novelraw Chapter 83: I Will Kill You
Chapter 83: I Will Kill You
They made it back just before darkness fell.
They weren’t able to get nearly as many supplies as they might have wanted, but at the same time, Zubair was pretty sure that no matter how many supplies they got, it would never feel like enough.
Elias might have protested at the idea of zombies and everything else ’unscientific’ but the other man couldn’t help but shake the feeling that this was really the end of the world...it just hadn’t hit them yet.
Snow crunched beneath their boots as the last rays of sunlight slipped behind the treetops, casting long, jagged shadows across the frozen landscape. The air bit at exposed skin, sharp and still. Inside the cabin, the heat from the woodstove clawed its way through the walls, but the cold clung to Zubair’s bones like something permanent.
He couldn’t tell if he was freezing cold or burning hot. But either way, he needed to get away from everyone else before he did something he would regret.
The five of them moved wordlessly through the entryway, the silence between them brittle but intact. Elias dragged the last of the supplies in, making sure to catalogue everything before sending it over to Noah and the community center. Alexei muttered something about needing a drink before he went into the kitchen. Lachlan hadn’t spoken since they left the store—still blue, still not quite himself, but more human than he was when Zubair thought they had lost him.
And Sera... she was watching them all as if she was expecting one of them to attack her again.
Zubair waited until the others scattered into different direction—Elias to the community center, Alexei to check the perimeter, Lachlan to whatever corner of the cabin he now claimed as his territory. Only then did Zubair approach her.
She was crouched by the stove, unwrapping a bandage roll.
"I’m going to lock myself in one of the spare bedrooms," he said quietly, the words stiff in his throat.
She didn’t look up. "Because you think you are going to change into a zombie?" she asked. While her words might have been harsh, her tone was anything but.
"Because I’m not willing to take a chance with my men," replied Zubair, gripping his hands so tight that even his leather gloves protested the strain.
He saw her jaw tighten like she was going to disagree with him.
"If I change—if this turns me into one of them—kill me before I kill one of them." He couldn’t bring himself to beg her, but if dropping to his knees would protect his brother in arms, then he was willing to do it.
Her hands paused. Ever so slowly, she rose and turned to face him. Her expression wasn’t cruel, or mocking, or even concerned. Just... tired.
"You’re not going to change," she sighed. "It’s impossible."
"I’ve seen what infection looks like."
"And this isn’t it."
"I’m not gambling with their lives, meskinah."
Her eyes flicked to his. No denial. No argument. Just a slow, reluctant nod.
"Fine," she said at last. "If you become a zombie, I’ll kill you."
He held her gaze a moment longer, then nodded once and walked away.
------
Walking into a room at the far end of the cabin, Zubair stripped off his coat and shirt in the bedroom, leaving blood-smeared gauze on the floor beside the door. It took two pieces of furniture and a chair wedged under the knob to feel secure, but even then, he debated about whether or not he should sleep with a knife under his pillow.
He didn’t remember when sleep took him. Only that it did—violently. Like being dragged underwater with no warning.
------
Everything around him was too bright.
White wall, white tile floors, white lights. It was so bright that he could barely keep his eyes open.
There was a concrete floor streaked in something brown.
His own breath echoing off walls he couldn’t exactly see.
A cage.
Steel bars. Cold.
The number 395 stitched onto the sleeve of his uniform.
The Hydra logo. Painted in black, smeared across the far wall like graffiti. The red apple seemingly bigger than ever before.
He looked down.
Lachlan was curled in the opposite corner, his hands trembling. His teeth had already begun to sharpen.
Then—
Pain.
Blinding, invasive, every nerve screaming.
He was strapped to a table now.
Metal restraints bit into his skin.
People moved above him—silhouettes in masks, hands gloved in blue. One voice spoke sharply, but it sounded like it was underwater.
He couldn’t make out the words.
Only the buzz of fluorescent lights and the faint sound of a drill whirring up.
Then—
The cage again.
Noah was crouched in front of the bars, outside. Uninjured. Calm.
"I bet you wish you chose the other option right about now, huh, mate?" he grinned, resting his arms on his knees. "Should’ve said yes. Could’ve been out. Could’ve been warm. Ah well, not everyone is smart. Maybe you’ll be smarter in your next life, yeah?"
Zubair tried to move, to reply, but the muscles in his throat didn’t work.
And then Noah was gone.
------
New scene.
A hallway. No doors.
Just walls. And Elias, standing in front of Alexei.
Zubair blinked. The floor kept shifting under his feet.
"It didn’t have to be like this," Elias said, stretching his neck from side to side even as he stared down at the clipboard in his hands. "I’m sure we could’ve figured out another way... but the mutation that’s showing on the four of us—it’s different than the others. We have to figure out why only the four of us have it. None of the others who took the vaccines at the same time as us are like this. It’s important. You need to understand that."
He sounded tired. Not guilty. Just worn down like the other member of KAS should have done something different.
Alexei didn’t answer.
Zubair opened his mouth to yell at them, to demand answers, but the hallway was melting now. Dissolving into static, like old footage on a tape recorder—
-----
Back in the cage.
Everything smelled like bleach and blood.
This time, Lachlan’s body was on the floor outside the bars, face down.
He was blue.
The color of the creature.
Of the vaccine.
Of failure.
Two guards dragged his limp body by the arms, his head bouncing against the concrete with each step.
A man stood nearby.
White coat. Gray hair. Clean shoes.
Dr. Davis.
His expression was unreadable.
Zubair screamed and flung himself against the bars—but his hands weren’t hands anymore. They were claws. Blue. Sharp. Wrong.
"You did this," he whispered.
"You did this to him."
Dr. Davis didn’t respond.
Elias stood just behind him.
Watching.
------
Zubair’s vision swam again, heat blazing under his skin, muscles locking.
His voice cracked in the dark.
"When I get out of here... I’ll kill you. Both of you."
Elias shook his head, turned around, and walked away.