Page 88 of Kiss Slay Replay

There’s a hand on my ankle. One tug, and I’m falling. My head hits the floor, and things go fuzzy for a second.

I blink into the haze. It’ll be over soon. Tick, tock. My time will be up.

My cheek slides against the wet tile, over the fallen door, the floorboards. Whoever’s dragging me lets me go, and my leg drops. I flip onto my back.

Tanya. She climbs on top of me, her red mouth wide, froth dripping onto my face. I feel it fizzing, burning like hot oil.

She hisses. Why does it have to be her?

And why can’t I shut my eyes, look away from what’s about to happen?

A shadow drifts over us. Ravi. He holds up the toilet tank cover, swings it hard at Tanya’s head. She bursts open like a November pumpkin.

Ravi drops the cover and stumbles back, hands shaking, staring at the brains covering his button-down. He backs into the wall. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t…”

There’s no time for shock or grief. The room is full of zombies and they’re closing in. One of them is Danny—his eyes sunken, cheeks hollow. No trace of his crooked grin. He growls at me, baring browning teeth with bits of skin stuck between.

Tanya’s body twitches on the floor beside me.

I’m still alive, still here, and so is Ravi, with our hopeful futures dead in front of us. Gone. But I look at him, and I understand. Not in this timeline. Not in this universe, not in any universe. There’s no way back to who we were, what we had. There never was. The damage was done, the rot too profound. There was no resurrection, not one that wasn’t tainted. It wasn’t possible. There was nothing I could have done to save us. There was no cure for the relationship, no antidote that would grant us a life together, only apart.

There’s no question anymore. No creeping doubt. No regret.

I did the right thing. Maybe he’ll never forgive me, but maybe I don’t need him to.

My guilt recedes, but something else spreads to occupy the empty space. Something heavier, more formidable, more intense.

Heartbreak. It’s so big. It’s in me, is me. It’s all around me, painting the world with hopelessness in this harsh shade of blood. It’s everywhere, everything. The death of love.

The creature that used to be Danny is almost to me. His fingers graze my hair.

Do it, asshole.

The sound is nearly pleasant. A whizzing. Something fast swimming through the air.

Blood splatters on my face.

Danny drops.

It’s the police. Or maybe the military? There are men in hazmat suits with giant guns on the porch, shooting through the window.

They take out the other zombies—they hit the floor one after another.

THUDTHUDTHUDTHUD.

“Ravi,” I say, turning toward him. “Get—”

He is down. He’s down.

I’m confused, for a second. For a minute. For an hour, day, week, month, year, eternity.

He stares up at me with his big, beautiful brown eyes, and a bullet hole between them.

He’s dead.

He was my life, my whole world for so many years, and he’s dead. He’s gone.

I scream. It’s a scream of primal suffering, a sound I can’t fathom, born of a pain that I can’t fathom. “No! No! No, no, no, no, no! You shot him! You killed him, you fucking idiots! He was fine! He was alive! He wasn’t infected! You dumb fucking pieces of—”