The Hybrid’s body staggered, taking one, two unsteady steps forward, as if it hadn’t yet realized it no longer had a face to see with, a brain to command it.
Then it dropped.
The massive corpse collapsed like a felled tree, crashing onto the store’s floor with a bone-jarring thud that rattled the shelves and sent dust drifting down from the ceiling. The half-lance I still held tore free as it fell, leaving standing there alone, chest heaving, arm still outstretched.
For a long second, the only sounds were my own rough breathing and the slow dripping of blood from the ceiling, from my hair, from the ruined thing at my feet.
I exhaled shakily and lowered the lance fragnt, my muscles burning, my right arm still faintly glowing as the wind blades slowly unwound and evaporated into nothing.
"Disgusting," I muttered, wiping at my face with the back of my hand, only managing to sar the gore around instead of removing it. Sticky warmth dragged across my skin, turning the gesture into more of a pointless act than any real attempt at cleaning up.
Shards of glass crunched under quick, light footsteps behind .
Maribel appeared in the broken storefront a second later, skidding to a halt just inside the threshold. Her eyes widened as they landed on the Hybrid’s corpse—what was left of its head a pulp of bone, flesh, and brain matter cratered into the floor.
"Y... you killed it?" She asked, voice catching between disbelief and sothing like relief.
"Yeah," I said, letting the broken half of the lance slip from my fingers. It hit the ground with a dull clatter and rolled away, streaked with dried blood and chunks of tissue.
Maribel stepped closer, each footfall cautious, as if she expected the creature to jump back up at any second. When she finally stood beside and got a clear look at the Hybrid’s crushed skull, she visibly winced and recoiled half a step.
"You didn’t hold back at all, did you?" She said, grimace twisting her features.
From her perspective, it probably looked like I’d gone into a frenzy and stabbed the thing’s head over and over until nothing recognizable remained. In reality, it was just a single, well-placed strike amplified by the Dullahan abilities I had no intention of explaining to her. Let her think it was anger or adrenaline; that was easier than the truth.
I let my gaze drift away from the corpse, scanning the dim interior of the clothing store. Racks of dust-covered shirts and dresses stood like crooked sentries, mannequins slumped against the walls with blank, gray faces. Sunlight filtered in through the shattered window in dull shafts, catching motes of dust and drifting ash.
Without a word, I stepped deeper into the store.
"Where are you going now?" Maribel called after . "We should head back before more infected show up."
"You should go back," I said, brushing past a rack of hanging jackets as I moved further inside. "I still have things to do here."
"What things exactly?" Her footsteps moved to follow. "The Hybrid is dead." She frowned, as if that should have been the end of the story.
"I’m curious about that thing that guy said he saw with the Hybrid," I replied, glancing over my shoulder. "If there’s sothing else out here, I’d rather find it before it finds us."
"What? Wait!" She closed the distance quickly and grabbed my forearm, fingers tightening with more strength than I expected.
I turned my head, eting her gaze with a questioning look.
"I’m not taking responsibility for anything beyond this," she said, eyes hardening. "We should go back now. Your friend is still waiting behind that barricade and your other group might co at anyti by now. You disappear and they’ll bla us."
"You don’t need to take responsibility for ," I said, sliding my arm out of her grasp. "Go back and tell them I’m fine. I’ll co back when I’m done here."
Her jaw clenched. "Do you have a death wish or sothing?!"
"Far from it," I replied, turning away again. "That’s exactly why I’m here."
My hand drifted along a clothes rack, fingers brushing over layers of fabric matted with dust. Everything in here slled of mildew and neglect, but anything was better than walking around soaked in Hybrid blood. I stopped at a section of darker clothing and began flipping through the hangers, pushing aside faded colors in search of sothing usable.
I at least needed to change my shirt and pants. The cold, clammy feel of drying gore on my skin made every movent uncomfortable, and the thought of entering another fight in clothes like this felt wrong and simply disgusting.
It took a few minutes of searching, but eventually I managed to dig out a pair of black pants that looked close enough to my size and a black long-sleeved shirt that wasn’t completely eaten by moths. The fabric was stiff with age but intact.
Dark colors were always better when dealing with infected anyway. Blood and other stains didn’t stand out as much, and it made it easier to keep moving without drawing unnecessary attention.
I moved toward the changing area at the back of the store, a narrow hallway of chipped floor tiles leading to a row of small cabins. One of the curtains was stiff with dried blood, crusted in streaks along the bottom where soone had grabbed it in a panic long ago. I ignored the implications and pushed it aside.
Inside, the cramped space held a cracked mirror, a bench with a few decayed shirts crumpled in a corner, and dust thick enough to mute every surface. It was barely wide enough to turn around in, but it would do.
I shut the curtain behind and stripped out of the ruined clothes, peeling them from my skin where the dried blood made the fabric cling. The sll intensified for a mont, rising up in a suffocating wave. I forced myself to breathe through my mouth and pulled on the black pants, then the shirt, rolling my shoulders once to test the fit. Tight, but not restrictive.
I kept my khaki jacket. It was stained and worn, but it was good quality and had seen through enough that I’d grown attached to it. It settled over my shoulders like familiar armor.
Raising my gaze to the mirror, I finally looked at my reflection.
My face was a ss—sared with dried blood and darker, tar-like streaks from the Hybrid’s fluids. So had dried in uneven patches along my jaw and neck, others still glistened wetly at my hairline. My gray eyes looked even paler in contrast, frad by fatigue and irritation.
Using the inside of my jacket sleeve, I wiped at the worst of it, rubbing until the crusted patches broke and flaked away. The effort cleared most of the obvious stains, but faint dark traces still marked my skin like bruised shadows. I could have spent more ti trying to clean up, but there was no running water here and no ti to waste.
Good enough.
I pushed the curtain aside and stepped back into the store.
Maribel was still there. Instead of pacing impatiently or heading for the exit, she stood in the won’s section near the front, holding a white skirt in her hands. For a mont, she seed totally focused on it, one finger brushing absently at the dusty fabric as if testing its texture.
"What are you still doing here?" I asked.
She dropped the skirt quickly, letting it fall back against the rack, and turned toward .
"I chose to continue as well," she said, almost defensively. She bent down to pick up the broken wooden lance I’d abandoned earlier, testing its balance with a quick flick of her wrist. "Whatever Theo saw could be another dangerous threat. If that’s the case, it should be dealt with, not ignored."
I looked at her her face.
She didn’t strike as the type to throw herself into extra danger out of selfless concern for strangers she’d t less than a day ago.
She didn’t seem like soone who cared easily—not the way Molly did, not openly. Her concern ca filtered through cynicism and sharp words, buried under layers of distance. It was hard to imagine her risking more than necessary for people she barely knew.
Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe she simply didn’t want another unknown threat roaming around near her settlent.
Or maybe, sowhere under all that steel, she felt indebted—to what I’d done for Shannon, to the fact that I’d just taken a hit ant for her. Maybe she just didn’t want the person who’d stuck his neck out for her dying in so forgotten side street while she walked back to safety.
I realized I was staring.
"What?" She snapped, brows knitting together as she shot an annoyed look.
"Nothing," I said at last, letting the speculation go. It didn’t matter why she stayed. What mattered was that she did.
I walked past her, heading toward the exit, but paused briefly at one of the racks. A long tal bar ran across the top, the kind used to hold the hangers. One end had already co loose, sagging at an angle. I grabbed it with both hands and pulled.
The rusted bolts squealed in protest, then snapped free with a sharp crack. The bar slid loose with a jolt, nearly overbalancing before I adjusted my grip.
It was fairly long, solid, and heavier than it looked—steel, not cheap tubing. It would make a decent improvised weapon. Not as good as my axe, but better than bare hands and broken wood.
I hefted it once, feeling the weight, then rested it against my shoulder.
"Let’s go," I said, glancing toward the shattered window and the street beyond. "If there’s sothing else prowling around out there, I’d rather find it on our terms."
Maribel tightened her grip on the broken lance and stepped up beside , her expression set, eyes hard and unreadable.
We stepped out of the store together, glass crunching softly under our boots as we returned to the open street.
After a few dozen ters, the unease started.
Sothing was off.
No, not just off—wrong.
The streets should have been crawling with infected. Earlier, the moans and shuffling steps had blended into a constant, distant background noise, like a rotting city’s heartbeat. Now, that sound was thin, scattered, almost absent. The silence between buildings felt unnatural, the kind that made the skin between the shoulder blades itch.
We walked further, turning down a cracked avenue flanked by overturned cars and burned-out storefronts.
The infected were there—but not moving.
They littered the asphalt in grotesque heaps, strewn across sidewalks and piled against walls, forming a trail of bodies that stretched ahead like a river of flesh. Blood had dried in dark, sticky patches across the pavent, so of it still tacky and fresh enough to glisten.
I stepped over a corpse with its chest split open and frowned.
"Has your group gone on a killing spree today?" I asked, glancing sideways at Maribel. "Against infected, I an."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "We’ve been conserving ammunition. Bullets are harder to replace than people right now."
She hesitated, then added, "Sotis we do cleanup runs to keep them from clustering too close, and... it helps remind Callighan’s scouts that we’re still ard. If they’re watching, they hear the shots. They know we’re not defenseless."
That explained why Rico’s people had been so loud with their guns that first night. They hadn’t just been defending themselves—they’d been sending a ssage. Letting Callighan know they could still bite if pushed.
But that wasn’t what bothered .
"The ones here weren’t killed by bullets," I said quietly, nudging a corpse’s shoulder with the toe of my boot as I walked past. No entry holes, no burn marks. Just torn flesh and deep, ragged wounds.
The bodies looked like they’d been cut or ripped apart. So had clean, decisive slashes—limbs severed, torsos opened. Others looked like they’d been torn in brutal, ssy arcs, as if sothing had simply carved through them with overwhelming force. It reminded of what I do with my hand axe, but this was... harsher.
Maribel frowned. "What are you implying?"
"I don’t know..." I answered honestly, scanning the rooftops and alley mouths. "But whoever—or whatever—did this wasn’t sloppy."
Would a Starakian weapon target infected first? Maybe as a test? Or as a way to clear space before going after humans? The idea made my stomach knot. Their technology never appeared without intention.
Before I could chase that thought further, Maribel’s voice cut through my focus.
"Ahead! Another Hybrid!"
"What?"
I snapped my gaze forward.
There, further down the street near an intersection, stood another enhanced infected.
This one was larger than the previous Hybrid—bulkier, taller, its muscles straining visibly under sickly, discolored skin.
It must have felt my presence—or sensed the Dullahan virus inside —because its head snapped toward us with an almost chanical jerk. Its gaze locked on instantly.
Two Hybrids in the sa city?
What kind of cursed luck was that?
"Get back," I said, throwing an arm out instinctively in front of Maribel. "This one’s more dangerous than the last."
"It’s the sa for you!" She shot back, not moving. "We should fall back and figure out another way to deal with it. Charging it head-on is suicide."
"No, listen—"
The rest of the sentence died in my throat.
A sudden chill rippled through , crawling up my spine like ice water.
The hairs on my arms stood on end. Goosebumps prickled across my skin.
I shut my mouth and turned my eyes back to the Hybrid.
Its gaze had shifted.
It was no longer looking at . Instead, its head had partially turned toward the right, toward one of the intersecting streets ahead—sothing just out of our line of sight.
"What is...?" I mumbled, trailing off as that strange sensation intensified. It wasn’t fear but sothing else.
I raised my arms slightly, tal bar angled across my body, and took a half-step forward.
A shadow moved.
Sothing flashed across the intersection so fast it was little more than a dark blur, like a sar of night tearing through the daylight. It passed directly in front of the Hybrid—a swift, slicing line—and then landed lightly on the ground on the other side of it.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then one of the Hybrid’s thick arms separated from its body.
The severed limb spun through the air, trailing blood, and crashed to the pavent with a heavy, wet thud.
I blinked, eyes snapping to the dark figure now standing just beyond the creature.
What the hell...
The Hybrid roared, a sound half-scream, half-gargle, and whipped its head around, fury boiling off it in waves. It lunged toward the figure in black, moving with all the speed and aggression that had nearly killed earlier.
The figure moved faster.
Much faster.
It slipped under the Hybrid’s reach with a fluid, almost lazy ease, and in the sa motion sothing flashed again—steel or sothing like it, too quick to track. A series of wet, rapid sounds followed, like at being sliced in layers.
For an instant, it looked as if invisible lines had been drawn across the Hybrid’s body.
Then blood erupted from them all at once.
Sprays of dark fluid burst from its shoulders, torso, and legs, as if it had been cut from every direction simultaneously. The Hybrid staggered, trying to keep its balance, but its body was already coming apart.
A final, decisive arc of motion cut through the air.
The Hybrid’s head detached cleanly from its neck.
It sailed away in a slow, grotesque spin before crashing onto the ground several ters away, rolling once before coming to rest face-down. The massive, headless body took a single, stumbling step forward out of reflex, then toppled with a thunderous crash that shook the pavent.
Silence dropped over the street.
Dust drifted lazily through the air. Blood pooled, spreading in long, dark streaks. Sowhere far off, a lone infected moaned and then fell quiet again.
My attention narrowed to the figure now standing motionless near the fallen Hybrid.
It was dressed entirely in black—a hooded jacket, close-fitting pants, and a dark vest. A scarf or mask covered the lower half of the face, hiding the mouth and nose. Fresh blood dotted the clothes in sharp, bright patches, so of it still dripping from the hem of the jacket and the edge of the weapon in their hand.
The hood shadowed most of the upper face, but then the figure turned slightly, just enough for the light to catch the eyes.
I froze.
Deep, dark green eyes stared back at —cold, flat, almost lifeless. There was no obvious hatred there, no joy, no fear. Just a chilling emptiness.
Even with half the face covered, with the hood hiding the hairline and throwing shadows over familiar angles, recognition slamd into .
Those eyes.
I knew those eyes.
My mouth fell slightly open, the tal bar in my hand suddenly feeling heavier.
"E... Emily?"
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