Chapter 96 - 95: The Story of the Extras
The first month after leaving the Hale estate changed them.
Not all at once. There was no single morning when they woke up and suddenly looked like different people. It happened through the dirt that stopped bothering them, the clothes they stopped trying to keep clean, and the meals they learned to stretch because nobody knew when the next one would come.
By the time the Hales reached the end of that first month, they looked nothing like the family that had driven away from their estate.
Veronica still carried herself with the elegance that had always come naturally to her. Even with dust on her clothes and exhaustion beneath her eyes, there was something refined about her presence. She was still the socialite who had spent years moving comfortably through rooms filled with influential people, the woman who had run her household with quiet authority.
But the apocalypse had begun stripping away everything around that elegance.
She looked thinner now. More fragile. As though the smallest additional blow might be enough to break her.
Henry noticed. He always did.
He had spent his life running the largest architectural group in the country, making decisions that affected hundreds of people and solving problems before they became disasters. As chairman and CEO, he had been accustomed to having answers.
Now, there were problems he couldn’t solve.
His heart condition was one of them.
He kept his medication carefully protected, taking it when necessary and trying not to make a spectacle of his condition. There were already enough things weighing on the family without giving Veronica another reason to worry.
One evening, when they stopped inside an abandoned house, Henry sat quietly at the edge of the room.
Benjamin noticed the way he pressed a hand against his chest.
"Are you all right?"
Henry looked up.
"I’m fine."
Benjamin didn’t look convinced.
"You should rest."
"I will."
Benjamin watched him for another moment before nodding.
He had become like that since Caleb died. Always watching. Always calculating.
Benjamin had inherited more than his father’s business instincts. He had the habit of assessing situations before making decisions, and the apocalypse had given him more reasons than ever to do it.
He knew how many people remained with them. He knew how much food they had. He knew which vehicles were still usable. He knew which bodyguards were injured. And he knew exactly how much the family had lost since leaving the estate.
He also knew that the people protecting them were paying the highest price.
The first time one of the bodyguards stayed behind so the family could escape, Benjamin had argued against it.
They had been moving through a narrow road when a group of infected suddenly appeared from the buildings around them.
The vehicles couldn’t move forward.
The bodyguards immediately got out.
"Get back inside!" one of them shouted.
Benjamin looked toward the man.
"There are too many."
"We know."
"Then we’re leaving together."
The bodyguard shook his head.
"Get your family out."
Benjamin stared at him.
The man gave him a small smile.
"That’s an order from someone who has been protecting you since you were a kid."
Benjamin clenched his jaw.
"Don’t do this."
But the man had already turned away.
The family was forced back into the vehicles.
Benjamin watched through the window as the bodyguard and the others fought to clear the road.
The vehicles finally moved.
Benjamin kept looking behind them until the man disappeared from sight.
He didn’t ask whether they should turn back.
He already knew the answer.
They couldn’t.
That wasn’t the only time it happened.
Another bodyguard stayed behind during a later escape, buying the family enough time to get through a blocked entrance. He knew exactly what he was doing when he stepped away from the group.
Benjamin argued then too.
"We can find another way."
The man shook his head.
"There isn’t time."
"There has to be."
"There isn’t."
Benjamin stared at him, frustrated.
"You don’t have to keep doing this."
The bodyguard looked at him.
"Yes, we do."
"Why?"
The answer was simple.
"Because you’re our family."
Benjamin had no response.
The words stayed with him long after they left.
The Hales continued forward. Their group became smaller. Their clothes became dirtier. Their faces became thinner.
Yet the bodyguards continued choosing the family over themselves whenever there was no other way out.
There was one night when Benjamin finally couldn’t keep quiet about it.
They had stopped inside an old warehouse, and the remaining survivors were gathered around a small meal.
Benjamin looked at the bodyguards.
"We should leave."
The room went quiet.
Veronica looked at him.
"Benjamin."
"I’m serious."
Henry said nothing.
Benjamin continued.
"Every time something happens, they stay behind for us. How many more people are we going to lose?"
Nobody answered.
"We’re slowing them down," he said. "They have a better chance of surviving if they leave us."
One of the older bodyguards shook his head.
"No."
Benjamin frowned.
"You heard me."
"We did."
"Then why are you still here?"
The man looked around the room before meeting Benjamin’s eyes.
"Because we decided a long time ago that we weren’t only protecting the Hale family because it was our job."
Benjamin’s expression tightened.
"We’re not asking you to die."
"We know."
"Then leave."
The man smiled faintly.
"You still don’t understand."
Benjamin didn’t answer.
"We stay because we want to."
The room fell silent again.
Veronica lowered her eyes.
Henry looked toward the floor.
Benjamin sat back slowly.
He hated that answer.
Not because he didn’t understand it.
Because he did.
He understood exactly what it meant to have people choose you when they had every reason to choose themselves.
And somehow, that made every loss hurt even more.
Original Iris had noticed those moments too.
She rarely spoke, but she remembered the faces of the people who disappeared.
She remembered the way Veronica cried quietly after each loss.
She remembered Henry trying to remain composed.
She remembered Benjamin staring at the road long after they had left someone behind.
The family had become quieter. Not because there was nothing left to say. Because there were too many things nobody knew how to say.
Caleb’s name still wasn’t spoken often.
Alexander’s was.
Every time they stopped somewhere with a working signal, Veronica asked if anyone had received anything.
The answer never changed.
Nothing.
She refused to accept that as an answer.
Henry never told her to stop hoping.
Benjamin didn’t either.
He understood that there were some things a person couldn’t simply let go of because someone else thought it was time.
Then, after weeks of moving, they finally saw something different.
Barricades.
Real barricades.
Not abandoned vehicles shoved across a road by frightened civilians.
These had been built deliberately.
Wood had been reinforced with metal.
Large sections of fencing had been positioned around the surrounding buildings.
There were people standing behind them.
Armed people.
The vehicles slowed.
Everyone inside became alert.
One of the bodyguards stepped out and approached the barricade.
A man on the other side raised his weapon.
"Stop there."
The bodyguard raised both hands.
"We’re not looking for trouble."
"Who are you?"
"A group of survivors."
"How many?"
He gave the number.
The man looked past him toward the vehicles.
"What do you have?"
"Food. Water. A few supplies."
"How much?"
"Not enough to waste."
The man studied them for several seconds.
Then he turned and spoke quietly to someone behind the barricade.
The conversation lasted longer than the Hales expected.
Veronica sat inside the vehicle with her hands folded in her lap.
Benjamin watched the armed men.
Henry leaned back with his eyes closed.
Original Iris stared through the window.
She could see the settlement beyond the barricade.
Buildings.
People.
Smoke rising from somewhere in the distance.
For the first time in weeks, there were signs that people weren’t simply passing through.
They were staying.
The barricade finally began to open.
"You can come in."
The vehicles moved forward.
Nobody celebrated.
Not yet.
They had learned better than to mistake a new place for safety.
Still, something changed when they entered.
People were carrying buckets of water.
Someone was repairing a damaged wall.
A group of survivors were preparing food.
Children were walking beside adults.
There were weapons everywhere, but there was also something the Hales hadn’t seen in weeks.
Routine.
People had responsibilities here. They woke up. They worked. They ate. They slept. They survived together.
Veronica stared through the window.
Her expression softened for the first time in days.
"Maybe we can stay here."
Henry opened his eyes.
"Maybe."
Benjamin looked around carefully.
"We’ll find out."
Veronica gave him a tired smile.
It wasn’t optimism.
It was simply hope.
And after everything they had lost, even that felt precious.
The vehicles finally stopped.
The Hale family stepped out.
Their clothes were dirty. Their bodies were thinner. Their faces carried the marks of everything they had survived.
But they were still together.
For now.
Iris opened her eyes.
The memory dissolved around her, leaving the familiar trees of Velaris in its place.
She remained still for a moment.
She remembered how relieved she had been when she first read that part of the novel.
After everything the Hales had endured, the settlement had felt like a reward.
A place where they could finally breathe.
A place where they could stop running.
She hadn’t known what waited for them there.
She hadn’t known how important that settlement would become.
And she certainly hadn’t known that this temporary relief would eventually bring the Hale family into Rose’s orbit again.
Iris lowered her gaze.
She had spent so long thinking of the original story as something that had already happened, something fixed and untouchable.
But now she understood something she hadn’t understood when she first read those Chapters.
The people in that story had never known which moments were their last moments of happiness.
They had simply lived through them.
The Hales had done the same.
And for a little while, they had believed they had finally found somewhere they could survive.