Chapter 28: Ava’s Transformation

The group moved cautiously through the crumbling alleyways, the safe zone just a few blocks away. Gabriel took point, his rifle raised, while Ava stayed close to the center of the group, her blade at the ready. Harrow clutched the notebook tighter to his chest, his gaze darting nervously to every shadow.

“We need to move faster,” Gabriel muttered. “We’re exposed out here.”

“Easier said than done,” one of the transport team members replied, their voice strained with fatigue. “These survivors can’t keep up.”

The civilians from the subway stopped whenever the injured man did. Ava adjusted her arm beneath his shoulder. Behind them, clicking carried along the brick walls; she could not tell how far away it was.

The safe zone came into view—a makeshift fortification built within an old factory. The sight of its steel barricades brought a flicker of hope, but it was short-lived. The faint smell of decay lingered in the air, and Gabriel’s sharp eyes caught the dark smears of blood near the entrance.

“Something’s wrong,” he said, his voice low. “Stay alert.”

The group entered cautiously, the survivors huddling close as Gabriel and Ava swept the area. The interior was eerily silent, the kind of quiet that made Ava’s stomach churn.

“It’s been breached,” Gabriel muttered, pointing to a collapsed barricade near the back. “The mutants have already been here.”

“The camp group didn’t come through here?” Harrow asked.

“Straight to the station,” the team leader said. “Jenna confirmed it. This place had people of its own.”

“We’ll check for them,” Ava said, easing the injured man onto a bench before moving toward the back of the factory. Her blade felt heavy in her hand, her heart pounding as she stepped through the debris-strewn corridors.

She drew fresh blood from the torn skin beneath her dressing and wiped it along the blade. Her fingertips had begun to feel cold. The next fight would have to be short.

The first attack came without warning. A mutant burst through a side door, its claws slashing through the air. Ava reacted instinctively, her blade slicing through its arm, her toxic blood taking hold. The severed limb hit the floor still twitching. Dark fluid sprayed the wall. The creature screeched and collapsed, but its cry echoed through the building, drawing more of its kind.

“They’re coming!” Gabriel shouted. “Get the survivors to the upper level!”

Ava stayed behind with Gabriel, her blade cutting through the mutants as they flooded into the factory. Each swing of her weapon was fueled by adrenaline and desperation, but the onslaught seemed endless.

Then it happened.

A mutant lunged at Ava from the side. Claws raked her shoulder, opening the skin in three hot lines. Pain shot through her body as she stumbled, her blade slipping from her grasp. Blood ran under her collar. Gabriel’s rifle cracked. The mutant’s head snapped back; the neck ruptured, and spores streamed from the wound in a grey jet. His detector sounded as he backed clear. Ava was already shaking; the ache beneath her shoulder blades spread into her jaw.

“Ava!” Gabriel shouted, his voice laced with panic. “Hold on!”

“I… I can’t,” she whispered, her breath ragged. Her body convulsed as her mutation took over, spiked appendages erupting from her arms and back. The pain was searing, but her senses sharpened as the transformation completed. She let out a guttural growl, her glowing eyes locking onto the mutants.

Then take it. Take the fear. Kill them.

She hit the first creature hard enough to drive it into the one behind it. A spike caught in bone. Ava wrenched it free and felt skin tear along her own back, barely a distraction from the need to strike again. The creatures collapsed around her without releasing fresh spores. She kept looking for something that was still moving.

Moving was easier now. She no longer had to bargain with her wounded hand or think through the next three steps. The ease was appalling. Some frightened part of her welcomed it before she could object.

Don’t make me want this.

Then her arm reached farther than she expected, and she could not find the familiar stopping place at the elbow. Her body kept solving problems by becoming less recognizable. She wanted the clumsy hand back, the exhaustion, even the need to ask for help. But wanting those things took thought, and the next creature gave her no time to finish one.

Gabriel was shouting from beside the stairs. “Ava, pull back!”

She heard the words but could not make herself turn toward them.

When nothing lunged at her, Ava discovered she was still swinging. She drove one hand against a support pillar and held it there until the urge passed. The spikes along her wrist caught in the metal. Pulling free hurt enough to make her cry out.

“Get it out!” She wrenched again and tore her own skin wider. “Get it out of me!”

Gabriel approached from the stairs. She could see him watching her hands.

“Stay there,” she said.

He stopped. The mask hid his mouth, but he was breathing hard.

She counted the stair treads behind him. Lost count. Began again. The pressure beneath her skin eased in uneven jerks, leaving her arms too heavy to lift.

“Now,” she said.

He moved close enough to support her. A remaining spike scored his sleeve and caught his arm. Ava pulled away.

“I hurt you.”

“Yes. It’s shallow.” He kept the torn sleeve clear of the spike. “Give that one room.”

She waited until it withdrew before letting him touch her again. While Ava sat on the lowest stair, pressing a cloth to the skin her own growth had torn, the team leader cleaned Gabriel’s cut and sealed a dressing beneath a sleeve patch. Gabriel reported the breach over the radio for an exposure check when they reached shelter. Above her, the survivors were quiet. One lowered his weapon when she looked up; another did not.

Her clothes hung open at the shoulder and down part of her back. She tried pulling the torn edges together, then stopped because the movement hurt and exposed more than it covered. She had no spare hand for modesty.

Don’t look at me. Please don’t look away.

Gabriel reached into his pack. She saw the coat coming and almost said she did not need it. She did need it. That was what made the words rise so quickly.

“Across my shoulders,” she said. “Don’t catch the torn skin.”

He laid it there and let her arrange the front. She kept her face down while he finished. The survivors had seen her body open itself into a weapon. Soon someone might thank her, and she would have to decide what expression to wear.

“You saved us,” a woman said from the stairs.

Ava shut her eyes. Gratitude struck the same raw place as fear.

“I know,” she said, because denying it would make the woman comfort her. “Please give me a minute before you need anything else.”

The woman nodded and turned to help the injured man stand.

For now she pressed the cloth to her back and listened to the team leader asking who could still walk. She raised her hand only as far as it would go.

“Let’s move,” Gabriel said, his voice steady. “The safe zone’s compromised. We’ll regroup at the extraction point.”

Before leaving, Ava retrieved the knife from beneath a fallen creature. Gabriel carried the research pack; she could barely lift her own arms. Outside, she tried to close her hand around it. The last two fingers of her left hand stayed bent, dull at the tips, and would not seat against the hilt no matter how she forced them. The pain of trying was ordinary. The failure was not fatigue. She adjusted the grip twice, then stopped pretending the hand would finish the motion, and followed the others with the knife in her right.