“What do you mean?”

His smile broadens. “I mean, where have you been hiding?”

“With the Westies,” I lie, grabbing the first gang name out of the air that I can think of.

“No, no, no,” the man sings quietly, shaking his head. “You don’t look like a whore. You don’t talk like a whore, and you definitely don’t walk like a whore. You weren’t with the Westies.”

“How do you know I wasn’t someone’s private pet?”

His answer is a long hard stare. He doesn’t blink.

“I was alone,” I finally admit reluctantly.

I look away and pick up the pace. Ryan is a few feet ahead of me, talking quietly with one of Elijah’s men. I’ll feel better when I close that gap.

“Really? How did a small thing like you make it out there alone?”

I shrivel inside when he matches my pace easily, his long legs striding through the water that I feel like I’m thrashing through. He has a hulking grace that’s seriously annoying, and the way he talks… it’s weird. His tone is too even, the cadence of his voice almost a constant sing-song.

“I managed.”

“All alone,” he muses. “It’s exciting, isn’t it?”

“Too bad it’s over,” Trent says. I glance over my shoulder, surprised to find him walking directly behind me. He’s watching the tall cannibal with dark interest. “She’s joined the Hyperion. She’s no longer living alone.”

The tall creeper doesn’t acknowledge Trent. I feel his eyes still on me. “How lucky for everyone.”

Trent pushes against my lower back firmly. I stumble forward a little but I turn the trip into a jog. It only takes a second before I’m walking beside Ryan again.

“—dark in the basement. We couldn’t make out much through the crack in the wall,” the young cannibal is telling Ryan.

“Is that why you decided we couldn’t go in that way?”

“That and the walls were too thick. Making that one crack to look through took forever and it was way louder than we planned. Once we could see in, we couldn’t see enough. Couldn’t get a read on how many were working down there.”

“Two,” I tell him.

He looks me up and down quickly, seeming surprised to see me show up all of a sudden. “You know that for sure?”

“I know that’s how many used to be working in that room. Now I don’t know for sure.”

“They could have strengthened the watch on the place since you left,” Ryan tells me. “I know I would have.”

“So you’re the one who got out?” the kid asks me.

He’s shorter than Ryan—younger, too—with the cannibal pale skin and gleaming eyes they all have. His dark black hair looks glossy like ink in the torchlight.

“Yeah, that’s me,” I admit, feeling weird.

For a hermit, I’ve got a lot of notoriety going on. I liked it better when I was a ghost.

“You’re lucky. My sister was taken. She never came out.”

“I’m sorry, man,” Ryan tells him.

The words come from his mouth so easily, so earnestly. Even if I’d said the exact same thing, I doubt it would have sounded half as genuine as Ryan. Not because I don’t mean it, because I really am sorry. That sucks, there’s no doubt about it. It’s because I’m awkward as hell and it taints everything I do. Trent is right about me: I don’t like liars because I’m no good at lying. I don’t understand how to do it, so how can I ever hope to spot it when other people do it?

“I’m sorry,” I mutter.

“Thanks, but we’ve all lost someone, right?” the kid replies nonchalantly. “At least I know she’s probably alive. That’s better than most people get.”

“Quiet,” someone whispers from up ahead.

Everyone stops to listen. My hand flexes around my ASP and I become painfully aware of the bodies around me. If zombies are in these tunnels, I don’t think I have the eyesight to tell the difference between a living and a dead—not in the split second you get to make that kind of choice. Plus, I don’t care for how close the tall creeper is. It feels like he’s hovering.

Once the water noises are dead and the only thing I hear inside the tunnels is the gentle sound of living people breathing, I can hear the outside. There’s a manhole not far ahead of us. Dripping down in through the small holes punched through the weathered steel are the moans and groans of a true horde. Suddenly it all comes flooding back to me—the night I escaped. The night I ran through their ranks, blind and freezing in the disorienting dark. My heart starts to hammer but I keep my breathing even. I make sure no one knows.

It’s been over a year for most of us since we heard that sound. Lately the zombie pop has been dwindled down so far you don’t come across large groups anymore. Just stragglers. Loners like me. But out here, close to the MOHAI where they’ve herded the dead, you can get a reminder of the old days. It’s the new nostalgia. No more ‘Remember when we had hot meals every night?’ or ‘Warm showers with soap and water every day? Crazy!’ No, now remembering is horrifying. ‘Remember when you couldn’t walk down the street without being swarmed? Remember when you saw someone die violently every single day? When people were screaming in the dark? Remember when the streets were red with blood and even the Seattle rain couldn’t wash it away?’

Those days are coming back again. I would trade every hot meal, every warm shower I’ve ever had or even dreamed of, to keep those days away.

“It’s the barrier around the gate,” I whisper. “We’re close.”

A few heads bob in agreement. We’re about to go inside the walls. It won’t be long until we’re at the building, and it suddenly bothers me more than I’d like to admit that I’m not going in all the way with them. I don’t know what their version of taking control of the building looks like, but I worry it’s more violent than it needs to be. They don’t know what it’s like in there, how many of the people inside aren’t actual Colonist supporters. That doesn’t mean they won’t fight to save their lives if an unknown enemy bursts inside in the dead of night, though.

The group starts to move again.

“Wait,” I say, stepping forward and talking too loudly.

Everyone looks at me sharply.

“Keep your voice down,” a woman tells me.

“You can’t kill anyone.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This isn’t a 7-Eleven. You can’t go in there and start snacking on everyone. No one dies.”

The woman looks at me in disgust, and that is so messed up it’s almost funny to me—because yeah, I’m the disgusting one.

“They’re Colonists,” she spits out.

“They’re prisoners. They’re victims of the roundups. Most of them don’t want to be here. They’ve been separated from their families and I guarantee that you are some of those families.”

“Our orders are to take the Colony.”

“And we’ll do that. Peacefully.”

“You can’t be serious,” a guy says incredulously. “Nothing is done ‘peacefully’ anymore.”

“And that’s why we’re almost extinct. No killing, and he,” I say emphatically, pointing to my creeper still staring at me, “doesn’t even go inside.”

“Bryan?” the guys asks. “Why? He’s one of our best fighters—that’s why he’s here.”

“I don’t like him. He doesn’t go in.”

“He goes in. We need him.”

“As much as you need me?”

The guy gives an exaggerated sigh before he exchanges a quick look with the woman. “What do you think, Macy?”

“I don’t know,” she says uncertainly. She looks angry, but in the end she shakes her head tightly.

“Fine,” the guy says reluctantly, turning back to me. “Bryan will watch the tunnel.”

“And no killing.”

“If they attack us—”

“If one person dies, I’m out. I’m on their side.”

Macy throws her hands up in frustration. “This is ridiculous, Kyle.”

“This is how it is,” I tell her. “Take it or leave it.”

“Maybe we’ll take this place and leave you behind.”

I start to back away slowly, putting my hands up in a gesture of ‘go ahead.’

“Stop,” Kyle tells Macy and I irritably. “We’ve come this far. We’re not turning back and we need her. At least for a little while longer.”