A figure stepped toward her out of the gloom. Brett. And then he was there, cradling her face in his hands as he looked into her eyes. He kissed her deeply and she melted into the kiss, her terror and sadness momentarily gone as he hugged her to his chest.

Rachael wanted to stay there forever, but there was work to be done. Injuries to tend to, wounds to heal. She took a deep breath and pulled away to help Alice to her feet, slinging an arm over her shoulder and guiding her through the door into the darkened lobby of the hospital. Into the home they’d protected at such a great cost.

A gunshot rang out, the bullet echoed past Rachael as it struck the wall a foot from her shoulder, shattering the tile. She froze, still supporting Alice and unable to get to the sword at her side, eyes darting around for the source of the attack.

“Well, I guess I’ll need to take care of you myself, since the dead couldn’t handle it.”

Rachael looked up and around, following the sound of the voice. She recognized it, but not its tone of confidence.

There. Up on the dimly lit lobby balcony overhead.

Mark leveled his weapon at Rachael, eyes pools of dark shadows as he stared her down.

“Mark, put the gun down. Please.” She tried to keep her voice level. Seeing her distress, Brian moved in to support Alice. Rachael stepped forward, putting herself between the gunman and the rest of her people. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw some of her trainees moving along the wall, out of Mark’s eyesight, stealthily creeping towards the side stairwell.

Keep him distracted, the voice in her mind whispered. Keep him talking.

“Why?” she asked. “Why are you trying to do this? You can have this as your home, you can be part of something bigger—”

“I don’t want to be part of your home,” Mark scoffed, shifting his grip on the gun. “You’ve made this a perfectly hospitable place, and we want it for our own.”

“‘We’?” she prompted, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow, putting on a mask of confidence. Shadows shifted up above, prompting anxious cries from her friends as four men, armed with gleaming knives, appeared along the railing. Rachael swallowed hard.

“And there’s more where they came from,” Mark added with a smug smirk.

“There’s more than enough room for all of—” she began, but Mark cut her off, pacing back and forth along the railing.

“No, there’s not enough room for you,” he snapped, gesturing with the gun. “This place is ours now. Ours. That’s how it is now. You don’t like it? Tough shit. We earned this spot. You couldn’t keep it and that means you don’t deserve to have it. Simple math.” He paused for a moment and shook his head. “I was hoping you’d move out when the fences fell, but you didn’t. Kind of hoped you’d all get bitten. That would have been easy. Well . . . for us, I mean. The rotters chow down on you and then we get rid of them. Easy peasy. But don’t get me wrong, if I have to just shoot you myself, I will. You can count on that shit.”