Chapter 117: I can burn hotter

A woman sat on a large boulder near the edge of the trees, fumbling with the pouch of her bag. She pulled out a small orange bottle, shook one pill into her palm, and quickly swallowed it dry.

Across from her, sitting on another rock, Cherie watched while holding a cigarette between her fingers. She frowned slightly.

“How much left?” she asked.

Hailey hesitated before answering. Her eyes drifted to the bottle in her hand.

URGE SUPPRESSION 0 was printed across the label in thick black letters.

She remembered grabbing the last batch from the infirmary just before everything fell apart. Just before the compound burned and people started running in every direction.

Somewhere in the chaos, the two of them had managed to find each other and escape.

“Around five months’ worth,” Hailey said quietly.

Cherie exhaled a long plume of smoke and waved it aside before looking at the bottle again.

It looked like less than that.

The sun had just climbed over the tree line, and the light stretched long shadows across the ground. The air smelled like dirt and leaves instead of rot and burning flesh. Being this far from the compound almost felt unnatural after everything they had been through.

Two weeks had passed since the attack, but the memory still sat at the front of both their minds.

Neither of them had really moved on.

The sound of boots crunching through dry leaves slowly approached from the trees.

Cherie’s eyes slid toward Hailey.

Hailey heard it too. She quickly tried to shove the bottle back into her bag.

A hand shot in and snatched it out of her grip before she could.

Cherie straightened immediately.

The man holding the bottle lifted it closer to his face and squinted at the label with a mocking smile.

“Urge… suppression… zero,” he read out loud.

Hailey frowned at him.

“What are you? Horny or somethin’?” he said with a grin.

“Well why didn’t you say so?”

“Knock it off, Jackson,” Cherie said flatly. “Just give the pills back to her.”

“No fucking way,” Jackson replied, still smiling as he held the bottle out of Hailey’s reach.

“Not until you tell me what this freaky shit is.”

Cherie’s expression hardened.

“You heard the young lady.”

Another voice cut through the moment.

A larger man stepped out from the trees carrying a crossbow, two dead rabbits slung over his shoulder. He walked toward them calmly, the sun highlighting the brown stubble across his face.

Jackson’s grin faded.

“Return the woman her medicine,” the man said.

Jackson stared at him for a moment before shrugging.

“Was just busting balls,” he muttered.

He dropped the bottle into Hailey’s hand and stepped away.

Cherie watched as the man set the two rabbits down on a nearby stump. Blood slowly seeped from the wounds as the animals lay there with their eyes closed.

The smell hit her nose almost immediately.

Her muscles tightened without her meaning them to.

—

The sharp smell of blood eventually faded.

Soon it was replaced by something better.

The scent of roasting meat drifted through the small clearing as the rabbit turned slowly over the fire.

Cherie sat on a fallen log with her elbows resting on her knees while she watched the flames. Across from her, the man crouched near the fire pit and rotated his portion of the rabbit on a stick.

The fat dripped into the fire with small hisses.

He noticed her staring.

“I’m sorry about my brother,” he said after a moment.

Cherie looked up at him.

“For the record, he doesn’t really know how to act around women,” Saul continued. “He hasn’t been around one in about… forever.”

Cherie watched him for a second before a small smile appeared.

“Not much of a ladies’ man like his older brother. Got it.”

Saul chuckled quietly at that.

He rubbed one of his eyes and sniffed before letting out a slow breath.

“Well… you know,” he said.

The fire crackled between them as the conversation faded into a strange silence. The morning air was still cool, but the heat from the flames pushed back against it.

Saul finally glanced at her again.

“Not a fan of rabbit?” he asked.

Cherie blinked.

“No. It’s not that. I just…” she started.

She paused for a second before finishing the thought.

“I really want to thank you, Saul. For everything.”

Saul’s eyes widened slightly.

Cherie looked down at the ground while she spoke.

“If you and your brother hadn’t shown up when you did, then… well.”

“Helping people,” Saul said, cutting her off gently, “is about the only thing keeping us from turning into those freaks out there.”

He shrugged.

“So don’t even sweat it.”

Cherie smiled quietly to herself.

From the corner of Saul’s eye, he noticed Hailey sitting a short distance away. She was eating her share alone while Jackson sat several meters off, leaning against a tree and chewing slowly.

The two of them were careful to keep their distance from each other.

Saul turned back to Cherie.

“So what’s the game plan for you and your friend?”

Cherie followed his gaze toward Hailey.

“Well…”

Saul shifted slightly as he spoke again.

“You’re always free to come with us, you know. We’re heading north. Canada.” He shrugged. “From what we hear, that’s about the only place left with a little bit of order.”

Cherie nodded slowly.

“Well, actually we were planning on catching up with a few of our friends.”

Saul frowned slightly.

“The ones you were traveling with before?”

Cherie hesitated.

“…Yeah. Those ones.”

Saul studied her for a moment. Then he gave a small shrug.

“Alright,” he said.

He turned the rabbit over the fire again.

“Just let me know if you change your mind.”

—

I walked through the warehouse with slow, deliberate steps. Every footfall echoed in the hollow space.

The place was wrecked.

Tanks that had once held amber liquid lay shattered across the floor. Bullet holes pocked the steel, and the glowing fluid seeped into the thick, dark pools of blood from the infected bodies strewn everywhere.

Limbs were twisted in unnatural angles. Faces frozen mid-scream stared back at me, lifeless yet accusing.

The smell was suffocating. Metal and chemicals burned my nostrils. Rot and iron hung in the air, clinging to my throat. I swallowed it down, but it stuck anyway.

Blood dripped from the studded bat in my hand. Each drop hit the floor with a muted tap. I didn’t flinch. I never flinched anymore.

Movement flickered at the corner of my eye. One of them was still alive.

He dragged himself across the concrete with broken arms, scraping his knees and forearms raw. His legs barely worked. His breathing came out in short, ragged gasps, each one a struggle against the pain. His eyes were wide, desperate, locked on a pool of amber liquid as if it were salvation itself.

His pants were soaked in blood. I could see streaks running down his legs, dark and thick.

Those infected really believed that stupid drug would fix everything. They didn’t understand what it had done. They didn’t understand what it would do.

He stretched a hand toward the amber again.

I stepped closer. The bat came down. The crack of his skull echoed off the steel walls, bouncing around the wreckage. His body went limp immediately, and silence fell like a heavy blanket over the warehouse.

I wiped the blood from my cheek with the back of my hand, tasting iron.

Then a voice cut through the quiet.

“Andrew? Report in.”

I froze. The sound came from a walkie talkie clipped to one of the dead men’s vests. It crackled again, loud and sharp.

“Why the hell is the line open???”

A pause.

“Did you idiots screw something up again???”

I bent down and picked up the radio. I didn’t speak immediately. I just held it, feeling the weight of the warehouse around me—the bodies, the blood, the fire-stained steel.

My thumb pressed the button. I lifted the radio to my mouth.

For a second, I only breathed into it.

“Andrew, you better stop fucking with me. Annie needs the report on that batch.”

I spoke. My voice was low and steady.

“Put Annie on.”

The other side went silent.

“…What?”

I said nothing.

“Who the hell are you, asshole?!?! What kind of sick prank is this???”

I looked down at the bodies around my feet. The amber continued to spread, glowing faintly under the flickering warehouse lights. Pools of it mixed with blood, running toward the drains, toward nothing.

“Tell her I’ll be waiting,” I said.

I lowered the walkie talkie.

The quiet that followed wasn’t peaceful. It was heavy, full of anticipation. Somewhere in that silence, I could hear the distant hum of fear. Somewhere in that silence, I knew what came next wouldn’t be pretty. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like the world had nothing left to surprise me—

but I was ready anyway.

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