Chapter 87: April 5, 2017

I watched her from the doorway.

She took a pill from the night table, dry-swallowed it, then chased it with a mouthful of water. Same routine. Every morning, since I had been assigned to watch if she deviated from it since a few months ago. Like if she did it slow enough, careful enough, the day might go easier on her.

It never did.

She moved on autopilot—washing her face, stripping, bathing. I stayed quiet. She hated being watched, especially now. Especially when mirrors were involved.

She lingered in front of the sink.

That was always the hard part.

Hailey ran a hand through her damp blonde hair. It brushed her neck now. Longer than it used to be. Longer than she liked. I could see it in her eyes—the way it dragged her back to a version of herself that didn’t exist anymore.

“Ugly,” she muttered to her reflection. “You’re uglier than I remember.”

She tilted her head, forcing a smirk that didn’t stick.

“And that half-shaved lesbian look?” she went on quietly. “Doesn’t suit you anymore.”

I knew whose voice that really was.

Vivian’s words lived rent-free in all of us. Some ghosts didn’t need bodies.

Her hands shook as she tried to shape her hair into something familiar. Something safe. A tear slid down her cheek, catching on her jaw.

Then—

“Your hair looks nice.”

Cherie.

Hailey startled, like she’d been caught doing something wrong.

Cherie stood a few steps behind her, arms crossed. She looked different too. The blue streaks in her hair had faded to almost nothing. Her style had thinned down to survival. Practical. Quiet.

“It suits you,” Cherie added, softer.

Hailey stared at her through the mirror.

Then her eyes dropped.

To Cherie’s right hand.

To the missing fingers.

The damage.

The price.

I saw Hailey’s face cave in. Guilt hit her hard, fast, like a punch to the chest. She swallowed, breath hitching.

“You think so…?” she asked.

Her voice cracked.

The tears came after that. No stopping them. She didn’t bother wiping them away.

I stayed where I was.

Some moments weren’t meant to be interrupted.

I decided to leave after a moment, something warm settling in my chest despite myself. I was almost done with my rounds anyway.

A lot had changed in the last seven months.

I hadn’t stopped looking for Lila until about three weeks ago.

Why did I ever think I had the right to do that?

I was the one who left her behind.

She was dead. She had to be.

And it was my fault.

I took a step forward—

—and felt a body press into my back.

Arms wrapped around my chest, firm and familiar. A kiss landed on my neck, slow and careful, like she was testing whether I’d pull away.

I didn’t.

I turned, and Aubrey was there.

She looked different. We all did. Her hair, once cropped short, now spilled down her back in dark curls. A scar traced from the corner of her lip up her cheek, faint but impossible to miss.

She looped her arms around my neck like it was muscle memory.

“You weren’t next to me when I woke up,” she said softly.

“Where’d you run off to, hm?”

Before I could answer, she kissed me.

It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t playful. It was deep, almost desperate, like she needed to feel me there to believe it. I kissed her back, pulling her closer, grounding myself in the weight of her.

When she finally pulled away, it was slow. Reluctant.

I couldn’t even remember how her and I happened.

“Just doing my rounds,” I said, my voice low.

She smiled at that, small and satisfied, her hands trailing down my chest before letting go.

I noticed her studying me for a second too long.

I caught her eyes drifting— first my face, then lower, stopping just beneath my nose. I knew what she was looking for before she even said anything.

“Did you take your medicine?”

I didn’t answer right away.

The pause was enough.

Her brow creased, concern settling in like it always did. “Adrian?”

“I did,” I said finally. “Yeah.”

She didn’t look convinced.

“Any nosebleeds?”

I shook my head once.

“Migraines?”

I reached for her before she could keep going, cupping her face gently. She went still, then relaxed into my hand, her own fingers curling over my wrist like she needed the contact as much as I did.

“I’m fine, Aubrey,” I said quietly. “Really. Don’t worry.”

She searched my eyes again, like she might find the truth there instead of in my words.

After a beat, she nodded.

But she didn’t pull away.

Morning was settling over the compound. Light stretched across tents and worn buildings. Civilians stirred from their quarters, rubbing sleep from their eyes.

There were more of them now than when I first arrived. Texas had become a fragile haven. New faces. Different faces. They didn’t trust me. Hell, I didn’t know if I trusted me.

Maybe trust was a dream I’d already lost.

Then— came the screams.

Aubrey and I froze for a heartbeat, then ran. Fast.

God damn it. This would’ve been the third incident this week.

The crowd parted, and I saw him.

A man, holding a woman hostage. Knife pressed against her throat. Pale skin, veins like dark rivers crawling under his temples. His eyes—red, veins spiderwebbing through the whites.

Baseline.

But something was glowing at the edges like molten orange— locked on me.

How the fuck did an infected get inside?

“AMBER!!! GIVE ME FUCKING AMBER—!!! I NEED IT!!!”

His voice shredded the morning.

I reached for my gun without thinking.

The soldiers were around him, hands raised, trying to calm him. Calm him. Are you kidding me?

…have we gone soft?

I aimed. One shot.

The crack of the gun echoed.

He dropped.

The woman collapsed beside him, sobs wracking her body. I didn’t move. I couldn’t.

I looked at him.

Those eyes…that orange glow. It lingered even in death, creeping into the whites like molten fire.

Blood pooled beneath his head, dark red and streaked with that impossible orange. My stomach turned.

What the hell was that…?

Something inside me clenched tight. Fear. Disgust. A pulse of warning I couldn’t name.

“What the hell happened???”

Aubrey’s voice cracked as she crouched beside the woman, hands gripping her shoulders like she could keep the sobbing from spilling over.

The woman barely managed to speak. Each word trembled, fragile as a dying flame.

“He…he was normal…” she stuttered. “…until last night. Something—something changed. He…he was taking something. I…I didn’t know he was infected before. I swear…”

Her tears fell in streaks. Her hands shook as she tried to point to the man’s body on the ground, now still, the molten orange in his eyes fading into nothing.

I knelt a few steps back, letting them talk, but my mind raced.

Normal…? Relapsing…? Amber? Infected?

Nothing about this added up. Not the glowing orange. Not the way he’d gone feral. Not the panic in her voice.

I felt my stomach twist, a cold knot forming.

Something was happening here, something I didn’t understand. And if I didn’t figure it out, someone else was going to end up like him.

The crowd around us whispered, some pointing, some frozen. But I couldn’t hear them. My pulse was the only sound in my head.

And somewhere deep down, I knew: this wasn’t over.

—

Hands jerked across the table, tossing papers and bottles aside as if she were hunting for something—anything—that could steady her.

“I don’t need you… I don’t need you…”

Her voice cracked, repeating the words like a mantra, trying to convince herself of something she wasn’t ready to face.

Dark nails caught the light. Dirty blonde hair, now cut short, fell in uneven strands. Newly done tattoos sprawled across arms and shoulders, inked chaos against pale skin, piercings that had been once been minimalistic, now freely visible all over her face and body.

A far cry from the woman she once was.

Lila.

Her fingers finally closed around a syringe. The amber liquid shimmered, almost hypnotic, as she drove the needle into her arm.

A stifling moan escaped her throat, low and sharp, as if it belonged to the world itself. Her eyes pulsed molten orange, veins crawling beneath skin.

She collapsed back into the chair, toes curling, body tense and trembling.

Minutes passed. Slow. Controlled. She pulled herself upright, her breath coming back in pants, slow and heated. It was faint, but tears had burned in her eyes. Not enough to really burn, but enough for her to know why it was there.

The door creaked open. A woman stepped in, the dark mullet falling down her back, leather and faded denim making her silhouette sharp. She raised a cigarette to her lips and lit it, the smoke curling like shadows in the half-lit room.

“Are you ready?” she asked, voice calm, almost teasing.

Lila’s chest rose and fell, steadying. Her fingers brushed the edge of the table. After a beat, she nodded.

The amber had done its work. For now, she was ready.

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