novelraw Chapter 165: Holding Pattern
Chapter 165: Holding Pattern
It had been over a week since they had first seen that glint off in the distance.
A week of continuing with a routine that didn’t help, but that Zubair refused to give up on. A week of heavy silence and sighing from everyone every time Lachlan’s gaze turned to the direction of the leaning tower with humans inside.
A week of the creature under Sera’s skin needing something that she wasn’t willing to give.
Sera trailed her hand along the marble counter as she crossed the kitchen, the cool stone smooth beneath her palm.
She had walked this penthouse a hundred times, but now, every time she noticed something new, something different. The firelight from the living room stretched across the walls, casting shadows over leather couches and the gleam of polished steel.
This was her space.
Her fortress.
Her future.
It had taken her a year of prepping to make it this way—scouting, storing, sealing.
Every cabinet was stocked, every closet packed with food no one else would ever taste. Bear and deer in the freezers, chocolate was sealed in tins and even more were hidden in her storage. Pasta was stacked like bricks beside canned sauces and pesto.
Upstairs, the greenhouse hummed with life, tropical fruit trees and vegetables thriving beneath glass, bees working in their hives like the world hadn’t ended.
It was hers. Every chair, every room, every breath of warm air in the dead city.
And if anyone crossed her threshold, she would tear them apart.
The only thing that was setting her on edge was the fact that her horde was starting to fracture... just a bit.
Lately, every time she closed her eyes, she remembered the dog cage.
Rust at the bars, her knees tucked against her chest, the stench of bleach and blood clinging to the floor. She remembered hands on her body, needles in her veins, voices dissecting her like she was a specimen.
A madman’s lab.
Adam’s lab.
And she was his prize right up to the moment that she wasn’t.
That life had ended, but the memory of it had not.
She looked at the couches, the soft rugs, the massive stone fireplace with its crackling warmth.
She could picture the king-sized bed through the master suite doors where the pup already slept curled in her blankets. She had her blankets, her scented candle, her fuzzy pillows, and the Oogie Boogie Squishmallow.
She would not lose this.
Not to strangers, not to soldiers, not to anyone.
Lachlan leaned against the frame of the window, his broad shoulders glowing orange in the firelight.
His restlessness had a sound—boots shifting on wood, fingers drumming against his thigh. He was not like this before they had discovered the others, but now it was getting worse.
"They sent signals," he muttered, half to himself. "Military signals. That means they are like us. It means there’s still something out there worth—"
"Worth what?" Sera’s voice was calm, sharp enough to cut. "Worth losing this?"
He turned, eyes bright with the stubborn hope she had come to know too well.
Eyes that she was starting to hate.
Golden retriever eyes. Loyal, open, always ready to believe in people no matter how many times they broke him.
That was why he had offered her a job in his gym. That was why he had pulled her close when she had none. It was who he was.
But it would kill him if she let it.
"Worth connection," Lachlan pressed. "We can’t live in a tower forever."
"But we can live here forever," she corrected. Her gaze held his. "It is everything that we need."
Behind them, Alexei stretched out on the couch with a grin that didn’t touch his eyes. "Some men fish with worms, some with light. Either way, they wait for the fool who bites."
Elias didn’t look up from the counter, where he was setting utensils in neat rows. "Hunger drives cruelty faster than infection. Starving soldiers will not trade. They’ll take."
Zubair checked the latch on the front door, his voice iron when it came. "We took a vote," he said, just as tired of this conversation as she was. "You lost. We hold here and forget about the others."
The fire popped.
Silence filled the room like smoke.
Sera went up the stairs to the primary suite, her steps measured.
She opened the door and found the pup curled in the center of the king bed, its small body pressed deep into the blankets it had claimed.
Zubair had put it in the crate again before bed, but that never mattered.
Every morning, every night, it found her.
She stroked a hand down its back and felt the low hum of belonging in her chest.
The men stayed in the living room, by choice. Oversized couches, chairs built for giants, rugs thick enough to sleep on. They could have taken bedrooms, but they never did. Instinct kept them together, near the doors, near her.
Pack law, whispered the creature, but now, even Sera could hear the hesitation in its voice.
She could hear Lachlan shifted again, restless.
She could feel him watching even through the walls. He wanted to believe. He wanted to see good in the figures behind the glint. She would protect him from that impulse if she had to break him to do it.
Extroverts weren’t meant to survive the apocalypse. It was just a fact.
It wasn’t so much that they couldn’t sit still so much as they couldn’t seem to understand that humans were the true monsters.
They were scarier than any zombie, any dire wolf, any megalodon that prowled beneath ice.
She had seen the worst of them before.
She would not open her doors to see it again.
She would not let someone into her territory that had the potential to betray her.
She wasn’t going back into the cage again.
The fire crackled low. The pup stirred in her bed and pressed closer. And Sera looked at the penthouse with new eyes—every luxury, every safety—and knew that one mistake could tear it all away.