The night swallowed them whole.
Mira and Elena moved fast, slipping through the cracked service tunnel beneath the arena. The air reeked of mildew and rust, and the only light ca from Mira's flickering flashlight. Every step away from the "safe zone" felt like shedding a weight — and gaining a new one.
"Keep low," Mira whispered. "They'll co looking."
"They?" Elena asked.
"Caleb," Mira said, tightening her grip on the fire poker, "and anyone who thinks two strays are worth the bullets."
They erged into an alley choked with weeds, broken glass crunching underfoot. In the distance, the arena's faint glow faded. But the quiet didn't feel like freedom.
It felt like a trap.
They made it two blocks before they heard it — the sound of boots slapping wet pavent. More than one set. Fast. Purposeful.
"They're tracking us," Elena breathed.
"Not just them," Mira said, stopping short.
A wet, rasping groan slithered through the air. Then another. Shapes stirred in the shadows — half a dozen infected, their milky eyes catching the flashlight's beam. One twitched unnaturally, head cocked at an impossible angle. Another had no jaw, only a dangling tongue swinging with each step.
"We run," Mira said.
They sprinted through the rain-slick streets, dodging debris. Sowhere behind them, gunfire cracked — not at them, but at the infected now closing in. Caleb's people had caught up, but instead of helping, the shots seed more like herding.
"They're pushing us!" Elena shouted. "They're trying to corner us!"
Mira's stomach knotted. "Into what?"
The answer ca a mont later.
They stumbled into a courtyard hemd in by half-collapsed buildings. No exits except the alley they'd co from — and Caleb's crew now blocking it. Their rifles weren't aid at the infected.
They were aid at Mira and Elena.
"Drop your weapons," Caleb called.
Mira's breath ca fast. "You followed us out here to kill us?"
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"To protect the zone," Caleb said evenly. "You leave, you talk. You talk, people panic. Panic kills faster than infection."
The groans were getting closer.
"You've got seconds before they reach you," Elena spat.
"Then make this easy," Caleb said, raising his rifle.
A shriek split the night.
The infected poured into the courtyard like water through a broken dam. Chaos erupted — gunfire, screams, blood spraying in the half-light. Mira grabbed Elena's wrist and ran, ducking under a lunging corpse and vaulting over a pile of rubble.
They didn't stop until the city swallowed all sound behind them.
When they finally collapsed in the skeleton of an old bookstore, the only light ca from the moon filtering through broken skylights. Elena's chest heaved, eyes wild.
"They're not going to stop," she said.
Mira nodded slowly, eyes on the dark street outside. "Then neither will we."
Sowhere, not far enough away, the infected moaned — and the hunt began again.
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