The sun rose over a black wasteland, the remains of the city smoldering still. In the distance the fire raged on, consuming everything.

Eerily similar to after the bombings, complete and utter devastation.

“If the wind had turned …” Ali took it al in with a mix of numb wonder on her dusty face. “They’re going to have trouble getting back to the highway. It should give us some time.”

Finn nodded, couldn’t speak. Yes, they were going to have a shit of a time. She spoke the truth.

Finn bent double and dry heaved.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Finn was asleep. Ali had watched him for hours, less a few minutes spent running an errand. She had split her attention between him and the laundry door, and was guarding him, if the gun in her hand counted. At least it wasn’t shaking anymore.

Finn hadn’t moved, not since she’d re-bandaged his shoulder and he had popped a magical pain pill. They spoke very little.

He slept upright, his bare back propped against a concrete pillar, head canted back. The stark white bandage was bright against his tanned skin and the dark smudges of dried blood.

The garage stank of old oil stains and laundry detergent. The back door had been open, barrel bolt intact, the roller door undamaged and locked down. It made for a perfect hidey-hole.

Except for that one infected upstairs. Every now and then it would move. The sound of a dragging footstep or two would break the silence. Creepy. Happily, there was no internal staircase for it to come visiting.

Between the infected and the biker ass**les, they could easily get trapped here, sitting and waiting. They should be on the move.

Despite their various injuries they could be hot-footing it across the countryside, getting to a safer place out of reach of those ass**les, right now. Finn hadn’t needed to say it. She knew it.

But she waited for Daniel. Apparently it hadn’t needed saying either. Finn had opened his mouth, looked at her face and shut it again without a word uttered. End of conversation. And so, they waited.

Her mind wouldn’t stil . The adrenalin surge from this morning had crashed, leaving far too much of everything bubbling around inside her brain, none of it good.

Daniel would find them. He would. Deep down inside it almost felt like a test of faith or some such. She just had to believe and be patient, find something to occupy her mind.

Not fixating on the door would be a positive start.

There was a rainwater tank outside. A big modern number; the type everyone had scrambled to install during the drought. She pondered the basin beside the washing machine, the pipe jutting out from the brickwork above it. They both needed a bath after lying in the dirt last night and crawling beneath the train this morning.

“You should try to sleep.” Finn’s eyes were open, half-lidded, but he hadn’t moved otherwise. He watched her with a preternatural stillness and a calm most probably fake. Guilt slid through her.

“Hey,” she said.

“It’ll be okay, Al.”

“He’ll be okay,” she corrected.

Finn gave no response.

For a long, tense moment silence reigned supreme, almost as if they were giving the dead a minute’s tribute. Only Daniel wasn’t dead.

Not even a little.

She wrestled the panic back down, subduing it one more time.

“We should go upstairs, see if there’s food,” Finn said.

She shook her head. “No.”

His high forehead creased, and his nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath. “If we’re quiet, keep our heads down, we’l be okay.

It’s a risk we need to take.”

“No, Finn.”

Like magic the thing upstairs chose then to bump and grind, as if it knew it were the topic of conversation.

“Shit.” Finn straightened himself and stretched, rolling his good shoulder in slow motion. “Give me a sec. We’ll try the neighbor’s house.”

“Finn, there’s no need. This lot was getting ready to run. The car has a box of groceries, not all of them have gone off. There’s not much else, a couple of blankets, some bottled water and beer. A stack of photo albums …” She cast her eyes toward the second story, wondering. Not a good place to go. “Anyway, we’re good for the immediate future.”

“Alright.” This one word finished on a weary sigh. It seemed to say this man’s reserves were running low, and the blame lay with her.

Dark shadows sat beneath his eyes and lines bracketed his mouth. They were stil in danger because she refused to move on without Daniel, and he might not be coming.

Except he was. Nothing else was acceptable.

“He’ll come, Finn. You don’t know him. Dan is very resourceful.”

Finn did the raising of one brow thing, giving her a long look. The type that said nothing and everything. The type bound to piss her off.

“I know you think he’s—”

“We should put a sign out, something only he’d recognize. What do you think would work best?” He cut her off neatly, face expressionless. Nothing to see here, move along.

“Oh. Wel , I already took care of it,” she admitted.

His green eyes hardened, lips flat lined. “Al …”

“I think we have a decent water supply. The tank seems to run in to the laundry.” She waved a hand in its direction, a blatant bit of distraction. Who had the energy for subtlety? There was no softening of his glare. “Don’t go there, Finn. I was careful. It needed to be done. You needed to rest.”