Jonah went over the railing. Lillian lunged. Her ribs screamed as she threw herself across the tower platform and caught the back of his coat with both hands. The impact slammed her chest against the broken railing. Jonah’s weight dragged her forward. For one terrifying second, half her body hung over the courtyard.
Below them, the infected waited on their knees. Hundreds of faces tilted upward. Jonah dangled above them, kicking at empty air.
“Don’t let go,” he gasped.
Lillian’s injured hand slipped.
Peter stepped behind her.
He could have pushed her. He could have crushed her skull beneath his boot. Instead, he watched. The bullet hole in his temple had nearly closed. Black veins pulsed beneath the new tissue.
“Thomas wants you alive,” he said.
Lillian tightened her grip on Jonah’s coat.
“Then help me.”
Peter smiled. “He did not mention him.”
Jonah’s coat began to tear. A seam split beneath Lillian’s fingers. She looked down.
The infected directly below had not moved. They remained kneeling, hands resting against the blood-soaked ground. Some had exposed bone. Others wore the clothing they had died in decades earlier. Every one of them waited for Thomas. Lillian braced one boot against the railing.
“Swing toward the wall.”
Jonah glanced at the stone beneath him.
“That’s a long way.”
“Do it.”
He began to rock his body. The torn coat stretched farther with each movement. Peter crouched beside Lillian.
“You should have seen him when you left.”
Her jaw tightened.
“I didn’t leave him.”
“You crossed the bridge.”
“He made me.”
“He screamed for you after.”
The words struck with surgical precision. Lillian refused to look at him.
“He wasn’t himself.”
“He knew your name.”
Jonah swung closer to the wall. His boot struck stone.
“Again,” Lillian said.
He swung back, then forward. This time, his fingers found the edge of a narrow drainage ledge beneath the platform. He caught it.
Lillian released his coat and grabbed his wrist. Jonah hauled himself against the wall. A rifle cracked from across the settlement. The bullet struck Peter in the shoulder. He rocked backward.
Silas stood on the dining-hall roof, working the lever of an old hunting rifle. Clara crouched beside him with another weapon pressed against her shoulder.
“Get down!” Silas shouted.
Peter looked toward them. The smile vanished from his face. He lifted one hand. The infected below rose. Not all at once. The movement passed through them like a wave. Hundreds of bodies straightened and turned toward the dining hall.
“No,” Lillian said.
Peter lowered his hand. The horde ran. They poured through the courtyard toward Silas and Clara.
“Clara!” Jonah shouted from below.
Lillian seized the sledgehammer and swung it at Peter’s skull. He stepped aside. The hammer struck the tower floor. Peter caught the handle and pulled.
Lillian released it before he could drag her into his reach. She drove her knife toward his eye. He trapped her wrist. His fingers tightened. Pain shot through the bones of her injured hand.
“You still fight like prey,” he said.
Lillian slammed her forehead into his nose. Cartilage broke. Peter staggered. She twisted free, kicked him in the chest, and drove him into the searchlight. The metal housing bent beneath his weight.
Jonah’s voice rose from the outer ledge. “Lillian!”
The infected had reached the dining hall. They swarmed the exterior stairs and climbed the walls using windows, drainpipes, and one another. Silas fired into them from the roof. Clara did the same.
Every shot dropped one infected. Three more took its place. Lillian glanced beyond the western wall. Thomas remained on the highway. Still and watching.
The searchlight swept across him again. His coat stirred in the wind. One side of his face looked almost as it had twenty years ago: dark brow, sharp cheekbone, the faint line beside his mouth that appeared when he was trying not to smile. The other side was dead.
Skin had pulled tight over exposed bone. Black veins spread from his temple to his throat. His left eye was pale and clouded.
His right eye fixed on Lillian. It was brown. Thomas’s eye. Her heart recognized him before her mind could defend itself.
Peter tackled her. They struck the roof. The knife flew from her hand and spun toward the edge. Lillian caught Peter beneath the chin with her elbow. He barely reacted. He pinned her by the throat.
“You see him now,” he said.
Lillian clawed at his wrist.
“I see a monster.”
Peter leaned closer.
“So does he.”
A gunshot struck the searchlight behind them. Glass exploded across the platform. Peter turned toward the dining hall. Lillian drove both feet into his abdomen. He fell backward. She rolled and caught her knife before it slid over the edge, and buried it in the back of Peter’s neck. The blade sank to the hilt. His body locked.
Lillian shoved him forward and twisted the knife sideways until bone cracked. Peter collapsed against the roof and did not move. Black blood spread beneath him.
Lillian crawled to the railing. Jonah still clung to the ledge below.
She reached down. “Give me your hand.”
He looked toward Peter’s body. “Is he dead?”
“Until he proves otherwise.”
Jonah grabbed her wrist. She pulled. His boots scraped against the wall as he climbed. A violent crash sounded from the dining hall. The rooftop door had given way.
Silas backed into view, firing at the infected pouring up the stairs. Clara stood behind him. She fired until the rifle clicked empty.
“Silas!”
He drew his sidearm and shot an infected woman through the forehead. Another seized him from behind. Clara screamed. She struck it with the empty rifle, but two more climbed over the roof edge.
Lillian searched the platform. There was one crossbow, no bolts, the broken searchlight, and the diesel tank. She looked at the generator line running beneath the lamp.
“Jonah, can you make that explode?”
He followed her gaze.
“Not without a spark.”
Lillian held up the flare from her belt.
His eyes widened.
“You’ll burn the tower.”
“We’re leaving.”
“How?”
She pointed to the communication wire stretching from the tower roof to the administration building across the yard.
Jonah stared at it.
“That wire won’t hold both of us.”
“Then we don’t both use it.”
He shook his head. “No.”
The infected below began climbing the tower stairs. The door beneath them shook. Peter’s body twitched. Lillian saw his fingers move.
“Make the explosion.”
Jonah grabbed the generator hose and tore it free. Diesel spilled across the platform.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Getting Clara.”
“That roof is fifty yards away.”
“Forty.”
“That does not improve the plan.”
Lillian looped a length of maintenance rope around the communication wire and tied the ends together, creating a crude handle.
“You’ll never reach the dining hall.”
“I don’t have to.”
She pointed toward a lower roof between them. The infirmary. From there, a covered walkway connected to the dining hall’s second floor. Jonah poured the remaining fuel around the searchlight base. The door below cracked. Gray fingers pushed through.
“Ready,” he said.
Lillian climbed onto the railing. The courtyard spun beneath her. She gripped the rope handle with both hands. Her injured wrist throbbed. Across Grayhaven, Silas disappeared beneath the infected.
Clara raised her empty rifle like a club. Lillian jumped. The rope snapped tight. Pain tore through her shoulders. She slid along the communication wire, boots swinging above the courtyard.
The infected looked up as she passed. Hands reached for her. The wire sagged beneath her weight. The infirmary roof rushed closer. She was too low. She lifted her legs. Her boots struck the roof edge. The impact tore one hand from the rope. Lillian swung sideways. For a second, she hung over the alley between buildings. Then the rope handle slipped.
She fell. Her shoulder struck the sloped roof. She rolled across wet shingles and caught the gutter with one hand. Metal bent beneath her weight.
Below, infected crowded the alley. One reached up. Its fingers brushed her boot. Lillian drove the toe of her other boot into its face. The gutter tore free. She dropped. Her hands caught the roof edge. The infected seized her coat and pulled. Fabric tightened across her throat.
Lillian kicked wildly. A shot cracked above her. The infected’s head burst.
Mae leaned from an infirmary window with a pistol.
“Climb!”
Lillian hauled herself onto the roof.
Mae fired twice more into the alley.
“Are you bitten?” she shouted.
“No.”
“Then I’ll yell at you later.”
A deep roar shook the western wall. The gatehouse tower exploded. Fire rolled upward in a column of orange and black. The blast threw infected from the wall. Burning bodies fell into the courtyard. Others turned toward the flames, their attention breaking from the dining hall.
Jonah emerged through the smoke on the wall platform. He ran east. The explosion had worked for the moment.
Lillian crossed the infirmary roof and dropped onto the covered walkway. The wooden structure trembled beneath her boots. Ahead, the dining hall doors stood open. People poured out carrying children, weapons, and sacks of supplies. A guard saw her.
“The roof’s gone!”
“Where’s Clara Finch?”
He pointed upward. “Still there.”
Lillian entered. The dining hall was filled with smoke and screams. Tables had been overturned to create barricades. Families pressed against the far wall while hunters fought infected near the stairwell.
Holt stood in the center of the room, firing into anything that came through the door.
“Commander!”
He turned.
“What happened to the tower?”
“Jonah happened.”
“Where is he?”
“Alive.”
“Thomas?”
The name stopped her. Holt had never heard it before tonight. He saw the answer on her face.
“So it’s true.”
“I don’t know what’s true.”
A body fell through the ceiling. It struck a table and rolled onto the floor. It was Silas. His rifle was gone. Blood covered his arms and chest. Lillian reached him first.
“Silas.”
He opened his eyes.
“Clara.”
“Where is she?”
He coughed.
“Roof.”
“Are you bitten?”
“I don’t know.”
Holt seized Lillian’s arm.
“You can’t go up there.”
“She’s seventeen.”
“There are thirty infected above us.”
“Then I’ll be quick.”
She pulled away and ran for the stairs. The lower steps were slick with blood. Two infected blocked the landing. Lillian drove the axe into the first creature’s collarbone and kicked the second backward. It caught the railing. She struck again. The blade entered its temple.
She climbed over the bodies. The roof door had been torn from its hinges. Rain swept through the opening.
Lillian emerged into chaos. Bodies covered the roof. Some belonged to the dead. Some did not.
Clara stood near the far edge, trapped between the chimney and four infected. She held a broken arrow in one hand. Blood ran down the side of her face. One infected lunged. Clara drove the arrow through its eye. Another seized her hair.
Lillian threw her knife. The blade struck the creature’s throat. Not enough to kill it. Enough to make it turn.
Lillian ran. She shoulder-checked the infected away from Clara and swung the axe through its jaw. The remaining two charged. Clara ducked beneath the first.
Lillian took the second in the knee, brought it down, and split its skull. The last infected slammed Clara into the chimney. Its teeth snapped near her neck.
Lillian hooked the axe beneath its chin and pulled. The creature fell backward.
Clara drove the broken arrow through its eye. It stopped moving. For several seconds, neither of them spoke. Rain washed blood across the roof.
Lillian grabbed Clara’s face. “Show me your neck.”
“I’m fine.”
“Show me.”
Clara turned. No bite. Only a shallow cut near her hairline.
Lillian released her. “Can you walk?”
“I can fight.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
A horn sounded beyond the wall. Every infected in Grayhaven stopped again.
Clara looked toward the highway. “Is that him?”
Lillian followed her gaze.
Thomas had moved closer. He stood outside the gate now, only yards from the barricade. The horde beyond the wall had parted around him. No infected touched him or even looked at him. They faced Grayhaven. Waiting for his command.
Thomas lifted his head. “Lillian.”
This time, she heard no distortion. The voice was rough and low, damaged by years of decay. But it was his. She stepped toward the edge of the roof.
Clara caught her sleeve. “Don’t.”
Lillian barely felt the girl’s hand. Thomas looked up at her. Rain ran across the ruined side of his face.
“You know me,” he called. The words cut through the settlement.
Holt appeared in the doorway below, followed by three guards. “Get away from the edge,” he ordered.
Thomas’s gaze shifted to Holt. Every infected inside Grayhaven turned toward the commander. Holt stopped.
Thomas looked back at Lillian. “Come outside.”
Lillian’s hand closed around the brass key. “Why?”
His expression changed to a look of pain. Real pain.
“Because I cannot hold them much longer.”
As if in answer, the infected nearest the wall began to tremble. Their jaws opened and closed. Hunger fought obedience. One dropped to all fours and clawed at the stone. Another sank its teeth into its own arm.
Thomas’s right hand curled into a fist. The horde stilled.
Lillian stared at him. “You brought them here.”
“No.”
“Your people opened the gate.”
“They are not my people.”
Peter’s voice came from behind her.
“Not yet.”
Lillian spun.
Peter stood in the shattered roof doorway. His neck bent at an impossible angle where she had driven the knife through it. One side of his face was burned from the gatehouse explosion. He should not have been able to stand or speak.
Holt fired. The bullet struck Peter in the chest. Peter seized the nearest guard and tore out his throat. Clara screamed. The roof erupted into motion.
Holt fired again. Peter threw the dying guard into him.
Lillian charged. She swung the axe at Peter’s neck. He caught the handle with one hand. His other hand closed around Clara’s throat.
“Let her go.”
Peter lifted Clara from the roof. Her boots kicked above the shingles.
Thomas roared from beyond the wall. The sound was not human. Every infected in Grayhaven collapsed. Some clawed at their own skulls. Others convulsed violently. Peter flinched. Black blood leaked from his ears.
He looked toward Thomas. “You cannot command me.”
Thomas raised one hand. Peter’s fingers opened. Clara fell. Lillian caught her. Peter dropped to one knee. His head jerked backward as if an invisible hand had seized him by the spine.
Thomas’s voice rolled across Grayhaven. “Kneel.”
Peter fought it. His muscles trembled. Bones cracked in his neck. Slowly, unwillingly, he sank to both knees. Lillian stared from Peter to Thomas.
Thomas was controlling him. He was controlling all of them, but the strain showed. The black veins in his face pulsed. Blood ran from his nose. His clouded eye darkened.
“Lillian,” he said. “Open the gate.”
Holt shoved the dead guard aside and raised his pistol toward Thomas.
“If you open that gate, everyone in this settlement dies.”
Thomas looked at him. “No.”
He turned back to Lillian. “Everyone dies if you leave it closed.”
A cry rose from the northern watchtower.
“Movement inside the eastern field!”
Lillian looked across the settlement. The ground near the crops bulged, then collapsed. A black tunnel opened beneath the soil. Infected climbed out- hundreds of them.
The western attack had never been the invasion. It had been another distraction. The real horde was already beneath Grayhaven.
Holt went pale. “How?”
Peter began to laugh from his knees.
Thomas’s face hardened.
“Open the gate,” he repeated. “I can draw them out.”
Lillian looked at the infected emerging among the fields. At the civilians trapped inside the cell blocks. At Clara, gasping beside her. At Thomas, standing beyond the wall like a nightmare wearing the face of the man she had loved.
“You expect me to trust you?”
Thomas held her gaze. “No.”
The first infected reached the field workers. Screams tore through the settlement.
Thomas extended his hand toward her. “I expect you to remember me.”
Peter’s laughter stopped. His black eyes widened. Something moved beneath the skin of his throat. A shape crawled upward. Peter opened his mouth. A black, many-legged creature pushed between his teeth. Lillian recoiled.
Thomas shouted one word. “Run.”
The creature burst from Peter’s mouth and launched itself at Lillian’s face.