After The World Ends: Live (Book 8): After The World Ends, #8

By Jamie Thornton

The final installment in the After The World Ends series. From New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Jamie Thornton.

A LAST CHANCE

The situation for Dessa and her friends looks bleak. Sanctuary's final end game is revealed. They have one chance to survive this, but the cost might be too great to bear.

Young Adult. Zombie Apocalypse. Dystopian. A thrilling conclusion awaits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jamie Thornton
• Release date: Jan 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215388136

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After the World Ends 8

L I V E

Jamie Thornton

1

Amos, get me that syringe.

Which one is the syringe?

The needle. It’s to your left… to your other left!

There was a moan. Dessa couldn’t tell anymore if it was coming from her or coming from outside of her. Everything was dark. Had her vision clouded over? Or were her eyelids closed?

Her mouth felt full of cotton and her throat had closed like a vice, refusing to allow her to swallow saliva so that it overflowed out the corners of her mouth. She couldn’t feel her body anymore, except everything burned. Burned like she was on fire, like she was being consumed from the inside out.

Tiana, I still don’t know where Cole is. There’s a pile of rubble here. I can’t get through.

Egg! You have to take care of it. I can’t leave Dessa right now.

I’m not supposed to be put in charge. Dessa never let me be in charge. You know better than that! I can’t do this!

Egg! A pause. You have to.

Tiana, I think Ms. Winters is waking up for real this time.

Oh, thank the universe. Amos, you take over for Egg. Egg, here’s your new job. Wake Ms. Winters up and get her talking. Make her tell us what we need to do next.

All right. I can do that. I think. I hope. I mean, probably.

Everything went dark. Sound, light, touch, taste. She was floating. Floating in the river on fire. Far away from her friends, from this building, back in the race on the Sacramento River, when they had been chased by V’s in the water. When they had made it to safety at the very last moment, only to find everything had turned upside down again.

She didn’t know how long she floated in that river set on fire in her veins by the Lyssa virus. It could have been seconds, it could have been months. For all she knew, this was her whole entire life now. Just decades spent trapped inside this moment outside of time. This moment that wasn’t a moment at all, but was the whole universe. It was all that ever had been, and all that ever would be.

But then, somehow, the river of fire began to ebb. She was floating on her back, her hair tangled around her shoulders, all of it lit on fire. But the current began to slow. At first, she thought it was a trick of her mind. Some new warping to thank the Lyssa virus for.

But then the ebb of that fire sizzling in her veins became more noticeable. Undeniable. Like the tide going out. Burning sensations left her fingers and toes first, drawing inward, as if both settling deep into her core and yet also evaporating.

Dessa, can you hear me? Tiana asked.

She can’t hear you, Ms. Winters said, her voice shaky.

Somehow, Dessa pictured Ms. Winters barely able to stand, probably leaning against Egg for support. It was the first clear image Dessa had since those golden drops of Lyssa virus had touched her bloodstream through the IV line.

Ms. Winters had decided Dessa and Cole needed to join Project Polus, so they had been infected with the Lyssa virus against their will. Just like most of the other kids.

Ivan, her own brother, had never been bitten by a V. He had been scooped up by the military, but then Ms. Winters had taken him in, assuming he was an orphan now, and added him to her precious Project Polus. She had infected him on purpose in order to test whether her treatment making people immune to the Lyssa virus actually worked.

It had worked. Barely. And it was Dessa and Cole’s turn to join the experiment, whether they wanted to or not. Otherwise Coordinator Schofield threatened to dissect Dessa’s own brother to obtain the data he needed. Because it was for the good of all humankind.

Or some crap like that.

A small voice inside her took it as a good sign that she could think complete thoughts again. Even if they were jumping around in her head like rabbits. It wasn’t all burning and floating and being outside time and space while full of rage. So she guessed that was an improvement.

When will we know?

Amos. That was his deep voice. Full of concern. Full of—

He had told her he loved her.

She remembered, the words blazing in her mind like a flame that had finally caught. How good his broad shoulders always looked under his shirt. How he kept his expression carefully neutral even when he was upset, which told you just how upset he really was. The way he smiled when he told her, Thanks, babe, when she got him a little something he’d been looking forward to. The way he looked out for her little brother and the other kids. For all of them. The way he liked to grow things instead of destroy them. All the drawings he’d made for her—as if by his own effort of will he could conjure up a better future for them someday—filled with plenty of food, clean water, sunflowers, and a hot cup of coffee.

She felt him leave her side. A hollowness she hadn’t known had been filled up suddenly emptied again.

Amos?

And he must have come back, because she felt a hand on her forehead. It was cool and comforting, and she feared the rage would rise up and take it away. The rage that filled her body with its sizzling, furious need to destroy, to hurt, to make them pay.

And it was there.

Deep down at the bottom most layer of herself, but she could control it. She could ignore it.

Dessa? Dessa, did you just say something?

There is no reasonable situation where the patient should be coming out of the heavy sedation I’ve placed her under, Ms. Winters said.

Dessa tried to flutter open her eyes, but her lids were so heavy. Her limbs were like lead. Her brain became wrapped in cotton just like her mouth, but she tried again anyway.

Amos.

It came out as a croak, but she felt his hand brush away the hair across her forehead as his other hand squeezed hers.

And then she dropped away, falling back into the void.

2

Shadows clung to the corners of the room, but otherwise, her vision cleared.

She looked down and saw all the straps were undone. All of a sudden she was standing on her feet, not remembering that she had even moved. Her toes curled into the rough fiber of the faded orange rug. There was the dresser, the window, the lamp. She looked around, feeling like this must be a trap, but saw no one—and the door was open. She slipped into the hallway, her feet cold on the bare concrete, no sign of explosion or debris.

Had she imagined the golden liquid? The burning in her veins?

Those shadows clung to the ceiling and walls, making it hard to focus. She looked back into her room. Something about the furniture and window wasn’t exactly right. When had the cot turned into a dentist’s chair?

People in white lab coats with the cuffs rolled up to their elbows brushed past her like she was invisible. They looked in a hurry, though that’s always how they had looked. Always on the move, always doing something important that would save the world. She didn’t recognize any of them. They were a series of pale faces covered by glasses and anxious looks, blending together like a generic lab team ready for display on a billboard that claimed they had the honor of saving the world from the Lyssa virus.

A kernel of rage sparked as she remembered.

They had infected her with the Lyssa virus. They had made the Lyssa virus in the first place. They had made the Super V’s. They had threatened to dissect two of the kids. They had threatened to dissect Ivan.

They deserved to pay.

She followed them to tell them off, to make them pay, but became distracted by the open door to Ms. Winters’ laboratory.

Broken beakers littered the countertops. Microscopes were tipped over. Power cords dragged over the side of the counter to the floor like animal intestines. Papers clumped on the floor in corners like someone had crumpled and tossed them there on purpose. The fridge with the insulin and experimental combo cure treatment was open, dumped out, its contents scattered. Shadows clung to the corners and walls here too, and she kept blinking, trying to drive them away.

Dessa found herself at the viewing window that looked into the kids’ room, not remembering how she got there.

A terrible cry sounded. With horror, she realized the cry came from her.

All four kids—Claire, Angela, Angelina, and Ivan—were laid out on the carpet, surrounded by colorful blocks. All of them unmoving.

Amos was laid out on their left, Egg at their feet, Tiana at their heads, and Cole on their right. Terrible wounds displayed intestines and muscle and bone.

The world turned black and then sparks burst across her vision.

She pounded on the window, screaming. No! Noooo!

This couldn’t be happening. Not all of them. Not like this.

You couldn’t take care of them.

The voice cut through her own screams.

Ms. Winters.

Dessa spun around, but took the image of the kids and her friends with her, like it was branded for all time on her brain.

Ms. Winters stood bracing herself against the counter next to a tipped- over microscope. Somehow, her lab coat looked pristine and freshly pressed. Somehow her hair looked perfectly done up in a crown shape on her head. Somehow she wasn’t bleeding and the large lenses of her glasses shined, unscratched.

Ms. Winters opened her arms wide as tears streamed down her cheeks, the salt water catching against the lens’ edge before spilling down her face. "You were unfit. We always knew it. You always knew it. You were supposed to take care of them. But you couldn’t. You never could. And now look at what’s happened. They’re gone and it’s your fault."

Ms. Winters’ words stabbed her over and over again in the gut.

Dessa backed up until she bumped against the window. No. No I didn’t.

Looking down at her hands, she saw blood on them. Rich, bright red blood. She tasted metal on her tongue. Wiping her arm across her mouth, which smeared the blood over it, she saw her jumpsuit was stained with more blood and it was spreading.

All she had ever done was try to protect those she loved.

She had tried to keep them all safe. She had tried to keep them all together.

There was no way she could have done this. Right?

But the blood on the jumpsuit and the taste of blood in her mouth spoke truth to Ms. Winters’ words.

Hadn’t Dessa always let them down when they really needed her? Hadn’t she always been too late? Hadn’t she always been unfit?

The rage, the violence, the knowing, that deep down she would fail them so completely there would be no going back. The seeds of this had always been inside her.

There was no going back.

A thumping on the viewing window made her jump. Someone was pounding on the glass with their fist. But they had all been laid out on the rug, too still, dead.

She didn’t want to look. She had to look.

Turning around, she saw Amos stood inches away from the glass, his eyes a clouded gray, his skin rippling with dark veins, his hands turned into claws with broken and bloodied nails that scratched at the glass for her, his rage building to consume them all.

She stepped back in horror, not understanding. Wanting this all to be over, please. Please, just let this be over soon. She wanted to die. Let her die.

Ms. Winters stepped forward. You did this and it can’t be undone. There’s no going back now, Dessa. You have to wake up. Wake up, and see what you’ve done. Dessa, wake up. Wake up—

3

Slowly, Dessa woke up.

The pain was gone, though echoes of it remained, like she had been hollowed out and the burning could return at any moment to fill it up. It made her wary of moving until she realized she’d somehow been placed on something like a pile of feather-filled pillows.

For a brief, beautiful moment, Dessa transported to a time before the zombie apocalypse, before the car accident that had destroyed her family. She was sharing pillows with her mom and dad. Ivan was a baby, not quite a year old, and in their mother’s lap, sleeping. They all watched a silly cartoon while cuddled on the couch, eating popcorn.

Someone called her name as if from far away. It wasn’t her mother or her father’s voice, and Ivan was still sleeping, so she ignored it.

This was where she belonged, and she wanted no interruptions.

But the harder she tried to hold on, the faster the moment slipped away, until it was gone altogether, and all she had left was an aching loss. An empty feeling so large, if you looked at it for too long, the rage would eagerly fill it up until it all spilled over and burned everything in sight.

Dessa, can you hear me?

She knew that voice now, but looked longingly at the images of her parents and brother zooming away.

The picture vanished altogether, and she turned circles in the dark, searching, reaching out for the familiar voice.

Amos was out here somewhere. She struggled up, as if trying to break the surface of a great ocean, and when she did, she gasped for air, and blinked water away and saw warm brown eyes framed by green leaves.

The leaves rustled as if gently touched by a breeze. She blinked to clear the blurriness away and looked for the shadows on the edge of her vision and didn’t find them. There was only Amos.

His worried expression snapped into sharp focus. Alive.

It had been a dream.

All the blood. All the death. The kids, her friends, Ms. Winters. Amos’ cloudy gray eyes.

She reached up a hand and laid it against Amos’ cheek. Feeling the rough sandpaper of his skin, feeling the warmth and love and strength. Searching his clear brown eyes for the truth.

Amos was alive and unturned.

It had been a terrible dream, and here was the proof.

There she is, Egg said, voice soft. He kneeled next to Amos, and clapped him hard on the shoulder as his face broke into a goofy smile. His skin looked streaked with grime, but his teeth were white and overly large as he beamed at Dessa, encouraging her. Tiana, she’s awake. Come take a look.

I’ll be there in a sec, Tiana called out from somewhere outside Dessa’s vision. Help her sit up. Do it slowly, or I swear I will kick both of your asses. Try to get some water into her and see if the hydrophobia is still around. That’ll tell us how far she’s come along.

Dessa scanned the area as Amos and Egg treated her like fragile glass, helping her sit. More details began to form. They were in some sort of woodland forest. The trees were large. She thought maybe oaks interspersed with other kinds of trees. The grass was tall and green. That’s what they had laid her out on—thick, bent over stalks of grass lush from spring rains and new growth—which she had mistaken for feathers.

Where—

The word came out more like a croak, but she was glad she could speak at all. She couldn’t finish her question, though, because right then she spotted Delmar. He stood against a far- off tree trunk, acting like he owned the world. His arms were crossed casually in front of him as he spoke to someone just out of sight, blocked by the trunk. She didn’t know what it meant to see him there until Magdalena stepped out from behind the tree.

Magdalena—her thick wavy hair, wide-brimmed hat, turquoise cowboy boots, and thick patterned cloak unmistakable, even from this distance.

Dessa tensed. The last encounter she had with Magdalena and her group was