Page 22 of After the Burn

“How’s everything going with you two?” I waggled my eyebrows. “Other than the ass-pounding, I mean.”

The pair had grown closer while we were at my house before everything went to shit, but they only started sleeping together in the past few weeks.

She blushed. “It’s great. He’s good to me, and you know I’ve been in love with him forever.”

I knew that, and I’d been part of the reason they never got together. I still wasn’t Ethan’s biggest fan, but I hoped the apocalypse had changed him for the better.

“What’re you going to do about the two men fighting over you?” Lila grinned.

“Adrian has a lot to make up for.” I shrugged. “Beck has been with me since this whole shitshow started, and I owe him my loyalty.”

“I don’t think Adrian sees it like that.” She poked me in the side with her elbow. “He thinks he has dibs since he had you first.”

“He didn’t have shit.” I rolled my eyes. “After he left to live with his dad, I barely saw him.”

“You may not have seen him, but according to Lucas, he saw you,” Lila smirked.

“Don’t you think that’s creepy as shit? Spying on his stepsister?” I sneered.

There was no way I’d admit it, but knowing he’d been watching me was a turn-on. That proved what I’d suspected all along… the further we went into the apocalypse, the more insane I became.

“Maybe, but he’s so good-looking that it doesn’t matter.” Lila stood. “I’m going to pee, and then we can go look for berries. Just thinking about eating them’s got my mouth watering.”

I nodded in agreement and went inside to grab my pack. I’d have to figure something out with Adrian and Beck.

Beck didn't appear convinced when I said I wasn't interested in Adrian… and my body clearly didn’t buy it either.

Darkness settled differently now.

Before the world ended, night was never completely quiet, and I always felt safe. Now, there were no planes overhead or cell phones lighting up, and safety wasn’t even a possibility.

I crouched low behind the remains of an overturned truck near the edge of town, studying the settlement spread out below us as a chilly wind slid through the trees behind me.

Small town.

Maybe a few hundred people before everything went to hell.

Now crude fencing surrounded the entire perimeter, built from welded scrap metal, and abandoned vehicles shoved together tightly enough to force a bottleneck at the entrance.

Floodlights swept slowly across the outer roads while generators hummed somewhere deeper inside the town, loud enough that I could feel the faint vibration through the ground beneath me.

The noise should’ve been drawing infected nonstop, which meant one of two things. Either these people were stupid, or they’d found a way to deal with them.

Movement near the fence answered that question quickly.

A group of armed men moved along the outer perimeter with practiced precision, taking down infected as soon as they wandered too close. Gunfire cracked sharply through the dark before another man stepped forward and drove a blade through the twitching body’s skull, as if he’d done it a thousand times.

No hesitation or panic. Just a routine that he’d established so long ago that he didn’t feel the danger anymore. That kind of efficiency came from experience. And experience usually came with a body count.

Beside me, Max stood perfectly still, ears forward and body tense enough that I could feel the low vibration of his growl through the dirt beneath us.

“Ruhig,” I whispered, the German command for quiet, pressing a hand lightly against Max’s neck.

His ripped ear twitched briefly before he settled down next to me, his muscles tense beneath the red-and-white fur.

“Good boy.” I praised him under my breath.

Another infected stumbled from between two abandoned cars near the road, its movements jerky and uneven as it wandered toward the fencing. Long blond hair hung in dirty knots around her face as the remains of a pink sweatshirt blew off her chest in the light breeze.