Harem Apocalypse: Every Moan Levels Us Up!

My hands were weakening, fingers burning with strain, but I kept the girl draped across my shoulder, one arm hooked under her cold thighs, the other steadying her back. Her skin was unnaturally chilled against my neck, like holding something pulled from deep water. I moved through the last stretch of motionless infected toward the cars, boots crunching softly over sand and broken concrete, careful not to brush against any of the pale figures standing like statues in the moonlight.

I was the last one out.

Sinn laughed when I finally cleared the city boundary, a real, deep laugh, the first I had heard from him on this entire mission. It rolled out of him like something heavy he had been carrying and had finally set down. We had done it. Against everything that had gone wrong, Speed, Oddo, the Guardian truck, Richard, the sand, the tape, waking up tied with a splitting headache in the plain, we had actually done it.

I set the girl down gently in the sand beside the male infected, both of them sedated and perfectly still, their bodies limp under the moonlight like sleeping statues.

The car doors opened almost at once. Everyone came out, Richard included, all of them drawn by the same curiosity. They gathered around the two high-level infected, staring down with wide eyes, the specific awe of people who had only heard stories their whole lives and were now standing in front of the real thing. Moonlight painted their pale skin silver, making them look almost beautiful in their stillness.

And then it became a celebration.

I wasn’t ready for it. After everything we had been through, the sudden laughter and hugging felt almost wrong at first, too bright, too loud, and then it felt exactly right. Because surviving things that should have killed you deserved to be celebrated, loudly, in the moonlight, outside a fallen city.

Harmione found me first.

She pressed into my chest and held on tight, her red hair brushing my chin. "I need to tell you something about the first time we talked," she said, voice muffled against me. "You gave me the courage to end things with Vince. I hope we get to know each other properly when we’re back inside the walls."

"I hope so too."

"If we make it back safe," she whispered, pulling back just enough to look up at me, "I have something for you." She rose on her toes, kissed my cheek, and slipped away into the celebration, her hair catching the moonlight like fire.

Then Sherry hit me.

She jumped and I caught her, her legs wrapping around my waist, her hands on my shoulders, looking directly into my face from an inch away. Her eyes were bright, fierce, full of everything she had been holding back.

"I love you, Bram," she said. "I just love you."

She hugged me tight and I held the back of her head, fingers in her hair.

"I don’t think I’ll care about anyone the way I care about you," I said into her ear. "You mean the world to me."

She smiled against my shoulder, warm and real.

"If we make it back to the walls," she said softly, "I want to take a step further. More than what we are."

"Yes," I said. "I want that too."

She slid down and moved into the celebration, leaving me standing there with the echo of her words.

I found Sinn and pulled him into a half-embrace, clapping his back. Then Code, who was genuinely happy in a way that didn’t have the usual sharp edge. His smile was softer tonight, the smile of someone who had done something they were proud of rather than something they simply enjoyed.

"Hope we’re good," he said.

"We’re good," I replied.

Mercury bumped into me from the side.

"I’m wearing underwear now," she whispered, a small, tired grin on her face. "Little tight but present."

I held her. Her eyes were full of something that had been trying to get out since we were tied up in the sand, and it was finally free.

"I love you, Mercury."

"I love you, Bram," she said, and we separated.

Richard was celebrating with the energy of someone who wasn’t entirely sure what had been accomplished but had decided to match the room’s frequency anyway. I smiled when I reached him because it was impossible not to. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"I’m so sorry, man," he said.

I gave him a half hug and kept moving.

Jenn was leaning against the car, arms crossed. I put both hands on her face and looked at her.

"I understand everything," I said. "I understand how your world works."

She wrapped her arms around my waist and I kissed her forehead. We stayed like that for a moment, two people who had grown up in the same cruel world and found each other at the edge of a different one.

Owen was standing slightly apart from the celebration. His face carried something complicated, the mixture of a man who had been doing one thing and feeling another, his red eyes holding something back that the joy around him was making harder to contain. I looked at him and thought about Speed. About the Guardian door. About the navigation system. About Oddo in the open ground.

I tapped his shoulder.

"There’s always another option," I said, and kept walking.

One person was still waiting. Standing apart from the celebration with her hands raised slightly, moonlight catching her blonde hair like a halo.

I walked to her and she wrapped her arms around me.

"Tell me you remember what you promised me," May whispered.

"Yes," I said. "I remember."

****

"Okay." Sinn’s voice cut through the celebration. "We need to move."

The joy folded itself back into purpose. Richard and Mercury tied the specimens together with practiced efficiency. We loaded both sedated infected into separate boots.

I settled in the back of the second car with Sherry and May. Owen at the wheel. Harmione in the front.

The other car started. Mercury pulling out first.

"Fuck," Owen said suddenly.

I looked at the back of his head.

"I’ve lost the keys."

"Say that again," I said, the anger arriving faster than I could manage it. Every sabotage on this mission stacked up behind the words.

"I’ve lost the fucking keys."

I was out of the car before I finished deciding to move. I pulled his door open, took him out of the seat by the collar, and pushed him hard against the armored exterior.

"We don’t have time for your games," I growled.

"I just lost the keys," he said. His voice sounded different. Not the mild smile. Something genuinely scared underneath it.

Sinn had gotten out of the other car and was walking toward us.

"What’s happening?" he asked, reading the scene instantly.

"He says he lost the keys," I said.

Sinn thought for exactly two seconds. Then he pulled his pistol and pressed it against Owen’s head.

I stepped back. This was a different version of Sinn from the man who had sat in the sand by the Guardian truck counting his dead. This was the version that had survived long enough to become a general.

"Where are the keys?" Sinn asked, voice flat.

"I lost them when we went up," Owen said. "I’m telling the truth."

Something in his voice landed differently. I had heard Owen lie by omission, by misdirection, by timing. This wasn’t that.

"He’s telling the truth," I said.

Sinn kept the gun where it was for a moment longer. Then lowered it.

"Fuck," he said quietly. Then louder, remembering where we were: "We need to find those keys."