The smell hit me first—weed, cheap alcohol, something sharper I couldn't place. It was thick in the air, clinging to the grimy tiles of the boys' bathroom. My eyes watered a little, and I could barely make out the fat kid sprawled on the floor, getting kicked again and again by my friends.
It's just jokes… nothing bad. Nothing too dangerous. I told myself that. My mind went blank, a blank slate as the kicks and laughter blurred together.
Then someone tapped me on the shoulder.
"Yo, Carter."
I flinched, turning to see someone holding out a cigarette. I opened my mouth to refuse—
"You can't offer Carter no shit like that, Damien! He's a runner, remember?"
Laughter erupted. One of the boys who'd been stomping the kid snickered, loud and sharp. I looked down and froze. They were shoving cigarettes into his mouth, forcing him to chew. His face went pale, eyes wide, desperate.
A hook of an arm pressed across my shoulder, pulling me closer. I forced a smile, heart hammering.
The laughter continued, the blunt rotated, the kicks came one after another. And I just…watched. Wanted to speak up, tell them to stop. But that wouldn't fit in, would it? Not if I wanted to be one of them.
Then time froze. The door swung open.
The principal.
The laughter died instantly.
The fat kid spat out the cigarettes, scrambling to his feet. He brushed past me without a word, leaving the bathroom in silence, leaving me behind with my stomach twisting and my hands shaking.
I sighed, my feet dragging as I stepped out of the principal's office. The bruise on my cheek throbbed with every step. From the hallway, I could hear my dad pleading with the principal not to get me expelled. Something about me wasting potential. I didn't look back. I just kept walking, wishing I could disappear.
Then a flash of dirty-blonde hair caught my eye. Lila. I didn't want to see her—not like this. But she turned anyway— of course she did—and started toward me with that soft-but-unshakeable confidence she always had, long before she ever became… whatever she is now.
Her fingers brushed my cheek. Warm. Gentle.
It hurt.
"Your dad?" she asked quietly.
"Yeah," I muttered, trying to hide the wince that jumped out of me anyway.
She tilted her head, eyes sharp. "Why do you keep hanging out with those guys, Adrian? The ones who get you into trouble… the ones you don't even like?"
I froze. There it was—the question I had no answer for. I opened my mouth, but nothing came. She already knew. She had a way of knowing things.
She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around me. Pulling me in. Holding tight like she could shield me from everything—my dad, the bad company, the school, myself.
For a moment, I let myself sink into it.
The hallway blurred. My chest loosened. And for the first time that day, I didn't feel like a total loser.
A single tear slipped down my cheek, and she pretended not to notice.
What a shitty life…
And it was over before it even begun.
When I opened my eyes, I was reminded of a reality even worse.
There she was—Lila. My sweet, perfect girlfriend. Stabbing our neighbor from upstairs with a kitchen knife. The kind of smile she used to flash when she teased me. That smile now contorted into something I never wanted to see. Not from her.
His bat—the weapon he was supposed to kill me with— lay useless in his open palm.
I didn't even notice the blood streaked across my cheek. My mind was a blank screen, my body frozen.
She was finally done, standing over his crumpled body, chest heaving. Her eyes glinted—wild, almost unrecognizable.
I barely got time to look up at her as she leaned down, grabbing me by the arm and yanking me from my kneeling position.
The world blurred. Everything was too fast, too loud. The stairs were a tunnel of chaos. I ran—or tried to.
This….? This was all just a sick dream. Yes. If I closed my eyes, and opened them again— I'd wake up in a cold sweat.
I tried it. Of course I did.
But my inattentiveness only made me trip over something dead. My eyes shot wide, as a new found sense of despair hit me.
This was all real…wasn't it?
"Adrian, focus!!"
I looked up just in time to see the streets around us—a neighborhood I once knew—erupting into madness. People I'd grown up with, friends, neighbors, strangers…killing each other, smiling while they did it.
"Where the hell are you taking me—?"
I shouted, but my voice barely cut through the chaos.
She didn't answer. She just cut a sharp corner, her grip tight on my wrist, dragging me through the carnage like I was weightless. Knives flew past us, bullets whizzed through shattered windows, and screams echoed off every brick wall. Somehow, impossibly, being with Lila felt like a shield—like nothing could touch me.
I hated it. Hated feeling exposed. Hated relying on a psycho freak like her.
"You can't just—" I started, but the words died in my throat. I spat out the defiance anyway, teeth gritted. "I'm not doing this with you!"
She turned her head slightly, just enough for her eyes to catch mine. And then she smiled. In the middle of the chaos, in the blood, in the screaming streets—she smiled.
"Sweetie," she began softly, almost sweetly, as if we were alone in some sunlit room instead of sprinting through hell.
"Don't worry. I have a safe place. A secret bunker. No one can touch us there."
My mind scrambled. Safe place? Bunker? What the hell was she talking about?
And then it hit me. Was she talking about her parents' mansion? The one I'd forgotten she even had because…well, living with her had made me forget. She was loaded.
For a moment, amid the chaos, part of me thought maybe—just maybe—we could survive this.
But then I remembered the knife in her hand. The smile. The blood.
There was no fucking way I was gonna continue living with her after that. And DEFINITELY not with her Adam's family coded parents who's probably infected with this shit too.
Yet, as her kitchen knife slashed through a running attacker coming straight toward us, I realized that I didn't really have a choice.
I…I didn't want to survive out here by my self. I couldn't.
My "friends"? Yeah, probably long gone by now.
Guess I had to make due with her. It might the only way to survive for a couple months.