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  “Everything all right?” Ben asked.

  Blinking, Rose nodded. “Yeah,” she said, turning to look up at him. “I’m cool.”

  “Walk with me?”

  She followed him away from the growing throng of people and toward an empty spot in the courtyard. Here—where overgrown animal topiaries stood testament to a past long forgotten—Ben seated himself on an aged wooden bench, though gave no indication as to where Rose herself should sit.

  Rather than wait to ask, Rose perched herself atop a stone planter and pressed her hands to her knees. “What about you?” she asked. “You never said how you were doing.”

  “I have to tell you,” Ben said. “I’ve been on a lot of runs, and, well… that was the closest I ever got.”

  “To a zombie?”

  “To being dead.”

  Though Rose admired Ben’s determination, she wasn’t surprised when he broke down.

  Testament to human compassion, she could only wait for the spell to end.

  She lost track of how long he cried. Lost in thoughtless abandon, she stared at the whitewashed brick walls and listened to the sounds of men, soldiers, and the wind ruffling through the long-lost aspects of regular life.

  When finally it came time for Ben to break his spell, he did it simply by raising his head, sniffling once, then wiping snot from his lips. “Sorry,” he gasped.

  Rose shook her head.

  He wiped his hand across his jeans and allowed himself another moment—possibly to recover, but likely in anticipation of another spell—before setting his eyes on Rose. “I owe my life to you, you know.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I was lagging behind. If you hadn’t’ve been there—and if you hadn’t’ve shot the zombie… it would’ve run right toward me.”

  “You would’ve grabbed your gun.”

  “It was holstered.”

  “You still would’ve grabbed it.”

  “I’m not as fast a shot as you are.”

  Rose blinked. She’d never considered herself much of anything, much less a fast shot. She’d operated on pure instinct.

  Chuckling, Ben set a hand over his mouth and braced his fingers along his cheekbones, hiding the smile born of nerves. “Either way,” he said. “You helped us get out of that mess.”

  “Not all of us,” Rose said.

  “You can’t expect everyone to live forever.”

  A brief image of the woman pointing and screaming for help on Rhode Island’s devastated coast flashed in her mind.

  “No,” Rose said after a moment of thought. “I guess you can’t.”

  She remained at Ben’s side long enough to ensure his sanity before she returned to the civilian quarters. Cold from the permeating chill and the undeniable impression of death, Rose burrowed as far into her blankets as she could, and wished for nothing more than sleep.

  On the verge of unconsciousness, she always saw them appear from the darkness.

  Spencer’s mutilated face—

  Mary’s clouded eyes—

  Cannibalistic monsters whose teeth were crushed, whose necks were torn out, whose limbs had been lost to dismemberment. She saw the mechanics—the way bones flexed when stripped of their flesh, the way men could move when their entrails were hanging out.

  What more could she see, if she’d not already seen all?

  Rose closed her eyes.

  The world was so quiet, so still.

  It was as if nothing had happened and at any moment, she could simply—

  A bloodied face lashed out at her.

  She shot upright.

  She sat there, stunned, trying to recover after being ripped from the cusp of sleep.

  “Rose?” a voice asked.

  Rose lifted her head. Lyra approached from the threshold leading into the hall, her pace slowing when their eyes met. “Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah,” Rose sighed, wiping her eyes. “I’m all right.”

  “Did something happen?”

  Do I tell her?

  Sighing, Rose shrugged the blankets off her legs and set her feet on the floor.

  Lyra—taking this as a sign of admittance—settled down on the bed across from her. “So,” she said. “Tell me.”

  “We went scavenging,” Rose said, “and we got attacked. A soldier was killed. The person behind me almost died.”

  “Shit. Are you all right?”

  “About as all right as I can be, I guess.”

  “I mean… did you have to—”

  “Shoot? Yeah.” Rose smirked. “I thank God you taught me how to handle a gun.”

  “Not like there was much in the way of target practice.”

  “Still—it helped. Saved my life twice so far. Probably will again.”

  “Rose—”

  “Listen.” Rose reached forward and took hold of Lyra’s hands. “I don’t want to fight anymore. It’s not worth it. I love you to death, but I think you’ll agree that no matter how hard or long we go, neither of us is going to win. We’ve never won, no matter what we were arguing about.”

  “True,” Lyra mumbled.

  Rose smiled. “My point is, I don’t want anything to happen to us. We’re here because of each other. Nothing can take that away.”

  “I know.”

  Rose stood and wrapped Lyra in a hug. “I love you,” she whispered. “You know that, right?”

  “I know,” Lyra replied. “Even if you are a bit of a bitch.”

  “Hey!” Rose laughed. “Takes one to know one!”

  “Not sure who you’re talking about, but all right.”

  Rose laughed and followed Lyra toward the hallway.

  This here—this friendship—was what made it all worth it.

  “We’re going to lure them toward the city,” a man’s voice said, “by using sound displacement at individual checkpoints to mark, then kill the infected. We have no other choice.”

  Rose blinked.

  She’d walked out for nothing more than a breath of fresh air.

  Now, standing here, she considered the very real possibility that her shiver had not been caused by the cold air.

  No.

  She’d been hallucinating. Surely Colonel Mustang had not said what she thought he had.

  Consciousness was lost as she stormed toward the largest tent and pushed through men and women who attempted to subdue her along the way. By the time she was six feet away from the colonel’s tent, armed guards were stepping forward. Guns raised, masks fogged, they trained their sights on her and held their ground as she came to a complete halt.

  “Do not move,” one of them said, voice inhibited by electronic interference.

  “I want to see the colonel,” Rose said.

  “The colonel does not take civilian visitors.”

  “My name is Rose Daniels.”

  “I don’t care what your name is, get back or I’ll—”

  “I was in the last supply run with Lieutenant Farrah Ashley—”

  “I’m warning you, get back before—”

  “That’s enough,” Colonel Mustang said. “At ease.”

  The soldiers relaxed instantly.

  The serviceman stepped through the men as they parted and looked Rose straight in the eye. “Ma’am,” he said.

  “You can’t do this,” she said.

  “Can’t what?”

  “Lure them toward Fort Hope.”

  “Ah,” he smirked. “Now just how did you happen upon that piece of information?”

  “Your tent is closer to the front doors than you think.”

  “Is that so?”

  Rose nodded. “Sir,” she said, glancing at the two armed soldiers with her peripheral vision. “You can’t do this.”

  “And why not?”

  “There’s too many people here.”

  “We’ve got high walls. Ain’t nothing coming through them while they’re up, and not while we’ve got enough firepower to take out an army.”

  “
What if we get sieged?” she asked. “You think it’ll keep them out? Sure. Maybe. But what happens if there’s so many you run out of ammo? If nothing pulls them away and they just sit outside the walls? There isn’t enough food for the people here to stay inside indefinitely, sir. We can’t risk luring them here and trapping ourselves inside!”

  “And I can’t risk sending my men into the field only to get themselves killed!” he barked. The hot flash of anger burning his cheeks dissipated almost instantly. His composure returned somewhat, but the fires still flaring in his eyes, he straightened his posture and expelled a breath—harsh, jagged, like spitting needles out your gums. “Look,” he said, then narrowed his eyes, as if understanding was about to break through the veneer of arrogance. “I get what you’re saying. You’re concerned about the people. I am too.”

  “You can’t tell where the zombies are,” Rose said, matter-of-factly.

  “I sure as hell can.”

  “They don’t sit, sir.”

  The corner of the man’s mouth twitched. Her daring surprised even her—who, as a child, had been raised to respect those in the armed services.

  Expecting rebuttal, Rose waited for the inevitable.

  Instead, Colonel Mustang turned and started back inside the tent.

  “Sir,” she said.

  “You’re dismissed,” the colonel replied.

  Rose turned and started back toward the fort.

  The festering unease that had been building since her arrival burst.

  She’d been right all along.

  They weren’t safe.

  There was absolutely no reason in questioning it.

  They had to leave.

  But first, she had to find Lyra.

  In the empty ballroom that in the aftermath of the apocalypse had been turned into a prison, Rose scrambled for her personal belongings. What few artifacts she’d managed to keep were haphazardly gathered and then thrown into a simple knapsack.

  Her few clothes, her two pairs of underwear, the wallet that proved the identity of a person who no longer existed… After a brief scan of the room to be sure she was alone, she lifted her mattress after to find the gun she’d pilfered from the dead man’s corpse, and reclaimed it without thought.

  The process took little more than five minutes. In less than the time it would have taken to order fast food, she’d hauled up what little remained of her life.

  How pitiful.

  She hoisted the knapsack over her shoulder and was about to go in search of Lyra when she caught sight of a figure standing at the threshold.

  “Cindy,” she said.

  “What’s… going on?” the trembling girl somehow managed.

  “I can’t stay here,” she said. “Not anymore.”

  “Why—”

  “They’re going to lure them here.”

  “Who?”

  “The zombies.”

  “What’re you—”

  She didn’t have to explain. The finer details lost on the escalating panic, she stepped forward to search for Lyra, but was stopped when the girl blocked her path.

  “Rose. What’s going on? Please—tell me.”

  “Cindy, I don’t have—”

  The girl stepped to block her when Rose tried to dart past. “They’re never going to let you out,” she said. “Not unless you’ve got a reason, and definitely not if you don’t tell somebody.”

  “What’re you—”

  “They have protocol. You want to leave, you have to submit a request. Then, once that request has been submitted, someone has to take you out to the bridge—the one they didn’t blow up—so they can dump you off outside the barrier. It’s not like you can just open the gate, Rose. It’s the one thing keeping them out on that end.”

  “So you’re telling me,” Rose said, “that unless I go through protocol and cause a big scene, I can’t get out of here?”

  “Unless you leave during a raid, but I’m not sure how your friends would take that.”

  Lyra.

  Rose swallowed. “Have you seen her?” she asked.

  “She’s in the common room,” Cindy said, too slack to stop Rose when she finally darted toward her. “Where’re you going?”

  “To talk to her,” Rose called back. “And to bring her with me.”

  The moment was finally upon her.

  In a side hallway whose emergency exit had been snarled with chains, she watched her friend’s face wash from interest to concern.

  “Rose,” Lyra said, her voice like that of a mountain whose foundation was preparing to crumble. “What’s going on?”

  There was no immediate answer.

  What could she say? What could she do? What she was asking was astronomical—to spit in the face of everything that had been given to them, flee the sanctuary that had been provided without question. To be fed, to be housed, to be given fresh water, clean clothes and bedding—this was the life. To ask Lyra to leave this, even with just cause—

  Rose’s heart fluttered in her chest.

  “Rose?”

  “We have to leave,” she said. “As soon as possible.”

  “What? What’re you talking about?”

  “Look.” Rose glanced up the hall to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “The military is planning something that could put everyone in danger. They want to lure the zombies to checkpoints that get increasingly closer to the city so they can make raids into the deeper city safer. Look—we don’t have much time. If they’re going to start this, we have to get out of here as soon as possible, before something bad happens. If I go now, I can talk to the colonel and we can—”

  Lyra’s blank stare said it all.

  Shock, dismay—

  Rose stopped speaking midsentence.

  Lyra swallowed the lump in her throat, then said, “Rose… I think something’s wrong.”

  “Something is wrong,” Rose replied. “Look—we have to go: now, before—”

  “No.” Lyra brushed Rose’s hand away.

  The gesture stole her breath. “No?” Rose asked.

  “No,” Lyra repeated. “Rose… I was worried about what might’ve happened to you while you were out there all alone—what you might’ve seen, what you might’ve done. But… this… it’s…” Her friend trailed off. She reached up to mess with her unmanaged hair extensions and trembled.

  “What’re you saying?”

  “I think you’ve gone off the deep end.”

  “What?”

  “Look,” Lyra said, glancing up the hall before returning her gaze to Rose. “Give me the knapsack. We’ll take you down to the infirmary and see if someone can evaluate you, maybe give you something to help. Maybe some Prozac, even a little Xanax—”

  “You think I’m crazy?”

  “No!” Lyra glanced back up the hall. “Rose… leaving here… leaving this… while we have food and water—”

  “We won’t have food and water for long if we get stuck in here.”

  “We’re not gonna get stuck in here. You’re overreacting. Everything’s fine. We’re being taken care of. We—”

  “If they start setting off alarms,” Rose said, “and they draw more than they can handle, there’s a good chance we could end up stuck in here, without a way out.”

  “But I thought we—”

  Rose shook her head. “They poured a concrete wall around the wrought-iron fence. Nothing can get in, nothing can get out. The only way out of here is a jeep to the bridge.”

  Lyra closed her eyes. “Rose—”

  “Please,” Rose said, the tears now coming freely. “Please don’t do this to me. Please.”

  “I… I don’t…”

  Rose collapsed.

  Back against the wall, motor functions all but lost, she slid to the floor until she was all but curled into a ball.

  This couldn’t be happening.

  It had to be a dream.

  She couldn’t be losing her best friend.

  The reality sunk in faster and harder t
han she could’ve anticipated.

  The cold tile floor, the white brick walls, her jeans, her tears, her fingers brushing through dust—

  It took everything not to break down into hysterics.

  Still, the tears came—a waterfall to every horror life could possibly throw at her.

  At her side, Lyra fell to her knees. Her hand on Rose’s arm was warmth she knew she’d never feel again. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Rose closed her eyes. “Will you at least come with me?” she asked. “To see me leave?”

  “Yes,” Lyra said. “I will.”

  Spreading out, Lyra wrapped her arms around Rose and wept.

  There was no question.

  This was it.

  The end.

  Chapter 9

  She could hardly bear to say goodbye to E.J.: it was the look in his eyes, the set of his jaw, the tension in his body as he wrapped his arms around her when he said that everything would be all right, that everything would be ok. He begged her to stay—said without a doubt that that this was where they were supposed to be—but nothing could change her mind.

  She’d asked only one thing.

  Please, she’d said. Take care of her.

  His nod had been enough.

  Now, in the back of a bouncing jeep, with Lyra at her side and their fingers intertwined, Rose looked past the protective mesh splayed across the windshield and braced herself for what was to come.

  They’d taken their last turn from the designated safe zone and were heading toward the bridge.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Lyra said, repeating what had been said time and time again.

  “I know,” Rose replied.

  They remained silent the rest of the way.

  When across the threshold they passed and onto the bridge they rolled, Rose looked out at the gloomy channel and tried to remember a time in which happiness existed—when the world was not consumed with death and mayhem, loss and suffering, rot and ruin.

  We used to be sisters, she thought as she tried her hardest not to look at her best friend.