The closest zombie reached for my arm.

Yuche moved before it touched me.

A strip of metal tore from the frame of a broken storefront sign and flashed through the air, slicing cleanly through the zombie’s wrist. The hand dropped to the pavement, fingers still twitching.

The zombie didn’t even look at the stump.

It reached with the other hand.

I stared at it.

Then smiled.

Not nicely.

"Oh," Lingyun said quietly from beside me. "I know that face."

Good.

At least someone did.

The baby vine lifted from my wrist, its little head turning toward the approaching zombies like it had finally decided this situation had become interesting.

"You don’t get to touch me," I said softly.

The zombie stepped closer.

The ground trembled again.

Stronger.

A deep groaning sound moved beneath the street, not loud enough to be a roar, but big enough that the nearest building windows rattled in their frames.

And there it was.

The root.

Not plant roots.

Not actual roots.

The starting point.

The thing underneath all of this.

The thing making dead bodies carry living ones.

The thing dragging people into the city and keeping the streets clean.

The thing that thought it could send delivery boys to collect me like I was yesterday’s trash.

I stopped backing up and Yuche noticed my movements immediately.

So did Lingyun for that matter.

Chenghai and Zhenlan noticed a second later, and for the first time since they had started acting like two badly adjusted war survivors, neither one said a word.

Good.

They could learn something.

Another zombie reached for me.

The baby vine snapped forward and punched straight through its skull before ripping free with a wet crack. The body collapsed, but three more stepped over it without slowing.

That should have been creepy, but instead, it was useful.

"Okay," I said, mostly to myself. "So the little ones don’t matter."

Lingyun swallowed. "Rouxi?"

"They’re strings."

Nobody answered.

I looked past the zombies.

Past the dark road.

Past the groups still dragging survivors farther into downtown.

"They’re not the hand."

The ground pulsed again.

Closer.

My smile widened just a little.

There.

That was better.

If something wanted to play with strings, then fine.

I could pull.

Zhenlan’s expression changed.

Just slightly.

For the first time since he had come back wrong, he looked at me like he had no idea what he was seeing.

Good.

That made two of us.

Because whatever version of Rouxi he knew, whatever dead girl he had buried in his other life, whatever useless little ward lived inside his head, she was not standing here right now.

I was.

And I was tired.

I was hungry.

I had been dragged away from my couch, denied my dramas, attacked by zombie rats, forced into a haunted supply run, and now some underground asshole thought it could add me to its grocery list.

Not happening.

The zombies kept advancing.

"Rouxi," Chenghai said carefully as if he was testing out whether or not I would answer him.

I didn’t bother to look at him, but I didn’t ignore him completely. "What?" I asked.

"We should move."

"We are."

"Toward the SUV."

"No."

That shut him up.

Perfect. I liked a man who knew when to keep his opinions to himself.

Lingyun made a small distressed sound. "I’m sorry, did we just change plans without a group vote?"

And then there was Lingyun.

"Yep," I replied, my eyes never leaving the zombies around up.

"I hate democracy when I’m not included."

"And that is why we are currently in a benevolent dictatorship.... with me being the benevolent dictator." I pointed toward the street ahead where the zombies were still moving in slow, deliberate lines. "We’re finding whatever is doing this."

Zhenlan stared at me. "You just said we should leave."

"I changed my mind," I replied with a shrug.

"Why?"

Another zombie lunged forward faster than I was giving it credit for.

Chenghai hit it so hard its ribs caved inward before it crashed through the side window of an abandoned car. Glass burst across the pavement, loud enough to echo down the street.

Every zombie stopped.

Then turned fully toward us.

Oops.

Chenghai looked almost offended by that.

I looked at him. "You hit it too hard."

"It lunged at you."

"And now you made us popular."

"They were already coming." 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

"Not with this much enthusiasm."

Yuche exhaled once through his nose, which was basically a laugh considering the circumstances.

The zombies started moving faster. They weren’t quite running, not yet, but they were definitely not happy with us...

And that polite corpse-walking portion of the evening was clearly over.

Fine by me. I wasn’t happy with them either. If they wanted to be rude, then I could be rude too.

The baby vine whipped out again, breaking knees and skulls with sharp, efficient strikes while Yuche pulled metal loose from signs, doors, and vehicle frames to cut anything that came too close. Lingyun’s fire flared bright across the street, forcing several zombies backward long enough for Zhenlan to shove another group away with a blast of air.

Chenghai moved through the gaps like violence had been built into his bones.

Efficient.

Brutal.

Useful.

And yet... still not forgiven.

The ground shook harder as a long crack split through the asphalt several feet away, running in a jagged line toward the intersection.

Something beneath the city shifted, and the zombies adjusted with it.

That was the moment everything clicked into place and I got even more pissed off. I was being guided like a bull with a ring through my nose and a rope around my neck.

The zombies were blocking one road while leaving another open. They were trying to herd us to where they wanted to go because they understood that we were dangerous enough that they didn’t want to get too close.

My smile disappeared as their insult slapped me across the face.

"Oh, you arrogant piece of shit."

Lingyun froze for half a second. "Please tell me you’re talking to one of us."

"No."

"Well, fuck."

I stepped forward.

The zombies ahead shifted again.

A path opened between them.

Not wide.

Not inviting.

But deliberate.

Toward the same direction every other group had been traveling.

Toward whatever waited deeper in downtown.

Toward the root of the problem.

Yuche moved immediately to my side even as Lingyun groaned but followed Yuche’s lead. "I just want everyone to know that I am emotionally against this."

"Noted," I replied.

Chenghai and Zhenlan fell in behind us without so much as a peep.

That was probably for the best.

The thing under the city had sent its little delivery corpses to collect me.

Fine.

I would let them lead me to the door.

Then I was going to tear the whole thing apart from the roots up.