She stared in shock at Peyton, realizing she'd never fully learned her lesson, and life had a way of repeating itself if you proved a poor student. As she had beaten herself with the flog of guilt, wept over her actions, and denied the changes that’d taken place within her, she’d failed to do the one thing she should have in the first place.
It was a mistake she'd made before. Back then, she had stopped herself. She’d let the man who had held her to the shower floor and had his way with her live, and she’d thought it was the right thing to do. Through it all, when she lost everything, as her darkest secrets were brought to light, she’d truly believed she had done the right thing.
Now, she finally understood. Back then, she never should’ve put the gun down. She never should’ve used her fists. She should’ve just pulled the trigger, and let it be her word against a dead man's. She hadn’t and had paid the price.
She should’ve made sure Peyton was dead. It was a mistake that would cost one of them their lives in the next few minutes and would be another stone for Bunny to carry through the world in the aftermath of the apocalypse.
"Peyton," Marco said slowly. "You're alive."
"Yup, sure am. No thanks to her," he replied.
He was ragged, his clothes torn, blood drying on them and his skin. How, Bunny wasn't sure, but he had escaped, and survived. She stared down the barrel of the gun in his hand and braced herself.
"After what you did?" Rosa snapped, bringing his attention on her.
"What I did?" Peyton exclaimed. "What I did was nothin' next to what she did! Leavin' a man to be eaten by them? That's inhuman! All I'm guilty of is losin' a bit of self-control."
"What are you talking about?" Marco asked.
"He tried to rape Bunny," Rosa told him.
Marco turned his yellow eye back on Peyton, suddenly cold. "You son-of-a-bitch."
"Back off, maggot brain," Peyton barked. "I will put you down as sure as shit."
"Monster!" Rosa spit.
"Shut your fucking mouth!" he screeched, waving the gun at her. "I’ve had it with your holier-than-thou bullshit doc! You look at me like your fancy Harvard education makes you better than me and it don't! Not anymore! Not in this world!"
"Stop it," Bunny said. "Just stop it. Your beef is with me, not them."
"Oh, you’re damn right about that, sweetheart," he told her. "But I ain't plannin' on shooting you, oh no. Peyton's got better plans for you."
Rosa stepped forward suddenly. "Over my dead body."
"I can make that happen," Peyton snarled, punctuating his point with a jab of the gun.
"Stop it," Marco said darkly. "This is beyond crazy, and you know it."
"Crazy?" Peyton laughed. "You want crazy? How's this for crazy? The dead man in the room thinks he has a right to tell me anything!"
"Just tell me what you want," Bunny said, watching the gun in his hand closely.
"What I want? Okay, I'll tell you what I want," he said. "I want you an me to get in that car and drive away. I want you to quit your mouthing and bend that cute little ass of yours over for me, like you should have to begin with. It's my right to have it, and I will before this is over."
"Your right? What is this, the middle ages?" Rosa exclaimed, staring at him in disbelief.
"Look around, bitch!" he bellowed. "World is over! Man's got to take a stand, take what's his. And that uppity cunt is my property, ‘cause I say so, and I got the motherfucking gun, so that makes me right. Now shut your fucking cockhole!"
Everyone stared at him in shock. Peyton had been cracked before, but he was gone now. No one was there, elevator was stuck in the basement, and the only cards in his deck were jokers.
"Get in the car," he told Bunny.
"If I don't?" she asked
He laughed. "I'll just shoot one of them. How about the doc there? You want her blood on your hands? You want to watch her die ‘cause you won't admit to bein' a whore?"
Behind Peyton, something moved in the alley. Shuffling, it drew closer, stepping fully into the morning light. She had been pretty once, Bunny could tell, though now, the ragged remnants clad in a jogging outfit barely looked human. With all his screaming, Peyton had drawn her, and probably others.
"Peyton, behind you," Marco warned.
"Fuck you!" Peyton screamed. "You think I'm stupid? Get in the motherfucking car before I shoot fucking everybody!"
It latched onto him, gripping his arm in one hand, and his shoulder in the other. Peyton didn't even have time to scream before the thing that’d once been a young jogger took out a chunk of his shoulder. When he did start screaming, it was an awful sound, and almost masked the gunshot as he jerked.
Bunny flinched, half-expecting the searing pain she'd known before as hot lead ripped through her. When it didn't come, she blinked, and watched in horror as Rosa staggered and collapsed backwards, blood spreading across her shirt.
"No!" Marco bellowed.
Bunny dropped to her knees, trying to slow the bleeding as Marco moved forward, planting a foot on Peyton and shoving him backwards, out of the yard. Slamming the gate, the dead man stood and watched as the monsterous jogger took another bite out of Peyton’s arm while he screamed.
"Hang on, Rosa," Bunny said as she put pressure on the wound. "It's nothing. This is nothing. You're going to be fine. Just need to get
