Apocalypse: After Reanimation, I Became The Queen-Chapter 64: _ Find The Keys, Find The Girls

I shut the door behind me with a soft thunk, and it echoes louder than it should in the lonesome hallway. The sound curls around the corners like a whisper you’re not supposed to hear. I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and pressed my back to the wall.

And just like that, the kiss hits me.

Not physically, obviously, though the way my lips tingle, you’d think he marked me with his mouth. It’s stupid... God, it’s stupid—but my fingers lift to touch where he kissed me like maybe I imagined it.

I didn’t.

That kiss was real. Warm, rough, careful like I might crack apart if he held me too tight. Which is hilarious, considering I’ve cracked so many times I’m practically a mosaic of bad choices.

Why’d he do it? That kiss. That soft little war.

I close my eyes, and his face flashes behind my eyelids; dirt-smudged, bleeding, but looking at me like I was sunlight in a bottle.

Idiot. He’s going to get himself killed because of me. And here I am, walking away.

I should turn back. I should go back in there and pretend none of this matters and maybe kiss him again, because what if one of us dies today?

But I don’t.

Because there’s too much to do and not enough of me to go around.

I told him I’d go find the girls. I told him I’d find the key. I didn’t tell him which came first because I didn’t know.

But now that the silence envelops me again, now that I’m alone and not kissing someone who tastes like dust, the truth settles like a weight in my gut.

Pretty Boy means more to me.

There. I said it. Well, thought it. Same difference.

It’s not that I don’t care about the girls, I do. Yara with her quiet anger, and the ever-annoying Bea. They’ve been useful.

If Yara hadn’t opened the door the other day, Leon might be dead by now. Not to mention opening that door made them the target of all the zombies I drew to their doorstep.

Even if it is obvious that they might not be able to push on for longer cooped up in that apartment, it might not have happened so soon if I hadn’t come into their lives.

I take responsibility and God knows I’m trying my best to make it up to them, but they aren’t making this any easier. Why on earth will they leave when I have already proved that if I go, I ALWAYS return?!

But Leon waited for me. When he could’ve run, could’ve given up and concluded that I’d gotten eaten by zombies even though they don’t know I already am, he waited. That means something.

And let’s be honest: the key helps both. It gives us a safe space. A lock between us and the rot outside. If I get that key, I protect all of us because even if the girls arrive and the door is not well locked, we are back to square one.

Right. Key first.

Decision made, I glance down the hallway, past the boot, past the open doors and darkness that smells like old bones and moldy upholstery. I’ve already searched this floor and turned it over like a pancake. If the key’s not here, it has to be below.

With a sigh, I adjust the axe in my hand that I picked from Robbie and Hugh’s stash, and head for the stairs.

********

The staircase groans beneath my boots as I descend. My senses go on high alert, for every crack of the banister, every flutter of dust, and little alarms set off in the back of my brain. I’m not scared, not exactly. I’m something worse.

I’m cautious.

The lower floor smells like decay and wet carpet. There’s a faint hum, maybe from a broken vending machine still sticking to the last gasp of power.

The lights are out here, so it’s just me and my shitty flashlight which flickers in that horror-movie way that really inspires confidence... or maybe the opposite.

I step over a half-eaten corpse. Its guts are spread across the tile like a rejected Jackson Pollock. I crouch next to it, nose wrinkled, eyes scanning for the telltale jingle.

Please let this guy have had keys. Please don’t make me dig into...

Clink.

Room 206!

Fucking hell! After all of that search! Finally!

Oh, thank God.

There they are, dangling from a belt loop, halfway buried in coagulated gore. The stench hits me, and I gag a little, but I reach out, yank the key ring, and wipe it on my pants because dignity left me three apocalypses ago.

Then... crunch.

I freeze when I hear the sound.

That wasn’t me.

I spin around, axe raised, my breath going still. The flashlight jitters across the hallway, shadows leaping like they’re alive.

There it is again. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Crunch. Drag. Whimper.

No. It’s not a whimper. It’s weeping.

What the hell?

I take a step toward the sound, slowly. My heart is doing its best metal drummer impression, pounding behind my ribs. The hallway ahead is dark, deeper than night, and the kind of dark that has teeth.

As I close in, it feels like it stretches the space around me. My boots hit the floor too loud. The air is thicker here. Something’s wrong.

I grip the axe tighter and round the corner.

And there, curled in a corner, arms hugging her knees with face streaked with grime and tears, is Bea.

My Bea. Our Bea.

Wild-haired, mouthy, apocalypse-survivor-extraordinaire Bea.

She’s crying.

"Bea?" I whisper.

She jumps like I’d shot her. Her head snaps up, and when she sees me, her face crumples even more.

"Renata?" Her voice cracks like dry leaves. "Is it really you?"

"I think so," I say, lowering the axe. "Unless you’ve finally snapped and conjured me out of trauma."

She sobs and scrambles forward, latching onto my arm. "Thank God. Thank God. I—I didn’t think I’d see you again. It was so loud and... Yara—Yara’s..."

Yara’s what? I hope it’s not what I’m thinking.