Can’t be any worse, muttered George.

I swallowed the urge to answer George, and said, instead, “I’ll try.”

“Good enough for me,” said Maggie, and turned to go, leaving me alone with my pile of folders, my tiny pool of light, and the voice of my sister echoing inside my head.

You used to make me sleep, said George.

“Yeah, well, you had a body then.” I looked at the folder in my hands, willing it to open of its own accord. That way I wouldn’t actually have to decide whether or not I was going to stop. Once it was open, I could just read.

Shaun—

“Leave it.”

She sighed. I knew that sigh. I knew all her sighs. This was the “Shaun, stop being stupid” sigh, usually reserved for when I needed to be pushed into doing something she considered sensible. I won’t let you dream.

I froze.

George didn’t say anything after that. I could feel her waiting at the edges of my mind, eternally patient, at least where my well-being was concerned. I swallowed again before I leaned back in the chair, closing my eyes. “You can still surprise me,” I said.

Good. Now get up, and get on the couch.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Maggie’s couch proved to be surprisingly comfortable once I’d cleared everything off it and piled it all on the floor. I turned off the light before taking off my shirt and shoes, leaving my jeans on, just in case we needed to make an early-morning getaway. I was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow.

George was true to her word. If I dreamed that night, I don’t remember it.

I woke to the sound of voices in the next room, pitched at that harsh semi-stage-whisper level that everyone seems to think is unobtrusive, despite being impossible to ignore. Something about the sound of people whispering touches off a primordial red alert in the back of the brain. I probably wouldn’t have noticed if they’d just spoken quietly in normal voices. At least no one was screaming; that meant we’d all probably managed to live through the night. Survival is always a nice thing to wake up to.

Sitting up was hard. My back was stiff from spending several hours on the bike, followed by several more hours sitting on the floor and trying to study. I may not spend as much time in the field as I used to, but that hasn’t made me a bookworm or anything. Who knew being a geek would hurt? Groaning, I braced my elbows on my knees and dropped my head into my hands. The voices from the kitchen stopped. Zombies don’t groan, they moan, but the two can sound almost identical to the untrained ear. Of the four people in the house with me, only Becks had the field experience necessary to know that whatever had made that sound was alive. Just cranky.

Becks and Alaric both had enough general experience working with me to know better than to come poking before I was at least standing under my own power. The voices from the kitchen resumed, a little louder now that they knew they didn’t have to worry about waking me anymore. Leaving my head cradled in my hands, I considered my options. Going back to sleep was at the top of the list and had the extra added bonus of not requiring me to think about anything. Unfortunately, whoever was killing the people with reservoir conditions wasn’t going to wait around for me to get my shit together, and if anyone realized Kelly was still alive, we probably didn’t have all that much time.

There was always the possibility that time had already run out. If Kelly’s original fake ID was compromised, they might have tracked her across the country with it. That didn’t explain why they waited for her to reach us before going on the offensive, but maybe she just hadn’t held still long enough before that. They wouldn’t be tracking her that way again. Her fake ID was so much slag in the remains of Oakland, and nobody outside the team knew she was alive.

Now we just had to keep it that way.

The outbreak could have been triggered in response to my call to Dr. Wynne, but that didn’t sm likely. The timelines didn’t synch. That level of outbreak would take time to set up. Even if it had started the second my call was connected to the CDC, there wasn’t time for all those people to amplify and get into position. Whoever targeted us—assuming it was a “who,” which had to be my operating assumption, at least until something came along to make a strong case for coincidence—had more time than my phone call gave them.

I lifted my head, groaning again, and stood. One of the bulldogs had turned my discarded shirt into a makeshift doggy bed, probably as revenge for my taking up the entire couch. It opened one eye to watch me as I approached, and made a small “buff” noise that might have been intimidating, if it hadn’t been roughly the size of an overweight housecat. “Whatever, dude,” I said, putting up my hands. “I wasn’t that cold anyway.”

Alaric, Becks, and Kelly were gathered around the kitchen table when I came shuffling in, making a half-hearted attempt to push my spiked-up hair back into a semblance of order. All three looked over at my entrance. Becks raised her eyebrows.

“You’re looking bright and shirtless this morning,” she said, dryly. “Did you decide that clothes were for sissies?”

“Dog took my shirt,” I replied. “Where’s Maggie? Is there coffee? If Maggie’s hiding because she drank all the coffee, it’s not going to be pretty.”

“Ms. Garcia is, um, out back, in the garden,” said Kelly. She gestured toward the back door as she spoke, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Understandable. She’d probably never been in a private residence open to the scary, scary outside world before. Sometimes I think George was right when she said that people want to be afraid.