The road to the lab was a scar.
It cut through forests choked with ivy, over bridges skeletal with rust, past towns where rot-walkers pooled in doorways like stagnant water. Lila walked as if in a trance, her hand drifting to the vials hidden in her backpack. Ash kept pace, his senses sharpened to the hum of danger—the "wrongness" in the air, thickening with every mile.
---
They found the first body at noon.
A man hung from a telephone pole, his throat slit, a symbol carved into his chest: **R** circled by thorns. Lila gagged, pressing her sleeve to her nose. Ash sniffed the blood—fresh, human.
"The Resistance," Lila muttered. "They mark their territory. Means we're close."
*Resistance.* The word meant nothing to Ash, but the scent clinging to the corpse—gun oil, sweat, and the metallic tang of ambition—curled his lips in a snarl.
A twig snapped.
Ash whirled, hissing. A figure stepped from the treeline, hands raised. A girl, no older than Lila, her hair shorn to stubble, a bow slung over her shoulder.
"Easy, strays," she said. Her voice was gravel and honey. "You're in the resistance turf. State your biz."
Lila's hand hovered near her knife. "Passing through. To the lab."
The girl laughed. "Lab's a tomb. Only fools and corpses go there."
"We're not fools."
"Prove it." The girl's gaze sharpened. "What's in the bag?"
Ash lunged, teeth bared, but the girl nocked an arrow in one fluid motion. "Cute cat. Shame if he lost an eye."
Lila stepped between them. "We have something your leader wants. Subject 9A's blood."
The girl froze. "Bullshit."
Lila unzipped her pack, revealing a vial. The girl's breath hitched.
"Follow me."
---
The resistance's camp was a hive of violence.
Tents mushroomed in a clearing, strung with lanterns made from skulls. Men and women sharpened blades, their laughter too loud, their eyes too bright. Ash flattened his ears, his tail thrashing. *Predators. All.*
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The girl—**Jessa**—led them to a trailer crowned with barbed wire. Inside, a woman lounged on a moth-eaten couch, her boots propped on a rot-walker's severed head.
"Raven," Jessa said. "They claim they've got 9A's cure."
**Raven** studied Lila like a butcher sizing up a carcass. "Let's see."
Lila held out a vial. Raven snatched it, holding it to the light. "Where'd you steal this?"
"My father made it. Dr. Elias Voss."
The trailer stilled. Raven's smile turned feral. "Voss's kid. Oh, this is rich. Your daddy's the reason we're all rotting."
Lila flinched. Ash growled, low and warning.
Raven tossed the vial to Jessa. "Test it. On the prisoner."
---
The "prisoner" was a boy, shackled to a post, his skin blistered with rot.
*Turning*, Ash realized. The boy's eyes were still human—terrified.
Jessa hesitated. "Raven, he's just a scav—"
"Do it."
The vial's contents glowed as Jessa injected them. For a moment, nothing. Then the boy screamed, veins bulging black. His jaw unhinged, his fingers clawing at the dirt until they bled.
"No no no—" Lila whispered.
The boy fell silent, his body seizing. Then, impossibly, his blisters faded. His eyes cleared.
"Holy shit," Jessa breathed.
Raven grinned. "We're gonna be kings."
---
They took Lila's pack.
Ash fought, teeth sinking into a rebel's wrist, but a kick sent him sprawling. Lila screamed his name as they dragged her away.
"You'll brew us more," Raven said, dangling the journal over a fire. "Or your cat becomes a rug."
Lila spat in her face.
The rebels locked Ash in a chicken-wire cage, the rot-walker boy crumpled beside him. The boy's scent was wrong—half-alive, half-dead. Ash hissed, but the boy only wept.
"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I'm sorry…"
---
Midnight. The camp slept, drunk on victory.
The rot-walker boy stirred. "Hey… cat." His voice was a rasp. "Can you… get these chains?"
Ash glared. *Traitor. Killer.*
"Please. I don't… want to die like this."
Ash's claws flexed. *Hate. Hate. Hate.* But the boy's tears smelled like Lila's.
He slipped a paw through the wire, hooking the keyring from a sleeping guard's belt. The boy freed himself, then Ash.
"Thank y—"
Ash slashed his arm. *Warning. Not friend.*
The boy fled. Ash crept to the trailer, where Lila's sobs guided him.
---
Lila huddled in a corner, her face bruised, the journal clutched to her chest. Ash nuzzled her hand. *Up. Move. Now.*
They slipped past snoring rebels, but Raven stood at the gate, her rifle gleaming.
"Knew you'd run," she said.
Lila stepped forward. "You don't want the cure. You want a weapon."
"Same thing these days."
Ash lunged, knocking the rifle aside. Raven grabbed Lila's hair, but the rot-walker boy emerged from the shadows, biting into her throat.
Chaos erupted. Member of the Resistance woke to screams and gunfire. Ash dragged Lila into the woods as flames consumed the camp—the boy had kicked a lantern into the tents.
---
They collapsed miles away, the lab's silhouette piercing the horizon.
Lila trembled. "That boy… he saved us."
Ash licked her bruised knuckles. *We saved him first.*
She opened the journal, its pages singed. **Entry – 12/5:** *The cure requires live cells from 9A. The blood alone isn't enough.*
Lila's tears hit the paper. "We need the kitten. Not just her blood."
Ash pressed his forehead to hers. *Then we find her.*
---
**End of Chapter 5**
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