Wednesday, December 10, 2025, 8:13 AM
Countdown to Extraction: 66 Hours, 28 Minutes Remaining
Ethan didn't slow down.
He couldn't.
The armored Jeep violently lurched forward, the heavy mud tires actively crunching over broken glass, frozen debris, and the rotting limbs of the dead. The massive V8 engine growled low and deep, fighting for traction on the slick asphalt. One second the heavy passenger door was still wide open, freezing, biting air violently knifing through the cabin, and the next, Marcus ruthlessly grabbed the steel handle and slammed it completely shut.
The world outside instantly began to slide sideways in a blur of grey and blood.
"Kenzie—!"
Tally's scream tore out of her throat before she could physically stop it. It was a raw, agonizing sound, completely stripped of any of her usual arrogant venom.
She twisted violently in the backseat, half on her knees, half completely tangled in the thick nylon of her seatbelt. She reached desperately back over the center console toward the extended cargo area, her trembling hands actively searching the dark, empty space where Kenzie had just been standing.
Her acrylic nails clawed at absolutely nothing but cold, stale air.
"ETHAN!" Tally shrieked, her voice cracking in half, thrashing against Dot's grip. "STOP! YOU'RE LEAVING HER—YOU'RE LEAVING HER!"
Ethan didn't look back.
He didn't hit the brakes because the infected weren't the only monsters on the street.
Just seconds before he slammed the accelerator, Ethan's eyes had caught a flash of movement in the side mirror that chilled his blood far worse than the walking corpses. Three men had stepped out from the deep shadows of the alleyway behind Alyssa and Aaron. They weren't stumbling. They weren't infected. They were moving with precise, predatory coordination, and Ethan had clearly seen the dull gleam of blued steel.
Shotguns.
They were flanking the idling Jeep. A five-ton, armored Wrangler sitting in the middle of a burning city was the single most valuable piece of machinery in Savannah. If Ethan had shifted the truck into Park to wait for Kenzie, those men would have blown the driver's side window out, executed everyone inside, and taken the keys.
He traded one life to save five. It was a brutal, unforgiving battlefield calculus, and he had to live with it.
He locked his jaw, his dark eyes dead, and he drove.
The Jeep surged aggressively forward, pushing through the nightmare.
And from the blood-smeared rear glass, Tally was forced to watch Kenzie completely disappear.
She watched the rapidly expanding gap between the bumper and the girl. She saw Kenzie standing frozen on the cracked asphalt, clutching the canvas dog carrier tight against her chest. She saw Kenzie standing entirely too straight, looking at the back of the accelerating Jeep with this awful, soft, completely devastating understanding in her eyes.
Lila's panicked, raw scream echoed down the street, breaking completely in the freezing air, calling Kenzie's name as the horde—and the men—closed in from the shadows.
Then, Ethan violently jerked the wheel, taking a hard corner.
And they were gone.
Tally collapsed forward over her own knees with a sound that absolutely didn't even sound human.
It was the hollow, wet sound of a spine violently snapping. She sobbed directly into the empty space where Kenzie should have been, her small shoulders shaking uncontrollably, her hands still desperately reaching forward.
Kenzie.
This wasn't just some girl from the dorms. This was Kenzie. They had been in the exact same classroom since the first grade. They had shared lunchboxes, traded secrets in the dark during middle school sleepovers, and spent twelve years mapping out exactly how they were going to take over the world as high school seniors. Kenzie was the sister Tally had actively chosen.
Tally was loud, and she was vicious, and she pushed Kenzie around constantly—but Kenzie was hers. Kenzie was the only piece of her childhood left breathing.
"I didn't mean it," Tally cried, completely suffocating on her own tears, her forehead pressed against the leather seat. "Kenzie—I didn't mean it. I swear to God I didn't mean it, come back—"
Her chest violently seized.
She couldn't breathe.
Not like this. Not again.
Justin was gone. The absolute center of her universe had been violently ripped away.
And now Kenzie was gone. Another vital, living piece of her fractured world completely peeled away and left bleeding on the asphalt.
In the passenger seat, Mari unbuckled her seatbelt. She moved completely without thinking, operating purely on exhausted instinct. She awkwardly leaned completely over the heavy center console, reaching into the backseat, and wrapped her small arms tightly around Tally's violently shaking shoulders.
"It's okay," Mari whispered, her own voice thick with unshed tears, pressing her cheek against the girl's messy hair. "I've got you, Tally. I'm right here."
For half a second, Tally completely melted into the touch.
Then, reality violently slammed back in.
Tally instantly stiffened.
Her hands came up and violently, ruthlessly shoved against Mari's shoulders.
"GET OFF ME!" Tally shrieked.
Mari stumbled awkwardly backward, losing her balance over the console. She hit the passenger door panel with a sharp, startled gasp, her hands instinctively flying to protect her stomach.
Marcus swore loudly from the back. Dot's mouth fell completely open in shock. Renee reached forward instinctively to intervene, then completely froze.
The heavy Jeep swerved slightly as Ethan corrected the wheel, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror.
Tally whirled on Mari. Her eyes were completely bloodshot, her face violently twisted into a hideous mask of unadulterated grief and toxic, blinding fury.
"I HATE YOU!" Tally screamed, her voice tearing her vocal cords apart, pointing a shaking finger directly at Mari's pale face.
Mari stared at her, completely stunned, her breath catching. "Tally—"
"I fucking hate you!" Tally shouted, steamrolling entirely over the older girl, her chest heaving violently. "If you had just let me drive the fucking car, he wouldn't have had to get out! If you hadn't been standing there, he wouldn't have left the vehicle!"
Marcus shook his head, his face hardening. "That's not what happened, kid—"
"YOU LEFT HIM!" Tally continued to scream, completely unhinged, entirely rejecting the reality of the alleyway. "You got him left behind! He's still out there! We left him behind for you, and now Kenzie is gone too!"
She leaned forward over the console, pure venom dripping from her words.
"You ruined everything!" Tally screamed directly into Mari's face. "Justin left me because of you!"
Mari's dark eyes instantly filled with hot tears, but she didn't say a word. She just took the verbal beating, completely incapable of defending herself.
"Fair?" Tally laughed hysterically, the sound entirely broken and psychopathic in the cramped cabin. "My brother is left out there to die! Kenzie is completely gone! I have nothing!"
Tally's absolute, visceral panic finally reached its ceiling.
She crashed out completely.
The screaming instantly dissolved into a horrific, violent hyperventilation. Tally thrashed backward into the seat, her hands clawing at her own face, her eyes rolling back as her brain simply refused to process another second of the trauma. She let out one final, devastating shriek that sounded like an animal dying in a trap, and then her entire body went completely, terrifyingly limp.
She collapsed sideways against the door panel, her eyes wide open but entirely vacant. Catatonic. Dead inside.
Dot reached out, gently pulling the completely unresponsive teenager into her lap, rocking her silently as the heavy, mechanical hum of the V8 engine filled the cabin.
Ethan kept driving.
His jaw was locked so incredibly tight it physically ached up into his temples. He hated leaving the girl. He hated the pathetic, broken sound of Tally completely fracturing behind him.
But as he watched the smoke billow over the hood of the Jeep, he knew he had made the only tactical choice that kept them breathing.
The heavy Wrangler sped on, violently weaving around stalled cars, rolling blindly past broken bodies in the road. Inside the freezing metal vehicle, six people sat entirely trapped in the absolute wreckage of exactly what they'd just lost.
They were exactly six now.
Not eight.
Not seven.
Six.
And the dark, empty space in the cargo area where Kenzie had been sitting felt infinitely louder than any scream.
Wednesday, December 10, 2025, 8:24 AM
Countdown to Extraction: 66 Hours, 17 Minutes Remaining