Part 2Pushed Into the Horde and Saved by the Apex Hunter

Three months ago, my fiancé, Tristan, had pushed me out of the armored vehicle, straight into the swarming horde.

An apex infected had torn open my wrist, letting the virus flood my veins. I expected to become a mindless, decaying ghoul roaming the ruins. But instead, I woke up.

My body temperature plummeted, and my heart beat at a sluggish, heavy crawl, but my mind remained entirely mine. Oddly, the lower-tier infected stopped attacking me. They even parted like a quiet tide whenever I drew near.

I became a ghost drifting through the quarantine zone.

I wasn't a zombie—I couldn't stomach raw flesh. But I wasn't human either—normal food made me sick. I was starving, hovering on the brink of death every single day, yet unable to die.

I survived that agonizing, hollow existence for three months.

Until I ran into Ryder.

That day, he had just wiped out an entire mutated nest. Covered in black, viscous blood, he sat on a jagged piece of rebar amid the rubble, smoking a cigarette.

I only approached him because I wanted to pick up a shiny glass marble lying near his boots.

But he looked down. A cold, heavy blade pressed against my throat.

"Where did you crawl out from, little monster?"

Terrified, I dropped to my knees, holding up the marble with trembling hands, expecting him to slice off my head and dig out my core.

But he didn’t.

He studied me for a long, quiet moment, then slid his knife back into its sheath. He threw his half-smoked cigarette onto the dirt and crushed it with his boot.

"Get in the truck."

And just like that, he took me in.