Chapter 2

The secret in the backpack became an invisible abyss between us, but I had no choice. I could only keep playing the part of the badly wounded fool—weak, grateful, and moved by his “brotherhood.”

I swallowed the scraps Rehn “generously” handed me each day and used my fevered sleep to secretly build back strength.

Mom sighed inside my head. “Feels humiliating, doesn’t it? That’s what it means to sleep with a snake. You don’t even have the chips to flip the table yet. If you want to live, you have to endure more than he does.”

I didn’t answer. I only tightened my grip on the dagger hidden in my sleeve. Rehn was pleased with my obedience and started letting his guard down.

But the nauseating, fake peace didn’t last long. On the wasteland, dead ends always arrived faster than daylight.

On the third evening, the sound of shattered glass—mutants crashing through a window—hammered the shelter’s concrete floor like hail.

“Run! Don’t look back!” Rehn shouted ahead. His flashlight beam whipped violently through the dark corridor.

I clenched my teeth and followed. The wound on my right arm—deep enough to show bone—had only been wrapped in a crude bandage, and the jarring sprint sent tearing pain drilling through my nerves into my brain. Inevitably, I slowed.

Behind me, chewing sounds and the scrape of claws against the floor grew closer and closer, almost brushing my neck.

At the corner was the inner safe door leading to the outer level. Rehn had already reached it. If I crossed too and dropped the isolation gate, we could shake the monsters.

“Hurry! We won’t make it!” Rehn urged from the doorframe.

I forced my legs to explode forward. In the instant I was just two steps from the door—

Rehn’s shoulder suddenly slammed into a heavy iron shelf beside the doorway, packed with discarded parts.

In that impact, he even turned his head slightly, checking my position with the corner of his eye.

Bang—crash!

The tall shelf toppled. Tons of junk poured down like an avalanche, wedging the inner door shut—sealing my only way out.

Through the dust cloud, all I saw through the gaps was Rehn’s shadow whipping around and vanishing beyond the gate.

“Rehn!” My shout was swallowed by the mutants’ shrieking.

“Stop yelling for that ungrateful bastard! Look up—upper left!” Mom’s voice exploded in my mind, frantic and vivid, like she was about to jump. “The vent louvers are loose! Step on the power box on the left and climb—move, you idiot!”

Instinct took control.

I sprang onto the distribution box, my good left hand hooking the vent edge. I kicked upward with both legs. At the moment a mutant leapt and its claws nearly grazed my shoe sole, I shoved myself into the narrow metal duct.

Crack.

A teeth-grinding snap came from my chest. To squeeze into the bent duct, I twisted hard—one rib broke clean, the sharp end nearly punching an organ.

“Hng—” My body spasmed with pain. Cold sweat soaked my back instantly.

“Hold it, don’t make a sound! Crawl forward—Mom will guide you.” Her tone was thick with agony, like when she stayed by my bed during childhood fevers. “Breathe deep. Don’t let the broken bone hit your lung.”

I bit the collar of my hoodie and wormed through the pitch-black duct like a dying insect. Every breath felt like steel needles driven through my ribs. Blood dripped from my right hand onto the sheet metal—tick, tick, tick.

An hour later, I shoved open a vent grate in the outer ruins and crashed into an ash-filled dead-end alley.

The dizziness was so violent I could barely stand. I didn’t make it far along the wall before hurried footsteps came from the street corner.

“You’re here! Oh my God—you’re alive!”

Rehn threw down his rifle and sprinted over, wrapping me in a crushing hug. He buried his head against my shoulder, voice thick with sobs.

“I’m sorry… when the shelf fell, I thought you were in front of me! I swear I didn’t mean it—I thought I killed you…”

He hugged so tightly it clamped straight onto my broken rib. The agony blackened my vision, and a strong metallic taste rose in my throat.

“Look at him squeezing out tears.” Mom’s voice snapped in, openly mocking. “Back when he stole jam at your grandma’s and got caught, he cried exactly like this—crying while secretly watching the adults’ faces.”

My left hand slid into my pocket, fingertips touching the ice-cold tactical dagger.

Killing intent surged wildly through my blood. One inch—that was all. I could sink the blade into the side of his neck.

But I panted hard and, in the end, slowly loosened my grip on the handle. My body was in terrible shape. If I missed, or if I tore the mask off now, I wouldn’t even have the strength to leave this street.

“It’s fine…” I swallowed the pain, patted his back with a hand that shook just enough, and forced my voice weak in exactly the right way. “It was an accident. We both made it.”

Rehn pulled back sharply and wiped his eyes. A barely perceptible flicker of relief flashed in them.

Over the next two days, the broken rib and the severe infection in my arm brought on a high fever. My temperature burned frighteningly hot; the world in my vision always wore a warped red haze.

Rehn dragged me to an overturned abandoned medical van and spent an entire afternoon rummaging. When he turned back holding a mud-stained blister pack wrapped in foil, his face burst into wild joy.

“Antibiotics! Amoxicillin capsules!” He rushed to me, shaking the pack hard. “You’re saved! Once your fever breaks, we can make it to the safe zone!”

Watching him cry happy tears, something absurdly small stirred deep in my fevered mind—maybe the shelf really was an accident? Maybe, after all, he still cared about the years we’d grown up together?

That pathetic hope was smashed to powder the same night.

“Wake up, you idiot. Don’t sleep.”

Mom’s shout rang urgently in my mind, anger barely restrained.

Her voice dragged me awake. My eyelids felt like lead. By the faint moonlight leaking through a crack in the van window, I narrowed my eyes.

Rehn wasn’t sleeping.

He sat with his back to me on a medical crate in the corner. His shoulders moved slightly. I forced my blurred focus and finally saw what he was doing.

With his fingernail, he carefully peeled open the foil on the antibiotic pack. After popping out a red-and-white capsule, he gently twisted it open and poured every grain of the real powder into his own canteen.

Then he pulled a dagger from his boot and scraped at the van wall where the white dry coating was peeling. He collected the chalky flakes and filled the empty capsule shell bit by bit. When it was full, he snapped it shut—sealed perfectly.

“See it now?” Mom’s voice trembled—whether from pain or rage I couldn’t tell. “He’s mixing the real medicine into his water to protect his immunity while he crosses his ‘rank.’ And he’s feeding you wall dust!”

My heart felt like an invisible hand clamped around it. Even breathing stalled.

“He never intended for you to get better.” Mom’s sigh was heavy with bleak grief. “He wants fake medicine to keep your fever burning until you completely lose the ability to resist or run. Then you’ll be a blood bag that can only rely on him—a walking shield he can throw out to slow monsters.”

Rehn put the wall-dust capsules back in place with extreme care, even wiping away stray powder with his fingertip. When he finished, he turned and stared at me in the moonlight for a moment.

There was no guilt in his eyes—only calculation, measuring how long a consumable could still be used.

I shut my eyes tight, swallowing the blood taste in my throat—and the last trace of warmth—down into my stomach.

From that moment on, the brother who once depended on me and lived with me died that night.