Chapter 165: Final Warning

Bullets whizzed past my ears so close I felt one pull heat off my skin.

“Stop running!” somebody shouted behind us through a loudspeaker. “Last warning!”

Yeah. Sure.

My legs pumped harder. Every breath burned. Pine needles snapped under my shoes while branches slapped my face and shoulders. Behind us, engines tore through the woods. Not one vehicle. Two. Maybe three.

I looked at Lila.

She looked at me.

No words. None needed.

There was no way in hell I was stopping.

Lila slid under the falling tree before it fully hit the ground, dirt exploding around her as rounds chewed through bark. I dropped low and rolled under after her, the trunk slamming down inches over my back.

For half a second, the soldiers lost sight of us.

That was enough.

“Left!” I barked.

She trusted it instantly.

We cut hard through a dip in the terrain. My lattice was firing now, that cold geometric click in my head where panic usually lived. Angles. Distances. Weight. Timing. Every moving thing around me broke into paths and outcomes.

Truck can’t fit through that gap.

Driver on the right has poor visibility.

Hill ahead too steep.

Creek thirty yards east.

I didn’t think it in words. I just knew.

We burst through brush and hit an old roadside drainage ditch. Concrete walls, six feet deep, running parallel to a cracked service road.

“Down!”

I jumped first, hit the slope, slid, almost lost my ankle, caught myself on one hand and kept moving. Lila dropped after me cleaner than I did, landing catlike and already sprinting.

A spotlight swept over the ditch behind us.

“There! In the channel!”

Gunfire sparked concrete.

We ran bent low.

“Fuck, Lila..” I said between breaths.

She grinned, hair wild, eyes red and bright. “You looked so sexy negotiating.”

“What the hell is wrong with you??? You know there isn’t any coming back from that—..”

“He was rude.”

I almost laughed. Almost, running a hand through my hair.

It wasn’t like we had a choice, anyway.

Ahead, the ditch ended at a chain-link fence with rusted razor wire curled on top.

Dead end.

No. Not dead end.

I saw the maintenance ladder bolted to the wall, half torn off.

“We’re going up.”

I jumped, caught the third rung, hauled myself up two at a time. My shoulder screamed. Ignored it.

Lila didn’t even use the ladder. She ran three steps up the wall, grabbed the top rail, swung herself over like gravity had offended her.

I could’ve done that.

I climbed the fence, tore my palm open on wire, dropped the other side, and hit pavement in an abandoned lot filled with derelict cars.

The ditch behind us flooded with soldiers.

“Split and flank!”

Good command.

Too slow.

“Keys,” She muttered.

“What?”

“Find keys.”

“In a junkyard?”

“In a Canadian junkyard. They’re polite enough to leave them in.”

I almost snorted.

I moved through the rows fast, eyes flicking. Old pickup. Burned out sedan. Van with no tires. Then I saw it—delivery truck, rear doors open, windshield cracked but intact.

Driver-side visor hanging down.

I reached in.

Keys.

I stared one beat.

“No way,” I said.

Lila leaned through the passenger window. “See? Polite.”

Boots pounded nearby.

I jammed the key in. Engine coughed. Died.

Again.

Cough.

Again.

Started.

“Get in!”

She slid through the passenger side as bullets shattered the rear window. I slammed it into gear and floored it.

The truck lurched like an old drunk.

We plowed through stacked bins, spraying metal and trash. Soldiers scattered out of the lane.

“Roadblock!” Lila shouted.

Two armored vehicles boxed the lot exit.

My hands tightened on the wheel.

The lattice widened.

Weight of truck. Wet pavement. Angle of impact. Weakest point: left barrier, not vehicle. Wooden utility pole beside it. If pole falls—

“Hold on.”

“I always do.”

I yanked right, then cut left hard. The truck fishtailed, clipped the pole dead center. Wood cracked. Transformer blew in a shower of sparks. The pole toppled across the first armored vehicle’s hood.

I shot through the gap before the wires hit.

Behind us, brakes screamed.

Lila whooped like this was an amusement park.

“You are disgusting when you’re focused,” she said.

“…Thanks?”

“No, like genuinely hot.”

“Shut the fuck up, Lila.”

We tore onto a narrow industrial road lined with warehouses. Sirens wailed somewhere deeper in the sector.

Then the truck began to smoke.

Of course.

“Adrian.”

“I know.”

“Adrian.”

“I know!”

The engine coughed violently.

I spotted a loading dock ahead, ramp leading to a roof section over a warehouse bay.

“No chance,” Lila said, suddenly delighted.

“Bad time to doubt me.”

“I’m not doubting. I’m excited.”

I floored it.

The truck screamed up the ramp, bounced, launched off the lip, and smashed onto the lower rooftop with a bone-rattling crash. We slid across tar paper, stopped inches from the edge.

Silence.

Then distant shouting below.

I blinked.

Lila turned to me slowly, smiling so wide it looked unwell.

“You jumped a truck.”

“We need to move.”

“You jumped a fucking truck!”

She said with an excitement I had never seen before.

…

I shoved the door open.

We climbed out onto the roof. My knees nearly buckled. Adrenaline was fading into pain now. Hands shaking. Breath ragged.

Searchlights swept the streets below.

“They’ll come up,” I said.

“They’ll have to find us first.”

She took my wrist and pulled me across connected rooftops. Fast. Certain. She’d always moved like she belonged in disaster.

We crossed one roof, leapt a narrow alley to another. I barely made it, smashing chest-first onto gravel and scrambling up.

Lila crouched beside me.

“..You okay, sweetie?”

“Never ask me that again.”

She kissed my forehead quickly, muttering softly—

“You were so great.”

then pointed.

Beyond the last building, past fences and floodlights, the city opened wider. Towers in the distance. Smoke stacks. Rows of lit housing blocks. Organized streets.

…Canada.

Real walls. Real power. Real people.

For one stupid second, hope hit me so hard it hurt.

Then gunfire cracked again.

Hope was…I wasn’t even sure if I deserved that anymore.

…What the fuck did we just do?

Those weren’t just regular scavengers.

They were soldiers. Ones that belonged to something even bigger.

But my mind was getting too clouded.

We dropped through a rooftop access door into a dark stairwell. I barred it behind us with a pipe.

Footsteps thundered overhead moments later.

We descended into the warehouse below. Pallets. Machinery. Cold storage units.

I found a side exit and pushed it open to an alley.

Snow drifted lightly now.

Lila stepped beside me, breathing steam.

“You know,” she said softly, “if we get caught again, I’m stabbing another one.”

I stared at her.

“…Lila.”

“What if they’re mean?”

“No.”

“What if they insult your hair?”

“Well, I’ll fix it nice so that doesn’t happen.”

She linked her arm through mine anyway.

Then she rested her head briefly on my shoulder as we walked.

“Good job,” she whispered.

I looked ahead at the foreign city waiting for us.

My body hurt everywhere. Soldiers wanted us dead. We had no supplies worth mentioning.

But we were in.

And under pressure, when everything should’ve broken—

I hadn’t.

—

Naomi folded her arms and leaned against the wall beside the door, watching Cherie throw supplies into an open backpack like the bag had personally offended her.

The quarters were small. Concrete walls. Metal bunks. One weak ceiling light that hummed every few seconds. Somebody in the next unit was arguing through thin walls. Pipes rattled overhead.

It smelled like soap, sweat, and canned food.

Naomi still had not adjusted.

She looked at Saul and Jackson, then back at Cherie.

“How did you people smuggle a gun in here?”

Cherie didn’t answer. She kept packing. Her jaw flexed once.

Jackson grinned from where he sat on the lower bunk, cleaning under his nails with a pocketknife he absolutely was not supposed to have.

“Trade,” he said.

Naomi looked at him.

“Trade?”

“Some of these soldiers got habits.” He shrugged. “Some want booze. Some want batteries. Some want company. Most of them want paks.”

Naomi frowned. “Paks?”

Jackson held up two fingers like he was teaching a child.

“Nicotine pouches, sweetheart. Currency in here. Tiny little pillows of happiness.”

No one laughed.

His smile faded a little.

“And lucky for all of you,” he added, tapping his chest, “I know how to finesse a system.”

Still nothing.

Saul, sitting on the top bunk with one boot off, glanced down at him.

“You done performing?”

Jackson rolled his eyes. “Tough crowd.”

Naomi looked back to Cherie.

The blonde woman had paused for the first time, one hand buried in the bag. Her eyes had gone distant.

Naomi knew that look.

A memory. Bad enough to stop your body for a second.

“You don’t know where to look,” Naomi said. “None of us do.”

Cherie blinked, snapped back, and zipped the bag halfway.

“If you’re here,” she said, “then he’s close.”

Naomi’s brow tightened.

“That don’t mean anything.”

“It means enough.” Cherie slung the bag over one shoulder. “You made it here. He’s harder to kill than you.”

Naomi almost smiled.

Almost.

Then it faded.

“He might already be in one of the sectors,” Cherie continued. “Could be intake. Could be labor side. Could be medical holding.”

Naomi stared at her.

“…you think they’d let him in with an infected girl by his side?”

The room changed.

Saul looked up.

Jackson stopped fidgeting.

Cherie’s face went still in a way Naomi didn’t like. Her eyes darkened, not with fear— with memory.

“Infected girl?” Saul said slowly.

Naomi regretted opening her mouth.

Jackson pointed between them. “Hold on. We skipping over that?”

Cherie ignored him.

“She’s not infected,” Naomi said. “Not fully.. I don’t know what the hell she is.”

“Intelligent strain.” Cherie said.

“That sounds worse,” Jackson muttered.

Cherie finally looked at Saul and Jackson.

“Adrian’s smart,” she said. “Smarter than he acts. He can talk people into things they shouldn’t agree to.”

Naomi said nothing.

Cherie’s mouth twitched.

“I’ve seen it.”

Saul slid off the bunk and stood.

“Who is Adrian?”

No one answered right away.

Jackson filled the silence.

“Apparently a genius with an infected girlfriend.”

Cherie shot him a look so sharp he lifted both hands.

“Joke died. My bad.”

Saul looked between them again.

“Seriously.”

Naomi rubbed her temple.

“He’s… complicated.”

“That usually means trouble,” Saul said.

“Oh yeah? Well the trouble’s worth it.” Cherie answered.

Naomi looked at her.

There was weight in those two words.

Alive mattered more than good. More than safe. More than sane.

Jackson stood and stretched.

“So let me get this straight. We’re going out near curfew, into sectors we ain’t cleared for, looking for some silver-tongued psycho and his rabid girlfriend?”

Cherie shouldered the pack fully.

“Yes.”

Jackson groaned. “I miss when my life was simple.”

“You mean stupid?” Saul asked.

“Same thing.”

Naomi looked at the clock bolted above the sink.

9:42 PM.

Curfew at ten.

Outside, a speaker crackled.

Attention residents. Curfew begins in eighteen minutes. Return to assigned quarters immediately. Unauthorized movement after curfew may result in detention.

Naomi pointed at the speaker.

“Couldn’t this wait until tomorrow?”

“No,” Cherie said.

“That’s insane.”

“So is leaving him out there.”

Naomi scoffed.

“You care a lot for somebody you haven’t seen in so long.”

Cherie walked toward her.

Close enough that Naomi could see the tired skin under her eyes.

Close enough to notice she hadn’t really slept either.

“Adrian’s pulled me out of a lot of stuff,” Cherie said quietly, “This is me returning the favor.”

Naomi had no answer for that.

With that, she opened the door and stepped out.

Saul and Jackson looked at each other once, before following after Cherie, Saul seemingly a lot more reluctant than Jackson.

Naomi stood there one more second, staring at the clock.

9:44.

She cursed under her breath and went after all three.

The door slammed shut behind her.

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