Eyes on the west side
Chapter 27
It had been a week since the crew learned about Alejandro. Most of the girls' time since then had gone to staying indoors as a precaution. Amy, who'd never been in a physical fight in her life, saw it as a chance to finally sharpen some kind of skill. She went to Leo first — the obvious choice, given his background with firearms.
No matter how hard she tried, though, she couldn't get a firm enough grip on the gun to do much with it. There wasn't a lot else to teach her beyond the basics, and actual target practice was off the table — too much risk of drawing attention from either side, the dead or the living.
That broke something in her a little. If the world ahead was going to be this hard, how was she supposed to survive it?
Feeling sorry for herself, feeling useless, she wandered two blocks down to a small three-story café — the place they used to pull breakfast supplies from. The silence out there pressed in harder than she expected, enough to make her shiver by the time she climbed up to the roof and took in the view.
Reality hit her like a slab of concrete. Blood staining the pavement, the road, the walls. Cars crushed into unnatural shapes, and she found herself wondering if whoever had been inside them had ever had a chance. She slid down against the wall and cried, staring at the exit door, until a faint, familiar thud cut through the quiet. She wiped her face, pushed herself up, and went down to check.
The undead caught her the second she reached the stairs — lunging straight for her throat. She screamed with everything she had.
It was too strong to flip, pinning her down, and she fought just to keep its teeth from finding her neck. She screamed until she realized nobody was coming. She hadn't told anyone where she'd gone.
As it writhed on top of her like something half-crocodile, she scanned for anything to use. A nearby car was too far to reach in time, but a broken wooden chair sat just a few feet away. She let it get close enough to almost bite down before shoving it off with everything she had, buying herself the half-second she needed to scramble for the chair. It lunged again as she dodged, and she felt her knee give out wrong beneath her — a sprain, sharp enough to nearly drop her — but she stayed up, limping hard now, heading for a white Chevrolet Prizm parked nearby.
She threw herself into the back seat. The thing grabbed her ankle right as she did, and she screamed, kicking blind until it finally let go, scrambling out the opposite door just as it came around the same way. She didn't hesitate — she swung the chair into it again and again, blood spattering across her face and dress, until there was nothing left of its head but scattered ruin on the asphalt.
She didn't stop moving after that. Limping hard, she kept off the main road, cutting building to building despite the pain screaming up her leg with every step.
She was almost to the building across from the hotel when she spotted two figures she first mistook for more of the dead — until she heard them actually talking.
She froze, staying as quiet as her ragged breathing allowed.
"Why do we even gotta watch these guys? They're barely a threat," one of the men said, rifle strapped across his shoulder.
"Don't look at me. I don't question orders, I just follow them," the other said, lighting a cigarette.
They were about to move on when her knee buckled slightly, stretching to ease the pain — and sent an empty can rolling across the pavement right next to her. Both men went on alert instantly, weapons raised, scanning — before dismissing it as a rat, or the wind. It nearly caught her anyway.
She waited until their footsteps faded completely before making her move, slipping to the hotel's rear service door — the one they used for trash — and nearly collapsing straight into Leo and Duncan, who'd been about to head out looking for her once someone noticed she was missing.
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"Wow. I didn't take you for a badass, Amy. How'd you manage to push through all that?" Jane asked, working on her knee.
"Got lucky, I guess," Amy said, laughing it off awkwardly, dodging the real question.
"Where's Leo?" she asked instead, worry plain on her face.
"With everyone else, in the cafeteria." Jane could tell there was more Amy wasn't saying, but didn't push — just helped her limp the rest of the way there.
The second they walked in, Amy went still, scanning the room until her eyes landed on Leo.
"We're being watched. I saw two men with guns, west side of the hotel," she said, flat, almost toneless — and the whole room froze.
That changed everything. If what she'd seen was real, they didn't have time to spare. Leo gave the order immediately: evacuate, find somewhere new. Luckily, the hotel sat in a wealthy enough part of the city that options weren't scarce — this was exactly the kind of neighborhood where people used to spend money just to look down on everyone who couldn't.
Everyone had a job. Kaito and Brad — despite everything still unresolved between them — put it aside long enough to work together, hauling what luggage and supplies they could carry, careful not to strip the hotel completely bare. Just enough left behind to make it look like two people were still living there, nothing more.
Alex and the girls found a spot ten blocks northwest — a small luxury apartment building, gory out front but intact in back.
"You call this *small*?" Sasha asked, staring up at all four stories of it, genuinely stunned. The biggest place she'd ever lived in before all this was the apartment complex she'd shared with roommates, and this dwarfed it easily.
Meanwhile, Leo and Duncan swept the surrounding blocks, building by building, checking for anyone watching. Duncan found something and whistled Leo over.
Binoculars. A walkie-talkie. Set up on a desk, angled straight at the hotel's windows.
"Oh my God," Leo muttered, staring at it.
"How long do you think they've been up here?" he asked, peering through the binoculars himself.
"Week, maybe. Place is in rough shape." Duncan kept searching the room. "Same could be said about the whole world, at this point." He turned up a small multi-tool knife — the kind bikers tended to carry — and tossed it over.
"Look at this."
Leo turned it over in his hand. "Whoever this belongs to, I'm guessing he's not someone we sit down and talk things out with."
Before either of them could say much else, a car engine rumbled toward the building. They were out the door in seconds, knife in hand, binoculars left behind, cutting straight back to the hotel.
They'd barely had a second to breathe when a knock sounded at the door.
