Chapter 69: A sense of safety

A punch landed square in my shoulder.

I grunted, stumbling half a step back as pain flared and I instinctively grabbed the spot. The impact wasn’t full strength—but it didn’t need to be.

“You’d really leave us all to die out there?!”

Aubrey’s voice cut through the air, sharp enough to turn heads. A few people nearby slowed, watching. I blinked at her, genuinely caught off guard.

“What?” I said, rolling my shoulder. “No, I didn’t. You’re all here, aren’t you?”

I kept my tone even. Calm. That only made it worse.

Her jaw tightened. Heat flashed behind her eyes.

She stepped in and jabbed a finger into my chest.

“Don’t you ever pull that shit on me again.”

I opened my mouth—

She slammed into me.

My breath hitched as her arms wrapped tight around my torso, fingers digging in like she was afraid I’d disappear if she let go. My eyes widened. For a second, I just stood there, stunned—

Then I hugged her back. Slowly. Careful not to squeeze too hard.

“Ever,” she muttered into my shoulder.

I swallowed.

“I’m sorry.”

The hug broke—awkwardly. Too fast. She stepped back, face flushed, eyes refusing to meet mine. I scratched the back of my head, unsure what to say.

Without another word, she turned and walked ahead.

The others passed me one by one.

Terri offered a small, nervous smile before hurrying after Aubrey.

Cherie stopped just long enough to tap my shoulder—lighter than Aubrey, but deliberate.

“You think on your feet,” she said. “I like that.”

I smiled despite myself.

Peter walked past with his head down, shoulders tight. Didn’t look at me.

Isabella and Jane followed, unreadable. Indifferent.

Hale was last.

He paused, rested a hand on my shoulder—solid, grounding—then gave a single nod before moving on.

That was when I started walking again, Lila’s hand finally reaching mine after a moment.

We followed a soldier through the camp, his boots crunching against packed gravel as he talked about quarters, assignments, protocol. His voice blurred into the background.

Everything here felt…wrong.

Too clean. Too organized.

After weeks of blood, panic, and screams in the dark, this place felt like a lie pretending to be safety. People moved calmly. Lights stayed on. No one looked over their shoulder.

They didn’t know what was outside.

Or maybe they did—and this was how they kept it out.

Either way, as the gates closed behind us and the noise of the world faded, I couldn’t shake the feeling that peace like this never came free.

It was bought.

And someone always paid first.

“I’m telling you,” the soldier muttered, voice low as gravel, “I know what I saw.”

They stood just off the main walkway, half-shadowed by stacked crates and floodlights humming overhead. Boots passed. Voices murmured. The camp breathed around them.

“I saw how jittery that blonde girl was. Hands shaking. Eyes bloodshot. Too alert. Too… wrong.”

The other soldier didn’t answer right away. He leaned against the railing, arms crossed, eyes following a pair moving through the camp at a distance.

Adrian walked calmly, a faint smile on his face like he hadn’t just crawled out of hell. Lila was beside him—too close. Her fingers were laced through his, grip tight. Possessive. Her head was tilted slightly, eyes darting just a bit too fast, scanning everything.

The first soldier swallowed.

“She’s infected,” he said quietly. “Has to be.”

A scoff came back at him.

“And you’re telling me the new kid somehow calmed her down?” the second soldier asked, incredulous. “You serious right now?”

The first soldier’s brow furrowed.

“That’s what doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Everything we know says the infected don’t stabilize. They spiral. They get louder. More violent. No fear. No restraint.”

His jaw tightened.

“If that girl really is infected like I think she is…”

He trailed off.

The silence stretched.

“…then that kid,” he finished, voice barely above a whisper, “has something special about him.”

They both watched as Adrian laughed softly at something Lila said. She leaned into him, almost normal—almost. For just a second, her smile slipped. Something sharp flashed behind her eyes before smoothing back into place.

Like she knew she was being watched.

The second soldier exhaled slowly.

“We don’t report this,” he said. Firm. Final. “Not unless we have concrete proof. No maybes. No gut feelings.”

A pause.

“You understand?”

The first soldier hesitated… then nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “I understand.”

But his eyes stayed locked on Adrian’s back long after the pair disappeared into the crowd—unease crawling up his spine like something that already knew their names.

The quarters were dusty—stale in that way that told you no one had lived here in a long while.

I stepped inside and felt something warm twist in my chest.

No more tents.

No more bugs crawling into my sleeping bag at night.

No more waking up with a hand on a weapon, heart already racing.

For the first time in weeks, I had the quiet, fragile sense that I might actually sleep safely tonight.

Bags hit the floor one by one. Thuds. Zippers. Exhausted sighs.

“Alright, everyone,” I said, clapping my hands once.

“If we start cleaning now, this place’ll look like a hotel by midnight.”

A chorus of groans answered me.

Somebody muttered something about killing me in my sleep.

The soldier standing in the doorway snorted, shaking his head, and turned to leave.

My eyes widened.

“Hey—wait.”

I stepped over dropped packs and half-sprawled bodies, weaving through the room after him.

“Where are you going, sweetie?” Lila called, her voice light but sharp enough to hook.

“I’m gonna ask about getting our guns back,” I said without slowing.

Her eyebrow lifted. She opened her mouth—

—but I was already gone.

Inside the quarters, the air shifted the moment I left.

Stillness settled like a held breath, thick and heavy, pressing against the skin. Dust motes hung in the shafts of sunlight from cracked windows, moving lazily in the air, oblivious to the tension coiling below.

“Well?” Lila’s voice cut through the silence like a whip. Dark. Commanding. Cold.

“You heard him. Everyone get busy.”

Movement erupted instantly. Too fast, too sharp, like the quarters themselves had been holding back a storm.

Chairs scraped against the floor, dragging sharp lines of sound across the wooden boards. Cloth rustled as jackets were shrugged off, rags waved through the air. Someone coughed, throat raw, and it echoed like it belonged to someone three rooms over.

Aubrey shot to her feet, jaw tight, grabbing a rag with a force that made her knuckles whiten.

Hale rolled his shoulders, each joint cracking in protest as he started shifting furniture with precise, deliberate movements.

Cherie creaked open a window, the metal groaning, letting a faint rush of cold air snake inside.

Peter shuffled by, head down, eyes avoiding contact with everyone— avoiding himself.

Terri picked up a broom and began sweeping. Slow. Careful. Methodical. Back and forth. Back and forth. Each movement punctuated by the soft scrape of bristles against the floor.

Her thoughts, however, were elsewhere.

Moments passed since the cleaning had officially started.

Rooms were found. People had settled in.

Passing one of the side rooms, she froze.

A voice—familiar, low, dangerous—slipped through the thin door like smoke. Jane’s voice.

“You disgusting excuse for a man,” it hissed. Every word carried venom, sharp enough to cut.

“You let that bitch insult me and my daughter—and you did nothing?”

Terri’s heart slammed against her ribs. Each beat felt loud enough to betray her. She leaned closer, ear pressed to the door, every nerve screaming.

“I swear I don’t even know why I married you.”

Terri heard Peter’s voice tremble soon after.

“Jane, I’m sorry—I didn’t know what to say—I—”

And then:

A dull, wet crack.

Flesh against flesh.

Peter hit the floor hard, the thud echoing off walls and bouncing in Terri’s chest like a hammer. She jumped back instinctively, sweat prickling her scalp, stomach twisting with panic. Her heel caught on something loose on the floor.

The broom clattered to the ground, the sound sharp enough to make her flinch again.

Silence fell. Heavy. Dense. The kind that makes every shadow twitch and every heartbeat feel like it might explode.

The door creaked. Slowly. A single, deliberate rotation of the hinges that made her lungs seize.

Jane stepped out. Eyes wide, but not with guilt—alertness, calculation, predatory precision. She scanned the hallway, movements fluid, silent, deadly. Every inch of her body was poised like a coiled spring, ready for the slightest twitch to set her off.

Terri had already moved, ducking behind a stack of crates, pressing herself into shadow. Her chest heaved, heart hammering like it would burst through her ribs. Every muscle was rigid, coiled tight enough to snap.

Jane’s gaze lingered. Paused. She sniffed the air like she could taste deception. Then, finally, she closed the door with a soft, final click, the sound oddly muffled, almost polite—like a predator leaving a cage behind.

And just like that, the quarters returned to its act of normalcy.

Terri pressed herself against the wall, listening to the normal sounds of cleaning, trying to calm the racing of her blood. But she couldn’t shake the smell of fear, the echo of that crack, the way Jane had moved.

Even in the illusion of order, she knew: the quiet was temporary. And the storm behind those doors hadn’t gone anywhere.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep