LENA
I delete the text.
My fingers move on instinct, swiping it away like I can erase the words from existence. But they're burned into my brain now, impossible to forget.
You're not the only one who remembers.
I stare at the blank screen. My heart is hammering so hard I can hear it in my ears.
Someone else came back. Someone else knows about the outbreak, about the timeline, about everything. But who? And why would they text me instead of just showing up?
Unless they're watching me right now.
I spin around. The apartment is empty. The windows are closed. The door is locked. But the feeling doesn't go away. The sensation of eyes on me, tracking my every move.
I grab my jacket and my notebook and get out.
The coffee shop is exactly where I remembered it. Small. Quiet. The kind of place where people come to work on laptops and pretend they're being productive. I pick a table in the back corner where I can see both doors and wait.
Petra arrives eleven minutes later.
She walks in scanning the room until her eyes land on me, and something in her expression shifts. Relief mixed with worry. She crosses to my table fast and drops into the chair across from me.
"Okay," she says. "Talk."
No small talk. No hesitation. That's Petra. Straight to the point, always.
I look at her. Really look at her. She's twenty-six years old with sharp eyes and sharper instincts. In my first life, she coordinated supply runs for Shelter Seven until Damon had her reassigned to waste management to keep her away from me. She never stopped trying to reach me. Never stopped fighting.
And when they threw me out, she was screaming my name so loud they had to drag her into another room.
"I'm about to say something that sounds completely insane," I tell her. "And I need you to hear all of it before you decide I've lost my mind."
She leans back. Crosses her arms. "I've known you for three years, Lena. You're the least insane person I've ever met. So talk."
I take a breath.
Then I tell her everything.
The outbreak. Z-Day. The shelter. Damon's jealousy when the refugees started calling me Saint Lena. Cara's quiet resentment that I didn't see until it was too late. The fake evidence. The trial. The banishment. The horde closing in while Damon watched through the glass with dead eyes.
The bites. The pain. The darkness.
Waking up here.
I don't stop. I don't soften it. I just lay it all out like I'm giving a medical report, clear and clinical, because if I let emotion into my voice I'll break and I can't afford to break. Not now.
Petra doesn't interrupt. She just watches me with those sharp eyes, reading me the way she always does.
When I finish, silence fills the space between us.
She stares at me for a full minute. Then she says, "Show me your arms."
I blink. "What?"
"You said you were bitten. Multiple times. Show me the scars."
I roll up my sleeves and hold out both arms. The skin is smooth. Perfect. Like nothing ever touched me.
Petra leans forward and examines them. She runs her finger along my wrist where the worst bite was, the one that nearly took my hand off.
"Nothing," she says quietly.
"They healed when I came back. Everything did."
She sits back. Studies my face. "You're serious."
"Completely."
"You died. You came back. And now you're telling me the world ends in ninety-two days."
"Ninety-one now. I lost a day."
Something flickers in her eyes. Not disbelief. Something else. Something that looks like recognition.
"There's more," I say, because I need her to know all of it. "The bites did something to me. Gave me something. An ability."
"What kind of ability?"
I tap the base of my skull. "I can feel them. The infected. It's like a hum right here. Gets louder when they're close. In my first life, it didn't start until after the outbreak began. But this morning, I felt it. Before I even left the apartment."
Petra goes very still. "That's impossible. The virus doesn't exist yet."
"I know."
"So either you're having a mental breakdown, or something is very wrong with this timeline."
I meet her eyes. "Which do you think it is?"
She stares at me for another long moment. Then she reaches into her bag and pulls out a notebook and pen.
"Tell me about the supplies," she says.
Relief crashes through me so hard I almost laugh. "You believe me?"
"Lena, I've watched you hold a trauma patient together with your bare hands while talking them through their own surgery. I've seen you work thirty-six hour shifts without blinking. You don't break. You don't panic. And you sure as hell don't make up stories about the apocalypse for attention." She clicks the pen. "So yeah. I believe you."
Something tight in my chest finally loosens.
For the next two hours, we plan.
I tell her about the warehouse on East Street. The industrial site that will become the Ark. The supply caches hidden around the city that no one will think to grab until it's too late. The names of people who survived in my first life and the ones who didn't.
Petra writes everything down without flinching. She asks smart questions. She spots problems in my plan I hadn't thought of. She's already three steps ahead, thinking about logistics and timelines and backup options.
This is why I needed her.
"The warehouse first," I say. "Day Three. Two days from now. Medical supplies. Antibiotics, surgical kits, pain meds. Everything we'll need when the hospitals get overrun."
"What kind of security?"
"None. It's a medical distribution center. They won't even notice it's gone until it's too late."
Petra closes her notebook. "I'll bring the truck."
I smile. A real one this time. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. We still have to survive the actual apocalypse." She stands up. "I need to get back to work before my boss notices I've been gone two hours. But Lena?"
"Yeah?"
"Whatever happens, whatever you need, I'm in. All the way."
I nod. I don't trust my voice to say anything else.
She leaves.
I sit at the table alone, staring at my notebook, feeling lighter than I have since I woke up this morning. I'm not alone in this. Petra believes me. She's on my side.
Then my phone buzzes.
Another text from the same unknown number.
I open it.
My blood turns cold.
The message is a photo.
Of me. Sitting at this table. In this coffee shop. Taken from across the street through the window.
And underneath it, three words: Day Three. The warehouse.
Someone knows about the warehouse.
Someone is following me.
And they're going to be there when I arrive.