Apocalypse Days: I Rule with Foresight and a Powerful Son
Chapter 173

Chapter 173: 173

"Zara—"

"I know you’re mad but hear me out."

Winter didn’t respond. He stood in front of her, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.

She finally glanced at him—and regretted it. His jaw was set tight, his hands flexing at his sides like he was willing them not to shake.

"You should be," she added, trying to keep her voice even, "but it was worth it."

"You don’t get to decide that," Winter said.

Zara exhaled slowly. "Someone had to go. We’re sitting in the middle of a fire pretending we don’t smell smoke. You know that."

"You took a stupid risk."

"I took a calculated risk," she snapped, finally rising to her feet. "Calculated risks are all we’ve got left."

"You’re not listening," Winter said, stepping forward.

His voice rose with barely leashed fury. "You went alone. What if you’d been caught? What if they’d recognized you? What if you bumped into that freak again?"

"Then we’d know what we’re dealing with!" she hissed. "What’s worse, Winter? Me taking that risk—or the rest of us sitting with our heads down while something inhuman stalks the lower halls?"

Winter turned away, pacing toward the desk, running a hand through his hair. "You don’t get it. You can’t just go off-script like that. I need to know where you are—what you’re doing—in case something goes wrong."

Zara’s heart thumped in her chest, torn between frustration and understanding. Because she got it.

She had been scared going back too. But she had also gotten information they never would have had access to if she hadn’t stumbled upon them when she did.

She stepped closer, voice low now, the heat draining into something quiet and shaky.

"I’m not trying to be reckless," she said. "But I can’t just stand still anymore. It’s getting worse winter. We’re all holding our breath, hoping we are doing something right, trading information we aren’t sure of while Adrian smiles like a ghost and half the soldiers act like they’re hiding corpses in the walls."

Winter looked at her then—really looked. She saw it in his eyes: fear. But it was buried under layers of ironclad control, behind the walls of a man trying too hard to hold everything together for everyone else.

"I’m afraid too," she whispered.

"I know," he said, softer now. "But if you go missing, Zara, I need to know where to look. I’m not going to lose you to this place. I’m not going to let Leo lose you."

That did it. Her anger fractured under his words.

She swallowed—

—but instead of looking away, she stepped forward.

Zara closed the space between them slowly.

But she leaned in anyway, arms sliding around him in a hesitant hug, her forehead brushing against his collarbone.

Winter froze for half a second. Then his arms came around her, strong and grounding, tugging her closer with a quiet breath that sounded like surrender.

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "You’re going to give me grey hairs or be the death of me." He mumbled.

They stood like that for several seconds—longer than either would admit they needed—anchored by each other in the middle of this mess.

Zara’s eyes opened slowly, landing on the edge of the desk behind Winter. A manila folder had slipped from his hand earlier during the argument and now rested at an angle on the floor, a few pages spilling out.

She pulled back just enough to glance up at him. "You dropped the file," she murmured.

Winter followed her gaze. She stepped out of his arms, careful not to jostle Leo still asleep on the cot, and knelt to retrieve it. When she turned and held it out to him again, her voice was calm.

"You should keep going through it."

Winter didn’t argue.

He took it without a word and walked to the desk. The light was dim, but as he flipped through the pages, his expression turned grave.

The shadows beneath his eyes deepened. His breath slowed.

She watched him read, each turn of the page like a clock counting down.

Winter stopped on a dense report filled with diagrams, data points, and a short paragraph that made his shoulders tense.

"This isn’t just medical," he muttered.

Zara came closer, her voice tight. "I figured that much."

He looked up at her, eyes dark. "This is genetic warfare. They’re not just trying to find a cure. They’re trying to manufacture something that can survive it—maybe even control it."

She stiffened. "Control the infection?"

"They’ve been studying how it spreads—how it mutates. The infection doesn’t just kill; it transforms. They’re trying to replicate that in a controlled environment."

Zara took the folder from him, flipped to one of the earlier pages. "That’s why the cells looked like they were growing and why they guards are probably really seeing things out in the perimeter. They weren’t just culturing the virus—they were feeding it."

Winter ran a hand down his face. "They’re splicing it with stabilized human DNA. Controlled exposure. Selective immunity. If they can crack that code..."

He didn’t finish.

Zara did. "They can weaponize it."

Silence settled again, only this time it felt colder.

Then Winter reached into the folder and pulled out a thinner sheet clipped with a red tag. It was a transport order, short and vague, but the designation on the line caught his eye immediately.

"This information is incomplete," he muttered.

"While I was there," Zara said, stepping closer again, "they mentioned moving Subject 17."

Winter’s lips tightened. "They already have it?"

She nodded. "Looks like it."

He stepped back like the floor had shifted beneath him. "We thought it was still loose. That was part of the whole plan—chaos in the lower wing, enough of a mess to sneak out in the distraction. But if they’ve got it already—"

"It throws everything off," she said. "There won’t be any more lockdown drills, no more emergency containment teams sweeping the halls... No more chaos."

Winter turned sharply away, pacing to the far side of the room like the walls were closing in on him. "We can’t fake a breach now. Not without eyes on the labs."

Winter’s fingers tightened around the folder until the edges curled.

"All those weeks of planning," he said under his breath. "All that setup... We were counting on the disaster."

Zara swallowed and looked toward the cot where Leo lay curled up beneath the thin blanket, peaceful and oblivious. A sudden wave of helplessness swelled in her chest.

"We’re running out of time," she whispered.

Winter didn’t deny it.

"If Subject 17 is being moved tonight, it means they stabilized it. Or think they did. That gives us a small window before it vanishes into one of the black labs."

"What are we going to do? Should we continue with our initial plans?" Zara asked, brows furrowing in thought.

"I need to see Bale," he said, gathering the folder and securing it in his jacket. "He needs to see this. If we’re going to do anything—get anyone out of this base—we need to know what we’re working with. We need his military reach."

He crossed to the door in a few strides, but paused there, one hand on the handle. For a moment, he looked back at her, his voice more hesitant than before.

"Please stay..." he said, voice low. "Don’t go chasing after anything else tonight. I don’t want to come back and find you gone again."

Zara’s throat tightened. "I wasn’t planning on leaving."

Winter hesitated again. He looked at her like he wanted to say something more—needed to—but couldn’t find the words. He turned away, hand on the handle.

So she closed the gap instead. her fingers brushing against his sleeve, then sliding into his hand for just a second—grounding him, steadying him. He didn’t pull away.

"I’ll be fine," she whispered. "But you come back fast."

He squeezed her hand once before letting go. "Lock the door after me."

"I will."

"Keep Leo close."

She nodded. "Always."

He opened the door quietly, eyes sweeping the hallway before slipping out, already moving like a ghost through shadow.

Zara stood at the threshold for a few moments longer after the door closed, hand still warm from where he’d held hers.

The room felt colder after he left.

Zara sat back on the cot, running a hand through Leo’s soft curls. The boy didn’t stir—his small breaths steady and even. She stared at the ceiling, her thoughts racing.

Subject Seventeen.

Just what were they?

She rolled her shoulders as she went over all they had learnt in her head.

Couldn’t they catch a break? Couldn’t they get a win for once?

A knock on the door startled her.

Zara frowned. Who was it? Winter just left so it couldn’t be him. Plus, Winter had his pass with him, he could enter if he wanted to. The soldiers also had passes and could enter without permission.

So who was knocking at the door?