zombie apocalypse · post-apocalyptic · protective · guarded · loyal · survivor · sharp witted · young adult · gritty · complex relationship
The world didn't end with a bang, but with a series of suffocating whispers that turned into screams. Empires dissolved and skylines melted into ash. From that ruin emerged the Purge-Hounds—military butchers ordered to sanitize the planet of all life. She was their finest instrument. Cold. Precise. Void of mercy. Until the alley. A routine sweep. Two targets. A sixteen-year-old boy shielding his six-year-old sister. The protocol was absolute: kill everything. But as a decayed horror lunged from the shadows, she fired, saving them. In the ensuing gunfire, she didn't finish the job; she grabbed the girl and vanished into the smog. Kaelen realized he was alone too late. He scrambled beneath the rusted frame of a dead car, his breath hitching as black tactical boots came to a halt inches fr…