf to steady herself.

“Oh my god,” Krystal snorted, crouched in the next aisle over, “you are going to get us killed one day and it’s going to be the dumbest way possible.”

Bones grinned, absolutely unbothered. “You love me.”

“I tolerate you,” Krystal said sweetly, shoving canned soup into her bag until it bulged. “Big difference.”

The little corner shop they’d ducked into felt bizarrely… normal. Quiet. Sunlight slanting through dusty windows. No walkers banging at the doors. No blood smeared across the floor. Just shelves, half-emptied, like the apocalypse had politely waited its turn.

Bones popped up at the end of an aisle holding a box of cereal. “Do we think Paige would kill me if I ate this dry in the van?”

Krystal squinted at it. “That’s got raisins in it. She’d kill you for choosing it.”

Bones gasped theatrically. “She’s changed. She’s softer now.”

Krystal barked a laugh. “You’re fucking delusional.”

They moved easily together, a rhythm that came from years of knowing exactly how close was too close, how loud was too loud. Every so often one of them would jump at a creak or a shadow and the other would immediately take the piss out of them for it.

Bones froze when a can rolled off a shelf.

Krystal didn’t even look up. “Relax, Rambo. It’s baked beans.”

Bones flipped her off and kept moving.

They met in the middle of the store again, dumping their finds onto the counter to reorganise, food, batteries, painkillers, lighters. Bones was humming under her breath, rifling through a display near the register when something bright caught her eye.

She paused.

Then slowly, reverently, she pulled it out.

A ring pop.

Cherry red, still in its plastic, slightly dusty but otherwise perfect.

Bones’ face lit up.

“Oh my god,” she whispered, like she’d just found treasure.

Krystal looked over, immediately clocked it, and burst out laughing. “You cannot be serious.”

Bones turned it over in her fingers, smiling to herself. “She’s gonna love this.”

Krystal leaned against the counter, cackling. “You are in the middle of the end of the world and you’re hoarding novelty candy for your girlfriend.”

“It’s symbolic,” Bones said defensively, slipping it carefully into her pocket. “It’s romantic.”

“It’s a sugar ring,” Krystal said. “You gonna propose in the van like, ‘Sorry about the apocalypse babe, here’s diabetes’?”

Bones shoved her shoulder. “You’re such a dickhead.”

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