It had all happened so fast. There was a flash of irritation as Nick held her back––as if she couldn't take care of herself!––that melted away at the sound of rattling. Her instincts screamed at her to fight like a cornered animal (which she was), to run and run and never look back, to grab Nick and toss him over her shoulder and get the hell away from this God-forsaken hellhole. She was quiet until it happened, and then she didn't hear herself. It was as if her consciousness were watching everything unfold from afar. 

"Idiot!" someone screamed, and it was her. The next thing she knew she was straddling the heap of rotting flesh that threatened Nick, pulling it by greasy tangled hair off of the man, wrestling the thing to the ground. Her mouth was open in a scream, half fear and half fury, her knuckles ivory as she drove her knife over and over into the soft, rotting skin, smashing dead ribs, making an absolute mess of black-red, foul-smelling blood that was thick with decay. Up, up she went, obliterating what was once a carotid artery, her knife making splatters that stained her clothes, and she just didn't care if the infection spread to her. For the moment. 

She was back in the present now, breathing hard. She didn't know what on earth had gotten into her. Somehow she'd severed the thing's head, and now her grip on the knife was so weak it nearly slid out of her fingers. She looked to Nick and stood up. He must really want to get the hell away from her now, because if that wasn't completely insane of her than nothing was. Plus she'd taken no care to avoid the bodily fluids. She could be incubating the virus right now. 

"Well," she said, shakily. "I suppose we should move on."