Page 204 of Romancing in Rot

Trish’s voice comes through next. “Alive, armed, emotionally questionable.”

“Same,” Jacob says. “But I would like it noted that this plan is horrible.”

“It’s actually incredible,” Joanie says over the line. “You just hate joy.”

Carlos cuts in somewhere in the background. “It’s insane, but it’ll work, I guess.”

“Thank you, Peaches,” Joanie says.

Carlos groans. “I regret learning English.”

Despite everything, a laugh scrapes out of me, painful but worth it. Leon glances over, and something soft breaks through the blood and fury still carved into his face. Then his attention snaps back to the road, where abandoned cars sit nose to tail.

Ahead of us, Chicago stretches in broken lines of dead traffic, shattered storefronts, and burned-out intersections. The sky has gone dark purple at the edges, the last light bleeding out behind jagged rooftops and sagging power lines. A city bus lies half-tipped against a streetlight, its side windows shattered, old advertisements fluttering inside like loose skin.

Our car’s headlights stay off, but the dashboard glows faintly, painting Leon’s hands in dim green. I want to hold those hands to my mouth and kiss the pain away. Not just the split knuckles and bruised skin, but the wound Russ ripped open last night. The one that started years before I ever knew Leon was carrying it.

After we made it out of the mall, after Poppy finally cried herself to sleep, I found Leon sitting on the open tailgate of his truck with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. His shoulders shook like every scream he never got to release had finally found his bones.

I sat beside him and held on.

He cried for his parents all over again. For the crash. For the years of not knowing. For every night he must have blamed the wrong shadow. I kissed the tears from his face because I didn’t have words big enough for that kind of grief, and he let me. He let me hold his hand. He let me lead him to my car when the cold stung and his body finally started to shake too hard to hide it.

Poppy crawled in between us before either of us could stop her, half asleep and stubborn, one fist buried in Leon’s jacket like even in dreams she knew he needed anchoring. So we slept like that. Three bruised bodies curled together in the back of a car, surrounded by weapons, grief, and the ugly miracle of still being alive.

Now we are back where the nightmare almost ate us.

This is not the moment for softness. This moment is for revenge with a soundtrack.

The cannibals wanted a feast.

Fine.

Dinner is coming.

For them.

The walkie hisses again.

Trish’s voice bursts through, loud and gleeful. “They’re heeere.”

A beat of silence follows.

I grab the walkie. “Did you just quote Poltergeist?”

“I always knew you were a secret horror girl.”

Leon’s mouth twitches.

Mine does too.

Then the music starts.

It erupts from somewhere a few blocks over, loud enough to bounce off the buildings. A screaming guitar. A pounding drumbeat. The kind of song that belongs in a bar fight or a terrible decision, which makes it perfect. Joanie’s choice, obviously.

A second song answers from another direction, then a third. Horns blare. Speakers crackle. Engines rev. Somewhere to our right, a car alarm joins in, shrieking in broken pulses.

The city wakes.