Page 83 of Romancing in Rot

The last one alive from his crew.

She stands a few feet away, one hand clamped around her wrist. Blood runs between her fingers, too red against the gray morning. When she lifts her hand, the bite is clear. Deep. Ragged. Already swelling around the torn skin.

Carlos goes white. “Kim.”

She looks at the gate. At Luis. At the horde closing in.

Then she smiles.

It’s the bravest, saddest thing I have ever seen.

“Get him out,” she says.

Carlos lunges for her anyway.

She steps back. “Carlos, go.”

Luis screams from the other side of the fence. “Kim!”

Carlos fights Jacob, wild and broken, but Kim turns before he can reach her.

She runs straight into the dead.

Not blindly.

Not scared.

Furious.

She drives her shoulder into the nearest infected and shoves it backward into the others. For one precious second, the horde shifts toward her. Fresh blood. Fresh movement. Fresh meat.

She gives Lyla and Trish a moment to scramble to the other side.

Hands close on her jacket.

Her arm.

Her hair.

She goes down swinging.

Carlos’s scream tears through the street so raw it feels like it rips something open in my own chest.

There isn’t time to grieve.

Only the next breath.

The next body.

The next way out.

Wesker barks once, sharp and frantic, still on the wrong side with me.

Carlos shoves against Jacob, reaching toward the dog. “Wesker!”

The German shepherd backs up, ears flat, eyes fixed on the opening.

Carlos shouts a command. “¡Ven!”