Chapter 1373: Story 1373: I Gave Her My Last Bullet
We counted every bullet like they were seconds left to live.
At the start, I had twenty. Then fifteen. Then eight. Then three. Then just two.
Now, I had one.
And I gave it to her.
We were surrounded at the train depot. Ava and I had been running for two days without sleep. Our boots were soaked in rain and blood. Her shoulder was wrapped in a shirt sleeve—I didn’t ask whose it had been.
The depot was supposed to be empty. But the groans echoing through the tunnel told us we were wrong. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Dead n in conductor hats. Broken won dragging wedding veils through ash.
Ava’s breathing was shallow. She hadn’t said much since we left the outpost. She hadn’t eaten in over 36 hours. And I knew—I just knew—that she was running on mory now.
mories of people we both didn’t talk about anymore.
I had one bullet. And I gave it to her.
She stared at it in her palm like it was a ring, or a child, or sothing holy.
“What do you expect to do with this?” she asked.
“Whatever you have to.”
“You think I’m going to shoot myself?”
“No. I think… you’re going to survive.”
We barricaded the break room with overturned vending machines and tal cabinets. The moaning got closer. Slower. More determined.
I watched her clean the bullet with the inside of her sleeve. She was crying without sound, but I didn’t ntion it. The dead don’t care about tears. They only care about blood.
She looked at with that fierce, wounded look. The one she gave back at the farmhouse when she pulled a knife from her boot and saved my life. The sa look she had when she kissed the first ti in the freezer aisle of a broken store.
“You should’ve kept it,” she whispered. “I’m not worth this.”
I touched her face. Dirt. Dried sweat. A faint bruise near her temple.
“You’re the only thing left that is.”
We kissed. Not out of passion—but out of defiance. Against the infection. Against the odds. Against fate itself.
Then we heard the glass shatter.
I held the door. With my body. My fists. A wrench. I scread until my throat tore. Until my arms were raw.
Until I couldn’t scream anymore.
She stood behind . Watching. Trembling.
Holding that bullet.
And then—just before I fell beneath the weight of all those hands—
She used it.
But not on herself.
Not on .
She used it on them. A clean shot. One that gave her five seconds.
Five seconds to run.
Five seconds to live.
Five seconds to rember that soone gave her everything.
And now I wait.
Maybe she made it.
Maybe she didn’t.
But if she did…
She still has that bullet casing.
And my na.
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