Chapter 1: The Last Stone

The first stone caught me in the ribs.

I didn’t scream. I had learned better than that. Screaming only makes them throw harder, aim truer. The crowd wanted a show—wanted to prove that they were that much stronger than me... they wanted me to break, to beg, to prove that I was as weak as they needed me to be.

But I wouldn’t give them that.

The second stone hit my shoulder. There was a sharp crack of bone that I feel more than I heard.

My knees buckle, but the ropes around me kept me upright, tied to the post in the center of the compound courtyard. Blood ran warm down my arm, soaking into the torn fabric of what used to be my jacket. Three days ago, this jacket kept me alive in a blizzard. Now it was just another thing that wouldn’t survive the hell we were living in.

"Traitor!" someone screamed, and I almost laughed.

Traitor.

As if I ever belonged to them enough to betray them.

The third stone hit me in the face and split my lip.

I tasted the copper of my own blood mixed with the dirt I was covered in.

My vision blurred, but I could still see her...Jiang Meilin... standing at the front of the crowd like a saint presiding over a execution.

Even now, she was beautiful. Her hair was pulled back in a neat braid and her face didn’t have so much as a speck of dirt on it, despite the apocalypse raging outside these walls.

Her six men flanked her like an honor guard: Shen Kaiyang was at her right shoulder, loyal as a dog; Tao Jun was at her left, his trademark charismatic smile fixed in place like he’s watching a play and not a murder.

Liu Cheng wouldn’t meet my eyes. Good. At least one of them had the decency to feel shame.

"She opened the gates!" Meilin’s voice rang clear across the courtyard of the compound we had been living in for the past five years, cutting through the mob’s roar. "She let the zombies in! Hundreds died because of her!"

There was another stone... this one caught my temple.

For a brief second, the world tilted sideways, and I had to blink hard to keep from passing out. Blood ran into my eye, hot and sticky, but it was amazing what you could get used to if you had to.

The real kicker was that I wasn’t even the one who had opened the gates.

I was on the eastern wall when it happened. I had seen the horde pour through the main entrance—saw the guards torn apart before they could even raise their weapons. I had fought my way back, using my vines to drag survivors to safety, then I single handedly held the line until reinforcements arrived.

But no one seemed to remember that little fact. They only remembered Meilin’s tears, her trembling accusation, the way she pointed at me and said, "I saw her. I saw her do it."

Liar.

Bitch.

But the FMC’s halo was hard to combat, even if I wasn’t in some fucked up novel.

No, Meilan was only the FMC of her own life... and one of the lucky bitches that seemed to always be one step ahead of everyone else.

A rock the size of my fist slammed into my stomach and I doubled over as much as the ropes around my chest allowed, gasping for air that won’t come.

My ribs were broken... there was no question about that. Each breath felt like I was swallowing glass.

Of course, this would be the perfect time for the crowd to start chanting. "Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!"

I ignored their words... sticks and stones and all that. I had survived worse than this... I’ve crawled through sewers filled with corpses, eaten beetles and earthworms to stay alive, gone three weeks without water. I’ve had my arm broken by a mutated dog and reset it myself with a stick and some wire. I’ve killed men who tried to take what little I had, and I’ve watched good people die because I refused to save them.

This? This was just another Tuesday in the apocalypse.

Except it wasn’t.

Because this time, I didn’t do anything wrong.

Another stone struck my collarbone this time and the sound of bone breaking echoed in my skull.

"Shen Rouxi." The purr of Meilin’s voice was closer now as she walked toward me, her men parting the crowd like she was royalty. When she finally stopped in front of me, she’s close enough that I can see the satisfaction in her eyes. "Do you have anything to say?"

I wasn’t one to waste words, so I simply spat a mouthful of blood at her feet.

But her smile doesn’t waver. "I thought not."

"Why?" It wasn’t what I wanted to say. To me, asking why was nothing more than a sign of weakness, but the single word scraped out of my throat against my will, barely audible.

She leaned in, briefly stopping the stoning, and close enough that only I can hear. "You just had to be too outstanding, didn’t you?"

Her voice was soft, almost gentle. "Too capable. Too strong. My men looked at you like you were something special, and I couldn’t have that." She straightened, smoothing her braid with one delicate hand. "But no one takes what is mine without paying a price."

Understanding crashed over me like cold water.

She was the one who opened the gates. She was the one who got those people killed. And she was pinning it on me because she was jealous that I was

useful...

because her men respected my skills... because I could do things she couldn’t.

I started laughing.

It hurt. Fuck, it hurt so good. Each laugh sent fresh agony through my broken ribs and torn muscles, but I couldn’t stop it.

It was the absurdity of it—surviving ten years of hell, fighting through hordes of undead, only to die because some pretty girl got jealous that her men looked at me one too many times.

I didn’t even think they were all that attractive in the first place... more useless than tits on a bull... but who was I to say that about the Darling Nightshade team of Xiongbu Compound?

"Something funny?" Meilin asked, her voice had an edge to it now.

Fearlessly, I meet her eyes. "In your next life," I rasped, unable to hide the smirk on my face, "try being less pathetic."

Her face twisted and she stepped back, raising her hand to slap me across my face.

The stones came faster now and I lost track of where they hit—chest, legs, face, everywhere.

My consciousness fractured, splintering into sharp-edged pieces. I could see flashes of my life: the warehouse where I found my first weapon, the tank I stole from the holy grail of weapon’s cache, the moment I realized my earth powers were killing me from the inside out.

I saw my parents, strung out and useless. I saw myself at four years old, learning to cook because no one else would. I saw the sixteen-year-old me, having to drop out of school to get a job because it was either that or die.

I saw all the times that I refused to break.

This wouldn’t be any different.

A stone caught me in the throat, crushing my windpipe. Unable to take a deep breath, the world went grey at the edges as the sounds around me faded to a dull roar. My knees gave out, but the ropes still held me up like a puppet with cut strings.

Meilin’s smiling face swam into view one last time. "In your next life," she whispered, watching the life draining from my eyes, "just stay home. Don’t compete for what isn’t yours."

The last stone hits my skull.

And everything went dark.