I awoke to the sound of alarms sounding, red lights flashing through the building and loud screams coming from the very hall that Tori was being held in. Not even the loud gasp that caught in my throat was enough to keep me from literally falling out of the bed and rushing to the dresser, bumping into it so hard the television fell over and barely missed my foot while my fingers ripped open the bottom drawer, locking around the few guns I was able to carry inside when we left the bus.


The red lights flashing through the hallways nearly made me sick. My head was pounding and I was breaking into a sweat from the fear swelling in my gut. Something was terribly wrong, I knew that much already, but the voice in the back of my head was telling me all of this revolved around my baby sister. The very girl I had sworn to protect. All I did was take a nap, but even that was too much. I never should have taken my eyes off of her.


Depsite my best efforts to reach the ward that held Victoria, the pounding of my head and the flashing of the lights were wearing me down. My body slumped against the wall and I was literally pulling myself toward the area she was confined to. The sound of human life was growing closer, though I couldn't help but wonder why no one had been in our ward. Something must have drawn the guys out of the cafeteria, or out of their rooms, something brought them all here. I should have been the first one to sense something was off.


"Riot? Fucking Hell, Riot, can you breathe?"


A pair of arms caught my body just before I hit the floor. My vision was blurred, but focus quickly came as the face hovered only inches from my own. It was Alex, and behind him with panic on his face was Jack. But where was everyone else? What was happening to me? A small cough fell from my lips just as Alex brushed random strands of hair away from my face. The world was becoming more clear around me, mostly because I felt a pair of hands touch the guns bundled in my arms. Reality came crashing back into my heart and I remembered why I had come here: I had to find Victoria.


"Are these all the guns you have?" Blinking back the last bit of confusion in my mind, I turned my head to see Matt crouching down in front of Alex and myself. Somehow he'd managed to slip one of the guns out of my grip. "Ri, I need you to answer me."


"Y-Yes," I whispered, placing a hand on my head in attempt to stop the throbbing. I could have stayed there forever, on the could ground with guilt in my chest, but the swarm of people moving about us sent a chill down my spine. I used Alex's shoulder to lift myself off the ground, while both he and Matt used their strength to steady me as I swayed. "They never took them from me. But your guns, they have to be locked up somewhere, don't they?"


"We already sent Vinny and Zack to search for them. Rian is tracking down Steven's room to find the keys to the building. We can't stay here anymore, Riot." Matt let out a deep, frustrated sigh and ran a hand over his tired face. I didn't understand what was happening. How could we all be so calm when there was so much chaos around us? Just past Matt's head, I could see the men who worked here tripping over each other, shoving each other out of the way. We should be moving with them. "Jack, you're still ill from the bite. Go find a bag and start packing things. Food, clothes, anything we need to survive on the bus."


"I'm going with him," Alex declared, handing me off to Matt entirely. His lips sloppily pressed against my cheek and he shot me a painful look. That's it, now I knew there was definitely something tramatic happening here. "You guys be safe. We'll all meet back in my room, got it?"


I glanced to Matt, who was nodding his head to Alex. They shared a small man-hug, Matt handed off his gun and Alex was off to chase after Jack. This left only Matt and myself to fight the crowd, but I wasn't even willing to do that until I had some answers. As Matt took another gun from my hand, leaving me with the smallest, I took a moment to watch the scene around me.


There was a glass window in front of me, though I couldn't fully see inside of it. No, the damned thing was smeared with blood. This was the same fucking glass window the men had hid behind when they discussed Tori behind my back. I knew my baby sister was in a room directly in front of that one, with another wall of glass keeping her away from those men in their fucking fancy suits.


To my right, the workers were still fighting each other to get away. At least ten of them had taken off down the hallway, while the rest just managed to block themselves off by forming a pile of selfishness to get away from whatever had scared them. It was at that very moment that I caught a glimpse of the demons haunting them. More men, even some women and children, all infected. The adults were wearing lab coats and suddenly I understood where the families had gone that Steven told me about when we first came here. They used them all, tossed them in the tank with the sharks and used their bodies to run test, much like I'd allowed them to do with Tori. I felt sick.


"We have to go," Matt growled, tugging on my arm. "Fucking move, Riot, or we'll be next!"


"I'm not going anywhere," I whispered, standing firmly on falling ground. "Tori is in there somewhere. I can't just leave her!"


"They can't sense Tori, she'll be fine, but it would absolutely break her heart if anything happened to you on her accord!"


"What's happening, Matt?"


A frustrated growl fell from his lips, but he knew me well enough to know I wouldn't leave without Tori. Besides, the infected were too busy getting their revenge. He pulled me aside, pushing me against a wall while his arms remained on either side of me. He didn't have to say a word about it - I knew he was forming a wall - He was keeping me safe from the infected, should they come our way.


"They thought they find another break in the tests. Tori was to be put back in the ward with the infected, but she was freaking out. They only let me in to convince her to go inside the ward, but she started mumbling things to me. All I caught was 'murder, tests' and 'run' before they pulled me away. I figured it out, though. She knew who the workers were. She knew what they did to them and she knew she was next. Riot, they figured out the link in her blood and created a few vaccines. The only problem is, they needed a final run to make sure they'd gotten it right. One last test to make sure they infected wouldn't harm Tori. Once they got their proof of that, they were going to shoot her up with the cure, the one that would kill the infection inside of her. Sounds great, I know, but in order to see if it worked properly, they were going to throw her back inside - Without the protection of that which had formed in her own blood. Instead of using one infected to make sure Tori was cured, one that could easily be killed after a single bite, they were going to let them eat her alive. There are so many of them that she wouldn't come back with the infection. She would have suffered a slow, painful death. And once they had proof that she could be cured, they were going to use us, Ri. They were going to inject us with a mix of the virus, without knowing how it would work, and throw us in there, too. Either way we would have died and they would have let us. There was no way they'd waste a cure on us."


It was too much to take in. They were going to kill my baby sister and I was going to let them, in hopes that her blood would be able to save the rest of us. I was the worst sister on the face of the planet. My stomach churned, my blood boiled, but I couldn't let that stand in my way. Tori was still in there, somewhere, scared and alone.


"Riot, I watched the whole thing through the security cameras. Tori told me to run because she knew exactly what she was doing. She memorized the code for the doors. She set the infected free and went back to her room."


"How many of them are there, Matt?"


"I don't know. At least fifty. They only took about ten out before they charged everyone. I don't know how many are dead or how many are still in there, or even out here."


"I'm going after Tori. I can't just leave her in there to watch all of this happen. She's just a child!"


"Riot, please. Tori is important to me too, but she's safe. We're not. Once the guys get back with the guns and whatever else they can find, we'll have a better chance of fighting these things off to get to her."


"I'm not just going to leave her locked in some glass room alone while all this shit is going on. Go find the guys. Create a game plan. Take out as many as you can. And if something happens to me, Matt, get Tori out of here. Promise me."


"Riot-"
"Promise me!"


"Fine! Just- Be safe, okay?"


"Yeah," I frowned, glancing toward the bloody mess taking place in front of me. "Don't you die on me, either. I'll see you when all of this over."


Matt nodded his head, sadly, and dropped his arms. I slowly started making my way toward the infected and those who were catching it, tears forming in my eyes. I had no idea how I expected to make it through this mess and live to tell about it. I probably wouldn't have, either, had it not been for Matt shooting them down around me. Bullets were flying past my head and screams of pain were breaking my heart. But they deserved this. They deserved it for killing so many innocent men, women and children.


I let out a slow breath and slowly rounded the corner. The infected were everywhere, but lucky for me, the door in which Tori had been locked in was still open. Bodies were lingering in the hall, some being eaten, some twitching out from the virus taking over. I gagged at the sight of the gore in front of me, but I had to keep moving forward. Only a few more feet and I'd be with Tori.


Somehow, the infected had barely acknowledged that I was there. I don't know what made me feel worse, the fact that people were screaming for my help and I denied them, or the fact that the undead truthfully seemed to know who the real enemy was. Like they still had a flicker of humanity inside of them. It gave me a sense of hope, like once the shock of the virus wore off, they would start to regain a sense of themselves, but even my heart knew that to be false. They were walking dead. They couldn't think for themselves, and if they could, it was all horrible things that no human being should ever suffer the thought of.


Stepping over what was left of someone's leg, I found my baby sister cowering in a corner, her legs pulled to her chest as she sobbed, with no tears falling from her face. I knew it was only a matter of time before the infected started to come after me, so I kicked the remains of the leg out of my path and closed the door behind me, a red light flashing on the wall to prove to me that the door was, in fact, locked. I admit, this made me slightly afraid, since Tori had been without food for God knows how long, but I found comfort just by being with her.


My body slowly moved toward the sad girl. My back hit the wall and I slid down so I was sitting beside her. The moment my arm wrapped around her shoulder, she fell into me, a sickening growl leaving her chapped lips. Being afraid of my sister shouldn't even be an option. I had to live with the mindset that, if anything happened to her, it had to happen to me as well.


"You need to leave," Tori attempted to whisper, but it came out as more of a threat. "I'm not okay, Riot."


"I know, baby," I cooed, running my fingers through her damaged, dry hair. "But I'm not leaving you, not in a time like this. I never should have left you in the first place. Tori, I love you and I am so sorry. But they found a cure, baby. If we can make it through this, there's hope."


"I know about that, the cure. They used it on someone else, but they were too far gone to save, Riot... They suffered. I don't want to suffer."


"You're not too far gone, baby. You'll be fine. We'll all be fine. Just relax, okay? Nothing can get us in here."


"I'm so hungry, though. If you stay I'll hurt you worse than I hurt Jack."


I shivered, sending a single tear running down my cheek. It was true, I knew it was. And it wasn't even her fault. She was only so strong, she could only fight the hunger for so long. But then, a thought came to me. The infected don't eat other infected. If Tori could infect me, and if the guys came through, we could both survive this. Really survive it.


"Tor.. Bite me."


"What?"


My baby sister pulled away from me, her pale face and bloodshot eyes breaking my heart. So many things had changed about her since I saw her last. They'd been putting her through Hell and I never even noticed. I'm a fucking failure.


"If you bite me, I'll become infected. I won't hurt you and you won't hurt me."


"But what if I can't stop?"


"Then don't," I murmured, blinking back more tears. "I promised I'd do anything to keep you safe. If that means becoming your last meal, so be it."


She wanted to protest, but the hunger was too much for her to take. Her eyes danced from my face, to my arm, where it seemed she could almost see the blood flowing under my skin. My hand was shaking as I extended my arm to her, fear bubbling in my stomach as she took it into her much smaller hand. I tore my eyes away from the scene as she lowered her face to my flesh, her growls hitting my ears like a train. When I felt her breath trickle along my skin, I exhaled a deep breath and closed my eyes, biting my lips as her teeth sunk into my flesh.


The pain was the worst I'd ever felt. I could hear her tearing through the layers, feeling the blood flowing and I was starting to go fuzzy. I hadn't even realized I was screaming until Tori pulled away, my blood running down her chin as she chewed on the skin she'd managed to pull off. Tears were streaming down my face, a jolt of fire shooting up my arm. I couldn't even look at the damage she'd done. Instead, I carefully removed my shirt and wrapped it around the wound. But the pain, oh God, the pain only got worse.


It was all of my bones were breaking, the heat in my body was rising. Like a thousand new razor blades were being stabbed into my body, twisting around in my skin.


"It'll be over soon," Tori mumbled, a little more human than before. "The pain goes away fast, but then you feel sick, real sick."


And she was right. Slowly, the pain left my body, almost as if someone had placed an IV in my arm to numb the feeling. It still hurt, like the ache of the flu, but it wasn't enough to bring me to tears anymore. No, now I was just left with a killer headache and a rumble in my stomach. The worst part was, neither of us knew how long this would last. Tori was sick for so long before she attacked, but for my mother, the change was so sudden. Just like with the guys we'd lost, some of them turned in an instant.


"Sing to me one last time, Riot," Tori breathed, curling up against my chest. "Sing to me before you die."


Her request broke my heart, but not as much as hearing her tell me I was going to die. It was the ver first time I'd heard her admit that a part of who she was had died as well. And it scared the living shit out of me. Chances are, I wasn't like Tori. I would literally turn into one of those things if Matt didn't get to us soon enough. Even so, he'd be risking his life. By morning, we could all be dead. Tori would be left alone, her life fighting to beat the death consuming her soul. My voice broke before I could even open my mouth. Tears were pooling in my eyes, but I owed Tori one last sense of peace.


"Don't you dare look out your window, darlin' everything's on fire. The war outside our door keeps raging on. Hold onto this lullaby, even when the music's gone. Just close your eyes, the sun is going down. You'll be all right, no one can hurt you now. Come morning light, you and I'll be safe and sound."

Notes

Song credit goes to "Safe & Sound," by Taylor Swift. I'm a Hunger Games nerd, not a Taylor fan, lol.
A big thanks to Jagk_freak and Nothing-Personal for commenting. I loves you guys. (:
This is a pretty dramatic chapter. I think it deserves some comments. So, yeah. You should get on that. It's really easy, just scroll down and type a few words. ^.^