Chapter 7

The morning of the end arrived with a brilliant, mocking sunrise over the East River.

Luke was in the living room, a silent sentinel by the windows, sipping coffee. Zeus was a warm, purring weight on my lap as I scrolled through news feeds on my tablet.

Normalcy was a thin, cracking sheet of ice.

The first reports were vague. A disturbance on the 4/5/6 line. An “industrial accident” in Midtown causing erratic behavior.

I knew the language of lies. My pulse remained steady, a cold drumbeat in my veins.

Then, the live feed from a traffic camera near Grand Central flickered on a major network.

It wasn’t an accident.

It was a feeding frenzy.

A woman in a torn business suit was on top of a cab driver, her head buried in his neck. The camera jerked, zoomed out. The street was a tableau of chaos. People running, falling. Others… piling.

Luke’s coffee cup hit the table with a sharp crack. He was beside me in two strides, his body tense as coiled steel. “What in God’s name…”

“It’s starting,” I said, my voice flat. The words tasted like ash. “Right on schedule.”

The TV erupted with frantic anchors, their professionalism shattering. “—reports of widespread violence—CDC advising shelter in place—do not approach individuals exhibiting—”

The signal dissolved into static.

The ice broke.

Screams, real and immediate, rose from the street forty floors below. Not the normal sirens and horns of New York. These were raw, animal sounds of terror.

Luke didn’t hesitate. He moved.

He was a blur of controlled motion, shoving the heavy mahogany dining table against the penthouse’s main door. He tipped the massive leather sofa, creating a barricade in the foyer.

“Secondary entrance?” he barked, his voice all business.

“Service door to the utility closet. Leads to a shared hallway,” I said, already moving toward my father’s old study.

“Secure it.”

I didn’t go to the utility closet. I went to the bookcase behind my father’s massive oak desk. My fingers found the hidden latch, a secret from my childhood. The bookcase swung inward with a soft sigh.

The panic room. Or what was now my armory.

The safe inside was biometric. My thumbprint made it click open.

The cool, metallic smell of gun oil and cleaned steel filled my nostrils. A smell I’d missed for ten years.

I pulled out the two AR-15s, already fitted with optics and slings. Then the two Glock 19s, holstered and loaded.

When I walked back into the living room, weapons in hand, Luke had finished with the service door, reinforcing it with a length of heavy pipe from the guest bathroom towel rack.

He turned, and for the first time, I saw a crack in his professional calm.

His eyes went from my face to the rifles, then back to my face. Shock, calculation, and a dawning, terrible understanding warred in his gaze.

He wasn’t looking at a frightened heiress anymore.

He was looking at someone who had known. Someone who was prepared.

“You…” he started, his voice tight.

“Later,” I cut him off, my tone leaving no room for argument. I held out one of the AR-15s, butt first. “Your grouping will be tighter than mine.”

It was a statement of fact. A test. An offering of trust.

He stared at the weapon for one eternal second. The screams from below were a rising chorus of hell.

Then his training took over. His hands, large and sure, closed around the rifle. He checked the chamber, the magazine, the safety with movements so fluid they were instinct. He slung it over his shoulder and took the offered Glock, tucking it into his waistband at the small of his back.

No more questions. Not now.

We were a unit.

He took up position at the main window, using the edge of the wall for cover, peering down at the chaos. “Multiple hostiles. Disorganized. They’re… they’re attacking anything that moves. Biting.”

“Don’t call them hostiles,” I said, moving to cover the service door, my own rifle’s stock finding its familiar place against my shoulder. The weight was both a burden and a comfort. “Call them infected. And aim for the head.”

He glanced back at me, a flicker of that terrible understanding deepening. “You’ve done this before.”

It wasn’t a question.

A thunderous crash echoed from somewhere in the building, followed by more screams, closer now. Inside the walls.

“They’re in the building,” Luke said, his voice grim.

Zeus, who had been silent and watchful, suddenly stood up on the back of the sofa. His fur puffed out, his back arched. A low, crackling growl emanated from his tiny throat, a sound that shouldn't have been possible.

Sparks, visible this time, danced along his whiskers.

Luke saw it. His eyes widened.

“What the hell is…” he began.

Then the penthouse elevator dinged.

The soft, polite sound was obscene in the silence of our sealed apartment.

The doors didn’t open. They shuddered, as if something was pounding on them from the other side.

A wet, guttural moan seeped through the metal.

Something was in the elevator shaft.

Something that knew we were here.