novelraw Chapter 78: Mine Now
Chapter 78: Mine Now
The twelfth floor reeked.
Sera kicked aside the twitching stump of what used to be a torso and kept walking, the sticky slurp of blood under her boots echoing down the ruined hallway. Her lungs burned. Her right arm throbbed from swinging too hard, too often. The blowtorch in her left hand flickered like a dying candle, low and sputtering. Not enough heat left in the tank to melt bone, but she kept it close anyway. Just in case.
She didn’t need the creature’s whisper to know the building still wasn’t empty. Somewhere above, maybe two floors up, maybe ten, something moved. Her muscles tensed in anticipation, and the thing inside her purred—pleased at being able to stretch her muscles like this.
This was the twelfth floor she’d cleared. With fire, with claws, with patience. She was running out of fuel. Out of clean air. Out of good reasons to keep going. But this tower was going to be hers, and she wasn’t about to share it with anything that couldn’t bleed.
She climbed the stairs with quiet purpose, bypassing the elevator. She didn’t trust machines. Not now. Not when the world was grinding to a halt in slow motion. The fifteenth floor opened into a hallway of beige carpet and dark paneled walls, still intact, still faintly warm under emergency lighting. Somewhere, backup systems were trying to pretend life hadn’t stopped three days ago.
The air was wrong.
She could smell blood, thick and old. Copper and rot clung to the carpet like mildew. Something had died here. Several somethings, if her nose was right. She passed one suite. Then another. A third. And as she stepped past the fourth, a flicker of motion caught her eye beneath the door.
It didn’t wait for her to knock.
The door slammed open and a shape lunged. A man, or something that used to be. He wore a velvet hotel robe, matted with dried gore. His eyes were pitch black, but his mouth wasn’t slack—it was snarling. Teeth snapped for her throat as he collided with her, slamming her back against the wall.
Sera’s elbow shot up, catching him under the chin with enough force to send him staggering. She didn’t stop there. Her claws, black and curved, were already out, slicing across his gut in a single upward stroke. Flesh tore. Intestines spilled. He dropped like a sack of wet sand—and twitched.
The healing started immediately.
Skin knit. Bone cracked back into place. Ribs reformed. His limbs convulsed as if jolted by a current, and the stench of rot sharpened as black blood pooled under him. Sera sighed, reaching for her torch.
The sputtering hiss that followed wasn’t encouraging.
She flicked it again. Nothing.
Empty.
The zombie twitched again, fingers curling. One eye blinked wetly. Then it grabbed her ankle and yanked.
She hit the carpet hard, air punched from her lungs, and scrambled to get her pack open—but he was already crawling on top of her, mouth open wide, ready to feed.
And that was the last thing her human side saw.
Her mouth opened wider than it should have. Her jaw cracked and split, unhinging like a snake’s. The creature didn’t hesitate. It lunged up, teeth spiraling outward in rows like obsidian saw blades, and sank into the zombie’s neck.
She didn’t just bite. She tore.
Cartilage gave way first, followed by muscle, tendon, spine. Her teeth shredded through it all in a single violent rip, and she pulled back with a chunk of its throat clenched between her jaws. The zombie’s body spasmed once... and went still.
No twitching.
No mending.
Just stillness.
Her breath came hard and fast. Blood ran down her chin, soaking into the collar of her coat. The creature inside her shifted back slowly, the shark teeth retreating. Her jaw reset with a wet click.
It was done. And the body was really dead. There wasn’t a single sign of regeneration.
Apparently, fire wasn’t the only way to kill the zombies.
That was what the creature had been hiding.
She didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. She spat the chunk of throat onto the floor, wiped her mouth with the back of her glove, and got to her feet.
The penthouse was two floors up.
By the time she reached it, she’d stopped flinching at the sounds behind closed doors. Nothing left in her but sharp edges and a dull sense of ownership.
The penthouse suite wasn’t locked.
The door opened at her push, revealing soft lighting, a fur rug, and a gorgeous living room that defied expectations. A woman stood near the glass balcony doors, staring out into the city.
Her back was to Sera, but Sera could hear her very human heartbeat. Pearls hung from a loose chain around her neck, her black evening dress immaculate. She didn’t turn when Sera stepped inside.
She didn’t need to.
Sera crossed the room, lifted one clawed hand, and slit her spine from base to crown.
The woman folded silently.
Not a twitch.
Not a fight.
The silence afterward stretched long and cold.
Sera stood in the center of the room, breathing shallowly. The windows gave her a panoramic view of City H: the jagged skyline, smoke rising in thin coils, the lights blinking out one sector at a time. Her eyes drifted to the far south, toward the forest. Toward the cabin.
Oogie Boogie was probably still sitting on the bed.
Alexei would be pouting. Lachlan would be trying to keep the peace. Zubair would pretend not to care that she’d left. And Noah... well, he’d probably noticed the steak was gone.
She was alone here.
And now came the real problem.
The penthouse was clean, but everything below it wasn’t. Blood slicked the stairwell. Corpses littered the hallway outside. Not all of them had been torched. Not all of them had been torn apart.
And this place stank.
The back of her throat burned as she realized just how bad it was. Not just death—decay. This tower might be safe from the outside, but it would rot from within if she didn’t clean it. The idea of sleeping above corpses made her skin crawl.
It had to be burned out. Bleached. A full purge.
If she was going to claim this place, she was going to have to work for it. No squad. No team. Just her and a pile of gasoline, maybe a few more blowtorches. And she’d do it. Every room. Every hall. Every floor.
Later.
For now, she stood alone on the balcony, the wind biting cold against her skin. Her breath fogged. She leaned her elbows on the glass railing, staring down at the city with tired eyes.
This place was hers now.
Not a home.
Not a kingdom.
But a start.
Behind her, the bodies still waited.
And tomorrow, she’d clean.