Chapter 5
Carter and I started ushering survivors toward the side hallways.
At that exact moment, the front doors burst inward.
Zombies flooded into the lobby.
My heart climbed into my throat—
and then stopped.
Because they didn’t attack anyone.
Not one person.
They simply formed a ring around Logan.
Silent.
Waiting.
Logan stared up at Ethan with genuine horror.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “How can you make them obey you?”
The comments were beside themselves.
Zombie King supremacy.
Villain, your father is here.
Logan’s face twisted.
Then, with terrifying speed, he grabbed Luna by the throat and hauled her up into the air.
Her little legs kicked wildly.
His body began to change.
Muscles swelling.
Skin darkening to a dead, blue-gray tone.
His clothes ripped as he expanded into something grotesque and huge.
The comments flashed again.
Wait, when did the villain become a zombie?
That wasn’t in the original plot!
Then again, he was obsessed with power. Of course he’d turn himself if it made him stronger.
I lunged forward too late.
Luna’s face was already turning red.
Then electricity cracked through the room with a violent snap.
Ryan—who somehow had gotten back up—drove the stun baton straight into Logan’s side.
Logan convulsed.
His grip loosened.
Luna dropped.
Carter shouted, “Ryan, you beautiful maniac!”
Luna rolled across the floor and darted behind me.
But Logan had gone fully feral.
His men surged into motion too.
The whole room exploded into a fight.
Carter and Ethan both charged straight at Logan.
A deep, inhuman growl tore from Ethan’s throat.
Logan froze for one stunned second.
Then his eyes widened.
“You—” he choked out. “You’re the Zombie King?”
Ethan did not dignify that with an answer.
He just kicked him so hard Logan flew through a wall.
Literally through it.
Into the next room.
Logan got back up.
He tried to fight.
But under Ethan’s pressure, he moved like an old man underwater.
Slow.
Heavy.
Pathetic.
Ethan walked over, grabbed his head, and slammed it into the floor once.
Twice.
Three times.
The comments had never loved anyone more.
The male lead is basically a human tank.
The villain looks strong but is completely useless in front of the Zombie King.
Logan, dizzy and half-smashed, groped blindly across the floor.
His hand found a gun.
He lifted it and aimed straight at Ethan.
“Die.”
I did not think.
I moved.
I threw myself in front of Ethan just as the gun fired.
The shot rang through the room.
I shut my eyes.
Waited for pain.
It didn’t come.
When I opened them, the bullet was hanging crookedly in the air for one impossible second before it veered sideways and buried itself in the wall.
Maya stood not far away, pale as paper.
Her lips had gone bloodless, but she was smiling.
The comments screamed.
The female lead leveled up!
She just controlled a bullet with psychic power!
That’s insane!
I ran to her as her knees buckled.
“You’re crazy,” I snapped, catching her. “Do you know what overusing psychic power can do to your brain?”
She leaned against me, breathing hard.
“And you’re one to talk,” she muttered. “You jumped in front of a bullet.”
Before I could answer, Logan saw Ethan’s attention split and lunged again—
this time straight for me.
Carter tossed me his gun.
I raised it with both hands, aimed at Logan’s leg the way he had taught me, and fired.
He dropped to one knee with a howl.
Ethan came up behind him, grabbed his head, and shouted, “Sienna. Close your eyes.”
I did.
A second later, there was a horrible sound.
I didn’t open them.
Warm fingers covered my eyes from the front.
Maya.
“Don’t look,” she said quietly.
When the noise stopped, the entire room seemed to exhale.
I lowered my hands.
Logan was no longer moving.
Maya’s body sagged against me.
I caught her and helped her sit.
Only then did I realize she was shaking all over.
Luna wandered over, crouched beside her, and peered up into her face.
Then she reached out and gently patted Maya’s hair.
“Auntie,” she asked in her tiny voice, “does it hurt?”
Maya blinked.
Luna tilted her head and added very earnestly, “Auntie pretty.”
For the first time since I had met her, Maya laughed without any bitterness in it.
“You weird little zombie,” she said.
Not far away, Ethan was wiping blood off himself with the kind of intense panic I would normally associate with a man trying to defuse a bomb.
He wiped his hands.
Then his sleeves.
Then his hands again.
He stood a full ten feet away from me, clearly miserable.
He wouldn’t come close.
I walked over and hugged him first.
He went rigid.
“I’m dirty,” he stammered.
I rose up on my toes and kissed his cheek.
“You’re not.”
Across the room, Maya watched us.
Something passed through her face.
Relief, maybe.
Or acceptance.
Then she looked away.
A little later, when the survivors had calmed down and the hospital was no longer one bad breath away from collapse, she finally spoke to Ethan again.
“When I went abroad,” she said, “your father had people watching me the whole time. He made it very clear he wouldn’t let someone like me come back into your life.”
She drew a breath.
“So the things I said then… they weren’t what I meant.”
The comments were divided now.
The former main couple had it too easy before. The first real obstacle destroyed them.
Maybe the female lead is better off on her own.
Maybe this is her independent queen arc.
Ethan was silent for a long time.
Then he said, “I know.”
Maya stared at him.
“You knew?”
He didn’t answer.
He just reached for my hand instead.
We left the hospital with the zombie horde trailing behind us in eerie silence.
Before we went, Ethan gave them one command.
“No biting people anymore.”
The zombies all nodded in unison like obedient soldiers.
I decided not to think too hard about that.
It was easier for my sanity.