CHAPTER 31: ELENA BITTEN

Christopher and Sydney rushed forward, reaching out desperately, but they were just inches short as both Elena and I slipped over the edge together.

"No!" I heard someone scream—maybe it was me.

As we fell, my desperate hands found the frame of an open window one floor down. My fingers closed around the concrete and metal frame with a death grip, my other hand still clutching Elena’s arm. We hung there, suspended over a drop that would certainly kill us, both our lives depending on my ability to hold on.

Just below us, dozens of infected had gathered, drawn by the commotion above. They reached upward with grasping hands. If we fell, we wouldn’t just die—we’d be torn apart while still alive.

Creeeak!

I looked up in growing horror as hairline cracks appeared in the window frame under our combined weight. The concrete was beginning to crumble, and I could feel the metal frame starting to pull away from the wall.

"Shit!" I gasped, feeling Elena’s grip on my arm slipping as well. Sweat made our hands slick, and the awkward angle was putting tremendous strain on both our shoulders.

We were hanging by a thread—literally—and that thread was about to snap.

Gritting my teeth against the pain shooting through my shoulder, I used every ounce of strength I had left to lift Elena up with my free hand. My muscles screamed in protest as I pushed her toward the open window, fighting against gravity and the awkward angle that made every movement feel like lifting a car.

"Come on," I grunted through clenched teeth, "almost there..."

Elena immediately understood what I was trying to do. The moment she was close enough, she reached out desperately and grasped the window frame with both hands, using her own strength to pull herself through the opening. She disappeared into the room beyond.

"Hey, you okay?!" Sydney’s voice called down from above, tinged with panic and fear.

I looked up to see all four of them leaning over the edge of the administration building, their faces masks of worry and helplessness.

"Y...yeah!" I called back. "Don’t worry about us! Just be safe and get that radio!" The radio had to come first—it was bigger than any of us individually. "We will be fine! Go ahead! We will join you later!"

I watched Christopher nod seriously. He understood the logic, even if he didn’t like it. We couldn’t afford to have everyone stuck here when the radio was so close.

Sydney lingered longer, her eyes locked down on mine. I could see the internal struggle playing out on her face—the desire to stay and help warring with the knowledge that I was right. Finally, she gave me one last worried look and disappeared from view.

Just as I was beginning to wonder how I was going to get myself through the window, a terrifying sound erupted from the room above me.

"Grr!"

"W...what?! Elena?!" I swung myself sideways, using the window frame for leverage, just in time to see Elena locked in a desperate struggle with an infected that had apparently been lurking in the room.

Elena had her hands around its throat, her feet braced against its chest as she fought to keep its snapping teeth away from her face. But she was already exhausted from our fall, and the infected possessed that unnatural strength that made them so dangerous.

With a grunt of effort, Elena managed to shift her weight and push the creature toward the window. It stumbled backward, arms windmilling wildly, and tumbled out into space. I watched it fall past me, its body hitting the concrete below with a wet, sickening sound that reminded me unpleasantly of a ripe tomato being dropped from a great height.

I quickly hauled myself up and through the window just as the frame finally gave way completely, the old concrete crumbling and the metal support breaking away from the wall in a shower of debris.

I landed hard on the office floor, my knees buckling from the impact and adrenaline. The room was small and cramped, filled with overturned desks and scattered papers that told the story of whatever chaos had erupted here when the outbreak began.

Elena was slumped against the far wall, breathing heavily and covered in sweat. Her hair was disheveled, and there were scratches on her face from the struggle, but she appeared to be in one piece. Relief flooded through me as I started toward her.

"You okay, Elena?" I asked, extending my hand to help her up.

But when I reached out to her, she slapped my hand away with surprising force.

"D...don’t..." She muttered weakly, her head hanging low as if she couldn’t bear to look at me.

I stared at her in shock, confused by the rejection.

Then I saw it.

She was clutching her right hand against her chest, and dark red blood was seeping between her fingers, dripping steadily onto the dusty floor beneath her.

"No..." The word escaped my lips as a horrified whisper.

I dropped to my knees beside her, gently but firmly grasping her wrist to examine her injured hand. She tried to resist, but she was too weak and shocked to put up much of a fight. When I pried her fingers away from the wound, my worst fears were confirmed.

There, on the back of her right hand, were four distinct puncture wounds arranged in a semicircle—the mark of human teeth. The infected’s bite had torn through skin and muscle, leaving ragged edges that wept blood and something darker that I didn’t want to identify.

"Are you kidding me?!" The words exploded out of me, a mixture of rage and despair that echoed through the small room. "Fuck, no!"

I released her hand and stumbled backward, collapsing onto my rear end as the full weight of what had happened crashed down on me. My breathing came in short, panicked gasps as I stared at the bite mark that might as well have been a death sentence.

Elena’s lips were trembling as she fought to contain her emotions, her whole body shaking with the effort of not breaking down completely. But I could see the tears gathering in her eyes, the knowledge of what this meant written clearly across her face.

And I wanted to cry too—not just for her, but for my own failure, my own guilt, my own crushing sense of responsibility for this disaster.

"I’m sorry," I managed to say, the words feeling inadequate and hollow. "It’s because of me."

And it was true. If I hadn’t slipped during the jump, if I had made it across safely like the others, Elena would never have had to grab my arm. She wouldn’t have fallen with me, wouldn’t have been thrown into a room with an infected, wouldn’t be sitting here now with a bite that could doom her to a fate worse than death.

Every link in the chain of causation led back to my failure.

"No... I chose to come here," Elena said, shaking her head weakly.

I looked at her—really looked at her—and saw something I hadn’t expected. Despite the fear, despite the pain, despite the knowledge of what the bite might mean, there was no accusation in her eyes. No blame, no anger directed at me. Just a quiet acceptance that made my guilt burn even hotter.

I had promised Alisha that I would protect Elena, that I would bring her back safe to her. Instead, Elena had been the one to save me, and my incompetence had gotten her bitten.

This was the worst possible outcome. I had been overconfident during the jump, too sure of my own abilities, and this was the price.

We sat in silence for long minutes. The only sounds were Elena’s labored breathing and the distant moans of the infected below.

Finally, Elena broke the silence.

"You should leave before I... before it happens," she said, her voice hollow and resigned.

I looked at her, seeing the fear she was trying so hard to hide. She was thinking about the transformation, about what she might become when the infection took hold.

But I couldn’t just abandon her.

"You can be saved if we cut your hand," I said suddenly, the idea forming even as I spoke it.

Elena’s head snapped up.

"Maybe," I added quickly, not wanting to give her false hope. The truth was, I had no fucking idea how this virus worked. For all I knew, the infection had already reached her bloodstream, was already racing toward her brain where it would begin its terrible work.

I pulled out my kitchen knife and slid it across the floor toward her. The metal scraped against the concrete with a sound like fingernails on a chalkboard.

"I’m not sure it will work," I said, forcing myself to be honest about the risks. "And if I cut your hand off, you’ll suffer from severe blood loss with no way to properly stop the bleeding. I can’t guarantee your survival—you might even pass out from the shock and blood loss on the spot."

The words tasted like ash in my mouth, but Elena deserved to know exactly what she would be facing. I tried not to think about the practical implications—the journey back to the library with Elena missing a hand, weakened by blood loss and trauma. Would she be able to make the jump back to the other building? Would she be able to run if we encountered more infected? Would she even survive the amputation itself without proper medical equipment?

The nurse back at the library might be able to help with the immediate medical needs, but we would have to get there first. And honestly, the thought of bringing Elena back to the library—back to her sister—with one hand missing because I had failed to save her properly... it made me sick to even consider.

I was also sick of thinking about hurting her because I was too afraid to use what might be the only method available to save her life. But I was also terrified of making her hate me.

Rachel had somewhat understood what I had done before, and I had managed to somewhat mend that relationship, but Elena... Elena was different. If I told her the truth about my abilities, would she even believe me? There was no logical reason she should. The whole thing sounded insane even to me, and I was living it.

But I had to try. The alternative was watching her die or become something monstrous.

"But there might be another way..." I said suddenly, watching as Elena stared at the knife with a face pale as death.

She raised her gaze to mine, confusion flickering in her eyes alongside the fear and resignation.

I think I had just found a way to make her believe me. It was risky, and it would reveal everything, but what choice did I have?

I stood up slowly and walked toward her, extending my hand in what I hoped was a reassuring gesture.

Elena looked confused but accepted my hand, allowing me to help her to her feet.

I led her carefully toward the broken window, both of us stepping over the debris scattered across the floor.

"Do you see the infected moving down there? Feel the wind blowing through the window?" I asked.

"Yes..." She nodded, but her confusion was deepening. I could see her wondering if the shock and stress had finally caused me to snap.

"Elena, I have some kind of hidden ability—you can call it a supernatural power," I said, the words feeling strange and impossible even as they left my mouth.

"W..what are you..." Elena looked at me, her brows furrowing with concern. She was probably thinking I was having some kind of breakdown, maybe making up fantasy stories to cope with our hopeless situation.

"Just look," I said, picking up the knife from where it lay on the concrete floor. I held it outside the window, suspended over the crowd of infected three stories below. "One of my abilities is that I can stop time. For exactly ten seconds."

"Ryan—" She started to protest, probably about to suggest that I was losing my mind.

I let go of the knife and activated my time freeze ability.

The world went completely still.

Elena’s words died in her throat as she felt the wrongness wash over everything around us. The constant noise of the infected—their moans, their shuffling footsteps, their bodies bumping into obstacles—all of it vanished into absolute silence. The wind that had been blowing through the broken window stopped completely, leaving the air motionless and heavy.

She turned her gaze back to the window and saw the knife hanging impossibly in mid-air, frozen in the exact moment I had released it, defying gravity and every law of physics she understood.

Her eyes widened in shock, and she took an instinctive step backward, but I held her hand firmly, anchoring her to reality.

"Look," I said, pointing toward the crowd of infected below.

Elena lowered her gaze and stared at the scene beneath us. Dozens of creatures stood like statues, caught mid-motion in whatever they had been doing when time stopped. One had been reaching upward, its arm extended toward our window. Another was caught mid-stumble, balanced impossibly on one foot. A third had its mouth open in what would have been a moan, but no sound emerged.

"W...what is happening..." She whispered, her voice small and awed in the supernatural silence.

"I told you. I can freeze time for ten seconds," I explained, watching as she struggled to process what she was experiencing.

Then the ten seconds elapsed, and time resumed its normal flow as I recovered the knife.

The noise hit us like a physical force after the profound silence—the groaning and shuffling of the infected, the whistle of wind through the broken window.

Elena jerked at the sudden return of sound, her head whipping back and forth between the window and my face. She was in shock, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to find words for something that defied explanation.

She didn’t know what to say—she just looked too stunned to speak—but at least now she clearly understood that I wasn’t normal, which was exactly what I had wanted to achieve.

"I also have another ability," I said carefully, watching her face, "that might be able to cure you, Elena."

When I said this, Elena gasped audibly. She closed her mouth, then opened it again hesitantly, hope and disbelief warring in her expression.

"T...that... is that true?" She asked, hope in her voice.

I nodded. "But you have to trust me completely."

"I... if you can save me, I will trust you," she said, probably imagining I was going to perform some kind of magical healing ritual or supernatural cure.

"No, I mean you have to really trust me," I said, feeling heat creep up my neck and into my cheeks as I prepared to reveal the most difficult part. "I can cure you, but for that, I need to do something..."

I trailed off, the words sticking in my throat.

"Do what?" She asked, nervousness creeping into her voice as she noticed my embarrassment.

There was no easy way to say this. No gentle way to explain something that sounded impossible and inappropriate even under these desperate circumstances.

"I have to have sex with you," I said, the words coming out in a rush before I could lose my courage entirely.