"End of the road, sweetheart."
The woman with the piercings cocked her gun Aubrey froze at that, before she slowly raised her hands and turned.
Despair hit her like cold water as she took the scene in.
Most of her squad lay scattered across the cold floor— some twitching, some eerily still, as if they were trying to act dead while Crucible gunmen stepped over them like they were discarded trash. Shell casings spread across the ground like confetti. Terri was on her knees, trembling so violently that her hair shook, hands clasped behind her head as tears streaked down her cheeks.
Lila stood rigid, hands lifted, jaw clenched. Her eyes were dark, feral, murder simmering just beneath the surface.
Aubrey swallowed hard, tasting metal.
"Look—…if it's the weapons we took from the Geeks that you want— fine. We'll give them to you."
She barely managed to get her words out. Her voice hoarse from fear she didn't want to show.
"…there's no need for all this."
The woman with the piercings didn't answer at first.
She just stared.
As Aubrey narrowed her eyes, she was able to see her corneas glowing faintly with red.
That's when she realized.
Her head tilted slightly, lips curling into a smile that didn't belong on a human face.
Aubrey's stomach curled.
"The weapons…"
She woman repeated softly, stepping closer. Her boots crunched over broken glass and blood.
"Ah. Yes. The weapons. That's what we did all this for…"
She leaned in until Aubrey could smell smoke on her breath.
"…didn't we?"
The implication hit Aubrey like a brick. Yet, she never wanted to believe what her mind was thinking.
"W— we can take you to our camp. That's where they all are…"
The woman lifted her chin slightly, nostrils flaring as she took a long, deliberate inhale through her nose— as if she was savoring the air.
The pause stretched.
Aubrey could hear distant gunfire, someone whimpering, her own heartbeat pulsing in her ears…
But the woman stood perfectly still, eyes half-lidded, breathing in the smoke and blood like perfume.
Then finally, she exhaled with a shiver that ran down her spine.
"Don't you smell that?" She cooed.
She stepped closer. Aubrey was too frozen to recoil back.
"The blood… the metal… the fear."
Her smile deepened, slow and predatory.
"It just does something to me."
She leaned in so close Aubrey could see dried crimson under her nails.
"Does it do the same for you?"
Aubrey didn't answer.
Her throat had closed up. The look of stoicism breaking under utter shock as she felt bile rise.
She suppressed it.
The woman's smile twitched, slowly melting before dropping completely.
Her expression hardened like a mask cracking, an instant shift from a giddy smile to cold, irritated disappointment.
She frowned.
A single sharp line between her brows.
"No?" Her tone flattened.
"Shame."
The woman didn't wait for Aubrey to answer.
She just began to walk.
Slow, bored steps— boots dragging lazily through the blood and shell casings. The way she paced felt deliberate, like she was giving a lecture in a classroom rather than standing in the middle of a massacre.
"If I'm being honest with you…"
She lifted her voice just enough for it to rise above the distant gunfire in the warehouse.
"…I don't need guns."
Aubrey went pale, like she had just heard the very thing she never wanted to hear.
Her fingers flicked the pistol aside, letting it dangle at her side like it was nothing more than a fashion accessory.
"Guns are… what's the word?" She scrunched up her face, her mind working to find the right term.
Then she snapped her fingers.
"Expendable. Cliché. Cheap little shortcuts for people without imagination."
Aubrey's breath hitched.
The woman walked past a fallen soldier from Aubrey's squad— barely giving him a glance as she stepped over his body.
"I mean, sure— they make a cute noise. Bang bang. Very dramatic."
She mimicked with her two fingers. That was enough to make Aubrey flinch.
Then— her smile sharpened, too wide at the corners.
"But they're not really my style."
She circled back toward Aubrey, boots making wet sticky sounds with every step.
Her eyes gleamed when she moved through the dim light.
"So…if this isn't about guns, what the fuck do you want?"
Her voice was strained.
At that, the woman stopped pacing. She eyed Aubrey with keen, twisted curiosity.
Her expression then shifted— melting from playful mockery into something disturbingly calm.
She pressed a blood-slicked palm over her chest in mock sincerity.
"Well, I want what everyone should want."
Her smile grew, slow and crooked.
"To wreak havoc."
Aubrey's eyes widened.
The woman stepped closer until their faces were inches apart.
"To cause torment."
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
"To watch the world burn like it was supposed to."
Aubrey felt a chill crawl up her spine.
"W— What..?"
The woman inhaled deeply, as though drawing in Aubrey's fear with the air.
"Don't you see? This apocalypse…"
She stretched her arms wide, gesturing at the carnage surrounding them—
To feral infected crawling along the alley outside.
To the guts smeared across the pavement.
To Terri sobbing, to Lila having a gun pointed to her face.
"…this is a blessing."
Her tone turned almost religious.
"What I see when I look at all of this…I see truth."
Her voice deepened— heavy strange conviction Aubrey couldnt wrap her head around.
"This is what we were always meant to be. No rules. No manners. No masks pretending we're civilized. That's all bullshit."
She leaned in until Aubrey felt the warmth of her breath.
"This—?"
A moment of silence.
"…is the true nature of Homo sapiens."
She smiled again, wider this time, glowing eyes brightening with sick delight.
"Animals that hunt and kill."
There was a deafening silence as bullets continued to rain, pulsing through her ears. Aubrey seemed lost for words at that point.
"…You're just like me, aren't you?"
Aubrey went confused at her words, her pulse spiking.
Yet before she could respond,
SMASH.
Glass splintered as one of the windows had been burst through. The woman's gaze lingered on the broken glass, and the flash of dirty blonde hair crawling through it.
She sighed in disappointment.
Aubrey's eyes seem to lit up.
…in Aubrey's Land Rover.
My hands grew tight on the steering wheel as the land rover cut through the carnage that was Hyde Park. I had almost run over one of the infected.
Mainly because I couldn't focus. I mean— who could?
I tried to keep my eyes on the road ahead of me despite the dread filling my soul, but I couldn't keep them from straying to the woman holding me hostage.
She sat slouched in the passenger seat, one leg propped up, chewing a piece of gum at a rather obnoxious pace. Slow, loud, like she was disregarding my whole presence.
My eyes cut back to the road for just a moment, then back to her.
"Where the fuck am I even—"
"Shut the fuck up."
Her tone was flat. She didn't even look at me, her gaze lingering on her rotating finger nails.
They were overly colorful— mismatched with rhinestones and glitter layered ontop of each other.
I frowned.
"If you never wanted to talk to me at first, then don't talk to me now just because your life's on the line."
I swallowed, looking forward again, trying to steady my breathing.
But curiosity gnawed at the back of my skull until I couldn't hold it anymore.
A moment of silence passed before I asked—
"So was it you?"
That seemed to get her attention.
"Was it me what?"
My throat tightened. My confidence had instantly died.
"Who…uhm…left the note in my bed."
Her eyebrows crashed together.
"What fucking note?"
My voice shrank. I hated it. Hated her for making it happen.
"You know…y— you said you got excited from my expression, so I thought maybe—"
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."
I blinked.
She scoffed and rolled her eyes.
"It was probably one of your freak girlfriends or something. I don't leave notes saying I wanna fuck."
She snapped her gum.
Girlfriends? Did she mean—
"I just do it."
Her syllables suddenly became syrupy and seductive. I could see in through my periphery the woman purposefully flashing me a bit of cleavage. I suppressed a blush at the sight
Yet— I couldn't even open my mouth to respond.
In the rearview mirror, a dark blur shot into sight.
A humvee was barreling toward us fast.
My eyes widened.
I leaned closer, squinting past the tinted windows.
And there she was— hands gripping the wheel like she wanted to strangle it.
Lila.
Her eyes were locked on us, Feral yet focused. Nothing was in her mind but blood.
For the first time since this nightmare started…
Hope flickered in my chest.
I looked towards the woman, and to my surprise, she had already noticed— her lazy and bored demeanor dissolving like a pill to water.
Frustration and anger painted her face.
"Keep fucking driving."
She shoved herself out of the passenger seat, climbing into the back.
I didn't know what the game plan was for either of the two psychos.
But through my dreadful anxiety, I couldn't help but allow a shaky smile.