Pretty Much Dead Already, page 2
The photographer arrives—a man with a camera so expensive it makes a click like a gunshot. He bobs his head, bows slightly, and addresses me directly for the first time all morning. “Miss Vale? Would you please look this way?”
I turn, trying to remember how to angle my face. The flash pops, and I’m immortalized: spine straight, chin high, veil cascading behind like the tail of a comet. For an instant, I can almost see myself as the world does—untouchable, serene, an ornament in the Westbrook gallery.
But as soon as the flash fades, I’m back in my skin, the tremble in my hands and the ache in my ribs impossible to ignore.
“Beautiful,” says the photographer. “Alpha Westbrook is a lucky man.”
“Thank you,” I say, but my voice comes out a little too sharp. I swallow, and try again: “Thank you. I’m ready.”
He beams. “Let’s get you married, shall we?”
The stylists return to their stations, performing last checks on my veil and hair. Someone dabs at the corners of my mouth, and another dusts powder over my collarbone. The scent consultant reappears, this time with a bottle labeled “Victory.” She sprays a cloud in my direction, and it settles over me like the exhalation of some sleeping animal.
I close my eyes for a final time, steadying my pulse. When I open them, I lift my chin and rehearse the smile. The old lessons resurface, unbidden: Always defer. Never challenge. Compliment, never compete. If you must think of yourself, do it quietly.
At the edge of the landing, the staircase beckons—a white marble spiral, flanked with bouquets the size of small children. The music swells, then hushes. For one fragile moment, the world holds its breath.
I step forward, because that is what I was made to do.
Smile, I remind myself, as the lenses and the eyes and the future converge on me.
Smile, because Alpha Westbrook deserves a happy bride.
Smile, because I no longer remember how to do anything else.
The waiting chamber outside the ballroom is the smallest room I’ve seen in the entire Westbrook mansion. It’s almost antechamber to a crypt: heavy velvet drapes over the window, too many oil portraits watching from gilded frames, and a single wingback chair upholstered in maroon. Someone has left a bottle of water on the side table, but I can’t reach it, not without risking a tumble and headlines like: “Westbrook Omega Bride Arrives Bruised, Sources Say.”
I’m alone for the first time all day. Alone, but not unobserved; I can feel the eyes through the door, the pressure building up in the hallway like a carbonated drink ready to burst. I pace, or rather, I attempt to pace. The gown’s weight and the impossibly tight corset limit my movement to a slow orbit, like a goldfish circling a glass bowl. With each circuit I pick up a whiff of some new scent—floor polish, candle wax, the mineral tang of my own nervous sweat.
The vows are written on a monogrammed card, which someone tucked into the small pocket of the dress, made specially for this moment, at the last second. I pull it out and trace the script with a fingertip. The words are old, almost biblical: honor, obey, yield. I’d spent weeks reciting them, learning to make each syllable sound heartfelt and not like something crammed down my throat by a committee of mothers and matchmakers. It was harder than expected.
I practice them under my breath, but the tightness in my throat turns the “obey” into a squeak. I try again. This time it comes out brittle and sharp, like the snap of a dry twig. “To have and to hold,” I murmur, “in all things. For the glory of House Westbrook, and the furtherance of our line.”
It sounds like a cult chant, and for a moment the absurdity of it makes me want to laugh. Or scream. Instead, I turn to the mirror—there’s always a mirror, even here, propped on the mantel and ringed with tiny white bulbs. I study myself, looking for signs of rebellion. The makeup is perfect, but there’s sweat beading at my hairline. The veil is centered, but one side droops a half-millimeter lower than the other. My hands are trembling so badly that the bouquet shivers in my grasp.
My reflection looks back at me, hollow-eyed and pale, a porcelain mask slipping on the edges. For a second, I think about dropping the bouquet and just walking out the side door, but the image in the mirror shakes her head, as if to say: don’t even bother. There are no exits. Only the aisle, and the promise, and the rest of my life.
The clock on the mantel ticks over to the next minute. I have, at most, five left. The knowledge tightens the band around my chest. My stomach flips, and I clamp my mouth shut to keep the nausea down.
I lean forward, bouquet pressed against the marble, and let my breath fog the glass. “This is my destiny,” I whisper, just to hear it spoken aloud. The sound doesn’t comfort. If anything, it makes my skin crawl.
I try again, louder, as if repetition can turn the lie into truth. “This is my destiny. This is my destiny.” It echoes in the little room, bouncing off velvet and gold leaf, coming back at me from every corner.
But the words taste like metal, cold and alien.
I straighten, set my feet square, and force my trembling hands to go still. I flex my fingers around the bouquet until the shaking subsides. Then I fix my posture, tilting my chin in that practiced, regal angle. The face in the mirror looks serene, even submissive—a perfect Omega, ready to accept whatever fate is arranged for her.
The silence in the room sharpens. I can hear the faint, muffled hum of guests assembling on the other side of the doors. There is no more time to waver, no more space for private doubts. I close my eyes, count to five, and open them to the mask I’ve worn my whole life.
When the knock comes at the door—three measured taps, just like rehearsal—I am ready.
I smooth the skirt of my gown one last time, press my lips together, and summon the perfect, practiced smile.
They open the doors.
The eyes are waiting.
And I step forward, exactly as they’ve trained me to do.
I expect to find the ballroom staged in perfection—white carpet, swan-shaped ice sculpture, the scent of peonies so thick it might as well be a blanket over the crowd. But the double doors open to an empty corridor instead, and the attendant who meets me there is wild-eyed, her hands trembling around around the clipboard in her hands, no doubt one of the many wedding planners hired for the event.
She forces a smile and hisses out a few words, “Just a minute, miss, please—wait here.” Then she darts away, not toward the ballroom but down the hall and out of sight.
I stand, bouquet clutched to my chest, and blink in the silence. No one is waiting to guide me, no father-of-the-bride beaming with pride, no Alpha Westbrook for our first look. The music, which should have been cued the instant I crossed the threshold, is silent. I hear only the faraway hum of generators, a few voices raised in the entryway, and above it all, the insistent clicking of that ancient grandfather clock.
Something is wrong.
I hover on the threshold, trying to decide if it’s more humiliating to go back into the waiting room or to step into the hall alone. The etiquette training fails me here; there was never a chapter on what to do when the entire ceremonial engine grinds to a halt.
My nerves, already tuned to breaking, spike with a new anxiety. I glance over my shoulder for the stylist or scent consultant—anyone to tell me what comes next. But the corridor is empty except for a spilled clutch purse and the shimmer of my own reflection in a nearby mirror.
I pace the carpet, careful not to snag the lace, and replay every second of the morning in my head: the rehearsed lines, the smiles, the weight of the gown. I am not prepared for improvisation. I am not prepared for anything unscripted.
A sharp, metallic bang echoes from the far end of the hallway. My head snaps up. The instinct is to freeze, and wait for the world to resolve itself into something familiar. But the world is not obliging.
Another sound—closer this time, a jumble of raised voices. Then, unmistakably, the shatter of glass.
I clutch the bouquet harder, stems biting into my palm, and force myself to walk toward the noise. Each step is an effort, the train dragging behind like the tail of some doomed animal. My breathing is shallow, pulled tight by the corset and the grip of pure, visceral fear.
At the landing, I hesitate. Through the filigree of a stained-glass window, I catch a fragmentary view of the courtyard below. It takes a moment for my brain to process the scene:
The staff are running. Not walking briskly, not assembling for some grand entrance—running. Their movements are chaotic, uncoordinated. I see a gardener drop his trowel and sprint across the lawn, his shoes digging furrows in the perfectly groomed turf. A housemaid, still in her pressed uniform, barrels through a line of topiaries, hair coming undone as she goes.
I press my face to the glass, hands splayed to steady myself. The cold of the window is a shock against my skin. There are more people outside—caterers, security, even some of the arriving guests, all moving in the wrong direction, away from the house, toward the massive iron gates that ring the property.
My mind scrabbles for explanations: fire, perhaps? But there’s no smoke, no alarm ringing. Terrorism? The word flashes through my head, ridiculous in its extravagance. This is the Westbrook estate—no one would dare.
Another bang rattles the window frame, and then I see the source: a man in a suit, face streaked with blood, slams into the glass doors of the conservatory. He pounds on them with both fists, leaving red, streaky smears, before collapsing in a heap.
I recoil, bouquet dropping to the floor in a scatter of lilies and damp ribbon. My heart lurches, the panic so sudden it feels like physical pain.
Below me, the maid who ran through the topiaries trips and falls. For a horrifying moment she doesn’t move. Then another staffer—a man in chef whites—rushes to her, hauls her upright, and together they limp toward the road, never looking back at the house.
There’s no explanation for this. No social script, no etiquette. My hands are shaking, my pulse jackhammering under the fragile mesh of the veil. I stumble backward from the window, tripping over the train, and catch myself on the banister.
A scream rips through the air, distant at first, then answered by another, closer and raw. I turn, searching for the source, and catch sight of myself in the mirrored panel on the landing.
I am still perfect. Still the bride. But behind the illusion, the world is coming apart at the seams.
This isn’t supposed to happen, Westbrook estate is in one of the ‘safe zones’. The ultra-wealthy paid out the nose in order to protect their sense of normality, like what’s happening outside the walls isn’t real.
Like the dead aren’t trying to tear the world apart in their never-ending need for flesh. The first outbreaks were isolated, kept under wraps by politicians and the powers that be. Once things got too real, too hard to contain the safety zones were established, concrete slab walls encasing the entirety of the upper class, while those who couldn't afford a paradise during the zombie apocalypse were forced to either shelter in place or try to make it to evac zones.
The next sound is the unmistakable crash of a door caving in, then the patter of running feet—heavy, desperate. I flatten myself against the wall, clutching at the woodwork as if it might swallow me whole.
Through the open corridor, I see staff fleeing down the side steps, some of them clutching wounds, all of them terrified. And, in the courtyard beyond, a figure limps forward, jaw unhinged, moving with the lurching, horrible inevitability of a nightmare.
My hand flies to my throat. I feel the delicate lace, the pearl choker, the mad thumping of my own pulse.
There is no time for vows, or destiny, or perfection.
Only survival.
For a final, split-second, my reflection overlays the scene in the window: the ghost of a girl in white, suspended over the carnage. Then the screaming starts in earnest, and I realize that I am no longer the center of this story.
I am just another animal, learning to run.
Chapter Two: World Unraveling
Lira
They always told us Omegas were bred for calm, that even at the apex of crisis our blood would thin, our hearts would dial down to a low, blue pulse. I suppose there’s a truth to it, because when the first footfalls thunder outside my waiting room, the last thing I feel is panic. Instead: a slow, glacial chill, trickling from the crown of my scalp down my spine, as if I’m being embalmed from the inside out.
The room trembles around me—yes, trembles, as if the whole mansion is nothing but a wedding cake under assault by a class of hungry kindergarteners. The oil portraits rattle against their wires. The clock on the mantel skips a beat, then two. And then, with a sound like a gunshot, the door explodes inward and he is there.
Grayson Westbrook: my future husband, current architect of my destiny, godhead of every headline and gossip column in the city. But not the version I rehearsed with. This Grayson is untethered. His suit jacket is gone, silk shirt clinging to his chest in damp rivulets. His face—usually a study in composed, Alpha detachment—is splayed wide, eyes so bright they could light a tunnel. Blood spatters the collar, an obscene contrast against the bone-white fabric. He’s never looked more alive, or more like a revenant.
He doesn’t even see me at first. Just barrels past, knocking a side table into the wall, sending a spray of water and glass across the carpet.
“They breached the walls,” he pants, not to me, not to anyone. “They breached the walls, and they’re coming here.” His hands rake through his blonde hair, leaving streaks of red. He paces the room, disassembling it with his movements—papers flying, a vase toppled, a chair kicked aside.
I stand, but my legs barely register the order. The train of my gown snags on a floor vent and I have to wrench it free, the fabric shrieking.
He’s at the hearth now, yanking at a gilt-framed portrait, exposing the safe inset behind the plaster. The combination dial spins under his fingers—four turns left, two right, another left, then the thunk of the mechanism disengaging. He pulls out a canvas bag, the kind bankers use for deposits, and stuffs it with a stack of cash, two passports, a chrome revolver. He does it all without looking at me, as if I am invisible.
“Grayson,” I say. Or try to. It comes out as a whisper, a splinter in my throat.
He moves to the wardrobe, rips a raincoat from a hanger and drapes it over one arm. He’s in motion, a hurricane of singular intent, and the way he keeps his eyes off me is almost deliberate. Not avoidance, but dismissal.
Finally, I manage volume. “Grayson!”
He flinches as if I’ve thrown something at him. “Lira,” he says, voice fraying at the edges. “You need to stay here. Barricade the doors. Don’t answer if anyone knocks. Don’t—”
He’s looking past me now, at the window. “—Don’t let them see you. Wait for extraction.”
I start forward, half-reaching for him. “You’re leaving?”
He presses his palm against the glass, peering into the shambles of the estate. For a moment, he’s every inch the Alpha again—spine straight, jaw locked, appraising the battlefield with cold calculation. But there’s a tremor in his hand, a white-knuckle strain. He turns to me, finally, and the look in his eyes is so alien that I flinch.
“I have to,” he says, as if it’s self-evident, as if I should understand.
I want to ask what happened. I want to ask if the rumors are true, if the world outside has truly unspooled so fast, or if this is some Westbrook power play, a new form of cruel initiation. But all I can think is: He is leaving me.
He slips the gun into a holster beneath his shirt. The movements are so practiced that I know, in some reptile part of my brain, that this isn’t the first time he’s done this. He shoulders the bag, pausing only long enough to check the lock on the safe. “You’ll be safer if you’re alone,” he mutters.
It’s absurd, the way my body chooses this moment to freeze. All the training in poise and charm, all the hours drilled into me by tutors and handlers, and when it matters most I am a crash test dummy in a ruined ballgown, unable to process the instructions.
“Wait,” I say. “What about—what about the guests? What about—” Me, I want to say, but my tongue refuses the humiliation.
He opens the door, but pauses on the threshold. “They’re gone,” he says, and something about the finality in his voice terrifies me more than the screams outside. “They didn’t make it. I have to get to the helipad. There’s a window—minutes, maybe. You’ll have to stay here, not enough room. An extraction team will be back for you.”
I don’t believe him.
“You’re leaving,” I repeat, as if repetition will make the words less obscene.
He doesn’t answer. Just looks at me, gaze flicking over my dress, my trembling hands, my face. There’s a flicker there—regret, maybe, or shame—but it’s gone before I can parse it.
And then he’s gone, the corridor swallowing him in an instant, footsteps echoing away like the end of a fairytale.
The silence he leaves is monstrous. It fills every inch of the waiting room, pressing against my ears and the walls of my lungs. I hear the scrape of wind against the window, the howl of alarms on the lawn, and underneath it all, a new sound: the soft, rhythmic thud of something battering at the doors below.
I stand in the center of the room, skirts splayed around me like a massacre of tulle and silk, and try to make sense of the last five minutes. Grayson Westbrook—my Alpha, my future—has left me to die on my own wedding day.
For a moment, I want to sit, to collapse onto the floor and let the room swallow me up. But something in my chest, something small and wolfish, refuses. I step to the window and press my face to the glass. The world below is unrecognizable—cars abandoned in the drive, bodies scattered on the grass, moving shapes that shouldn’t be moving. The air is thick with the kind of screams that strip the words away, leaving only the core of fear.
