HERO

CLAIRE KENT

CONTENTS

About Hero

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Epilogue

About Claire Kent

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2022 by Claire Kent. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

ABOUT HERO

I was in college when the asteroid hit, and all my dreams and ambitions went up in smoke along with more than half the planet. Now I'm left eking out a treacherous existence in the lonely, violent world that remains. Everyone who loved me is gone, and I'm stuck depending on Zed, my former stepdad's younger brother. I never liked him, but he and his four-year-old daughter are the only people I have left.

The small world we've built for ourselves in the past five years is crumbling at the edges. Our food is running out. So soon we'll have to leave our home and travel a dangerous road in search of safety that might not exist anymore. To make it worse, I'm hit with new feelings for Zed and start wanting things from him that I can never have.

I know better than to put my hope in romantic daydreams. This has become a world without heroes, and the happiest ending is just to survive.

Note: Hero is a short, steamy post-apocalyptic romance. This title was originally intended to be Mack and Anna's book, but their story has been postponed until later in the series. Hero features a different couple.

PROLOGUE

YEAR ONE AFTER IMPACT

THE CABIN IS WAY TOO crowded, so I set off on a hike in the morning with the excuse of foraging for food.

I mostly want to take a few breaths in peace.

The woods aren’t what they used to be. The trees are struggling from the climate upheavals over the past year. The weather has been thrown into chaos ever since the asteroid hit. The squirrels, birds, rabbits, and deer are just as stretched as the plant life, getting thinner, hungrier.

Only the carrion eaters are satisfied lately.

But even a hike on a gray morning through dying woods is better than sitting in a one-bedroom hunting cabin packed full of too many people. It felt crowded when there were only four of us—me, my sister, my mom, and my stepfather. Now there are ten.

Getting away is the only way to be alone.

A year and a half ago, I was Esther Hamilton. A freshman in college on an academic scholarship. I was making As in all my classes and had been accepted into a special summer program with NASA, Being an astronaut was my goal since I was twelve. Achieving it was always going to be a reach, but I was making progress.

Then, while I was home for spring break that year, the news broke that a large asteroid was heading toward Europe. Not an extinction-level event but the worst global catastrophe in human history.

I never went back to college. No one did. My family hunkered down in the small Missouri town where we lived, and we tried to survive. Our town made a good effort, but looters wiped out most of the food and supplies and gangs started forming, taking control of what was left.

So we ran. Retreated to my stepdad’s cabin, which is too isolated to be a target for raiders. Here we can fish in the river, hunt for food, and try to grow a garden. It’s been far safer than staying in town. So safe that extended family came to join us.

That’s why it’s so crowded now. I try not to complain because at least we’re all surviving in a world where half the population hasn’t.

But still…

It’s so incredibly crowded.

I desperately need some time alone.

When I left the cabin, my mom insisted I bring my gun. It’s small and easy to carry in the belt holster Zed rigged up for me. I know how to use it now, but I don’t much like it. I’ve never been a gun person. Even if I spot a deer or rabbit, I’m not sure it’s in me to shoot it dead.

I assume I’ll be able to muster to the will to hunt if we get hungry enough, but we’re not there yet. There are still a lot of fish in the river, so we’ve been okay so far.

Hopefully we’ll stay that way.

I scan the ground foliage as I walk, but the chances of spotting something edible are slim. I’m not a woodsman or a botanist or a village wisewoman with knowledge of herbs and roots. If I try to gather leaves and mushrooms, I might end up poisoning my entire family.

In a few months, I’ll be twenty years old. I should still be in college. I was finally starting to make a few friends, and I was a favorite with most of my professors. I had a chance to work with NASA. I was dreaming of being an astronaut. My life was good.

Now my primary goal in life is spending a couple of hours alone.

I wander around for a long time, having only a vague idea of direction or destination. I know I’m east of the cabin. As long as I can see the sun, I’m sure I’ll be able to find my way back.

Eventually I hear a low rumbling sound. It takes a minute to figure out it’s the river. I didn’t realize I’ve come this far, but it doesn’t matter. At least that gives me a landmark to follow.

As the sound of the river grows louder, I break out of the trees unexpectedly. The ground collapses under my feet.

That’s what it feels like anyway. The rocks and dirt are looser than I expect, and my foot slips down a sharp decline toward the rushing water.

I catch myself before I plunge headfirst into the river, but my ankle twists and I have to sit down hard to brace myself.

The jarring impact stuns me. I sit on my butt on the edge of the rocky slope and grip an exposed tree root to be safe.

My ankle throbs. My ass and head ache. I can’t seem to take a full breath.

I’m going to die alone on the bank of this river.

When my mind clears, I’m able to assess my condition more accurately, and I realize I’m actually fine. I twisted my ankle, but I doubt it’s too bad. Hopefully I can still walk on it. I’ll limp home and be more careful next time.

It takes five or ten minutes to muster the energy to haul myself to my feet. My ankle hurts like hell, but I am able to put weight on it. It’s not broken or even really sprained. It’s twisted, and that’s not the end of the world.

My stepdad, grandfather, and Zed are all fishing today. I waited until they’d gone before I left the cabin since one or the other of them—probably Zed—would grumble about my going off by myself. But right now none of that matters. If I follow the river awhile, I’ll run into them. That will be smarter than trying to hobble through the woods and back to the cabin on my own. So, holding on to tree branches and trunks, I shuffle my way along the line of the river, being careful not to slip back down the rocky descent again.

I hate, hate, hate getting injured. Not because of the pain as much as the helplessness. I’ve always been a self-sufficient person, and an apocalypse shouldn’t change that.

Of course, an apocalypse shouldn’t require quite so much sitting around for hours, bored and restless in a crowded hunting cabin.

I’ve been limping along the river for several minutes—not making nearly as much progress as I’d like—when something shifts in the air.

I have no idea what it is or what triggers the instinct in me, but my hands grow cold, and it feels like the hairs on my arms suddenly stand up straight.

Something is here. Hiding in the woods. I can feel it, although I can’t yet see it.

I take another step, searching my surroundings for whatever might be lurking, and I miss a step because I’m distracted. My good foot slips again, and I have to grapple to catch myself so I don’t slide down the bank.

Once more I sit down hard.

Damn it.

This is ridiculous.

I might never have been a natural athlete—I always hated community sports programs as a kid—but ever since I decided I wanted to be an astronaut, I made a point of staying in shape. I used to jog every morning even though I never liked it. I’m usually much more physically competent than this.

And there’s still something lurking out there in the woods.

I give my surroundings another scan before I get back to my feet. This time a motion behind me catches my attention.

I squint into the shadows of the trees until I recognize what I’m seeing.

It’s a coyote.

My crisis instincts immediately jump to full alert. I wouldn’t normally fear for my life around a coyote, but I’m alone and injured and on the ground right now. And that animal is obviously stalking me.

He’s probably starving like every other creature in these woods. Maybe he sees me as a meal too tempting to resist.

I pull out my gun slowly and point it in the coyote’s direction. I aim.

The animal looks like a dog. A pitiful dog, gaunt with hunger.

I can’t—I just can’t—pull the trigger.

Hating myself for my failure, I shift my aim so the bullet will go wide of the animal, and I shoot.

The gunshot echoes through the quiet woods.

The coyote makes a quick move and disappears from my view.

Letting out my breath, I lower my gun.

Maybe I’m weak, maybe I’m not as tough as I need to be to survive in this new world, but I did okay. At least I didn’t get eaten by a coyote.

And no one will know I couldn’t kill when I should have.

I’m recovering from my fright and gathering the energy to heave myself back to my feet when I catch another flicker of motion in the woods.

Damn it.

The coyote has come back. It’s closer this time. It didn’t get scared away by the gunshot.

It’s going to make me kill it.

I raise my gun again. My hand is shaking so violently I can’t even aim.

Maybe another warning shot will scare it off.

I try to steady my hand enough to aim wide, and I haven’t yet done it when a loud gunshot from behind me makes me jump. I make an embarrassing squeal.

The coyote has dropped.

It’s dead.

Dead.

I whirl around and see Zed approaching.

Zed is my stepdad’s younger brother. My step-uncle, I guess.

I really don’t like him, and I definitely don’t want to see him right now when I’m at my worst.

“What the hell are you doing?” Zed has always been one of those lazy, laid-back, unserious men. When my mom married his brother, I was fifteen and he was twenty-two. He’d been out of high school for a few years and had a job at a local factory. He did enough work to keep his job, but otherwise, he’d lain around doing very little. Watching TV and drinking beer and going out with women.

He would always tease me. For studying all the time. For worrying about everything. For taking school and the rest of my life seriously. For staying home on Friday nights. For not having a lot of friends. For making plan after plan for achieving my goal of becoming an astronaut.

Even when the news of the asteroid broke, most of his interaction with me was laughing at me and telling me not to worry so much.

Don’t worry. That was what he’d say. Don’t worry about the entire world crumbling around us.

Nothing could have infuriated me more than that.

He’s been a little better since he and Marie, his pregnant girlfriend, arrived at the cabin to live with us. He mostly ignores me now, but that’s infinitely better than the teasing.

I still don’t like him.

I never will.

I like people who take life seriously and not only when bad things are happening.

Zed has very short hair, blue eyes, and a full, broad face. He’s lost some weight since food got scarce—just like everyone else. He used to have a thicker neck and a soft belly.

His question to me sounds vaguely annoyed but not angry.

He never gets angry no matter how much I argue back at him.

“I twisted my ankle. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Why didn’t you kill the coyote? You’re a good enough shot now to have hit it.”

Maybe I should be gratified by his faith in me, but I’m more annoyed by his bossiness. “I was scaring it away.”

“It was ravenous. Desperate. A loud noise wasn’t going to scare it.” He’s reached me now, and he extends a hand down toward me.

I don’t—absolutely do not—want to take it. I don’t want his help with anything. I don’t like accepting anyone’s help, but his is the worst of all since it puts me at a disadvantage. But I’m still sitting on the ground, and my ankle still throbs, and I’ll make a fool of myself if I resist him. I reach up and let him haul me to my feet.

My bad ankle buckles, and I lose my balance and end up falling against him.

He smells strong. Like sweat and dirt and fish. But everyone smells now. There are no more stores to buy deodorant. We still have some soap we were able to scavenge and save, but we don’t have a huge supply, so we can’t use it indiscriminately.

The world is rawer, dirtier, cruder than it used to be. I must be growing accustomed to it because body odor doesn’t faze me anymore.

When I step back, holding on to a tree for support so I don’t need to hold on to Zed, he eyes me up and down. “What did you do to yourself?”

“I told you. I twisted my ankle.”

“Why the hell are you out here by yourself?” He still doesn’t sound angry. Just faintly baffled. He doesn’t care enough about me to get mad about my choices.

“I was taking a walk.”

“Don’t go by yourself again.”

“I will go by myself.”

“It’s not safe anymore. Anything could happen. You almost got mauled by a coyote.”

“I did not almost get mauled!” I try to keep my temper, since he used to be pleased when I reacted to his teasing. But this is outrageous. I’m not going to accept it. “I could have taken care of it. I didn’t need you showing up and trying to play hero.”

“I’m the last guy to try to play hero.” His mouth quirks up, like he’s hiding a laugh.

At me, no doubt.

“If I ever wanted a hero, you’d be the last on my list, but I don’t want a hero to save me. I can take care of myself.”

“We heard the shot,” he explains, “so I came to see what it was. Next time, if you have a shot, take it. You hesitate, you die.”

“I wasn’t going to die. And I’m sorry if I’m not all enthusiastic about killing desperate animals.”

“Do you think I am? I never even liked hunting. It doesn’t matter anymore. We need to do things now we don’t like. We don’t have the luxury of choices like that anymore.”

“I don’t need a lecture from you. I was working hard to make something of my life when you were still lounging in your recliner with a six-pack of beer.”

“Sure. But that was then. This is now. Spending your life studying isn’t going to help you anymore. We’ve all got to change.”

“I have changed.”

“Not enough.” He reaches out to put an arm around me, and I shy away instinctively. He shakes his head. Rolls his eyes. “Case in point. I’m trying to help you so we can get out of here, and you’re too stubborn to take the help I’m offering.”

“I’m not—” I break off the words because even I can hear they’re ridiculous.

I’ve never been stubborn for the sake of being stubborn, but I’ve always been determined to stand on my own feet and manage things myself. Even if it makes life harder, I’m still trying to hold on to that instinct.

Biting my lower lip, I step back to his side and let him slide an arm around my waist. I lean on him just enough to manage walking.

I really wish the person who found me wasn’t him.

“I know you don’t like me, Esther,” he says in a quieter voice. “You don’t have to constantly prove it to me.”

“I’m not trying to prove it to you. But if you don’t like someone, it doesn’t magically go away just because it would be convenient.” I take a deep breath. Attempt to be mature and reasonable. “I’ll try to be nicer.”

“I don’t give a damn if you’re nice to me. Just don’t put yourself at risk because you refuse to take my help. I told you I’m no hero, but none of us can make it on our own anymore.”

“Okay. Fine.” My stomach churns with nerves, uncertainty, a strange kind of fear. I don’t like feeling unsettled this way. I don’t like not feeling in control of my world.

There’s very little under my control anymore. One of the few things I have left is the way I act and the words I say.

We limp along together, Zed pushing tree branches out of the way as we go. And my mind spirals down in a progression of fears and anxieties. So many things that can go wrong. So many things I can’t keep from happening.

“Stop it,” Zed mutters sharply after a few minutes.

I stiffen with a jerk. “Stop what?”

“Stop all that worrying or stewing or whatever you’re doing in your head. You can’t think your way out of this.”

“I know that!”

“Then why are you trying?”

“I can’t stop what my mind does. I can’t turn off my brain the way you can. I’m not like that. I’m doing the best I can.”

“Well, do better. Because if you keep it up, you’re going to spiral into a breakdown, and that’s not going to help anyone.”

I give him a cold, narrow-eyed look. I wish I could pull away from him, but then I might fall down. “I’m not going to have a breakdown.”

“We’ll see.”

I suck in air through my nose and keep glaring at him, but I bite off my instinctive retort.

Continuing this silly argument would be futile. He’s not going to listen to me. He’s not going to understand me. He’ll never even try.

I don’t care what he thinks anyway. He’s a peripheral part of my life right now because circumstances threw us together, but he’s never going to be important to me.

I’ve got other things to be my center.

It’s never going to be him.

1

YEAR SIX AFTER IMPACT

THE TWELVE HOUSES on our cul-de-sac growing up were mostly two-bedroom bungalows. Small, inexpensive, and built in the fifties but well-kept with tidy lawns, flowerpots in the spring, and Christmas lights in December. That’s how I always remember them.

Now they’re abandoned rubble, flattened with the rest of the town by two weeks of nearly constant tornadoes five years ago.

That was almost a year after Impact, and we’d come to expect freak weather phenomena by then since the planet went into overdrive in reaction to the asteroid strike. Nearly everyone, including us, had left town that first year before the town was leveled anyway.

It’s a wasteland now—like all the other small towns in this region of southeastern Missouri. Collapsed buildings. Broken pavement. The scattered skeletons of a few holdouts who stubbornly refused to leave when everyone else migrated in search of food and safety. Every time I return, I walk over to my old house and think about my mom and stepdad. My older sister.

They’re all dead now, and our ruined house is the only memorial I have for them other than the rocks we used to mark their graves.

This morning I stand and look for only a couple of minutes. The fall air is brisk, and the days are getting shorter. I’ve got a three-hour walk back to the cabin when I’m done here, and Zed will let me have it if I’m not home before dark.

I say another mental goodbye to my family and keep moving, scanning my surroundings automatically and keeping one hand close to the handgun in my belt holster.

It’s a different world than the one in which I grew up. The one where I was a brainy girl who won spelling bees and stared at the stars for hours and bickered with my older sister over who got to sit in the front seat of the car. Now, if you aren’t on guard every minute, you’re likely to end up dead.

There are eight former communities in easy walking range of the cabin, including Givens, my hometown. The two towns closest to the main highway weren’t hit by the tornadoes and have been completely cleaned out for years by looters and scavengers. But the others were all flattened. They’re out of the way of any main travel routes, and the rubble left behind makes scavenging so difficult that there are still supplies to be found.

For the past three years, I’ve been systematically going through the houses in those towns one by one. At first there was a lot to be found—even canned food that was still edible. Now the pickings are slim.

Pretty soon there’s going to be nothing.

My stomach churns with a low-level anxiety that’s my constant companion now.

Ignoring it, I scan through my mental map to recall which block I stopped on during my last visit, walking half a mile to reach it.

I had a classmate who lived on this street. I went to her birthday party every year, although I was always more of a token invite than a friend. It doesn’t matter anymore. The past is more like a daydream than a memory. Too distant and foreign to be real.

I guess I used to be that smart, serious, quiet girl who wanted to be an astronaut and worried about everything and was never popular. The girl whose best friend was her sister. Who loved her mother and thought her stepdad was decent and tolerated his loud, extended family who were always hanging around.

I was surrounded by people back then. Dreamed of peace and quiet.

Ironic that my entire world is now only three of us.

I spend a few hours searching the rubble of five different houses. Two of them I make quick work of since the roofs were completely blown off. Everything left was exposed to the elements, so there’s nothing salvageable to be found.

With the others, the walls collapsed inward, so everything inside is buried under the old structure. It takes a lot of time and brutal effort to find rotted furniture. Mildewed clothes and drapery. The remnants of books and electronics and wall art and rusted kitchen utensils. Not much of any use to me.

I do find a doll in one house that’s in pretty good shape, so I brush it off and tuck it into my bag. And in the kitchen of another house I uncover several cans of beans and vegetables. They’re so old now there’s a good chance that they’ve gone bad, but canned food lasts a lot longer than the arbitrary expiration dates they used to stamp on them. So they might still be okay. Definitely worth taking with me.

In the next house, I manage to dig out a heavy-duty plastic storage tub that’s filled with children’s clothes. I sort through it, finding a few pairs of almost-new girl’s jeans and a handful of cute tops. At the bottom of the tub are several pairs of girl’s shoes in a range of sizes. They fill up the rest of the room in my bag, but I bring all of them. If they don’t fit Rina now, they will eventually.

I’ve already found enough stuff to make it worth the effort of the hike here, but it’s still midmorning, so I search one more house. In this one, the debris is less stable, so moving around is a risk. Zed would tell me not to bother, but he’s not here right now.

I find extra-large size bottles of shampoo and bath soap protected in what used to be a bathtub, and there’s a good sleeping bag stored in plastic.

I’m having such good luck I want to search more of this house, but a wall almost collapses on top of me as I move into a bedroom. I barely dart out of the way in time, so I decide it’s not worth the risk.

I can hear Zed’s voice in my head, telling me it was stupid to risk that house at all.

I’ve got as much as I can carry with me anyway.

It’s time to head home.

Balancing out my haul between my two arms, I move quickly through the abandoned streets of the town, heading for the old hiking trail that’s the shortest route to the cabin.

The faint sound of a voice jerks me to an abrupt halt. I listen until I locate the direction of the noise, and then I run into one of the empty houses nearby to get out of sight.

No one lives in town anymore. The only people who might be around are fellow scavengers or travelers passing through.

As far as I know, other than me, Zed, and Rina, there’s no one else settled permanently within thirty miles of the cabin.

Wanderers might be harmless, but there’s an equal chance they’re not.

I can’t see anything from the house I’ve taken shelter in, so I dart across the street to yet another one. The back section of the house is still secure, allowing me to look out a window.

Three men are camped out near the old local grocery store. There’s nothing left in the shop. It was cleaned out by looters even before the asteroid hit.

My first impression is that these men aren’t the kinds of ruffians who move in gangs or droves. Those are usually easy to recognize. These guys look like the good ole boys I used to see in town all the time—in their forties or fifties. They’ve actually got a small pickup truck. It’s old and rusty but must be working because the truck bed is filled with supplies and the vehicle definitely wasn’t here when I came to town two weeks ago.

I haven’t seen a working, fueled vehicle in more than a year. There are plenty of abandoned ones littered around the region, but none of them have any gas.

Intrigued and still wary, I keep watching. The men are lounging on the ground, drinking bottles of what I’m guessing is beer.

Beer.

Where the hell did they find it?

Where did they get the gas for the truck?

Why have they shown up here right now?

I can hear the murmur of their voices but not distinct words, so I take a major risk in moving to the other back bedroom where I know there’s a busted window.

I want to hear what they’re saying.

Listening through the window opening, my estimation of the quality of their personhood sinks dramatically.

They’re talking about a farmhouse they raided yesterday and how much loot they found there. That’s where the beer came from. And the jerky they’re gnawing. And a lot of the stuff in the back of the truck.

It’s not long before I understand that they assaulted and killed the people trying to survive in that farmhouse.

There might only be three of them, and they might not give off that criminal vibe I’ve learned to recognize. But they’re the same kind of monsters who used to join up with droves, mobs of people sometimes a thousand strong that used to roam from place to place, killing and destroying whatever they found.

The droves mostly broke up a couple of years ago, after the resources they plundered were depleted, but there are still plenty of gangs who come through from time to time.

These men might as well be a gang of three.

I’ve got to be careful.

If they find me here, they’ll assault and kill me too. The smartest play would be to slip away.

That’s what Zed would tell me to do. In fact, he’d insist on it. He’d clench his jaw and grit out muttered orders for me to slink away and stay safe.

But he’s not here right now, and maybe there’s a way I can get that truck.

I watch and listen for more than an hour. The men keep guzzling the beer, which is advantageous to me. They have a dog too, which I didn’t notice before. It’s skulking on the perimeter of their camp, gaunt and nervous and shaky.

Some sort of hound with woeful eyes and droopy ears.

The men entertain themselves by tossing their empty bottles at it. When they scare the dog, they laugh. When one of them hits the animal and makes it yelp, they cheer like they’ve scored a point.

Every toss of a bottle makes me angrier until I’m nearly shaking with indignation.

I’m getting that truck away from them.

They don’t deserve to keep it.

According to their conversation, they’re planning to leave later in the day and continue west in search of food and gas and more innocent people to kill and rape and plunder.

They’re not going to do it. Not if I can help it.

I’m a pretty good shot, thanks to my stepdad’s training, so there’s a reasonable chance I could aim and fire right now and kill all three before they could get up off the ground.

But they’ve survived this long in a hostile world, so that means they aren’t as incompetent as they might appear at the moment. If one can get a clear shot at me, I’ll be injured at the very least.

Even a minor injury can mean a death sentence. My sister fell down a steep incline two years after Impact. There were no doctors or hospitals left at that point, so she died a few months later of an infection we couldn’t treat.

I’m not going to risk getting shot. Not for a truck.

So I keep waiting. Another hour passes. The guys are still working on their haul of beer. Evidently they’re planning to drink everything they found in one afternoon.

If they get drunk enough, I won’t have to work very hard to get what I want from them.

Eventually one guy wanders off, mumbling about needing to take a shit. Another one is stretched out on his back with his eyes closed. Probably dozing.

The other one is still basically alert, teasing the dog by offering a piece of jerky to get it to come closer and then launching a bottle at it.

This is the last straw for me. That poor helpless dog.

I pick up the stuff I’ve scavenged and walk soundlessly through a side door of the house and then around so I’m as close to the truck as I can get without being seen.

Checking in the direction of the guy who went to take a dump and seeing no sign of him, I step around the corner of the house and aim my gun.

First I shoot the one sitting up just as he’s about to throw another bottle at the dog.

Then I shoot the dozing one immediately afterward.

I take off at a dead run for the truck, barreling toward the driver’s side and lunging in after yanking open the door.

I hear a voice calling out in outrage. The third guy must have heard the gunshots.

The passenger window is open, so I duck down as far as I can while still being able to see through it. When he’s in sight, waving a shotgun clumsily with his jeans halfway down his legs, I shoot him too.

All three were kill shots. None of their bodies are moving.

They’re all dead.

Finally taking a full breath, I check the ignition. There aren’t any keys. The guys must have been hot-wiring it. I manipulate the exposed wires to get the engine to turn over and am pleased to see half a tank of gas left on the gauge.

Keeping my gun in my hand, I leave the engine running and get out to collect the men’s weapons, the few remaining bottles of beer, and the supply of jerky they’ve been eating.

When I hear a whimper, I glance over and see the dog peeking out from behind an abandoned SUV.

I rip up a length of jerky and throw the pieces toward him.

He runs over and wolfs down the food.

Scanning the camp one more time, I make sure there’re no other useful supplies or provisions. Seeing nothing, I climb behind the wheel of the truck.

I’m about to close the door when the dog, having finished his bites, comes creeping toward me, eyeing me with the most pitiful kind of hope.

His tail gives one barely perceptible wag.

I freeze for a few seconds, trapped by indecision. There are so many reasons not to do this. We’re barely surviving ourselves. One more mouth to feed is asking for trouble. Zed isn’t going to like it. At all.

It’s true I’ve changed in the past five years. I’ve toughened up. Hardened. I can kill without hesitation now when I need to. But I’m still not nearly as tough as I like to believe. With a soft groan, I make a gesture with my head and a clicking sound.

The dog knows exactly what this means. He gives a little yap and leaps up into the truck, climbing over me to reach the passenger seat.

He sits up straight like a good boy and pants at me.

“I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do when we get home,” I tell him, putting the truck into drive and making a U-turn so we’re heading in the opposite direction. “So you sure as hell better have some useful skills to earn your keep.”

His tongue lolls to the side of his mouth as he pants some more.

“And don’t count on gourmet meals. You’ll have to do a lot of foraging on your own. It’s not going to be the easy life for you.”

Undeterred by my words of warning, he scoots his hips and cocks his head to the side.

“All right. I believe you. Whatever life we can give you is better than the one you had before. So let’s go home.”

The three-hour hike takes about thirty minutes in the truck. If the roads were better, it would be even quicker, but the pavement has been torn up by time and disrepair, and the trail up to the cabin used to be gravel but is now mostly dirt and mud.

It’s been almost two years since I’ve driven, so taking the tight curves and steep hills of the route is embarrassingly difficult for me.

But I manage. The truck runs pretty well, so someone has clearly been taking care of it. It’s small—not one of those huge, obnoxious, ego-feeding monstrosities I always hated as a girl—and I’m pleased and excited as I park beside the cabin.

My stepdad used to use it as a hunting cabin. Rustic. One bedroom. Relatively sound construction. It’s held up well in the years since Impact.

This cabin has been our only safe space.

For a while, there were ten of us packed into the small structure—some of us sleeping in tents outside or in the shed. My mother, stepfather, sister, and me. My maternal grandparents. Zed and Marie, his girlfriend. And my stepfather’s father and grandfather. But with limited food, no medication, and no hospitals for emergencies, our numbers dwindled quickly.

Now there’s only three. Me. Zed. And his daughter, Katrina. She’s almost five and prefers to go by Rina.

I call out when I get out of the truck, but no one answers, so I assume Zed and Rina are still fishing down by the river.

Letting the dog out, I let him sniff around the yard and the house. Zed brought water in from the well this morning, so I pour some of it into an old metal bowl and set it on the floor for the dog to lap up.

Then I start unloading the truck.

The assholes clearly cleaned out the entire household of the family they killed. There are clothes. Bedding. Dishes and utensils. Pots and pans. Vegetables and tomatoes canned in glass jars. A few rifles and a good supply of ammunition.

Slightly guilty over my excitement—since an innocent family was killed for these supplies—I fill up our cabinets and closet with the loot. Some of the men’s clothes might fit Zed, and I pick out as many of the women’s clothes as I can make work. There aren’t any little girl’s clothes, but I’d already found some for Rina at the other house.

I lay out her clothes on her bed and work on cleaning up the doll so it’s a little nicer. I’ve just finished when I hear voices approach.

Because I recognize them, I’m not worried. I lay the doll on Rina’s bed and walk outside to greet Zed and Rina.

“What is it, Essie? What is it?” Rina has started to run, her red-blond braids flapping behind her. She’s staring with wide blue eyes at the truck.

My name is Esther, but Rina has always called me Essie.

It occurs to me then that the girl has never seen a pickup truck before. We had a working ATV for the first few years of her life, but ever since we ran out of gas, it’s been parked unused behind the shed.

“It’s a pickup truck,” I tell her. “It’s like a car, but it’s made with that open storage area in the back to carry things.”

“Where did it come from?” She’s still staring at the truck in wonder as she steps toward me for a hug.

Tightening my arms around her briefly, I release her and meet Zed’s eyes. He’s been following at a slower pace, his eyebrows lifted slightly in an unspoken question. “I found it in town. And it actually had gas. It was filled with stuff. Wait until you see everything I got!”

Rina squeals and runs inside to investigate.

Zed moves closer to me, his eyebrows lifting higher.

“Looters in town. They raided a farmhouse and stole all their possessions. I took care of them.”

For years after I first met him, I had Zed pegged as obnoxious and lazy. Even after Impact, he made some bad decisions. That was why he got Rina’s mother pregnant, when they obviously should have known better. He wasn’t even dating Marie seriously at the time. They were just hooking up. He did at least step up after she got pregnant. She didn’t have anyone else to take care of her, so he did, which was why she moved here to the cabin with him.

She died from a fever when Rina was one, so the girl has no memory of her mother.

Zed is still big, broad-shouldered, and solidly built with close-cropped hair and blue eyes like Rina. He narrows his eyes at me now.

“I was safe.”

“Were you?”

“Yes. I’m here, aren’t I? And I got the truck and all the stuff.”

“And you couldn’t have gotten away without confronting them at all?”

Yes, I could have gotten away, but I thought the risk was worth it. I’ve never liked him challenging my decisions. My jaw tightens as I meet his gaze.

He doesn’t like me taking risks, even ones that are worth it. He also doesn’t like it when I need to kill, since it used to tear me up inside. It doesn’t anymore—as long as I’m killing people who hurt others indiscriminately like the men I shot earlier today—but Zed still doesn’t like it. He looks displeased, but he doesn’t say anything.

That’s the thing about Zed. He’s by nature easygoing, and he never seeks out conflict. But when it comes, he doesn’t have to say a word to make his opinion known.

I’ve never known anyone who can make me feel so guilty. Not even my mother.

And my taking the risk isn’t even the hardest thing I have to tell him.

“Oh, by the way,” I begin, glancing around the front yard. The dog ran off a little while ago—I assume to do some exploring and learn its new territory.

I don’t have time to lay any groundwork for the news. Rina starts shouting from inside. “Doggie! Doggie!”

Zed’s eyebrows shoot up higher than ever.

“I had a, uh, hitchhiker.”

Before Zed can voice any sort of response to this statement, Rina comes bursting out of the cabin toward us with the dog running excitedly at her heels.

“Is it your doggie, Essie?”

“It’s not really mine. I saw him in town, and he didn’t have anyone to take care of him, so he wanted to come along with me. We’ll have to ask your daddy if it’s okay for him to stay.”

Rina blinks her big blue eyes up at her father. “Is it okay, Daddy? He really likes me already, so he’ll be sad if he has to go away.”

The dog appears good with children. He doesn’t react or back away when Rina reaches over to play with his ears. His eyes are focused on me fixedly as if he knows we’re waiting for an answer.

Zed slants a speaking look at me—more impatient than annoyed—and then moves his gaze to his daughter and then the dog. “He can stay if he behaves himself and doesn’t cause trouble. Right now he’s a stranger, and we always have to be careful with strangers.”

“I know.” Rina nods solemnly. She reaches to pat the dog’s head with a little more care. “Hiding is the best thing to do with a stranger. But he’s a good dog. I know it.

“We’ll see.”

“I got you some presents,” I tell the girl to distract her from her defense of the dog. “I put them on your bed, so why don’t you go check them out while Daddy gets to know the dog better.”

“Presents!” Suitably diverted, she gallops back toward the cabin. “What did you get me?”

Zed gives me a look.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t go looking for the poor thing. He was with those men in town, and they were hurting him. I couldn’t just leave him there to starve to death.”

“I know you couldn’t.”

I can’t tell from his face what he would have done in my place, but his advice has always been for me to do whatever we need to do to take care of ourselves even if it means we can’t take care of others.

Sometimes we have to be ruthless if we want to live.

It’s not bad advice. It’s what the world has become since Impact. And I’ve gotten better at making hard choices for survival.

Maybe I should have been more ruthless with the dog, but I wasn’t.

If Zed wants us to be ruthless, he can do it himself.

He crouches down so he’s at eye level with the dog, who’s sitting up straight as if he knows he’s being evaluated. Zed makes a sudden, purposeful move, and the dog shrinks back but doesn’t growl or lunge.

Scratching behind the dog’s ears, Zed says, “Are you a good boy, buddy?” He feels the dog’s face. Opens his mouth and puts his fingers between its teeth.

The animal doesn’t bite down. Doesn’t even pull away.

Then Zed stands up. “Okay. He doesn’t seem aggressive, but keep an eye on him for a while. He’s going to have to do a lot foraging for his own food.”

“I already told him that.”

Zed’s mouth quirks up slightly. “Did you?”

“Yes. But whatever life we can give him will be better than the one he’s had so far.”

“I believe it. I’ll work with Rina so she’s not too grabby with him. What are we going to call him?”

“I don’t know. Should we see what Rina thinks?”

“I’d rather she not be the one to name him, in case he doesn’t work out.”

“Okay.” I think about what Zed called him just now. “How about Buddy?”

His mouth quirks up again. It’s his version of a laugh. “That works.”

With that decided, I head into the cabin to find out what Rina thinks of her new doll and clothes.

For the rest of the afternoon, we work on cleaning and deboning and carving the fish Zed and Rina caught so we can dry them in strips. Zed fries one of them up for dinner, and we eat it with some canned beans. It’s a pretty good dinner, and Rina is happy as I give her an evening bath.

I’m outside, cleaning up the yard after the work we’ve done on the fish, when Zed puts her to bed and then comes back out.

“She wanted Buddy to sleep with her.”

“I’m sure she did. I don’t think he’s ready for bed yet.” The dog is still snooping around the yard, getting all the new scents in mental order.

“He seems pretty good-natured.”

“Yes. That’s what I think too.” I’ve been raking some of the mess of bones and scales out of the grass, but now I lean on the old rake and watch Buddy. “He’ll be good company.”

“Don’t get too attached.”

“Telling me that isn’t going to do any good.”

“You think I don’t know that?” He shakes his head. “You had a good haul today.”

“Yeah, but most of it was from the looters. There’s not much left to be scavenged. In any of the towns nearby.”

“I know.” He meets my eyes. “I don’t know how long the fish are going to hold out in the river either.”

Neither of us say anything to this. We both know it’s reality. The only reason we’ve managed here so long is because of access to a large river with a supply of fish that isn’t easily depleted. But that’s not going to last forever. When there’s nothing left to scavenge and when it’s too hard to find enough fish for us to live on, we’re going to have to leave like everyone else already did in this region.

Most people head west. There are supposed to be developed communities there—some even with growing infrastructure. Zed, Rina, and I will have to go eventually too. Rina is okay right now, but soon she’s going to need other kids. She can’t live with no one but me and Zed for her entire life.

We’ve always known the life we have here can only be temporary.

But packing up and moving somewhere else will be so dangerous. We’re not ready to do it yet.

It’s getting dark outside, and I turn my head when I hear something rustling in the woods behind us.

Zed steps in front of me quickly, blocking me with his body from whatever is moving out there unseen.

I don’t know if he knows what it is or not, but his voice is low as he says, “It’s getting late. Let’s get inside.”

I call for the dog and head for the door, propping the rake up in its place before I step inside.

Rina is already asleep.

In the life before this one, it would have been far too early for bedtime. It’s probably only seven or eight in the evening. But it’s dark and there’s nothing left to do for the day. So I go into the room I share with Rina and wash up and change into my pajamas.

The dog comes with me, and he jumps on my bed after I climb under the covers.

I don’t have the heart to tell him no, so he falls asleep in a ball at the foot of my bed.

2

I WAKE up a few hours later, gasping and shaking.

Sitting up in bed, I blink in the dark room, trying to catch my breath and slow my heartbeat.

Maybe I had a nightmare. If I did, I can’t remember what it was. All I know is that I was jolted awake by a surge of fear.

When my eyes adjust, I can see the shape of Rina’s little bed across the room. The figure under the covers isn’t moving. She’s sleeping. A soft snore alerts me to the fact that Buddy the dog is sound asleep too.

Everything is fine. The cabin is locked up tight. Zed and my stepdad added extra fortification to the windows and door as soon as we all moved here, so the cabin is as safe as we can make it with our current resources. Zed sleeps in the main room, and he wakes up at the slightest sound. Both of us have guns loaded and ready beside our beds.

It wasn’t an active threat that woke me. Every now and then, that low-level anxiety that always rumbles at my core surges into intensity for no particular reason.

I recognize the signs. That’s what’s happening now.

Occasionally I can talk myself out of it, so I try lying back down and breathing deeply, reminding myself that everything is okay. Rina, Zed, and I are safe right now. We have food and clean water and shelter and the ability to protect ourselves.

The world might suck, but we’re okay. For now we’re okay.

But it’s the for now that always trips me up. Because the fish are getting scarce in the river. And we’ve salvaged almost everything to be found out of the nearby towns and communities. And traveling is the most dangerous thing to do in this world, but we’re going to have to do it eventually.

If it was just me—or just me and Zed—I’d accept the risks and get moving. But Rina is only five. We’re all she has.

So many terrible things could happen to her. But if we stay here too long, she could die from malnutrition. I’m teaching her to read as well as I can, but she needs a school. Other kids. As it is, she’s been so isolated that her social skills might be permanently marred.

Over and over again, the thoughts spin in my head until I’m in a full-fledged panic. I can’t stay still any longer. I climb out of bed and walk soundlessly to the door of the room.

The dog lifts his head but doesn’t follow me, clearly not willing to relinquish his cozy spot. Rina doesn’t move.

I close the bedroom door quietly behind me and feel my way over to the small table in the kitchen area. The chair scrapes softly against the floor as I pull it out, and Zed jerks up in his bed across the room. He must reach for his shotgun because I hear the click of him cocking it.

“It’s just me,” I tell him, keeping my voice low. Rina doesn’t usually wake up at night, but there’s no reason to risk disturbing her.

“Y’okay?” He switches on a battery-operated lantern he keeps by his bed. It’s one of those batteries that’s supposed to last forever, and so far it’s held up its part of the bargain.

“Fine. Go back to sleep.”

He ignores me, which is not atypical for him. He carries the lantern over to the table and then goes to the counter where we keep the jug we fill with water from the well every day.

I watch as he pours water into a glass. He’s wearing the white undershirt and plaid flannel pants he usually sleeps in during cooler weather.

When I first knew him, he was in decent shape, but he also liked to laze about, eating and drinking beer, so he had a noticeable belly and his face was fuller. I never thought he was good-looking, although plenty of women evidently did. Like all the rest of us who have survived this long, he’s lost weight from limited food and had to toughen up. His body is still big—it always feels like he takes up too much space—with broad shoulders and thick thighs, but his hips and belly are lean.

I don’t know why I notice it right now as my eyes rest on his back, but I do. His pants are riding low, and I notice the tight curve of his ass. The way his shoulders taper down to his middle.

He brings the glass of water over to the table and sets it in front of me before he sits down in the chair that’s always his.

He doesn’t ask me why I woke up. He doesn’t ask me what’s wrong. He doesn’t act particularly concerned or worried about me. We’ve never been friends or even all that close. We had a family connection that’s completely irrelevant now. The only reason we’re in each other’s lives is because we have no one else.

I trust him. Of course I do. But this isn’t a man I ever would have chosen for a companion.

The truth is I can’t even imagine who I would have chosen. I spent my whole childhood and my first year in college focused mostly on studying and preparing for a career as an astronaut. I did have a few friends, but I never had a boyfriend. I don’t think I was ever unattractive, but looks have never been my thing. I’ve got straight brown hair and dark brown eyes and skin that tans easily and regular features and a body that’s medium in every way.

I did sometimes daydream about a great guy falling in love with me, but there was no sign of it ever happening, and it’s pretty much impossible now.

It’s fine. It’s way down on my list of losses—so far down I barely even think about it anymore.

Right now the main thing is survival. And I don’t know how we’re going to manage that for much longer.

The brief distraction of Zed’s presence fades beneath another anxiety spiral. I brace my forearms on the table and stare down at my hands, clenched into fists.

Zed still doesn’t speak. But he pushes the glass of water against one of my hands.

When I jerk my hand away, he pries my fingers apart and wraps them around the glass.

I give him a glare—because he’s being pushy when I’m not in the mood for dealing with it—but the glass of water is in my hand now, so I take several gulps of it.

I almost choke on the last sip as it feels like I’m going to suffocate. I gasp for air.

“If we have to move, we’ll move,” Zed mutters. He might not be an intellectual powerhouse, but he’s always been sharper than he pretends. He clearly knows what’s gotten me up in the middle of the night.

“We’ll be killed on the road.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. There haven’t been nearly as many travelers lately, and we can stay on back roads and avoid people.”

“Even if we take that truck, there’s only half a tank of gas in it. It won’t take us very far, and we’ll never find more gas.”

“Then we’ll walk.”

“Rina is too young for walking that long.”

“Then I’ll carry her.”

I try to imagine such a trip, but I can’t wrap my mind around how it will work. There are so many obstacles. So many dangers. And we don’t even know where we’re going.

There may be no safe space left in the world.

My heart is racing again, and I’ve broken out in a cold sweat. It feels like I can’t take a full breath.

“Damn it, Esther. You’re spiraling.”

“I know that.” I want to slap him right now, as irrational as the impulse is. It feels like I’m about to lose it, and it also feels like it’s all his fault.

“Well, stop it.”

“I’m trying.” I’m still staring down at the table, but I can sense Zed leaning closer to me, scanning my face with his blue eyes. Damn the man anyway. There’s not a comforting, sympathetic bone in his whole body.

I want my mom. My sister. Someone to hug me and tell me everything is going to be all right. Even my stepdad would pat me on the shoulder and tell me he’d take care of us.

Zed just tells me to stop it.

The grief at the thought of my dead family gathers in a hard lump in my throat, rising behind my eyes and nose. But it feels trapped there. It blocks my airways.

I make a raspy sound as I desperately suck in air.

“Shit, what the hell are you doing, woman? You’re going to pass out.” Zed stands up and yanks my chair out from the table. Then he pushes my head down toward my knees.

I know it’s what you’re supposed to do when you’re on the verge of fainting, but the pressure of his hand on my neck feels like a vice. I jerk away from him, stumbling to my feet and then toward the door of the cabin.

Zed follows in long, fast strides. When I reach for the doorknob, he flattens his hand against the door to keep it closed. “Hell, no. You’re not going outside.”

“I need to.” I’m still gasping for air, and tears are leaking out of my eyes and down my cheeks. “I need to get out. I need… air.”

“Well, you can’t. Not right now.” Before I object again, he bites out, “There’s a bear out there. It’s been lurking, and it’s hungry. There’s no way in hell you’re going out there in the dark.”

I didn’t know about the bear. He didn’t tell me, but I know now what I heard rustling in the woods earlier this evening.

“I don’t care.”

“I do. I’m not letting you out. I’ve got to take care of Rina, and I can’t do it without you.”

I’d fight him. For sure. Because his bossiness is one more mental chain that’s tying me down. But the sound of Rina’s name stops me. Because I love her, and she needs to be taken care of. And Zed is a good dad, but he’d have a hell of a time doing it on his own.

I try to speak but can only make a strangled sound. It feels like I’m swaying on my feet.

Zed makes a low, growling sound and strides over to one of the windows. He opens the shutters he and his brother rigged over the windows for extra protection and then unlocks the window and slides it up.

I can feel the rush of cool air from where I’m standing, and I stumble toward it, sticking my head out through the opening so I can breathe in the outside air.

For a long time after Impact, there was dust and debris in the air. So much that my grandmother and great-grandfather both died from lung disease caused by the bad air. But for the past couple of years, it’s been clearing, and the brisk night air almost feels fresh right now.

It helps. I breathe several times and then manage to slow down my inhales and exhales until I’m no longer on the verge of passing out.

Zed stands beside me the whole time, peering over my head out into the darkness, as if he might be able to see a threat looming.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the bear?” I ask when I’m basically recovered. My heart rate is still too high, and the anxiety is coiled tight in my gut. But the panic attack is over.

“No reason.”

“There is too reason. If there’s danger, I need to know about it.”

“You already know it’s dangerous out there. Giving the danger a specific face accomplishes nothing.” He sounds annoyed more than anything else.

I’m annoyed too. I turn around and glare at him. He’s about six inches taller than me. His forehead is broad, and his jaw is square with a deep cleft in the chin. For the first time, I notice that his forehead and cheekbones are glistening slightly with perspiration.

He’s tense. Pulsing with some sort of intensity. Annoyance. Impatience. Exasperation. Edginess.

Both of us should be in bed sleeping right now, and it’s my fault we’re not.

But I didn’t ask him to get up and pester me. I would have been fine sitting in the dark on my own. He’s the one who insisted on coming over here and bossing me around.

“Fuck you, Zed.” I’m still keeping my voice down, conscious of not waking up Rina.

He sneers at me, looming over me, way too close, way too big and strong and man. “Any time you want.”

“What?” The question comes out before I can stop it, diverted by his unexpected retort.

“What, what?”

“You said…”

He said he would fuck me any time I want.

What the hell?

It’s an absurd, ridiculous thought. I’ve never once thought about Zed that way. He’s not a friend or real family or a genuine companion. He’s more like an unfortunate college roommate—someone you’re stuck with and are forced by circumstances to get along with.

I’ve never once considered fucking him, and I’m quite sure he feels the same about me.

He was probably just trying to distract me. Throw me off my game and out of my anxiety spiral. But now that I’m thinking about fucking him, I can’t think about anything else.

Literally nothing else has a chance to exist in my mind. It’s entirely filled with vivid, intense images of me and Zed fucking.

My body reacts to it. My heart rate picks up again but for a different reason now. All the energy from my earlier panic has transformed into something entirely different.

It’s too much. I can’t control it. It’s like a foreign entity has taken possession of my body.

And it’s that power—not me, it can’t be me—that’s reaching up to grab the sides of Zed’s head and pulling him down into a hard kiss.

It’s a ludicrous thing to do. Kissing Zed.

I have no idea why I’m doing it right now.

The touch of his lips fills me with a rush of excitement. Power. And it grows when he starts to respond.

He makes a low sound in his throat and grabs for the back of my head, holding me in place as he pushes into the kiss, using his tongue to part my lips.

I’m not just kissing him. He’s kissing me back.

I slide one of my hands against his skull. His close-cropped hair feels delicious against my palm, and I want to keep touching it. My other hand has moved lower, hooking around his waist. His body is solid. Firm all over. Warm and getting warmer as the seconds pass.

I’m still trying to process the sudden surge of lust and need when he steps into me, backing me up against the empty space of wall next to the window. He’s not gentle as he cups the back of my head and deepens the kiss, and his urgency fires me up even more.

I claw at the back of his neck and arch against the length of his body. He grabs my ass with his free hand and presses my pelvis against his.

He’s hard in his flannel pants. The bulge against my middle is unmistakable. I suck in a breath at the feel of him. My pussy throbs. It almost hurts.

I had no idea desire could feel like this. So intense it aches.

“Esther.”

I make a silly whimpering sound at the way he mutters my name because I think he’s just saying it.

But he’s actually trying to get my attention. He straightens up to break the kiss, still holding my head so it’s tilted up at him. “You wanna do this?”

I blink. Is he crazy? It should be more than obvious that I do. “Yes. Don’t you?”

“Yeah. Just making sure.” He glances back toward his bed, as if he’s processing something in his mind. Then he swings me up and carries me across the room. It’s more expedient than romantic. He drops me onto his bed and is on me immediately.

It’s fine with me. I’m not looking for soft words or gentle caresses. I work on wiggling out of my pajamas pants and panties as he kisses me some more.

He’s on a mission now, and he doesn’t waste any time. He breaks the kiss long enough to yank off my tank top. Then he stares down at my bare breasts hungrily for a minute before he grabs one and fondles it as he captures my mouth again.

It’s strangely compelling. His blunt need and almost primitive urgency. It matches the way I feel too, and I squirm beneath his weight as he plays with my nipples and slides his tongue against mine.

After a few minutes, he lets go of my breast and uses that hand to feel between my thighs. I’ve been wet from almost the moment we kissed, and I make a little grunt as he fingers me there.

“You ready?” he asks, his voice a lot thicker than normal. He’s raised his head, and his eyes scan my face quickly.

“Yeah. Do it.” I arch up as two of his fingers penetrate me, pumping up in a way that makes me clench all around him. “Fuck!”

He must see my reaction because he halts his momentum long enough to fuck me with his fingers until I reach a quick, intense orgasm. My body shakes through the spasms, and a long, soft moan spills from my mouth at the rush of pleasure.

When I’ve settled, he moves his hand and fumbles with his waistband until he’s pulled his cock out from his pants.

He’s big and thick and fully erect. I stare at him, panting, as he pries my legs farther apart and settles his body between them.

He lifts my hips enough to align our bodies, and then he pushes his cock inside me. Both of us are staring down at our groins as he slides in partway, then pulls out, re-angles, and pushes in even more.

I was a virgin until this moment. Not because I was intentionally waiting but because I’ve never had the opportunity. Zed inside me stretches me, aches deeply. But even that ache is something I want.

Need.

I arch my spine. Squirm my hips. Let out an almost childish sobbing sound as I try to process so many sensations at once.

“This okay?” Zed is panting too, but he’s holding himself very still.

“Yeah. Yeah.” I can’t keep myself from moving. I try pumping my hips. “I need… I need…”

He chokes on a wordless sound and begins to move. He starts with slow, shallow thrusts. They feel good, and soon my body has relaxed around the penetration, adjusting to the pressure. But then I need more. I eagerly raise my hips to meet his thrusts, wanting to speed them up, make them harder.

At any other time, I’d be embarrassed by the little grunts I’m making, but now every sound I make drives me wilder, hotter.

He’s got control of my pelvis, holding my ass with both big hands. My legs are flailing strangely. I don’t know what to do with them. I claw at his biceps since I’ve got to hold on to something.

“More,” I gasp. “Zed, more!”

He makes another of those sexy growling sounds and accelerates the pumping of his hips. Soon he’s fucking me so hard we’re making a raw, slapping sound as our bodies connect. There’s also the sound of wet suction. And the soft squeaking of the bedsprings.

I can’t believe we’re doing this. Having sex in the middle of the night.

With each other.

“What are we doing?” I toss my head back and forth on the mattress, trying to make myself think clear thoughts. “This isn’t right.”

“Stop worrying about everything,” he mutters through a clenched jaw. It looks like he’s exerting great effort, and it’s the hottest thing. “Stop thinking for one fucking minute.”

A wave of sensation slams into me then, and I follow his advice and push all my worries and mental stewing aside. Right now I need this.

I need it so bad.

I make another sobbing sound as my breasts jiggle from the force of his motion. My hair is all in my face now, and it feels like I might be drooling.

“Shh.” He is so tense now he’s almost shaking from it.

I know I need to stay quiet. Rina is sleeping in the other room, and we can’t wake her up. But it feels like everything I’ve worked so hard to keep orderly inside me is flying apart all at once. And I want it. I need it to happen. I try to bite my lips to smother another cry.

He lets go of me with one hand so he’s holding me in place with his right. With the left, he covers my mouth.

It should annoy me, but it doesn’t. It frees me to sob and moan against his palm as the orgasm I’ve been working toward finally breaks.

My body shakes and shudders as the waves of pleasure and release overwhelm me. He makes a strangled sound and falls out of rhythm, jerking and pushing against me until he suddenly yanks out of my pussy and comes in several hard spurts onto my stomach.

I didn’t expect that, but it makes sense. My period has been inconsistent lately, but it’s always possible I could get pregnant, and that’s the last thing I need to worry about.

Panting and letting my body soften in satisfaction, I stare down at his semen all over my bare belly.

Zed is staring down at it too. He’s exhaling in hoarse moans.

Finally the residual ache in my pussy makes me squirm. He lets go of me, and I scoot out from under him so I’m sitting on the side of his bed. I use his sheet to wipe the mess off my stomach.

He clears his throat and swings his legs over so he’s sitting beside me. He’s still got his clothes on, but I’m completely naked.

It’s starting to feel uncomfortable, so I reach for my pajamas on the floor.

When I’ve re-dressed myself, I dare a quick look at Zed. He’s watching me. He doesn’t look upset or confused or awkward or anything really.

It’s a relief.

“That was… weird,” I say.

He makes a huff of sound. “Unexpected anyway.”

“I’m not sure what got into me. Why I… but I think we better not do it again.”

“Fine with me.”

“Things are working between us right now, and I don’t want anything to get in the way of that.”

“I know. Me either.”

“So this…” My stomach churns with anxiety for the first time since I kissed him. “So this was just a weird fluke or… or something. And it won’t happen again.”

“Works for me.”

“Okay.” I stand up. Glance at his face again.

He looks… fine. Physically relaxed from the release he had and not hurt or disappointed by my response.

He’s got nothing invested in this except some sex he didn’t expect.

That’s good. That’s what I need.

I’ve got far too many things to worry about without adding an awkward sexual relationship with my former step-uncle into the mix.

“Okay. I’m going to bed now.”

“Try to get some sleep.”

“You too.”

There. That’s it. I tiptoe back into the bedroom. Rina is still sleeping beneath her covers, clinging to the new doll I got her.

Buddy is still curled up at the foot of my bed, snoring softly.

I join him in the bed, and it only takes a minute for me to fall asleep.

3

THE NEXT FEW weeks pass without excitement. My haul from town was so good I don’t need to make another scavenging trip right away. I work in our garden, gathering the last of this year’s vegetables while Zed fishes at the river, working to catch enough to get us through winter. Rina tries to help and plays with Buddy and appears as sunny-natured as ever.

At least she’s not a worrier like me.

I try not to think about having sex with Zed, intentionally pushing it out of my mind whenever the memory pops back up. It’s hard though. The visual of his tense face, twisting with effort and pleasure, materializes in my mind far too often. The feel of his big hands on my body. His cock pushing hard inside me. The ache in my lungs and between my legs as I worked my body against his.

It’s highly distracting, and I go through such mental gymnastics to forget it that the memory becomes a hot, hazy blur.

Zed never mentions it. Doesn’t act any different with me. He used to do nothing but tease me when his brother first married my mother. He seemed to know exactly what would annoy me most and would constantly poke at me for studying all the time, for taking life too seriously, for never hanging out with friends, for not having any fun. After Impact, when we were all piled together in this cabin, he had his hands full with taking care of Marie and helping to keep us all alive, but he’d still occasionally tease me—enough that I knew he hadn’t really changed.

After our families started dying, the teasing mostly stopped. For the past couple of years, he’s mostly been bossy and practical, and that’s how I’ve grown to expect him. He doesn’t tease me about the sex. He doesn’t even mention it. As far as I can tell, he’s forgotten it even happened.

That’s probably for the best. We’re not family, but we’re closer to that than anything else. And family is not supposed to have sex.

I can’t even figure out why I wanted to do it that night. Some weird urge prompted by desperation and the need for human contact. Maybe it’s natural. Biological. Whatever it was doesn’t have to happen again.

That one time unsettled my tentative emotional stability, so it would be foolish to risk it again.

Rina and I are working in the garden one afternoon while Zed is still down at the river. It’s an unseasonably warm afternoon, and there aren’t any clouds to block the sun. The haze that’s covered the sky since Impact has almost dissipated. It’s a good thing. It means the planet is recovering. But I’m dripping with sweat at the moment, and Rina’s cheeks are too pink. We don’t have any suntan lotion, and she’s got her mother’s fair skin and strawberry blond hair.

At the moment, she’s leaning over, counting all the weeds she’s pulling up. “Thirty-six. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine.”

I’ve been trying to teach her the basics—at least what a kindergartner would have learned. She picks it up pretty easily, and she likes to practice and show off her skill.

I say, “Forty!” at the same time she does. Then I add, “You did great with those weeds. I think Buddy is getting hot though, so why don’t you go pour him some water and maybe you two can sit in the shade for a while so he doesn’t overdo it.”

The dog doesn’t appear at any risk of overdoing it. He’s stretched out on his side on the dirt, keeping his eye on the activity while doing as little as possible. But Rina takes my words seriously and calls Buddy into the house to get some water.

I smile as I watch the two of them jogging inside, Rina explaining to Buddy that it’s not good to get too hot so after they get water they need to sit in the shade.

I’m not by nature a maternal person. I never played house or spent a lot of time on dolls when I was a girl, and I always daydreamed about a career rather than being a mom. I’m not the best person to give Rina the womanly influence she probably needs, but I’m all she’s got right now.

Maybe Zed will find another woman eventually. He’s only thirty-one, and he’s clearly still got a sex drive. He’d probably love to find an enthusiastic bedmate and a better mom for his daughter.

The idea of this fictional woman appearing on the scene and taking Zed and Rina away forms a hard lump in my throat, threatening to choke me, so I do some of my mental maneuvering to force it from my mind.

I’ve been forcing a lot from my mind lately. It’s probably not healthy. But what the hell else can I do? If I get upset, I can’t do the work necessary to survive, and all three of us will pay for it.

Besides, having another woman around would only help. It would take a lot of pressure and responsibility off my shoulders.

I should want it, and it’s wrong that I don’t.

Digging out the last of the carrots from the soil, I snarl down at the dirt. There’s no reason to get worked up about this random idea. There aren’t any other women around, and there won’t be until we move.

Which we’ll need to do eventually.

I hate the idea of it for so many reasons. I yank up a carrot with more force than necessary and drop it into the basket.

A rustling in the trees behind me makes me freeze. I turn my head slowly to look, but I can’t see any motion.

I wait. Silent. Holding my breath. Then I hear the rustling again.

Very slowly I stand up, grabbing the basket and pulling my gun out of its holster. We haven’t seen any sign of that bear Zed said was lurking around a few weeks ago, so we assumed it had moved on. But maybe it hasn’t. Even though I’m armed, a bear is not what I want to encounter.

I walk backward until I reach the door of the house. I step in and close and lock it behind me.

“Me and Buddy are coming out now,” Rina announces. Between her and the dog, water is slopped all over the floor next to his bowl.

“I finished in the garden, so why don’t we stay inside?”

“But we were going to the shade!”

“I know you were. That’s what I suggested, but I thought of a better idea. Why don’t you help me get some of these vegetables ready to make a stew.”

She makes a face. “Stew isn’t very good.”

“I know it’s not your favorite, but it makes a little bit of food go a long way. And you can help me do some chopping if you want.”

“With a knife?” Her eyes are big and round.

“Yes, with a knife. You’ll have to be real careful.”

“I will.” The offer of the knife has suitably diverted her from her plan to sit in the shade with Buddy, so I let out a breath.

No sense in scaring Rina. There’s nothing she can do about the bear.

The poor animal is probably hungry, but a ravenous bear is the kind of danger we need to avoid.

Rina and I work on chopping vegetables for a stew, and Buddy collapses on the floor for a nap, exhausted from a long afternoon of doing nothing.

Zed comes home about an hour later. I’ve forgotten to unlock the door, so he gives it a tap after he tries unsuccessfully to open it.

Rina runs over to unlock it for her father, giving him a big hug and bursting out with a list of every single thing she’s done since he left for the river that morning.

Zed picks her up to hug her, but he meets my eyes over the girl’s shoulder. He wants to know why the door was locked, but I’m not going to tell him in front of Rina.

“Did you get a lot of fish, Daddy?”

“Just a couple of little ones today.” After giving Buddy a quick pet, he glances around the room, clearly looking for signs of trouble. “Everything okay here?”

“Yes, it’s good. I helped Essie make the stew. She let me chop vegetables, and I was very careful with the knife.”

“Good job. Do you want to run out and get—”

I give my head a discreet shake.

Zed breaks off his question at my gesture and shifts gears swiftly. “Oh, before I forget, I found a new rock for your collection.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a rounded rock so shiny it looks polished.

“Ooh! Pretty!” Rina grabs for the rock, turning it over in her hands several times as she admires it.

“Why don’t you go find it a place of honor in your collection so it doesn’t get lost?”

Rina nods solemnly and heads for the bedroom to do as her father suggested.

Zed steps over to me and murmurs under his breath, “What the hell is going on?”

“I heard something in the woods this afternoon. I thought maybe that bear came back, so I kept her inside.”

He’s standing too close to me. I can feel heat from his body. I can smell the familiar natural scent of him.

I suddenly want to touch him, so I ease back slightly, putting a little more distance between us.

If he notes my retreat, he doesn’t comment on it. “Damn it. I thought it moved on.”

“Me too. Maybe it wasn’t the bear, but I wasn’t going to risk it. I didn’t see anything, but there was something moving.”

“Okay. I’ll go look after dinner. If it insists on lurking, I’ll have to kill it.”

Zed was never much of a hunter the way my stepdad was. He doesn’t like to kill animals, but he’ll do it if he has to.

We’ll be safer with the bear dead, but I’m not too keen on Zed going out to search for it. The hunting rifle will give him a clear advantage, but still…

I want to argue, but I suppress the instinct. If Zed is set on doing something, nothing I say will make a dent in his resolve. For a guy who’s supposed to be laid-back, he sure is stubborn.

Nodding to acknowledge what he said, I turn back to the stew I’ve been occasionally stirring in the pot on the woodstove. “I thought we could cut up one of the fish you caught today to add to the stew.”

“Better do both. They’re really small.” He shakes his head, and I understand it as unhappiness with today’s catch.

The fewer the fish, the sooner we’ll have to move.

And neither one of us wants to do that.

Dinner is cheerful because Rina is so pleased with her prep work for the stew. The food itself is filling but bland. We ran out of salt and pepper last year, so all we’ve got for seasoning is a variety of vinegars.

Zed is quieter than normal. He usually keeps up a steady conversation with Rina, but tonight he’s rather broody. Thinking about the bear, no doubt.

The bear is just one more item in the long list of my worries, so I’m able to interact normally, talking to Rina about the book we’ve been reading together (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) and speculating about what Buddy must think about his new home.

After dinner, Zed gets the girl into bed fairly quickly, and I read with her for about a half hour. It’s hard for me to concentrate on the story since I’m acutely aware of Zed’s being outside with his rifle.

He’s looking for the bear right now. What if it finds Zed first?

I manage not to panic until our normal reading time is over. Rina wants a kiss good night, which I oblige even though I’m not a touchy person. I wouldn’t hurt her feelings for the world.

Finally I’m able to close the door of the bedroom. I pull out my gun as I step outside the cabin and look around.

It’s nearly dark now. Zed isn’t going to be able to see anything in the woods. What the hell is he even thinking?

Just like a man. Wandering off in the dark by himself, being macho at the risk of leaving his daughter and me entirely on our own.

I want to go look for him, but I’m not leaving this cabin. Not when Rina is sleeping in here alone.

Buddy has come outside with me, and he glances up at me curiously, as if waiting to see what I’ll do.

What I really want to do is smack Zed across the side of the head. Or give him a shake. Or snatch him bald-headed, as my mom used to say.

I exhale in relief when he steps out of the woods to the right of the cabin. He’s got his rifle propped on his shoulder. When he sees me, he strides over quickly. “What the hell are you doing? Get back inside.”

“I’ll get inside when you do. Did you get him?”

“No. I can’t find him.” He scowls, which is not a normal expression for him.

“It might not have been the bear I heard this afternoon.”

“It was.” He doesn’t explain why he’s so sure. The truth is I’m convinced it was the bear as well.

I just know it. The same way Zed does.

“I’ll keep looking.” He glances over my shoulder. “Get back inside.”

“I already told you. I’ll get inside when you do.”

He narrows his eyes.

“I’ve got a gun just like you.”

“Esther.”

“You’ll have to move me by force.” I’m not even sure why I’m arguing right now, but it feels important that I don’t let him bulldoze over me.

I’m as good a shot as he is. I might not be as strong physically, but it’s not going to come down to a wrestling match against the bear.

Either we shoot him or we’re dead.

“Don’t tempt me,” he mutters before he turns on his heel and stalks away, back into the woods.

I want to follow him but don’t. One of us has to stay with Rina in the cabin.

If Zed gets killed, she’ll have no one but me.

It doesn’t bear thinking about. I try not to let the thought penetrate my mind as I peer out at the dark into the even darker woods.

I don’t know how long I stand there. Several minutes. Then a sudden gunshot makes me jerk.

My heart pounds in my throat and my ears. There’s motion in the woods. Suddenly a figure steps out from the trees.

There’s enough moonlight for me to recognize the shape of Zed’s body. He’s walking quickly. I’m nearly shaking when he reaches me.

“I got it,” he mutters.

He doesn’t look victorious. He looks kind of sick.

I swallow hard. “I’m sorry. Thanks for doing that.”

“Yeah.” Zed doesn’t make a move to go inside. He stands next to me on the front stoop. After a minute, he makes a weird sound in his throat and jerks his head to the side.

I bite off a question. Asking him if he’s okay would be stupid right now.

He had to kill a living creature he didn’t want to kill. An animal who was hungry and desperate. One who hadn’t yet made a move against us.

For some reason, it feels worse than the violent men we’ve both killed over the years.

At least the men could have made a moral choice and decided not to.

We stand in silence together just outside the cabin for a long time. The breeze has cooled since this afternoon. Faster than I would have expected. I’m almost chilly out here with bare arms.

Finally Zed gives his head a little shake. “We can go in.”

“The fresh air feels good.”

He slants me a narrow-eyed look. “You’re cold.”

“I’m not—”

“Stop it.”

I glare, since the way he bluntly tells me to stop it has always annoyed me. But there’s not much heat behind the look. I’m not actually angry with him right now. Or even particularly exasperated.

He killed that bear when he didn’t want to. He did it to protect Rina. And me.

I can’t be too annoyed with him at the moment.

“What’s that look for?” he asks, opening the cabin door and holding it until I step inside.

“What look?”

“The look on your face right now.”

“It’s probably my you’re-obnoxious look.”

“No, it’s not. I know that expression well. It’s something else.”

I’m not about to tell him that I feel bad about what he had to do. He’d hate that more than anything. So instead, I say, “You’re imagining things.”

“No, I’m not.” He locks the door but doesn’t barricade it with the large metal bar we use. It’s still early, and one or both of us might need to go outside to go to the bathroom before bed.

“Yes, you are.”

“Why are you arguing with me right now? You know I know better.” He’s not angry either. Mostly impatient. But he’s tenser than I would have expected him to be. I can see it in his shoulders. In the way he’s holding his neck.

It gets to me for some reason. My breathing accelerates. “I don’t know anything of the kind. If I tell you that all I’m thinking is that you’re obnoxious, then that’s what I’m thinking. You have no choice but to believe me.”

“Screw that. I don’t believe half of what you tell me.”

This startles and upsets me. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. You hide what you’re really feeling most of the time. You tell me you’re fine when you’re not. You tell me you’ve got things handled when you need help. You tell me to go away when you’re about to fall apart.”

I’m so surprised by that angry declaration that my mouth drops open. He’s never said anything like that before. Nothing so earnest or connected to emotions. Or deep. I know by now there’s more to him than he shows to the world, but I had no idea he had such layered, complex insights.

About me.

True ones, as it happens.

“I’m not falling apart right now.” There’s no reason to say this. It’s not even what he was implying. But he’s gotten too close. Pried too deeply into the heart of me. And my reaction to that is always to put up my defenses.

“I never said you were. I said you don’t tell me the truth about how you’re feeling, and you’re not telling me the truth right now. You were thinking something about me as we came inside, and I want to know what it is.”

“Well… tough. You don’t get to know everything.”

He steps into me, backing me up against the closed door. “Tell me,” he mutters.

His bulk is intimidating. So is the palpable tension in his eyes, his stance, his clenched jaw.

But I’m not afraid of him. I’ve never been afraid of Zed.

He will never hurt me.

“Damn it, Esther.”

“Don’t say damn it like that to me. I might have been a girl when your brother married my mom, but I’m not a pesky kid anymore.”

That’s a foolish thing to say. I know it even as the words come out.

He reacts exactly as I expect him to—with a choked sound of outrage. “I do not think about you as a child, and you know it.” He looms closer. “You have concrete evidence of it.”

I’m breathing in fast pants. My fingers clench at my sides. I’m about to make a grab for Zed and have to force my hands to hold back.

It’s happening again. That sudden surge of lust. Need. A hunger that goes all the way down to my core.

I’ve been trying to convince myself it was a onetime fluke, but this hot reaction is clearly proving that flimsy belief to be a lie.

And now that Zed has alluded to our having sex, it’s in the air between us again. That thick, aching desire.

Shit, it’s overwhelming me.

Swallowing me up.

“Esther.”

“Don’t.”

He’s not touching me, but he’s about two inches away, and it feels like he’s all over me anyway. “Don’t what?” he asks thickly.

“You know.”

“I haven’t said anything, and I haven’t touched you. If you want me to back off, then say it.”

I gulp. Try to speak. Can’t.

“If you want me to back off, then stop looking at me that way.”

“How am I… how am I looking?”

“Like you want me to do this.”

He kisses me. Rough. Ravenous. Just on the edge of rough. And it’s exactly the way I need to feel him.

I grab for the back of his head and hang on, opening my lips to the advance of his tongue.

After a few seconds, he pulls away just far enough to mutter, “Tell me to stop. If you don’t want this, tell me to stop.”

I dig my fingernails into the nape of his neck. “Don’t you dare stop.”

He makes a pleased, guttural sound and kisses me again, this time pushing me all the way back against the door.

He’s hard. Already. I can feel the shape of his erection as it presses into my middle. My pussy clenches in response to the sensation, and I whimper into his mouth.

Maybe it’s the helpless sound I make, but Zed is suddenly on fire. He makes a growling sound and palms my ass with one hand, lifting me up against the door in a quick, carnal move.

I wrap my legs around him, partly because I need it for stability and partly because I want to feel the thick form of him between my thighs. His tongue is deep in my mouth, and he starts making a humping motion against me.

It’s ridiculously hot. I squirm and gasp and try to squeeze him between my legs.

“Damn,” he rasps at last. “You’re driving me out of my mind.” He lets me slip back to the floor and starts working on the button and zipper of his pants. “Get naked.”

I blink at the blunt instructions but can’t see any reason to argue with his good thinking. I pull my top off over my head, and my breasts bounce free because I’m not wearing a bra.

He stares at me greedily, briefly distracted from retrieving his cock. “Pants too. Can’t do much with all those clothes on.”

I shuck my pants and panties, and then he’s all over me again. He kisses me hard and palms one of my breasts, tweaking the nipple in a way that makes me gasp.

Then he’s feeling between my legs the way he did the first time.

“Damn, you’re wet.” He ducks his head and nips at the base of my throat.

My whole body clenches in pleasure at the sensation. “Good. We don’t have to wait. Hurry, Zed. Get moving.”

With a huff of sound, he edges my legs farther apart and then bends his knees to line up his cock. He grabs my ass and lifts me with one hand as he pushes inside me.

He’s pressing me back against the door as he penetrates me fully. It’s a weird and unstable position. Completely undignified. But my body is buzzing with pleasure anyway.

I need this. Him. So bad.

“Fuck me, Zed,” I grit out. “Do it. Do it hard.”

With another guttural sound, he starts to pump his hips, pushing my body against the door with each hard thrust. His cock moves inside me, thick and solid and full.

Everything aches. And feels so good.

I grunt every time he pushes, and pretty soon he’s grunting too. His are soft and low, but mine get louder and louder.

“Esther.”

I make a sobbing sound and lean forward so I can bite the curve of his shoulder, using it to smother the helpless sounds I’m making.

He’s taking me hard and fast now, and my vision is blurring over. I squeeze him with my legs and dig my nails into his back and bite down hard on his shoulder as the pressure finally releases in intense waves of sensation.

I come hard and messy all over him, around him, and he fucks me through it until he’s finally falling out of rhythm.

“Sweet Jesus.” He swallows over the words as he pulls his cock out of me in a quick move and lets me down so my feet hit the floor. His face twists as he comes in several spurts against my chest and belly.

I’m still holding on to his shoulders. My legs aren’t yet working to support me. Both of us breathe loud and ragged as we stare at each other.

I want to say something. I have no idea what.

I want him to say something too, but I’m not in a fit state to decide what it is I want to hear.

What I do hear just then is Rina’s little voice coming from the bedroom, muffled by the closed door between us. “Daddy? Daddy!”

“Shit.” Zed looks dazed for a second before he pulls himself together. He yanks up his pants and fastens them quickly. “Y’okay?”

“Yes. I’m fine. She sounds scared. Go check on her.”

He gives me one more glance before he turns to stride into the bedroom.

I find a towel to wipe his semen from my body and then put my clothes back on.

Rina had a nightmare, and she wants me to come to bed so she’s not alone in the room. Zed sits with her as I get ready for the night, and then I tell him good night as I come in.

He holds my gaze for a long time as he stands up. He says good night to Rina one more time, but he doesn’t say a word to me.

I don’t say anything either.

I have no idea what either one of us could say.

4

I WAKE up early the following morning, nervous and restless, and I decide it’s time for another scavenging trip.

It’s usually anxiety that pushes me into such outings, but today’s is a different kind. It’s not the normal fear for our safety or worries about food and supplies that’s forcing me into action.

Zed and I fucked again last night, and it’s not feeling right. My stomach is a tight knot, and I’m washed with continual waves of hot and cold.

Why the hell did I do that? What was I even thinking? It’s no longer possible to explain it away as a onetime fluke. Sex has entered our relationship now, and nothing will be the same.

So I lie in bed in the dark for about fifteen minutes, unable to bring any sort of settled order to the tangle in my head, and I decide to go on a supply run today.

I might as well leave at first light, so I get up and pull on my jeans, a fitted T-shirt, and a hoodie since it will be chilly this morning.

Rina is still sleeping. I leave her undisturbed and walk into the main room of the cabin.

Zed must have just woken up himself. He’s sitting on the side of his bed, and he’s turned on the lantern so the room is filled with dim artificial light. His covers are rumpled, and the sight makes my stomach churn even more.

He was sleeping in that bed all night. Yesterday evening he was fucking me hard against the door.

“Hey,” he says, rubbing his face and his scalp with both hands.

“Hi.” I try to think of something else to say, but I can’t, so I head outside to go to the bathroom.

There is a regular bathroom in the cabin, but there was no way to keep the septic tank running long-term without maintenance and chemicals, so my stepdad built a simple outhouse in the backyard. In the middle of the night, we use a pot in the corner of the room, and during the day we use the outhouse.

It’s one of the many inconveniences of daily life now.

When I’m done, I wash my face and hands with water from one of the rain barrels. I washed my hair yesterday afternoon and braided it tightly into two long french braids. It’s still neat enough and out of my face, so I leave it be.

Zed has been pumping water from the well, but he sets down the container and comes over to me. “You goin’ somewhere?”

“Thought I’d hit another town and do some scavenging.”

“We don’t need anything right now.”

“I know that, but I’ve got nothing better to do. We should stock up as much as we can for winter anyway.”

“If it’s another bad winter, there’s no way we’ll have enough.” He says the bleak words matter-of-factly. A simple statement of fact. Two years ago, we were trapped inside the cabin from a monthlong ice storm and barely survived. Zed, his father, and I gave most of our food to Rina. Zed and I were sick for weeks afterward as we tried to recover from the deprivation, and his father died.

It still feels like a nightmare. Like it didn’t really happen to us.

“I know, but we need to at least try. I’ve got nothing to do today, so I might as well do something useful.”

He’s eyeing me closely. “Why today?”

“Why not?”

“Are you upset?”

“I’m not upset.”

“You look upset.”

“I’m not upset.” I grit the words out this time because I am, in fact, getting annoyed now. Why can’t he leave things alone like he normally does?

“Running away isn’t going to help—”

“I’m not running away. I’m doing what I’ve done dozens of times before. What’s your problem this morning?”

He shakes his head, still giving me a sidelong look of close scrutiny. “Something feels off.”

“Well, the only thing off is you pestering me like this.”

“Which town are you going to hit?”

“I think Givens again. I’ve only got a couple more blocks to search through, so I’d like to get it done.”

“Those looters were there last time.”

“I know that. They won’t be there again. I killed them.”

“You shouldn’t have done that. If you see anyone else, you need to hide and get out of there.”

I bite my bottom lip, trying to control my rising exasperation. Why the hell is he being so bossy this morning? “I’ll do what I need to do.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll do what you want to do.”

“What’s your point? I’m an adult. I make my own decision.”

“But your decisions don’t affect only you.”

I almost choke on a surge of indignation. “I’ve never put you or Rina in danger with my decisions. Not once!”

His whole body clenches up. Visibly. He mutters through his teeth, “That’s not what I was talking about.”

“I don’t know what the hell you are talking about. Why are you being this way? I don’t need to suffer through an entire inquisition just to go out on a scavenging trip.”

He looks like he’s going to snap back a reply, but he manages to rein it in. He turns away from me in a quick move, his shoulders rising and falling with a few slow breaths.

For some reason, it makes me even angrier. That he needs to go through such lengths to control his temper with me. He’s never acted like this before.

Everything is different.

It’s the sex.

I know it’s the sex.

It changes everything.

“Why don’t you take the truck?” he says in a more natural tone, turning back around.

“Why would I take the truck?”

“Because you can get there and back a lot more quickly and safely.”

“I’ve always been safe, and being quick doesn’t matter. There’s no sense in wasting the gas.”

“That short trip won’t use very much gas. It will be a lot safe—”

“I’m not taking the truck. I’m not using the gas. I’m going to walk the way I always have. You’ve never had a problem with it before. If you have a problem with it now, you need to give me a good reason.”

Our gazes hold in an unspoken challenge. Until he finally rolls his eyes and lets out an impatient groan. “Fine. Take Buddy at least.”

Buddy came out of the house when I did and has been roaming around on his morning investigation. But he hears his name and comes trotting back, panting up at me happily.

“I’ll take Buddy.”

“Be back by midafternoon.”

“I’ll be back when I’m back.”

“Be back by midafternoon or I’m going to take the truck and come looking for you.”

I scowl but don’t bother to argue.

If I’m allowed to do what I want, then so is Zed. If he wants to come find me if I don’t meet his deadline for returning, then that’s what he’s going to do.

So I’ll be back by midafternoon.

It would be silly to waste the gas.

Buddy and I set off as soon as the sun starts to rise. Zed stands at the cabin door while we begin walking, glowering at my back.

I ignore him, although his bristling bothers me more than it should.

He’s never been unreasonable about my decisions before. Maybe fucking me makes him think he now has some sort of claim on me.

That happens sometimes, doesn’t it? Men get possessive and controlling if their dicks become part of a relationship. I didn’t think Zed was like that, but what the hell do I know? I never paid much attention to his relationship with Marie. I wish I could remember better what he was like with her.

I’m not actually sure he was all that into her. They didn’t seem to be in love. It was more a practical thing after a couple of ill-advised hookups.

Maybe that’s what Zed and I will become now.

The idea makes me ill, so I shake it off, focusing on the action of my muscles as I walk and the cool morning air moving in and out of my lungs with every deep breath.

“Why did I do it, Buddy?” I say out loud. “It was stupid. I should have just controlled myself. A few minutes of sex isn’t worth ruining everything for.”

Buddy looks over his shoulder at me, his eyes bright and interested, but he has no wisdom to offer my situation.

It’s not like having a one-night stand in the world that used to be. Back then, there might be consequences, but they wouldn’t likely put your entire well-being at risk unless you weren’t safe about protection. This is different. Zed and Rina are the only people I have. If I mess things up with Zed, I lose everything.

Everything.

I’ll have nothing left.

I can’t let myself descend too far into predictions of doom. It will distract me, and I can’t afford any distraction when I’m away from the cabin. Right now Buddy and I are on an old hiking trail that winds through the woods, and there’s not another soul around. But that could change at any moment, and I need to be prepared.

I manage to control my mind enough to focus on my surroundings for the rest of the hike to Givens. The town is as empty as it normally is, and I stop by my old house for just a minute before I head back to the block where I left off last time.

I spend the next four hours searching houses. I find a scattering of canned food and supplies, and I gather it all up in the bags I brought with me. I leave them on a stretch of pavement in what used to be a main intersection in town as I decide to search one more house before I leave.

Zed wants me back by midafternoon, which means I need to leave pretty soon. The sun is high in the sky already. It’s got to be around noon, and it takes three hours to get back.

But I can take the time to do one more house before I leave. I’d like to make it worth my time.

I choose a big Victorian where the mayor used to live. It’s in shambles, none of the rooms still intact, but with some digging, I manage to get down into the former basement.

Mother lode.

There must have been shelves packed full of stuff down there. I find bedding and clothes and books and canned food and bottled water. All of it has been protected from the elements by the ruins of the house on top of it.

It’s far too much for me to carry, but I can drive the truck back here and load it up. This haul will make using the gas worthwhile. No question.

I’m pleased and excited as Buddy and I head back to the intersection where I left the stuff I already scavenged.

I jerk to a stop when I see a man standing there, leaning over to look in my bags. His back is to me, but I know he’s a stranger. He’s as big as Zed but has longer, darker hair. There’s a rifle strapped to his back.

I grab for my gun and aim it at him as I say in as authoritative a voice as I can muster. “Back away. Right now.”

The man jerks in surprise and makes a sudden turn toward me. I’m not sure how he manages it since I’ve got my gun aimed directly at him, but he’s able to draw his rifle as he makes the turn.

So we’re aiming guns at each other.

I probably could have shot him. I’m not sure why I didn’t. Just that I don’t know for sure he’s a threat. He could simply be a traveler passing through who was curious about the bags of supplies in the middle of the street.

But now that I see his face, I know my mistake. He’s got a full beard and a sharp, calculating gaze. His whole presence conveys toughness. Strength. Skill. Competence.

This is a man who knows what he’s doing and isn’t afraid to kill.

I’m not afraid to kill either. My hand on the trigger doesn’t waver. “That’s mine. Back away from it.”

He could kill me just like I could kill him, but clearly neither of us has a death wish. We stare at each other over the barrels of our guns. Buddy growls softly at my heel.

“Please don’t kill him.” The female voice comes from the left side of me, and it takes me by surprise. I react to it immediately, shifting my aim toward the newcomer instead of the big man.

It’s another mistake. The young woman who’s approaching isn’t nearly the threat the man is. She’s small and slim and absurdly pretty with long dark hair pulled in one long braid and eyes of such a vivid green I can see them even from my distance.

She’s got both hands in the air. She’s taking one slow step after another. “We’re not going to hurt you. We’re just passing through. Please don’t kill him.”

“I don’t want to kill either one of you, but he’s still got that rifle aimed at me.” Buddy growls again, turning from the man to the woman. The dog clearly doesn’t know exactly what’s happening, but he’s reacting instinctively to my defensive stance.

“Cal,” the woman says. She’s younger than I thought at first. Maybe even younger than me.

“I’ll stop aimin’ at her when she stops aimin’ at you.” The man’s voice is low. Rough. It rumbles.

I take that opportunity to move my gun so it’s pointed at the man instead.

This is evidently what he wanted. He lowers his weapon although he keeps holding it in one hand. He extends his other hand in a gesture of surrender.

He’s not surrendering. This man probably doesn’t know the meaning of the word. His eyes are as unyielding as ever. If I make a wrong move, he’ll shoot me dead without a qualm.

Of course, I’ll kill him too. I don’t want to, but I will.

“Please don’t shoot him,” the woman says, walking over so she’s standing beside him. “I promise we won’t hurt you. We’re just passing through.”

I believe her. She’s in good shape for her small size, and she looks like she knows what she’s doing with the pistol on her hip. But her eyes are earnest. Whoever this man is to her, she cares about him.

She’s more worried for him than she is for herself.

I lower my gun, although I keep it in my hand the way he’s doing with his rifle.

“Thank you,” the woman says with a visible exhale. “I’m Rachel, and this is Cal. I’m sorry we startled you. We’ve been traveling, and we stopped in town to look around and see if there’s anything useful to find.”

“There’s not much left here. I’ve pretty much cleaned it out over the past few years.” I don’t mention the basement of the mayor’s house I just uncovered. These people are strangers, and I’m not going to offer them such a haul. Not when Zed, Rina, and I need it so badly.

“So you live in the area?” Rachel asks.

“Yes.”

“On your own?”

“Not on my own.” I don’t offer more information. It’s none of these people’s business who I live with.

“Is there a community roundabout here?” Rachel asks. It looks like she’s relaxing, but Cal is definitely not. “We live farther east, but we’re taking a trip to the west to see what’s out here. We’d like to make connections to any communities we find. Extend our network and such.”

I’m not exactly sure what she means by network, but the purpose of the trip makes a kind of sense and seems harmless. I wonder what kind of resources they have if they’re able to take off on such a trip for anything but basic survival.

“There are no communities around here,” I tell her. “Not for miles. There’s no one but my… my family. As far as I know. And I move around in this region quite a bit.”

“Okay. That’s good to know. We’re going to keep heading west. There are supposed to be larger developed communities out there.”

“That’s what I’ve heard too.” I’m interested in these people now, and I’m also interested in what they can tell me about the surrounding territories.

Maybe it’s something Zed and I need to know.

So I ask, “So where did y’all—” I break off the question when I hear other voices off to my right side and slightly behind. I raise my gun instinctively and aim it at the new voices.

My eyes are fixed on two more people approaching, but I can tell from my peripheral vision that Cal has aimed his rifle at me again.

“Cal, don’t,” Rachel says, stepping in front of him. “She’s outnumbered. You can’t blame her for being careful. Mack and Anna aren’t going to hurt you. They’re with us.”

Another white woman is walking toward us beside a black man. They both appear wary, but they don’t pull any weapons or make any sudden moves.

With four of them, there’s no way I could defend myself if they decided to attack. I could take down a couple of them if I was lucky, but not all four.

But it feels like I can trust Rachel, and the other man approaching is clearly no pushover, but he doesn’t give off the ruthless vibes that Cal does.

“Mack,” he says, putting a hand on his chest. “And this is Anna. We’re not gonna hurt you.”

Maybe I shouldn’t, but I believe him. I lower my gun.

Cal does the same.

“It’s nice to see someone at last,” Anna says with a warm smile. She’s pretty and freckled with curly red hair. “It’s been really empty around here. I guess we probably scared the hell out of you since you weren’t expecting anyone to be around.”

“I’m not scared.” I’m mostly telling her the truth, although I’m definitely on guard. “But no, I didn’t expect anyone to be around here.”

“Are you by yourself?” Mack asks.

“Yes.” Then I add, “For right now.” I don’t want to give the impression that I’m all alone in the world.

“Is that safe?” Anna asks. “To go around by yourself?”

I shrug. I’m not sure how to answer that question. It seems genuine. Not like the woman is judging me. And although I’ve gone off by myself all the time for years, it’s never been entirely safe. “We do what we need to do.”

“I guess so. Do you have any time? Can we talk for a while? I’d love to hear about your experiences, and we could tell you about the communities where we come from. We’ve got food. Are you hungry?”

I’m nearly always hungry, and I do want to hear about these communities.

Zed, Rina, and I need to migrate somewhere, and I’d rather it be somewhere where we know what to expect.

I glance up at the sun. It’s starting its descent, so it’s got to be going on one in the afternoon. But maybe I can take thirty more minutes to hear what these people can tell me. I’ll still be back around four.

That’s got to be close enough to midafternoon to satisfy Zed.

More than two hours later, I’m still in Givens.

The five of us have moved into a building that used to be the one local restaurant in town. It’s one of the few structures that weren’t destroyed by the tornadoes and is probably the most secure spot to spend the night, which the others have decided to do.

When I was hemming and hawing over when to start back home, wanting to talk to them longer but also worried about Zed’s response if I failed to come back when he was expecting me, Mack offered to drive me back in their truck.

It feels like such a huge favor that my first instinct was to object, but none of them seem to think it’s a big deal. They’ve got a large transfer tank of gas in the back of their truck and aren’t worried about taking a short detour. So I finally agreed, relieved about finding an easy solution to my dilemma.

So I spend a couple of hours with them, telling them about what happened in this region after Impact and then hearing about the area of south-central Kentucky where they live.

There are several established communities there. Fortified towns and a farm and an underground bunker. They’ve got food. Medical resources. They’ve even started schools for the kids in the area.

It sounds like a dream. A fantasy.

Maybe instead of moving west, Zed, Rina, and I should go east. It wouldn’t be as long a journey, and we’d have a worthwhile destination in mind.

I get more and more excited as I listen, and I ask dozens of questions. Anna pulls out a piece of paper and a pencil, and she and Mack work on drawing me a map.

It’s not bad, as handmade maps go, and at least it would be something to start with if Zed and I decide to make the trip.

The sun is about halfway down in the western sky when I finally shake myself off, give Buddy a quick pet to wake him up from his nap, and then stand up. “I better get started back home. They’ll be expecting me about now.”

“Sure thing,” Mack says. “I’ll run you back no problem.” He’s a big, handsome man with a broad face and an authentic smile. He laughs easily and listens to what I say and genuinely makes me feel safe, which I wouldn’t have thought a stranger could do anymore.

They had bread in their supplies. Actual bread, which I haven’t had in years. We had a snack of jelly sandwiches which was the best thing I can remember. I also drank a lot of water, so I figure I better pee before we start off. “I’m going to run out real quick to go to the bathroom, but I’ll be just a minute.”

“No problem.”

With Buddy at my heels, I slip out the back door of the building and pee as quick as I can behind a few trees in what used to be the town park.

When I return to the building, something has changed. I feel the tension before I hear the voices.

“Where the hell is she?” I recognize the voice, although not the ferocity of the tone. Zed never sounds like that. At least, I’ve never heard him speak that way. “Tell me right the fuck now. Those are her bags in the corner, so don’t try to act like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Tell me where she is!”

It’s so out of place—so incongruous—I can barely process what’s occurring right now. It feels like my heart is lodged in my throat, cutting off my air, as I push back into the room where we were all gathered.

It is Zed. I wasn’t imagining his voice. And he’s standing in the front doorway with a shotgun and a glare as cold as ice.

He must have somehow managed to catch the others by surprise, which couldn’t be any small feat considering Cal seems to be always on guard. Zed is moving the barrel from one to the other, and the others all have their hands out in the universal gesture of nonaggression.

Zed snarls. “If anything happened to her, I’ll kill every one of you where you’re sitting.”

“Zed, no.” I step all the way into the room, drawing his notice for the first time. “I’m fine. They haven’t done anything. Put down the gun.”

“What the hell is happening here?” Zed grits out. He doesn’t lower his weapon although his eyes make a quick scan of my face and body, like he’s checking my condition.

“They’re traveling through. I think they can help us. So stop waving the gun around and act like a civilized person so I can introduce you.”

“Why the hell should we trust them?”

“Because there are four of them and one of me. They could have killed me ten times and been miles away already if they wanted to.” He’s so tense it’s worrying me. He’s not normally a violent-minded person, but he’s got to edge to him now that I’m not used to seeing in him. I step over and put a hand on his arm, gently trying to easy it and the gun downward. Buddy has come over too and is nuzzling at Zed’s ankles. “Zed, don’t. I’m telling you it’s fine.”

“How is it fine? You’re supposed to be home by now.” He’s lowered the gun and is evidently diverted by other grievances. “What the hell have you been doing all this time?”

“I told you. I was talking to them. I was just on my way back. Mack was going to drive me.”

Zed looks at Cal and then Mack, evidently not knowing which one I’m talking about and not happy about either choice.

My crisis reaction is fading now that he’s mostly backed down. I can take a full breath.

Then I suddenly remember something. “Wait! What are you even doing here? Did you take the truck? Where the fuck is Rina?”

“She’s safe.”

“What do you mean, she’s safe? You didn’t leave her by herself, did you?”

“I said she’s fine,” Zed mutters, glancing over my shoulder briefly before he frowns at me some more. “We can discuss it later.”

“We can discuss it right now. Where is Rina?”

Zed appears torn for just a moment, and then he gestures with his head toward the door of the building.

“Y’all can go discuss whatever it is you need to discuss,” Mack says with an easy grin. “We’ll just hang in here and mind our own business.”

Anna giggles at that, and I see Rachel hide a smile. Cal is watching Zed warily, a hand hovering near his rifle.

Cal has hardly said anything the entire afternoon, but I have picked up a few things. Despite the age difference, he and Rachel are a couple. She even wears an engagement ring on her left hand.

And Cal resents the hell out of anyone who aims a gun at her.

I give the other four a sheepish wave as Buddy and I follow Zed out of the building. “Seriously, Zed. Please tell me where Rina is. She’s okay, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she’s fine.” He takes my arm and pulls me down the block to where I see the pickup truck I got from the looters is parked. He knocks on the driver’s side door four times and says, “It’s just us.”

Rina has evidently been hunkered on the floor in front of the seat. She pops her head up, grinning brightly. “Essie!”

“Hey there.” I can’t help but smile back at the girl as she unlocks the car door and fumbles with the handle.

Zed opens it for her, and she tumbles out, launching at me with a hug. “You’re okay!”

“Of course I’m okay. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. But Daddy said you were taking too long so we had to go and find you. He said it would be fine, but I didn’t believe him. He was scared.”

“I wasn’t scared,” Zed says, shaking his head at his daughter.

“He wasn’t scared, but I thought he might be scared, so I was scared too.” She’s paused so she can also hug Buddy, but now she hugs me again since I’ve crouched down to her level. “But you’re okay!”

“Yes, I’m okay. Both of you shouldn’t have worried. I can take care of myself.”

When Rina pulls away this time, her grin has turned into a thoughtful frown.

“What is it?” I ask, ruffling her hair. It’s fine and easily slips out of her braids.

“You can take care of yourself, but me and Daddy take care of you too. Right?”

For some reason, my throat tightens. I have the ridiculous urge to argue with this claim, but I manage to restrain the irrational impulse. “Yes, you take good care of me.”

“Good!” She brightens up like a light switch was flipped. “I got to ride in the pickup truck!”

“Yes, you did. Was that fun?”

“No, it was bumpy and fast and made my tummy feel weird. But Daddy said it would get better.”

“It will. It takes a little while to get used to driving.”

“Can we please head back home now?” Zed asks, looking back over his shoulder at the old restaurant we just left. None of the others are in sight.

“No, we can’t.” I match his annoyed look. “I’m telling you, you need to talk to those people. They’re good folks, and they come from a community that might be exactly what we need.” I don’t say any more because Rina is listening with wide eyes, but I can see from Zed’s expression that he knows exactly what I’m talking about. “Besides, since you’ve got the truck here, I uncovered a ton of stuff in a basement of a house here. Way more than I could carry home. We should at least load all that stuff up before we leave.”

As expected, it’s the promise of supplies that sways Zed more than the idea of talking to strangers. He clears his throat and looks from the truck back to the restaurant.

“I don’t trust them,” he says softly. Slightly rough.

“Fine. You don’t have to. But you can at least trust me.” He knows—he has to know—that I’d never put Rina at risk unless I was absolutely sure these people are safe.

He meets my eyes for several seconds. Then he finally nods. “Okay.”

I let out another breath. “So we can go talk to them?”

“I guess. For a little while. I want to load up the truck and get back home before dark.”

“That’s fine. We have time.” I smile at Rina. “Do you want to go meet some new people? They’re all nice, and the women are real pretty.”

“They are?” Her eyes get very big again. “As pretty as you?”

“Oh, a lot prettier than me.”

Her lips turn down. “But no one is as pretty as you are, Essie. Right, Daddy?”

Zed clears his throat. Doesn’t meet my eyes. “That’s right.”

5

WE END up staying through dinner.

Zed tries to round Rina and I up in the late afternoon, but Rina is on a high from the excitement of meeting new people, and she convinces him to let us stay a couple more hours.

We’ve got the truck to drive back to the cabin, so it won’t be as dangerous to travel after dark. And I don’t blame Zed for not having the heart to drag Rina away too early.

She’s had so few new things to enjoy in her life.

The girl is fascinated by the newcomers. Both women and Mack are really good with her, giving her plenty of attention and talking to her like she’s important. Cal doesn’t do much more than grunt and mutter in response to her many inquiries about his beard and how he got so many scars on one of his arms and why he doesn’t know how to smile.

He’s so uncommunicative that I’m afraid he’ll hurt Rina’s feelings, but she takes it all in stride. In fact, she seems to really like him and sees his gruff attitude as a challenge.

Kids have pretty good instincts about people. She’s probably picked up the same vibes I have—Cal’s not nearly as mean as he appears.

For dinner, they have bread and bacon and apples and another treat I’d nearly forgotten about.

Eggs.

They have chickens in their communities. And pigs and goats. And there’s a farm that grows wheat and grinds it to flour for bread. They apparently don’t have cows, so the main thing they’re missing from their diet are dairy products. Mack talks about hoping to find cows farther out west.

I enjoy the afternoon and dinner, and it makes me happy to see Rina having such a good time. Zed is unusually quiet, but at least he’s not glowering anymore.

The more we talk, the more obvious it is that we should head east and try to settle in one of the communities in that region of Kentucky. There we’ll be able to make a life for ourselves and Rina. We’ll have more food. And social structures like school and doctors. Meeting these people has changed everything for us, and all the signs are pointing in their direction.

The instinctive knowledge that it’s right—that it means a dramatic change will be required—eventually triggers my anxiety, spinning it higher as the minutes pass.

Eventually I can’t sit still any longer. Buddy pops up immediately, at my heels as always. I excuse myself by saying I need to go to the bathroom.

I don’t. Not really. I just want to move and get away for a few minutes.

Before I leave the building, I glance back at the people I’ve left. Rina is playing some sort of game of sticks and rocks with Mack and Anna. Cal and Rachel are lounging together and watching the game-playing. Both his arms are around her, and I’m hit with a ridiculous pang of something like envy. They’re so clearly together. So obviously in love.

Zed was watching the game too, but now he’s shifted his focus to me. He meets my eyes for a moment, his expression impassive. Unreadable.

I don’t know what it means. I don’t know what he’s thinking, and it’s unsettling because I usually do.

Things were so much easier before I fucked him. Why did I ever think that was a good idea?

Feeling weird and churny and jittery, I continue out of the building with Buddy. The air is chilly, and there’s a breeze. I swipe flyaways from my braids out of my face and blink into the darkness.

I don’t have to pee, so I just wander a bit, stretching my legs and breathing the night air.

If we’re smart, we’ll pack and leave the cabin soon before the weather turns bad and the winter sets in. It would be a one-day trip in the old world—the world of good roads and rest stops and gas stations every few miles. But it’s going to take us a lot longer, and half a tank of gas in the truck won’t get us the whole way.

We’ll have to walk. With Rina. And all the possessions we can carry.

Who knows what kinds of dangers we’ll have to face along the way?

We’re likely to die on the road.

“Esther.”

I jerk at the soft voice from behind me although I know exactly who it is.

When I don’t turn around, Zed strides over and stands in front of me. He peers at me closely. Doesn’t ask the obvious question.

Are you all right? What the hell is wrong with you?

“We should do it,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “It will be a lot safer than heading west when we have no idea what’s even out there.”

“I know.”

I nod, starting to tremble and tightening my arms in a futile attempt to stop. “So we should do it. The sooner the better.”

“We don’t have to leave immediately. We can make a plan.”

“Yes, but we shouldn’t delay too long. What if winter comes early and we get iced in again? We can’t make it through another winter like—”

“Esther, stop it.”

I bite off my babbling. Shake some more.

“We don’t have to do anything right away.”

I nod. “I know.”

“So there’s no reason to go into panic mode about it.”

“I know.”

“So why are you trembling like that?” His forehead is wrinkled. His brows pulled together. His head is tilted down like he’s trying to read my mind through my expression.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, stop it.”

“I’m trying.” The words come out strangled and weak. I hate that I get like this. I always try so hard to be in control and maintain composure, but then I’ll fall apart like this occasionally.

I hate it.

“Damn it, Esther.” He reaches out and pulls me toward him with both hands until I’m pressed against his chest. He wraps both arms around me and tightens them around my shuddering.

It’s exactly what I need to feel. Solid and warm and unmoving. Unshakably present in a world that does nothing but quake.

I gasp against his chest. I’m not really crying. I almost never do that. But I can’t seem to settle, even in his arms.

He squeezes me tightly. He smells like dirt and sweat and Zed. I can bury my face against his shirt and hide there for a few minutes. Buddy is worried and whimpers, nuzzling my ankles.

This isn’t the life I ever should have had. Held like this by my stepfather’s lazy, obnoxious younger brother because I can’t keep hold of myself.

But he’s making me feel better. I wouldn’t be able to do this without him.

And he’s not the man he used to be. Not anymore.

None of us are who we were before Impact.

I can’t imagine any sort of life without him anymore.

When I’ve mostly stopped trembling, I try to pull away. He doesn’t let me.

“I’m okay,” I mumble.

“You say that whether it’s true or not.”

“I know I do. But I mean it this time. I feel a little better.”

He loosens his arms and peers at my face some more when I step back.

“Thanks.” I clear my throat and twist my hands together. “Sorry about the breakdown.”

He shrugs. “If you wouldn’t try so hard to control everything, it might be easier on you.”

“I know that. But you can’t stop the workings of your mind just because you know rationally they’re not good for you.”

He nods. “But maybe you can encourage them to ease up a little.”

I giggle at that. Then I can’t stop.

“You having another breakdown?”

“I don’t think so, but what the hell do I know?”

“If nothing else, you know how to get in trouble.”

The light, teasing words remind me of something. I straighten up and peer at him in the dark. “By the way, don’t ever do that again.”

His brows draw together. “Do what?”

“Come after me like that. Put yourself in danger because you think I’m in danger. Don’t ever do that again.”

I expect him to make an annoyed face and let the topic go, but he doesn’t. “The hell I won’t!”

He looks so outraged it makes me feel guilty. “I don’t mean ever. I really do appreciate everything you’ve done to keep me safe. But your main responsibility is to Rina. Not to me. I can take care of myself and make my own decisions. She can’t. And coming after me this afternoon might have put Rina in danger.”

“Rina was fi—”

“I know she was fine, but what if you’d gotten shot? What if you got killed trying to save me? Then she would have been left all alone.”

I see the reality of this as a possibility flicker across his face. The helplessness of it. The merciless trap of it. “I wasn’t going to get shot.”

“You didn’t know that for sure. As careful as you try to be, you can’t control everything. So don’t ever put Rina in danger again trying to protect me. If it’s between the two of us, you have to choose her.” When I brought this topic up, I thought it would be one of my normal chastisements that Zed mostly shrugs off, but it’s somehow turned into an intense conversation. My voice breaks slightly.

Zed’s features twist again. Some sort of emotions he’s fighting to suppress.

“I know it sucks. I know it’s not fair. But you’re always telling me that we have to do what’s necessary, even if it’s hard. This is one of those things. Rina comes first. For both of us. She has to.”

“I know she does,” he rasps. “But I can’t just let you—”

“You have to. If she needs saving, you have to let me die. I told you a long time ago that you can’t be my hero. This brutal world will never allow it. So promise me that you’ll choose her. If it’s between me and her, you’ll always choose her.” I’m holding his eyes as the words take on a significance I wouldn’t have expected. “Promise me, Zed.”

He jerks his head to the side. Takes a couple of ragged breaths.

“Zed—”

“I promise!” The words burst out of him roughly. “But only if you promise not to put me in that position on purpose.”

“I’d never—”

“You’d never what? Insist on doing something dangerous just to prove you can? Just to prove you don’t need me?”

I shy back at the sting of the words. “I don’t think… I try not to do that much… anymore.”

“I know. But you’d still rather trust only yourself instead of trusting me.”

He’s speaking the truth. So deep and so insightful that it feels like it’s ripping my heart out.

“So if I have to promise to let you die, then you have to promise not to put me in that position on purpose.”

After a long stretch of tense silence, I whisper, “Okay. I promise.”

“Okay.” He swallows so hard I can see it in his throat. “I promise too.”

We stare at each other for a long time. Then he finally breaks the trance by clearing his throat.

I rub my face and smooth my hair. “Okay. We should get back to Rina. If we leave her too long, she’ll decide Cal is her favorite person in the world, and she’ll demand to tag along on their trip.”

Zed chuckles softly, putting a hand on my back as we move toward the building where we left the others. “She’s going to be out of luck on that. She’s stuck with us.”

I like the sound of that although I’m not sure why. “Yeah. I guess she is.”

Cal fills up our truck from their reserve tank of gas before we leave.

It’s such an extreme and uncommon act of generosity that neither Zed nor I know how to thank them. We do our best as we say our goodbyes, and they all assume we’ll be seeing each other again. They know that moving to their community is our only reasonable choice.

They’re right.

We have to do it, and the sooner the better. It doesn’t make it easy. The cabin is the only place of safety—the only home we’ve had—for years.

For Rina’s entire life.

The idea of the move is still so large and terrifying in my mind that I can’t yet process details surrounding it.

Instead, I listen to Rina ramble on about everything we said and did today. She’s sitting between me and Zed in the front bench seat of the truck. After about twenty minutes of constant chattering, she deflates like a popped balloon. She gives a big yawn and leans her head against my shoulder and is sound asleep in less than two minutes.

I put an arm around her so I can pull her into a more comfortable position. Zed glances over at us, his mouth turning up slightly at the corners.

“She finally ran out of steam,” I say, shifting slightly because I’m suddenly uncomfortable.

“Yeah.”

He keeps shooting us little glances, and I wish he wouldn’t. It makes me want to squirm.

We’re quiet for the last ten minutes of the drive. I have no idea what to say, and Zed doesn’t initiate conversation. We wind our way along the dirt road and up to the cabin in the dark. It’s eerie—lonely—as he pulls up next to the house and shifts the truck into park.

I still feel like I should say something. Our conversation earlier has somehow changed things between us. But my brain has been emptied out. I look at Zed in the illumination from the dashboard lights.

He lifts his eyebrows slightly. Waits.

With a shake of my head, I give up trying to articulate what’s still an incoherent mess in my head.

He turns off the engine and gets out of the truck. So do Buddy and I. Zed comes around and gently pulls Rina out after me, carrying the sleeping girl into the cabin.

We put her to bed and then close the bedroom door as we leave the room.

I look around, needing to do something but finding nothing obvious that needs to be done.

Zed clears his throat. Stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

Whatever I sense in him is making me even more jittery. I wander over to the kitchen area and pick up a dishcloth to wipe down the counter. It’s already clean. Zed has gotten better about picking up after himself, and I’m a neat person and like to keep my surroundings clean. The cabin rarely gets messy.

But I need to do something with my hands, so wiping the counter is what I chose to do.

“We can unload the truck tomorrow morning,” Zed says, leaning over to take off his shoes. “No sense in messing with it tonight.”

“Yeah. That’s what I figured.”

Wipe. Wipe. Wipe. I’m a wiping machine.

Zed pours out some of the water into a basin and takes off his flannel shirt. He’s got an undershirt on beneath it, but he keeps that on as he washes his hands and face with the water.

I try not to watch him, focusing on scrubbing down a fictional dirty spot on the counter.

When I find myself too interested in the sight of him drying his skin with a towel, I decide the wisest action would be to vacate the premises. I go outside to use the outhouse.

I’d stay outside longer, but a few sounds in the woods trigger my warning instincts, so I quickly come back inside.

Without a word, Zed goes outside after me—likely for the same reasons. Because I’m worried about those sounds, I stand in the open door of the cabin and wait for him.

“What’s the matter?” he asks when he returns, pulling his jeans up since they’re sliding too far down his hips.

“Nothing. Just thought I heard something.” I nod toward the woods.

He turns to look at the dark of the trees surrounding the cabin. We both stand and listen, but I don’t hear any more noises.

“It was probably a small animal or a bird or something. It didn’t sound like that bear did.”

“Okay.” He peers some more into the night until he finally gives a small shake of his head. “Probably so.”

He puts a hand on my back to get me back inside. It’s not a pushy gesture. I actually doubt he’s even conscious of doing it. But the pressure from his hand feels like it’s scalding me. I’m brutally aware of it.

I step away, ostensibly to take off my shoes and socks. Then I walk over to the bowl of water he poured earlier and use it to wash my hands and face too.

My hair is still braided into the french braids. They’re neat enough so there’s no reason to go through the work of redoing them.

Zed has locked up the cabin and gone over to sit down on the side of his bed.

I try not to look at him over there. I should go to the bedroom and get into my own bed. It’s been a long day for all of us. I should be exhausted. Maybe after sleeping I’ll feel more like myself.

Instead of going to bed, I go to the kitchen counter and start wiping again.

My feet are bare, but I’m wearing jeans and a fitted white T-shirt. I’m not wearing a bra. My breasts are nothing special, but they’re not too bad. They’re firm and rounded, and they’re noticeable beneath the thin fabric of my top.

I wonder if Zed notices them. If he likes the look of them.

I’ve always had full hips, and I used to think they were too wide. Now I kind of like the curve of them. It feels like Zed might be looking at my ass, but that’s probably my imagination. I’m just acutely aware of my body.

And his body.

He’s got a very good body. I want to be touching it right now.

What the hell is wrong with me? I’ve completely lost my mind.

I’m still scrubbing away when Zed suddenly bursts out, “Damn it, Esther. Would you get your ass over here?”

I freeze. Then turn around slowly, the dishrag still in my hand. “What?”

“Just get over here.”

I put the towel down, spreading it neatly on the sink so it can dry. Then I take a step toward him. “Why?”

“You know why.”

“Kind of presumptuous, aren’t you? Assuming I have something like that in mind.”

“If you didn’t have it in mind, you’d already be in your own bed. You’re not. So stop wiping the damn counter and get over here so I can fuck you like you want.”

I gulp, my cheeks growing hot. “If it’s just me who wants it—”

“You know damn well it’s not just you. You think I’m ever gonna say no to you?”

I’m not sure how it happens—I’m not conscious of taking specific steps to move my body—but I somehow end up over near the bed, standing above where Zed is seated.

He reaches out to take me by the waist and pull me so I’m standing between his legs. He’s gazing up at me, his blue eyes hot. Strangely hungry.

“Too lazy to even get up off your ass to do it right,” I say dryly.

He chokes on a laugh. “Oh, I’m gonna do you right. You can count on it.” Before I can come up with an appropriate rejoinder, he’s swung me down onto the bed. I’m on my back, my upper body and butt on the mattress, but my legs hanging clumsily over the side. He moves over me. Kisses me deep and hard.

I wrap my arms around him and surrender to the kiss, parting my lips and trying to suck his tongue into my mouth. He’s big and hot and heavy, and I’m having to brace myself with my feet to keep from slipping off the bed.

Finally I break out of the kiss. “This isn’t what I’d call doing me right. I’m falling off the bed.”

With a low, husky laugh, he straightens up and rearranges my body so I’m lying in the right direction on the bed. Then he climbs over me again, this time straddling my thighs with his legs.

He kisses me until I’m breathless. Until I’m squirming beneath him, trying to rub my aching pussy against anything hard and firm I can reach.

When I find the bulge of his erection in his jeans, I wrap one leg around his hip so I can grind against it.

“Damn,” he mutters, yanking his mouth away from mine. He stares down at me, his eyes blazing and his skin damp with perspiration. “We can probably do better than a teenage dry hump.”

“Well, you’re the one with the delusions of grandeur. If you’ve got any skills, you better drag them to the surface and show me.”

With a wolfish grin, he unbuttons my jeans and then pulls down the zipper, grabbing them with my panties and peeling them all off at once.

Eager to get to the good stuff, I pull off my top and drop it over the side of the bed. Now I’m completely naked.

He’s kneeling between my legs, leering down at my body.

“Okay,” I say at last.

“Okay what?” He manages to wrench his gaze away from my breasts to meet my eyes.

“I thought you were going to show me some skills. All you’re doing is gawking.”

“Best thing I can think of to gawk at.”

I shake my head with a well-deserved eye roll, but my cheeks are burning again. He does seem to like how I look. It’s impossible for me to believe anything else.

“Maybe you’re just stalling because you’re not as skillful as you like to believe.”

“I’m not stalling. Just taking my time.” He reaches out to thumb one of my nipples. “We kind of rushed things the other times.”

“Rushing is fine with me.”

“Maybe. But despite your skepticism, I do in fact have a few skills I’d like to show you.”

“So do it. Show me.”

We hold gazes for a few moments. Then he gives me another one of those wolfish smiles. He leans over to kiss me again. He’s still wearing his jeans and T-shirt, but he doesn’t appear to mind. He holds most of his weight off my body as he devours my mouth with his.

It’s really a very good kiss. It makes me flush all over and pant with growing excitement. My blood throbs in my veins, and I end up clawing at the back of his neck the way I always do when things get really good.

I’m fully aroused and ready to move on, so I nudge at his shoulders until he lifts his head. “Okay. I’m convinced of your skills. You can fuck me now.”

With a little laugh, he ducks his head to my neck. “I haven’t even begun showing you my skills yet.”

“What?”

He doesn’t answer with words. Just kisses his way down to my breasts. He pays them a lot of attention. So much I can’t help but arch and wriggle and make a lot of embarrassing whimpers. Finally he’s done with my breasts, but he doesn’t straighten up or pull out his cock. He keeps moving lower down my body until he’s nuzzling between my legs.

“Zed!”

“What?”

“You don’t… you don’t have to do that.”

“I know.” He pulls my thighs apart to give him better access. Then gives my pussy a big lick that makes me gasp. “Maybe I want to.”

“But… but…” I’m so turned on that my head is tossing back and forth. I reach up to grab onto the pillow since the bed doesn’t have a headboard, and I need to hold on to something. “But you don’t have to.”

“Stop it, Esther.” He raises his head. “I told you I want to do it. Do you really not want me to do this?”

“I…” I swallow hard. “I don’t know. I’ve never… I’m not good at giving up control.”

His expression relaxes. He gives me a smug little smile. “That’s one thing I already know about you. I think you might like this, so can we give it a try? If anything about it bothers you, just tell me to stop. And I will. I promise.”

I just stare at him.

“Okay?”

I nod. “Okay. I’m just…”

He was about to move back between my legs, but he pauses, waiting for me to finish.

“I’m just not going to be good at it.”

He chuckles again and arranges my legs so they’re bent at the knee and braced far apart. “You don’t have to be good at everything, Esther.”

“I like to be good at everything.”

“You’re good at most things. It doesn’t have to be everything.” He lowers his head. “Besides, I’ll be doing most of the work for this particular activity. You can just lie there and enjoy it.”

“I’m not good at just lying th—”

“Stop it.”

“Okay.” I feel like smiling, but for good measure, I stick my tongue out at him, making him laugh again.

The brief distraction helps to settle some of my nerves, but all my arousal comes back in full force as soon as he tongues me again.

He holds me open with his fingers and teases my clit with his tongue. Then he fucks me with his tongue. Returns to my clit. Sucks it a few times and scrapes his teeth against my inner thigh.

I’m mumbling out wordless pleas and encouragement. A climax is building deep and tight. I move my hands from the pillow to the sheet beneath me to Zed’s head. I rub my fingertips over his scalp, feeling the shape of his skull, the texture of his closely cropped hair.

Then he slides two fingers inside me, curling them up against my G-spot. He repositions so he can suck my clit at the same time, and I come apart before I know to expect it.

My pussy clenches eagerly around his fingers as I shake and shudder with wave after wave of pleasure. He keeps finger-fucking me until I come a second time. This time I have to stuff my fist into my mouth to keep from crying out too loudly and waking Rina up.

When I’ve worked through the last of the spasms, Zed straightens up and gives my groin one more soothing stroke.

He’s smiling as he meets my eyes.

“Don’t say it,” I tell him.

“Don’t say what?”

“Don’t say anything about your skills.”

“I wasn’t going to.” He shifts up enough so he can kiss me on the mouth. “I was actually going to say you did a great job lying there and enjoying it.”

I give him a playful shove as I huff, but the truth is I’m kind of pleased with myself too. I never really considered myself a sexy person before, but I feel that way right now.

Zed has stood up so he can shuck his jeans and T-shirt. He wears old boxers beneath them, and he pulls them off too.

This is the first time I’ve actually seen him naked.

I like the look of his body. I like it a lot. He’s got hair on his chest and at his groin. His cock is erect and substantial, bouncing slightly with his motion. His thighs are thick. He’s got a scar on the side of his abdomen. I’m not sure where it came from.

“Well?” he asks when I just stare at him.

“Well what?”

“Don’t you have anything to say?”

“Not really. I think you look pretty good without clothes on. Isn’t it time to fuck me now?”

“It’s definitely time to fuck you.”

He kneels between my legs and raises my hips until he can align his cock at my entrance. Then he pushes in, and both of us moan at the penetration.

He’s staring down at me as he begins to pump his hips. He thrusts fast and tight, hard enough to make my breasts jiggle and loose hairs fly into my face.

I feel completely out of control, and it’s a new, heady feeling for me. I clutch handfuls of the bedding beneath me, and bite my bottom lip over the helpless moans I’m making.

“That’s right,” Zed mutters, his eyes raking up and down my body from my face to the place where his cock is moving in and out of me. “You’re doing so good. You’re taking it so good. Just let go. You can let go.”

“I’m… trying.” I flail my head and my hands. It feels like I’m going to drown from the intensity of the sensations. “I want to let go. So bad.”

“Then do it. Do it for me.”

I make a lot of sobbing sounds as the orgasm reaches its peak. Then it breaks and I shatter, turning my head quickly so I can smother my cries in the pillow.

“That’s right. That’s so good. Come for me just like that. You’re doing so good.”

I shake and jiggle as I work through the climax, and I’m breathless and scorching hot as I finally come down. If I’m expecting it to be over now, I’m wrong. He pulls out but clearly isn’t about to come. Instead, he turns me over onto my hands and knees, pushing my upper body down so only my bottom is in the air.

Then he pulls my butt cheeks apart so he can reach my pussy, and he edges his cock back inside me.

It feels different in this position. Deeper. Thicker. I moan and gasp into the sheet as he starts to thrust again.

He goes at it harder this time, holding on to fistfuls of my ass flesh so he can get good leverage to push. It’s aching but in a way I like. I need. I hear the shameless sounds I’m making and can’t believe they’re coming from me.

I sound like an animal. So does he. We grunt and push and slap our flesh together until I’m coming again with a scream I barely manage to hide in the pillow.

This time he’s working up toward climax himself. I can tell by the sounds he’s making and the tension in his body. I’ve come down enough to recognize the signs, so I look at him over my shoulder so I can see his face contort as he jerks his groin against my bottom.

Then he suddenly pulls out his cock and squeezes it as he comes on my ass and the small of my back.

He falls down beside me afterward, pulling me down so I’m on my side. We lay together, gasping and still twitching occasionally. I’m washed with a kind of release of tension I’ve almost never experienced.

I didn’t know letting go of control could feel this way.

I didn’t know it would feel so good.

I didn’t know I would need it so much.

Zed isn’t spooning me. He’s lying on his back. But he reaches over and strokes my hair. My arm. “Y’okay?”

“Yeah. Good. It was good.”

“Yeah, it was.”

That seems to be enough for us to say. We lie in silence for a long time, relaxing and enjoying the satiation.

I’m on the verge of falling asleep when a trigger of warning alerts me. With a soft groan, I push myself up to a sitting position.

“Where you going?” Zed asks in a groggy voice.

“Back to my bed.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s my bed.”

“You can just stay here.”

“Rina won’t know where I am.”

“Rina is asleep.”

“Oh. Yeah.” I can’t think of an appropriate objection or any reason to argue at all. The truth is I don’t want to move.

I just want to stay here. In Zed’s bed. For the rest of the night.

Zed fumbles at the floor until he finds his boxers. He pulls them on without sitting up. Then he tosses me the undershirt he was wearing.

I pull it on. It smells like him, and I don’t much want to sleep naked.

Then he pulls down his covers and arranges me at his side, pulling the sheet and blanket up over both of us.

I have the most ridiculous urge to snuggle with him, but I manage to restrain the impulse. Instead, I close my eyes when Zed turns off the lantern and the room goes dark.

It usually takes me nearly an hour to still my mind enough to sleep, but tonight it only takes a few minutes.

When I wake up, it’s still dark in the room and I’m pressed up snug against Zed.

I know it’s Zed, although otherwise I’m disoriented from the fog of sleep. There’s no doubt that it’s Zed’s big, warm body against mine though. The scent of him is surrounding me, and I recognize the feel of the arm wrapped around me.

It’s Zed.

It can’t be anyone but Zed.

Even before what happened during the evening processes in my mind, I know for sure it’s Zed I’m in bed with.

I like sleeping with him. It feels intimate. Domestic. His T-shirt I’m still wearing is hiked up around my chest, and one of my bare legs is hooked over his. I can feel the hair on his thighs when I rub my leg against his.

He makes a sound somewhere between a snort and a snore, and ridiculously I kind of like that too.

I shouldn’t be liking this so much. Why the hell am I even still in bed with him? Fucking him is one thing—and dangerous enough to my mental well-being—but falling asleep beside him is something entirely different.

He’s not in love with me. We’re not a couple. We aren’t like Cal and Rachel, who are clearly connected to each other by deep bonds impossible to miss. Even when they weren’t touching each other, it still felt like they were touching. It was something in the air between them.

That’s a couple in love. Nothing like Zed is with me. He basically understands me now, and he’s happy to fuck me. Why wouldn’t he be? He doesn’t have anyone else available. But I’m a partner of chance and convenience. We’re only together because circumstances left us this way.

Dreaming of something more—something deeper—will only end up hurting me. And I’ve always been too smart and practical for that kind of thing.

Reminding myself of these undeniable truths, I force myself to roll away from Zed. I only get a few inches before his arm tightens and pulls me back.

I mumble and try again.

He won’t let me go.

“Zed.”

“Hmm.” He’s not nearly as awake as I am, but he must be conscious enough to hear me talking to him.

“Zed.” I try one more time to roll.

He responds with a huff and a roll of his own so I end up on my back with him on top of me.

The whole weight of his body is resting on me.

And I like it.

I really do.

“Zed.” I’m breathless as something deep inside me starts to pulse.

“Hmm.” This time he stretches the hum out into a long, husky groan. He nuzzles at my neck. Gives me a clumsy kiss.

“Zed, are you awake?”

“I’m kissing you.”

“Yes, but are you awake while you’re doing it?”

“I’m awake enough to know I want to be kissing you.”

He’s got to be awake if he managed a complete sentence like that. I slide my hands up so I can caress his head, feeling the texture of his hair beneath my palms.

“Mm-hmm. I like that.” He’s interspersing his mumbles with little kisses. Only a few land on my mouth. Most of them are on my jaw and the side of my neck.

“You like when I rub your head?”

“Mm-hmm. Feels good.” He’s growing erect against my lower belly. I can feel his penis hardening beneath his thin boxers. “Don’t stop.”

Because I love how it feels, I keep up the caress while he kisses and nibbles the crook of my neck. Then he’s edging himself between my legs. He feels my pussy and, discovering I’m wet enough, slides himself in.

I moan softly at the way my body stretches around him. He hooks a hand under one of my thighs, lifting my leg. He’s still resting his weight on me, and I still love how it feels. Even when he starts to rock his hips, the pushes are fast and easy and match my natural rhythm.

We fuck like that in the dark, clumsy and urgent and quiet and not very far past sleep. My body responds to the friction and the jiggling, and something deeper inside me responds to the intimacy. “Zed,” I hear myself gasping as an orgasm coils at my center. “Zed.”

“Yes.” He’s making the same kind of grunts he always makes when he fucks, but they’re softer, hoarser. “Yes. That’s me. It’s me… fucking you.”

“Zed.” One of my hands is still stroking his head while the other is gripping him at the waist.

“Yes. Yes, it’s me. This is me.”

I don’t quite know why he’s saying that, but I like the way it sounds anyway. As if it means something to him. That I know the man fucking me like this is him.

Who else would it be?

He’s all there is for me.

He’s working up toward climax now, his pushes getting harder and faster. My own orgasm breaks unexpectedly, and I shudder and jerk and dig my fingernails into his scalp.

He makes a helpless sound and suddenly jerks back his hips, letting his cock slide out of me and then folding it between our bodies as he presses down on top of me again.

He comes like that, twitching and moaning into my neck.

It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced.

“Zed,” I gasp one more time, feeling my body relax as the spasms fade.

“Yes.” He’s speaking in a hoarse whisper. “It’s me.”

We lie together like that for a long time. I should be uncomfortable under his weight, but I’m not. I should feel trapped, but I don’t. I feel safe. Protected. The low-key churning of anxiety in my gut that’s a near-constant part of my life is almost undetectable because all I can feel and sense and think about is Zed.

But that’s not the real world. That’s just how I feel right now. After sleepy, clumsy sex in the middle of the night.

Nothing about my life has changed, and I’m asking for trouble if I start believing it has.

This world doesn’t pull punches. It doesn’t rain down miracles.

It doesn’t magically fix itself.

I wriggle a little and try to roll away.

“Not yet,” Zed mumbles, lifting his head just slightly.

“I should go to my bed.”

“Why bother?”

“What if Rina wakes up early?” I don’t know why I’m arguing. I don’t want to get out of bed right now.

“Then we’ll explain. She doesn’t know anything about sex. She’s not going to think it’s anything bad.”

This is true. She’s been so cut off from the rest of the world that Rina has absolutely no preconceptions about sex or love or romantic relationships. We could tell her this is what grownups do, and she’d believe us.

But I don’t want her to see us in bed together. It would make it real in a way I’m trying not to let myself believe.

“You’re lying on top of me, Zed.”

“Ask me to move and I’ll move.”

He will. I know it for sure. So I try to make myself ask him to get off me, but I don’t.

I want to feel safe like this a little longer.

“That’s what I thought,” Zed mumbles.

“Don’t be obnoxious.”

“I thought you said obnoxiousness is one of my core traits.”

I huff with amusement at his dry tone. He’s right. I’ve said those exact words to him before. More than once. “It is.”

“So how can I stop being obnoxious? I’d have to stop being me.”

“You could tone it down a little.”

His body shakes with amusement again. I love how it feels against me. “I’ll see what I can do.”

We’re silent for a few minutes. His body feels almost soft. Sated. Just as relaxed as mine. Then he says out of the blue, “So do you think we should move?”

“Yes. I don’t think we have a choice.”

“Me either.”

I take a deep breath, glad for the weight of his body as I try to untangle the knot of anxiety that’s always been too scary to tackle. “It’s going to be hard, but if we do nothing, I think we’ll regret it.”

“I think so too.” He pauses. “You want to go to that part of Kentucky they were talking about?”

“Don’t you think we should? At least we know there’s something better waiting for us there. Good people. More support. A better life for Rina. There might be something good farther west, but we don’t know where it is or how far it is or what it’s like.”

“Yeah. I don’t like the idea of leaving with no clear destination.”

“So you think we should go too?”

“Yes. I do. But I don’t want to do it unless you agree. All the way.”

I gulp. “I agree. All the way.”

He makes a motion with his head like a nod. Then he nuzzles the side of my throat one more time. “Okay. Soon, you think?”

“Yes. As soon as we can be ready. We don’t know when winter will hit and trap us here.”

“Okay. Good. We’ll start getting packed up and make a plan.”

“All right.” I feel a little shaky inside, but I’m not trembling. I’m not sure I even can tremble with Zed on top of me this way. “We’ll make a plan.”

I take a full breath. “And then we’ll do it.”

6

THREE DAYS LATER, at just before dawn, we’re getting ready to leave the cabin.

For good, most likely.

It’s so big—so large and nebulous and risky in my mind—that I have trouble holding the thought in my head. But Zed and I made the decision that night, and it’s final. Neither of us have doubted or questioned it.

It’s a hard choice, but it’s the best of a number of bad options.

We manage to keep any fears or worries from Rina, so she’s excited about the new adventure. She does nothing but talk about what we might see and what we might do and where we might end up. I do my best to temper her expectations so she doesn’t end up too disappointed, but I also don’t want to crush her hope.

It’s been a long time since I had that sort of hope. It’s not a thing to dismiss lightly. Not in a world like this one.

The past days have been spent packing and preparing and deciding what to bring and what not to. We’ll take the truck for as long as the gas holds up, but it won’t get us the whole way there. The chances of lucking out and finding gas along the way are so slim they’re barely worth considering. So we have to make plans assuming we’ll be getting out of the truck eventually and walking the rest of the way.

Zed uses parts from the useless ATV and a couple of rusty bikes to make a pushcart for our supplies so we won’t have to carry everything we own on our backs. On the evening before we leave, Zed pushes the packed cart up into the bed of the truck and ties it down to make sure it’s secure.

We’ll have a few last things to load in the morning, but otherwise we’re ready to go.

Zed and I have sex again that night. We don’t even talk about it. After we put Rina to sleep, he pulls me toward his bed, and we make love, silent, urgent, and needy under the covers. I’m so scared about leaving the next morning that I can’t drag myself away to sleep in my own bed. I stay with him all night, relieved every time he wakes up during the night to discover that he’s rolled away and pulls me back into his arms, squeezing tightly.

Maybe he knows I need it.

Or maybe he needs it too.

We get up before dawn and silently go through our simple routines of washing up, dressing, and getting ready for the day. Then Zed wakes up Rina, and there’s not much left to do.

While Zed is loading the last of our stuff into the truck, I walk around the cabin and yard with Rina and Buddy, and we say goodbye to everything. The bedroom. Her bed. Her chair at the table. The woodstove that kept us warm in the winter. The rain barrels in the yard. The outhouse. The path down to the river that gave us fish. The garden we worked so hard in. Our favorite tree at the edge of the woods.

We tell everything goodbye and give it a pat farewell. Rina takes it all seriously, soberly thanking everything that’s made up our lives for the past years. She’s not crying. She’s never left a place before, so she probably doesn’t understand exactly what it means.

I understand though. And this cabin has been our home—it’s kept us safe—for so long. I’m fighting tears as we close the front door one final time, patting the wood firmly and saying goodbye.

I don’t want to leave. I wish we didn’t have to.

Zed is waiting for us by the truck. He returns Rina’s hug when the girl runs over to him, but he’s scanning my face over her shoulder as I approach more slowly.

“It’s been a good home to us,” he says, ostensibly to his daughter. He’s still looking at me. “We’ll find another one.”

“Maybe even bigger!” Rina says. “You can have your own room!”

Zed chuckles and releases her, ruffling her hair. I braided it tightly into two braids this morning, but she already has flyaways slipping out. “I’ll be okay without a room. We can make do with whatever we find, right?”

“Right. As long as we’re together! Even Buddy!”

The dog has been following us around, barely leaving a few inches between my heels and his nose. He obviously knows something is happening, and he’s very worried about being left behind.

When I open the passenger door of the pickup, I gesture with my head and make a tsking sound, and he gives a happy yap and jumps inside.

We’ll be cramped with all four of us in the cab of the truck, but I don’t like the idea of Buddy loose in the truck bed while we’re driving. I’d rather be crowded than risk him being hurt.

Rina climbs in after him and sits in the middle of the seat between me and Zed.

Zed climbs behind the steering wheel and leans over to fiddle with the wires until the engine turns over. We’ve got a nearly full tank of gas, so it should take us a good distance. Save us many days of walking.

It’s a blessing we couldn’t have expected.

“Everyone ready?” Zed asks. His tone is warm and relaxed—the way he always talks to Rina—but his eyes are sharp as they rest on my face.

“I’m ready!” Rina exclaims.

“Ready,” I say, nodding at Zed.

I don’t know if I’m really ready or not, but this is happening. And there’s nothing inside me that feels it’s the wrong thing to do.

So we do it. Zed puts the truck into drive, and it’s not long before we’re winding down the dirt road, leaving the cabin and the small acreage that’s defined the boundary of our lives behind.

The day passes as uneventfully as traveling ever can.

It’s not a straight shot along a well-paved interstate. We take smaller back roads in the hopes of avoiding settlements or fellow travelers, and we can rarely drive faster than thirty-five miles per hour because the pavement is so torn up. But we don’t complain. It’s a lot safer and faster than we’d ever be able to walk.

We’ve compared the map Mack and Anna drew for us with an older paper road map we had in the cabin, so we can keep a fairly accurate track of our location. By the midafternoon, we’ve crossed over the former state line into Kentucky, and we haven’t encountered a single other person.

For years after Impact, the roadways were crowded. Gangs and droves would roam, seeking new plunder. Families and communities would migrate in search of more secure sources of food and safety. Others would simply wander, looking for gas in the cars littering the side of the road and canned food in abandoned houses.

But there’s almost no one out there anymore. The droves have broken up, gangs have laid claim to strongholds, and decent people have either died, moved out of the region, or made themselves homes they don’t have to leave.

It’s eerie. Empty. Like a postapocalyptic film where the lone survivors of disaster explore the burnt embers of the world that used to be.

Anytime we pass a house, a store, or a gas station, we stop to look for supplies, but they’ve all been cleaned out by others, probably a long time ago.

Our gas runs out near the end of the day.

Zed and I have been watching the gas gauge. We know it’s coming. Unless a miracle happens and we come across an abandoned car with a full tank of gas, we’ll have to ditch the truck and start walking tomorrow morning.

It will take longer, but maybe it will be okay. We haven’t seen the slightest hint of danger all day. We haven’t encountered anyone at all.

The sun is low in the sky when the truck starts sputtering. Zed doesn’t react. Simply pulls the vehicle off the road and maneuvers into a slight clearing in the tall grass of the former pastureland we’re passing through.

There are a few trees in the clearing. They’re as much shelter as we’re going to find around here.

“Well, that’s it for today,” Zed says in an easy, natural voice. He smiles down at Rina. “The truck took us a good long way.”

“It’s a good truck!” Rina looks around at the weirdly unnerving landscape of overgrown grass and weeds and shifting shadows from fast-moving clouds skidding over the sinking sun. “Are we going to sleep right here?”

“Yep. This is a good spot.” I can tell Zed is trying to make it sound better than it is. It would be nice if we would have been able to find an old building or at least some sheltered woods to camp in for the night. Somewhere less exposed and vulnerable.

Rina’s eyes are very round. “Okay. I need to pee-pee.”

I get out of the truck and help her out afterward. Then we go behind one of the trees for a modicum of privacy. Buddy gives a happy yap as he’s let out of the vehicle, bounding around and sniffing every inch of our surroundings.

At least the dog is happy to be here.

No one else is.

I try to ignore the coiled knot of anxiety in my belly as I spread out a blanket for us to sit on and start to put together a simple dinner of canned beans, jerky, and a couple of tomatoes.

Zed works on building a campfire. Then he stalks around the perimeter of the camp with his rifle, tense and restless.

He’s worried. Naturally. This isn’t a particularly safe spot to stay for the night. But he won’t even sit down to eat his food. He just grabs it and takes bites as he strides around. Rina is clearly picking up on his nerves.

She eats the food I give her and drinks the water and watches her dad pace back and forth.

She’s been happy and relaxed most of the day. To help pass the time, I retold the stories from books I used to read as we drove, recalling as many details as possible and answering the girl’s numerous questions. It occupied all three of us as the miles passed. But now she’s picking up on her dad’s tension, and she’s getting scared.

When we finish eating, I clean up and shoot a frustrated glare at Zed’s back. Even the back of him appears tense, the muscles of his shoulders coiled tight and his spine ramrod straight.

While I completely understand his mood, it’s doing nothing but scaring Rina.

There’s no one and nothing around. It feels like ghosts are lurking.

“Maybe we can sing some songs,” I say in as bright a tone as I can muster. “If you ask, maybe your daddy will do one for you.”

He turns around quickly, giving me a baffled, annoyed look. The last thing he wants to do right now is sing. I shift my gaze toward Rina with silent significance.

She’s huddled beside me, hugging her knees to her chest. She’s staring around at the darkening landscape like it might be hiding monsters. “Do you want to sing, Daddy?” she asks in a wobbly tone.

Zed’s expression softens. With another quick glance around, he puts down his gun and kneels next to his daughter. “We can sing a couple of songs if you want. Which one do you want to start with?”

Rina brightens immediately, picking out a few of her favorites of the old country songs Zed sometimes sings to her. He’s not a musician, but he’s got a pretty good voice, and he remembers all the words.

I never listened much to country music, but I know all these songs by now too, so I sing along.

Evidently encouraged by his daughter’s improving mood, Zed relaxes too. I smile as I watch him pull Rina to her feet and go through the steps of a two-step with her.

She giggles and stumbles and tries to sing the words of the song at the top of her lungs.

I make regular scans of our surroundings, just to be safe, but the world is every bit as empty as it was twenty minutes ago.

We’re entirely alone.

When we finish that song, Rina claps her hands and does a little jig of excitement.

Zed catches my eyes, smiling for real. Warm and genuine and intimate. It makes my heart jump and then race.

“One more, Daddy? Can we do one more?”

“Yes. One more, and then you have to go to bed.”

“I don’t have a bed.”

“Tonight you can sleep on the seat of the truck. It will almost be like a bed.”

I immediately like this idea since the doors of the truck can be locked, which means she’ll be safer there than anywhere else.

Rina appears excited by the plan. “Oh, that will be good! But one more song first!”

“Yes, one more song. Which one do you want?”

She thinks for a minute, determined to pick a good one. Then she finally bursts out, “Old men talk about the weather!”

I chuckle at her improvised name for the old Randy Travis song, which has always been one of her favorites.

Zed nods soberly. “That’s a good one.” He extends his hands so he can dance with Rina again, and she happily obliges. They dance their way through the first half of the song.

Then Rina abruptly pulls away and exclaims, “Now you dance with Essie!”

I start to object since dancing really isn’t my thing and the girl was having such fun. But Zed doesn’t hesitate to come over to where I’m sitting. He reaches a hand out toward me.

“You dance too, Essie!”

With a sigh and a shake of my head, I let Zed pull me to my feet, then swing me into position with one hand on my waist, the other clasped in mine.

Rina cheers and applauds.

Zed starts singing the song where he left off, taking me through the steps of the dance. I follow his lead as best I can, and soon I don’t even care if I’m moving in the right way.

He’s looking down at me, a smile in his eyes. His face is handsome and familiar in the flickering light of the fire, but it also feels entirely new. It’s like he’s singing right to me. Telling me he’ll love and be faithful to me forever.

I might actually melt away in response to it.

When the song ends, Rina jumps up, still clapping, and runs over to hug both of us around the thighs at the same time.

I laugh, pleased with this distraction from the way I was feeling just now.

I suspect Zed is still watching me as I help Rina wash up, change into pajamas, and then get settled with a blanket and pillow on the bench seat in the trunk cab.

For some reason, my anxiety surges, rising to fill my chest and clench in my throat. I pat the passenger side door where Rina is safely tucked away for the night and then hug my arms across my chest.

“Should we take turns keeping watch?” I ask, mostly for something to fill the silence.

“You might as well get some rest. I wasn’t planning to sleep tonight.” He says it matter-of-factly, as if it’s a simple statement of fact. One I could have no argument about.

I frown at the tone as much as the words. “You can’t stay up all night. There’s always a risk of danger, but one of us will be enough to stand guard and watch for it. We can take turns and both get a little sleep.”

“You’re assuming I can sleep.”

“Yes, I’m assuming that. You’ve got to be exhausted.”

“I’m fine.”

He doesn’t look fine. He looks tense again—the soft affection of earlier only a temporary interlude.

I understand what anxiety can do to a person, even someone whose reason and rational thinking is telling them otherwise. I understand it better than most. But I’m not used to Zed acting like this. He’s always been calm. Unflappable. As solid as a rock.

Pushing down my frustration, I say softly, “Well, I’m fine too. And I like to do my part of the responsibilities. So why don’t you take the first shift, and I’ll get some sleep. You can wake me up about halfway through the night so you can close your eyes for a few hours.”

He meets my eyes with a brief nod that relieves me. He’s going to be reasonable after all.

“Okay. Good.” I shift from foot to foot. “I thought today went pretty well. Didn’t you?”

“Yes. It was as good as we can hope for.”

“And tomorrow we’ll start walking. Obviously, we’ll have to go slower on foot, but there’s no reason to assume we’ll come across any more trouble than we did today.”

“Right.” He doesn’t sound particularly convincing, but I’m not entirely convinced myself.

It is what it is. This trip is never going to be safe. We have to do it anyway.

I miss that look in his eyes earlier when we were dancing. I want to see it again. But I’m also slightly relieved that it’s gone since the memory of it still gives me jitters. I have no idea what else to say, and Zed is clearly not in a chatty mood. So I clear my throat. “Okay. I guess I’ll get some sleep.”

“Sounds good.”

He helps to make a space for me in the bed of the truck. It’s not as secure as the cab, but it’s better than the ground. I get into a sleeping bag and put my head on a pillow. Buddy curls up at my feet like normal.

I close my eyes. The world spins behind my eyelids the way it sometimes would after long road trips in my childhood. I breathe through it and try to clear my mind.

I’m tired enough for sleep to catch up to me eventually, and I drift off visualizing the look on Zed’s face as we were dancing.

When I wake up, it’s almost dawn.

Zed didn’t wake me up after all.

This isn’t a good start to the morning, and it doesn’t improve as the day progresses. Zed is tense and silent. Rina is tired and kind of crabby, which is entirely uncharacteristic of the girl and surely a symptom of undefined nerves. Even Buddy seems rather downcast. Maybe he’s getting tired, or maybe he’s picking up on our negative vibes. I do my best to stay upbeat, but I’m not used to being the person who cheers the other two up. By midmorning, I’m exhausted from the effort of keeping my voice cheerful and coming up with topics of conversation.

Eventually I give up.

The hike might have been less discouraging if we weren’t driving yesterday. The contrast in how much slower we’re going today is definitely a downer. We stick to the same back roads we were following yesterday, and our route is just as empty of towns and other people.

It’s like we’re entirely alone in the world.

Rina gets tired quickly, so Zed gives her breaks by letting her ride on top of all our stuff in the cart. He and I take turns pushing the cart while the other one has a gun at the ready in case we run into danger. He did a good job putting the cart together. It pushes as easily as something so heavy can move, and it’s mostly going uphill that’s difficult. A couple of times, we go up hills so steep that it takes both of us to get the cart up, but most of the time we manage without a problem.

Midafternoon we’re taking a break and eating a snack while Zed and I study our map. There’s a small town coming up on the road. Like all the others in this region, it’s likely to be abandoned, but that means there will be empty houses. Shelter.

We decide to head to that town and, if there are any standing structures, stay there for the night.

Having a goal helps. Rina keeps talking about what kind of house we might find there and whether there might even be a bed to sleep in. I keep up with her stream of conversation because Zed is still too quiet.

I don’t like it. It worries me. I’m the one who occasionally falls apart. He never has. Not even once.

We reach the town just before sunset, and it’s a relief because the temperature is dropping quickly. It was a very small town. A few blocks of houses and one main street with a post office, a laundromat, and a Dollar General. While the buildings are in disrepair, all of them are still standing. The store has been cleaned out, just like the food and supplies from the houses. But the houses still have furniture, and we find one two-story house with upstairs rooms that still have made beds. The windows and doors are intact, so they’ve been kept safe from the elements and will be perfectly comfortable for us to spend the night in.

We can close and bar the door, and then maybe we can all get some sleep.

Rina is excited about our discovery, her mood only dampened because her father isn’t talking to her much. I try to give him significant looks like I did last night, indicating that his mood is upsetting Rina. But tonight he’s even more jittery, and he’ll barely meet my eyes.

I try not to get angry with him. He’s grounded me for all these years when my anxiety got out of control. He’s allowed to have a couple of bad days in a very difficult situation.

So I focus on Rina, creating a game over setting up a table and chairs, making it pretty with things we find in the house, and preparing our dinner. She and I have a good time, and Zed deigns to sit down to eat with us.

But when Rina asks for music, he tells her not tonight. He gets up and stalks out of the house.

Vibrating with annoyance, I peer out the window to see what he’s doing. He hasn’t gone far. He’s standing by the front door with his gun, scanning the darkening surroundings.

The idiot is planning to stand guard all night again, after getting no sleep last night.

I want to shake him. I really do.

“Is Daddy okay?” Rina asks. She followed me to the window and is looking out like me.

“Yes, he’s fine. He just wants to focus on keeping watch.”

“Are there bad people out there?” She reaches up to take one of my hands in hers.

I squeeze it. “There’s always a chance that we might accidentally run into bad people, but we haven’t seen any yet on our trip. It seems pretty quiet out there. Your daddy just wants to be careful. He wants to make sure you’re always safe.”

“You need to be safe too.” She gazes up at me almost beseechingly.

“Yes, we all need to be safe. He’s trying to keep us all safe.”

“Is that why he’s upset?”

“I don’t think he’s really upset.”

“He’s upset. He wasn’t upset like this at home.”

“I know. But things are different as we travel. It’s a little harder for all of us. It won’t stay like this.”

“Maybe we should have stayed home.”

“No. We made the right decision to go find a place with more food and more people. Your daddy knows it too.”

“Okay.” She breathes deeply through her nose. In and out. In and out. “Can I go back upstairs and make my bed pretty?”

“Yes, that’s a great idea. Go and find all the prettiest blankets and throw pillows you can to make your bed pretty. Your daddy and I will be up soon to tuck you in.”

“Okay.” Her mood has shifted quickly, as it often does. And she’s smiling as she runs back up the stairs to the room we picked out to sleep in tonight.

I watch until she’s upstairs, and then I go outside. Stride over to where Zed is poised tensely.

“You’re upsetting Rina.”

He blinks, like it takes him a minute to come back to wherever his mind was focused. “What?”

“You’re upsetting Rina. Being this tense and standoffish and uptight. She sees it, and it’s worrying her. Can you try to relax a little?”

He makes a face, and I can clearly see his first instinct is to be annoyed with me, but he tries to swallow it down. “This isn’t the time to relax.”

“I know we need to be careful, but we don’t need to scare poor Rina to death. And you don’t need to tie yourself into knots.”

“I’m not scaring Rina. And I’m not tying myself into knots.” His eyes narrow. He’s having less success now in swallowing down his annoyance at me.

“Well, you’re doing something, and it’s not like you at all. I’m supposed to be the anxious one. You’re supposed to be—”

“I’m supposed to be what,” he grits out when I break off my words.

I shake my head. “You’re not usually this uptight. I understand being on guard, but can you at least try to put on a better face for Rina? Maybe after you get some sleep tonight, you’ll feel—”

“I’m not planning to sleep tonight.”

“Damn it, Zed! What’s the matter with you? You’ve got to get some rest.”

“I’ll rest when we’re safe.”

“We might not be safe! Not for a while. You still need to take care of yourself so you can take care of us—of Rina, I mean. We’ll be okay in that room upstairs. We can barricade the door and defend ourselves if anyone comes by.”

He breathes loudly for a minute, holding my gaze and clearly displeased with me. “Someone needs to stand watch.”

“Fine. We’ll take turns. I’ll take the first watch today since you didn’t even bother waking me up last night.”

“I’m not going to let you—”

“You don’t get to make decisions for me. Especially since you can’t make good decisions for yourself at the moment. You need to take your own advice to me every time I have an anxiety spiral. Try to let go as much as you can.”

“I can’t let go right now,” he says thickly. “This isn’t the same thing.”

“Maybe not, but we’re still in a situation we can’t control, and you’re holding on so tight it’s just going to make things worse.” I reach out and put a hand on his chest, feeling almost desperate to try to get through to him. “Please, Zed.”

He jerks away with an awkward step.

It really hurts my feelings, but I try not to react. “Zed—”

“Just stop it.”

I’m so angry and upset I hug my arms to my chest tightly. I can’t speak for a minute. Then I finally say gently, “Rina is getting a bed ready to sleep in. She wants us to tuck her in.”

“You can do that.”

“She wants you to do it too.”

“I can’t—”

“You can at least fucking kiss your own daughter good night,” I snap. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Zed stares at me in astonishment.

I don’t normally lash out like that. Not even verbally. But he’s driving me crazy right now. I take a breath. “I’m going to stretch my legs. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“You can’t go wandering off—”

“I’m walking a few houses down. I have my gun. I’m not doing anything stupid.” I snarl at him. “Certainly not any stupider than you’re being right now.”

I mutter that last thing as I walk away.

Despite my anger, I’m definitely not going to do anything to put me or Zed or Rina at risk. So I’m as good as my word and just walk partway down the block, sticking close to the houses although there’s no sign of another soul around.

The time alone helps me contain my emotions, and I’m feeling calmer and more reasonable when I start back.

As soon as I approach the house, I know something’s wrong. I can feel it in the air.

And when I get into sight of where I left Zed, I see why.

Two men have appeared out of nowhere. They’ve both got shotguns, and they’re aiming them at Zed. Zed has his rifle propped on his shoulder and aimed too, but it’s two against one, so he’s clearly at a disadvantage.

“It’s just me,” he’s saying, his voice hoarse but steady. “I’m alone. I’m just passing through, and I don’t have anything you might want.”

“We heard talking. You aren’t alone.”

“I was talking to myself. Do you see anyone else around?”

I shoot a silent prayer that Rina will stay upstairs and not come running out to see what’s going on. I can picture it happening so clearly, and the vision makes me so sick I almost gag.

If anything bad happens to Rina, Zed and I would both already be dead. That’s an absolute, unalterable fact.

Right now we have one advantage, and it’s that the men don’t know I’m here. I slip around the house closest to where Zed’s standing so I can approach unnoticed from the other side.

Zed keeps them talking. I can hear his voice and their harsh replies. I’m not actually sure what they’re waiting for, but the fact that he’s armed probably makes them hesitate.

Even if they kill him, he could kill one of them first.

When I’m in position, I pull out my gun and aim it at the man closest to me. Neither of them sees me, but Zed does. His eyes barely flicker in my direction, but he must get an accurate sense of what I’m doing.

He slowly shifts his aim to the other man.

Then he gives a brief nod.

I fire on the man I’ve got in my sights, and he fires at the other.

Both of them drop dead before they can pull the trigger.

With a weird little sob, I lower my handgun and stumble over toward Zed, who’s leaning down to check the bodies and kick the shotguns away just in case.

He grabs me with one arm when I reach him and pulls me into a hard hug.

I didn’t actually know I was running for that hug, but I was.

I bury my face in his shirt, breathe in the familiar scent of him, and squeeze him as hard as he’s squeezing me.

“Where did they even come from?” I ask when I finally pull away.

“I have no idea. I had no hint of their presence until they were there, aiming guns at me. Thank God you got pissed at me and stormed off, or I’m not sure what we would have done.”

I make another weird sound—half giggle, half sob. Then I give him one more squeeze before I step back.

When we go back into the house, Rina is nowhere in sight. We both call out a few times before she responds.

She heard the gunshots and, being well trained by her father, ran into the bathroom and hid in the old tub under a blanket. She’s scared but otherwise all right. “Did you and Essie take care of the bad guys, Daddy?”

“Yes. We did. It’s all safe now, and it’s time to go to bed.”

“Will you get in bed with me, Daddy?” Her color is good, and she’s not trembling or jittery. But her eyes are clearly still worried.

“Of course I will.”

So we tuck Rina into bed and Zed climbs in beside her, staying on top of the covers since he’s still dirty and sweaty. He talks to her in a soft, soothing murmur. I smile down at them, my heart flopping uncomfortably in my chest.

When the sappy emotions grow too strong, I catch Zed’s eye and make a head gesture toward the door to let him know I’m going back outside.

I drag the dead bodies away so they won’t still be there when we leave the house in the morning. Then I walk the perimeter with my gun at the ready, but there’s no indication of another living creature around.

Eventually I go back into the house and walk up the stairs to check the bedroom. Rina is sound asleep, resting her head on her dad’s shoulder.

Zed is sound asleep too, one of his arms wrapped around the girl.

The same tenderness I experienced earlier tightens, rises in my chest. I gaze down at them for a long time.

I’m utterly exhausted and am tempted by the second twin bed in the room, but I restrain the impulse.

I take position in the hallway outside the room at the top of the stairs. It’s the only route for an attacker to get to us. I stay on guard until more than half the night is over.

I’d stay awake until dawn the way Zed did last night, but eventually I can barely keep my eyes open. So I wake him up in the wee hours so we can switch off.

He smiles at me groggily as he opens his eyes.

It’s been a long day and an even longer night, but it ended okay.

7

THE NEXT MORNING, we get going shortly after the sun rises.

It’s a lot colder than it was the day before, so we pull coats out from our packed clothes. So far, the skies are partly cloudy, but there isn’t any rain. Hopefully it will stay that way.

We were able to make about three-fourths of our trip in the pickup, but we still have at least three or four more days of walking, since with Rina and our cart of belongings, we can’t sustain a very fast pace.

If it starts to rain or sleet, we’ll get slowed down even more.

The day passes with an exhausted, dreary kind of sameness. I try to keep up an optimistic chatter with Rina, but even she seems to be running out of rambles about the friends she hopes to meet and the nice house she hopes we’ll find. I try to think of more books to summarize for her, but the storytelling is tiring and mentally taxing, so I can’t keep it up for long stretches of time.

Much of the afternoon passes in silence with Rina dozing on top of the cart and Zed and I focusing on walking as fast as we can.

The one bit of luck we’ve had is in avoiding settlements and other travelers. We only twice encounter other people, and both times are harmless passers-by who pull out their guns the way we do but courteously give us wide berth.

Otherwise, it’s only us on the roads.

We find an old farmhouse to spend the next night in, and the following day passes in much the same way. That night, we’re in the middle of a long stretch of wooded hills, and there are no houses or building structures to be found. So we have no choice except to camp.

Being in the middle of nowhere, there’s not much chance of anyone coming across us—accidentally or on purpose. So our main source of danger will be hungry predators in the woods.

At least animals don’t kill just to kill.

Zed is tense and on guard—as he’s been ever since we left the cabin—but he makes an effort to chat with Rina and get her laughing. We have a decent evening around a campfire and then put Rina to bed in our small tent.

I could probably fall asleep if I lie down, but I don’t want to yet. I undo my french braids and brush out my hair because I haven’t done that since we left the cabin.

Zed is sitting on the ground, leaning against the thick trunk of an old oak. He’s got his gun ready next to his right hand, and his eyes are moving over the deep shadows of the woods around us.

Maybe he can see more than I can. I can’t see anything at all in the dark.

“What do you think?” I ask, still brushing out my hair with the hairbrush I’ve had since I was in college. It’s held up pretty well considering. “It seems to me that tomorrow we might be getting into the region Mack and Rachel and them were talking about.”

“Yeah. We don’t have exact mileage, and the map they drew might not be perfectly accurate, but that’s what it seems to me too.”

“I know you’ll say I always have to worry about something, but I can’t help thinking, what if they don’t welcome us in? People have gotten defensive and territorial. They don’t respond well to strangers.”

“I thought about that too. But the folks we met were certainly friendly, and if even some are like them, we should be okay.” Zed shakes his head, staring out into the woods. “We’ll just have to take it as it comes. We’ll figure something out either way.”

“Do you have any ideas? About figuring something out if they don’t want to take us into their community?”

“We’ll try a different one. It sounded like there were several distinct settlements in the area.”

“Yeah. There should be some variety about who we might settle with. Before you showed up that day, they were telling me about a group of women fighters who travel around helping people. Both Anna and Rachel were part of that group for a while.”

He lifts his eyebrows. “You interested in joining them?”

“No. No, of course not. There’s no way I’m leaving you and Rina. I just thought they sounded cool.”

“Yeah. Sounds like there are some good people around here. We’ll be okay.”

I study his face. It’s calm, unrevealing, but his tone is more resigned than confident. “Are you worried at all?” I ask very softly.

He shifts his gaze to meet mine. “Are you serious? I’m scared shitless.”

Letting out a breath, I smile a little. “Me too.”

“I know I was scaring Rina for the first couple of days, so I’ve been trying to tamp it down. But I still feel the exact same way. I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life.”

Maybe it isn’t rational, but his admission makes me feel so much better. I scoot over next to him. I haven’t rebraided my hair yet, but I set down my hairbrush and reach over to squeeze his arm. “Me too.”

He wraps his left arm around me, keeping his right one free to grab his gun if necessary. “You’re doing better than I am in handling it.”

“It’s funny.” I lean my head against his shoulder, taking comfort in the warmth of him, the feel of him, the earthy scent of him. “I’ve been anxious for so long about so many things, trying to get a mental hold of everything that’s likely to happen to us. But now that we’re actually doing it, I might be a little better. It’s always making the big decision that’s the hardest thing for me. Once it’s made, my mind kind of settles itself around it. I don’t know if that makes any sense.”

He plays with a bunch of my loose hair with his fingers. “We’re different. I always felt pretty good back at the cabin. Like I had things mostly under control and I could manage to take care of Rina and keep both of you safe. Maybe it wasn’t all that different there, but it felt that way. Out here, it’s all spiraling out of my control. I don’t know if I can do it.” His voice is soft, natural. But it thickens and breaks on the last few words.

My chest aches. I burrow against him. “Do what?”

He shifts to look down at my face, his voice slightly surprised as he says, “Take care of you. Protect you… you both. It feels like it’s my job. My main responsibility. And I can’t stand the idea that I…” He shakes his head and doesn’t finish the sentence.

I take a few shaky breaths, pulsing with emotions so intense I can barely process them. “It’s my responsibility too. To take care of myself. And help with Rina. You’re not doing it alone, Zed.”

“Yeah.” He’s staring back into the woods now, but he tilts his head down to rub his cheek against my hair. “I know. If I was doing it alone, I’d’ve had a breakdown for sure.”

I giggle at his dry tone and snuggle closer. I like sitting with him like this. It feels like we’re together.

For real.

Not just reluctant roommates.

But partners. A couple.

I never knew I wanted that before, but I do.

I do.

“Well, we’re not there yet, but there’s a reasonable chance things will get better. If we can settle in one of those communities, we won’t be alone anymore. We’ll have other people. Maybe we can have some sort of decent life.”

“Yes. That’s what I’m hoping.”

“If we can do that, what kind of life would you want?” I’m not sure how I get the courage to ask the question. Just that it feels like we’re in a safe, intimate bubble right now that the rest of the world can’t penetrate.

“What kind of life?”

“Yes. What would you want for yourself?”

“Honestly, I don’t even know. I’ve never been very ambitious. Even before Impact, the main thing I wanted was to be able to take care of the people I love and enjoy life as much as I can.”

I smile, oddly affectionate. “You sure did a lot of hanging around watching sports and drinking beer back then.”

He laughs. “I was enjoying life. And I didn’t have many responsibilities. I did work hard at my job.”

“I know you did. I know that now. And you were looking for… for someone to share your life with. Weren’t you?”

“Yes.” He idly strokes my hair. “I wanted a wife and family. I didn’t have much luck in that department back then, but I wasn’t just playing around.”

“I didn’t realize that before, but I’ve put it together now.” It’s hard. It’s so, so hard. But I make myself say lightly, “Maybe you can still have that.”

He grows still. Very still. He doesn’t answer immediately, and I start to wonder if I pushed too far, assumed too much.

Right now I want to be the woman in Zed’s life. Part of his family. But he’s never said anything hinting he feels the same way. Even the sex we’ve had has been hot as hell but not sweet and intimate.

I have no reason to hope I could ever be the woman in his life.

“Do you…?” His voice is so soft and stretched I can barely hear it.

I adjust so I can see his face. “Do I what?”

“Do you want that?”

It’s my turn to freeze, trapped by an overwhelming rush of nerves and emotion.

He pulls his arm back. “You always seemed so independent. Like you didn’t need a man. Or anyone really. Even back then.”

I lick my lips. “I guess I was. I was never one of those girls who daydreamed about a cozy domestic life. I wanted…” For no good reason, I have to swallow over a hard lump in my throat. “I wanted to be an astronaut.”

He makes a weird breathy sound and pulls me back into a half hug. “I know you did. I’m sorry you’ll never get that now.”

I’m on the verge of crying for no good reason. I thought this was a loss that was years old, but it’s hitting me hard right now. “It’s okay. It was always a long shot even back then.”

“Still.”

“Still.” I sigh and give a little nod. “Everyone had their dreams and their life plans crushed six years ago when the asteroid hit. That’s one of many things it wiped out. So many hopes and dreams. But we’re still here. You and me and Rina have made it this far. So all we can do is build a different sort of life. It doesn’t mean it has to be bad.”

“So what do you see for yourself then? If we can settle somewhere safe?” Zed is back to fiddling with a few strands of my hair.

“I don’t know. I’ll find a job to do. I’m good at a few things.”

“You’re great at a lot of things. You’re great at scavenging. And working in the garden. And teaching Rina.” He pauses. “Maybe you could teach? You’ve always been so smart. Would you like that?”

“I… I don’t know. I’d never thought about it. But I’m sure if they’ve set up schools, they already have people to do the teaching. I really won’t mind doing basic grunt work. I want to contribute. I might not ever be able to be self-sufficient again, but at least I can do that much.”

“Yeah.” He pauses so silence stretches between us for a little too long. “Do you want a… a man?”

I gulp. “I… It depends.”

“On what?”

On whether Zed wants to be that man. I’m not sure exactly when it clarified so concretely in my mind, but it has. I want Zed. And if I can’t have Zed, then I’ll be happier on my own.

“On what happens,” I conclude rather awkwardly.

He clears his throat. “Okay. I think I understand.”

Does he? Because I sure as hell don’t understand what’s happening here.

“If we can settle in a larger community,” he goes on in a thick murmur, “then you’ll have choices. There’s no hurry. You’ll have freedom to decide what you want.”

I turn to peer up at his face, but I can’t read what he’s feeling. His gaze is scanning the woods, looking for threats.

The words sound significant to me, but he doesn’t appear to be intently focused on the conversation.

He’s probably giving me a message.

Don’t read too much into the way he’s been fucking me. We’ll both have other options when we settle somewhere, and we won’t be stuck with the one person around.

It makes sense. Maybe my feelings will actually change when I have men other than Zed around.

Most of me doubts it, but I remind myself not to assume that the way I feel right now is the way I’ll feel forever.

I’ve changed so much since Impact. I’ve changed in so many ways.

I’ll keep changing.

Maybe I won’t always be in love with Zed the way I am right now.

The next day, we gradually start seeing more evidence of people living in the region. We pass a few people on the roads—all of them on foot or on bicycles. They pull out their guns and give us wide berth, exactly as we do to them, so we don’t stop to talk to them. But they look and act like regular people and not criminals.

By the time we pass the fourth small group, I experience a weird wash of relief.

We aren’t the only decent people trying to survive in this world—which is what it felt for so long at the cabin.

Maybe we won’t be alone anymore. Maybe every stranger we meet doesn’t have to be a threat.

Rina perks up too. She’s fascinated by every person we encounter and all the new sights. We eventually start coming across small farms with houses that look to be occupied and fields that have clearly been recently harvested.

There are even a few pigs and goats and chickens. Rina claps her hands and giggles at the animals.

We’re following an old county road. The old pavement is cracked and riddled with potholes, but there are obvious attempts to repair it in places, so it must be a road still used by people in this area. The road maintenance is another optimistic sign. They had to have had both the will and the resources to do that kind of work.

Even Zed visibly relaxes as we continue. By the afternoon, our mood is downright hopeful.

That’s why when we reach the top of a hill and see farther down the road, we don’t immediately retreat at the sight of a group of people hanging out beside an old RV on the side of the road.

They don’t look dangerous. They’re sitting in lawn chairs and appear to be laughing and chatting. There are a few kids playing in the nearby creek, and a couple of dogs. Buddy perks up his ears and gives his tail a tentative wag when he hears one of them bark.

I glance over at Zed. “Keep going?”

He eyes the group closely and then gives a slow nod. “Keep your gun out and don’t get too close, but they don’t look like they’re out for trouble.”

I feel the same way, so I’m alert but not particularly scared as we approach.

When we’re close enough, a middle-aged woman waves to us from a lawn chair. “Hey there! You folks need any help?”

The offer of assistance is another good sign. With a quick glance at Zed, I call out, “We’re okay, thanks.”

“You headin’ somewhere in particular? Haven’t seen you around these parts before.” The woman sounds friendly. Relaxed. Natural.

If they live here, then they probably know most of the others settled nearby. Of course we stand out as strangers.

“New Haven Farm?” I call out since that was one of the places Mack suggested we aim for. “Or a town called Halbrook?”

“Sure.” The woman gets up and takes a few steps closer to us. She doesn’t have a weapon, and none of the others leave their chairs or reach for their guns. “You’re not too far away. Couple of hours’ walk. Since you’re on foot, you can take the shortcut. You’ll keep on this road for a mile or two and then turn off. It’s kinda hard to find, so a couple of us can walk with you if you want until we get to the turnoff. From there, it’s a straight shot to New Haven, and Halbrook isn’t too far from there.”

“Oh, you don’t need to go out of your way,” I say quickly, shooting Zed another questioning glance. “I’m sure we can find it.”

“It’s no trouble at all. The men have been lazy today anyway. They need to get off their asses and stretch their legs.” She smiles at me, and it looks genuine. No sign of deceit or tension or threat.

“Traveling ain’t the safest, even round here,” one of the men say. He’s got shaggy hair and a beard that hangs halfway down his chest. “Few extra guns help, even for a couple of miles.”

I meet Zed’s eyes, and he gives a slow nod. I nod back at him—silently agreeing. There’s absolutely no reason not to trust these people. We trusted Mack, Anna, Rachel, and Cal, and that trust got us all the way here.

It feels like our journey is almost done, and we’ll end up somewhere better. Safer. More promising for the future.

Three of the men and the woman who’s been talking to us fall into step beside us on the road as we start off. Rina had been walking, but Zed hefts her back on top of the cart.

We walk about a mile, making relaxed conversation about where we’re from and the conditions there and the various communities in this area. These people talk like they’ve been living here a long time, and I continue to relax even more although I never put away my gun.

The first thing that sets off tiny warning bells in my mind is when I mention meeting Mack and they have no idea who I’m talking about.

Maybe it’s not rational. Even as sparsely populated as this region is now, there’s no reason to expect someone to know everyone else. But one thing I learned in the hours I talked to the four of them back in Givens was that Mack is at the center of an assistance network in the region, so nearly everyone settled there knows him now.

I might have shrugged it off, but the woman must see my surprise and hurries on with an excuse about how she thinks she does know who I’m talking about after all.

It’s the excuse more than the initial surprise that worries me.

I smile through the conversation so I don’t give away any suspicions, but I’m suddenly on guard in a way I wasn’t before this moment.

Zed is near the back of the group because he’s pushing the heavy cart, so I gradually slow down until I fall into step with him.

I wasn’t sure if he heard the conversation and took away from it what I did, but one glance at his face proves that he did.

The woman is still chatting in her friendly way, and I keep up my side of the conversation as much as I can.

But I no longer trust them. As the minutes pass, I get more and more nervous.

Zed, Rina, Buddy, and I need to get away.

I have a few silent conversations with Zed made up of facial expressions and discreet hand motions.

I understand what he’s trying to tell me. There’s no point in trying to pull away from them unless we have a fortified position. There are four of them and two of us. We’ll end up killed if we try to fight them now.

But if they are up to something, they’re trying to take us somewhere. And it’s likely to be some sort of choke point where they can ambush us without any of them getting hurt. They might have done this before. Maybe many times. Just wait for travelers and attack them and steal all their possessions after first pretending to be friendly.

Maybe they aren’t what we think. Maybe my anxiety is going into overdrive and making up threats where there aren’t any.

But I never doubted my decision to trust Mack, Anna, Cal, and Rachel. My instincts always confirmed my first impression.

My instincts are screaming like crazy right now, warning of danger.

Zed has been gradually slowing his pace, acting like he’s having trouble pushing the cart uphill. I hope the others would pull ahead, but they don’t. They slow down too, always flanking us.

This is wrong.

This is bad.

We need to get out of this.

But I have no idea how.

If I start shooting, I could maybe get two down before the others react, but the other two would get off shots and probably not miss. Zed and I would both be killed, and then Rina would be in their clutches. I can’t take that risk.

When we crest the hill, I can see an abandoned van with no wheels on the side of the road about halfway down. It’s parked at an angle half blocking a smaller road intersecting this one.

That’s probably the best fortified position we’re going to get.

I shoot a covert look at Zed and see that he’s had the exact same thought.

We don’t have a plan, but there’s only one real option for us here.

We need to grab Rina, get behind that van, start shooting, and hope for the best.

I wait, still pretending to respond cheerfully to the woman’s conversation. It’s incredibly hard to sound casual when I’m nearly shaking with rising nerves.

We’re walking downhill now. When we’re within a few feet of the van, Zed releases his hold on the cart and reaches out for Rina. Before he’s gotten his hands on her, I start shooting, aiming for the back of the guy who I’ve decided is probably the biggest threat of the bunch.

He falls forward as I turn my aim toward another of them and start running for the van at the same time.

Zed is a step in front of me, holding Rina with one arm and shooting with the other. His shots go wide but at least they give us cover. Buddy is at our heels and growling fiercely, evidently sensing our mood and knowing there’s danger looming.

My second shot only wings one of them, but we’ve surprised them enough to give us a chance to get in position behind the van.

The other three shoot back. There’s more of them, and our only advantage is the cover the van provides. We shoot and duck. Shoot and duck. I think I get another of them, but again it’s not a killing shot.

“There’s nothing you can do,” the woman calls out. “There’s nowhere you can go. We’ve got friends waiting down the hill. They’ll hear the shots and come to help. You’ll be surrounded before you know it. Just come out, and we won’t hurt you.”

I don’t believe her, and neither does Zed. He shakes his head, his jaw clenched tightly. He darts up and shoots a few times before ducking down.

“There’s still two on their feet,” he mutters, crouching beside me again. “And more coming.” He puts a hand on Rina’s back. She’s curled up in a ball, hiding her head the way we’ve always taught her to do whenever anyone shoots a gun.

I hear her make a little whimper, and it’s then I know what I have to do.

“Take her and Buddy,” Zed tells me. “Run as fast as you can down that road.” He nods toward the smaller road that’s intersected the one we were on. “I’ll hold them off here for long enough for you to get away.” His voice breaks. “Just take care of her. Please.”

I’m trembling. Helplessly. I have to fight to keep my teeth from chattering. But I shake my head. “No. You’re stronger. You run faster. You’ll have a better chance of getting away than me.”

“No fuckin—”

“Yes!” I hiss out the word, my eyes starting to burn with tears. “You promised me you would if we got in this exact situation! You’re her dad. She needs you.” I raise my handgun and pull the trigger a few times, shooting wild in the hopes of distracting them. I think they’ve probably gotten out of range and are waiting for their friends to arrive so they can surround us. They’ll only advance early if we try to run.

“I’m not leaving you here to die,” Zed grits out. “I’ll never do that. Not for anything.”

“You don’t have a choice.” A couple of tears stream down my cheek, but I’m too caught up in bleak adrenaline to cry for real. “We have to keep Rina safe, and you’re the one who can do that best. I can do this.” I gesture with my gun toward the van. “This is what I’m supposed to do. For her and for you. I know it now. I’ve survived this long to do this one thing. So please let me do it.”

“Esther,” he rasps, reaching out with his free hand to grab my jaw and cheek.

“You can’t be my hero here.” I swipe away a couple more tears impatiently. “But you can be hers. You have to be that for her. Save her. Do it for me.”

There’s still an unspoken argument on his face, so I rasp out, “You promised me, Zed.”

He did. And I now understand the intense conversation that evening in Givens was pointing us toward right now. This very moment.

If he’s in the position of choosing between saving me and saving Rina, he has to choose his daughter.

There’s no way to choose us both.

That’s what this world has become.

I see the anguished resignation on his face. He makes a weird choked sound and leans over to give me a hard, brief kiss.

I nod, wiping my eyes again since I need to be able to see. Rina is sobbing audibly now, still curled up in the ball.

Reaching over, I stroke her messy hair. “I love you, sweetheart. Never forget that.”

Zed makes another strangled sound as he gathers his daughter in his arms. He stands up, keeping low so he’s still behind the shelter of the van. He pulls the small pistol he always keeps in an ankle holster out and hands it to me.

Our eyes meet. We don’t say anything else.

There’s nothing left to say.

I give Buddy a quick scratch behind the ears. “You go with them. Okay? You go with them.”

The dog whines. I have no idea what he understands or what he’s going to do. He’s always stuck right at my heels, and I’m afraid that’s what he’s going to do even now.

“Now,” I say, holding a gun in each hand.

Zed sets off at a run, carrying Rina in a tight hold. As I expected, Buddy doesn’t follow. He stays right beside me as I stand up and start shooting with both guns.

They must have seen Zed running because they advance again, shooting back at me. I get the woman and she drops, but there’s one more man, and he’s shooting steadily.

Soon there will be more. Even if I manage to get this last guy, I’ll still have to stay and wait for the others, or they’ll just follow and maybe catch up to Zed and Rina. I have to hold this position until the very end to give Zed and Rina as much time as possible to escape.

There’s no hope for me here. Absolutely no hope.

Maybe they won’t kill Buddy.

I’ll never get to space like I used to dream. And I’ll never be a wife to Zed and a mother to Rina like I’ve finally realized I want.

But at least I will have done something worthwhile. Had a life worth living.

I can save them.

I keep ducking and shooting, being careful only because it will give Zed and Rina more time.

When I hear voices, I know what it will be. I don’t have any idea how many there will be, but there must be enough for the ambush that was intended. Far more than I can handle on my own.

I’ll get as many as possible and last as long as I can. Zed is strong. Fast. Smart. He’s not going to let Rina get hurt. Whatever time I can give them should be enough.

It has to be.

When more shooting starts, I’m not surprised. I do my best to return fire, only occasionally managing to aim with any accuracy. There are at least five new guns in addition to the one left of the four.

Six against one.

They’re starting to flank me.

I figure, if I’m lucky, I can last maybe three or four more minutes.

The trees rustle to my right, so I wait until I see the motion of someone moving around the van toward me. I shoot. Whoever it was goes down.

But now there’s more rustling—to my left and to my right. They’re coming around.

This is going to be it.

It should have been—by any reasonable expectation. I long ago stopped praying for miracles.

I keep my gun poised, aiming for whoever is coming around my left. Maybe I can get him before the other one on my right gets me.

Then the person on the left drops before I can get a shot off. I whirl around to shoot the one on the right, but he falls down too.

There are more shots from the other side of the van, but they’re different than before.

They’re not shooting at me. They’re shooting at my attackers.

It happens in the space of two minutes. Every one of my attackers goes down.

It’s over. Completely over. And I have no idea how.

The road and the woods around us are suddenly filled with women. A lot of them. All of them well trained and efficient and several of them smiling at me.

“Are you all right?” one of them asks me. “You’re safe now. We got them all.”

I can barely get a word out. I’m shaking helplessly from the aftermath of crisis and the crash of relief and pure confusion. “Wh-what?”

“It’s done.” It’s a different woman talking now. She’s tall and attractive with dark hair and tan skin. “You’re safe. We’ve been tracking this crew for weeks. They’ve been hitting travelers across a hundred-mile region. I’m glad we got to them in time to save you.”

“Th-thank you so much.” I try to stand up, but my knees don’t want to work. I remember what Rachel and Anna told me about that group of women fighters in this region.

This must be them.

“I’m Maria. These women and I go around and help people who need help. Are you on your own?”

I shake my head and look behind me, toward the road where Zed and Rina disappeared. Buddy rubs against my shins, so I lean down to pet him. “I’m not alone. I’ve got… I’ve got… my family.”

“Then we’ll help you get back to them.”

8

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT IS MOSTLY a blur.

Those minutes by myself behind the van stretched on forever, and they’re chiseled into my memory with laser-sharp clarity. At that moment, I knew exactly what was going to happen. It was inevitable. Predestined. Irrevocable. And it would be the end.

But it wasn’t. It’s just… not. So the world doesn’t quite make sense anymore.

I’m vaguely aware of going with several of the women from the group who rescued me, heading down the road where Zed took Rina. Buddy is still at my heels. We move as quickly as we can, and soon I’m out of breath, nearly jogging in my urgency to catch up with them again.

Zed had a lengthy head start, however. When we reach the end of the road, he’s still nowhere in sight. Of course he’s not. He’ll assume those criminals would be the only people trying to follow. He’ll stay as far away from them as possible.

I might never find him and Rina.

I’m so tired and emotionally overwhelmed and terrified by the chaotic sequence of events that I stand at the bleak crossroads and scream out his name. Over and over again.

I never expect it to work. It’s an act of final desperation. So I hardly understand what I’m seeing when after a minute or two a figure comes limping out from a thick cluster of trees.

A man. A big one. And he’s carrying a little girl.

The lowering sun is behind him so he’s nothing but a silhouette. I stare blankly until he’s close enough for me to recognize.

Then the girl calls out, “Essie! Essie!” and squirms until the man lets her slip out of his arms.

She runs full speed toward me. I brace myself to catch her. Sweep her up into my arms for a hug.

I’m shaking helplessly. Maybe I’m crying. Maybe I’m saying something. I have no idea.

“You’re okay!” Rina says hoarsely when she finally loosens her arms. “I was so scared and Daddy was crying and I didn’t know what was happening!”

“I know you didn’t.” My voice sounds strange. Barely recognizable to my own ears. Zed is still approaching, moving much slower than Rina. Much slower than normal. He’s favoring his left leg. I still can’t see his face clearly. “I’m sorry it was so scary for you. I think it’s okay now.”

“Daddy hurt himself, and we had to hide.” Rina’s blue eyes are wide, and her face is red and tearstained with a swipe of smeared dirt down one cheek. She looks behind her at Zed. “She says it’s okay, Daddy.”

I squeeze the girl again, barely able to let her go, but I look at Zed over her shoulder. He’s finally close enough to see him better.

He’s just as flushed and dirty as his daughter. Sweat is still dripping down the sides of his face. His expression is stunned. Dazed. Searching but in a vague, unfocused way.

He’s in as much of a blur as I am.

“This group of women came to save me,” I explain, as much to him as to Rina. “The ones Anna and Rachel told me about. I guess they’ve been looking for those bad people for a long time, and they got to them just in time.”

“You should have run with me and Daddy,” Rina says, squirming, so I set her back down on her feet. She runs over to hug Zed’s legs. “We were running so fast. Daddy hurt his ankle.”

“I know you were running. Your daddy was getting you away from the bad people. But they’re gone now, so we don’t have to run or hide anymore. Hopefully your daddy’s ankle isn’t hurt too bad.”

“Are you okay, Daddy?” Rina stares up at Zed’s face, obviously recognizing her father’s dazedness and not understanding it.

“I’m okay.” His voice is as hoarse and stretched as mine. “We’re all okay now.”

She hugs his legs again and then reaches up to hug me. I pick her up and carry her.

I’m not ready to let her go yet.

The rest of the day is even more of a blur. Maria and the other women escort us to the town of Halbrook. It looks like it used to be a small rural town, but over the years, they’ve fortified their perimeter with a wall and armed guards. They’ve got a community farm, an organized rotation of work duties, and daily rations.

I had no idea there were towns like this around. They adapted. Changed. Survived. And are making a life for the members of their community.

The guards know Maria, so we have no trouble being let in, and when we explain how we got to this area, it’s clear they all also know Mack, Anna, Cal, and Rachel. The folks we talk to want to know about us, but the questioning doesn’t feel adversarial. They tell us, if we’re willing to cooperate and share in the workload, we’re welcome to stay in town. Live here. Permanently.

It’s that easy. They let us stay. So we can make this town our new home.

I’ve long since lost track of days of the week, but it must be a Friday because they have music and dancing in the town square that evening, which is evidently something they do every Friday. There’s food—potatoes and roasted pork and fried apples—and it’s so much better than anything we’ve had in years that I can barely process the taste. The square is lit by dozens of torches, and they flicker brightly in the dark night.

People come over to greet us. They seem happy to meet us, and no one questions how or why we’ve come. We’re not the only ones who’ve shown up here homeless and desperate.

The best thing is when a few little girls come over to introduce themselves to Rina. They seem to range in age from four to seven. Since Rina is about to turn five, she’s right around their age.

Rina is shy with the other girls. It’s going to take her a while to get used to being around other kids. But it’s a start.

We’re too exhausted and overwhelmed to dance or sing with the music even though we recognize a lot of the country songs played on the guitars, drums, and fiddle. The festivities are still in full swing when we decide it’s bedtime.

They’re letting us stay in one of the town’s guesthouses until we can find a home of our own. We have two small bedrooms, one with two twin beds, so I lie down in the second bed in Rina’s room so the situation will feel as familiar as possible for the girl.

Zed takes the big bed in the other bedroom.

Rina talks for a few minutes after we turn off the light, asking about what will happen tomorrow and whether I think those girls will like her. She eventually falls quiet, and I lie awake, staring up at the darkness. My head is still spinning. I’m having trouble processing everything that’s happened today. And I can’t quite stop my trembling.

Buddy hopped up in bed with me and is snoring softly at the food of my bed. I wait until I hear Rina’s breathing slow and deepen. Then I wait about twenty more minutes to make sure she’s fully asleep.

Finally I get up as silently as I can and walk barefoot out of the room and into Zed’s.

I stumble a few times because it’s dark and I don’t know the layout of this house very well. But I manage not to wake Rina up, and I feel my way through Zed’s room until I bump into the bed.

“Esther?” His voice is soft. Slightly rough. But not groggy. He hasn’t been asleep any more than I was.

“Yeah.”

“Thank God.” He reaches out until he can get a grip on my arm, and with it he pulls me into the bed beside him. “I was afraid you weren’t going to come.”

“I…” I’m not sure what to say. Right now my mind is filled with nothing but the deep relief of being with Zed. The stout scent of him. The heat from his body. The urgency in his arms as he pulls me against the strong length of him. “I needed to.”

He adjusts our position, lying on his back with me mostly on top of him. It works for me. I can bury my face in the undershirt he’s wearing. I breathe fast and deep, trying to let go, trying to unclench after holding it together for so long.

He’s breathing loudly too, and one of his hands is fisted in my hair, which I brushed out and kept loose before bed.

It’s several minutes before either of speaks again.

Then he finally murmurs, “Don’t you ever, ever do that to me again.”

I know exactly what he’s referring to. The sharp agony of the moment is still shuddering at my core. “I didn’t want… We didn’t have any other choice.”

“I know that. I know it. But I had to leave you to die.” He sounds as raspy as sandpaper. He’s not fully in control of his emotions even now. “I had to… leave you.”

“To save Rina.”

“Yes, to save Rina. I know there was no other choice. I know it was probably the right thing to do. But it didn’t feel right. It felt… it felt like I ripped myself apart. I had to leave you. And then you’d be dead. And I would have just let it happen.” His body is suddenly shaking helplessly. So dramatically it scares me.

I squeeze him tightly and nuzzle his neck. “It didn’t happen. It didn’t, Zed. I’m okay. And so is Rina. And so are you.”

“I don’t feel okay.”

“Me either. I still feel like I was supposed to die back there. And now I’m set adrift. Moorless on the sea. And I have no idea what’s happening or what’s going to happen or what’s supposed to happen.”

“That’s how I feel too.” His shaking has started subsiding already. His breathing slows. He’s probably purposefully trying to relax his body.

We lie holding each other for several more minutes until my heartbeat has slowed and his tension has softened.

“I think this town seems pretty good,” I say at last. “But if we don’t like it, we don’t have to stay. There are other communities around that would take us in too.”

“This is probably the best place for Rina. I was talking to some guy about the other communities in the area earlier. There are more kids here and a more organized school. And it kind of feels like Givens to me. The same kind of small town. So I like what I see so far. But if you don’t like it—”

“I do like it. So far, it seems great. But I think we might have some options if we need them. We aren’t… we aren’t stuck.”

“Yeah. We aren’t stuck.” His arms have finally loosened, and his hand has started moving, stroking my hair and my back.

It feels so good I sigh audibly. It’s almost a moan.

Since I’m still lying on top of him, I feel his cock twitch against my middle.

An answering ache pulses between my legs. I should be too exhausted for sex, but I’m so incredibly needy right now. Everything inside me needs all of who he is.

“So maybe we’ll give it a try for a couple of weeks. Then we can decide whether we really want to stay here.”

“That sounds good. It’s so strange. To feel… safe. We’re behind walls. And armed guards. In the middle of a community. It’s so… strange.”

“For me too.” His hand has strayed farther down, and it’s cupping my bottom. It still feels idle rather than intentional. “I suppose we’ll get used to it eventually.”

“Yeah.” I shift over him. He’s getting even harder. I want to rub against it. “Zed.”

“It’s okay if you don’t feel like it. After the day we’ve had. The days. I know my dick has a mind of its own, but I get it if you’re not up for—”

“I am.” I squeeze a hand between our bodies so I can stroke his cock through his flannel pajama pants. “I want to too.”

“Thank God,” he mutters thickly, rolling us over so he’s on top. Then he kisses me deep and hard and needy. “Esther.”

We kiss for a few minutes, but neither of us have the energy for extended foreplay tonight. Soon we’re fumbling with our clothes, and then I’m parting my legs and he’s lining himself up at my entrance.

He pushes into my pussy with a long, uninhibited groan. I wrap my legs around him, and we move together, fast and raw and clumsy. I hold on to his shoulders. Then dig my nails into the back of his neck as an orgasm breaks fast and deep. I think he tries to hold out as my inner muscles clench around him, but he can’t.

He falls out of rhythm, grunting out rough words that sound like “Esther” and “Yes” and “Please.”

He pulls out at the last second with an agonized sound and comes on my belly instead. Then he collapses on top of me. It’s messy but exactly what I need.

His weight is strength and security and shelter for me. Home.

“Esther.” He’s still gasping, his face buried against the curve of my neck and shoulder.

I slide my hands up to stroke his head. “Yes. It’s… me.”

His body is fully relaxed now. I actually think he dozes off for a few minutes before he jerks back awake and rolls off me, getting up to dampen a towel and wipe off my stomach and between my legs.

When he climbs back into bed, he pulls me against him again, looser and more comfortably this time. I expect him to fall back to sleep. I should sleep too, but my mind is still racing.

There’s too much I don’t know. Too much I need to process and make orderly in my head. Line up my worries and give them their place. Take control of my mental chaos so I can settle.

I’ve barely begun when Zed says into the dark of the room, “I’m not going to… I mean, I’m gonna be good.”

“Good?”

“Careful. Not selfish.”

“Not selfish?” I’m so confused and suddenly so scared that I push myself up so I’m blinking down at him.

I can’t see him clearly enough in the dark. Not nearly clearly enough.

“You’ve got…” He clears his throat. “We’ve got options now. We’re not stuck. Not in this town and not with… with each other.”

It hurts so much I make a breathless sound—like someone slammed a fist into my gut.

“I know tonight is different,” he goes on, as if he’s forcing himself to spit out the words. “We’re both kinda… needy. After everything that happened. But I’m not gonna get in your way. I saw a bunch of single men around. Maybe one of them you’ll… you’ll like.”

“Y-yeah.” My throat aches from the effort it takes to get the one word spoken.

This is it. He’s finally talking about what’s happened between us. And it isn’t some kind of miraculous confession of true feelings.

He’s trying to let me down easy. He might as well be slicing open my chest.

“So we should be careful. When we’re out in town. People are gonna think we’re a couple, and we got to be sure we don’t… we don’t let ’em.”

I try to say something coherent. Can’t.

He shifts restlessly. He’s holding on to a fistful of my hair again. “I know neither one of us are much for… for blurting out how we feel. But I wanted to let you know. As best I can. I want you to be… to be happy. To have a good life. So I don’t think we should act like we’re… we’re a real couple.” He makes a weird choked sound. “When we’re not.”

The pain of it pulses in my chest, my throat, my ears, behind my eyes. The world blurs over again like it did after the unexpected rescue earlier today.

But this time isn’t a miraculous reprieve.

It’s the end of dreams I’ve only barely acknowledged I was holding on to.

But now I’ve lost them. I’ve lost him when I could hardly even admit how much I want him.

“Okay,” I finally manage to say after way too long. “That makes sense.”

It’s a ridiculous thing to say, but it’s what I’ve always done. Never ask for anything. Pretend life is okay when it’s not. Protect myself behind a composure that isn’t real. Don’t admit to weakness.

I’m never going to be anyone else.

I gently pull out of his embrace and roll over to the edge of the bed.

“What are you doing?” He reaches out to grab my arm.

I gape at him through the darkness. “You said we shouldn’t… act like a couple. I was going to my own bed.”

“Stay tonight,” he murmurs thickly. “At least stay with me tonight.”

I want to so much that tears fill my eyes, but I manage not to let them fall. Not yet. “No.” I can’t believe I sound as calm as I do. “You were right. If we want to find other… other people, we need to do better.”

I understand everything now, and I can see so clearly how it happened. Why Zed fell into bed with me when I’ve never been the person he wants. So I make myself say all of it. “We shouldn’t fuck each other, just because we’re there.”

My voice breaks on the last word, so I force myself to my feet. I take a few steps toward the door.

“Esther.”

The one word stops me. Yet again, my heart reaches out toward hope I know better than to believe in.

“Thank you. For everything. Rina and I would never have made it without you.”

The tears are falling now, streaming down my face. But it’s dark and my back is to him, so maybe he won’t see. “Same here. Thank you.”

With that, I’m finally able to leave the room.

I sleep for a few hours because I’m exhausted, but I don’t feel rested the next morning. I feel like I did every morning after someone I love died.

I wash up and dress in silence. Rina is still sound asleep in her bed, and I lean over to kiss her forehead before I leave the room. Buddy comes with me, his tail swishing and his eyes bright.

At least he’s excited to start the day.

Zed is already up, sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs on the front porch. He straightens up when he sees us come out the front door. “Hey.”

Buddy runs over to greet him, and Zed scratches the dog behind the ears.

“Hey.” I manage a smile, but I can’t quite meet his eyes.

“They’ve got breakfast in the dining hall. Down there near the main square. If you want, you can go get some, and I’ll get Rina up in a little while and go eat with her.”

I nod and smile. Nod and smile. “Okay. Sounds good.”

I walk away before I say something else—something that will reveal how heartbroken I feel—or burst into tears again.

Zed suggested eating breakfast that way so we don’t give the impression we’re together. If we all go to the meal together, people will assume we’re a family.

But now it’s becoming clearer that I might not only lose Zed. I might lose Rina too.

Maybe he wants another woman to be a mother to her.

She’s never really been mine.

I go through the motions of walking to the large building they use as a dining hall and getting in line and getting a plate of eggs and bacon. I look around for somewhere to sit. I don’t know anyone.

A friendly woman waves me over and invites me to sit at their table. I meet her family and the other few people who are seated with them. I try to participate in the conversation and remember names and faces.

But I can’t focus. I can barely keep my composure. They see my state of mind but assume it’s exhaustion and disorientation after the long trip.

That’s a good enough excuse.

After about twenty minutes, Zed and Rina arrive. Rina looks around the big room and all the people with her eyes huge and wide. I assume she’s trying to take it all in, but her gaze eventually finds me, and she brightens like the rising sun. She was looking for me. She waves happily and calls out a greeting.

I wave and smile back at her. I think she would run over to see me, but Zed herds her into the food line.

When they get their plates, he leans over to say something into Rina’s ear. Instead of coming over to sit in the empty chairs next to me, they walk across the room and sit at another table.

He told me last night what he was going to do. I can’t expect anything else. Besides, one of the little girls Rina met last night is at the table they join. That girl can be a friend to Rina.

She needs friends.

And I need… It doesn’t matter. I’ll be okay on my own.

I try to continue the friendly conversation with the people I’ve met, but the awareness of Zed and Rina sitting across the room—away from me—grows in my mind until it’s all I can see.

It’s too much.

It hurts like a wound.

Nothing will ever be the same.

I’ve lost everything in the world that’s ever meant anything to me, and now I’m entirely alone.

Except for Buddy. He’s sitting like a good dog beside me and eyeing each bite I take, so I give him my last bite of bacon.

At least he hasn’t left me.

When the tears can’t be held back, I stand up abruptly, mumbling out an excuse about needing to stretch my legs.

I try to walk out at a normal pace, but a sob lodges in my throat. I half run, half stumble to the door so at least I don’t burst into tears in front of everyone.

Once I’m outside, I have no idea where I am. I came out a different door than I entered, and I haven’t gotten the layout of the town in my head yet. I don’t know which direction the little guesthouse is.

I don’t know this place at all.

There’s a bench a short distance away, and it’s empty. My legs aren’t holding me up anymore, so I head for the bench and collapse there. Buddy followed me out and whimpers at my feet.

I’m not a crier. I’ve never been one—and certainly not in public. But I have no home. Nowhere to go. And I’ve lost my family and am surrounded by strangers.

I lean over and sob into my knees.

There’s a vague background murmur from the sounds of the town waking up and going through their morning duties, but over it there are footsteps approaching. Moving fast and growing louder. Then my nose is hit with a familiar earthy scent.

Then I hear his voice. “Esther. Esther!”

Damn it all to hell. Zed must have followed me out here.

“I’m okay,” I choke out, still bent over and hiding my face. “I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not. You’re falling apart.”

“No, I’m not!” I pick up my head and glare at him through the tears. “I’m not falling apart.”

He’s standing over me, gazing down, his expression stunned and aching and bewildered. “Stop it,” he bursts out.

I blink. “What?”

“Stop lying to me and tell me what the fuck is wrong.”

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

“Yes.” He squats down and cups my face with one hand, thumbing away some of the tears. “I thought you wanted… you wanted to be here.”

“I did. I mean, I think it’s the best place for… for you and Rina.” I suddenly realize what an emotional mess I’ve become. Zed is going to feel sorry for me, and that’s the last thing in the world I want. I shake away his hand and the rest of my tears and manage to say, “I’m really okay. I think it’s probably exhaustion. And all the changes. I’ll be fine.”

“Stop it,” he grits out again, this time low and almost fierce.

For some reason, it makes me so angry I jerk back with a scowl. “Stop telling me to stop it! I’m doing the best I can. I lost everything. Everyone I loved and everything I wanted in life. I’m allowed to deal with it the only way I can!”

Zed straightens up. Blinks at me a few times. “Wh-what?”

“If I want to pretend I’m okay when I’m not, then I’m allowed to do that! If you don’t want to be with me, you don’t get to act like I’m supposed to tell you the truth.”

“If I don’t want to…” He repeats the words in a rough whisper. He’s frozen, only his eyes moving, searching my face urgently. “What the hell is happening here?”

“What do you think is happening?” I snap back. I don’t understand his reaction, and it’s making me even more upset. “I get it. I do. You fucked me because there was no one else, and it was better than not fucking anyone. You didn’t know I’d get feelings and mess everything up. I get it. But you and Rina are the only people in the world I have. And I…” Damn it. Tears are streaming down my cheeks again. “And I love both of you. I can’t just put all that aside because you want to be freed up now to find… to find another woman—”

“Oh sweet Jesus,” he breathes, standing up, taking a step back and then forward, and then kneeling on the ground in front of me. He reaches up to grab my hands, which I was using to wipe my face and eyes. “What the hell is happening here?”

I stare down, so shocked by his dramatic reaction that the momentum of my outburst slams into a brick wall. “Why are you even down there?”

He’s right in front of me, edged between my knees. And his expression is transformed with what looks like hope.

Hope.

Illuminating his face. Illuminating everything.

“Did you just say… did you just say you love me?” he rasps.

I frown. “I said I love both you and Rina.”

“Like… like family?”

I’m so confused I answer him bluntly. “Rina like family. You more like… more like…”

“More like what?”

“Like… a man.” That sounds ridiculous. What the fuck am I saying? I’m not like this. I’ve never been like this.

“You love me like a man?”

“Why do we have to keep repeating it? You already knew it, didn’t you? Why else would you have gone through that horrible conversation last night with letting me down easy and telling me how things have to be from now on? I do get it, but it doesn’t make it any easier. And if I want to fall apart, I’m allowed to fall apart. If I want to pretend I’m okay, then I’m allowed to do that too. You don’t get to act like we’re together if you don’t want to really be together with—”

I can’t finish my embarrassing ramble, because he’s reached up and pulled down my head so he can kiss me.

When he lets me go, I say, “Wait. What?”

He chuckles, his expression finally softening away from that urgent tension. “I think we must have got some wires crossed. So here it is. I love you, Esther. I’m in love with you. I’m crazy in love with you. I’ve been in love with you for at least two years.”

I make a weird squeaky sound. “Wait. What? Wait. What?”

He laughs again, holding my face with both his big, warm hands. “I love you.”

It takes a full minute for the words and their meaning to penetrate my befuddled head.

Then, “Why didn’t you tell me before?” The question comes out as a rather loud outburst.

“Because you didn’t even like me.”

“I did too—”

“Oh, no you didn’t. I’m not an idiot. I know you didn’t like me. You were stuck with me, and we had to make the best we could of the situation. And if I blurted out that somehow over the years I’d fallen in love with you, it would have made everything worse. You didn’t need all that pressure. We didn’t need to be awkward and unnatural with each other. You didn’t need to feel weird and bad that you couldn’t return my feelings. I couldn’t tell you when I first fell in love, and then I guess I just kinda… got used to hiding it.”

“But surely you could see that my feelings finally started changing too. I mean, I was one who initiated sex the first time.”

“Sure.” He’s still smiling. Still kneeling on the ground between my legs. It can’t be comfortable, but he makes no move to get up. “I started getting hopeful then, but you didn’t act much different, except when we were having sex. So I figured it was a… a better-than-nothing kind of thing.”

“That’s how I assumed you thought about me.”

“Well, it’s not. I dated lots of women before Impact, but I’ve never been in love. Not like this. Not until you.”

My tears have stopped, but my throat still feels too tight. I take a few heavy breaths. “So… so you want us to be a couple?”

“Course I do. I want you to be my… my partner, my lover, my wife, whatever you want to be called. I want to make a life with you here in this town and try to get back some of what we’ve lost. You’re already the only mom Rina has ever known, and I want you to stay that way. To be a real family with us. That’s what she wants too.”

I sniff. Nod my head repeatedly. “That’s what I want too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I want you to be my… my man, and I want both you and Rina to be mine. Really mine.”

He finally stands up so he can join me on the bench and take me in his arms. After he kisses me again, he says, “We both already are.”

A few weeks later, I return to our little guesthouse when I finish a morning shift in the community garden.

I work there four days a week. For my other two workdays, I help out with the school, teaching basic science to various ages of kids. I’d assumed they would have their school needs covered already, but they were thrilled to have someone who’d had as many higher-level science courses as I’ve had since that was a major gap in their expertise. It’s not enough teaching to be my full-time duty yet, but I don’t mind also working in the garden.

I’ve been excited about both jobs since they’re something I can contribute and be part of building a life here. I’m sure eventually they’ll get tiring and tedious, but they haven’t been that yet. It’s so different to feel safe most of the time. Be a part of a community. Because of that, nearly everything I’ve done for the past weeks has felt fresh and exciting.

Zed, Rina, and I are still living in the guesthouse, but we’ve picked out a house from the many unoccupied ones in town. It’s not in great shape after years of neglect, but we’ve already started clearing out debris and repairing damage. In a few more weeks, it should be in good enough shape for us to move into.

It’s small but has three bedrooms, in case Rina ends up getting a little brother or sister one day.

It’s about a half hour past noon, and I already had lunch, so I wash up and change out of my dirty clothes, putting on a pair of worn sweats and an oversized T-shirt. I’m worn out from manual labor all morning, and I have a couple of hours to rest before Rina gets out of school.

The girl has gotten over her initial shyness. She now has no fewer than five best friends and is happier than I’ve ever seen her.

Buddy was hanging out with me in the garden—sleeping in the shade rather than contributing to the work. But he’s happy to be back. He laps up a bowl full of water and curls into a tight ball in the old dog bed we salvaged from one of the empty houses in town.

I stretch out on the bed and close my eyes. Put a hand on my stomach.

Sometime last week, I realized that the knot of anxiety that’s been lodged there for years had stopped churning. I could barely even feel it.

It’s not gone for good. It still tightens occasionally when I get worried about the future or scared about the unknown. But it’s not a constant presence like it was. I don’t feel it now. I feel… good. Sleepy and relaxed.

I smile as I think about Zed and Rina, and I’m asleep in just a few minutes.

About an hour later, I wake up when the bed shifts, and I breathe in the familiar scent of Zed.

“What time is it?” I mumble.

He pulls me into a loose embrace. “We’ve still got an hour or so before we pick up Rina.”

“Oh. That’s good.” I nestle against him. “How was your shift?”

He’s been doing half his shifts fishing at a nearby river and the other half he spends as a guard at the perimeter wall. Since he’s new, he gets the worst guard shifts. He begins in the wee hours of the morning and doesn’t get off until now.

It makes for a strange daily schedule, but none of us have any complaints about that. He’ll eventually get put on better shifts so we can follow a more regular schedule.

“It was fine. Long and boring, but that’s the best kind.”

“Yeah.” I inhale deeply, still nuzzling at his shoulder. He must have washed up like I did before he climbed into bed. He smells more like soap than usual, and he’s wearing boxers and an undershirt.

He’s already getting hard. I can feel his erection against my lower belly.

“I was napping,” I say, sliding a hand down to squeeze his cock.

He huffs at the pressure of my hand, but there’s a smile in his voice. “I know you were. If you want to keep sleeping, we can do that.”

“It feels like you want to do something else.”

“I always want to do something else.” He kisses me, soft and sweet. “But I only want it when you want it too.”

I giggle and squeeze him again. “Well, I might be in the mood.”

He rolls over on top of me. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I kind of like our afternoons.”

We’ve been having sex a lot at this time when both of us are done with our shifts but before Rina comes back from school. It’s strange and freeing to be alone in the house together. Just the two of us. And it’s nice to not always have to be so quiet.

“I dressed all sexy for you,” I tell him dryly.

He’s already pulling down my baggy sweatpants. “Everything you wear is sexy to me. Never had anyone drive me as crazy as you do.”

“You never acted like I drove you crazy. Back then, I mean.”

“Well, you weren’t supposed to know. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t lusting after you.” He’s been kissing a line down my neck as he talks, but now he pauses and lifts his head. “I wasn’t lusting after you the whole time. Just to be clear. I mean, not when you were a teenager. Didn’t even think about you that way.”

I’m having trouble not giggling, even as I’m responding to the way he’s touching me, gazing at me. “I’m glad to hear that. That would be kind of creepy. You sure did a lot of teasing back then.”

“Well, it was the only way I could get you to come out of your shell.”

“I didn’t want to come out of my shell, so it mostly just made me mad.”

“I know it did. That’s why I kept it up. I figured mad was better than hiding away inside yourself. It wasn’t until a lot later that I started wanting more from you. I started wanting you to open up in other ways to me. Can’t believe you want that too. Still can’t believe all this is real.” He’s taken off all my clothes now and is kissing me again. Then mouthing his way down to my breasts.

“Me either,” I admit, arching up at the tug of pleasure from his lips on my nipple. “I can’t believe it’s real either.”

He takes his time turning me on and makes me come a couple of times by pumping his fingers in my pussy.

When I’ve caught my breath, I push him over on his back so I can take off his clothes. I kiss him all over until I’m sliding my mouth around his cock. He lets me take him part of the way like that but stops me before he comes. I straddle his hips and lower myself onto his erection. I feel sexy and free and oddly powerful as I ride him.

He bucks up into me as my speed accelerates. We get into it so much we shake the bed and bang the headboard against the wall. I bounce over him, my body jiggling and my cries getting louder and louder as I let go of my normal inhibitions. I come with wild abandon and have barely come down when he lets out a bellow and comes too.

He doesn’t pull out, so I feel his release inside me. Then I fall down on top of him and he wraps me in his arms.

My period is still inconsistent, so I’m not sure how fertile I am. But we’ve discussed it. We’ll be happy either way, but we’re ready for another baby if it happens for us.

We lie tangled naked together for a long time. Zed dozes off, but I don’t. When it’s time, I slip out of his arms and off the bed, pulling on some clothes so I can go pick up Rina.

School starts at nine thirty and ends in a few minutes. It’s not intensive lessons the whole time—particularly not for kids Rina’s age. She does a lot of playing and some napping and fun art projects and a little bit of learning. She loves it.

Buddy comes with me as I walk several blocks over to the school building. She’s playing with a few of her friends on the playground, but she runs over to me excitedly as soon as she sees me. She hugs me and then hugs Buddy. Takes my hand and talks the whole way home about everything she did that day.

Kids really are resilient. I was afraid it would take her months to adapt to socialization and a new living environment, but Rina has fit in with only a few difficulties and nothing we couldn’t get resolved.

“Is Daddy sleeping?” she asks when we walk into the house.

“Yes, he’s tired from working so long at the wall last night.”

“Oh. Okay.” She sniffs and looks around. I can tell she wants to run up to see her father, but I’m not going to encourage her in that. For one, Zed really does need some sleep. For another, I left him completely naked in bed.

I’m searching for something to distract her when a muffled voice comes from down the hall. “I’m awake in here if anyone wants to come say hi to me!”

Rina laughs and claps her hands and looks to me for permission before she goes sprinting down the hall to burst into the bedroom.

When Buddy and I reach the room, I’m not surprised to see Zed has put his undershirt and a pair of pajama pants on. Rina is sitting in the middle of the bed and giving him the same long ramble about the day’s events that she already gave me.

Buddy jumps onto the bed, deciding Rina’s presence is excuse enough for him to join them. I don’t want to be left out, so I stretch out with my head on the pillow.

Zed is smiling as he listens to Rina. His eyes are soft and groggy, and hers are filled to overflowing with earnest excitement.

I love them both so much I could swallow them whole.

When she finishes the details of the day, Rina asks, “Can we stay here forever, Daddy? You, me, Essie, and Buddy?”

Zed nods gravely. “Yes. If we like it, we can stay here forever.”

Rina squeals and scoots over so she can hug him. Then she hugs me and Buddy in turn. I hug her back, and Buddy accepts his with a long-suffering thump of his tail.

Then I say, “Okay. We need to let Daddy get some more rest. Do you want to come down and help me figure out what we can make for dinner with our rations?”

This appeals to Rina, so she scrambles off the bed and sprints back down the hall toward the kitchen.

Zed makes a gesture with his hand, beckoning me over. When I lean down, he murmurs, “Love you,” and gives me a brief kiss.

“I love you too.”

I’m smiling as I close the door with a quiet click.

EPILOGUE

FIVE MONTHS LATER, I’m finishing up a class I’m teaching on the solar system to fifteen students ranging in age from seven to twelve.

There aren’t enough kids in town yet to have distinct classes for each grade so we divide them into elementary, middle, and high classes and do our best. We teach subjects to classes as a whole and teach skills in a more individualized way.

It’s the best we can do given our current size and resources, and overall our kids learn as much as they’ll probably need for this new world. Some of the parents want a more purely practical curriculum, including even more of the basic life skills we currently cover. But the purpose of education has never been about simple survival. Kids should have the opportunity to think, to express themselves, to learn about the world they live in, to question, to wonder, to recognize beauty.

Maybe they won’t need to name and describe the other planets in our solar system to do the jobs they’re likely to do when they grow up, but they should get the chance to learn about them anyway.

I still only teach science three days a week. There are more babies born in town every month, however, and people from surrounding areas have started sending their children to school with us, since our school is the most established in the region. In a year or two, I’ll probably be able to teach full-time instead of splitting my work shifts between the school and the garden.

The kids ask a bunch of questions about the planets, and I answer them enthusiastically. Maybe I get too excited. Maybe I ramble on too much as so much of what I loved learning years ago comes flooding back.

But maybe being openly passionate about astronomy isn’t a bad thing. Even here. Even now.

Most of the kids are as into the lesson as I am, and the time passes quickly. As we’re finishing up, a quiet ten-year-old boy named Chuck raises his hand to ask, “How do we know all this stuff about Mars and Venus if no one has ever been there?”

“Because people studied the planets for years. They looked through super-powerful telescopes and sent probes into space to get measurements from all the planets they could. Before Impact, some people spent their whole lives working to find out as much information as possible about our planet and all the others. We don’t want to lose what they worked so hard to discover just because our lives are different now. We can still learn what they learned. We can let it make our minds bigger.”

Maybe it’s my tone, but this concluding statement visibly hits home with several of the kids. They nod soberly, eyes wide, and I’m unexpectedly touched.

Before I can follow up further, an old cow bell clangs from outside, signaling the end of the school day. A few of the kids linger to ask me more questions, so I’m later than usual walking back home.

People greet me as I go. Everyone in town knows us now. It’s strange that it’s happened so quickly.

Six months ago, the three of us were still living in our little cabin, completely alone in the world and barely holding onto the edge of survival. Then one chance meeting with four travelers changed everything.

It’s still hard to wrap my mind around our new reality. No longer waking up every morning wondering how we’ll make it through the day. Of course I still have plenty of worries. I’ve been a worrier all my life, and this world will always be more precarious than it used to be before Impact.

But there’s so much more to life now than making it through the day.

As I get closer to home, I hear Rina’s laughter and Buddy’s happy bark before I come into view of our little three-bedroom house.

The sound makes me smile, and I’m still smiling as I reach our front yard.

Zed is finishing up rebuilding the front porch while Rina and Buddy are playing fetch in the yard. Both of them run over to greet me, Rina launching herself into a hug and Buddy panting ecstatically as he waits for his ear scratches.

Rina has a shorter school day than the older kids, so Zed picks her up after his shift fishing at the river on the days I teach.

“Did you have fun teaching, Essie?” she bursts out after getting her hug. “Buddy caught the ball ten times in a row! And I read a whole book at school!”

“Wow, that sounds like impressive work from both of you. You’ll have to show me how good your reading is later today.”

“I will.” She nods in an attempt at sobriety, but her sunny smile keeps bursting out on her face. “I’m very good at it.”

“I know you are. You’re doing great for being five years old.” I glance over toward Zed, who’s still hammering a board on the porch. His eyes have been resting on us, however, and I see a fond smile on his face.

He’s been so happy lately. Visibly, openly happy about how our family and our lives are going.

“I am doing great at reading.” Rina takes my hand to pull me forward toward the porch. “Jenny said I don’t have a mommy, and I told her that I have Essie, and she said that wasn’t the same, but I said it was the same. She wouldn’t listen! Aren’t you like my mommy, Essie?”

She’s shifted topics so quickly—without any sort of transition—that the words slam into me without warning. I jerk a stop and stare down at the girl, a tightness growing in my throat.

Rina frowns up at me worriedly. “What’s wrong? Did I do bad in saying that? Daddy said it was okay because you love me just like a mommy does.”

“Of course it’s okay,” I manage to choke out, dropping to my knees so I’m closer to her level. “I do love you like a mommy does. I always have, and I always will.”

Rina’s grin bursts out again. “I love you too!” She throws herself toward me for another hug.

I wrap my arms around the girl and squeeze her tight, with effort regaining my composure.

When my gaze catches Zed’s over Rina’s shoulder, he’s completely stopped hammering. He’s gazing at us with his heart in his eyes, and it makes me almost cry again.

Rina pulls away. “So I’m gonna tell Jenny that she’s wrong and you are the same as a mommy. Today Daddy said that he’ll marry you if you say yes, but he has to ask you first. And he has a beautiful ring! You’re gonna say yes when he asks, aren't you, Essie?”

I blink, still on my knees on the ground. My gaze slants slowly over to Zed.

He’s covered his eyes with one hand. His shoulders are shaking in silent laughter. “That was supposed to be a secret, Rina.”

Rina’s eyes and her mouth grow round. “Oops! I’m sorry, Daddy.”

I make a weird sound. Half laugh and half sob.

Zed comes over to where Rina and I have halted, and he kneels down beside us. His eyes are soft. Full of feeling. He reaches into the pocket of his worn jeans and pulls out a pretty little ring, extending it toward me with a silent question on his face.

“Do you say yes, Essie?” Rina demands, grinning as she looks between me and her father.

I choke on another little sob. “Yes, I say yes.”

“Hooray!” Rina claps her hands and runs a ring around us. Buddy joins her, barking in vicarious excitement.

Zed gently reaches over to take my hand and slip the ring onto my finger. “I was gonna try to be romantic about it.”

I kiss the ring. Then lean over to kiss him too. “This is romantic to me. I wouldn’t want anything else.”

Author’s Note: I will be continuing this series for at least a couple more books. The next book will be about a new couple (probably releasing in May or June), and the sixth book will be Mack and Anna’s.

ABOUT CLAIRE KENT

Claire has been writing romance novels since she was twelve years old. After teaching English at the university level for several years, she started writing full-time under two different pen names. She lives in Virginia.

Her early books are sexy contemporary romances filled with heat and real emotion, but with the Hold series she transitioned to science fiction romance. Her current books are steamy post-apocalyptic romance set in the near future after a global catastrophe. They feature smart, resilient women trying to survive in a new chaotic world and falling in love with strong, gruff, taciturn men.

Claire also writes softer contemporary romances as Noelle Adams (noelle-adams.com), and the best way to reach her is to send an email to her Noelle Adams address (noelle.s.adams@gmail). You can also follow Noelle on Facebook or join her reader group to get updates on her Claire Kent books. If you would like more information, please check out her website.