“Katie and Fred will be down in a minute.” Rachel lit a few more candles before sitting beside Jonah on the facing sofa. “They’re getting the babies settled down. Arlys just went over to pry Chuck away from his continuing quest for Wi-Fi. We appreciate you coming over. I know you’re still settling in yourselves.”

“How about the rest of your group?” Jonah asked.

“Sorting it out.”

“Good. I can give you a hand with that tomorrow. Furniture, supplies, that sort of thing.”

“We appreciate it.”

“You and Katie and the babies live here,” Lana said.

“There weren’t as many of us when we first got here,” Rachel told her. “But we ended up sticking pretty close. We’re here. Jonah and Chuck and Bill—now Will, too—next door, Fred and Arlys on the other side of them. We’ve been together the longest.”

“Lloyd Stenson took an apartment across the street, and Carla Barker’s in one of the apartments over Bygones. They’ll be here tonight.” Feeling his way, Jonah studied his beer. “We’d already planned to meet tonight. We decided, after you came in, your group should be represented.”

“In what?”

Jonah’s gaze flicked up to Max’s. “We’re just over three hundred now. For the most part people get along. Everyone contributes.”

“And everyone’s still dealing with trauma,” Rachel continued. “What they lost, what they’ve gained, you could say. What they’ve been through. Some get together for a kind of group therapy, rotating houses. Others find different ways to cope. Working the gardens, crafting circles, hobbies. Lloyd builds things. We’re working on a greenhouse—that’s a community project. And he cleaned up the playground equipment so the kids can play while people are planting or weeding. We’ve got some putting bands together, a book club, prayer groups.”

“We’ve got people who rotate looking after the animals,” Jonah added. “We’ll need to add to that with what you’ve brought in.”

“You’re saying that, for the most part, people have found a way. Found their place.” Lana sipped water, considered. “But not everyone.”

“People are what people are,” Jonah commented.

“Such as the bunch who went after Flynn today.”

Jonah nodded at Max. “Don and Lou Mercer? They’re just basic assholes.”

“Flynn’s not. If he were, they’d have been seeking medical attention.”

“It’s not the first time they’ve looked for trouble,” Rachel told them. “Or found it. Which is the reason for this meeting.”

She glanced over as she heard the door open, heard voices. “Arlys and Chuck.”

“I need power. I get power, I can dig in deeper. They get me power, I can maybe get over to the AOL headquarters again, see about pulling out the Net.”

Max watched the gangly man in his early twenties with a scruffy goatee and a tangled mess of hair—white-blond with purple streaks—stop dead, gape.

“Holy shit! Max Fallon! It’s fricking Max Fallon.”

“I told you,” Arlys began.

“Huh? I wasn’t listening.” He bolted over, grabbed Max’s hand, pumped like he expected water to gush from a well. “Major fan. I went to your signing at Spirit Books last year, even though I mostly read e. Under Siege. Awesome! Personal favorite.”

It threw Max off stride. It had been awhile—too long, he realized—since he’d thought of himself as a writer. “Thanks.”

“Max Fallon,” Chuck said again. “This is wild.”

“And this is Chuck,” Arlys said. “Our basement dweller.”

“That’s me. You got beer? Cold?”

“Fred chilled them down,” Jonah told him.

“Excellent.” He got one, twisted the top. “So, you’re the Max and … sorry, I wasn’t listening. Lucy?”

“Lana.”

“Max and Lana. You brought in close to a hundred people? More awesome.” He chugged some beer. “What’s it like out there?”

“We followed your signs, your route, so the way was clearer than we expected. Trouble spots here and there. We avoided when we could, dealt with it when we couldn’t.”

“Raiders? Bunch of assholes. Kill you dead for a can of beans.”

“Here and there,” Max said again.

“We ran into some outside of Baltimore. We lost three people. It would’ve been more, but…” Chuck trailed off, glanced at Jonah.

“It’s all right. We had Uncannys with us who set up a fire wall. It drove them back.”

“The torched motorcycle and Jeep,” Lana murmured. “The charred remains in the Jeep. We went by there.”

“Avoid when you can,” Jonah said. “Deal when you can’t. We have sentry posts, manned around the clock. Harley was on the north road when you came in, and you got through because…”

“We read each other.” Max heard the door again, more voices, relaxed a little when one of them was Will’s. “He knew we weren’t Raiders or looking to harm.”

Max rose when Will came in with a man obviously his father. Same jawline, same eyes. Max gripped Will’s hand. “You found him, just like you said you would.”

“Yeah. Dad, this is Max and Lana. They helped me get here.”

Bill Anderson didn’t shake hands but took Max, then Lana, into bear hugs. “Anything you need, anytime. You gave me my boy back.”

“With or without us, he wouldn’t have stopped.”

“Means the world to me.” Bill held up a bottle of wine. “From my private cellar.” Grinned and winked.

Fred danced down the stairs. “You’re Will. Bill’s Will.” She dashed to Bill, hugged hard. “I’m so happy for you. I’m Fred.” She tipped her head to Bill’s arm, smiled at Will. “I helped make the signs. With a little faerie power.”

Will took her hand, kissed it, making her giggle. “Oh, I bet that’s Lloyd and Carla. I’ll get it. Katie’s coming, and we’ll all be here.”

Max let it flow around him, taking stock. Clearly Lana enjoyed the moment—people, conversation, no worry about where they might be the next day, the day after.

He judged Lloyd about the same age as Bill, hovering around sixty, with a wiry, almost springy look about him. Carla, sturdy of build, hair hacked short, took stock of him, Max thought, as he did her.

Katie jogged down the steps, already apologizing. “Sorry. Restless babies. Are you moved in next door?” she asked Will.

“Lock and stock. Wasn’t that much stock anyway.”

When she dropped down beside Jonah on the sofa, Will eased down on the arm of Arlys’s chair. “Maybe we can find time to catch up.”

“Sure we can.” She lowered her voice. “I’m sorry about your mom, your sister.”

“I know.” He laid a hand over hers. “And your parents, Theo. A hell of a lot to be sorry for.”

On the sofa, Rachel tapped Jonah’s knee. He shifted, looked a little reluctant, then shrugged.

“Okay, I’ll start. Rachel, Arlys, and I had a conversation this morning, even before we added ninety-odd people and livestock. We survived, and we’ve gone a long way toward making New Hope home. I know getting power up’s a priority, and so’s security. We need to add supplies to that—medical especially—and that means scavenger and scouting crews.”

As he spoke, Arlys pulled out a notebook, a pencil.

“It might be time to have a town hall,” Lloyd suggested. “Introduce our newest neighbors, call for more volunteers.”

“Yeah. Before we have, I guess what we’d call a public meeting, we want to talk some things over. I guess everybody heard about the Mercers giving Bryar a hard time last night, then Aaron.”

“I heard if you hadn’t gone out, moved them along, it might’ve been more than trash talk from the Mercers. Troublemakers,” Carla added. “Some are just born that way.”