CHAPTER 59: THE TREE LINE

Sera eased off the couch like breath from a sleeping mouth.

She didn’t rush. Didn’t make a sound. One arm braced against the cushion as she untangled herself from under Lachlan’s shoulder, the other pressed flat against the floorboards to keep balance as she slid out of his orbit. His body didn’t shift, didn’t jerk—but she didn’t realize his lashes fluttered once, slow and brief, before his breathing returned to its even rhythm.

She was already gone.

The moment her feet touched the ground, the humming started again.

It was low at first. Like a vibration in the soles of her feet. A crackle in her spine. A pulse just behind her teeth. But it wasn’t human adrenaline. No—it was chemical. Biological. Something deeper. Older. Primordial.

The creature stirred, half-risen, pacing like a caged animal just beneath her skin. Her muscles flexed without command. Her jaw ached. The whites of her eyes thinned.

There was something outside.

Something wrong.

Sera didn’t need a weapon. She didn’t even grab shoes. Her skin was already tightening over bone in preparation, the veins in her arms pulsed as the creature inside of her fought for control.

She moved to the back window and stopped.

Her body locked into stillness, not out of fear, but calculation.

They stood just at the tree line.

At least a hundred of them. Maybe more.

Zombies—if she could still call them that—lined the edge of her backyard like statues carved from water and ash. Their skin shimmered faintly in the moonlight, tinged pale blue like frostbite. Their heads were too round, too swollen—like balloons filled just past the point of bursting. Their mouths hung open slack, they didn’t have lips anymore, there was just a single line where their heads opened up from what would have been ear to ear, if they still had ears. She knew it was to accommodate the rows of shark-like teeth that now took up most of the space in their mouth.

But it was their eyes that told her everything.

Pitch black. No iris. No light. And yet, they glimmered under the night like onyx polished to perfection.

They were watching her.

Not the cabin. Not the windows.

Her.

Their clothes hung from their frames in tatters—too large for their new forms. Torn button-ups, jeans ripped at the knees, jackets sagging like husks of their former selves. She recognized some of the clothing. Not the faces. The clothing.

Lake E. locals. Men and women just like her that had decided to winter in the smaller community that would be almost silent this time of the year. The ones like her that craved isolation.

But apparently even isolation wasn’t enough to keep them human.

She blinked once and felt her vision sharpen. Her pupils widening with the low light.

The creature was no longer asking to come out.

It was demanding.

Slowly, with the patience of a predator, Sera reached up to her eyes. One contact lens slipped out with a practiced flick. Then the other. She placed both on the small side table beside the window, her movements slow. Controlled. The moonlight reflected off her true gaze—an unnatural glint of metallic silver ringed in void.

She didn’t flinch.

Didn’t break the stillness.

She rolled her shoulders once, feeling the pressure building in the base of her neck. Then she reached down and peeled off the oversized sweater she’d worn for the movie, letting it drop to the floor beside her.

Blood wasn’t the easiest to get out, and that purple hoodie was one of her favorites.

Her tank top clung to her skin, black and tight, the straps framing the sharp lines of her collarbone. Her leggings stretched comfortably over her legs, giving way to bare ankles and pale feet. Everywhere from her neck down, her lavender skin seemed to glow in the low light of the TV.

Her hair hung loose down her back, but she didn’t bother to put in up in a messy bun.

"I guess the guys aren’t the only ones I’ll have to explain my rules to," she murmured, her voice barely audible over the rustling of pine needles outside. It wasn’t meant for anyone else.

Just her.

Just the creature.

She crossed the cabin in five silent steps, fingers brushing the cold steel of the back door handle.

Click.

The lock gave way.

The door swung open without a creak, held steady by her hand until it barely made a sound. She stepped out into the night barefoot, her skin instantly tightening from the cold. But the chill didn’t bother her.

She closed the door behind her with a precise snap.

Not a slam.

Not a thud.

Just enough to keep the others asleep.

The wind rushed past her, dragging strands of her hair across her cheeks.

And still the creatures waited.

Not one of them moved. Not one advanced. They simply swayed—softly. Back and forth. A whisper of movement, like seaweed on the edge of a reef. They weren’t restless. They weren’t confused.

They were waiting for something.

Sera’s lip curled.

"This is my territory," she hissed.

Her voice fractured, twisted in the back of her throat. Her tongue pushed against the new edges of her teeth. Her mouth struggled to contain her own set of shark teeth, all three layers that defined the Mako DNA inside of her. Her vowels slurred into something feral. Her tone dropped into an octave meant for snarling.

The air grew thicker.

She stepped forward, heel-first, and let the creature unfurl its claws.

There was no grand transformation. No growling or screaming or body horror.

Just a shift.

A flick of her wrists.

Her fingernails extended into hooked talons, pitch black and glinting in the light of the cabin behind her. Her toes curled against the frozen ground. Her spine straightened.

She wasn’t bigger.

But she was stronger, more evolved from the creatures in front of her.

She was sharper.

The first step toward the trees came with no warning. No roar. No battle cry.

Only the sound of gravel crunching beneath bare feet.

The horde swayed harder.

Some of their mouths began to move—though no sound escaped. Like they were muttering a prayer or a code. Or waiting for her permission.

Their bodies jittered. A twitch in the shoulder. A shiver in the hip. Like they weren’t used to being inside themselves.

She took another step.

Then another.

Still, they did not move.

Her creature leaned forward, eyes gleaming.

"You are not welcome here," she snarled, her entire body twisting in challenge.

Something changed in the center of the horde.

One of them moved, pressing forward as his mouth opened in challenge. The Alpha of this horde. Perfect.

Sera inhaled once and let the scent of them fill her nose.

Rot.

Salt.

Metal.

And something else.

Something she remembered from the lab.

From the cold.

From the scream of a girl she once was.

The humming beneath her skin surged to a roar.

And still, she held.

Still, she stood there, silhouetted against the cabin’s warm light, alone under the trees with nothing but the wind and her hunger to keep her company.

Behind her, someone shifted against the couch.

A soft creak. A change in pressure.

She didn’t turn.

She didn’t speak.

She simply curled one clawed finger toward her palm and prepared to enforce the rules.

Because this was her land.

Her cabin.

Her silence.

And it was time that these zombies learned what that meant.