ALL
The story
A special-ops soldier is ordered to put down her infected former commander, the man she once loved. She defies the order, breaks him out, and runs with him as the monster inside him closes in.
A special-ops soldier is ordered to put down her infected former commander, the man she once loved. She defies the order, breaks him out, and runs with him as the monster inside him closes in.
The man everyone thought was dead was alive at the heart of the quarantine zone.
The man who'd once been my commander. The man who'd once been everything to me.
And now he was turning into the thing the whole world feared.
The night the operation began, they sent me into a city torn apart by bombs.
One objective.
Confirm the status of Lucas Grey, the special forces captain who'd gone missing on a monster-hunting mission six months ago.
But the order that came over the radio was cold.
"Confirm infection. Kill the target on sight."
The moment I dropped from the chopper, gunfire came down like rain.
Broken concrete. Red warning lights. Air thick with blood and gunpowder.
In the distance, I could hear the cries of things that weren't human.
I kicked in the door of the underground bunker.
Lucas was inside.
His combat gear was torn. Blood slicked his throat. His bare, muscular arms were covered in wounds.
He looked like a man who had clawed his way through days of death. He was a wreck, yet he still stood like a beast that refused to go down.
Beneath his cropped black hair, his deep-set eyes found mine.
Rough stubble. A split lip. Blood drying on his jaw.
Even like that, there was something dangerously, unmistakably male about him.
But something was different now.
Something like black scales had spread just below the nape of his neck.
The veins in his forearms shifted beneath his skin like the muscles of an animal, and his fingertips were too sharp to be human.
Lucas Grey. The empire's finest special forces captain. A man infected by a monster.
"I came to get you out," I said.
My voice shook.
Lucas closed his hand around my wrist.
His hand was hot and rough.
"Take me with you, and you'll get yourself killed."
That was when the radio crackled.
"Infection confirmed. Kill on sight."
I froze.
Lucas pressed the muzzle of my gun to his own heart.
"Shoot."
His voice was low and broken.
"Like they told you."
His hot breath brushed the back of my hand.
"Or run with me."
He smiled through bloodied lips.
Outside, the monsters' footsteps were drawing closer.
The bunker ceiling shook, and the red warning light flickered across his face.
I lifted my finger off the trigger.
"Get up, Lucas."
That night, I chose the man over the order.